vincible repugnance to migration, and uncon-
querable attachment to their native seats, and
have never spread beyond them. Every thing
announces that Japhet will one day dwell in the
tents of Shem, but unquestionably Shem will
never dwell in the tents of Japhet. To the Eu-
ropean race, endowed with intellect, and gifted
with energy beyond the other families of man-
kind, has been predestined the duty of peopling
the earth and subduing it; it is in the midst of
the passions which lead to its accomplishment
that we are now placed. In the last ages of t. *
world, as in the first, the words of primeval propn-
ecy shall prove true : '• God shall enlarge Japhet
and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem ; and Ca-
naan shall be his servant."

But it is not to these agents alone that the
great designs of Providence for the
dispersion of the species have been i„crcii'sing
intrusted. The original moving inilucnce of
powers are still in full and undis- Russian roii
turbed operation. The roving pas- 'i"'''*'-
sions of pastoral life, the lust of barbarian con
quest, are as active in impelling mankind from
the wilds of Scythia, as ever they were in the
days of Alaric or Attila: the Tartar horse have
lost nothing of their formidable character, by
being linked to the Russian horsc-arlillery. Si ill
the wines and women of the south attract the
brood of winter to the regions of the sun ; still



«



HISTORY OF EUROPE.



iK. HAP



1



ihe presMMC of lii\)t)nriun valor upon the scenes
ol civili.-.od opulence is felt with undiiiiinished
force. It will be so lo the end of the world ; for
.n the north, and there niono, are found the
privations which insure Imrdihood, the poverty
which iaipcls to conquest, the dilliculiies which
rouse to exertion, ]rrc^istil»lc to men so actu-
ated is the attraction which the climate of the
south, the riches of civilix.ation, exercise on the

!K)verly and energy of the native wilds. Slowly
mt steadily, for two centuries, the Muscovite
jKJwer has increased, devouring every thing which
it approaches; ever advancing, never receding.
Sixty-six millions of men, doubling every half
century, now obey the mandates of the Czar,
whose will is law, and who leads a people whose
passion is conquest. Europe may well tremble
at the growth of a power possessed of such re-
sources, actuated by such desires, led by such
ability; but Europe alone does not comprise the
whole family of mankind. The great designs
of Providence are working out their accomplish-
ment by the passions of the free agents to which
their execution has been intrusted. Turkey
will yield, Persia be overrun by the Muscovite
battalions; the original birthplace of our reli-
gion will be rescued by their devotion ; and as
certainly as the Transatlantic hemisphere, and
the islands of the Indian Sea, will be peopled by
the self-acting passions of Western democracy,
will the plains of Asia be won to the Cross by
the resistless arms of Eastern despotism.

It would appear that, at stated periods in the
history of nations, the passion for
«i^o.«',« migration seizes upon the minds of
propensitie* men; and these periods are at the
of men in the opposite ends of their progress —
^laiio ""^ '^'^'^ at its commencement and its ter-
mination. We read of the first in
the wandering habits of the Helvetii, of whom
Caesar has left so graphic a picture ; in the ir-
ruption of the Cimbri and Tcutones, whom it
required all the vigor of Rome and all the tal-
ents of Marius to repel ; in the successive settle-
ments of the Celts, the Franks, the Saxons, and
the Normans, in the decaying provinces of the
Empire ; in the perpetual inroads of the pastoral
nations of Central Asia, into the adjoining plains
of Muscovy, Persia, Hindostan, and China. We
see proof of it at this lime in the ceaseless
movement of the European population of Amer-
ica toward the Pacific, and the ardor with which
the semi-barbarous pioneers of civilization plunge
into the forests of the Far West. It is by the
force of these passions that the first settlements
of mankind were efifected, and that the human
race has been impelled by a blind instinct, of
which it can neither see the objects nor with-
stand the effects, into the most distant parts of
the Old World. It was thus, too, that the whole
continent of America was originall}' peopled by
its savage inhabitants ; and the tales of tradition,
as well as the more certain evidence of language,
point alike to the period when the hunters of
Karatschatka, cast by accident, or impelled by
restlessness, on the western slope of .the Rocky
Mountains, spread over the adjoining forests,
and their descendants gradually penetrated the
boundless wilds of North and South America.

