Armata: a fragment

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A R M A T A

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SECOND EDITION,

LONDON:

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.

1817-

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Lonaon: Printed by C, Ro%»or(h,
Bell-yard, Temple-bar,

INTRODUCTION

When Galilaeo discovered the phases of Venus
through his telescope, he was cast into prison
by the tribunal of the Inquisition. — ^^He was cast
into prison, as Milton in, his Areopagitica has
well described it, only for differing in astronomy
from the Franciscan and Dominican monks. —
Imperfect as the state of science was in the age
of that great philosopher, it was nevertheless
believed to be at its fullest maturity, and it has
always been so considered, from Noah's flood
to the present hour: the pride of man will
scarcely enable him to accept the most manifest
evidence of his senses, when brought into colli-
sion with the most manifest errors which time
has sanctioned ; and until ignorance shall be
fairly pushed from her stool by the main force
of truth, she will continue to sit staring like

B an

( 2 )

an idiot, worshipping the shapeless phantoms of
her own blind creation. This is so universally
true, that even in this aera of comparative light,
I expect, for a season at least, to find but little
credit for my discovery of a New Land, because
I cannot lay down its position on any accredited
map ; geographers having decided and certainly
almost supported by the fact, that we know as
perfectly every spot of considerable magnitude
upon the earth, as I can now see the dots over
the i's whilst I am writing. When on my re-
turn therefore to England, I first mentioned
my discovery of a New Island, connected too
with continents of an immense extent, I was
immediately asked, in a mixed tone of confi-
dence and derision, in what latitudes and lon-
gitudes they were all placed? — If I had an-
swered at once, without preface or explanation,
that they were in no latitudes or longitudes,
being as I conceived no parts of the earth's
surface, I admit that I might have been fairly
set down as a lunatic or an impostor, because
truth, when it breaks in too suddenly, con-
founds

( 3 )

founds the understanding, as vision is over-
powered by a sudden burst of light. I thought
it best therefore for the moment to practise an
evasion, and answered, as indeed the truth was,
that I had been obhged to comiliit myself to
the waves from a sinking vessel; that there
being more brass than wood on my quadrant, I
could not venture to use it as a raft to save me ;
and that if I had hung my time-piece round my
neck, I should from its weight have only dis-
covered the longitude of the bottom. Well,
then, said a profound philosopher, waving for,
the present all localities, let us know something
at least of this famous Terra Incognita. — No,
Sir, I replied, you will soon, I believe, be:
looking for it through your telescope. I re^
solved, in short, to shut myself up. in silence
until I addressed myself, as I now do, to the
whole public of this great country, and through
that public to the whole civilized world.

f

B 2 CHAP-

( 4 )

CHAPTER I.

In which the Author gives an Account of his outward Voyage
and Shipwreck,

I SAILED from New York on the 6th of Sep-
tember, 1814, in the good ship Columbia, which
never returned to any part of the United States,
nbr,^ until this publication, was ever heard of in
any kingdom of the worlds- We were bound
to China by the way of New Soutfi Wales,
and as our voyage for nearly three months was
prosperous and without unusual accident, I pass
it by altogether. — On the 10th of February
a storm arose, which soon increasing to a
hurricane, accompanied with the most tremen-
dous thunder and lightning, our ship, by the
pressure of the one and the stroke of the other,
became in a few hours an unmanageable wreck,,
her rudder being torn away, and her mast»
levelled with the decks. For nearly a month
from that period a journal would be dismal

and

( 5 )

arid uninteresting, as we drifted with every
ishange of wind or current over a trackless
ocean ; except that, astronomy having been
rather a passion than a study from my earhest
youth, I carefully noted every day at noon, by
my quadrant and time-piece, our forlorn posi-
tion ; a precaution which I shall always consider
as the : most fortunate circumstance of my life.
The particulars, however, are omitted : a sea-
man's log-book would, I suppose, have but an
indifferent sale in Bond-street.

On the I6th of March, after full day had
risen upon us, we found ourselves as it were
overtaken by a second night. — The sea was
convulsed into whirlpools all around us, by the
obstruction of innumerable rocks, and we were
soon afterwards hurried on by a current, in no
way.reseniblirig any w'hich navigators have re-
corded. :We: felt; its influence under the shadow
of a dark,: cloud, between two tremendous pre-
cipices overhanging and seemingly almost
closing' up the entrance which received us. Its

B 3 im-

. ( 6 )

impetuosity was three times greater, at the
least, than even the Rapids above the American
Niagara, so that nothing but its ahnost incre-
dible smoothness could have prevented our ship,
though of five hundred tons burthen, from being-
swept by it under water, as our velocity could
not be less, at the lowest computation, than
twenty-five or rather thirty miles an hour. The
stream appeared evidently to owe its rapidity to
compression, though not wholly to the compres-
sion of land, its boundary on one side, if boun-
dary it ought to be called, appearing rather like
Chaos and Old Night; and what was most
striking and extraordinary, we could see from
the deck, not above two ships' length from us,
another current running with equal force in the
opposite direction, but separated from our's by
pointed rocks, which appeared all along above
the surface, with breakers dashing over them.
Neither of the channels, as far as my eye could
estimate their extent, were above fifty yards
' wide, nor at a greater distance from each other,
and they were so even in their directions, that

we

( 7 )

we went forward like an arrow from a bow,
without the smallest deviation towards the rocks
on one side, or the dreary obscurity on the other.

In this manner we were earned on, without
the smallest traceable variation, till the 18th of
June, a period of three months and two days,
in which time, if my above-stated calculation of
our progress be any thing like correct and I am
sure I do not over-rate it, we must have gone
straight onward above seventy thousand miles,
a space nearly three times the circumference
of the earth. On the evening of that day
which was to become memorable by the tri-
umphant termination of the immortal battle of
Waterloo, and which on my account also, though
without any merit of mine, will be a new asra
•in the history of the world, we found ourselves
suddenly emerging into a wide sea as smooth
as glass — the heavens above twinkling with
stars, some of which I had never seen before,
and some of our own constellations, which were
visibte, shone out with increased lustre, though

B 4 still

( 8 ) -

still not subtendmg any angle to the -naked
sigjjt, while others of our hemisphere appeared
more distant, and sonrie I missed altogether ; but
the moon, full orbed, was by far the most
striking object, appearing much largtr than
with us, and her light, though borrowed, pro-
portionally resplendent.

I shall not attempt to describe my astonish-
ment at this sublime and hitherto super-human
spectacle, because having been in all latitudes,
and being, as I have already said, familiar with
astronomy in its abstrusest branches, I was now
fully convinced^ not only that I was in no part
of the world ever visited before, but that there
was something else belonging to the world itself
never even known , or imagined. I am well
aware that the figure and extent of our planet
can neither be denied nor doubted ; the moon,
whilst I am writing, is just touching the sun's
vertical disk* within a second of calculated time,
and moving onward to predicted eclipse; and
in my voyage homewards, I saw her at

the

-j^

( 9 )

the foretold moment wading into the earth's
shadow, and at last totally obscured. — The re-
volutions round our axis and in gur orbit mock
in their precision the most celebrated inven-
tions by which the astonishing art of man has
contrived to measure even their shortest pe-
riods; and as the fixed stars, from wherever
seen upon our earth, must be uniformly visible
in the same' positions and magnitudes, I could
account, at the moment, in no other way for
the position of die ocean in which I now found
myself, than by supposing, we had a ring like
Saturn, which, by reason of our atmosphere,
could not be seen at such an immense distance,
and which was accessible only by a channel so
narrow and so guarded by surrounding rocks
and whirlpools, that even the vagrancy of mo-
dem navigators had never before fallen in with
it, they having always hitherto been sent back,
like other vagrants, to their original settlements.
An unsurmountable objection, however, after a
Jittle attention, soon opposed itself to the theory
i)f thi§ sea being on such a ring; because, though

from

( 10 )

from its distance it might not be visible through
our atmosphere, yet, as it must occasionally in-
tercept the sun's body in the earth's diurnal re-
volutions, its existence mui^t always have been
palpable. — The phenomenon therefore may, per-
haps, be better accounted for, by supposing that
the channel I had passed connected our earth
and its counterpart which had just received me,
like the chain of a double-headed shot, both of
which might revolve around the sun together,
and the moon around both, the interjacent
channel revolving along with them.— There is
nothing in this hypothesis at all inconsistent
with the Newtonian system, which, standing
upon the basis of mathematical truth, cannot be
shaken in the mind of any reasonable being ;
but this channel may exist in perfect harmony
with it ; indeed it is no more inconsistent with
the round figure of the earth to have such an
appendage protruded from it, than it is unnatu-
ral for cows and horses, or other round animals,
to have tails ; or, to come closer to the subject,
than that comets should have them, which are

now

( 11 )

now believed to be opaque bodies like our own;
but the best way after all, out of these and all
other difficulties, is to hark back to the fact. — I
am not in the least anxious to be the author of
any new theory of the earth, nor to rival the
justly celebrated Herschel in the discovery of
other worlds, but I am conscious of my own
integrity, and cannot doubt the evidence of my
senses. — If this sea, therefore, and the country
whose shores it washes beyond it, and which I
afterwards visited, can be considered as part of
our earth, let them, in God's name, be so consi-
dered— and if they cannot, then let philosophy
and fancy go each their own way. to find places
for them : I shall stand perfectly neuter in
the controversy.- — It is enough for me that I
possess tlie celestial observations taken as we
entered the jaws of the current, and as we
escaped from its dominion ; these fortunate pre-
cautions enabled me to return to England, and
could at pleasure lead me back again ; but the
discovery no man can expect from me without
a corresponding compensation. — If ten thousand

pounds

( 12 t

pounds were given to Harrison for a time-piece
hot now in use, being long ago left in the shade
by the still advancing light of British genius^
and which after all was only tried in a voyage
to Barbadoes — what reward may not honestly
be demanded for leading the way to regions
never heard of, nor conceived in the most rOf
man tic fancy, placed for ages beyond mortal
Icen, and opening, as the reader will see here-
after, to the. discovery of a nation as highly civi-
lized as our own, though differing from it al-
most throughout in all the distinguishing cha*
racteristics of mankind ? I am well aware,
however, tliat until my veracity shaH -be esta-r
blished by the Board of Admiralty, doubts may
remain in. the minds of some as to the authority
of this history ; yet, as far as it has advanced
hitherto, there is surely nothing in the least
incredible.— -Even thirty years ago, a man would
not have received more immediate credit who
had proposed to produce, at his pleasure and at
iny distances, the explosions : of celestial fire y
or to rise above the clouds, and pass the channel

which

^^•-

^

( 13 )

which divides us from the Continent, in a globe
of oiled silk ; or who should have staked a large
sum to rival even British navigation, by impel-
ling a vessel with condensed steam against the
winds and tides. — As little would any man
have then ventured into a coal-pit, upon the
trust that the same means employed as a hy-
draulic engine would clear it of the torrents
rushing in every direction through the bowels
of the earth; and least of all, that he could
safely contend there against the most mortal
elements of the subterranean world, by having
the magic lantern of Davy by his side.

But before I leave for ever this imaginary ob-
stacle to the reception of my adventures, it may
be as well to give a decisive answer ^t once to
sceptical readers of every description, upon rea-
sons more within general reach than the prin-
ciples of philosophy or mathematics. It is not
known to the multitude that the earth is held
in her place by the attraction of the sun, but all
the world knows that every man is attracted by
0 his

( 14 )

his own interests. — If I had written a romance
and not a real history, I must be a lunatic not
to blazon it in the largest characters even in the
title-page of my work. — No human stupidity or
folly ever failed so far in the composition of a
novel as to defeat its popularity to the extent
of at least two editions, which the circulating
libraries of themselves take off, without the sale
of a single volume to the collectors of books ;
whereas no human learning or wisdom employed
upon realities can now-a-days look much farther
than to an indemnity for the paper and the
types. — High reputation, indeed, (a rare pheno-
menon !) with the aids of hot-pressed foolscap,
a broad margin and expensive engravings, may
force a passage for history through the libraries
of the great, but Novels alone are the books of
universal sale. — The only actual historians are
the Editors of Newspapers, and bankruptcy
would soon overtake even their most favoured
proprietors, if they were fettered in their co-
lumns by truth. This most useful class of men
are therefore shamefully calumniated for their
^ ^ occasional

( 15 ) -

occasional deviations from it. — Printing, in a
free country, is surely a lawful trade ; and when
a man opens a shop, he must of course fill it with
such wares as are saleable. — He is not to set the
fashions, but to maintain his family hy following
them. The road therefore was plain before me.
The discovery of new lands had often been
made the vehicle of romance or satire — witness
the voyages of Pan urge, Gulliver, and Sin bad
the Sailor ; nor would the resort to such a fic-
tion have been plagiary when the objects were
so different, as mine will be found to be. — The
foreign voyage or travel is in these cases only
as the bolus, in which a medicine for the mind
is to be administered ; and an author could no
more be considered even as an imitator by re*
sorting to a romance, though so familiar, than
Dr. James's patent could have been set aside
for the invention of his celebrated powders, if
his specification had directed them to be swal-
lowed in the common wafers of the shop : what
possible motive, then, could I have liad for im-
posing upon the public an invention as a reality,
^•i since

;X ^16 )

since it could operate only against myself?
Perhaps, therefore, in a few years hence, when
packets are continually passing and repassing
between the twin worlds, arid when the gazettes
and pamphlets of the country I am about to
describe are lying upon our tables, though
this volume must then cease to be interesting,
its author may be remembered, and his memory
respected.

The placid ocean on which we were now
launched continued but a short time pacific.
We were soon overtaken by a second storm, too
like the former we had encountered, the shock
of which, from the shattered condition of our
vessel, it was impossible to sustain. I shiall not
weary the reader, according to custom, with
any detailed account of our shipwreck. — ^If the
sunken rock we struck upon had been within
the reach of any one who shall read this history,
I should have pointed out its position, but that
not hieing the case, at least for the present, and
as there can be neithier improvement nor delight

in

< ir )

in dwelling on the agonies of despair and death,
I purposely pass over every circumstance which
occurred from the striking of the vessel until
I jumped into the sea and drifted upon a plank
within a short distance of the shore. From
that time I became insensible, and can there-
fore give no account of the almost miraculous
manner in which I must have been saved, as
not another soul out of one hundred and forty-
eight, of which our crew consisted, were ever
seen again, except floating lifeless amidst the
waves or dashing against the rocks of a lofty
and dangerous coast.

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CHAP-

( 18 )

CHAPTER II.

Ih which the Author relates his extraordinary and unexpected
Reception.

