to appeal to posterity against it? In what estimation is this mixed government held by the stirring spirits of the world? by your talking and your writing population,.. your sophists and sciolists,.. the blind who lead the blind,.. and those whom the Prince of this World (their Jupiter) dementates? Are these people,.. and their name is Legion,.. English at heart? Or is it not true of the many, or the most, that they are eager to begin the work of demolition,.. a craft in which any one may commence master, without having served an apprenticeship, though not without danger of bringing down an old house upon his head?.. for, in offences of this nature, retribution follows righteously, close upon the crime! MONTESINOS. A new government has been constituted in a new country, under new circumstances, and consequently upon a different platform; and to this they look, like the Puritans of old to Geneva, as to their pattern in the Mount. They take its permanence for granted, and reason upon its Columbus says *Al descomponer cada uno es maestro. this in the account of his last voyage. (Navarrete. Coleccion de los Viages, &c. vol. i., p. 310.) Perhaps it is a proverb which he uses. assumption as a matter which admits of no dispute*, though its duration is yet some twenty years short of the natural age of man! Such governments, however, which now spring up like mushrooms in the new world, possess one obvious advantage over our more complicated forms; they build up little, and therefore have little that can be overthrown, through whatever revolutions they may pass. SIR THOMAS MORE. The supposed advantage, methinks, is such as they who dwell in tents may be said to enjoy in comparison with those who inhabit cities. An earthquake finds nothing to destroy among them; and if a storm loosen their poles, tear the tent-cords 6 *Intelligent foreigners,' says Dr. Dwight, who have 'made such inquiries as were in their power, and gained some 'knowledge of our system of government; who see it in theory 'more liable to fluctuation than any other, and yet are obliged 'by facts to acknowledge, that it is one of the most stable and 'unchanging in the world; are astonished and perplexed at 'this strange contradiction.' (Travels in New England and New York, vol. i. p. 288.) This very intelligent, and, for the most part, judicious writer, has forgotten that he himself was some twenty years older than the government of whose stability and immutability he boasts! The Life of General Hoche, by Alexandre Rousselin, is dedicated A La Republique Eternelle,.. the republic being at that time in the sixth year of its age! out of the sand, and blow down the whole douwar, they have only to crawl out from under the curtains, and pitch it again as soon as the wind has ceased. The Scenitæ have certainly had this advantage over the ancient Egyptians, and the Greeks and Romans of antiquity; . . a worshipful pre-eminence it is! But such as it is, it is to be enjoyed only by those who dwell in dou-wars or kraals. Civilization, polity, urbanity, are terms which denote their relation to a more advanced state of society, and this may be brought down by revolutions to as low a state as that of the Barbary Moors, or the Abyssinian Christians. Lay your foundations in the rock and let your edifice be compact and well-proportioned; then, though the rain descend, and the floods come, and the winds blow and beat, and the stream bear upon it, it will not fall: nothing but an earthquake can overthrow it; .. and if, by some such convulsion in the order of nature, as by Providence appointed, it be overthrown at last, it is something at least to leave ruins for posterity! MONTESINOS. In a certain sense men may be said to lose that, which, having within their power, they fail to gain. Much the new Governments, or rather the fabrics of society, must undoubtedly lose in not possessing some of those institutions which they seem agreed to reject. But they have hardly had a choice. Old forms of government are not transplantable into new countries. SIR THOMAS MORE. If the Greeks and Romans had been of that opinion, Europe would at this day have been more barbarous than it is. MONTESINOS. They planted But the Greeks and Romans never established themselves in new countries. armed colonies; they went as conquerors, not as occupants. To their colonists, therefore, military discipline was necessary for self-preservation; and civil order took its place under that protection. SIR THOMAS MORE. The whole of America was, in one sense of the term, a new country, when it was discovered, and taken possession of with a strong hand by the discoverers, upon an imaginary right which they devised for themselves. But in the sense wherein you use it, the term applies only to those parts which were inhabited by scattered tribes,.. savages, whom it was hardly possible to conquer or to tame. War with them resembled a contest* with wild beasts for possession of the *This was well represented by the Marquis de Dénonville in a despatch from Canada to the French Government, written forest; and by any ordinary means or agencies 6 in 1688. En parlant de la guerre des Sauvages, il dit, qu'on ne peut en donner une plus juste idée, que de répresenter 'ces Barbares comme des Bêtes farouches, qui sont répandues 'dans une vaste Forêt, d'où ils ravagent tous les Pays circum' voisins. On s'assemble pour leur donner la chasse, on s'informe 'où est leur retraite, et elle est par tout; il faut les attendre à l'affut, et on les attend lontems. On ne les peut aller chercher 'qu'avec des chiens de chasse, et les Sauvages sont les seuls 'Levriers dont on puisse se servir pour cela.'-Charlevoix, Hist. de la Nouvelle France, t. ii. p. 379. 1 |