But an insurmountable difficulty checks all
these early migrations of mankind : the ocean
I esirains their incursions. The Tartar horse, as



Gibbon tells, incapable of beii ^ reajted by th«
whole forces of civilization, found
an impassable barrier in the narrow r:-,n-„IoJ)„j.
channel of the Hellespont. The jpg moving
maritime incursions of the Saxons propensities
and Danes were confined to the >n the niaturi.
• 1 1 • , 1- n ■. • 1 ty of civiliza-

neighboring coasts ol Britain and (jpf,_

Gaul , no distant settlements were
formed by the sea-kings of the norlh. The At-
lantic can be bridged only by the powers of
civilization; but these powers are equal to the
undertaking, and they are called into action at
the time when the necessities and passions of
aged societies require their operation. Multi-
tudes nursed by the industry and opulence of
former times, but now crowded together, require
a vent, and eagerly look for new fields of settle-
ment : the powers of steam furnish them with
the means of migration; the passions of demo-
cracy render the transportation an object of de-
sire. As strongly and irresistibly as the nomad
tribes are impelled into the regions of opulence,
and the daring hunter into the wilds of nature,
is the civilized European urged to commit him-
self and his family to the waves, the ardent re-
publican to seek the realization of his dreams
on the other side of the Atlantic. Insensibly,
under the influence of those desires, the frontiers
of civilization are extended, the sea*s of man-
kind changed; and a new society is formed in
regions unknown to their fathers, in w^hich the
different members of the European family find
a cradle for future general ions of their descend-
ants.

" For here the exile met from eyery clime,
And spoke in friendship every distant tongne
Men from the blood of warring Europe sprung
Were but divided by the running brook ;
And happy where no Rhenish trumpet sung,
On plains no sieging mine's volcano shook, [hook.

The blue-eyed German changed his sword to pruning-

And England sent her men, of men the chief,

Who taught those sires of Empire yet to be,

To plant the tree of life — to plant fair Freedom's tree!"*

Not only is the democratic passion in this way
the great moving power which ex-
pels, as by the force of central heat, Necessity of
civilized man into the distant parts republican in-
of the earth, but it is the most ef- stitutions to
fective nurse of energy, progress, t°e^"'nts^*"
and civilization, when he arrives
there. The pastoral tribes, whose passion is
conquest, require a military chief to direct their
movements ; but the agricultural colonists, whose
warfare is with Nature, invariably pant for dem-
ocratic institutions. Left alone in the woods,
they early feel the necessity of relying on their
own resources ; self-government becomes their
passion, because sell-direction has been their
habit. All colonies which have flourished in the
world, and left durable traces of their existence
to future times, have been nurtured under the
shelterof republican institutions : those of Greece
and Rome, on the shores of the Mediterranean —
those of Holland and England, on the wider

] margin of the ocean, attest this important fact.
The colonies of Great Britain at this lime, though
nominally ruled by Queen Victoria, are for the

j most part, practically speaking, self-directed;
and where the authority of the central govern.

i _^ ,

1 * Gertrude of Wyoming.



1]



HISTORY OF EUROPE.



nient has made itself felt, it has cfeiierally been ' existence, each has been provided with a fittinf»



only to do mischief, and weaken the bonds which
unite its numerous olTspring to the parent state.
Wherever democratic institutions do not prevail,
colonial settlements, after a time, have declined,
and at length expired; and it seems to be im-
possible to enijraft republican self-direction upon
original subjection to monarchical institutions.
It must be bred in the bone, and nurtured with
the strength. The Portuguese settlements in
the East are almost extinct, and exhibit no traces
of the vigor with which Vasco da Gama braved
the perils of the stormy Cape ; the attempt to
introduce republican institutions, after three cen-
turies of servitude, into the Spanish colonies of
South America, has led only to anarchy and
suffering : and the decisive fact, that the repub-
lican states of North America, though settled a
century later, have now more than double the
European population of the monarchical in the
South, points to the wide difference in the future
destinies of mankind of these opposite forms of
government. Certain it is that, great as the
British military empire in India now is, it will
leave no settlements of Europeans behind it
among the sable multitudes of Hindostan; and
possibly future times may yet verily the saying
of Burke, that, if the Englishman left the East,
he would leave no more durable traces of his
existence than the jackal and the tiger.

