Our connexion, Mr. McAdam,[13] who resides in Hertfordshire, has just taken me with him to his house.
It was something to find myself on an English high-way, seated by the side of the man who had done so much for the kingdom, in this respect. We travelled in an open gig, for my companion had an eye to every displaced stone, or inequality in the surface. The system of roads, here, is as bad as can be; the whole country being divided into small “trusts,” as they are called, in a way to prevent any one great and continued plan. I should say we went through four or five gates, absolutely within the limits of the town; obstacles, however, that probably still exist, on account of the great growth of London. Although Mr. McAdam had no connexion with the “trusts” about London, we passed all the gates without contribution, in virtue of his name.
We had much conversation on the subject of roads. On my mentioning that I had found some of them much better than others, a few, indeed, being no better than very many of our own, Mr. McAdam told me that there was a want of material in many parts of England, which had compelled them to have recourse to gravel. “Now,” said he, “the metal of this very road on which we are travelling, came from the East Indies!” The explanation was sufficiently simple; stone had been brought into the India docks, as ballast, and hauled thence, a distance of several miles, to make the bed of the road we were on. Gravel-pits are common in England; and there is one open, at this moment, in Hyde Park, that is a blot on its verdure.
We took the road into Hertfordshire, which is the great northern high-way, as well as being the scene of John Gilpin’s race. We passed the “Bell, at Edmonton,” where there is now a sign in commemoration of John’s speed, and bottom, and wig. By the way, the coachmen have a more classical authority for the flaxens than I had thought.
Waltham cross was an object of still greater interest. Edward I. caused these crosses to be erected on the different spots where the body of his wife reposed, in its funeral-journey from Milford Haven, to London. Charing-cross, in the town itself, was the last of them. They are little gothic structures, with niches to receive statues, and are surmounted by crosses, forming quaint and interesting memorials. I believe we passed two of them between London and Hoddesdon, by which it would seem that the body of the queen made short stages. The cross at Charing has entirely disappeared.
At Hoddesdon, we were on the borders of Essex, and the day after our arrival, Mr. McAdam walked with me across the bridge that separates the two counties, to look at Rye-house, the place so celebrated as the spot where the attempt was to have been made on the life of Charles II. The intention was to fire on the king, as he returned from Newmarket, on his way to London. The building is certainly well placed for such an object, as it almost projects into the road, which, just here, is quite narrow, and which it enfilades in such a way, that a volley fired from its windows would have been pretty certain to rake the whole of the royal cortège. The house, itself, is a common brick farm building, somewhat quaint, particularly about the chimneys, and by no means large. I suspect a part of it has disappeared. It is now used as a poor-house, and, certainly, if it is to be taken as a specimen of the English poor-houses, in general, it is highly creditable to the nation. Nothing could be neater, and the inmates were few.
The land, around this place, was low and level, and quite devoid of landscape beauty. I was told there is evidence that the Danes, in one of their invasions, once landed near this spot, though the distance to the sea cannot now be less than twenty miles! Mr. Malthus has overlooked the growth of the island, in his comparative estimates of the increase of the population.
Some boys were fishing on the bridge, near Rye-house, wearing a sort of uniform, and my companion told me they were cadets studying for the East India civil service, in an institution near by. The New-river, which furnishes so much water to London, flows by this spot, also; and, in returning, we walked some distance on its banks. It is not much larger than a race-way, nor was its current very swift. If this artificial stream can even wash the hands and faces of the cockneys, the Croton ought to overflow New York.
Hoddesdon was selected as a residence, by several of the American emigrant families, that were driven from their own country, and lost their estates, by the revolution. Its comparative cheapness and proximity to London, must have been its recommendation, as neither the place itself, nor the surrounding country, struck me as particularly attractive. The confiscations were peculiarly hard on individuals; and in some instances they were unmerited, even in a political point of view; but if it be true, as has lately been asserted, that the British ministry brought about the struggle under the expectation of being able easily to subdue the colonists, and with a view to provide for their friends by confiscations on the other side, retributive justice did its usual office. The real history of political events, would scarcely bare the light, in any country.
