"Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum."
"Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum."
"Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum."
He answered in every point—a monster he was—dreadful, shapeless, huge, who had lost an eye. But why shouldthatdelight me? Had he been one of the Calendars in the Arabian Nights, and had paid down his eye as the price of his criminal curiosity, what right hadIto exult in his misfortune? I didnotexult: I delighted in no man's punishment, though it were even merited. But these personal distinctions identified in an instant an old friend of mine, whom I had known in the south for some years as the most masterly of mail-coachmen. He was the man in all Europe that could best have undertaken to drive six-in-hand full gallop overAl Sirat—that famousbridge of Mahomet across the bottomless gulf, backing himself against the Prophet and twenty such fellows. I used to call himCyclops mastigophorus, Cyclops the whip-bearer, until I observed that his skill made whips useless, except to fetch off an impertinent fly from a leader's head; upon which I changed his Grecian name to Cyclopsdiphrélates(Cyclops the charioteer.) I, and others known to me, studied under him the diphrelatic art. Excuse, reader, a word too elegant to be pedantic. And also take this remark from me, as agage d'amitié—that no word ever was orcanbe pedantic which, by supporting a distinction, supports the accuracy of logic; or which fills up a chasm for the understanding. As a pupil, though I paid extra fees, I cannot say that I stood high in his esteem. It showed his dogged honesty, (though, observe, not his discernment,) that he could not see my merits. Perhaps we ought to excuse his absurdity in this particular by remembering his want of an eye.Thatmade him blind to my merits. Irritating as this blindness was, (surely it could not be envy?) he always courted my conversation, in which art I certainly had the whip-hand of him. On this occasion, great joy was at our meeting. But what was Cyclops doing here? Had the medical men recommended northern air, or how? I collected, from such explanations as he volunteered, that he had an interest at stake in a suit-at-law pending at Lancaster; so that probably he had got himself transferred to this station, for the purpose of connecting with his professional pursuits an instant readiness for the calls of his law-suit.
Meantime, what are we stopping for? Surely we've been waiting long enough. Oh, this procrastinating mail, and oh this procrastinating post-office! Can't they take a lesson upon that subject fromme? Some people have calledmeprocrastinating. Now you are witness, reader, that I was in time forthem. But cantheylay their hands on their hearts, and say that they were in time for me? I, during my life, have often had to wait for the post-office: the post-office never waited a minute for me. What are they about? The guard tells me that there is a large extra accumulation of foreign mails this night, owing to irregularities caused by war and by the packet-service, when as yet nothing is done by steam. For anextrahour, it seems, the post-office has been engaged in threshing out the pure wheaten correspondence of Glasgow, and winnowing it from the chaff of all baser intermediate towns. We can hear the flails going at this moment. But at last all is finished. Sound your horn, guard. Manchester, good bye; we've lost an hour by your criminal conduct at the post-office: which, however, though I do not mean to part with a serviceable ground of complaint, and one which reallyissuch for the horses, to me secretly is an advantage, since it compels us to recover this last hour amongst the next eight or nine. Off we are at last, and at eleven miles an hour: and at first I detect no changes in the energy or in the of Cyclops.
From Manchester to Kendal, which virtually (though not in law) is the capital of Westmoreland, were at this time seven stages of eleven miles each. The first five of these, dated from Manchester, terminated in Lancaster, which was therefore fifty-five miles north of Manchester, and the same distance exactly from Liverpool. The first three terminated in Preston (called, by way of distinction from other towns of that name,proudPreston,) at which place it was that the separate roads from Liverpool and from Manchester to the north became confluent. Within these first three stages lay the foundation, the progress, and termination of our night's adventure. During the first stage, I found out that Cyclops was mortal: he was liable to the shocking affection of sleep—a thing which I had never previously suspected. If a man is addicted to the vicious habit of sleeping, all the skill in aurigation of Apollo himself, with the horses of Aurora to execute the motions of his will, avail him nothing. "Oh, Cyclops!" I exclaimed more than once, "Cyclops, my friend; thou art mortal. Thou snorest." Through this first eleven miles, however, he betrayed his infirmity—which I grieve to say he shared with the whole Pagan Pantheon—only by short stretches. On waking up, hemade an apology for himself, which, instead of mending the matter, laid an ominous foundation for coming disasters. The summer assizes were now proceeding at Lancaster: in consequence of which, for three nights and three days, he had not lain down in a bed. During the day, he was waiting for his uncertain summons as a witness on the trial in which he was interested; or he was drinking with the other witnesses, under the vigilant surveillance of the attorneys. During the night, or that part of it when the least temptations existed to conviviality, he was driving. Throughout the second stage he grew more and more drowsy. In the second mile of the third stage, he surrendered himself finally and without a struggle to his perilous temptation. All his past resistance had but deepened the weight of this final oppression. Seven atmospheres of sleep seemed resting upon him; and, to consummate the case, our worthy guard, after singing "Love amongst the Roses," for the fiftieth or sixtieth time, without any invitation from Cyclops or myself, and without applause for his poor labours, had moodily resigned himself to slumber—not so deep doubtless as the coachman's, but deep enough for mischief; and having, probably, no similar excuse. And thus at last, about ten miles from Preston, I found myself left in charge of his Majesty's London and Glasgow mail then running about eleven miles an hour.
What made this negligence less criminal than else it must have been thought, was the condition of the roads at night during the assizes. At that time all the law business of populous Liverpool, and of populous Manchester, with its vast cincture of populous rural districts, was called up by ancient usage to the tribunal of Lilliputian Lancaster. To break up this old traditional usage required a conflict with powerful established interests, a large system of new arrangements, and a new parliamentary statute. As things were at present, twice in the year so vast a body of business rolled northwards, from the southern quarter of the county, that a fortnight at least occupied the severe exertions of two judges for its despatch. The consequence of this was—that every horse available for such a service, along the whole line of road, was exhausted in carrying down the multitudes of people who were parties to the different suits. By sunset, therefore, it usually happened that, through utter exhaustion amongst men and horses, the roads were all silent. Except exhaustion in the vast adjacent county of York from a contested election, nothing like it was ordinarily witnessed in England.
On this occasion, the usual silence and solitude prevailed along the road. Not a hoof nor a wheel was to be heard. And to strengthen this false luxurious confidence in the noiseless roads, it happened also that the night was one of peculiar solemnity and peace. I myself, though slightly alive to the possibilities of peril, had so far yielded to the influence of the mighty calm as to sink into a profound reverie. The month was August, in which lay my own birth-day; a festival to every thoughtful man suggesting solemn and often sigh-born thoughts.15The county was my own native county—upon which, in its southern section, more than upon any equal area known to man past or present, had descended the original curse of labour in its heaviest form, not mastering the bodies of men only as of slaves, or criminals in mines, but working through the fiery will. Upon no equal space of earth, was, or ever had been, the same energy of human power put forth daily. At this particular season also of the assizes, that dreadful hurricane of flight and pursuit, as it might have seemed to a stranger, that swept to and from Lancaster all day long, hunting the county up and down, and regularly subsiding about sunset, united with the permanent distinction of Lancashire as the very metropolis and citadel of labour, to point the thoughts pathetically upon that counter vision of rest, of saintly repose from strife and sorrow, towards which, as to their secret haven, the profounder aspirations of man's heartare continually travelling. Obliquely we were nearing the sea upon our left, which also must, under the present circumstances, be repeating the general state of halcyon repose. The sea, the atmosphere, the light, bore an orchestral part in this universal lull. Moonlight, and the first timid tremblings of the dawn, were now blending; and the blendings were brought into a still more exquisite state of unity, by a slight silvery mist, motionless and dreamy, that covered the woods and fields, but with a veil of equable transparency. Except the feet of our own horses, which, running on a sandy margin of the road, made little disturbance, there was no sound abroad. In the clouds, and on the earth, prevailed the same majestic peace; and in spite of all that the villain of a schoolmaster has done for the ruin of our sublimer thoughts, which are the thoughts of our infancy, we still believe in no such nonsense as a limited atmosphere. Whatever we may swear with our false feigning lips, in our faithful hearts we still believe, and must for ever believe, in fields of air traversing the total gulf between earth and the central heavens. Still, in the confidence of children that tread without feareverychamber in their father's house, and to whom no door is closed, we, in that Sabbatic vision which sometimes is revealed for an hour upon nights like this, ascend with easy steps from the sorrow-stricken fields of earth, upwards to the sandals of God.