Observe, in this view, how the character of
72. the races to whom the development

Adaptation of of this mighty progress has been
tlie Sclavonic intrusted, and of the institutions
and Anglo- 11,1 1 /• 1

Saxon charac- which they have created lor them-
ler 10 iiie parts selves, is adapted to the parts sever-
fn^their^^'5r? '^"^ destined for them in it. It
gress.^"^ '"^°" "light have been otherwise. The
character of the two great families
of the race of Japhet might have been reversed,
or the place assigned them on the theatre of
existence different from what it is. The Anglo-
Saxon, impelled by a secret impulse to effort,
to commerce, to freedom, and to colonization,
might have found himself in the plains of Mus-
covy or Siberia ; the Sclavonian, with his sub-
missive habits, roving propensities, and lust of
conquest, might have been located in Germany
and the British isles. What would have been
the result? Could the European family have
spread the European influence as it has done?
Could the race of Japhet have performed his
destined mission, to replenish the earth and sub-
due it? No: by this simple transposition of
race, the whole destinies of mankind would have
been changed ; the accomplishment of prophecy
rendered impossible; the spread of Christianity
arrested. The Anglo-Saxon, with his maritime
inclinations, his aspirations after freedom, his
industrious habits, would have been swept away
in Scythia by the squadrons of the Crescent ; the
Sclavonian, with his roving propensities, his
thirst for conquest, his aversion to the ocean,
would have been forever arrested by the waves
of the Atlantic. Crushed in all attempts at
colonization or settlement beyond his native
seats, the Anglo-Saxon would have pined in im-
potent obscurity in the plains of Muscovy; re-
strained by the impassable barrier of the ocean,
the Russian would have been forgotten in the
fore.:ls of Britain. Placed as they have been
reipectively, by Providence, on the theatre of



stage for the exercise of his peculiar powers^
and found around him the elements in nature
adapted for their development. The Anglo-
Saxon found in the I'orests of England the oak
which was to give to his descendants the empire
of the waves ; the coal which was to move the
powers of steam ; the iron which, in a future
generation, was to renew the age of gold. The
Sclavonian found in Central Asia the redoubt-
able horsemen who were to add strength and
speed to his battalions; the naked plains, where
they could act with resistless force; the en-
ameled turf, which every where provided them
with the means of subsistence and migration.
The free aspirations of the first impelled him
into the career of pacific colonization ; the ocean
was his bridge of communication : the despotic
inclinations of the last prepared him to follow
the standards of conquest; the steppe stretched
out before him, to facilitate the migration of his
conquering squadrons.

When Providence gave the blessings of Chris-
tianity to mankind, their diffusion at 73,
the appointed season was intrusted Destiny of tha
to the acts of free agents; but a par- raceofJaphei
ticular race was selected by whose ciirfslianUy."
voluntary co-operation its design
might be carried into effect. Beyond all ques-
tion, the race of Japhet was the one to which
this mighty mission was intrusted. The energy
and vigor, the intelligence and perseverance,
which have so long rendered it pre-eminent
among men, bespeak its fitness for the under-
taking ; and it may bo doubted whether any
other family of mankind will, for a very long
period, be fitted for the reception of the faith
which it bears on its banners. Experience
gives little countenance to the belief that the
race of Shem and Ham can be made to any con-
siderable extent, at least at present, to embrace
the tenets of a spiritual faith. Christianity, as
it exists in some provinces of Asia, is not the
Christianity of Europe ; it is paganism in an-
other form ; it is the substitution of the worship
of the Virgin and images for that of Jupiter and
the heathen deities. If Christianity had been
adapted to man in his rude and primeval state,
it would have been revealed at an earlier period ;
it would have appeared in the age of Moses, not
in that of Ca3sar. Great have been the elibrls
made, both by the Protestant and Roman Catho-
lic churches, especially of late years, to diffuse
the tenets of their respective faiths in heather
lands ; but, with the exception of some of the
Catholic missions in South America, without the
success that was, in the outset at least, antici-
pated. Sectarian zeal has united with Christian
philanthropy in forwarding the great under-
taking ; the British and Foreign Bible Society
has rivaled in activity the Propaganda of Rome;
and the expenditure of £100,000 annually on the
enlightening of foreign lands has afforded a mag-
nificent j)roof of devout zeal, and British liberal-
ity. ]5ut no great or decisive cfiects have as
yet followed these eilorts — no new nations have
been converted to Christianity ; the conversion
of a few tribes, of which much has been said,
a|ipcars to be little more than nominal: and the
durable spread of the gospel has been every
where co-extensive only with that of the Eu-
ropean race. But that race has increased, and



