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The Conquest of Canada, Vol. 1. George Warburton
Читать онлайн.Название The Conquest of Canada, Vol. 1
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Автор произведения George Warburton
Жанр История
Издательство Public Domain
Canada, unprovoked by Dissent, was altogether free from the stain of religious persecution: hopelessly fettered in the chains of metropolitan power, she was also undisturbed by political agitation. But this calm was more the stillness of stagnation than the tranquillity of content. Without a press, without any semblance of popular representation, there hardly remained other alternatives than tame submission or open mutiny. By hereditary habit and superstition the Canadians were trained to the first, and by weakness and want of energy they were incapacitated for the last.
Although the original charter of New England asserted the king's supremacy in matters of religion, a full understanding existed that on this head ample latitude should be allowed; ample latitude was accordingly taken. She set up a system of faith of her own, and enforced conformity. But the same spirit that had excited the colonists to dissent from the Church of England, and to sacrifice home and friends in the cause, soon raised up among them a host of dissenters from their own stern and peculiar creed. Their clergy had sacrificed much for conscience' sake, and were generally "faithful, watchful, painful, serving their flock daily with prayers and tears," some among them, also, men of high European repute. They had often, however, the mortification of seeing their congregations crowding to hear the ravings of any knave or enthusiast who broached a new doctrine. Most of these mischievous fanatics were given the advantage of that interest and sympathy which a cruel and unnecessary persecution invariably excites. All this time freedom of individual judgment was the watch-word of the persecutors. There is no doubt that strong measures were necessary to curb the furious and profane absurdities of many of the seceders, who were the very outcasts of religion. On considering the criminal laws of the time, it would also appear that not a few of the outcasts of society, also, had found their way to New England. The code of Massachusetts contained the description of the most extraordinary collection of crimes that ever defaced a statute-book, and the various punishments allotted to each.
In one grand point the pre-eminent merit of the Puritans must be acknowledged: they strove earnestly and conscientiously for what they held to be the truth. For this they endured with unshaken constancy, and persecuted with unremitting zeal.
The suicidal policy of the Stuarts had, for a time, driven all the upholders of civil liberty into the ranks of sectarianism. The advocates of the extremes of religious and political opinion flocked to America, the furthest point from kings and prelates that they could conveniently reach. Ingrafted on the stubborn temper of the Englishman, and planted in the genial soil of the West, the love of this civil and religious liberty grew up with a vigor that time only served to strengthen; that the might of armies vainly strove to overcome. Thus, ultimately, the persecution under the Stuarts was the most powerful cause ever yet employed toward the liberation of man in his path through earth to heaven.
For many years England generally refrained from interference with her American colonies in matters of local government or in religion. They taxed themselves, made their own laws, and enjoyed religious freedom in their own way. In one state only, in Virginia, was the Church of England established, and even there it was accorded very little help by the temporal authority: in a short time it ceased to receive the support of a majority of the settlers, and rapidly decayed. On one point, however, the mother country claimed and exacted the obedience of the colonists to the imperial law. In her commercial code she would not permit the slightest relaxation in their favor, whatever the peculiar circumstances of their condition might be. This short-sighted and unjust restriction was borne, partly because it could not be resisted, and partly because at that early time the practical evil was but lightly felt. Although the principle of representation was seldom specified in the earlier charters, the colonists in all cases assumed it as a matter of right: they held that their privileges as Englishmen accompanied them wherever they went, and this was generally admitted as a principle of colonial policy.
In the seventeenth century England adopted the system of transportation to the American colonies. The felons were, however, too limited in numbers to make any serious inroad upon the morals or tranquillity of the settlers. Many of the convicts were men sentenced for political crimes, but free from any social taint; the laboring population, therefore, did not regard them with contempt, nor shrink from their society. It may be held, therefore, that this partial and peculiar system of transportation introduced no distinct element into the constitution of the American nation.
The British colonization in the New World differed essentially from any before attempted by the nations of modern Europe, and has led to results of immeasurable importance to mankind. Even the magnificent empire of India sinks into insignificance, in its bearings upon the general interests of the world, by comparison with the Anglo-Saxon empire in America. The success of each, however, is unexampled in history.
In the great military and mercantile colony of the East an enormous native population is ruled by a dominant race, whose number amounts to less than a four-thousandth part of its own, but whose superiority in war and civil government is at present so decided as to reduce any efforts of opposition to the mere outbursts of hopeless petulance. In that golden land, however, even the Anglo-Saxon race can not increase and multiply; the children of English parents degenerate or perish under its fatal sun. No permanent settlement or infusion of blood takes place. Neither have we effected any serious change in the manners or customs of the East Indians; on the other hand, we have rather assimilated ours to theirs. We tolerate their various religions, and we learn their language; but in neither faith nor speech have they approached one tittle toward us. We have raised there no gigantic monument of power either in pride or for utility; no temples, canals, or roads remain to remind posterity of our conquest and dominion. Were the English rule over India suddenly cast off, in a single generation the tradition of our Eastern empire would appear a splendid but baseless dream, that of our administration an allegory, of our victories a romance.
In the great social colonies of the West, the very essence of vitality is their close resemblance to the parent state. Many of the coarser inherited elements of strength have been increased. Industry and adventure have been stimulated to an unexampled extent by the natural advantages of the country, and free institutions have been developed almost to license by general prosperity and the absence of external danger. Their stability, in some one form or another, is undoubted: it rests on the broadest possible basis—on the universal will of the nation. Our vast empire in India rests only on the narrow basis of the superiority of a handful of Englishmen: should any untoward fate shake the Atlas strength that bears the burden, the superincumbent mass must fall in ruins to the earth. With far better cause may England glory in the land of her revolted children than in that of her patient slaves: the prosperous cities and busy sea-ports of America are prouder memorials of her race than the servile splendor of Calcutta or the ruined ramparts of Seringapatam. In the earlier periods the British colonies were only the reflection of Britain; in later days their light has served to illumine the political darkness of the European Continent. The attractive example of American democracy proved the most important cause that has acted upon European society since the Reformation.
Toward the close of George II.'s reign England had reached the lowest point of national degradation recorded in her history. The disasters of her fleets and armies abroad were the natural fruits of almost universal corruption at home. The admirals and generals, chosen by a German king and a subservient ministry, proved worthy of the mode of their selection. An obsequious Parliament served but to give the apparent sanction of the people to the selfish and despotic measures of the crown. Many of the best blood and of the highest chivalry of the land still held loyal devotion to the exiled Stuarts, while the mass of the nation, disgusted by the sordid and unpatriotic acts of the existing dynasty, regarded it with sentiments of dislike but little removed from positive hostility. A sullen discontent paralyzed the vigor of England, obstructed her councils, and blunted her sword. In the cabinets