CHAPTER XXVIII.
Another day I got my fellow passenger started on American history. He said: “The greatest crime of England against the United States was the introduction of African slavery into the colonies. There were fortunes to be made in kidnapping the people of Africa and transporting them to the colonies.
“Queen Elizabeth lent her own ship, the ‘Jesus,’ to Sir John Hawkins, for the African slave-trade, and also owned shares in the African Company. By these investments she made more than the Dutchman’s one per cent to supply herself with pin-money and to provide those innumerable court dresses we read of.
“When the ship ‘Jesus’ was near the equator the water gave out and the four hundred slaves came very near perishing from thirst. The pious Hawkins wrote in his log, ‘The Almighty God would not suffer his elect to perish.’
“What a combination! The ship ‘Jesus’ named after the Redeemer of mankind, not the enslaver, carrying kidnapped men and women to slavery; this pious captain calling himself the ‘elect’ of God and the owner of the ship ‘Good Queen Bess,’ as she is styled!
“If there was a meaner or more damnable business than capturing people to sell them as slaves I have not heard of it. The horrors of the whole business from beginning to end was awful. The details were sickening and makes one ashamed of humanity. Such things are enough to make men skeptical, whether God watches over the events of the world. The most astounding part of it is that Christian people claimed it was for the Glory of God! ‘O, religion! What crimes have been committed in thy name!’
“Did you ever think of the power of profits in controlling the tastes, judgments and consciences of mankind?
“Slavery was confined mainly to the southern states and created a different kind of people and a different condition of society from that of the northern states. These owners of their fellow men, traffickers in human flesh and blood, claimed to be gentlemen, as they did not have tolabor for a livelihood. They assumed to be the aristocracy of the whole country and so affiliated with the aristocracy of England. They certainly had much in common. Both despised labor for themselves, but enjoyed it in others for their sole benefit. These aristocrats of the South, with plenty of money they never earned, could be educated, travel abroad and acquired a kind of culture with pride and arrogance, while they treated the poor whites among them as ‘trash,’ not much better than their ‘niggers,’ just as the aristocracy in England treat the lower classes. All was game to them within their reach. Nearly every boy over fifteen had his wench and the owners of slaves, like a lustful aristocracy, gave free reign to their fancies and desires, and did not scruple even to sell their own flesh and blood in the auction slave marts as they sold their cattle and cotton.
“It is not surprising then, that the aristocracy of the South and of England should have similar tastes and a liking for each other. The result was that in our civil war, waged solely on account of slavery, our worst enemies were the aristocracy of England. They would have swallowed African slavery, head and tail, with all its abominations for the sake of aiding their fellow aristocrats. It is to the middle class, the working people of England, that we are indebted for the non-recognition of the southern confederacy as an independent government. As it was, armed vessels were built and fitted out in the ports of England to destroy our commerce and with the connivance of her government. This was her way of being neutral.
“Many Englishmen made fortunes by sending blockade runners from England to furnish supplies for the South. They have told me this, rubbing their hands with great satisfaction at their skill in outwitting the ‘Yankees.’ Can they expect the ‘Yankees’ to forget these things when sometime a nation or colony may give their lion’s tail a twist? The bill for their little fun in being neutral was however settled, and the bitterest pill probably that John ever swallowed was when he had to pay fifteen millions of dollars for the destruction caused by his Alabama.
“All this is history and we would not refer to it but forthe over-bearing arrogance and assumption of these islanders. When they ever treat us civilly it is with a patronizing air. If there is anything which I think a true man dislikes it is to be patronized, for this insinuates an inferiority in the one receiving the patronage. With this spirit the English often refer to their colonizing America. We admit, to the shame of England, that some of our earliest settlers were obliged to leave that country to escape persecution and death but their settlement in America was compulsory. Large numbers, ‘Puritans,’ as they were styled, were deported, not for any crimes, but for their belief that they had a right to worship God according to their own consciences. Just one instance. A cargo of 841 human beings were sent to the West Indies to be sold as slaves. These, mind you, were not negroes, but white English people. They were not suffered to go on deck and in the holds below all was darkness, stench, lamentation, disease and death. The Queen of England had an interest in this shipment. The profits which she shared in the cargo after making a large allowance for those who died of hunger and fever during the passage cannot be estimated at less than a thousand guineas. This is the statement of an English historian, not an American.