Suddenly from thoughts like these, I was awakened to a sullen sound, as of some motion on the distant road. It stole upon the air for a moment; I listened in awe; but then it died away. Once roused, however, I could not but observe with alarm the quickened motion of our horses. Ten years' experience had made my eye learned in the valuing of motion; and I saw that we were now running thirteen miles an hour. I pretend to no presence of mind. On the contrary, my fear is, that I am miserably and shamefully deficient in that quality as regards action. The palsy of doubt and distraction hangs like some guilty weight of dark unfathomed remembrances upon my energies, when the signal is flying foraction. But, on the other hand, this accursed gift I have, as regardsthought, that in the first step towards the possibility of a misfortune, I see its total evolution: in the radix, I see too certainly and too instantly its entire expansion; in the first syllable of the dreadful sentence, I read already the last. It was not that I feared for ourselves. What could injureus? Our bulk and impetus charmed us against peril in any collision. And I had rode through too many hundreds of perils that were frightful to approach, that were matter of laughter as we looked back upon them, for any anxiety to rest uponourinterests. The mail was not built, I felt assured, nor bespoke, that could betraymewho trusted to its protection. But any carriage that we could meet would be frail and light in comparison of ourselves. And I remarked this ominous accident of our situation. We were on the wrong side of the road. But then the other party, if other there was, might also be on the wrong side; and two wrongs might make a right.Thatwas not likely. The same motive which had drawnusto the right-hand side of the road, viz., the soft beaten sand, as contrasted with the paved centre, would prove attractive to others. Our lamps, still lighted, would give the impression of vigilance on our part. And every creature that met us, would rely uponusfor quartering.16All this, and if the separate links of the anticipation had been a thousand times more, I saw—not discursively or by effort—but as by one flash of horrid intuition.
Under this steady though rapid anticipation of the evil whichmightbe gathering ahead, ah, reader! what a sullen mystery of fear, what a sigh of woe, seemed to steal upon the air, as again the far-off sound of a wheel was heard! A whisper it was—a whisper from, perhaps, four miles off—secretly announcing a ruin that, being foreseen, was not the less inevitable.What could be done—who was it that could do it—to check the storm-flight of these maniacal horses? What! could I not seize the reins from the grasp of the slumbering coachman? You, reader, think that it would have been inyourpower to do so. And I quarrel not with your estimate of yourself. But, from the way in which the coachman's hand was viced between his upper and lower thigh, this was impossible. The guard subsequently found it impossible, after this danger had passed. Not the grasp only, but also the position of this Polyphemus, made the attempt impossible. You still think otherwise. See, then, that bronze equestrian statue. The cruel rider has kept the bit in his horse's mouth for two centuries. Unbridle him, for a minute, if you please, and wash his mouth with water. Or stay, reader, unhorse me that marble emperor: knock me those marble feet from those marble stirrups of Charlemagne.
The sounds ahead strengthened, and were now too clearly the sounds of wheels. Who and what could it be? Was it industry in a taxed cart?—was it youthful gaiety in a gig? Whoever it was, something must be attempted to warn them. Upon the other party rests the active responsibility, but uponus—and, woe is me! thatuswas my single self—rests the responsibility of warning. Yet, how should this be accomplished? Might I not seize the guard's horn? Already, on the first thought, I was making my way over the roof to the guard's seat. But this, from the foreign mails being piled upon the roof, was a difficult, and even dangerous attempt, to one cramped by nearly three hundred miles of outside travelling. And, fortunately, before I had lost much time in the attempt, our frantic horses swept round an angle of the road, which opened upon us the stage where the collision must be accomplished, the parties that seemed summoned to the trial, and the impossibility of saving them by any communication with the guard.
Before us lay an avenue, straight as an arrow, hundred yards, perhaps, in length; and the umbrageous trees, which rose in a regular line from either side, meeting high overhead, gave to it the character of a cathedral aisle. These trees lent a deeper solemnity to the early light; but there was still light enough to perceive, at the further end of this gothic aisle, a light, reedy gig, in which were seated a young man, and, by his side, a young lady. Ah, young sir! what are you about? If it is necessary that you should whisper your communications to this young lady—though really I see, nobody at this hour, and on this solitary road, likely to overhear your conversation—is it, therefore, necessary that you should carry your lips forward to hers? The little carriage is creeping on at one mile an hour; and the parties within it, being thus tenderly engaged, are naturally bending down their heads. Between them and eternity, to all human calculation, there is but a minute and a half. What is it that I shall do? Strange it is, and to a mere auditor of the tale, might seem laughable, that I should need a suggestion from theIliadto prompt the sole recourse that remained. But so it was. Suddenly I remembered the shout of Achilles, and its effect. But could I pretend to shout like the son of Peleus, aided by Pallas? No, certainly: but then I needed not the shout that should alarm all Asia militant; a shout would suffice, such as should carry terror into the hearts of two thoughtless young people, and one gig horse. I shouted—and the young man heard me not. A second time I shouted—and now he heard me, for now he raised his head.
Here, then, all had been done that, by me,couldbe done: more onmypart was not possible. Mine had been the first step: the second was for the young man: the third was for God. If, said I, the stranger is a brave man, and if, indeed, he loves the young girl at his side—or, loving her not, if he feels the obligation pressing upon every man worthy to be called a man, of doing his utmost for a woman confided to his protection—he will at least make some effort to save her. Ifthatfails, he will not perish the more, or by a death more cruel, for having made it; and he will die, as a brave man should, with his face to the danger, and with his arm about the woman that he sought in vain to save.But if he makes no effort, shrinking, without a struggle, from his duty, he himself will not the less certainly perish for this baseness of poltroonery. He will die no less: and why not? Wherefore should we grieve that there is one craven less in the world? No;lethim perish, without a pitying thought of ours wasted upon him; and, in that case, all our grief will be reserved for the fate of the helpless girl, who, now, upon the least shadow of failure inhim, must, by the fiercest of translations—must, without time for a prayer—must, within seventy seconds, stand before the judgment-seat of God.
