The Columbiad: A Poem Part 27

It is natural for the wors.h.i.+ppers of the sun to consider any change in the atmosphere as indicative of the different pa.s.sions of their deity. With the Peruvians a sanguine appearance in the sun denoted his anger.

No. 28.

_Thro all the shrines, where erst on new-moon days Swell'd the full quires of consecrated praise,_

Book III. Line 687.

New-moon days were days of high festival with the Incas, according to Garcila.s.so. Eclipses of the sun must therefore have happened on solemn days, and have interrupted the service of the temple.

No. 29.

_Las Casas. Valverde. Gasca._

Book IV. Line 17-27.

_Bartholomew de las Casas_ was a Dominican priest of a most amiable and heroic character. He first went to Hispaniola with Columbus in his second voyage, where he manifested an ardent but honest zeal, first in attempting to instruct the natives in the principles of the catholic faith, and afterwards in defending them against the insufferable cruelties exercised by the Spanish tyrants who succeeded Columbus in the discoveries and settlements in South America. He early declared himself _Protector of the Indians;_ a t.i.tle which seems to have been acknowledged by the Spanish government. He devoted himself ever after to the most indefatigable labors in the service of that unhappy people. He made several voyages to Spain, to solicit, first from Ferdinand, then from cardinal Ximenes, and finalty from Charles V, some effectual restrictions against the horrid career of depopulation which every where attended the Spanish arms. He followed these monsters of cruelty into all the conquered countries; where, by the power of his eloquence and that purity of morals which commands respect even from the worst of men, he doubtless saved the lives of many thousands of innocent people. His life was a continued struggle agaiust that deplorable system of tyranny, of which he gives a description in a treatise addressed to Philip prince of Spain, ent.i.tled _Brevissima Relacion de la Destruycion de las Yndias_.

It is said by the Spanish writers that the inhabitants of Hispaniola, when first discovered by the Spaniards, amounted to more than one million. This incredible population was reduced, in fifteen years, to sixty thousand souls.

_Vincent Valverde_ was a fanatical priest who accompanied Pizarro in his destructive expedition to Peru. If we were to search the history of mankind, we should not find another such example of the united efforts of ecclesiastical hypocrisy and military ferocity, of unresisted murder and insatiable plunder, as we meet with in the account of this expedition.

Father Valverde, in a formal manner, gave the sanction of the church to the treacherous murder of Atabalipa and his relations; which was immediately followed by the destruction and almost entire depopulation of a flouris.h.i.+ng empire.

_Pedro de la Gasca_ was one of the few men whose virtues form a singular contrast with the vices which disgraced the age in which he lived and the country in which he acquired his glory. He was sent over to Peru by Charles V without any military force, to quell the rebellion of the younger Pizarro and to prevent a second depopulation, by a civil war, of that country which had just been drenched in the blood of its original inhabitants. He effected this great purpose by the weight only of his personal authority and the veneration inspired by his virtues. As soon as he had suppressed the rebellion and established the government of the colony he hastened to resign his authority into the hands of his master.

And tho his victories had been obtained in the richest country on earth he returned to Spain as poor as Cincinnatus; having resisted every temptation to plunder, and refused to receive any emolument for his services.

No. 30.

_First of his friends, see Frederic's princely form Ward from the sage divine the gathering storm;_

Book IV. Line 157.

Frederic of Saxony, surnamed the Wise, was the first sovereign prince who favored the doctrines of Luther. He became at once his pupil and his patron, defended him from the persecutions of the pope, and gave him an establishment as professor in the university of Wittemburgh.

No. 31.

_By monarchs courted and by men beloved._

Book IV. Line 165.

Francis I, out of respect to the great learning and moderation of Melancthon, and disregarding the pretended danger of discussing the dogmas of the church, invited him to come to France and establish himself at Paris; but the intrigues of the cardinal de Tournon frustrated the king's intention.

If every leader of religious sects had possessed the amiable qualities of Melancthon, and every monarch who wished to oppose the introduction of new opinions had partaken of the wisdom of Francis, the blood of many hundreds of millions of the human species, which has flowed at the shrine of fanaticism, would have been spared. This circ.u.mstance alone would have made of human society by this time a state totally different from what we actually experience; and its influence on the progress of improvement in national happiness and general civilization must have been beyond our ordinary calculation.

No. 32.

_While kings and ministers obstruct the plan, Unfaithful guardians of the weal of man._

Book IV. Line 529.

The British colonies in all their early struggles for existence complained, and with reason, of the uniform indifference and discouragement which they experienced from the government of the mother country. But it was probably to that very indifference that they owed the remarkable spirit of liberty and self-dependence which created their prosperity, by inducing them uniformly to adopt republican inst.i.tutions. These circ.u.mstances prepared the way for that mutual confidence and federal union which have finally formed them into a flouris.h.i.+ng nation.