“But the fact is that some of our best people were from Holland. Manhattan Island, now New York, was settled by them, and for many years there was not an English speaking person in that settlement, and many of the old wealthy families now in New York are descendants of the Hollanders. At the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, when fifty thousand of the best people of France were exiled, many of them went to the United States. Another large class are the descendants of the Scotch-Irish who had to flee from the tyranny of England, while the Irish now in America outnumber those in Ireland itself. The minority of the people are the descendants of the English.
“At times, in a patronizing way to curry favor with us, the English claim relationship, but none scarcely admit that we have anything except what we borrow, that is stolen from her, and even that we do not speak the English language. I have really been asked by educated Englishmen if we speak English in America.
“Whatever we have from England we owe nothing to her aristocracy or her government that should fill her with pride.
“I have lately read a book on the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. The writer claims that they are found in the English, his own people. He goes to prophesy, which is convincing. There is such a similarity between Israel and the English that there should not be a doubt hereafter on the subject. The Jews believed in a God who belonged solely to them, looked after their interests and fought for them. Their wars were always righteous while those of their enemies were always wicked. The English also have their God and believe He is always on their side. The Jews consider all other people as Gentiles created for their benefit. Do not the English the same?
“As long as the United States were colonies there was not a factory allowed in them or the people permitted to make their own hats or shoes or clothing. The raw products had to be shipped to England for the profit of her manufacturers and the goods returned at a great cost to the poor colonists. Here is an interesting note that I made a few days ago; ‘To help their manufacturers of woolen goods a law was passed in 1678 that all dead bodies should be wrapped in woolen shrouds.’ One of their writers says of England, ‘It formed colonies that the mother country might enjoy the monopoly of their trade by compelling them to resort only to her markets.’ It is only a few years since Ireland was allowed to spin and weave her own flax or to manufacture anything. It is not long since India was permitted to establish its first factory, and is it not true to-day that although India has an abundance of iron, coal, cotton, timber, everything needful, yet all the government supplies must be indented for from England for the benefit of her manufacturers and commission men? Is not England jewing India at every turn for her own benefit? Did not the Jews believe in subduing the nations for the glory of God and their own pockets? Do not the English have the same belief? Moses and his band believed they were to spoil the Egyptians by ‘borrowing’ from them and then claimed that their God had taught them thistrick of amassing wealth. Do not the English believe also in spoiling the Egyptians? But they reverse the order and instead of borrowing, they loan to the dwellers by the Nile at exorbitant rates of interest like an uncle with brass balls, and then like a Shylock, demand the pound of flesh and blood nearest the heart of their victims; but unlike him they take the interest and on the plea of securing their bonds, seize upon the government of that country with an army of occupation, and further increase the burdens of poor Egypt by fostering upon it a horde of English place-hunters to do nothing, at high salaries, and besides make the wretched natives, groaning under an intolerable burden of taxation support a theatre for the special pleasure of the usurpers. Nero fiddled while Rome was burning; the English make merry while the miserable Egyptians are toiling and starving.
“The Jews believed in their divine right to live off the Gentiles, and the English follow their example. In short, there is so much of the Jew in the English nation I wonder that the Ten Lost Tribes were not found long ago.”
After a pause and some conversation on minor matters, I asked a question about the Republican form of Government. He said: “We believe in the rights of man, that as an individual he should be free to act for himself, for his own good, the only restriction that he should not interfere with the rights of his neighbor. We believe that all men are equal, with the same political and social privileges, that each should govern himself, and all acting together, the majority to rule for the good of all, or, as President Lincoln tersely put it, ‘a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.’
