"Hark ye! bear; you are a coward, and no warrior, as you pretend to be. Were you a warrior, you would show it by your firmness, and would not cry and whimper, like an old woman. You know, bear, that our tribes are at war with each other, and that yours were the aggressors." As you may suppose, I was not a little surprised at the delivery of this curious invective.
CHAPTER XV.
PARLEY TELLS ABOUT THE UNITED STATES.
The English settlements in America grew very rapidly into power and importance. The French settlements also increased in extent and influence, and a rivalry between the French and English, fostered and nourished by the "natural enmity" which was said to subsist between the Gauls and the Britons, broke out at last in terrible warfare. War is very frightful under any circumstances. It looks very much like murder; and, even at the best of times, a battle-field reminds us of Cain and Abel. Brother slaughters brother, and the conqueror rejoices and describes his sanguinary work as "a glorious victory." In the war between the English and French settlers in America, a new and atrocious feature was introduced. The Indians were engaged, for pay and powder, on either side, to commit the most hideous cruelties; and things were done which must not be told here, but the very thought of which should make us shudder and turn pale.
The English got the better of the French, and they took Quebec, a strong city in Canada. General Wolfe, a young man and an excellent soldier, captured the city; but it cost him his life. During the heat of the engagement, Wolfe was shot. "Support me," said he to an officer near him; "do not let my brave fellows see my face!" He was removed to the rear, and water was brought to quench his thirst. Just then a cry was heard, "They run! they run!" "Who runs?" exclaimed Wolfe, faintly raising himself. "The enemy!" was the reply. "Then," said he, "I die content," and expired.
The result of the war in which General Wolfe perished, left a vast amount of debt as a heavy weight upon the country. The English settlers had fought very bravely all through the war, and they thought that the English at home ought to pay the debt, and not tax them for its payment. But the king and the parliament thought differently. They taxed the American settlers very heavily; they would listen to no remonstrance; and, when some signs were given of resistance, they were threatened with punishment, like so many unruly schoolboys. Certain privileges which had been granted them were taken away, and troops sent out to enforce obedience. One very objectionable tax to the Americans was a stamp duty on newspapers. Another was a tax on tea. They urged that it was unfair for the British government to tax them without they were allowed to send members to Parliament to look after their interests; but remonstrance only tended to make the British government more determined; and so at last they came to what somebody has called gunpowder law, that is to say, fighting.
I need not enter on the events of the war. It ended in the triumph of the American settlers, and in the declaration of American independence and the formation of the United States. The foremost man, both as a statesman and a soldier, in the conduct of the war, on the part of the Americans, was George Washington. He was elected three times to the presidency, and no name is more revered than his by the Americans.
Since the separation of America from England, more than one quarrel has occurred between them. That which most vitally touches the future prosperity of the states is the warfare which now rages between the northern and southern sections of the republic. Most of you are aware that slavery prevails to a great extent in America. The negroes or blacks (the word negro means black) are more particularly found in the southern states. The northern states do not hold slaves, but they have so far held with slavery as to give up runaways, and tolerate the laws which make a man—because he was black—a mere beast of burden. A quarrel, however, on this question, and others of minor importance, has at last broken out between the north and south. The southerners have separated from the northerners, and established a new republic of their own. Their right to do this has been denied by the north, and a civil war has commenced in consequence. What may be the final result it is impossible for any one to predict. The quarrel threatened at one time to involve a war with England; but this is no longer apprehended. It seems a very sad thing that a people so clever, so enterprising, so prosperous as the Americans, should, by a quarrel and separation among themselves, endanger—if they do not entirely overthrow—one of the most important states in the world. We cannot forget what it is that lies at the bottom of the mischief—Slavery.