But craven he was not: sudden had been the call upon him, and sudden was his answer to the call. He saw, he heard, he comprehended, the ruin that was coming down: already its gloomy shadow darkened above him; and already he was measuring his strength to deal with it. Ah! what a vulgar thing does courage seem, when we see nations buying it and selling it for a shilling a-day: ah! what a sublime thing does courage seem, when some fearful crisis on the great deeps of life carries a man, as if running before a hurricane, up to the giddy crest of some mountainous wave, from which, accordingly as he chooses his course, he descries two courses, and a voice says to him audibly—"This way lies hope; take the other way and mourn for ever!" Yet, even then, amidst the raving of the seas and the frenzy of the danger, the man is able to confront his situation—is able to retire for a moment into solitude with God, and to seek all his counsel fromhim! For seven seconds, it might be, of his seventy, the stranger settled his countenance steadfastly upon us, as if to search and value every element in the conflict before him. For five seconds more he sate immovably, like one that mused on some great purpose. For five he sate with eyes upraised, like one that prayed in sorrow, under some extremity of doubt, for wisdom to guide him towards the better choice. Then suddenly he rose; stood upright; and, by a sudden strain upon the reins, raising his horse's forefeet from the ground, he slewed him round on the pivot of his hind legs, so as to plant the little equipage in a position nearly at right-angles to ours. Thus far his condition was not improved; except as a first step had been taken towards the possibility of a second. If no more were done, nothing was done; for the little carriage still occupied the very centre of our path, though in an altered direction. Yet even now it may not be too late: fifteen of the twenty seconds may still be unexhausted; and one almighty bound forward may avail to clear the ground. Hurry then, hurry! for the flying moments—theyhurry! Oh hurry, hurry, my brave young man! for the cruel hoofs of our horses—theyalso hurry! Fast are the flying moments, faster are the hoofs of our horses. Fear not forhim, if human energy can suffice: faithful was he that drove, to his terrific duty; faithful was the horse tohiscommand. One blow, one impulse given with voice and hand by the stranger, one rush from the horse, one bound as if in the act of rising to a fence, landed the docile creature's fore-feet upon the crown or arching centre of the road. The larger half of the little equipage had then cleared our over-towering shadow:thatwas evident even to my own agitated sight. But it mattered little that one wreck should float off in safety, if upon the wreck that perished were embarked the human freightage. The rear part of the carriage—wasthatcertainly beyond the line of absolute ruin? What power could answer the question? Glance of eye, thought of man, wing of angel, which of these had speed enough to sweep between the question and the answer, and divide the one from the other? Light does not tread upon the steps of light more indivisibly, than did our all-conquering arrival upon the escaping efforts of the gig.Thatmust the young man have felt too plainly. His back was now turned to us; not by sight could he any longer communicate with the peril; but by the dreadful rattle of our harness, too truly had his ear been instructed—that all was finished as regarded any further effort ofhis. Already in resignation he had rested from his struggle; and perhaps, in his heart he was whispering—"Father, which art above, do thou finishin heaven what I on earth have attempted." We ran past them faster than ever mill-race in our inexorable flight. Oh, raving of hurricanes that must have sounded in their young ears at the moment of our transit! Either with the swingle-bar, or with the haunch of our near leader, we had struck the off-wheel of the little gig, which stood rather obliquely and not quite so far advanced as to be accurately parallel with the near wheel. The blow, from the fury of our passage, resounded terrifically. I rose in horror, to look upon the ruins we might have caused. From my elevated station I looked down, and looked back upon the scene, which in a moment told its tale, and wrote all its records on my heart for ever.
The horse was planted immovably, with his fore-feet upon the paved crest of the central road. He of the whole party was alone untouched by the passion of death. The little cany carriage—partly perhaps from the dreadful torsion of the wheels in its recent movement, partly from the thundering blow we had given to it—as if it sympathised with human horror, was all alive with tremblings and shiverings. The young man sat like a rock. He stirred not at all. Buthiswas the steadiness of agitation frozen into rest by horror. As yet he dared not to look round; for he knew that, if anything remained to do, by him it could no longer be done. And as yet he knew not for certain if their safety were accomplished. But the lady——
But the lady——! Oh heavens! will that spectacle ever depart from my dreams, as she rose and sank upon her seat, sank and rose, threw up her arms wildly to heaven, clutched at some visionary object in the air, fainting, praying, raving, despairing! Figure to yourself, reader, the elements of the case; suffer me to recall before your mind the circumstances of the unparalleled situation. From the silence and deep peace of this saintly summer night,—from the pathetic blending of this sweet moonlight, dawnlight, dreamlight,—from the manly tenderness of this flattering, whispering, murmuring love,—suddenly as from the woods and fields,—suddenly as from the chambers of the air opening in revelation,—suddenly as from the ground yawning at her feet, leaped upon her, with the flashing of cataracts, Death the crownèd phantom, with all the equipage of his terrors, and the tiger roar of his voice.
The moments were numbered. In the twinkling of an eye our flying horses had carried us to the termination of the umbrageous aisle; at right-angles we wheeled into our former direction; the turn of the road carried the scene out of my eyes in an instant, and swept it into my dreams for ever.
"Whence the soundOf instruments, that made melodious chime,Was heard, of harp and organ; and who mov'dTheir stops and chords, was seen; his volant touchInstinct through all proportions, low and high,Fled and pursued transverse the resonant fugue."Par. Lost, B. xi.
"Whence the soundOf instruments, that made melodious chime,Was heard, of harp and organ; and who mov'dTheir stops and chords, was seen; his volant touchInstinct through all proportions, low and high,Fled and pursued transverse the resonant fugue."Par. Lost, B. xi.
"Whence the soundOf instruments, that made melodious chime,Was heard, of harp and organ; and who mov'dTheir stops and chords, was seen; his volant touchInstinct through all proportions, low and high,Fled and pursued transverse the resonant fugue."Par. Lost, B. xi.
Passion of Sudden Death! that once in youth I read and interpreted by the shadows of thy averted17signs;—Rapture of panic taking the shape, which amongst tombs in churches I have seen, of woman bursting hersepulchral bonds—of woman's Ionic form bending forward from the ruins of her grave, with arching foot, with eyes upraised, with clasped adoring hands—waiting, watching, trembling, praying, for the trumpet's call to rise from dust for ever;—Ah, vision too fearful of shuddering humanity on the brink of abysses! vision that didst start back—that didst reel away—like a shrivelling scroll from before the wrath of fire racing on the wings of the wind! Epilepsy so brief of horror—wherefore is it that thou canst not die? Passing so suddenly into darkness, wherefore is it that still thou sheddest thy sad funeral blights upon the gorgeous mosaics of dreams? Fragment of music too stern, heard once and heard no more, what aileth thee that thy deep rolling chords come up at intervals through all the worlds of sleep, and after thirty years have lost no element of horror?
Lo, it is summer, almighty summer! The everlasting gates of life and summer are thrown open wide; and on the ocean, tranquil and verdant as a savannah, the unknown lady from the dreadful vision and I myself are floating: she upon a fairy pinnace, and I upon an English three-decker. But both of us are wooing gales of festal happiness within the domain of our common country—within that ancient watery park—within that pathless chase where England takes her pleasure as a huntress through winter and summer, and which stretches from the rising to the setting sun. Ah! what a wilderness of floral beauty was hidden, or was suddenly revealed, upon the tropic islands through which the pinnace moved. And upon her deck what a bevy of human flowers—young women how lovely, young men how noble, that were dancing together, and slowly drifting towardsusamidst music and incense, amidst blossoms from forests and gorgeous corymbi from vintages, amidst natural caroling and the echoes of sweet girlish laughter. Slowly the pinnace nears us, gaily she hails us, and slowly she disappears beneath the shadow of our mighty bows. But then, as at some signal from heaven, the music and the carols, and the sweet echoing of girlish laughter—all are hushed. What evil has smitten the pinnace, meeting or overtaking her? Did ruin to our friends couch within our own dreadful shadow? Was our shadow the shadow of death? I looked over the bow for an answer; and, behold! the pinnace was dismantled; the revel and the revellers were found no more; the glory of the vintage was dust; and the forest was left without a witness to its beauty upon the seas. "But where," and I turned to our own crew—"where are the lovely women that danced beneath the awning of flowers and clustering corymbi? Whither have fled the noble young men that danced withthem?" Answer there was none. But suddenly the man at the mast-head, whose countenance darkened with alarm, cried aloud—"Sail on the weather-beam! Down she comes upon us; in seventy seconds she will founder!"