On recovering my senses, I found myself
,iStretched nearly naked upon a rock, with the
spray of the sea dashing over me, surrounded
by an immense number of people whose speech
w^as utterly unknown to me, a circumstance
which added to my alarm, because my astrono-
mical theorems being altogether obliterated
through terror, and being well acquainted with
the languages of most civilized nations, I con-
cluded I had been cast amongst a savage people,
from whom I could expect neither sympathy
nor protection. — How then shall I attempt to
describe my sensations upon seeing a person
for whom every body made way upon his ap-
proach— whose dignified appearance marked
him to be of a superior order to the rest, and
who, upon hearing iny bitter lamentations,

addressed

( 19 )

addressed me in the purest English, saying in
accents the sweetest and most impressive,
*' Unhappy stranger, fear nothing ! — The bene-i
volence of God extends over all his works,
however divided for mysterious causes in the
abyss of infinite space. — Even in this unknown
and distant world He has preserved a man of
your own country to comfort and protect you."
However impatient the reader must naturally
be that I should advance without digression
in a narrative so very extraordinary, yet I must
pause here for a moment. It is the office of
history not only fo amuse but to instruct;
to make men not only wiser, but better — to
reconcile them to their various conditions, how-
ever clouded or disastrous — to impress them
with a constant sense of the Divine Providence
and presence — or, to describe it by almost
a word in the sublime language of our great
poet, --n ''^'- =^''1

" To justify the ways of God to men."

The first reflection, therefore, which the

reader ought to make upon this extraordinary

c 2 deliver-

( 20 )

deliverance from death, and the sudden transi-
tion from absolute despair to comfort and hap-
piness, is already made for him in the encou-
raging language of my protector ; and I am
persuaded, besides, that no person, however
unfortunate, can look back upon his own life,
without having to remember with gratitude and
devotion many singular and auspicious con-
junctures which no skill or merit of his own
could have contrived; with many escapes from
the natural consequences of his own misconduct,
or from accidents which cross us even in our
most guarded and virtuous paths ; and who has
not felt, in the changes from sickness to health,
from pain to pleasure, from danger to security,
and from depression to joy and exultation, a
fuller and a higher satisfaction (independently
of the uses of such reverses) than could have
arisen from the uninterrupted continuance of
the most prosperous condition.

As there must be light and shade in every
picture, so there must be perpetual changes to

n;akc

( 21 )

make human life delightful. Nothing must
stand still : the sea would be a putrid mass if
it were not vexed by its tides, which, even with
the moon to raise them, would languish in their
course, if not whirled round and round those
tortuous promontories which are foolishly con-
sidered to be the remnants of a ruined world.
— Marks, as they undoubtedly are, of many un-
known revolutions; the earth probably never
was nor ever can be more perfect than it is.— ^
It would have been a tame and tiresome habita-
tion if k had been as smooth as the globes with
which we describe our stations on its surface.
Its unfathomable and pathless oceans — its vast
lakes cast up by volcanic fire, and its tremendous
mountains contending with the clouds, are not
only sources of the most picturesque and ma-
jestic beauties, but lift up the mind to the
sublime contemplation of the God who gave
them birth.

c 3 CHAP.

( «s )

CHAPTER III.

In which the Author became convinced that he was no longer
vpon the Earth.

Havhstg been removed from the shore in a kind
of vehicle most admirably constructed for the
purpose, and laid upon a couch, which my ge-
nerous protector had prepared for me, the most
intense curiosity now succeeded to the pain and
hpi-ror which had oppressed me, and I entreated
him to relate the miraculous events which could
alone have brought us together, desiring him,
however, in the first place, to relieve those an-
xieties which the sight of a person from England
could not but have excited. — ^" Alas !" said my
protector, with great emotion, " I have no an-
xieties connected with England, nor with the
world of which it is a part. — My parents were
cast upon this shore when I was an infant of only
three years old ; they were, as I have learned
from my father, in the course of a voyage to the
: ; . . > "■ * East

( 23 )

East Indies : but the vessel having been sepa-
rated from the rest of the fleet in a dreadful
tempest, and having, like your own, from the loss
of her masts and rudder, been long the sport of
distracting winds and currents, she was wrecked
at last, with the whole of her crew — my father
and mother, and five others only excepted, all
of whom have since been called away to a better
world. As for myself, my death, from the help*
lessness of infancy, must have been inevitable,
but for a dog (long since dead) which my
father had brought with him from the Labrador
coast, who followed me it seems amongst the
breakers when the ship overset, and never
quitted me until he brought me to the shore.

Alas! poor *, how much is the short

span of your, wise and faithful species to be
lamented !

" From my parents I learned the English lan-
guage, but httle or nothing of England itself
or of its history ; as both of them died before I
was of .an age to take any interest in such sub-

* The name of this famous dog I have forgotten.

c 4 jects;

( 24 )

jects ; and those who were saved with us, were
not only obscure and ignorant persons, but were
soon scattered abroad, according to their acci-
dental, fortunes, in an unknown land, and by
the course of nature must long since have been
in their graves."

** But your own history," I said, " must be infi-
nitely interesting." " To a stranger, like your-
self," answered my kind protector, " cast not
only upon a foreign shore, but upon a new and
unheard of world, any account of the most illus-
trious individual, much more of myself, would be
tiresome and uninstructive. Your courtesy only
can ask for it now. My name is Morven — my
family most ancient and respectable in Scotland,
though not ^loble — that is all 1 have now to say
concerning myself. — It is enough for the present,
that I have arrived at such a rank and station as
to afford you the means of seeing to the greatest
advantage a country which, much as my parents
used constantly to exalt my own in my infant
fancy, cannot, I think, be inferior to it. Though
placed as it were a kind of exile, in a remote

margin

( 25 )

margin of this world, — small in its compass, — in
its climate disappointing from its vicissitudes, — .
surrounded by seas not often favourable to navi-
gation, and only emerging from the darkness of ^
barbarism in a late period of nations, it soon
towered above them all, and has for a long,
season been the day-star of our planet. — It seems,
indeed, as if the Divine Providence had chosen
it as the instrument of its benevolent purpose, to^ .
enlighten by an almost insensible progression the .
distant and divided families of mankind, to hold
up to them the sacred lamp of religious and
moral truth, to harmonise them by the example
of mild and liberal institutions, and to controul
the disturbers of the social world with an un-
paralleled arm of strength : — may she always
remember that this mighty dominion is a trust
— that her work is not yet finished — and that if
she deserts or slumbers upon her post, she will
be relieved and punished !" ■ ^

I availed myself of the pause which seemed
to finish his' preface to what he evidently conr

sidered

( 26 )

sidered as a distinct world from our own, by
asking his father's opinion upon that momentous
subject, as I could not compose my mind to
attend to any thing until I was satisfied as to
my real situation. " My father," answered my
friend, " undoubtedly considered that he was cast
forth and for ever from the earth. He used
often to say so, but his reasons I can only give
you from his Journal, which I have carefully
preserved, being too young myself to compre-
hend them. The book is in this very chamber,
and I can turn in a moment to that remarkable
part of it." Having besought him to do so, he
put the volume into my hand, where, after de-
scribing in the English language the extraordi-
nary channel nearly as I have already described
it, I found the following short sentence quite
conclusive of an opinion which but too clearly
confirmed my own.

" When I consider the unexampled rapidity of
the current, with its dismal chaotic boundary,
and that we were involved in it for almost three

months,

( 27 )

months, emerging at once into a sea where the
heavens above presented neu) stars, and those of
our awn in different magnitudes and positions
than any they could be seen in from either of our
hemispheres, I am co7ivinced, beyond a doubt,
that I am no longer upon the earth, but on what
I might best describe as a twin brother with it,
hound together by this extraordinary channel,
as a kind of umbilical chords in the capacious
womb of nature, but which, instead of being
separated in the birth, became a new and per-
manent substance in her mysterious course'' ^

The reader will no doubt observe, that this
theory exactly corresponds with my own, though
more fancifully expressed than by my vulgar
simile of a double-headed shot, and I have
little doubt that this new and interesting planet
will, in all our almanacks, be styled Gemini
hereafter, though it is called Deucalia by its r
inhabitants.

I canflot describe my feelings upon this awful

con-

( 28 )

confirmation of siicb a tremendous exile, and
entreated to be informed whether any thing
appeared in the Journal that seemed to favour
an opinion, that the earth might be regained by
}>ursuing the contrary course. " Undoubt-
edly," said my friend, and he turned in a few
moments to the following passage :

" The equal rapidity of the two contrary cur*
vents, and the impenetrable division between them^
convinces me that a vessel in the mouth of the
other, at the point from which we emerged from
the one we had been involved in, would re-conduct
us to the earth ; but having taken no precautions
to ascertain its position, guarded besides by
natural obstacles of the most dangerous and per-
plexing character, I can indulge no hope of
either re-visiting our world myself, or of making
it a rational object of future discovery,''

I leaped with joy when I had finished this
sentence, notwithstanding its disheartening
conclusion, and said to my protector, " You may
« . ' * now

( 29 )

now go on with your history ; I burn with im-
patience to hear it — I have no fears for die
future — your father's apprehensions were well
founded, but they have no appHcation to me.
He had not employed the means without which
no seaman, even in our own seas, could ever
return to his countiy; but fortunately I was
more provident and skilful — I know within a
gun-shot where the current began and emled,
and could find out both to-morrow; but the time
is not yet arrived for it. — My adventure is too
important to be thrown away, and indeed if my
•passage back again were as short as from Eng-
land to France, I should with the utmost re-
luctance undertake it, as it might separate mc
for ever from so kind and generous a friend —
Proceed then with the fullest account of the
world that has received me — I am all attention."

.h f* Such a narrative," said the friendly Morven,
'' even if I were qualified to enter upon it, would
be of no value to the inhabitant of another world;
it could only gratify a curiosity which your

mind

( 30 )

mind is not sufficiently at rest to enjoy. — When
you have acquired the language of this country,
it will then be as open to you as to myself, and
the best service I can now render you, is to
direct your course; lest, after burying yourself
beneath the thousands of volumes which under
my roof will be at your command, hereafter
you might find yourself but little wiser than
when you began. Useful history lies within a
narrow compass, and all I shall attempt for the
present will be to give you such a bird's-eye
view of the renowned and powerful Island of
Armata, as will best enable you to pursue your
own inquiries. — When you have the structure
faithfully delineated, you will find your own
way through its various apartments, and ex-
amine their contents as your particular taste
and judgment may direct you."

/ I could not help here interrupting my friend,
much as impatience was on the stretch, by re-
marking that the name of Armata was most ap-
propriate, having been just wrecked in fuH
hki'uii ^ sight

( 31 )

sfight of an immense naval arsenal, where ships
of the largest classes were constructing, sur-
rounded again by a mole crowded with a most
formidable navy, whilst on the sloping banks
af the fortress, by which the whole was en-
compassed and guarded, large bodies of troops,
apparently in the highest state of discipline,
were encamped and hutted. The name of
Armata, I therefore repeated, w^as most appro-
priate. " And why on that account?" said my
friend, plainly not understanding qie ; a ques-
tion which brought back at once to my recollec-
tion, that Rome could not possibly have been
the godmother of this Island, her language of
course being uttefly unknown : but such is the
magic power of association, even when reason
has dissolved the spell.

" The name of Armata," he continued, " has
nothing at all to do with forces naval or
military, but is supposed to have arisen from
the extraordinary charms of our women; Ar-
mata being, in the fabulous mythologies of our

remote

( 32 )

remote ages, the deity representing and pre-
siding over female beauty." Here, as the reader
will find in the sequel, the appropriation was
indeed most perfect; but it must be left to
every reader, according to his own fancy, to
form an idea of the Armatian women ; because
not having any distinct characters of form or
countenance, like those of France, or Spain,
or Italy, or Greece, or Circassia, but embracing
them all in their delightful varieties, the poet
must drop his pen, and the painter his pencil: —
but I must no longer delay your attention to
the history you ask for.*

♦ On my return to England, and whilst I was writing these
pages, I was very much surprized to observe in my pocket
edition of Johnson's Spelling Dictionary, that our Venus also
went by the name of Armata. I had never heard it before,
and only found it in an index to this little volume. It passes
all understanding how such a coincidence should have arisen.

CHAP-

( 33 )

CHAPTER IV.

Th which Moreen begins his Account of the Island of Armata.

" As therfe can be little doubt that this planet,
like our own, was peopled from two human
beings, and as from what remains of my father's
writings, they seem strongly to resemble each
other in all the characteristics of the species,
there is probably a great similarity in their re-
mote histories. — Primitive man is nearly the
same every where, except as accidental circum-
stances have had their influence. — In climates
soft and enervating, the inhabitants have often
been for ages stationary, and the robuster nations
have been their conquerors. With us, indeed,
they have repeatedly changed the face of things
— multitudes expelling multitudes, like the waves
of the sea, sweeping away yet mixing with one
another, but still preserving throughout all their
changes the distinct and original character of
^ne people. The governments of mankind in

» .the

( 34 )

the first ages must of course have been pa-
triarchal, their numbers being small, and few
occasions for contention in an unpeopled world ;
but, in process of time, when tribes, or rather
large masses came to be in perpetual motion
towards other countries, they often found them
pre-occupied ; and then, as the sparks fly up*
wards, the asra commenced of strife and warfare.
This new state of a wandering population gave
a corresponding character to their societies,
which, though barbarous, or at least rude, in the
Outset, became the accidental source in this
favoured island of the most powerful dominion,
and the perfection of civil wisdom. This may
appear to be carrying you farther back than any
human annals need be traced upwards, but the
characters and destinies of nations are so often
dependent upon one another, that it is difficult,
if not impossible to give an enlightened or use-
ful view of them, without almost an abridged
history of a world ; and however the ancient
parts may appear insignificant from having n6
visible bearings ^upon their present conditions,

they

( 35 )

they are sometimes, if not always, the sources of
the varieties which distinguish them.

" It is on this account only that I must lead
you by paths now neglected and almost for-
gotten, into the great road to the eventful peripd
which embraces you as one of ourselves.

" The policy forced upon those numerous na-
tions, as they were in their turns invaders or
driven onwards by successive myriads, was a
mixture of military command and civil magis-
tracy. With the sword continually in their
hands, the service of it became the tenure of
their possessions, and in a descending line from
their leaders to the undistinguished multitude,
they were held together by an indissoluble bond
of union, giving law and protection to orie
another. H-^-'rf • '-

" It must be admitted that the governments I
have been describing had a strong tendency to-
wards arbitrary monarchies, an opinion con-

D 2 firmed

( 36 )

firmed by their histories ; because, when one or
more superior dominions had been established
by conquest, the lesser ones surrounding them
having no common interest to unite them, nor
any support from the great bodies of their
people, were often overpowered and extinguish-
ed : the most popular captains of fierce adven-
turers becoming in another age the sovereigns
of nations.

•' One of those invaders once swayed by force
and terror the sceptre of Armata ; but con-
quest and the tyrannical abuse of it may lay
the foundation of a system of liberty which no
courage could have conquered nor human wis-
dom have contrived. — Perhaps in this short sen-
tence you have a faithful though as yet an
obscure account of the origin of that singular
constitution which has raised Armata to the
highest pinnacle of fame and glory. Great and
invulnerable as she now is, she was once sub-
dued, and all the monuments of her ancient
wisdom overthrown : but the dominion of one

^lan,

( 37 ) •

man, however gifted or fortunate, is sure to pass
away when it tramples upon the principles that
gave it birth. — The successful invader con-
founding his free and fierce companions with
the nation they had conquered, the oppressors
soon became numbered with the oppressed, and
after the reigns of but a few of his descendants,
the successor to his arbitrary dominion was
forced to submit to the establishment of free-
dom demanded in arms by the conquerors and
the conquered now forming an unanimous and
indignant people.

