The Columbiad: A Poem Part 29

Book VI. Line 389.

This was general sir John Johnson, an American royalist in the British service. He was the son of sir William Johnson, who had been a rich proprietor and inhabitant in the Mohawk country, in the colony of New York, and had been employed by the king as superintendant of Indian affairs. Sir William had married a Mohawk savage wife; and it was supposed that the great influence which he had long exercised over that and the neighboring tribes must have descended to his son. It was on this account that he was employed on the expedition of Burgoyne; in which he had the rank of brigadier general, and the special direction of the savages.

No. 41.

_Are these thy trophies, Carleton! these the swords Thy hand unsheath'd and gave the savage hordes,_

Book VI. Line 685.

General sir Guy Carleton, afterwards lord Dorchester, was the British governor of Canada and superintendant of Indian affairs at the time of Burgoyne's campaign. Having great influence with the warlike tribes who inhabited the west of Canada and the borders of the Lakes, he was ordered by the minister to adopt the barbarous and unjustifiable measure of arming and bringing them into the king's service in aid of this expedition.

This was doubtless done with the consent of Burgoyne, tho he seems to have been apprehensive of the difficulty of managing a race of men whose manners were so ferocious, and whose motives to action must have been so different from those of the princ.i.p.al parties in the war. Burgoyne, in his narrative of this campaign, informs us that he took precautions to discourage that inhuman mode of warfare which had been customary among those savages. He ordered them to kill none but such persons as they should find in arms fighting against the king's troops; to spare old men, women, children and prisoners; and not to scalp any but such as they should kill in open war.

He intimated to them that he should not pay for any scalps but those thus taken from enemies killed in arms.

It is unfortunate for the reputation of the general and of his government, that they did not reflect on the futility of such an order and the improbability of its being executed. A certain price was offered for scalps; the savages must know that in a bag of scalps, packed and dried and brought into camp and counted out before the commissary to receive payment, it would be impossible to distinguish the political opinions or the occupation, age or s.e.x of the heads to which they had belonged; it could not be ascertained whether they had been taken from Americans or British, whigs or tories, soldiers killed in arms or killed after they had resigned their arms, militia men or peasants, old or young, male or female.

The event proved the deplorable policy of employing such auxiliaries, especially in such mult.i.tudes as were brought together on this occasion. No sooner did hostilities begin between the two armies than these people, who could have no knowledge of the cause nor affection for either party, and whose only object was plunder and pay, began their indiscriminate and ungovernable ravages on both sides. They robbed and murdered peasants, whether royalists or others; men, women, children, straggling and wounded soldiers of both armies. The tragical catastrophe of a young lady of the name of Macrea, whose story is almost literally detailed in the foregoing paragraphs of the text, is well known. It made a great impression on the public mind at the time, both in England and America.

General Carleton, in the preceding campaigns, when the war was carried into Canada, had been applauded for his humanity in the treatment of prisoners.

But the part he took in this measure of a.s.sociating the savages in the operations of the British army was a stain upon his character; and the measure was highly detrimental to the royal cause, on account of the general indignation it excited thro the country.

No. 42.

_That no proud privilege from birth can spring, No right divine, nor compact form a king;_

Book VII. Line 39.

The a.s.sumed right of kings, or that supreme authority which one man exercises over a nation, and for which he is not held accountable, has been contended for on various grounds. It has been sometimes called the _right of conquest;_ in which is involved the absolute disposal of the lives and labors of the conquered nation, in favor of the victorious chief and his descendants to perpetuity. Sometimes it is called the _divine right;_ in which case kings are considered as the vicegerents of G.o.d.

This notion is very ancient, and it is almost universal among modern nations. Homer is full of it; and from his unaffected recurrence to the same idea every where in his poems, it is evident that in his day it was not called in question. The manner in which the Jews were set at work to const.i.tute their first king proves that they were convinced that, if they must have a king, he must be given them from G.o.d, and receive that solemn consecration which should establish his authority on the same divine right which was common to other nations, from whom they borrowed the principle.

There are some few instances in history wherein this divine right has been set aside; but it has generally been owing rather to the violence of circ.u.mstances, which sometimes drive men to act contrary to their prejudices, tho they still retain them, than to any effort of reasoning by which they convinced themselves that this was a prejudice, and that no divine right existed in reality. For it does not violate this supposed right, to change one king for another, or one race of kings for another, tho done in a manner the most unjust and inhuman. In this case the same divine right remains, and only changes, with the diadem, from one head to another. And tho this change should happen six times in one day (as in one instance it has done in Algiers by the murder of six successive kings) they would still say it was G.o.d who did it all; and the action would only tend to prove to the credulous people, that G.o.d was made after their own image, as changeable as themselves.

It is only in the case of Tarquin and a few others (whose overthrow has been followed by a more popular form of government) that it can be said that the principle of the divine right has been disregarded, laid aside and forgotten for any length of time.