I looked to the weather-side, and the summer had departed. The sea was rocking, and shaken with gathering wrath. Upon its surface sate mighty mists, which grouped themselves into arches and long cathedral aisles. Down one of these, with the fiery pace of a quarrel from a crossbow, ran a frigate right athwart our course. "Are they mad?" some voice exclaimed from our deck. "Are they blind? Do they woo their ruin?" But in a moment, as she was close upon us, some impulse of a heady current or sudden vortex gave a wheeling bias to her course, and off she forged without a shock. As she ran past us, high aloft amongst the shrouds stood the lady of the pinnace. The deeps opened ahead in malice to receive her, towering surges of foam ran after her, the billows were fierce to catch her. But far away she was borne into desert spaces of the sea: whilst still by sight I followed her, as she ran before the howling gale, chased by angry sea-birds and by maddening billows; still I saw her, as at the moment when she ran past us, amongst the shrouds, with her white draperies streaming before the wind. There she stood with hair dishevelled, one hand clutched amongst the tackling—rising,sinking, fluttering, trembling, praying—there for leagues I saw her as she stood, raising at intervals one hand to heaven, amidst the fiery crests of the pursuing waves and the raving of the storm; until at last, upon a sound from afar of malicious laughter and mockery, all was hidden for ever in driving showers; and afterwards, but when I know not, and how I know not.
Sweet funeral bells from some incalculable distance, wailing over the dead that die before the dawn, awakened me as I slept in a boat moored to some familiar shore. The morning twilight even then was breaking; and, by the dusky revelations which it spread, I saw a girl adorned with a garland of white roses about her head for some great festival, running along the solitary strand with extremity of haste. Her running was the running of panic; and often she looked back as to some dreadful enemy in the rear. But when I leaped ashore, and followed on her steps to warn her of a peril in front, alas! from me she fled as from another peril; and vainly I shouted to her of quicksands that lay ahead. Faster and faster she ran; round a promontory of rock she wheeled out of sight; in an instant I also wheeled round it, but only to see the treacherous sands gathering above her head. Already her person was buried; only the fair young head and the diadem of white roses around it were still visible to the pitying heavens; and, last of all, was visible one marble arm. I saw by the early twilight this fair young head, as it was sinking down to darkness—saw this marble arm, as it rose above her head and her treacherous grave, tossing, faultering, rising, clutching as at some false deceiving hand stretched out from the clouds—saw this marble arm uttering her dying hope, and then her dying despair. The head, the diadem, the arm,—these all had sunk, at last over these also the cruel quicksand had closed; and no memorial of the fair young girl remained on earth, except my own solitary tears, and the funeral bells from the desert seas, that, rising again more softly, sang a requiem over the grave of the buried child, and over her blighted dawn.
I sate, and wept in secret the tears that men have ever given to the memory of those that died before the dawn, and by the treachery of earth, our mother. But the tears and funeral bells were hushed suddenly by a shout as of many nations, and by a roar as from some great king's artillery advancing rapidly along the valleys, and heard afar by its echoes among the mountains. "Hush!" I said, as I bent my car earthwards to listen—"hush!—this either is the very anarchy of strife, or else"—and then I listened more profoundly, and said as I raised my head—"or else, oh heavens! it isvictorythat swallows up all strife."
Immediately, in trance, I was carried over land and sea to some distant kingdom, and placed upon a triumphal car, amongst companions crowned with laurel. The darkness of gathering midnight, brooding over all the land, bid from us the mighty crowds that were weaving restlessly about our carriage as a centre—we heard them, but we saw them not. Tidings had arrived, within an hour, of a grandeur that measured itself against centuries; too full of pathos they were, too full of joy that acknowledged no fountain but God, to utter themselves by other language than by tears, by restless anthems, by reverberations rising from every choir, of theGloria in excelsis. These tidings we that sate upon the laurelled car had it for our privilege to publish amongst all nations. And already, by signs audible through the darkness, by snortings and tramplings, our angry horses, that knew no fear of fleshly weariness, upbraided us with delay. Whereforewasit that we delayed? We waited for a secret word, that should bear witness to the hope of nations, as now accomplished for ever. At midnight the secret word arrived; which word was—Waterloo and Recovered Christendom! The dreadful word shone by its own light; before us it went; high above our leaders' heads it rode, and spread a golden light over the paths which we traversed. Everycity, at the presence of the secret word, threw open its gates to receive us. The rivers were silent as we crossed. All the infinite forests, as we ran along their margins, shivered in homage to the secret word. And the darkness comprehended it.
Two hours after midnight we reached a mighty minster. Its gates, which rose to the clouds, were closed. But when the dreadful word, that rode before us, reached them with its golden light, silently they moved back upon their hinges; and at a flying gallop our equipage entered the grand aisle of the cathedral. Headlong was our pace; and at every altar, in the little chapels and oratories to the right hand and left of our course, the lamps, dying or sickening, kindled anew in sympathy with the secret word that was flying past. Forty leagues we might have run in the cathedral, and as yet no strength of morning light had reached us, when we saw before us the aerial galleries of the organ and the choir. Every pinnacle of the fret-work, every station of advantage amongst the traceries, was crested by white-robed choristers, that sang deliverance; that wept no more tears, as once their fathers had wept; but at intervals that sang together to the generations, saying—
"Chaunt the deliverer's praise in every tongue,"
"Chaunt the deliverer's praise in every tongue,"
"Chaunt the deliverer's praise in every tongue,"
and receiving answers from afar,
----"such as once in heaven and earth were sung."
----"such as once in heaven and earth were sung."
----"such as once in heaven and earth were sung."
And of their chaunting was no end; of our headlong pace was neither pause nor remission.