" The extraordinary feature of this singular
revolution was, that a nation in arms against its
sovereign and reducing him to terms of submis-
sion, had the discretion to know exactly what to
demand, and, by demanding nothing more, to se-
cure the privileges it had obtained. — The ordinary
insurrections of mankind against oppression have
generally been only convulsive paroxysms of
tumult and disorder, more destructive than the
tyranny overthrown, and often ending in worse;

J> 3 because

( 38 )

because civil societies cannot be suddenly new-

«

modelled witb safety. — Their improvements, to
be permanent, must be almost insensible, and
growing out of the original systems, however
imperfect they may have been.

" The rude forefathers of this people had for-
tunately not then arrived at that state of political
science which might perhaps have tempted
them to a premature change of their govern-
ment upon abstract principles — they looked
only to their actual grievances. — They did not
seek to abrogate the system which was the root
of their ancient laws and institutions, but only
to beat down usurpations, and to remedy de-
fects.— They seem indeed to have discovered
that there is a magnet in the civil as in the na-
tural world to direct our course, though the
latter was for ages afterwards unknown. The
magnet of the civil world is a Representative
Government, and at this auspicious period at-
tracted like the natural one by iron, became
fixed and immutable from the sword.

" The

( 39 )

," The consummate wisdom of those earliest re-
formers appears further in the pubHc councils
which they preserved. — From the most ancient
times the people might be said to have had a
protecting council in the government, but its
jurisdiction was overborne. — They had only
therefore to guard against the recurrence of that
abuse, and as the power over the public purse
had been the most destructive engine of their
arbitrary sovereigns, they retained in their own
hands by the most positive charters that palla-
dium of independence, re-enacting them upon
every invasion, aiming at nothing new, but
securing what they had acquired.

" To have gone farther in improvement, at that
periody would not only have been useless, but
mischievous, even if the bulk of the people
Gould have redeemed themselves by force from
many intermediate oppressors ; because, having
most of all to fear from the power of their mo-
narchs, the privileges of their superiors were ^in-
dispensable supports; invested for many ages

D 4 with

.. ( 46 )

with the magistracies of the country, powerful
in themselves from rank and property, having a
common interest with the whole nation, and
no temptations being then in existence to seduce
them from the discharge of their duties, they
were the most- formidable opponents of the.
prerogatives that were to be balanced ; and it
was therefore the most unquestionable policy to
enlarge and confirm their authority, instead of
endeavouring to controul a long established and
too powerful a dominion by an untried force.

" From this period the principles of civil free-'
dom struck deep root in Armata, deeper perhaps
from the weight by which they continued to be
pressed, the prerogatives of their princes being
istill ^formidable and frequently abused.— Per-
haps the law which governs the system of the
universe may be the grand type and example of
human governments — the immense power of the
sun, though the fountain of light and life^
would in its excess be fatal; the planets, there-
fore, thouglxthey yield to its fostering attraction
• in

( 41 )

in their unceasing and impetuous revolutions,
are repelled from it by a kind of instinctive
terror; since, if the sun could by its influence
detach them from their force centrifugal, they
would be absorbed with the swiftness of light-
ning into the centre, and, like the fly allured by
the light of the taper, be instantly consumed.

" The powers given to executive governments
for great national purposes, like those given to
the sun, ought to be extensive, nor can they
be dangerous if they are sufficiently balanced,
and that balance preserved upon the very prin-
ciple of centrifugal force; because the existence
of a strong government, and the possibility of
its misconduct, are the strongest securities of
freedom. Every page of the history of Armata
illustrates this important truth; since, in the
same proportion that executive power has at
different periods become the objects of salutary
jealousy, popular privileges have been uniformly
strengthened from the abuses, and when at
last a grand and glorious struggle to put an

end

( 42 )

end to them for ever was crowned with the
justest and most triumphant success, consti-
tutional fear, which had for ages watched over
and subdued them, unhappily fell asleep —
the centrifugal force was lost; — and power,
stripped of its terrors, but invested with the
means of dazzling and cofTuptingy soon began
to undermine a system of government which
the most formidable prerogatives had for ages
been unable to destroy.

,^/ The progress of this renowned people, from
the period of their earliest struggles for
liberty, to the final and, I trust, immortal con-
summation of their political constitution, was
slow and eventful, but perhaps on that account
the more secure: the safest road from an un-
settled government, of any description, to one
that is more perfect, being through those almost
imperceptible changes by which the character
and circumstances of a nation are changed.
The Armatians, from their insular situation
and enterprizing genius, were amongst the

earliest

( 43 )

earliest though not the first explorers of distant
and unknown countries; but their humanity
and wisdom secured the advantages which the
vices and foUies of the original discoverers had
cast away, and the dominion over new worlds
(if I may so express myself) became their own.
Their national government could not but be
soon affected by this illustrious career; a com-
merce encircling our globe with riches in her
train, advancing hand in hand with learning and
science, which other causes were reviving,
opposed by a silent and progressive force more
efficacious than the sudden shock of a revolution, p
the oppressive pretensions of her nobles, and the
firmest prerogatives of her kings, — to describe
this momentous change in a word — the Arma-
tians became a People.

" It would be to you most uninteresting, and
to me equally painful, to relate the conflicts of
those antagonist powers for more than a hundred
years, until the ancient monarchy and aristo-
cracy, wliich for ages had supported each other,

fell

( 44 )

fell io the ground in one ruin together ; but as
a river swoln and impetuous amidst the tempest,
bursting beyond its banks and leaving no trace
of its ancient channel, often returns to it, having
only fructified the country it overflowed, so the
Armatians soon came back again to the vener-
able but improved constitution of their fathers;
they did spontaneous homage to their exiled
monarch, and afterwards to his infatuated suc-
cessor, till seeing no security in the mild and
generous experiment of Restoration, they were
driven at last to seek their safety through a re-
volution, but such a one as perhaps will to the
end of time continue to be unexampled — accom-
plished without blood — cutting off only the can-
kered branches, but preserving all the others
to hold their places in the ancient tree of their
liberties : and as the broad leaf and consummate
flower still preserve the distinct characters of the
roots that nourish them, so the Armatians, even
when principalities and powers were at their
feet, never sought to depart from their original
cast.
LA "The

( 45 )

" The ordinary occurrences of history pro-
ducing no important changes, I have uniformly
passed them over, and I am arrived therefore
at a period within living memory, which will
require your utmost attention.

CHAP-

C 46 )

CHAPTER V.

In which Morten continues his account of the Island of Armata,

" This highly favoured island now sat without a
rival on this proud promontory in the centre of all
the waters of this earth, with her mighty wings
outspread to such a distance, that with your
limited ideas of its numerous nations, it is im-
possible you should comprehend. — She was ba-
lanced upon her imperial throne by the equally
vast and seemingly boundless continents on
either side, bending alike beneath her sceptre,
and pouring into her lap all that varieties of
climate or the various characters of mankind
could produce, whilst the interjacent ocean was
bespangled with islands, which seem to be posted
by nature as the watch-towers of her dominion,
and the havens of her fleets. — Her fortune was
equal to her virtues, and, in the justice of God,
might be the fruit of it; since as the globe had

expanded

( 47 ) .

expanded under her discoveries, she had touched
it throughput as with a magic wand ; the wil-
derness becoming the abodes of civihzed man,
adding new millions to her sovereignty, com-
pared with which she was herself only like the.
seed falling upon the soil, the parent of the.
forest that enriches and adorns it. — She felt no
wants, because she was the mother of plenty ;
and the free gifts of her sons at a distance, re-
turned to them tenfold in the round of a fructi-
fying commerce, made her look but to little
support from her children at home. — To drop all
metaphor, she was an untaxed country ; except
to that wholesome extent which wise policy
should dictate to every government, by making
the property of the subject depend in some
measure upon the security of the state.

^* The prosperity which then exalted her, after
all her dangerous divisions had been swept
iaway by an auspicious renovation of her con-
stitution, was unexampled, and although she
has been thought by some to have risen much

higher

( 48 )

higher afterwards amidst a. splendid career of
national glory ; yet she: then perhaps touched
her meridian height, not having at that time
embarked in an habitual system of expenditure,
beyond the golden medium just adverted to,
her debt being then no larger than to create a
wide spread interest to support the state, but
leaving what might be fairly termed the full
fruits of industry and talents, subject to no tor-
menting visitations of a prodigal government^
which can in the end have no escape from
bankruptcy but by rendering its subjects bank-
rupt.— In the first condition of a nation, the
people may be compared to the crew of a well
manned vessel in a prosperous voyage, called
upon for no exertions but to forward her in her
course : the second may be better likened to
the toils and sufferings of a tempest, when
the ship can only be kept even in doubtful
safety, by incessant pumping, when all hopes
of advantage are extinguished, and the only
principle of obedience is the preservation of
life. :

"Un-

( 49 )

*' Unhappily for Armata, the lust of dominion,
or rather of revenue, beyond the usefulness or
even the capacity of enjoyment, ensnared her
into a contest with a great and growing people;
to obtain by force what duty and affection had
spontaneously held out to her.
.... '" .''.-.: ^ '

/* I pointed out metaphorically to your view
two vast continents under her imperial wings ;
one of them, to which, looking southward, her
right extended, she had planted and peopled-
The inhabitants of Hesperia were her own chil-
dren, worshipping with the same rites the. God
of their common fathers, speaking the same
language, following in the track of the 'same
laws and customs which fashion and characterise
a people. — Armata, in short, ruled by the freest
consent the whole of this vast country, appoint-^
ed without question all her ' magistrates, and
enjoyed a monopoly of her commerce, not only
in the exclusive import of her various prddu€'!
tions into her own bo3om, but in the mono-
polous return of all her own mantifiictiires .^

E which.

( 50 )

which, ftom the rapid progress of population
throughout that immense region, was in itself
an inexhaustible source of wealth, setting per-
fectly at nought the entire intercourse of our
whole world besides.

" Shall I be then believed when I tell you that
with all this Armata was not satisfied, but in-
sisted that an useful, affectionate, and distant
people should pay for the support of wars she
had been foolishly involved in at the other ex-
tremity of our planet ? — Can the human imagi-
nation extend farther to the belief, that even
this monstrous claim was acceded to ? — the chil-
dren of a misguided parent desired only to know
what she demanded, that they might have the
grace of rendering it as a spontaneous grant, to
be bestowed under the same forms of goverur-
tnent and under the sanction of the very ma-
gistrates which she herself had created for the
purpose. — Must I lastly trespass upon, or rather
insult, your credulity, by telling you that even
this offer was refused ? Though revenue was the

object,

( 51 )

object, the unlimited grant was rejected, and
the revenue after all given up to enforce a
nominal demand. — INIany eloquent and solemn
protests of our most illustrious men of that time
were opposed in vain to this insane project.
The whole strength of Armata was put forth,
and her armies invaded a country so much more
extensive than her own, that when collected
upon its adverse surface, they could scarcely
hear the sound of one another's cannon. — Need
I conclude by adding that they were all taken
like so many birds in the net of the fowler, and
the dominion of Armata, which before had stood
upon a rock, was renounced by Hesperia for
ever — at first in defiance — but at last, when the
combat became manifestly hopeless, dissolved
by mutual consent."

When my friend had finished this marvellous
or rather incredible history, you will not, reader,
be surprized that I interrupted him for a mo-
ment, much as I was alive to hear its continua-
tion, by asking only one question. " How," I
E 2 said,

( 52 )

§aid, " could it possibly happen, that with so
celebrated a constitution as . he himself had
described, and when the people had obtained
jBO complete a controul over the public councils^;
they should have suffered so unjust and ruinous
a war to be so long persisted in, contrary to
their most manifest interests, and in the face of
the most enlightened opinions ?"

" The answer to your question," replied my
friend, " involves one of the most curious and
extraordinary changes that has ever taken place
in the political history of any nation. In the
earlier periods of. that of Armata, though the
sovereigns had more power, and the people's rcr
presentatives were comparatively nothing in the
balance, the Hesperian wiar could not havdi
been carried on. The delegates of the people
would have strenuously opposed it in every
stage of its disastrous progress — the whole na*.
tion would have upheld them, and the govern-;
ment even, if not subdued, would have been
overawed and checked in its impolitic course ;

but

( S3 )

but before this period, the ancient system of the;
government had been completely inverted ; the
popular council, though in theory scarcely en-.
titled to that name or character, had for ages
fulfilled all the practical purposes.of the most
perfect representation ; because, having the
same interests with the universal mass of popu-
lation, and nothing then existing to seduce
them from tlie discharge of their duties, it
mattered not by whom they were elected ; but
the time -was arrived when the right of election
became a vital principle. — The crown was no\V;.
possessed of a great revenue, which was ra-j
pidly increasing, and as the Commons, had ad-^^
yanced in power and importance, it was thought
convenient by its ministers to act no longer
upon their own responsibility, even in the rnost
..ordinary details of business, , but to take their
constitutional opponents, into pay and make
them ministers in, their stead; well knowing
1;hat they could not possibly oppose, nor even
censure the measures which were their own.— ^
.Neither can it M matter of wonder that the
:^ :•; E 3 people

( ^4 )

people at large, though wise to a proverb, should
be the dupes of so artful a contrivance. — They
had been long accustomed to regard every act
of the executive power with the most jealous
apprehension, and to consider the voice of their
representatives who had never betrayed them
as the Law and the Gospel. — When they saw,
therefore, the crown upon this momentous oc-
casion so humbly deferring to the wisdom, as it
was called, of the national council ; when its
ministers were entirely behind the curtain, and
every step that was taken was by the authority
of their own servants, they threw up their caps
into the air, and poured in addresses from every
part of the island, offering their lives and for-
tunes in support of the glorious contest; gifts
which unhappily no opportunity was left them to
recal, the personal supporters of the war being
knocked on the head, and the pockets of the
rest completely emptied.— When the illusion
was at length dissolved by disappointment and
defeat, an universal hue and cry was raised
against the whole system, set on foot by its

loudest

( S5 )

loudest supporters; and the minister of that
day, a most able statesman, though in that
matter undoubtedly mistaken, and in private
life one of the most agreeable and amiable of
mankind, was attacked without measure or
mercy. — He manfully stood his ground ; and, I
am persuaded, with a clear conscience main-
tained the policy and justice of his administra-
tion; but the most zealous of his adherents
now seeing the clearest reasons for condemning
him, though none whatever existed which had
not been as manifest from the outset, and many
more finding it impossible from business to be
in their places to defend him, though they had
nothing at all to do, he was compelled to retire ;
and in a few weeks afterwards a man would
have been probably mobbed in the streets, or
perhaps imprisoned as a lunatic, if he had been
rash enough to assert that the whole nation had
been otherwise than mad, and without a lucid
interval for fourteen years together."