If any American wishes to hear both sides of the great contest between the colonies and the mother country, I would recommend a short sojourn in one of the places where these emigrants have left their traditions. He will there find that names which he has been taught to reverence are held in hereditary abhorrence; that his heroes are other people’s knaves, and other people’s prodigies his rogues. There is, in all this, quite probably, the usual admixture of truth and error, both heightened by the zeal and animosities of partizanship.
I had, however, in our connexion, strong evidence of how much the mind, unless stimulated by particular motives, is prone to rest satisfied with its acquisitions, and to think of things changeable in their nature, under the influence of first impressions. He is a man of liberal acquirements, sound judgment, great integrity of feeling, and of unusually extensive practical knowledge, and yet some of his notions of America, which were obtained half a century since, almost tempted me to doubt the existence of his common sense. An acute observer, a countryman long resident here, told me soon after landing that “the English, clever, instructed, fair-minded and practical as they commonly are, seem to take leave of their ordinary faculties, on all subjects connected with America.” Really, I begin to be of the same way of thinking.
Our connexion here, was as far from vapouring on the subject of England, as any man I knew; of great personal modesty and simplicity, he appears to carry these qualities into his estimates of national character. He is one of the few Englishmen, I have met, for instance, who has been willing to allow that Napoleon could have done any thing, had he succeeded in reaching the island. “I do not see how we should have prevented him from going to London,” he said, “had he got a hundred thousand men fairly on the land, at Dungenness; and once in London, heaven knows what would have followed.” This opinion struck me as a sound one, for the nation is too rich, and the division between castes, too marked, to expect a stout resistance, when the ordinary combinations were defeated. I have little doubt, that the difference in systematic preparation and in the number of regular troops apart, that a large body of hostile men, would march further in England, than in the settled parts of America, all the fanfaronades of the Quarterly, to the contrary, notwithstanding. He looks on the influence of the national debt too, gloomily, and is as far from the vapid indifference of national vanity, as any one I know. But, the moment we touch on America, his mind appears to have lost its balance. As a specimen of how long the old colonial maxims have been continued in this country, he has asked me where we are to get wool for our manufactures? I reminded him of the extent of the country. This was well enough, he answered, but “the winters are too long in America to keep sheep.” When I told him the census of 1825, shows that the single state of New York, with a population of less than 1,800,000, has three millions and a half of sheep, he could scarcely admit the validity of our documents.
All the ancient English opinions were formed on the political system of the nation, and men endeavoured lustily to persuade themselves that things which this system opposed could not be. The necessity of enlisting opinion in its behalf, has imposed the additional necessity of sometimes enlisting it, in opposition to reason.
There is a small building in Hoddesdon, called Roydon-house, that has exceedingly struck my fancy. It is not large for Europe, not at all larger than a second-rate American country house, but beautifully quaint and old fashioned. I have seen a dozen of these houses, and I envy the English their possession, much more than that of their Blenheims and Eatons. I am told there is not a good room in it, but that it is cut up, in the old way, into closets, being half hall and stair case. The barrenness of our country, in all such relics, give them double value in my eyes, and I always feel, when I see one, as if I would rather live in its poetical and antique discomfort, than in the best fitted dwelling of our own times. I dare say a twelvemonth of actual residence, however, would have the same effect on such a taste as it has on love in a cottage.
I returned to town in a post-chaise, a vehicle that the cockneys do not calumniate, when they call it a “post shay.” It is a small cramped inconvenient chariot without the box, and, like the interiors of the ordinary stage-coaches, does discredit to the well established reputation of England for comfort. Those who use post-horses, in Europe, usually travel in their own carriages, but these things are kept, as pis allers for emergencies.
As we drove through the long maze of villages, that are fast getting to be incorporated with London itself, my mind was insensibly led to ruminations on the growth of this huge capital, its influence on the nation and the civilized world, its origin and its destinies.