Ministers who feel their power over a distant colony to be uncontrolled are so naturally inclined to govern too much, that it may be a fortunate circ.u.mstance for the colony to be neglected altogether. This neglect was indeed fatal to the first Virginia settlers sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh; and the companies who afterwards succeeded in their establishments at Jamestown in Virginia and at Plymouth in Ma.s.sachusetts were very near sharing the fate of their predecessors. But after these settlements had acquired so much consistence as to a.s.sure their own continuance, it may be a.s.sumed as an historical fact, that the want of encouragement from government was rather beneficial than detrimental to the British colonies in general.

These establishments were in the nature of private adventures, undertaken by a few individuals at their own expense, rather than organised colonies sent abroad for a public purpose. They were companies incorporated for plantation and trade. All they asked of the mother country (after obtaining acts of incorporation enabling them to acquire property and exercise other civil functions, such as incorporated companies at home could exercise) was to give them charters of political franchise, ascertaining the extent and limits of their rights and duties as subjects of the British crown forming nations in parts of the earth that had been found in an uncultivated state, and far removed from the mother country.

As they could not in this situation be represented in the parliament of England, these charters stipulated their right of having parliaments or legislative a.s.semblies of their own, with executive and judiciary inst.i.tutions established within their territories.

The acknowledgment of these rights placed them on a different footing from any other modern colonies; and the restricting clause, by which their trade was confined to the mother country, rendered their situation unlike that of the colonies of ancient Greece. Indeed the British system of colonization in America differed essentially from every other, whether ancient or modern; if that may properly be called a system, which was rather the result of early indifference to the cries of needy adventurers, and subsequent attempts to seize upon their earnings when they became objects of rapacity. This singular train of difficulties must be considered as one of the causes of our ancient prosperity and present freedom.

No. 33.

_Where Freedom's sons their high-born lineage trace, And homebred bravery still exalts the race:_

Book V. Line 345.

The author of this poem will not be suspected of laying any stress on the mere circ.u.mstance of lineage or birth, as relating either to families or nations. The phrase however in the text is not without its meaning. Among the colonies derived from the several nations of Europe in modern times, those from the English have flourished far better than the others, under a parity of circ.u.mstances, such as climate, soil and productions. The reason of this undeniable fact deserves to be explained.

Colonies naturally carry with them the civil, political and religious inst.i.tutions of their mother countries. These inst.i.tutions in England are much more favorable to liberty and the development of industry than in any other part of Europe which has sent colonies abroad. But this is not all: when men for several generations have been bred up in the habit of feeling and exercising such a portion of liberty as the English nation has enjoyed, their minds are prepared to open and expand themselves as occasion may offer. They are able to embrace new circ.u.mstances, to perceive the improvements that may be drawn from them, and not only make a temperate use of that portion of self-control to which they are accustomed, but devise the means of extending it to other objects of their political relations, till they become familiar with all the interests of men in society.

The habitual use of the liberty of the press, of trial by jury in open court, of the accountability of public agents and of some voice in the election of legislators, must create, in a man or a nation, a character quite different from what it could be under the habitual disuse of these advantages. And when these habits are transplanted with a young colony to a distant region of the earth, enjoying a good soil and climate, with an unlimited and unoccupied country, the difference will necessarily be more remarkable.

A most striking ill.u.s.tration of this principle is exhibited in the colonies of North America. This coast, from the St. Laurence to the Missisippi, was colonized by the French and English, (I make no account of the Dutch establishment on the Hudson nor of the Swedish on the Delaware; they being of little importance, and early absorbed in the English settlements.) If we look back only one hundred years from the present time, we find the French and English dominions here about equally important in point of extent and population. The French Canada, Acadia, Cape Breton, Newfoundland, Florida and Louisiana were then as far advanced in improvement as the English settlements which they flanked on each side. And the French had greatly the advantage in point of soil, interior navigation and capability of extension. They commanded and possessed the two great rivers which almost met together on the English frontier. And the s.p.a.ce between the waters of those rivers on the west was planted with French military posts, so as to complete the investment.

New Orleans was begun before Philadelphia, and was much better situated to become a great commercial capital. Quebec and Montreal were older, and had the advantage of most of our other cities. Add to this that the French nation at home was about twice as populous as the English nation at home; and as that part of the increase of colonial population which comes from emigration must naturally be derived from their respective mother countries, it might have been expected that the comparative rapidity of increase would have been in favor of the French at least two to one.

But the French colonists had not been habituated to the use of liberty before their emigration; and they were not prepared nor permitted to enjoy it in any degree afterwards. Their laws were made for them in their mother country, by men who could not know their wants and who fell no interest in their prosperity; and then they were administered by a set of agents as ignorant as their masters; men who, from the nature of their employment and accountability, must in general be oppressive and rapacious.

The result has solved a great problem in political combination. One of these cl.u.s.ters of colonies has grown to a powerful empire, giving examples to the universe in most of the great objects which const.i.tute the dignity of nations. The other, after having been a constant expense to the mother country, and serving for barter and exchange in the capricious vicissitudes of European despotism, presents altogether at this day a ma.s.s of population and wealth scarcely equal to one of our provinces.