“For ages it was supposed that mankind were not capable of self-government. Thence came into life, chiefs, tyrants, kings, emperors and monarchs. This was followed by the creed of the divine right of kings to place their feet on the necks of humanity. Men were enslaved, in accordance with divine laws, as it was claimed. They were made serfs, bought and sold with the land, and kept like cattle. A strong-willed man by intrigue, force and bribery, acquiredan ascendency over his fellows, became the chief of a tribe, or the head of a nation, and his descendants claimed a right, by the grace of God, to what he had obtained by the number of scalps he could hang at his belt, or the number of human skulls over his gate-way; by the amount of cruelties he had inflicted, by the cities he had burned, or the lands he had devastated. The farce of it is that civilized, Christian people, appeal to Heaven, and claim that all this is by divine right and the grace of God. Is it not contrary to reason and common sense to say that any one man or family has any right to rule over another against his will? Take Napoleon? Who was he? How did he obtain his power? By what right did he acquire a privilege to rule over his fellow men, and lead four millions of them to destruction? Why should he make other nations food for his powder?
“It is passing strange that vast numbers of people, many of them very intelligent, will submit to be used by tyrants for their aggrandizement, and to gratify their personal and vain ambition! It is also strange that intelligent men, will like sycophants, toady to these self-made gods, worship and bow down before them, and consider it one of the greatest favors to be admitted to their presence and receive but a word or a look from them. They say that ‘Britons never, never never will be slaves,’ but they are the worst of toadies to those above them. This toadyism to royalty or aristocracy is one of the conundrums of modern life. Another is the cheek or impudence with which these royal aristocrats receive the homage of men, not only of the illiterate, but of those who are far superior to them in every respect. For almost without exception these ruler gods have been noted for their immorality and vices, that would make the lowest peasant blush. But few of them have been men of intellectual power, or known by their virtues, and history tells us that few of them came to their thrones like gentlemen, without violence, plundering of the public treasury, and other such refined acts. Inheriting their positions, they have been kept in their places by men of ability, whose interest or vanity it was to surround these state figureheads with an aureole of kingly glory to dazzle the masses.There is not a monarch to-day, but is in his place by might, rather than by right or by the will of the people. With all of them it is always the sword of the Lord and of Gideon, but the Gideon part of it is always to the front.”
With this interesting voyager, whatever the others thought of him, he was so breezy and full of good things, the days were very short to me. He became so well acquainted with me that he related a little incident touching that old subject which could not be dropped, though far away and out of India. He said that when walking alone the morning previous, one of the English officers accosted him with the remark, “You have become quite intimate with that Eurasian.” “With whom?” my friend inquired, not quite understanding the word. “O, that half caste,” said the gentleman. “Why, what about him?” asked the other. “He seems to be very much of a gentleman in his manner, thoughts and education, so I have taken quite a fancy to him and find him very interesting. What have you against him?” Replied the gentleman, “Nothing against him personally, but he is an Eurasian, a half caste, you know, and in India that class of people are not in society, and we never meet them in a social way, you know.”
This much my friend told me, but he said that they had quite a talk on the subject, in which he did not butter his words in denouncing such an unjust social custom and the crime that produced it. He said it was own brother to the deeds of the slave owners of the southern states of America, begetting children by their slave women, and then selling their own offspring as slaves. He remarked that one evening in a hotel at Calcutta, a planter told him that many of the planters led the freest kind of a life; that few of them were married, as they did not care to be bothered with families of their own. He mentioned a number of prominent planters by name, all of them connected with well known families in England. The planter said there were a number of titled men among them, living the most riotous, lustful lives; that nearly all these men had children by coolie women employed on their plantations; that it was customary for these planters as they went about during the day to make their selections and then order theirpeons to bring the women selected to their bungalows at night. He said this was so common that nothing more was thought of it, than if a man had ordered some grain for his horse. One of them, of a very aristocratic family in England, who would blush with shame if they knew his manner of life, when asked if he was married, replied, “Married! No. What the devil do I want with a wife?” Yet he had a number of children by his coolie women. When asked what would become of his children, he carelessly answered, “I have nothing to do with them. When I leave I shall give the mothers a few rupees and let them scratch for themselves.”