To give you, in the first place, some idea of the growth of the town, I had often heard a mutual connexion of ours, who was educated in England, allude to the circumstance that the husband of one of his cousins, who held a place in the royal household, had purchased a small property in the vicinity of London, in order to give his children the benefit of country air; his duties and his poverty equally preventing him from buying a larger estate further from town. When here, in 1826, I was invited to dine in the suburbs, and undertook to walk to the villa, where I was expected. I lost my way, and looking up at the first corner, for a direction, saw the name of a family nearly connected with those with whom we are connected. The three or four streets that followed had also names of the same sort, some of which were American. Struck by the coincidence, I inquired in the neighbourhood, and found I was on the property of the grandson of the gentleman, who, fifty years before, had purchased it with a view to give his children country air! Thus the poverty of the ancestor has put the descendant in possession of some fifteen or twenty thousand a year.
I should think that the growth of London is greater, relatively, than that of any other town in Europe, three or four on this island excepted. Many think the place already too large for the kingdom, though the comparison is hardly just, the empire, rather than England, composing the social base of the capital. So long as the two Indies and the other foreign dependencies can be retained, London is more in proportion to the power and wealth of the state, than Paris is in proportion to the power and wealth of France. The day must come, (and it is nearer than is commonly thought) when the British Empire, as it is now constituted, must break up, and then London will, indeed, be found too large for the state. In that day, its suburbs will probably recede quite as fast as they now grow. Mr. McAdam considers the size of London an evil.
The English frequently discuss the usefulness of their colonies, and moot the question of the policy of throwing them off. They who support the latter project, invariably quote the instance of America, as a proof that the present colonies will be more useful to the mother country, when independent, than they are to-day. I have often smiled at their reasoning, which betrays the usual ignorance of things out of their own circle.
In the first place, England has very few real colonies at this moment, among all her possessions. I do not know where to look for a single foreign dependency of her’s, that has not been wrested by violence from some original possessor. It is true, that time and activity have given to some of these conquests the feelings and characters of colonies; and Upper Canada, Nova Scotia, Jamaica, New Holland, and possibly the Cape, are, more or less, acquiring the title. I thought Mr. McAdam rather leaned to the opinion, that the country would be better without its colonies than with them. He instanced our own case, and maintained that we are more profitable to England now, than when we were her dependants.
All of the thirteen states of America were truly English colonies. One only was a conquest, (New York) but more than a century of possession had given that one an English character, and the right of conquest meeting with no obstacle in charters, a more thoroughly English character too, by means of a territorial aristocracy, than belonged to almost any other. The force and impression of this strictly colonial origin, are still be traced among us, in the durability of our prejudices, and in the deference of our opinions and habits to those of the mother country; prejudices and a deference that half a century of political facts, that are more antagonist to those of England than any other known, so far from overthrowing, has scarcely weakened.
In reviewing this subject, the extent and power of the United States are also to be remembered. Our independence was recognized in 1783. In 1793 commenced the wars of the French revolution. About this time, also, we began the cultivation of cotton. Keeping ourselves neutral, and profiting by the national aptitude, the history of the world does not present another instance of such a rapid relative accumulation of wealth, as was made by America between the years 1792 and 1812. It would have been greater, certainly, had France and England been more just, but, as it was, centuries will go by before we see its parallel. Our naval stores, bread stuffs, cotton, tobacco, ashes, indigo, and rice, all went to the highest markets. Here, then, our colonial origin and habits, stood England in hand. Nineteen in twenty of our wants were supplied from her workshops. Had we still been dependants we could not have been neutral, could not have been common carriers, could not have bought, for want of the ability to sell.