Thus, as we ran like torrents—thus, as we swept with bridal rapture over the Campo Santo18of the cathedral graves—suddenly we became aware of a vast necropolis rising upon the far-off horizon—a city of sepulchres, built within the saintly cathedral for the warrior dead that rested from their feuds on earth. Of purple granite was the necropolis; yet, in the first minute, it lay like a purple stain upon the horizon—so mighty was the distance. In the second minute it trembled through many changes, growing into terraces and towers of wondrous altitude, so mighty was the pace. In the third minute already, with our dreadful gallop, we were entering its suburbs. Vast sarcophagi rose on every side, having towers and turrets that, upon the limits of the central aisle, strode forward with haughty intrusion, that ran back with mighty shadows into answering recesses. Every sarcophagus showed many bas-reliefs—bas-reliefs of battles—bas-reliefs of battle-fields; of battles from forgotten ages—of battles from yesterday—of battle-fields that, long since, nature had healed and reconciled to herself with the sweet oblivion of flowers—of battle-fields that were yet angry and crimson with carnage. Where the terraces ran, there didwerun; where the towers curved, there didwecurve. With the flight of swallows our horses, swept round every angle. Like rivers in flood, wheeling round headlands; like hurricanes that ride into the secrets of forests; faster than ever light unwove the mazes of darkness, our flying equipage carried earthly passions—kindled warrior instincts—amongst the dust that lay around us; dust oftentimes of our noble fathers that had slept in God from Créci to Trafalgar. And now had we reached the last sarcophagus, now were we abreast of the last bas-relief, already had we recovered the arrow-like flightof the illimitable central aisle, when coming up this aisle to meet us we beheld a female infant that rode in a carriage as frail as flowers. The mists, which went before her, hid the fawns that drew her, but could not hide the shells and tropic flowers with which she played—but could not hide the lovely smiles by which she uttered her trust in the mighty cathedral, and in the cherubim that looked down upon her from the topmost shafts of its pillars. Face to face she was meeting us; face to face she rode, as if danger there were none. "Oh baby!" I exclaimed, "shalt thou be the ransom for Waterloo? Must we, that carry tidings of great joy to every people, be messengers of ruin to thee?" In horror I rose at the thought; but then also, in horror at the thought, rose one that was sculptured on the bas-relief—a Dying Trumpeter. Solemnly from the field of battle he rose to his feet; and, unslinging his stony trumpet, carried it, in his dying anguish, to his stony lips—sounding once, and yet once again; proclamation that, inthyears, oh baby! must have spoken from the battlements of death. Immediately deep shadows fell between us, and aboriginal silence. The choir had ceased to sing. The hoofs of our horses, the rattling of our harness, alarmed the graves no more. By horror the bas-relief had been unlocked into life. By horror we, that were so full of life, we men and our horses, with their fiery fore-legs rising in mid air to their everlasting gallop, were frozen to a bas-relief. Then a third time the trumpet sounded; the seals were taken off all pulses; life, and the frenzy of life, tore into their channels again; again the choir burst forth in sunny grandeur, as from the muffling of storms and darkness; again the thunderings of our horses carried temptation into the graves. One cry burst from our lips as the clouds, drawing off from the aisle, showed it empty before us—"Whither has the infant fled?—is the young child caught up to God?" Lo! afar off, in a vast recess, rose three mighty windows to the clouds; and on a level with their summits, at height insuperable to man, rose an altar of purest alabaster. On its eastern face was trembling a crimson glory. Whence camethat? Was it from the reddening dawn that now streamedthroughthe windows? Was it from the crimson robes of the martyrs that were paintedonthe windows? Was it from the bloody bas-reliefs of earth? Whencesoever it were—there, within that crimson radiance, suddenly appeared a female head, and then a female figure. It was the child—now grown up to woman's height. Clinging to the horns of the altar, there she stood—sinking, rising, trembling, fainting—raving, despairing; and behind the volume of incense that, night and day, streamed upwards from the altar, was seen the fiery font, and dimly was descried the outline of the dreadful being that should baptise her with the baptism of death. But by her side was kneeling her better angel, that hid his face with wings; that wept and pleaded forher; that prayed whenshecouldnot; that fought with heaven by tears forherdeliverance; which also, as he raised his immortal countenance from his wings, I saw, by the glory in his eye, that he had won at last.
Then rose the agitation, spreading through the infinite cathedral, to its agony; then was completed the passion of the mighty fugue. The golden tubes of the organ, which as yet had but sobbed and muttered at intervals—gleaming amongst clouds and surges of incense—threw up, as from fountains unfathomable, columns of heart-shattering music. Choir and anti-choir were filling fast with unknown voices. Thou also, Dying Trumpeter!—with thy love that was victorious, and thy anguish that was finishing, didst enter the tumult: trumpet and echo—farewell love, and farewell anguish—rang through the dreadfulsanctus. We, that spread flight before us, heard the tumult, as of flight, mustering behind us. In fear we looked round for the unknown steps that, in flight or in pursuit, were gathering upon our own. Who were these that followed? The faces, which no man could count—whence werethey? "Oh, darkness of the grave!" I exclaimed, "that from the crimson altar and from the fiery font wert visited with secret light—that wert searched by the effulgence in the angel'seye—were these indeed thy children? Pomps of life, that, from the burials of centuries, rose again to the voice of perfect joy, could it beyethat had wrapped me in the reflux of panic?" What ailed me, that I should fear when the triumphs of earth were advancing? Ah! Pariah heart within me, that couldst never hear the sound of joy without sullen whispers of treachery in ambush; that, from six years old, didst never hear the promise of perfect love, without seeing aloft amongst the stars fingers as of a man's hand writing the secret legend—"ashes to ashes, dust to dust!"—wherefore shouldstthounot fear, though all men should rejoice? Lo! as I looked back for seventy leagues through the mighty cathedral, and saw the quick and the dead that sang together to God, together that sang to the generations of man—ah! raving, as of torrents that opened on every side: trepidation, as of female and infant steps that fled—ah! rushing, as of wings that chased! But I heard a voice from heaven, which said—"Let there be no reflux of panic—let there be no more fear, and no more sudden death! Cover them with joy as the tides cover the shore!"Thatheard the children of the choir,thatheard the children of the grave. All the hosts of jubilation made ready to move. Like armies that ride in pursuit, they moved with one step. Us, that, with laurelled heads, were passing from the cathedral through its eastern gates, they overtook, and, as with a garment, they wrapped us round with thunders that overpowered our own. As brothers we moved together; to the skies we rose—to the dawn that advanced—to the stars that fled: rendering thanks to God in the highest—that, having hid his face through one generation behind thick clouds of War, once again was ascending—was ascending from Waterloo—in the visions of Peace:—rendering thanks for thee, young girl! whom having overshadowed with his ineffable passion of Death—suddenly did God relent; suffered thy angel to turn aside his arm; and even in thee, sister unknown! shown to me for a moment only to be hidden for ever, found an occasion to glorify his goodness. A thousand times, amongst the phantoms of sleep, has he shown thee to me, standing before the golden dawn, and ready to enter its gates—with the dreadful Word going before thee—with the armies of the grave behind thee; shown thee to me, sinking, rising, fluttering, fainting, but then suddenly reconciled, adoring: a thousand times has he followed thee in the worlds of sleep—through storms; through desert seas; through the darkness of quicksands; through fugues and the persecution of fugues; through dreams, and the dreadful resurrections that are in dreams—only that at the last, with one motion of his victorious arm, he might record and emblazon the endless resurrections of his love!
It was observed by Sir Robert Peel, in his speech on the subject of Free Trade in the House of Commons, in the last session of parliament, that those who reproached the new system with all the suffering the country had undergone during the last three years, forgot or concealed the fact, that that system was partially introduced by the tariff of 1842, which so materially diminished the import-duties on rude produce in that year; and that the three following years (those of 1843, 1844, and 1845) were the most prosperous that Great Britain has ever experienced. Is it then just, he added, whenquasifree trade in 1842 produced such beneficial results, to charge complete free trade in 1846 with the subsequent distress which has occurred; the more especially as adventitious causes—in particular, the Irish famine of 1846, and the European revolutions of 1848—amply account for the change, without supposing that the same principles, when carried into practice in 1846, produced such widely different results from those which had attended their adoption, to a certain extent, four years before.