" And- pray, Sir,'' I said, "has this system
£ 4 can-

i 66 )

^Dfititiued, ever since ?".^« Not exactly,'! :..aur
swered Morven, *; but, if possible, worse; just
as a dropsical patient fills in the proportion of
'what he drinks. — The subject is most interest-
ing and important.: — The English, from my
father's account, must be the wisest of mankind,
and, though the. inhabitants of another world,
.their wisdom, through you, may direct Us."

^ " Wisdom,'.' I answered, " in the pure abstract,
can hardly be brought to bear upon human cohr

^ duct.— There must be some direct experience,
or at least jsome analogy, to give it effect.— ¥•
Upon this subject there is neither. — You might
as well . set yourself to consider what the inhar
-bitants of the moon, which belongs alike to both
of as, would probably think of your condition ;
jor . thbse of . Jupiter, or Saturn, or of the seven
stars that form the Pleiades,, if they are iriha^
bited, and if not, you must be handed on for
an opinion to. the planets which probably sur-

, round them, for England cannot possibly assist
*you inacase which has no reference to hei' own
' , . govern-

< 57 )

government, nor to any of her own concerns ;
but, go on, I am delighted with your discourse;
only remember that history is a grave and mo-
mentous subject, and that wit and fancy belong
to quite different departments."---! said thiis
because my friend was remarkable for both, and
whether he was in. jest or in earnest it was not
always very easy to know : but as I found him
to be a man of unquestionable veracity, I was
..compelled to assent to his nari;ative,, on, his
solemnly assuring me that he had departed. igi
nothing from the truth. ..

■ '. ^;"Dni;i;l^
ni taoiio'^h to eonoi

f«»t^ t : ' ■ : ^-i

rori'i io'htj(V/oq^ok!' c

^ IT*.;; ^^^. ^L^r ^0<ii6 h'S:msi\^:4 cS. v^* ':\^.

CHAP-

( 58 )

CHAPTER VI.

In which Morven still continues his Account of the Island tf
Armata,

" This memorable aera in the history of Armata
may perhaps be considered as almost the first in
which her representative constitution exhibited
any proofs of dangerous imperfection. — The
crown (as I have said) was rapidly acquiring the
administration of a great revenue, and a suffi-
cient guard had not been placed upon its in-
fluence in the public councils, without which no
forms of election, however free and extensive,
can secure a wise and prudent administration ;
but the evil must manifestly be greater when
the popular council, erected as the balance of a
monarchical state, does not emanate from the
people, but in its greater part from the crown
which is to be balanced, and from a body of
nobles, powerful from rank and property, who
are to be balanced also ; and who have besides

a scale

( S9 )

a scale properly allotted to them, iti which their
great weight is judiciously deposited. — It must
be obvious to the meanest capacity, that if those
very powers which are thus to be balanced ca^
create or materially influence the antagonist
power which is to controul them, the consti-
tution must at all events be theoretically im-
perfect.— I have already informed you why, for
a long period, this imperfection had not been
felt, and the degree of its operation, when it
began to operate, and as it now exists, ought to
be correctly and temperately stated; because,
without a reverence for government, whatever
defects may be discovered in it, a nation must
be dissolved.

" You are not therefore to imagine that the
portentous war I have described to you arose
from a general and wicked prostitution of high
station in those who had in a manner the choice
of the popular council, nor from a vile corrupt
sale of their voices by those who had been
phosen, -feeling at the time that they were de-
voting

( 60 )

mting' their country to disastrous consequences
— this! think has Tiever happened, nor is hkely
to happen in Armata : because her people are so
enlightened,, her various classes are so happily;
blended with each oth^r, and the interest in wise
counsels is so universal, that a. clear axid general
conviction of misgove rumen t would then and
now have an irresistible effect upon the publio
CQuricib however constituted; but the great
evil is in cases of doubtful pohcy, which the
worst measures in their beginnings often are :;
and he must be but little acquainted with the
human mind, who does not know by what de-
ceptions means, even very honest and intelligent
men may be brought to view questionable sub-
jects in the light that best corresponds with
their interests and their wishes. ♦ -

• [ ^ Olx the' very occasion before us it was not
very difficult to conceal some facts, and to over-
state, others, more especially when the matter
to be judged of; was at an immense distance,
and complicated in the details ;• some had - not
V- -'Z the

i -61 )

^the capacity, nor many more the. application to

.digest them, and even supposing the case to have

.been fairly stated, the rule from time to time to

be applied to it was often beyond the reach of

those who were to decide, and came for. theiir

.decision adorned with gifts and graces to secure

;the most favourable reception.^ — :The public

effect also of the decision I have already ex>

plained to you. — It was no longer the act of a

power for ages the object of jealous apprer

hension, but of those who for ages had faithfully

xontrouled it, and the judgment of the people

:jvas surprized.

" The period of the delusion you have also
heard.— The consequences of extreme mis-
,government must be universally felt, and the
discontents they produce arq irresistible ; but
unfortunately they seldom arrive until the evil
'complained of is beyond redress. The crown is
-sure in the dubious season to command the popu-
Jar council, and through them popular opinion,
juntil 'errors become palpable and destructive,
^.: iu-jt when

( 62 )

when the most over-ruling influence must give
way.— This is the real and the only defect in
the constitution of Armata; which, from ity
wisdom and the happiness it produces, casts
into the deepest shade the most perfect institu-
tions of mankind. — All the separate parts of it
are excellent and well proportioned, if they were
allowed to stand in their places, but govern-
ment had now begun to be carried on by a con-
spiracy of powers which should balance and
controul one another." " How much then," I
eagerly said, " is it not to be lamented, that
when such an evil was first discovered it was not
immediately corrected !" " Your observation,"
answered my friend, " is far more important
than perhaps you are aware of. — To have then
corrected it, or even at many subsequent periods,
could not in the nature of things have convulsed
or even disturbed the balance of the different
orders so vitally necessary for the security of
all ; but by having suffered the defect to con-
tinue for a long season, its consequences have
also increased, and have produced so strong a,

feeling

( 63 )

feeling of irritation, tliat the most cautious re-
formation becomes, with every man of sound
discretion, a matter which calls for the most
impartial and even trembling consideration. —
This observation is not, however, intended to
convey an opinion that a safe and salutary
amendment is impracticable. A surgeon often
examines his patient with a trembling hand,
when he is considering whether he shall attempt
an operation; but when his judgment is satisfied,
it trembles no longer.

" One mighty benefit, a well timed and judi->
cious reformation, if it can be accomplished with
safety, would most certainly produce. — The
legislature would be more an object of respect
and affection in the minds of the people, the
highest security against a spirit of disaffection
and revolt. — It is infinitely dangerous when bad
men, who seek to promote revolution by ex-
posing the defects of the public councils, can
plead the truth, or even any thing approaching
it, in their defence. — Positive law may protect

a strum-

C 64 >

a-strumpet when her reputation is invaded, but
the appeal to it only serves to make her prosti-
tution more notorious, and the libeller, when
punished, an object of compassion.
c ' . ...

\ " When any palpable imperfection exists in a
government, it becomes the hotbed of sedition;
^nd it is the more impolitic to suffer it to con-
tinue when its great leading principles, like
those of Armata, are so perfect. — Where a ty-
ranny indeed exists, or any government, how-
ever composed, whose interests are different from
these of the people, no reformation can be
hoped for with their consent, because they could
Hot be reformed without the surrender of in-
jurious powers which they would have a cor-
rupt advantage in preserving ; but in a country
like this, that has opened her arms to receive
you, where there is but one sentiment of public
spirit and virtue pervading alike the public
councils which from defective forms may re-
quire reformation, and those who seek to reform
them, there can be no difference in opinion ex-
-iiiUiie ^ cept

( 65 )

cept in the consequences of any change. — That
part of the subject is too deep for my decision -4
yet I find it difficult to conceive how a repre-
sentation embracing a larger proportion of a wise
and moral people could have a greater tendency
to produce insecurity, than when it emanates
only from those whom the laws have directed
to be balanced. — A few individuals might* ^eek
to extend their own powers at the expense of
the liberties of the people, but the people them-
selves could surely have no interest in usurping
a greater authority than was consistent with
the equilibrium of a constitution which for
centuries had been the just object of their na-
tional pride, and the admiration of a world it
has enlightened.

J"
" Attending to all these considerations, have
you now^' said Morven, " any difficulty in form-
ing an opinion on this important subject, put-
ting England wholly out of the question ?'' >

* For the- reasons I have already given you,*'^
F I an-

( 66 )

I answered, " I can form no useful judgment
in a case so new to me ; but there is one princi-
ple so clear and so universal, that it must apply
equally to all subjects, to the affairs of all
countries, and even of all worlds. The first
step towards public reformation of every de-
scription, is a firm combination against rash and
violent men. — Very many of them (perhaps the
bulk) are perfectly well intentioned, but not
for all that the less dangerous to the cause they
would support.— Some of them, indeed, one
would think were in our world set on to take
the lead by those who opposed any changes,
that wise men might retire altogether from the
pursuit. For my own part, I would not only
submit to the imperfections of such an admirable
constitution as you have described in Armata,
but would consent to the continuance of the
worst that can be imagined, rather than mix
myself with ignorance, thrusting itself before
the wisdom which should direct it, or with per-
sons of desperate fortunes, whom no sound state
of society could relieve ; but such men, I think,
,. '• could

( 67 )

could work no mischief, if rank and property
stood honestly and manfully in their places.

" From your own account, however, it appears
to me, upon the whole, to be a question which
demands the most dispassionate consideration,
because the consequences are far from being
clear. — ^The principle of balance has been long
departed from, and reciprocal jealousies between
your Crown and your Commons have been laid
asleep. — Prerogative (depending wholly upon
influence) has exerted itself in nothing, and
the whole executive government has been, xvith
its own consent, carried on in your popular
council. — This has bestowed upon it an entirely
new character, and from the operation of other
causes, its powers have no actual limitation,
though theory defines and limits them. — How
far, therefore, under such circumstances, it might
be safe entirely to recast this great assembly,
and to disturb a system, which without any new
organization has in a manner created a new con-
stitution, it is not for a stranger to pronounce.

F 2 On

( 68 )

On the one hand, I should be sorry to see the
powers of your commons in the smallest degree
diminished or struck at; but on the other, in
proportion as they are transcendant, they should
be, as far as can be made safely practicable^ in
the choice and under the controul of the great
body of your people."

%i CHAP-

( ^9 )

CHAPTER VII.

In which Moroen still continues his Account of Armata, and
points to the origin of a great Revolution. t,

" No country but Armata could have sur-
mounted, as she did, so disastrous a conflict
as the Hesperian war: but such is the energy
of her extraordinary people, that after a short
depression, she roused herself like a strong man
after sleep, and stood again erect, to sustain the
shock of events still more disastrous, which fol-
lowed in its train.

" The nearest couptry to us is Capetia,
a kingdom of great extent and population;
but notwithstanding our vicinity and common
origin, the people perhaps of no two planets or
worlds can be more completely different, and
from a mistaken policy in the governments of
both for many ages, this difference between
them has been always increasing, and ancient

F 3 an-

( .70 )

antipathies have been exasperated and confirmed.
You will not, therefore, be surprized, that when
Capetia saw this domestic quarrel she should
seize the opportunity of turning it to her own
advantage. — In the cause of it she could take
no other interest than mischief, as the colonies
of Armata were contending for their hberties ;
whereas the Capetians had been for ages the de-
voted subjects of a monarchy nearly despotic,
and seemed to glory in their degradation. — The
apologists of Capetia have said that her king was
advised to assist the revolted subjects of Armata
at a distance, to turn the thoughts of his people
from disturbing their own government at home :
but be that as it may, a large army was sent by
him beyond the seas, was encamped with the
insurgents, and fought side by side with them
in Hesperia — became enthusiasts in their cause,
and was schooled for the first time in the princi-
ples of a free government, to which the Capetian
people had before been strangers. — To maintain
this auxiliary army, and to support the war
which was of course declared against her for

this

. . ( 71 )

this perfidious alliance, the treasures which had
been set aside for the extinguishment of her
pubHc debt were devoted to the prosecution of
this expensive contest; and on its successful
termination, the Capetian soldiers, after having
been sharers in the triumphs of freedom, were
recalled by their self-devoted country into her
own bosom — she found a nest of serpents — Her
finances were exhausted by her profligate ex-
ertions, her people were discontented, and the
ordinary machinery of her government being
unequal to the supply of the deficiencies in her
revenue, she was driven in a most inauspicious
moment to resort to an ancient constitution,
which had been long trampled upon and set
aside, but she had neither the skill to wield a
weapon, the use of which had been long for-
gotten, nor the honesty to stand fairly by the
popular assembly, whose assistance she had in-
voked.— It is not for me to become the historian
of Capetia, above all to an inhabitant of another
world, who can take no interest in her affairs ;
It is enough to say, that her government fell to

F 4 the

( 72 )

the ground, and was dissolved in blood — that
her monarch was cut off — her ancient magis-
tracies annihilated, and the persons of her magis-
trates destroyed or exiled ; whilst the great mass
of her people, who in no country are ever indig-
nant but when they have suffered indignities,
deprived of the support of their departed govern-
ment, defective as it was, and too unskilful and
distracted to proceed with wisdom or justice
in the organization of a new one, became at
once the perpetrators and the victims of crimes
too horrible for the ear.

" It is but justice, however, to this unhappy
people to remark, that their history had been
widely different from ours.^ — In the remoter ages,
when nations were the property of kings, and the
people were like the cattle upon the soil, inferior
sovereignties had from time to time fallen in by
inheritance, or had been annexed by conquest,
until the sceptre extended over an immense and
various population, with customs as numerous
^nd as different as their origins; without any

- common

( 73 )

common bond of union, and with minds en-
thralled by priestcraft, or subdued by despotism;
to suffer without a murmur, and even to glory
in the fetters which bound them. — On this base
condition, no light had been let in, as in Armata,
by an early commerce encircling a world ; by
the influences of a purer religion, bursting from
the chains of superstition, nor by the combi-
nation, as with us, of all classes of the people,
with the §ame interest to resist injustice when it
pressed equally upon the whole : — but by an uni-
versal law of nature, all violent inequalities
have their periods. — The air under its rough
dominion is brought to its equipoise by tempests,
and civil life by revolutions. — As Capetia grew
in power and greatness, these inequalities be-
came more odious; the simplicity of her ancient
government, which I before described to you,
as the general system of the robuster nations,
had lost its character of freedom, and had given
way to a dominion in which the people had no
share, whilst the nobles and great landholders,
instead of standing in their places, as in Armata,

became

( 74 )

became the obsequious satellites of the throne,
whilst the clergy, who depended upon both, in-
culcated submission. — Yet still, whilst the mul-
titude felt no extreme changes in their condition,
such a government could suffer no change ; but
when, from the causes I have brought before
you, the defects of this system began to be
grievously and universally felt, then was the
time for the few to have been wise, and not to
have waited for an infuriated multitude to break
in upon them. — The impending ruin was so long
visible before it came to its fatal crisis, that
many wrongs and sufferings may be said to have
been almost chargeable upon the victims. Such
scenes of horror, though cast in my infancy into
this new scene of existence, thanks to the Al-
mighty! can never reach me here, — We have
our faults and our follies, and we seem now and
then so enflamed against one another, as if some
mighty contest were approaching, but such
sudden heats have no more power to subvert
our constitution, than a common pimple upon
the skin to destroy the body. — Our rights, our

pro-

( 75 )

properties, and our securities, are so bound up
and interwoven, that from the prince upon the
throne to the beggar in the streets with his
tattered hat held out to you, we are as it were
but ONE BEING, and nothing but universal death
can dissolve us.