Now, where is England, in her list of colonies, to find a parallel to these facts? If the Canadas were independent, what have they to export, that we could not crush by competition? England may take lumber exclusively from British America, as a colony, but were British America independent, we would not submit to such a regulation. Our southern woods, among the best in the world, would drive all northern woods out of the market. Having little to sell, Canada could not buy, and she would begin, in self-defence, to manufacture. Our manufactures would deluge the West-India islands, our ships would carry their produce, and, in short, all the American possessions would naturally look up to the greatest American state as to their natural head.
In the east, it would be still worse. All the world would come in, as sharers of a commerce that is now controlled for especial objects. England would cease to be the mart of the world, and would find herself left with certain expensive military establishments that there would no longer be a motive for maintaining. Were England to give up her dependencies, I think she would sink to a second-rate power in twenty years. Did we not exist, the change might not be so rapid, for there would be less danger from competition; but we do exist; number, already, nearly as many people as England, and in a quarter of a century more shall number as many as all the British isles put together.
Can England retain her dependencies, in any event? The chances are that she cannot. It is the interest of all christendom to overturn her system, for it is opposed to the rights of mankind, to allow a small territory in Europe, to extend its possessions and its commercial exclusion, over the whole earth, by conquest. The view of this interest, may be obscured by the momentary interference of more pressing concerns, and the alliance of Great Britain purchase temporary acquiescence, but as the world advances in civilization, this exclusion will become more painful, until all will unite, openly or secretly, to get rid of it. Men are fast getting to be of less importance, in Europe, and general interests are assuming their proper power.
It is probable that England will find herself so situated, long ere the close of this century, as to render it necessary to abandon her colonial system. When this is done, there will no longer be a motive for retaining dependencies, that belong only to herself in their charges. The dominion of the east will probably fall into the hands of the half-castes; that of the West Indies will belong to the blacks, and British America is destined to be a counterpoise to the country along the gulph of Mexico. The first fleet of thirty sail of the line, that we shall send to sea, will settle the question of English supremacy, in our own hemisphere.
Were these great results dependent on the policy of America, I should greatly distrust them, for, no nation has less care of its foreign interests, or looks less into the future, than ourselves. We are nearly destitute of statesmen, though overflowing with politicians. But the facts of the republic are so stupendous as to overshadow every thing within their influence. This is another feature, in which the two countries are as unlike as possible. Here all depends on men; on combinations, management, forethought, care, and policy. With us, the young Hercules, is stripped of his swaddlings, and his limbs and form are suffered to take the proportions and shape of nature. To be less figurative—it is a known fact that our exertions are proportioned to our wants. In nothing is this truth more manifest, than in the difference which exists between the foreign policies of England and America. That of this country has all the vigilance, decision, energy, and system that are necessary to an empire so factitious and of interests so diversified, while our own is marked by the carelessness and neglect, not to say ignorance, with which a vigorous youth, in the pride of his years and strength, enters upon the hazards and dangers of life. One of the best arguments that can be adduced in favor of the present form of the British government, is its admirable adaptation to the means necessary for keeping such an empire together. Democracy is utterly unsuited to the system of metropolitan rule, since its maxims imperiously require equality of rights. The secret consciousness of this fitness, between the institutions and the empire, will probably have a great effect on the minds of all reflecting men in England, when the question comes to serious changes; for the moment the popular feeling gets the ascendancy, the ties that connect the several parts of this vast collection of conflicting interests, will be loosened. The secrecy of motive, and the abandonment of the commoner charities that are necessary for the control of so complicated a machinery, are incompatible with the publicity of a popular sway and the ordinary sympathies of human nature.[14]
Were London to fall into ruins, there would probably be fewer of its remains left in a century, than are now to be found of Rome. All the stuccoed palaces, and Grecian façades of Regent’s street and Regent’s Park, would dissolve under a few changes of the season. The noble bridges, St. Paul’s, the Abbey, and a few other edifices would remain for the curious; but, I think, few European capitals would relatively leave so little behind them, of a physical nature, for the admiration of posterity. Not so, however, in matters, less material. The direct and familiar moral influence of London is probably less than that of Paris, but in all the higher points of character, I should think it unequalled by that of Rome, itself.