The English are perhaps the first and only people that ever overturned this doctrine of the divinity of kings, without changing their form of government. This was brought on by circ.u.mstances, and took effect in the expulsion of James II. Books were then written to prove that the divine right of kings did not exist; at least, not in the sense in which it had been understood. And these writings completely silenced the old doctrine in England. This indeed was gaining an immense advantage in favor of liberty; tho the effort of reason, to arrive at it, seems to be so small.

But while the English were discarding the old principle they set up a new one; which indeed is not so pernicious because it cannot become so extensive, but which is scarcely more reasonable: it is the right of kings by _compact;_ that is, a compact, whether written or understood, by which the representatives of a nation are supposed to bind their const.i.tuents and their descendants to be the subjects of a certain prince and of his descendants to perpetuity. This singular doctrine is developed with perspicuity, but ill supported by argument, in Burke's _Reflections on the French Revolution._

The principle of the American government denies the right of any representatives to make such a compact, and the right of any prince to carry it into execution if it were made. Whatever varieties or mixtures there may be in the _forms_ of government, there are but two distinct principles on which government is founded. One supposes the source of power to be _out_ of the people, and that the governor is not accountable to them for the manner of using it; the other supposes the source of power to be _in_ the people, and that the governor is accountable to them for the manner of using it. The latter is our principle. In this sense no _right divine_ nor _compact_ can form a king; that is, a person, exercising underived and unreverting power.

No. 43.

_But while dread Elliott shakes the Midland wave, They strive in vain the Calpian rock to brave._

Book VII. Line 89.

The English general Elliott commanded the post of Gibraltar, against which the combined forces of France and Spain made a vigorous but fruitless attack in the year 1781. This attack furnished the subjects for two celebrated pictures alluded to in the eighth book: _The burning of the Floating Batteries_ painted by Copley; and _The Sortie_, painted by Trumbull.

No. 44.

_To guide the sailor in his wandering way, See G.o.dfrey's gla.s.s reverse the beams of day._

Book VIII. Line 681.

It is less from national vanity than from a regard to truth and a desire of rendering personal justice, that the author wishes to rectify the history of science in the circ.u.mstance here alluded to. The instrument known by the name of Hartley's Quadrant, now universally in use and generally attributed to Dr. Hartley, was invented by Thomas G.o.dfrey of Philadelphia. See Jefferson's Notes on Virginia; likewise Miller's Retrospect of the Eighteenth Century, in which the original doc.u.ments relative to G.o.dfrey's invention are fully detailed.

No. 45.

_West with his own great soul the canva.s.s warms, Creates, inspires, impa.s.sions human forms._

Book VIII. Line 587.

Benjamin West, president of the Royal Academy in London, was born and educated in Pennsylvania. At the age of twenty-three he went to Italy to perfect his taste in the art to which his genius irresistibly impelled him; in which he was destined to cast a splendor upon the age in which he lives, and probably to excel all his cotemporaries, so far at least as we can judge from the present state of their works. After pa.s.sing two years in that country of models, where canva.s.s and marble seem to contribute their full proportion of the population, he went to London.

Here he soon rendered himself conspicuous for the boldness of his designs, in daring to shake off the trammels of the art so far as to paint modern history in modern dress. He had already staggered the connoisseurs in Italy while he was there, by his picture of _The Savage Chief taking leave of his family on going to war_. This extraordinary effort of the American pencil on an American subject excited great admiration at Venice. The picture was engraved in that city by Bartolozzi, before either he or West went to England. The artists were surprised to find that the expression of the pa.s.sions of men did not depend on the robes they wore. And his early works in London, _The Death of Wolfe_, _The Battles of the Boyne_, _Lahogue_, &c., engraved by Woollett and others, not only established his reputation, but produced a revolution in the Art. So that modern dress has now become as familiar in fict.i.tious as in real life; it being justly considered essential in painting modern history.

The engraving from his Wolfe has been often copied in France, Italy and Germany; and it may be said that in this picture the revolution in painting really originated. It would now be reckoned as preposterous in an artist to dress modern personages in Grecian or Roman habits, as it was before to give them the garb of the age and country to which they belonged.

The merit of Mr. West was early noticed and encouraged by the king; who took him into pay with a convenient salary, and the t.i.tle of historical painter to his majesty. In this situation he has decorated the king's palaces, chapels and churches with most of those great pictures from the English history and from the Old and New Testament, which compose so considerable a portion of his works.

The following catalogue of his pictures was furnished me by Mr. West himself in the year 1802. It comprises only his princ.i.p.al productions in _historical_ painting, and only his _finished_ pictures; without mentioning his numerous portraits, or his more numerous sketches and drawings.

The pictures marked thus * have been engraved. The ciphers express the size of the pictures. When the same subject is mentioned more than once, there is more than one picture on that subject.

IN THE QUEEN'S HOUSE.

* Regulus departing from Rome.

* Hannibal sworn when a child.

* Death of Wolfe.

Damsel accusing Peter.

* Death of Epaminondas.