" In reverting to the undone Capetia, I wish
I could throw a veil over this afflicting period. —
In following my rapid abridgment you must be
aware that, such a tremendous accumulation
of horrors could not be condensed into a day. —
They began in the delirium of popular fury,
which could no more be calmed or resisted by
the higher orders amongst themselves, nor by
foreign assistance, than the desolations of an
earthquake can by any human means be avert-
ed; but when the victims of the distracted
insurrections had been dispersed, and when
arranged under more civilized and reflecting
leaders, they began to contemplate the preserva-
tion of their monarchy ; then was the moment
for Armata to have stood forward — then perhaps

sh«

■( 76 )

she might have put aside the calamities which

followed, the consequences of which are not yet

yet wound up, nor within the reach of the

wisest to foreknow,
f.

" The Capetian people, except in the frantic
moments of this sanguinary crisis, were noto-
riously devoted to a monarchical government;
and even in the whirlwind of revolution could
never have been driven from it, if proper means
had been taken to prevent it. — Their earliest
leaders professed openly and with an undisturb-
ed support from a national council, to preserve
the kingly government in the person of their
King, under a balanced constitution, and when
the storm was gathering at a distance to over-
power it, the supplication which in his name
tliey addressed to the Sovereign of Armata will
be considered hereafter as the most afflicting
and affecting document which history can ever
have to record. — That unhappy prince only
asked the commanding influence of this great
country with alarmed and confederating govern-
ments.

»

( 77 )

ments. — He complained of the hostile armies-
which were surrounding his territories, and
painted with but too prophetic a pencil the cala-;
mities impending over the nations that were
assembling them; yet asked nothing for himself
or for his people, than as they themselves should
preserve peace, and respect the independence of
all other nations, I will translate for you here-.
after into the English language the whole of
this pathetic supplication, with the answer to it,,
which I shall at present only abridge. — You.
ought to carry them into your own world, if,
you shall ever return to it, as the greatest curio-,
sity that can be furnished by our's, or perhaps,
amongst all those that are now twinkling over
our heads, even if they were to raise one by way:
of subscription through infinite space. — Perhaps
the most curious part of the latter composition
is, that the ink was not frozen in writing it. — ,
It was a grand effort for an able statesman
capable of saying every thing, to succeed so
perfectly in saying nothing, and with the
. . , . ^ . strongest

( 78 )

strongest and most animated feelings of his
own, to become the torpedo of the Armatian
cabinet.

" That you may fully understand this answer,
I ought to premise that it was not even alleged
in it, that the suppliant monarch had forfeited
his claim to the compassion or favour of Armata,
as he was covered all over with assurances of
the warmest friendship ; yet his Majesty's con-
currence in the preservation or re-establishment
of peace with the powers in question, was pro-
mised only through means compatible with his
dignity, and with the principles which governed
his conduct ; and that the same reasons which
had induced him to take no part in the internal
affairs of Capetia, ought equally to induce
him to respect the rights and independence of
other sovereigns, especially those who were in
friendship with himself. The mediation was
thus declined with another concluding reason :
— because the war being now begun, the inter-
vention

i 79 )

vention of the King's good offices could he of if
use, unless they were desired by all parties in-
terested,

" Now, bringing down this proceeding from
the high forms of diplomacy, what was it?

" The surrounding sovereigns, and even those
remotely distant, were preparing to invade Ca-
petia, then grievously and dangerously con-
vulsed; but making an effort through her still-
existing sovereign to tranquillize herself by

■Al

entering into solemn engagements, for the tran-
quillity of other nations, and Armata was fixed
upon as the most powerful amongst them all,
to take the lead in this sublime object of morals
and policy when a storm was gathering which
threatened almost to deluge our world with
blood.

" It may be admitted that there might never-
theless have been reasons for Armata, though
thus invoked, to pause upon the proposition

made

( 80 )

made to her. — She was not bound to be con-
tented with general professions, but might have
claimed the character of arbitrator upon her own
terms, and have demanded prehminary securities
for the performance of her award; and if she
found that notwithstanding the dispositions of
the sovereign who addressed her, his subjects
were incapable of performing any engagements
he might stipulate, that reason, after due inves-
tigation, might have been acted upon, and even
publicly assigned for declining the mediation ;
or supposing them to have been capable q|* acting
as a nation, yet, if there were doubts of their
performing their parts with sincerity, Armata,
as the sovereign umpire, might have proposed
to add her mighty strength to that of confede-
rating monarchs upon any breach of the con-
ditions she. might propose. But instead of this,
or any part of it, or the profession of any one
principle which ever entered a negociation for
peace, this wretched prince, whose life then
hung by a thread, but which might have been
strengthened into a cable if the mediation had

been

'( 81 )

been accepted, wks Jirsi told (as you have heard)
that the King of Armata could only concur in
maintaining the peace of nations bi/ such means
as were compatible with his dignity, Avithout
even a hint of how his dignity could be lowered
by becoming blessed as a peace-maker ; 'and,
secondly, that he could only act according to the
principles xvhich governed his conduct; without
saying a syllable of what those principles were,
or HOW, without his changing them, the supplicant
might bring himself within them, • - < : <- *

^< ■.■■J .. (| Hi; /jl IrXild

" The King of Armata Avas'th'en further ad-
vised to say, that not having interfered with the
internal affairs of Capetia, the same sentiments
ought to induce him to respect the rights and
independence of other' princes ; as if it ever had
been heard of as an invasion of the rights of
man or nation, to propose (if they themselves
should see no objection) to become an arbitrator
to avert desolation and bloodshed.

" The conclusion was in the happiest har-
r G mony

( 82 ) ^

tiiony with the introductory parts ; his Majesty
beiog advised to finish by declaring, ' tfuxt the

f W4.R BEING THEN BEGUN, kis gOOd offices COUld

^h^qfno use unless they should be desired by all
^ parties interested' Now according to this doc-*
trine, it must be take^ to be always too late tQ
mediate after a quarrel has begun, which I had
always before considered to be the *very caus^, in^
all concerns, both public and private, for pro-
posing a mediation ; and if> according to this?
answer, mediation can be of no use unless de-
sired by all parties, then not only no mediation
could ever be useful, but few if any could pos-
sibly exist, because the desire of settling differ-
ences between contending parties, can rarely be.
to a moment simultaneous ; and all that was
asked of Armata was only that she should be the
first proposer of this pacific umpirage, and that,
she should strengthen her proposal by the justly
commanding influ^ce of her wise and Hberal
counsels. \ ;.

"If indeed she had accepted this god-like

office,

{ 'S3 )

6ffice, and its usefulness had been disappointed
by the obstinacy of other nations, the concluding
sentence would then have been correct,^ but
\i^ithout even sounding the inclination of other
princes on the subject, it is without parallel in
the annals of nations, in the records of the courts
of justice, or in the transactions of individual
men.— -The truth is, that it was the answer of a
government which had determined to do nothings
aild to give no reasons. — There was, at that
TniE, rn my opinion, a conspiracy of kings
against this unhappy nation, because, though
xvithout knowing how to accomplish it, she had
determined to become free without asking their
consent. — When you hear this from my lips it
deserves some credit^ becaiisei I am no friend to
republics, and would shed the last drop of my
blood for a monarchy like our own. — But, be it
remembered, as I have before related, that it
was re-established by our own people when its
ttue principles had beep overborne.

^r'ry*

ViC

Wishing however to do all justice to others
G 2 whilst

( 84 >

whilst I maintain firmly my own opinions, I
admit that this was the answer of a most able
statesman, of cool reflecting habits, not less re-
markable for enlightened opinions than for elo-
quence in their support, and I verily believe
incapable of betraying the honour or interests of
his country. — Were he now to hear what I am
saying to you, he would, I am sure, give me
credit for equal integrity, but from having long
considered the subject in an opposite point of
view, would wonder as much at my delusion
as I have always wondered at his. — I must add,
however, that he was not the minister, though
he held the official pen, and I have never been
able to persuade myself that it could have been
^ .feather from his own wing.

" At this critical period, when mediation was
thus rejected — critical even to a moment of
time — if Armata had raised her voice amongst
the nation3, and had invited them to concur in
the support of the paity (no matter what else
belonged to it) which then supported the throne,
- or

( 85 )

or at all events to take no concern in the in-
ternal government of that country whilst their
own territories were not invaded, she might
have given to that distracted people a free con-
stitution, have put down for ever the prejudices
which had so long been the sources of perpetual
warfare, and raised perhaps an immortal monu-
ment of universal freedom. ■"■/!: I

" In the history however of this momentous
crisis, and to support this opinion, the utmost
precision as to time is necessary, because many
still deny that there ever existed any confede-
racy of hostile nations antecedent to hostili-
ties against themselves ; but to dispose of this
assertion it may be accepted as truth, and the
argument will then stand thus: — With the
powers then confederated, or confederating,
or that only afterwards in their own defence
did confederate^ the mediation of Armata, if
not imperative and conclusive, would have
had a most healing and conciliating effect. —
At that period no invasion of other nations

« 3 had

( 86 )

had taken place, since even the paper war
of her frantic democracy had ccc^sed, and its
offensive character had been disavowed. — The
long succession of unprincipled, ferocious fac-
tions, which followed the rejected mediation,
has always been resorted to as proof that
there wa3 no safety but in the hostile system
which was adopted ; but they who hold out
those insecurities at a later period than the one
I have pointed out, should at least be prepared
to shew the danger which the earlier mediation
might have produced. — It would be no argu-
ment in favour of a physician who was skilfully
coercing a maniac, and reducing his dangerous
strength, if it could be shewn, that by a dif-
ferent treatment in the beginning, his fever
might probably have been subdued, and his
reason completel}^ restored. — It would surely
at least lie upon him to shew that he had made
some trial of his art on thejirst symptoms of the
disease,

" My confidence in this opinion is the. piore
hm\ (; > unshaken

( 87 )

unshaken from the recollection that I held it at
the very time, in common with a man whom td
have known as I did would have repaid all
the toils and perils you have undergone. — I
look upon you, indeed, as a benighted traveller,
to have been cast upon our shores after this
great light was set. — Never was a being gifted
with an understanding so perfect, nor aided by
a perception which suffered nothing to escape
from its dominion. — He was never known to
omit any thing which in the slightest degree
could affect the matter to be considered, nor to
confound things at all distinguishable, however
apparently the same, and his conclusions were
always so luminous and convincing, that yoti
might as firmly depend upon them as when sub*
stances in nature lie before you in the palpable
forriis assigned to them from the foundation of
the world. — Such were his qualifications for th6
office of a statesman : and his profound know-
ledge, always under the guidance of the sublime
simplicity of his heart, softening without un-
nerving the giant strength of his intellect, gav6
G 4 a cha-

( 88 )

a character to his eloquence which I shall not
attempt to describe, knowing nothing by which
it may be compared.

"Had the counsels of this great man been
accepted, much more if lie himself had been to
carry them into execution with his eminent
companions, I must ever think that the peace of
our world might have been preserved. — I have
not forgotten that great numbers of ^ wise and
independent men ^^e/2 held and w4th equal firm-
ness persevere in the contrary opinion; but their
grand reason in support of it was never support-
ed by the fact. — Their whole argument resting
upon the danger to our monarchical constitution
from j^epublica?i infection; but if the course I
have insisted on had been adopted, the Capetian
monarchy might mo^t probably have been pre-
served, and there would have been then no re-
public to infect us r

My blood now rising in every vein, I could

not help exclaiming, " Oh, that England had

,, . .. been

( 89 )

been Arm at a — how differently would She have
acted! — As nothing ought to have detached
you from the forms and principles of yoiir own
government, it might have been incumbent at
that period to watch over them with extraordi-
nary caution ; but self preservation, though it
vindicates our securing our dwellings by any
means from an approaching conflagration, can
never justify the refusal of personal assistance
to snatch the sufferers from the flames. — As to
repubiicafi infection^ even if Capet ia had then
been a republic, you, surely, must be infected
yourself with some strange delusion to apply it
to such a subjects — ^The nations preparing to in-
vade her whose governments had never been
reformed, might, according to your new phra-
seology, have dreaded such a contagion ; but
after what you yourself have within a moment
related of Ar mat a, what had she to fear from it?
— nothing below is perfect — her almost divine
institutions might have been thought capable
of still higher improvements, but there was no
food within her land for RtwoLVTiON. — ^Thus
\hvi when

( 90 )

when our world is visited by one of its most
malignant and contagious maladies it is alarni-^
ing only to those who have Jiever had it, — It is
a disease only attracted by some morbid matter
in almost every human body; but which, when
once dispersed by the fever it excites, can never
be excited again. — Wisdom therefore with us
has disappointed its tremendous ravages, by
raising this fever herself; chusing her own
mode and her own time for doing it ; safely and
mildly reforming the constitution which had
formerly perished by a revolution, in all the
springs of life. — I cannot dismiss this metaphor
(it is indeed too close to the subject to be called
one) without applying it to Capetia also. — She^
no doubt, caught the infection, as you are
pleased to call it, from her contact with Hespe-
ria, but she was in a condition only to receive
it with confluent inflammation. — Her state was
so foul that its foulness could not be extracted
without such a shock, as in the natural body
would have been death ; but if her history had
been like that of Armata, as you yourself have
hni it told

( 5,1 )

told it— if all th^ classes of her people had
been, like your's, harmoniously blended, and she
had been purified as you progressively became
purer, she could no more have expired in the
convulsions you arc describing than a patient
>vho with us has been vaccinated can be stretch-
ed out by it a loathsome carcass covered with
putrid blotches, spreading pestilence and terror
till the earth swallows him up. — Go on, then,
to explain the mystery of this conduct. — You
had been placed by Providence, as you set out
by telling me, as its instrument and agent in
your world, and it appears to me that you slept
upon your post when you ought to have been
most upon the alert in the fulfilment of your
duty." " I feel the force of all you say," an-
swered Morven, " but I hasten to pass by this
painful subject. — Individual opinions ought to
be held as nothing against public counsels,
though it is our best privilege to express them,
and I should not have insisted upon them at so
remote a period, but that they usefully con-
nect themselves with the events which will
^*l?vt4:> soon

( 92 )

i50on conclude my narrative, in disclosing to
you our present condition."