The observation is a fair one, and apparently of material weight in the great question now at issue in the nation. When properly considered, it gives no countenance to the free-trade measures which the right hon. baronet has introduced, but only shows that it is to the combination of those measures, with another element of still more general and potent agency, that the disaster has been owing. In the interval, be it recollected, between 1842 and 1846,the new currency restriction bills were passed. The Bank Charter Bill of England received the royal assent in 1844, that of Scotland and Ireland in 1845. Free trade in grain was introduced in July 1846; in sugar, in May 1847; in shipping, in May 1849. The harvests of the years from 1846 to 1849 have been, as usual in this climate, checkered: that of 1846 was fair in grain, but sadly deficient in potatoes; that of 1847 was above an average in both; that of 1848, deficient in the south of England in corn; that of 1849, generally very good. The years from 1842 to 1846, therefore, were not a trial of free trade and a restricted currency,acting simultaneously—they were a trial only ofsemi-free trade, without the new monetary laws, coexisting with a railway mania in the palmy days of its progress, and other favourable circumstances, which concealed, as will be immediately shown, its actual tendency. Real free trade has begun to act,along with a restricted currency, for the first time, in 1846. The harvests since have been, on the whole, average ones—neither better nor worse than generally may, in this variable climate, be expected in future years. It is since 1846, therefore, that we are to look, in this climate, for the real proof of the effects of thecombined free-trade and currency measureswhich Sir Robert Peel has introduced; and unless they are taken together, the practical tendency of both will be entirely misunderstood. The right hon. baronet has done a great service to the cause of truth, by pointing out the difference in the state of the country before and after 1846; and we shall endeavour to follow up the subject by tracing the difference to its real source, and endeavouring to detach from the question the simultaneous circumstances which have been so often referred to as explaining the phenomena. The inquiry is the more important, that the Protection party as a body have, with a few striking and illustrious exceptions, never seen the currency question in its true light, as accompanied with that of free trade, and, by not doing so, have both voluntarily relinquished the most powerful lever wherewith to shake the strength of their opponents, and failed in instructing the public mind either in the real causes of their sufferings, or the means by which they are likely to be, alleviated.
Various circumstances have been studiously kept out of view by the free-trade party, in reference to the years from 1842 to 1846, which really were mainly instrumental in producingthe prosperity of that period. And many others have been emphatically dwelt upon, in reference to the years since 1846, which really had very little hand in producing these disasters.
The first circumstance which had a powerful influence in producing the prosperity from 1842 to 1846, was the return of fine seasons after five bad harvests in succession, which closed in 1841. The summer, and still more the autumn, of 1842, was a long and unbroken period of sunshine, which gladdened the hearts of men after the long series of dreary and cheerless years which had preceded it. The subsequent years, from 1842 to 1846, were very fine seasons, the harvests of which were all above an average. This is decisively proved by a comparison of the average prices of grain for the years from 1839 to 1841, and from 1842 to 1845.19The tariff of 1842 without doubt contributed to bring about, in some degree, this reduction of prices; but still, as the sliding-scale was then in operation, and the import duties were in general 8s. and 9s. the quarter, the effect must have been mainly owing to the succession of fine seasons. No one can have lived through that period, without recollecting that this was the case. But the cheap prices which result from abundant harvests and improved cultivation at home, are the greatest of all public blessings, as much as the cheap prices arising from an extended foreign importation and declining agriculture at home, are the greatest of all curses. The first enriches the manufacturer, by the previous comfort of the farmer, and the plenty diffused through the land by his exertions; the last gives a temporary stimulus to the manufacturer, by the cheapness which is fatal to the domestic cultivator, and, by abridging the home market, speedily makes the manufacturer share in his ruin.
The second circumstance which tended to produce the prosperity from 1842 to 1845, was the glorious successes which, in the first of these years, succeeded to the Affghanistaun disasters. We all recollect the throb of exultation which beat in the breast of the nation when the astonishing news arrived, in November 1842, that a single Delhi Gazette had announced the second capture of Cabul, in the centre of Asia, and the dictating a glorious peace to the Celestial Empire, under the walls of Nankin. Not only was our Indian empire secured for a long period, by those astonishing triumphs, but its strength was demonstrated in a way of all others the best calculated to insure confidence in its future prosperity. The effect of this upon our manufacturing and commercial prosperity was great and immediate. Confidence revived from so marvellous a proof of the resources and spirit of the nation, which had so speedily risen superior to so terrible a disaster. Speculation was renewed on a great scale, from the sanguine ideas entertained of the boundless markets opened for our manufactures in the centre of Asia, and in the Chinese dominions. Sir Robert Peel is entitled to great credit for the glorious turn thus given to our Eastern affairs, and the gleam of sunshine which they threw upon the affairs of the nation; for his fortitude, when the previous disastrous news arrived, was mainly instrumental in producing it. But free-trade principles, and the tariff of 1842, had no more to do with it than they had with the affairs of the moon.
The third circumstance which tended to bring about the prosperity from 1842 to 1845, was the revival in the home market, which, on the first gleam of returning prosperity, arose with redoubled energy from the very magnitude of previous deterioration and suffering. During the long train of disasters which followed the great importation of grain, and consequent exportation of the precious metals, in 1839—which compelledthe Bank of England, for the first time, recorded in history, to have recourse to the Bank of France for assistance—all classes of the people had undergone very severe privations. The depression had been general in extent, and unprecedented in duration, till it was entirely thrown into the shade by the effects of the terrible monetary crisis of October 1847. Stocks of goods were reduced to the lowest amount consistent with the keeping up even a show of business; comforts of various sorts had been long abandoned by a large portion of the middle and working classes. At the same time, capital, in great part unemployed, accumulated in the hands of moneyed men, and the competition for safe investment lowered the rate of interest. It was soon down to 3 and 2-1/2per cent. In these circumstances the revival of trade, owing to the Eastern victories and fine harvest of 1842, acted immediately, and with the most vivifying effect, on the home market. A rush took place to replace worn out garments, to revive long abandoned but unforgotten enjoyments. This result always ensues, and is attended with very important effects, after a long period of depression and suffering. It is beginning, though in a slight degree, and from the same causes, amongst us at this time. But, no opinion can be formed, of the extent or probable duration of such revived activity, from its intensity on its first appearance.
The last, and, without doubt, the most important circumstance which produced the great prosperity from 1842 to 1845, was the monetary change produced by the Bank Charter Act of 1844.
Sir Robert Peel admitted, in the debate on the currency at the opening of last session of parliament, that the act of 1844 had failed in one of its principal objects—viz., the discouraging of perilous and irrational speculation. He might have gone a step farther, and admitted that it had been the greatest possibleencourager, for a short season, of the most absurd and dangerous undertakings. The proof of this is decisive. The Bank Charter Act was passed in May 1844, and from that time till the first check experienced in October 1845, was, beyond all comparison, the wildest and most absurd season of speculation ever known in English history. Among others, railways, to the amount of £363,000,000 sterling, received the sanction of the legislature, within two years after the new Bank Charter Act had passed. And so far was government from giving any check to these undertakings—the results of which, monstrous when co-existing with a fettered currency, are apparent in the present wreck of railway property—that they gave them the utmost encouragement, both by lowering the sum required for deposits from ten to five per cent, and by bestowing, at once in public and private, the most lavish encomiums on the immense present and prospective blessings they would confer upon the country. It is not surprising that a government, looking only to temporary objects, did so; for the railway mania, while it lasted, and before the ruinous effects in which it necessarily terminated, when fettered by the currency laws, had developed themselves, gave a passing stimulus to the demand for labour, and increase to industry, which rendered men blind to the whole consequences of the course on which they were launched. Sir Robert Peel ably and emphatically enforced the favourable condition of the nation, and dwelt with peculiar emphasis on the diminution in criminal commitments through the country, in his opening speech of the session of 1846—although he ascribed it to the free-trade measures, not the first effect of the general insanity on the subject of railways.