HISTORY OF EUROPE.



fCn^p.



is incronsinp, with imoxnni|ilt>d rnpii!iiy; i's
universal ijrowth, and wide oxtcnsioii, liesppuk
the evuliilioiis ol" a niijjhty ilostiiiy ; uiiil it has
now liooomo apparent, ihnl tho Aiifjlo-Saxon
colonist bears with his sails tlio blessings of
rhristianity tu mankind.

The inlluenco of Christianity is obviously in-
-^ croasinir in all tho nations of Eu-

Inrrrnsingln- rope, ami to nothing has this in-
tliHMireofrfli- crease been so much owing as to
fion in Eu- iiip iireligious spirit which occa-
'"'*' sioned the French Revolution. Vol-

taire was the author of the second great crusade,
he was the Peter the Hermit of the eighteenth
century; without intending it, he, in the end,
roused all nations in behalf of religion. He con-
ferred one blessing of inestimable importance on
mankind — he brought skepticism to the test of
experience. He forever revealed its tendencies.
and demonstrated its elfccts to the world. The
Reign of Terror is the everlasting commentary
on his doctrines ; Robespierre is at once the dis-
ciple and the beacon of those of Rousseau. No-
where has this reaction been more apparent than
in France, the very country where infidelity was
hrst triumphant. The increasing spirit of devo-
tion in its rural districts has long been a matter
of observation to all persons acquainted with
French society ; and the proof of this is now
decisive — universal suffrage has brought it to
light. Louis Napoleon has seized supreme pow-
er; but he seized it by the aid of the clergy.
His first step was a solemn service in Notre
Dame, the theatre of the orgies of the Goddess
of Reason ; and the votes of seven millions of
Frenchmen demonstrated that the vast majority
of the people coinoidcd with his sentiments. In
England, the influence of religious opinion has in-
creased to such a degree as to become in some
measure alarming ; it begets, in the thoughtful
mind, the dread of a reaction. Christianity, in
Russia, is the mainspring both of government
and national action : the Cross is inscribed on
his banners ; it is as the representative of the
Almighty that the Czar is omnipotent. In no
country in the world is religious zeal warmer,
religious impressions more general, than in
America, though unfortunately they have not
had the eflfeet of restraining their public actions.
These appearances are decisive as to the future
progress of the Christian faith, and its diffusion
by the spread of the European race. When
France and England, America and Russia, dif-
fering in almost everything else, combine in this
one impression, it needs no prophet to announce
the future destinies of mankind.

Such are the vievss which occur to the re-
tecting mind, from the cmtemplation of the



eventful period in the histohjr of Europe which

it is proposed to embrace in this _,

work. Less dramatic and moving DiflVrcnrescJ

than the animated era which term- the era of thi«

inated with the fall of Napoleon, it history and

thit of tlift

IS, perhaps, still more important: ,^g(
it contains less of individual agency,
and more of general progress. There are som«
incidents in it second to none that ever occurred,
in tragic interest : the Affghanistan disaster, the
passage of arms in the Punjaub, the revolutions
of 1848 in Europe, will forever stand forth- as
some of the most heart-stirring events in the
annals of mankind. But these are the excep-
tions, not the rule. The general character of
the period is one of repose, so far as relates to
the transactions of nations ; but of the most fear
ful activity, so far as the thoughts and social in-
terests of the people are concerned. The heroes
of it are not the commanders of armies, but the
leaders of thought ; the theatre of its combats is
not the tented field, but the peaceful forum. It
is there that the decisive blows were struck,
there that the lasting victories have been gained.
The volumes of this History, therefore, will
differ much from those of the one which has pre-
ceded it; they will be less dramatic, but more
reflecting ; they will deal less with the actions
of men, and more with the progress of things.
In the former period, individual greatness de-
termined the march of events, and general his-
tory insensibly turned into particular biography,
in the present, general causes overruled individ-
ual agency, and the lives even of the greatest
men are seen to have been mastered by the
progress of events. It is a common complaint
in these times, that the age of great men has
departed ; that the giants of intellect are no
longer to be seen : that no one impresses his
signet on the age, but every one receives the
impression from it. But the truth is, that it is
the strength of the general current which has
swept away particular men; the stream, put in
motion by greatness in a former age, has been
so powerful that it has become impossible for
individual strength in this to withstand it; it is
not that the age of great men has departed, but
that of genera! causes has succeeded. But the
ascendant of intellect is not thereby diminished :
its triumphs are only postponed to another age ;
its sway begins when the body to which it was
united is mouldering in the grave. The prophet
is even more revered in future times than the
lawgiver; when time has placed its signet on
opinions, they carry conviction to every breast ;
and he who has had the courage to defend the
cause of truth against the prejudices of one d^fc,
is sure of gaining the suffrages of the ne<.i.