■J -

'^' " That might be a good reason," I said, " for
Jeserve, if you were publishing a history, but
none for baulking the curiosity you have set on
fire to find the clue to so extraordinary a state
of things." — " I can give it you then," replied
Morven, " very shortly;" and he then pro-
ceeded as the reader will find in the following
chapter.

ii

1;

no- -J

CHAP-

( 93 )

CHAPTER VIII.

In which Monen points out to the Author some additional Causes
of the Jiexolutionary War with Capetia.

** Materials for the annals of nations are diffi-
cult to be obtained ; they are often secret, and
are fugitive even when they can be traced.
Histories, therefore, when written at distant
periods, e^vcept when they are built upon contem-
porary information, judiciously selected by eminent
men of letters,* cannot but be erroneous. — This
very period, involving the interests of ahnost all
nations, most' strikingly illustrates this truth. —
It depended upon the combination of so many
circumstances, that, without being a predesti-
narian, I am almost puz;5le(l otherwise to ac-
count for them. ])

" The astonishing events which are soon to
close my narrative, could not, upon any human

■ <#

* The Author confidently anticipates such a valuable and
enlightened History of England, from^ij^J^jg^ipes Mackintosh.

N caU

( 94^ )

calculation, (at least in my opinion^) have hap-
pened as they did, without the commanding
talents of an extraordinary young man, who
yet might not have flourished at so early an
age, but from being the son of another ^ma.n
who had justly acquired a great reputation in
our country by superior eloquence, always ex-
erted in the cause of freedom ; nor could his
descendant, eloquent as he was, have risen to so
premature an eminence but by treading in his
father's steps, pleading the cause of public
reformation, which at that time was highly po-
pular, and of which he too took the lead in his
very earliest youth : neither could even this
illustrious course have produced the events
which followed, but on the contrary might
have averted them, if he had not turned short
round on a sudden, and not only renounced his
former opinions, but sounded the alarm when
others persevered in the sentiments they had
imbibed from his own lips. — But history is a
libel when it departs in any thing from the
truth.— It must be admitted that the influence
of the Capetian revolution had given an in-
'^i.' flamed

i 95 )

flamed and dangerous character to the proceed-
ings of many who had mixed themselves with
this cause, demanding the most prompt vigi-
lance of our government, and the firmest ex-
ecution of the laws ; but perhaps no man exist-
ing was therefore so well qualified as himself
to have changed those turbulent excesses,
and turned them, upon his own principles,
into a safer course ; a duty which, without
assorting himself urifitly, he had the happiest
opportunity of fulfilling, through an association
of his own equals in rank and eminence, who
were then discountenancing by their influence
and example every departure from the sound
opinions and declarations recently published by
himself in his own narne^ and widely circulated
amongst the i>eople:. yet the birth of this very
association, (as far at least as times coincide,^)
was made the signal of universal alarm, and
a proclamation by his authority almost in-
stantly followed, which being the obvious fore-
runner of war, put wholly out of the question
that politic and liumane consideration for the

suf-

( 96 )

suffering people of Capetia, which I shall die in
the opinion of having been at the period before
related the interest and the duty of the whole
civilized world.

"I take no delight in these observations.- —
Posthumous reputation is often held toohghtly.
—We consider that the dead can gain nothing
by our applauses, nor suffer from our censures :
but supposing a man whilst living to have stood
alone like a rock in the ocean, without children
or kindred to represent him, I should still
remember that this life was but a portion of an
immortal existence, and fame being the highest
inheritance, I should feel like a felon if I
robbed him of what I believed to be his own.— •
I knew, then, this great minister in his youth,
and foresaw his future destination. — His under-
standing was vigorous and comprehensive— -his
reasoning clear and energetic — his eloquence
powerful and commanding— and as he was sup-
ported throughout his eventful career by im-
mense numbers of disinterested and independent

men,

( 97 )

men, it would be unjust not to believe that he
was himself disinterested and independent.-—
His memory after death received this tribute
from many illustrious persons who had differed
from him in opinion, and it is not only held by
his friends and adherents in affectionate re-
membrance, but in reverence as the saviour of
his country. — Having from a sense of justice
recorded this last testimony of an exalted
reputation, I hold it to be a solemn duty to
question and deny it, being convinced that if
we reoerey or even abide by the system which
characterized his administration as having^br-
merl^ saved his country, we shall not save it

NOW.

ooiq Qi iOJale ^Ti ((| o^'\(t

i/fjBut 'to resume my history. — The circum-
stances which attended this ill-fated period
are not yet summed up. — When the war with
Hesperia was approaching, a warning voice, as
it were out of Heaven itself, from its wisdom
and eloquence, though drowned by the clamours
of ignorance and folly in the mitset, yet in
r. // H :. the

( 98 )

the end alarmed the people into a sense of
the jruin they were rushing on; bat, alas! this
very voice, which had breathed so happily the
gentle accents of peace, was now heard louder
than the trumpet of war, to collect our world to
battle y spreading throughout the land an uni-
versal panic, until the public councils com-
plained of sedition, but the Jorum of the com^
plaint only inflamed it. — Instead of leaving it
to the sovereign, in the ordinary course of law,
to bring the suspected to trial, the evidence was.
collected by the great public councils ; was eXf
alted into treason of the highest order, and
published by their command. — It was no doubt
within their jurisdiction, and was their highest
duty to protect the state ; to proclaim a con-
spiracy if they believed it existed, and to direct
prosecutions against the offenders; but it was;
repugnant to the very elements af the Armatian
constitution, to involve individuals in the accu-
sations, and to circulate amongst the people the
accusing testimonies stamped with their supreme,
authority, when inferior tribunals were after-
orlj u ' wards

( 99 )^

wards to judge them. — In any other nation the
consequences to the accused must have been
fatal: but there is a talisman in Armata which,
whilst it is preserved inviolate, will make her
immortal,— HER COURTS OF JUSTICE
SPOKE ALOUD TO HER PARLIAMENT:
—THUS FAR SHALT THOU GO, AND
NO FARTHER.

" In returning to, or rather beginning an
account of this extraordinary composition, whose
author was only in metaphor brought before
you, your surprize at its warlike stimulus will
be increased, because I could have subscribed
almost to the whole of it except in its remotest

APPLICATION.

« He set out by truly and perhaps seasonably
observing, * that men were not the insects of a
summer, but beings of a superior order, the heirs
of immortality — that they should therefore look
upwards with pious reverence to their fathers,
apd downwards with anxious care to their pos-
H 2 terity —

( 100 )

terity — that when they had accomplished a
structure sufficient to maintain social order,
much more to govern a great and enlightened
people, it was more convenient to repair it when
time had defaced it, and to improve it if origi-
nally defective, than to tumble it down in a
moment to its foundations — that society was
not a gang of miscreants, plundering and mur-
dering one another, reviling all the institutions
ordained to lead us into the paths of happiness
and virtue, but a pyramid of human beings,
rising in majestic order and harmonious in all
its parts — that it was fit religion should conse-
crate such a structure— -that her ministers should
therefore be held in high respect, and should
not be supported on the alms of those whom it
was their duty to correct — that government also
should preserve an attitude of dignity and wis-
dom, composed of high magistrates, invested
with corresponding authorities and supported
by revenues to secure obedience and indepieti-
dence — that a people, above all, for whose hap-
piness this mighty system was fashioned and
'— vliot sup-

( 101 )

supported, should in their morals and manners
be assimilated ; that they should not be buried
like dogs, as if they were to sleep for ever, but
be remembered by monumental inscriptions,
recording the achievements of those who had
lived before them, and reminding the living that
their histories would be read by those who were
to follow them — that societies, however wisely
constructed, were subject nevertheless to be
shaken by the follies and wickedness of man-
kind, and that in those awful conjunctures the
utmost fortitude became necessary to those who
were to ride in such storms, yet tempered with
a spirit of gentleness and mercy, shrinking back
when called upon to strike, though justice and
even necessity might demand the blow/ — He
summed up all by a most eloquent reprobation
of an unprincipled regicide, declaring in lan-
guage which I hope will always be remembered
that the immolation of the unhappy prince
whom fate had set upon this volcanic pinnacle,
and who, without any crimes of his own, must,
in the harshest construction, have been the vic-
H 3 tim

( 102 )

tim of the crimes of others, was base sind in-
human ; and in its wanton aggravation by in-
dignity and insult, embittered by the foul mur-
der of his queen and their helpless infants, cast
a dismal shade over the moral world, suffering,
as it were, an eclipse by the interposition of
some infernal spirit between the Divine Creator
and the beings who must perish but in his
light* — Believe me, I feel for the hallowed shade
of departed genius, and have endeavoured not
to degrade, though it is beyond my power to do
justice to such a distinguished composition ; but
you have no doubt been looking in vain all this
while, and through all this eloquence, for any
possible incitement to war, though intended by
himself and applied by others to justify and
provoke it. — If the work had been undertaken
to illustrate the principles and duties of civil
society in the pure abstract, it would have been
as just as it was beautiful ; but as a picture of
Capetia, before her revolution, it was unfounded
almost throughout, and in all ihdiifollowedit was
only an exquisite and in many parts a sublime

ex-

( 103 )

exposure of the unhappy state to which she had
been reduced by the desertion of Armata from
her post : and how the rushing into battle with
this delirious people was either to reform them or
to secure ourselves, it is past my comprehension
even to imagine." — " And of mine also," I has-
tily replied : — " had you nobody then to say so
in your great public councils ?"

' " We had many," said Morven : — " occasions
consummate the human character. — A political
star of the first magnitude was then in his zenith,
amidst a constellation of the brightest statesmen^
who solemnly and repeatedly protested against
the leap we were about to take, whilst we yet
stood upon the brink. — They condemned the
principle of this war, and foretold the conse-
quences, but the delusion was too dense to be
dispelled ; and, that you may judge of its den-
sity, I will give you a specimen of the hapr
piest and most approved manner in which this
phalanx of great talents was opposed by those
who supported their adversaries. To deny their

H 4 talents

( 104 )

talents was impossible ; and how do you think
they went to work to run them down ? — In no
other way than by reiterating day after day in
all accessible channels of public information,
that talents were not only useless, but at all
times perfectly ridiculous, and mischievously
inconsistent with the wholesome government of
a great nation.—- You may think, perhaps, I am
imposing upon you, or that I am in jest, as you
have frequently before imagined; but I most
seriously assure you, that this was the only order
of the day amongst their opponents for years
together." I laughed heartily, and said " it re-
minded me of the defence of a lunatic in Eng-
land, before the commissioners who had impri-
soned him : — He said that those who were at
large were an insane majority, and shut up all
the rest only because they had the sense to differ
from them, — Now from the account you give
me of Armata, at this period, your judges, I
suppose, would have been imprisoned and the
madman discharged." — " Perhaps they might,**
said Morven $ " and indeed, since this new dis-

covery>

( 105 )

Covery, it is not at all an uncommon imposture
to pretend even to be a natural fool, in hopes of
superior preferment*

" But it is high time to return to the subject,
though I seek no apology for the digression.
A NOVEL derives its fame from the genius of its
author, and its merit principally consists in a
fanciful departure from truth; but the best writ^
ten History can only be* interesting when it is
believed to be true."

CHAP-

( 106 )

CHAPTER IX.

In which Morten gives the Author an Account of the War with
Capetia.

" A WAR now immediately followed between
Armata and this unhappy country, which soon
involving many other powerful nations against
her, the entire mass of her population, from the
very instinct of self-preservation, became one
general camp ; and her wild democracy being
unequal to the rule of a people so circumstanced,
the commander of her armies became her King.
The stupendous exertions she then made are
unparalleled, and nothing could have prevented
her from overpowering all the states con-
federated against her, but the wealth and
energies of our extraordinary people. — We had
lost the season at the outset, of turning Capetia
into the paths of peace, or (if that were found to
be hopeless) of leaving her to be herself con-
sumed

{ 107 )

sumed in the flames her madness had^ kindled;

and even after they had spread beyond her own

territories, and were laying waste our world,

Armata, in various stages, might, under other

counsels, have extinguished them. — Had the

new dynasty of Capetia, when it became firmly

established and supported by the undoubted voice

of her people y been sincerely acknowledged by

other nations before their resistance to it had

first overwhelmed them, I see no reason for

thinking that the general tranquillity might not

have been more securely settled than by the

destructive scenes that followed, which besides

the waste of human life and the enormous ad-

*
ditions to our public burthens, gave a new and

alarming character to other nations, from the
necessity of large military establishments, coun-
tenancing in our own country, from the danger
of foreign combinations, a force beyond our
finances, and at variance with the spirit of our
free constitution. ::o:l5;f

" But Ihe practicability of safe pacification

had

( 108 )

had its period. — When the extraordinary person
at the head of the Capetian monarchy, who,
under a different treatment, might have been to
the full as pacific as other princes, began to see,
that his throne except through war was insecure,
it is no wonder that after having trampled upon
and overthrown so many powerful kingdoms,
his ambition should be lifted up beyond per-
haps the impulses of his original character, even
to the hope of universal empire. — To have made
peace with him then^ though brought down at
last to a seemingly safe level by signal reverses,
when there wa^ a fair prospect of his final sub-
jugation, became a doubtful question in the
councils of Armata, dividing those in opinion
who were divided in nothing else, combiningj^r
the occasion the authors of the war and those
who had always condemned and continued to
condemn them.— On the one hand, ip our ex-
hausted condition, a failure of the force of
nations, or even a protracted contest, would have
been fatal, as they looked only to Armata for
resources ; but on the other hand, an humbled

and

( 109 )

and mortified ambition might have been un-
safely left at the head of a numerous and power-
ful people, even if his original dispositions had
been like those of other men. — Animals, how-
ever large and powerful, if not by nature feroci-
ous, may be handled as if they were our children,
and are daily conducted with safety through our
most populous cities, but when cruelly goaded
and roused up almost to madness, they destroy
every thing in their course, and there is then no
safety but in their deaths. — It was nevertheless
a most difficult matter for decision, and in a case
where such imminent dangers were on either
side impending, it would be most unfair in
weighing them, to measure them by the events
I am to relate; but it is impossible to be the
historian of Armata in such a crisis of her affairs
without expressing the utmost admiration of the
character of her people. uj^io

■ -»

*' When from her mistaken counsels, she was

so deeply involved at last, as to have no safe

retreat from the course she had taken, she theij

!iiait^i> rose

( no )

rose even superior to herself, great and power-
ful as she ever had been — the combined nations
were in themselves nothing — they had indeed
brave and numerous armies, but without the
sinews of war they were no better than the
leaden men which are sold as toys for our children;
— the money of Armata could alone breathe life
into them or set them in motion, and it was for
her alone to march them from the remotest
regions, to end the contest in the Capetian capi-
tal; but though the husbandmen, the manu-
facturers, the shop keepers y'''' and miners of Ar-
mata, or in other words her People, had bent
their bodies, and bathed their foreheads with the
sweat of labour to furnish the supplies for this
auxiliaiy force ; they had a still nobler part to
perform for the honour of their country — they
were before-hand with the legions they had
created, and finished at a single blow the mur-

aaw 6fla <ab. ion av

* The autboF has only printed the word shopkeepers in
italics, because Morven, from some reason or other, raised hi»
voice when he pronounced it^ d^iUOO ^i:

ar>ui derous

( in )

derous contest which had been desolating our
world.