It is now perfectly apparent, and is generally understood, that the fatal Bank Charter Act was the main cause of the ruinous railway mania which has since spread distress and ruin so widely through the country. The reason is evident. It at once emancipated the Bank directors from every consideration, except that of making the most, as ordinary bankers, of their capital; and subjected them to such heavy expenses, from the vast quantity of specie they were obliged to keep in their vaults, as rendered a very extensive pushing of their business in every direction a matter of necessity. The effect of these concurring circumstances was soon apparent.Interest was lowered, immediately after the passing of the Bank Charter Act, totwo per cent for first-class bills, or still lower, as appears from the subjoined table furnished by Messrs Gurney and Overend, "the greatest bill-brokers in the world."20The facility of getting discounts increased beyond all precedent the issues of the banks. Those of the Bank of England rose to £21,000,000; and of all country bankers in a similar proportion. The total notes in circulation, in England alone, reached £28,000,900; in Great Britain and Ireland they exceeded £39,000,000. It was this copious issue of notes which gave, for the time at least, nearly sufficient accommodation for the immense undertakings which were set on foot; which, beyond all doubt, both gave birth to, and nurtured the infancy of that vast network of railways which so soon overspread the country, and, while it was in course of formation, diffused such general prosperity over the land.
Had the impulse thus given to industry, and the enormous domestic undertakings thus set on foot by the sanction and with the approbation of government, been cautiously sustained, as a similar impulse had been during the war, by a corresponding increase of the circulation, based on a footing which wasnot liable to be contracted by a failure of the harvest, or an enhanced demand for gold in foreign states, it might have been the commencement of an era of prosperity, and a general spread of happiness, unprecedented in British annals. It had one immense advantage, which distinguished it both from the previous lavish expenditure during the war, and the extravagant South American speculations which ended in the monetary catastrophe of December 1825. The money was all expended at home, and on undertakings useful to the nation. No man will dispute, that, whether or not all the railways undertaken during that period were in themselves reasonable, or likely to yield a dividend to the shareholders, they were beyond all doubt, one and all of them, advantageous to the public. They afforded facilities for the transit of goods and the conveyance of passengers, which were not only an immense advantage to individuals, but a great relief and benefit to the commerce and manufactures of the country. So far from being blamed, government deserve the very highest credit for having given this direction to the industry and expenditure of the nation. Their fault consisted in the simultaneous and fatal measures they adopted regarding the currency.
Having taken this great step in the right direction, it became the first and most important duty of government to have provided, simultaneously with the commencement of the undertaking,a currency independent of foreign drains, commensurate to the vast addition made to the industry and engagements of the nation. Itscapitalwas far more than adequate to the undertakings, how vast soever. This is now decisively proved by the event. Two-thirds of the railways are finished; the remaining third is in course of construction; and interest is in London fromthreetotwo-and-a-half per cent.But capital alone is not sufficient for carrying on undertakings. Currency also is requisite; and if that be deficient, the most boundless overflow of capital will not avert a monetary crash, or save the nation from the most dreadful calamities. Here, too, the event has thrown a broad and decisive light on this vital question, and the cause of our calamities. Interest was fixed by government, after the crash, for advances by the Bank of England, in October 1847, at eight per cent; it rose, in private transactions, to twelve and fifteen per cent. Why was that? Not because capital was awanting, but because the bankers, from the drain of specie to buy foreign grain, and the operation of the Bank Charter Acts of 1844 and 1845, could not venture to issue notesto their customers. The nation resembled a great army, in which vast stores of provisions existed in the magazines at its disposal, but a series of absurd regulations affecting the commissariat prevented the grain they contained being issued to the soldiers. Accordingly, when the absurd restrictions were removed, things soon began to amend. When the Bank Charter Act waspro temporerepealed, by Lord John Russell's famous letter of October 1847, the effect was instantaneous in allaying the panic, and interest gradually fell, until now money has become overflowing, and it is to be had at two per cent, although the years since that time have been the most disastrous to capital ever known in the British annals, so that no subsequent increase has been possible.
What government should have done, when they engaged the nation in the vast system of inland railways, was what Pitt actually did, with such happy effect, when its currency was exposed to a similar strain from foreign expenditure, and immense engagements, in 1797. They should have provided a currency under proper control as to amount, but capable of being increased, according to the wants and engagements of society, and, above all, not liable to be withdrawn by the mutations of commerce, or the demand for gold in foreign states. The example of Great Britain during the war, when a gigantic expenditure, varying from eighty to one hundred and twenty millions yearly, was carried on for twenty years with the aid of such an expansivedomestic currency—not only without any lasting distress, save from the stoppage of foreign markets, but with theutmost prosperity and happiness to all classes, although guineas had altogether disappeared from the circulation—was not only an example of what was required, but the best indication ofhowit was to be done. No period more loudly called for such a precautionary measure than one in which, under the sanction of government, no less than £363,000,000 was to be expended on railways in the short space of four years—a sum equal, if the change in the value of money is taken into consideration, to £500,000,000 during the war—at a time when all other branches of industry, foreign and domestic, were in an unusual state of activity, from the sudden return of prosperity after a long period of suffering. To expect that the nation, without some addition to its currency, could carry out so great an increase in its undertakings, was as hopeless as to imagine that an army, with a half added to its mouths, is to go on successfully with no addition made to its distribution of rations. And it is evident that this addition to the currency could be effectually made only by extending the paper circulation on a scale proportioned to the increase of work undertaken. By no possible means could gold, in adequate quantities, be brought to the scene of activity, the place where it was required; and even if brought there, no reliance could be placed on its continuing there for any length of time. On the contrary, nothing is more certain than that it would speedily be re-exported to other countries where it was less plentiful, and, therefore, more valuable; and thus its support would have been lost at the very time when it was most required.
The rise of prices during the war, when such a domestic currency was provided by government in adequate quantities, was really owing, not so much to the circulation having become redundant, as to its having permitted an adequate remuneration to be given to industry. This is a most important consideration, which Mr Taylor has most ably illustrated. The proof that the circulation had not, like the assignats of France, become redundant, is to be found in two things which are decisive of the point: 1. At no period of the war was there any difference between the price of an article when paid in bank notes and when paid in silver. No man ever saw the price of anything five pounds in bank notes, and four pounds ten shillings in silver.Goldbore an enhanced price, because it was required urgently for the operations of the Continental armies. 2. The increase in the paper circulation, considerable as it was, was yet not so great as the parallel and simultaneous increase in our national industry, as measured by our exports, imports, and publicexpenditure.21Prices rose, therefore, and reached, for a time, more than double their level anterior to the contest, not because too much paper had been put in circulation, but because enough had been issued to let the demand for labour keep pace with the enlarged undertakings of the nation.
Instead of imitating this great and decisive example of wise and statesmanlike policy, what did Sir Robert Peel and the Free-traders do, on the commencement of a similar period of vastly augmented national industry? Why, they did just the reverse. Not only did they make no provision for enlarging the currency of the nation at the time, when they themselves had occasioned or sanctioned so immense an increase to its undertakings, but they took the most effectual measures possible tocontractthe circulation, both in gold and paper, directly in proportion to the necessity for its expansion. They first passed a law which limited the circulation of the Bank of England, irrespective of the notes issued on the basis of gold in their coffers, to £14,000,000; and that of the whole banks in Great Britain and Ireland to about £32,000,000; and then they introduced a system of free trade which permitted the unlimited entrance of foreign agricultural produce at a nominal duty, and thereby sent nearly half the gold headlong out of the country. Under the influence of this monstrous system, the gold in the vaults of the Bank of England was progressively diminished, until, in the end of October 1847, it was reduced to £564,000 sterling in the banking department; at the very time that, by the same judicious law, above £8,000,000 of sovereigns were lying useless, and locked up in the issue department of the same establishment. The governor of the bank very candidly admitted, in his examination before the House of Lords, that the bank, under the existing system, might have broke while there were still £8,000,000 of sovereigns lost to them and the nation in the cellars of the issue department.22Of course the whole banks of the country were compelled instantly to contract their credits, and force payment of their debts, and thence the universal distress and ruin which ensued. And all this took place at the very time that the bank had eight millions of sovereigns chained up by act of parliament in its cellars, at the issue end of the building; and when the government, which so chained it up, had landed the nation, by act of parliament, in engagements requiring an expenditure on railway shares of £363,000,000 in the next four years. You may search the annals of the world in vain for a similar instance of infatuation in the rulers of a nation, and self-immolation in a people.