1815.^



HISTORY OF EUROPE



95



CHAPTER n.



HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM THE PEACE OF PARIS, IN 1815, TO THE END OF THE YEAR 1813.



So great had been the success, so glorious
the triumphs of England, in the lat-
Commanding ^^r years of the war, that the least
position of ° sanguine were led to entertain the
Great Britain most unbounded hopes of the future
fh "'v '^^"^^"'^ prosperity of the empire. Prosper-
ity unheard of, and universal, had,
with a few transient periods of distress, when
the contest was at the worst, pervaded every de-
partment of the state. The colonial possessions
of Great Britain encircled the earth ; the loss of
the North American colonies had been more
than compensated by the acquisition of a splen-
did empire in India, where sixty millions of men
were already subject to our rule, and forty mill-
ions more were in a state of alliance ; the whole
West India islands had fallen into our hands, and
were in the very highest state of prosperity ;
Java had been added to our Eastern posses-
sions, and had been only relinquished from the
impulse of a perhaps imprudent generosity ; and
the foundation had been laid, in Australia, of
those flourishing colonies which are, perhaps,
destined one day to rival Europe itself in num-
bers, riches, and splendor. How dilTerent was
this prospect from that which, a few years be-
fore, the world had exhibited ! There had been
a time when, in the words of exalted eloquence,
" the Continent lay flat belbre our rival ; when
the Spaniard, the Austrian, the Prussian, had
retired ; when the iron quality of Russia had
dissolved ; when the domination of France had
come to the water's edge ; and when, behold,
from a misty speck in the west the avenging
genius of these our countries issues forth, grasp-
ing ten thousand thunderbolts, breaks the spell
of France, stops in his own person the flying
fortunes of the world, sweeps the sea, rights the
globe, and retires in a flame of glory."* Nor
had the domestic prosperity of this memorable
period been inferior to its external renown.
Agriculture, commerce, and manufactures at
home had gone on increasing, during the whole
struggle, in an unparalleled ratio; the landed
proprietors were in affluence, and for the most
part enjoyed incomes triple of what they had
possessed at its commencement ; wealth to an
unheard-of extent had been created among the
I'armers ; the soil, daily increasing in fertility
and breadth of cultivated land, had become ade-
quate to the maintenance of a rapidly-increas-
ing population ; and Great Britain, as the elfect
of her long exclusion from the Continent, had
obtained the inestimable blessing of being self-
supporting as regards the national subsistence.
The exports, imports, and tonnage had more
than doubled since the war began ; and although
severe distress, especially during the years 1810
and 1811, had pervaded the manid'acturing dis-
tricts, yet their condition, upon the whole, had
been one of general and extraordinary pros-
perity.

* Grattan.



Facts proved by the parliamentary records
sufficiently demonstrated that this
description was not the high-flown statistical
picture of imagination, but the nicts proving
sober representation of truth. The the general
revenue raised by taxation within f^eTtaVe^ °^
the year had risen from £19,000,-
000, in 1792, to £72,000,000, in 1813 ; the total
expenditure from taxes and loans had reached,
in 1814 and 1815, the enormous amount of
£117,000,000 each year. In the latter years of
the war, Great Britain had above 1,000,000, of
men in arms in Europe and Asia; and besides
paying the whole of these immense armaments,
she was able to lend £11,000,000 yearly to the
Continental powers ; yet were these copious
bleedings so far from having exhausted the cap-
ital or resources of the country, that the loan of
1814, although of the enormous amount of £35-
000,000, was obtained at the rate of £4 lis. Id.