'* There is near Us another island, in union
with Armata, and forming with her one em-
pire, which came in for her full proportion of
this glory; the hardy sons of Patricia were in
all our ranks, and her soil produced the immor-
tal hero who conducted the battle. fdVc^

■;■((
** No victory in human annals ever produced
results so sudden and extraordinary. — The ad-
versary, whose ambition and whose boast had
been our destruction — who had built a thousand
vessels to convey his armies to our shores — and
who was then erecting a column, even within
our view, to be crowned with his colossal statue
pointing at us with his finger for his own, now
fled when no one was pursuing, and gave him-
self up as a prisoner to the commander of a sin-
gle ship. \
i . litUni
l^jSuch a fate of so Wonderful a being affords a

( 112 ;

eonvincing proof that our apparent destinies
may generally be referred to ourselves. — In the
earliest and most flourishing periods of his
astonishing career, he was (m my opinion) more
sinned against than sinning, and even when he
was pushing on his legions to the most distant
territories, I was for a while in spirit on his side,
because I thought there was a conspiracy of
governments against him, inconsistent with the
principles of our own. — Some have thought he
was so weak as not to see that there was no
security for his own sovereignty whilst the
sovereigns combined against him had an un-
limited power over the persons and resources of
their subjects ; but my belief is that he foresaw
this danger though he upheld their governments,
because he feared a worse in their subversion. —
He ha'd seated himself upon an imperial throne
with a mock and servile representation, and
trembled at the influence of free constitutions.-^-^:
This was the rock on which he split.-r— If by
politic and moral conventions when the sword
was in his hand to enforce them, instead of by
V <•■) asys-

( 113 )

a system of oppression and subversion, he had
balanced in their own states the princes who
opposed him, giving an interest to their people
to support him, he might have surrounded him-
self with grateful and independent nations, to
have guarded and almost to have adored him ;
but he left them insulted, pillaged, degraded,
and in the hands of their uncontrouled and
justly incensed kings, who of course made use
of them to destroy him. — They were no longer
mercenary, reluctant armies, but nations em-
bodied against their oppressors.

** From the moment I marked this base and
senseless policy I foresaw his ruin, because he
was now opposing the progression of a world
which, in spite of all obstacles, will advance,
because God has ordained it.

*^ It is a grand and useful example, when the
ends of men who abuse mighty trusts are thus
signallydisastrous.— WeseedistinctlytheDivine
Providence superintending and judging us, and

I when

( 114 )

when I visited Capetia whilst Armata was
passing through her provinces in triumph, the
evidence of it was decisive, — This mighty man,
who had shaken the earth, collected all its spoils,
and overwhelmed its dominions, was not to be
seen or heard of even in his own capital, amidst
the trophies of his universal conquests/*

* I was moved by this just description, and
said to Morven, " that it reminded me of a
passage in our Sacred Scriptures most divinely
eloquent, and which, since the days of the
Psalmist, had never been so strikingly illus-
trated : —

* I myself hcwe seen the ungodly in great power y

* and Jhurishing like a green bay -tree, — I passed
^ by, and lo, he zvas gone. — / sought him, but his

* place was no where to be found.*

" So prosperous a conclusion of a war so pro-
tracted and ruinous, was a fair and a national
occasion of triumph to its authors and supporters ;

but

( 115 )

but giving them all just credit for honest in-
tentions, and for their vigorous exertions, it is
the office of impartial history to condemn them. —
They themselves created the mighty antagonist. —
Their mistaken counsels rendered his subj ugation
indispensable, and his dominion so powerful that
it could not be overthrown without almost the
ruin of their country. — Allowing them, even^for
argument's sake^ all the pre-eminence over their
opponents they contend for, what would there
be in the comparison to boast of? because sup-
posing the storm to have been inevitable, and
in the end to have been skilfully weathered by
them, which of two pilots would you prefer ? —
him who, though he saw it gathering, sailed out
into the midst of it, and though laden with
money only escaped by throwing overboard his
cargo, or the other who, seeing the tempest
also, would have remained in the harbour till
it was overblown ?

" I have now brought you down from the

earliest ages to the present times, and the history

» 1 2 is

{ 116 )

is therefore finished ; but one reflection presents
itself too forcibly to be suppressed.

" To such a people as Armata victory ought
to be no triumph but in its consequences. — She
ought to consult the happiness of the nation that
has been subdued, as faithfully as her own —
she should hail the dawn of a representative
government, the only antidote to despotism or
revolution, and now that the evils of war have
been terminated by her warlike exertions, her
friendly influence should succeed them for the
preservation of peace ; but lest the fortunate
close of this bloody aera should be confounded
in future times with its unhappy commence-
ment, she ought to blazon upon her national
banners the auspicious principles of her own
revolution — the guarantee to every people of
the government of their own choice, whilst the
independence of other nations shall be recU
procally respected.

CHAP-

( 117 )

CHAPTER X.

In which Morven relates to the Author the condition of Armata
on the conclusion of the War, and asks his opinion and advice.

** We are now arrived at a most interesting
and painful conjuncture, to the particulars of
which I must ask your utmost attention. — ^You
have been cast upon the shores of the island,
which has received you in a moment of great
difficulty, and my father, as I have repeatedly
told you, having always held up to me the
English people as the great masters of political
wisdom, I cannot but look to you for counsel in
this arduous posture of our affairs.

" Not many months have passed Hnce the
glorious conclusion of the war whose history I
have related, and up to that period, notwith-
standing the immense sums expended in the
contest, no sinew of the state appeared to be
relaxed 5 -no want was felt any where, and ad-

1 3 ditional

( 118 )

ditional burthens,instead of appearing to oppress
the people, were overshadowed by vohintary
gifts ; agriculture flourished beyond the experi-
ence of former times ; and our manufactures,
though struck at by hostile conspiracies against
their very existence, monopolised the markets of
the world. — Peace came at last, so often invoked
as the source of every blessing ; but how shall
I find credit when I tell you that scarcely had
she finished her dove-like flight, and alighted
amongst us, amidst universal acclamations, when
our prosperity vanished like an enchantment ! —
The landholders looked in vain to their most
opulent tenants for their rents, and they in their
turn, even if their rents were remitted, could
barely maintain themselves on the soil ; labour-
ers and servants in husbandry were every
where discharged, and thronged our roads
seeking in vain throughout the land for employ-
ment, and with their children begging their
bread. — The manufacturers, though they suffer-
ed less, being partly upheld by foreign markets,
yet without home consumption, could not but
-w;; languish,

( 119 )

languish, and money had every where disap-
peared.— In such a state of a nation it is need-
less to say that its revenue must suffer j yet
the common remedy by an increased taxation
must needs be desperate when the people are
already sinking under their present burthens. —
It is a maxim in the medical world, that many
distempers may be said to be cured when their
causes are ascertained ; but the wisest men
among us are lost in amazement, and I cannot
therefore help pausing here, to ask you what
course would be pursued by England if she
were in similar distress? — what, I pray you,
can be the source of this sudden prostration
of our happy condition, and what is the re-
medy ? '

" You have given me,^^ I said, " no materials
for answering your questions, and I must first
put several to you ; but perplex me no more by
any appeals to England j my understanding is
quite bewildered by referring to a state of things
so dissiipilar.

I 4 **To

( 120 )

** To begin then the series of my inquiries,
let me ask how much you have added to your
public debt in the prosecution of your late glo-
rious war, and what is now the proportion of the
whole of it taken together to the tangible con-
vertible property of your nation — or, to simplify
my question by dividing it, what proportion
does your debt bear to the precious metals,
which with us., as with you, are accepted by
all nations as the universal representative of
wealth ?*' Morven could not help smiling at this
first proposition, and answered, (in jest as I at
Jirst supposed,) that it had increased ten fold,
and amounted to more than all the precious
metals that had been dug from the bowels of
the earth since the discovery of the countries
which contained them, and that if all nations
were to empty into the treasury of Armata every
coin in circulation amongst them, laying at her
feet in bullion all that had been fashioned from
gold or silver into vessels and utensils for luxury
or use, tearing from the brows the diadems of
all princes, and throwing down into the fur-
nace

( 121 )

nace the sacred images from the shrines of
all temples throughout their whole planet, it
would not perhaps be sufficient to extinguish
the debt.

" But let me abandon this general description,
which, though calculated to excite astonish-
ment, is absurdly misapplied to a subject which
requires the utmost possible precision. — I had
forgotten also that I was speaking to a stranger
from another world, who can know nothing of
our mines and metals, or of their supposed pro-
ductions and values ; and having prepared my-
self besides to satisfy your inquiries, I can give
you the whole account in your own English
money, and unless this twin of your earth has
been for some cause or other disinherited, and
all the wealth bestowed by nature upon her
brother, the figures of the accountant will even
outstrip my figures of speech,

N" To place the subject in the clearest point of
view — thfi island of Armata, though shaken by

various

( 122 )

various revolutions, and though engaged in wars
through many centuries, had nevertheless, on the
accession of her present sovereign, a debt rather
less than an hundred millions of your money,
bearing an interest of about five millions ; but
from the expenses of the war with Hesperia and
Capetia united, the country was delivered over
to the charge of the minister I have already de-
scribed to you, with a debt increased to the im-
mense amount of tzvo hundred and sixty millions^
with an annual burthen of thirteen millions,
speaking in your English money.

'* Now I cannot surely be charged with lean-
ing upon the memory of any man, however
illustrious, when I assert that so enormous a debt,
characterized too by so rapid an increase, ought
to have inspired the utmost providence in the
administration of our finances ; neither can I
hazard any censure which I shall at all regard,
when I further assert, that if the popular counqil,
having the uncontrouled dominion over the

public

( 123 )

public wealth, had been itself more under the
controul of the people who were to sustain the
burthens they laid upon them, the debt would
not probably, in so short a period, have reached
this magnitude, much less have enabled me to
tell you that the same minister left it swoln
from the two hundred and sLvty millions and
upwards, which I gave you, to the sum o^ five
hundred and forty millions^ increasing the an-
nual taxation before given you from thirteen to
above thirty millions; which in the further
prosecution of the war by his successors, and
by the public councils acting upon his system^
again swelled to the almost incredible amount
of nearly seven hundred millions y still speaking
in your English money. — Yet the most alarm-
ing part is still behind, in the increased ex-
penditure, which, unless corrected, seems to
mock all redemption. — The same minister found
it only about twenty-one and left it nearly sijcty
millions annually, and it has under his succes-
sors been still advancing.

The

( 124 )

^^ The collateral burthens, which all equally
press upon the people, rose in the same pro-
portion ; and notwithstanding the universal boast
of increasing prosperity, the same minister found
the poor supported by rates not much exceeding
the sum of two millions^ but left it more than
JivCy which afterwards increased under his suc-
cessors to nearly seven millions^ still speaking in
your English money.

" But other evils must be added. — To pro-
duce an annual revenue of so vast an extent
many taxes were resorted to of the most per-
nicious character, particularly affecting the ad-
ministration of justice; and having thus closed
the account of the taxes upon the living, I will
conclude the subject with their dominion after
death.

" The highest duty to government only twenty
years ago, either on wills or on inheritances,
amounted to only sixty pounds, but now (except
when the property vests in near relations or kin-
dred)

( 125 )

dred) on the former it may amount to above two
hundred tirnesthvii sum, and on the latter to nearly
three hundred, as the highest duty on the first
may be fifteen thousand, and on the last above
txventy thousand pounds, without taking into the
account a proportion of the property transmitted,
which in some cases amounts to a tenth.

" This is the most grieyous of all our
burthens. — The justest government may have
occasion to resort to a moderate duty on aliena-
tions and transmissions of all descriptions of
property, but it ought to advance with the most
cautious and even trembling steps.— tA mighty
nation in its public character should scorn to sit
like a vulture over departing breath.

" It may appear perhaps ungrateful to a
country that embraced my beloved parents and
myself in the hour of our peril and distress,
that I should have exposed her difficulties in
the manner I have done ; but I appeal for my
motives t^ the Great Searcher of hearts. — It is

of

( 126 )

of the utmost importance that the public con-
dition in all its details should be universally
known and understood, — Ignorance can do no
mischief if wisdom has materials to correct it,
and evil-disposed persons are always most suc-
cessfully resisted, when, though no facts are con-
cealed or misrepresented, erroneous conclusions
may be denied."

I expressed the utmost satisfaction at this
just and honest declaration after an exposure
sufficiently dismal ; saying, " that I was well
aware of the abundant wealth which might
belong to a nation beyond the value of its
universal representative, or even to a thousand
times its amount. — Go on, then," I added, " that
I may know your whole state, before I tell you
what I think of it ; and the next question which
I shall therefore put to you is, what part of the
substance of the people is taken by your govern-
ment in the shape of direct taxes, or, of the
indirect ones, arising from the increased prices
of commodities which are taxed ? and as it is

extremely

( 127 )

extremely difficult to arrive at the total amount
of property in a great country, tell me, in the
rough, putting it in English money that I may
understand you, how much does your govern-
ment at an average take from the subject out
of every pound he possesses ?" — " It is difficult,"
he said, " to answer that question, because
taxation is unequal, and cannot possibly be.
equalized ; but if resort could be had to an
equal rate comprehending the aggregate of the
various sources, I should say it amounted to
one half at the least."

'i - . j'

** I must further ask you, whether you have
any other burthens upon property besides those
which are directly levied by your government
for the support of tlie state?" — " We have," said
Morven, " the clergy and the poor.

" With regard to the former, though it is a
heavy burthen, yet we suffer more in the
manner of its collection, than in the amount. —
The ministers who bring us the consolations of

religion

( 128 )

religion ought to be regarded with reverence
and affection. — It is a most evil policy to make
the common orders of the people consider them
as their oppressors. — They ought never to be
personally seen in the demand of what is destined
for their support. — Deductions fj-om temporal
advantages for the maintenance of spiritual
comforts should be guarded as much as possible
from being constantly felt, and little difficulty
would attend an arrangement which would add
dignity to the clergy without abridging their
revenues, and improve their connection with
the multitude they are to instruct.