Continued my friend: “A man is a hardened wretch who will treat his own flesh and blood in that way. And probably all these planters call themselves gentlemen and Christians. The Turkish or oriental harems are places of virtue and honor compared with such a system of lust and injustice carried on, not by heathens, but by educated Englishmen.”
It appeared from this and other remarks, that my American friend had not traveled through India with blinkers on his eyes or cotton in his ears; yet who has not heard of such things?
I could have told him the story of my own life, that, alas! I knew too well; but self respect or prudence or something restrained me.
One day as I was standing beside the captain, looking down upon the lower deck, he asked me if I noticed a man walking there. Said he, “I doubt if you can imagine what his business is.” I replied that I had no idea of it. He said, “It is marrying and selling his wives.” I expressed surprise at that kind of a trade new to me. He continued, “He and a number of men like him go to Europe, get acquainted with some innocent, pretty peasant girl, makes love to her, marries her, and then takes her to Bombay as his wife, where he goes with her to what he calls a hotel, and after getting a big fee from the landlord, deserts her and goes back to marry again and bring out another wife to sell. This is their sole business.” “But,” I inquired, “why don’t you or your company do something to prevent this fraud and crime?”“What can I do?” he replied. “This man buys tickets for himself and wife as passengers, and he returns alone as a passenger. They conduct themselves very properly, so how can I interfere?” “But,” said I, “why don’t the English government in India prevent such outrages on innocent women and punish these degraded wretches of men?” He turned quickly towards me with an inquisitive look, as if he thought me a simpleton, and asked, “Were you born yesterday? Hadn’t you better go home to your mother?” These questions were so abrupt that they nearly knocked me off my pins, and I could only wait in silence for his explanation. He asked, “For whom are these brought out? Not for natives, but for Europeans. Who are the Europeans? Mostly officers of government. Do you suppose they are going to interfere and break up a business that is for their sole pleasure?”
The captain was an old, grey-headed man, and knew the ways of the world and of wicked men, and well acquainted with the seamy sides of life, while I was fresh, very fresh, on my first voyage away from home. I could say nothing, and beside was afraid that he might again suggest that I go back to my mother. I kept silent, except to utter a few denunciative adjectives. I several times noticed the betrayer of innocence and wife-seller along with his companions, from my place on the upper deck. Did I not recall the infamous betrayer of the governess, and did not I remember how I felt when I found that she was mine and not somebody else’s sister, and alas, seduced by my father and by her father? Yet these betrayed innocent women are some mother’s daughters, and may be some one’s sisters. Ye gods! How I hated those men and wished that in some way they could be thrown into the sea, and thus their despicable, villainous traffic be ended with their corrupt lives.
Then my reflections came. What a sin-cursed world this is, I thought. When there is so much sublime beauty in the heavens above us, and in the pure sea around us, and on land, so much in nature to charm the eye and delight the ear, yet one cannot go anywhere, even far away at sea, from the wretched abodes of mankind, without beingafflicted with the knowledge of the filthy deeds of men. The earth may be cursed with briars and thorns, and man may have to toil and live by the sweat of his brow, but what is all this compared with the degrading sins of men? What a virtue is the chastity of brutes in comparison to the lusts of those who are said to have been created in the image of God? Blessed is the innocent, ignorant man who knoweth none of these things. Surely, it is folly to be wise when ignorance is bliss. Far better and happier for my heathen villagers to live, and toil, and die in their ignorant simplicity, than to have their souls scarred by the vices and knowledge of a corrupt world and of society.
“And bitter shame hath spoiled the sweet world’s taste, That it yields nought but shame and bitterness.”
As everything comes to an end some time, so did my voyage. The only regret of it was in parting from my American friend, for without him I would have been alone and my trip most monotonous.