It will be said that the vast importation of grain, in the course of 1847, was a matter of necessity, from the failure of the potato crops in Ireland in the preceding autumn; and that, be the consequences what they may, they cannot be ascribed to Sir Robert Peel or the Free-traders. In one sense this is undoubtedly true. It is certain that the most staunch Protectionists would never have objected to the largest importation of grain, and exportation of sovereigns, in a period such as that of severe and unlooked-for scarcity. It was the precise object of the sliding-scale to admit grain, in periods of scarcity, free of all duty. But what the Free-traders and Sir Robert Peel are chargeable with, is having established a system of currency so fettered and restricted by absurd regulations, that the exportation of sovereignsled necessarily and inevitably to a contraction of paper accommodation, and a shock to credit over the whole country; and aggravated the danger by a monstrous regulation, which exposed the bank to the risk of stopping payment when they had still eight millions in gold—enough to have enabled them, perhaps, to go on—at one end of their establishment. They are responsible for the dreadful error of having not only done nothing to extend and secure the currency from being exported or contracted, when they had added so enormously to the internal engagements of the kingdom, but done everything, by the establishment of a permanent system of free trade, and a permanently fettered currency, to secure its reappearance on occasion of every future recurrence of an indifferent harvest, or any continuance of a great importation.
It is the consciousness of this terrible calamity, impending over the nation, which terrifies all the directors of banks, and paralyses industry in so grievous a manner over the whole country. If you ask any moneyed man, what is the cause of the insecurity so universally complained of in money transactions over the country, and the reluctance of bankers to advance largely, even when their coffers are overflowing, to persons of the best credit? they will invariably answer, that they are afraid of a commercial crisis; that they do not know when it may come on: and that they must be, at all times, prepared for a storm. It is this indefinite dread, the natural result of the catastrophe of 1847, which renders them so cautious, and keeps the nation starved of accommodation, at the very time that Lombard Street is overflowing with money seeking for investment. It is no wonder they are afraid. The sword of Damocles is suspended over their heads, and thence their terror. They know that the heavy rains, and consequent importation of grain, in 1839 into the British islands, forced the Bank of England to apply for aid to the Bank of France, caused the United States Bank of America to stop payment, and rendered three-fourths of the traders in the United States bankrupt. The recollection of the dreadful crisis of 1847, brought on by the great importation of grain and exportation of sovereigns in that year, is fresh in their minds. They see the importations of food going on without intermission, in the face of exceedingly low prices, at the rate offifteen millions of quartersa-year, being nearly quadruple that of 1839, which was four million quarters.23They know that the grain countries will take our gold to any amount, but not our manufactures, because they do not want them, or are too poor to buy them; and they ask, How is all this grain to be paid? In what is all this to end? How are the bills, drawn to pay for these exports, to be met? So general is this feeling of dread, from the effects of a drain on our metallicresources to pay for the vast importations of grain going forward, that when the author, in the beginning of last autumn, said to the chief officer of one of the first banking establishments in Britain, that "three weeks' rain in August would render half the merchants in England bankrupt," he replied—"Sir, three weeks' rain in August will make half the merchants in Europe bankrupt."
That it is this fatal dependence of the currency, and consequent credit of the country, on the retention of its gold circulation, under circumstances when, from the vast importation of grain going forward,it is impossible to retain it, which is the real cause of the calamitous state of the country for the last three years, and not either the potato rot or the European revolutions, to which the Free-traders ascribe it, is evident from the slightest consideration. The potato rot of 1846, which has been the sheet-anchor of the Free-traders ever since—the scapegoat which they hoped would answer for all their sins—was never, by the most determined of their party, set down as having occasioned a loss of above £15,000,000 sterling. Call it £20,000,000 to avoid cavil. The strength of the case will admit of any concession. Now, the value of the agricultural produce of the United Kingdom, prior to the free trade in grain, was generally estimated at £300,000,000.24A deficiency of £20,000,000, or afifteenth part, might occasion, doubtless, the most acutelocaldistress in the districts in which it was most severely felt; but it could never,irrespective of its action on the currency, occasion a general monetary and commercial crisis. England and Scotland exported little or nothing to the boys of Munster and Connaught, where the failure occurred. There is no more reason, had it not been for the currency laws, why a failure of the potato crop in Ireland should have produced a monetary crisis in Great Britain, than a failure in the potato crop of Norway.
Again, the revolutions in Europe in 1848, of which so much has been said to account for the distress, are equally inadequate to explain the phenomenon. They could, of course, affect the European market for our export goods only; and they, taken altogether, only amount, to the countries affected by the revolutions, to £13,000,000—little more than a fourth part of our exports, which vary from £51,000,000 to £60,000,000. Supposing a half of this export, or £7,000,000, had been lost, during the year 1848, by the French, German, and Italian revolutions; what is that amidst the mass, thirty-fold greater, of our total manufactures, which some years ago were estimated at £133,000,000 for the home market, and £50,000,000 for the foreign. They are now unquestionably above £200,000,000 annually. But let it be supposed that thewholedefalcation of our exports, from £60,000,000 in 1845, to £53,000,000 in 1848, was owing to the European revolutions, and none at all to the paralysis of domestic industry by the effects of free trade and a fettered currency—seven millions deficit, out of £200,000,000 annual produce of manufactures, is only atwenty-ninthpart. Is it possible that so trifling a deficit can have been the cause of the terrible calamity which overtook the country in 1848 and 1849, the more especially as the harvest of 1847 was so good, that, by orders of government, a public thanksgiving was returned for it? That calamity was unparalleled in point of extent, and has, in two years, swept away at least one half of the whole commercial and manufacturing wealth of the kingdom. The thing is perfectly ridiculous. The failure of an eighth part of our annual export, and a twenty-ninth part of our annual creation of manufactures, might occasion considerable distress in the particular places or branches ofmanufacture principally affected, but it could never explain the universal paralysis, affecting the home trade even more than the foreign, which followed the monetary crisis of October 1847.
Again, as to the European revolutions of 1848, although, undoubtedly, they largely contributed to interrupt the commerce of this country with central Europe, and may fairly be considered as the principal cause of the decline in the exports of that year, yet it may be doubted whether the influx of wealth, from the distracted monarchies of Europe, which they occasioned, did not more than counterbalance that disadvantage. England, during the convulsions of France, Germany, and Italy, became the bank of Europe. Wealth flowed in from all quarters, for investment in the only capital left which held out the prospect of security. The solid specie which then was brought to London for purchase into the British funds, in the course of 1848, has been estimated, by competent authorities, at £9,000,000 sterling. Beyond all doubt, this great influx of the precious metals from continental Europe—at a time when it was so much required, in consequence of the enormous exportation of specie which free trade was inducing, and the monstrous monetary laws which contracted the paper circulation in proportion as it was withdrawn—had a powerful effect in counteracting the evils we had brought upon ourselves, and sustaining the currency and national credit, which the Free-traders had done so much to destroy. And as this was an alleviation of the evil at its fountain-head, it is next to certain that the European revolutions of 1848, so far from having occasioned the distress in Great Britain in that year, had a material effect in abating it.