" As to the support of what is called the poor,
the amount of which I have already related, it
has spread pauperism through all the middle
classes of the community. — In the earlier periods
of our history the burthen of maintaining them
was scarcely felt, our ancient law confining it
to the relief of ' the lame, the blind, and the
' impotent, and such others amongst them as were
* unable to work.' — Every principle of humanity

demanded

( 129 )

demanded that support from those whom Provi-
dence had exempted from such severe infirmities;
but every principle of sound policy opposed its
further extension, and it was limited at first, in
every district, to one-fortieth, which, speaking in'
your coin, would be only sixpence in the pound;
but, by a strange departure from the principle of
the original law, it now often exceeds forty
times that amount, and in some places even
the annual value of the property on which
it professes to be a tax. — To be entitled to
relief, it is no longer necessary that the appli-
cant should bring himself within any of the
descriptions of the ancient law ; neither blind-
ness, nor lameness, nor impotence, nor even
inability to work, are necessary qualifications
for support ; large houses in every district being
ncm built for the reception of almost any body
who chooses to go into them, and from a pro-
stration of morals it is no longer felt as a humi-
liation or a reproach ; even they who, from their
own improvidence, have contracted marriage
though they knew themselves to be utterly
^ K incapable

♦ A

( 130 >

incapable of maintaining their children, have
a claim to cast them upon the public as soon as
they are born, and to live with them as inmates
in those receptacles intended for the promotion
of industry and the relief of want, but which,
from the very nature of things, under the best
management, become the abodes of vice and
misery ; where the aged, the diseased, the idle,
and the profligate, the two first classes being
eveiywhere out-numbered, are heaped upon
one another, giving birth by their debaucheries
to a new race of paupers, till they become
** a kind of putrid mass above ground, cor-
rupted themselves and corrupting all about
them." — To finish the picture of abuse: this
enormous and still growing burthen is almost
exclusively cast upon the proprietors and occu-
piers of land, who ought least to be called upon
to bear it, as neither their diseases nor their
vices contribute in any kind of proportion to
^he aggregate of the poor. — ^The simplicity of a
country life furnishes but a small contingent
vf jeither.— The vigious and tUe distempered

A are

( 131 )

are hourly vomited forth from the mines and
manufactories, where contaminating multitudes
and unwholesome lahour produce every disgust*
ing variety of decrepitude and crime, yet neither
the proprietors of those establishments, nor the
capitalists who roll along the streets of our
cities in splendid carriages, pay any thing like
their proportions to the support of the idle and
the unhealthy they have produced. — Almost the
whole is cast upon the cultivators of the soil,
who, except in the very houses I have de-
scribed, supported by their property and labour,
see nothing around them but innocence and
health.

" Your questions," said Morven, " are now
answered ; and I burn with impatience to hear
how England would deal with the evils I have
stated." — I felt, I confess, rather hurt at this
insulting reference to my beloved country, after
what I had formerly said ; but contented myself
for the present with informing him that other
questions yet remained.

K 2 " How,"

( 132 )

" How," I asked, " after the return of peace,
should there have been no markets for the far-
mer's produce? — Surely, in peace, as in war,
your people must be fed ?"

" The demands of government during war,"
he ans.wered, " were enormous, and supplied by
contracts at very high prices, to be sent beyond
seas for the support of fleets and armies, and
the inhabitants of countries which were the
seats of war, besides the sustenance of immense
numbers of prisoners at home. — On the cessation
of hostilities this vast consumption not only
suddenly stopped, but the tide turned against
us, and great quantities of foreign corn were
poured in from those very countries whose
battles wx had been fighting, not only with
our blood but our treasure ; so that remaining
comparatively unburthened, they could raise
every kind of grain at one-third of the expense
which falls upon the Armatian farmer. — With
this -^foreign grain of every description our
markets now became glutted, whilst our own

pro-

( 133: )

produce remained in our granaries unsold; be-
cause .the importers could sell at a large profit,
for a price which would scarcely pay the labour
and taxes upon an Armatian farm."

" But where was your' government all this •
while?"

" Our government," he answered, " was no
otherwise in fault than in not being perhaps'
sufficiently on its guard to prevent the evil at
the very first moment of the peace ; and when
at last it proceeded to pass a law to check im-
portations, it had great difficulties to encoun-
ter; the multitude, who, in all nations, are
honest and upright, but who, upoii the most
important occasions, are often quite incapable
of understanding their own interests, became
every where tumultuous, even to riot and rebel-
lion, reasoning (if it deserve the name) that
whatever had a tendency to raise the price of
bread, without any reference to the causes of
the hen prices of grain, was an unjust and

K 3 cruel

( 134 )

cruel disregard of the wants and sufferings of
the poor, but their ignorance was soon proved
by the event. — When the foreign corn was
seUing cheap in our markets, whilst that of their
own country remained in the barns undisposed
of, bread was undoubtedly cheaper, but they
had then no money to buy it with howexier cheapo
because their masters could no longer employ
them, and they were every where discharged. —
When grain fetched an encouraging price to
the growers, they were all employed, and wages
of course rose in proportion to the value of their
labour to their employers; but when, from the
sale of foreign com in all the markets, it sunk
below any profit from home cultivation, bread,
as I have just told you, became cheaper, but the
clamourers had no bread at all. — A cheap loaf
was but a sorry sight to those who had only to
look at it. — The kingdom therefore presented
every where a face of the utmost distress ; nor
is the law which even now regulates importations
by any means sufficiently protective, because
that which was intended to be the lowest price

in

( 135 )

in our markets became generally the highest, a
consequence foretold in our public councils when
the law was in progress, by one of the ablest
men in our country. — The law indeed would be
sufficiently protective, if, when the ports were
open under it, our markets were only refreshed
by the fair commerce of foreign countries until
they fell again below the importing standard;
but that is by jio means the case: the impor-
tations are not made by foreigners, but by capi-
talists amongst ourselves, who having money
enough to stand the losses of unsuccessful specu-
lations, can bring in their corn at the most
favourable times, and being allowed to ware-
house without duties, have their granaries al-
ways full, when the law enables them to sell ;
which suddenly throws down the markets, to
the ruin of our agricultural classes.

" But the mistaken notion, which crippled

the law in its formation, was very soon exposed.

When the ruined farmers had in many places

discharged their labourers, and throughout the

K 4 whole

( 136 )

whole country had reduced their estabhshments,
the unemployed with their children fell of
course upon the public; and the manufacturers
and traders, whose customers now filled our
poor-houses and our prisons, found out at last
that God has so fashioned the world, that
all his creatures must flourish or decay to-*
ffether, •

" Another evil of almost equal magnitude
overhangs us. — We have a creature called the
bletur, which is not only the perfection of ani-
mal food, but whose covering, given it by na-
ture, becomes when manufactured our own also,
and for many ages has been the pride and wealth
of our country. — Would you then believe, that
though other nations produce the same animals,
at such an inferior price, from their climates and
untaxed conditions, as to render all competition
ridiculous; yet this raw material is suifered to
be imported and worked up here, whilst the
breeders of Armata can scarcely pay their shep-
herds for the care of their flocks, and are every-
where

( ^37 )

where breaking up their farms, even in those parts
of the island proverbially famous for their pro-
pagation ?

I could not here help interrupting again, by
asking — " Where was your government all this
while ? — or rather perhaps I should ask, have yq\i
any government at all ?" — " Certainly," he an-
swered, " we have, and one that is justly the
envy of our world; but nothing is perfect. —
The matter was lately brought before the great
council, and was passed over without redress ;
but you must not be hasty in judging of the
national character from such a seemingly absurd
determination. — The great council is composed
of men far superior, from talents and informa-
tion, to those of any other country, but who
are now and then obliged to suffer their own
good sense to be overshadowed by the non^
sense of others ; they are not chosen equally
by the various classes of an intelligent people,
but are got together in such a manner that
local in^s^ests and local prejudices sometimes

prevail

( 138 )

prevail over the opinions of enlightened
statesmen. — If you had understood our lan-
guage, it would have amused you to have been
present at their debate. — The greater number
said that they would not depart from an ancient
policy of free importation, under which the
country had so long flourished, and I have no
doubt they believed they were pursuing its best
interests ; but they probably never looked into
an account — they knew nothing of the immense
and alarming increase of the importations com-
plained of, nor their former proportions at dif-
ferent periods to the home growth, nor the
effect of this increase upon the staple of the
country, nor did they consider whether our own
bleturs might not be brought by proper encou-
ragements to a higher, perhaps to a perfec-
tion equal with those of any other country, so
as in time to supply most of our manufactures
at as cheap a rate, preserving within ourselves
the immense sums annually drained from us by
purchasing abroad what we might produce at
home. When this improvident conclusion of

the

( 139 )

the select body was brought before the whole
council, they, without further examination,
confirmed it; and then, as innocently as the ble-
turs which were the subjects of their decision,
went out of the fold in which they had been
penned to scatter themselves over the capital,
where I will very soon carry you to see them."

" Have you now,'' said Morven, " any other
questions to propose ? — I am impatient to hear
your opinions."

^* Others yet remain.

" Is there any fixed interest of money amongst
you ? and, if there be, are there any means by
which avarice and chicanery can successfully
evade the law which creates the limitation ?" — ^
" There are," he replied, " and to such an extent
as to render it difficult, if not impossible, for men.
possessed of the clearest and most unburthened
property to borrow the smallest sums for the im-
provement of their estates."

"In

( ^^^ ); -

'* In what state are your manufactures r — Are
your people equally industrious as formerly, and
are they equal to other nations in the ingenious

arts?"

" As much beyond them," he answered, "as
the sun outshines the smallest star that only
twinkles when he has set. There are some arts,
perhaps, in which, as we do not prize them so
highly as others, we may be inferior; but in
all the great improvements of the higher,
which assist human labour, and which can only
be brought to perfection by the deepest know-
ledge of chemistry and mechanics, we have no
equals, nor can ever, I believe, be rivalled. . There
is a force and robustness, if I may so express
myself, in the natives of Armata, as if they were of
a different species from the ordinary race of men."

" I rejoice to hear it—one question then only
remains — ,

" Have you fisheries ?— Are your seas prolific,

and

( 141 )

and are the fish directed by a mysterious instinct,
as in our world, to visit periodically the coasts
of the ocean, as if brought thither by the Divine
command for the sustentation of man r"

" You seem," answered my friend, " to have
been describing this country in adverting to i/owr
own. The fish of this planet are prolific beyond
all other creatures, and are bound, as with you,
to an appointed course. The finger of God,
visible as it is throughout all his works, seems
here to be more distinct and manifest ; pointing
with a benevolent clearness to this inexhaustible
source of food. The supply has been always a
great national object, but improvement has not
reached its height, and never can reach it whilst
a most improvident and enormous duty upon
salt, amounting to thirty times and upwards
of the value of the commodity, is suffered to
remain as it is at present regulated by our laws."

CHAP-

( 142 )

CHAPTER XI.

In which the Author begins to deliver his opinion concerning the
state of Armata, and the remedies for the difficulties which
Morven had related,

" You shall now then," I said, " be possessed
of my opinions — I have little, indeed, to' comr
municate, having only in a manner to give you
back what is your own. Your answers to my
various inquiries have been so enlightened, that
I can hardly mistake the condition of your coun-
try, but its novelty throughout has perplexed
me. The remedies, though they may be diffi-
cult in the application, are in their principles
obvious and simple.

" Your government, according to your own
admission, had long ago absorbed a much larger
proportion of the public wealth than can pos-
sibly be consistent with the prosperity, I had
almost said with the existence of any state.

And

( 143 ) '

And no ordinary cause of war — nothing, indeed,
short of self protection from an invading force
could have justified the launching out into such
a wasteful system of expenditure, as to have in-
creased ten-fold in liess than thirty years the
burthen of ten centuries." " We had no
choice," said Morven, interrupting me, " after
th^ short opportunity I pointed out to you had
passed; we sought to avoid war, but it was
fastened upon us.'*

** I am in no condition," I answered, " to dis-
pute with you upon facts; but your adversaries
were in the phrenzy of a sanguinary revolution,
jmd were more likely to destroy themselves than
to injure others. — ^You should therefore have
exerted your influence with other governments
to leave them unmolested ; and if, by a firm and
faithful combination, some safe direction could
not be given to so inflamed and dangerous a
people, all nations should have stood aloof
from them as from the mouth of a volcano,
attaching their own subjects by wise and indul-

gent

( 144 )

gent councils, increasingybr the time their mili-
tary establishments, and keeping within their
own territories in a state of impregnable defence.

" But supposing the views of other nations
to have been different, or that differing from
yours in opinion, your mediation had been re-
jected, you were completely independent of them
all, and as far therefore as your own country w^
concerned nothing ought to have removed you
from a system of defence. You are an island
with immense naval and military strength.
Within yourselves you were secure — and you
ought not, though you were involved in war,
to have carried it beyond your own limits. — A
contrary system could not have been contem-
plated by men of common discretion without
foreseeing a ruinous expense ; but nothing seems
to have occurred to your most sagacious finan-
ciers beyond the simple question of the compe-
tency of the new taxes to pay the interest of
additional loans ; their bearings upon the springs
of national industry and prosperous commerce

appear

( 145 )

appear to have been wholly overlooked, except
in the closets of a few speculative writers who
foresaw the ruin of the system, but miscalculated
its period, from not taking into account the
almost incredible energies of your extraordinary
people. This was a great evil ; because when
the £era of their prophecies had passed away, it
operated as a kind of license for unbounded pro-
fusion. (Economists were of course discoun-
tenanced, and jobbers of every description en-
couraged in a triumphant cry against factious
predictions, until it seems to have become a
received or rather an unquestionable axiom
amongst you, that no debt which figures could
extend to denominate would ever affect the
invulnerable and immortal Armata; since, con-
trary to the experience of our jockeys in Eng-
land, t he more weight she had carried the greater
had been her speed. That this bubble did not
burst whilst hostilities continued may easily be
accounted for. — Whilst your government was
the universal paymaster, your forges resounded
night and day, your looms were incessantly

L plied

( 146 )

plied, and your warehouses for manufactures
and natural productions were almost hourly
emptied and replenished ; high prices and prompt
payments were considered as symbols of the
most permanent prosperity, and the just pride
of national glory confirmed the delusion : —
well may it he called delusion I because the traf-
fic which you imagined had enriched you was
carried on with your own capitals, and every
article purchased was paid for with your own
money. Individual sellers were, no doubt, often
more than compensated for their proportions of
what all of you were to discharge, but the com-
munity of course became poor in the proportion
of the amount expended, since the amount ex-
pended was their own. When peace therefore
came, which had been so long and so anxiously
looked for, markets of every description and the
prices of all commodities became comparatively
nothing, whilst the people were bent to the
earth by the interest of the money borrowed to
pay for the goods which had been sold. Your
great purchaser was, no doubt, most liberal and

punctual

( 147 )

punctual in his payments, but they could only
be made by his putting his hand into your own
pockets. It is folly to say, that the public debt
of a nation is nothing, being only owing from
the community at large to a pai^t of it, and so
returning in a circle ; likening it to money due
from members of the same family to one another,
which, it was said, would leave the family just
the same as if no such loans amongst themselves
had existed. There might be some colour for
this comparison if the wliole population were
public creditors in equal proportions ; btlt what .
would become of the argument, if the lenders
Were not more than a twelfth part of the people,
and if those who, when the taxes were brought
back by government into circulation, received
any part of them for services or from favour
were but another twelfth part of them ? — could
it, in such a case, be maintained as a grave
argument that the five-sixths of the public,
paying the same as individuals, but receiving
nothing in return for their equal contributions,
were yet* on a footing of equality with others
L 2 . . who

\

( 148 )

who were more than indemnified, and even with
those who had been enriched? or could it be
hazarded as doctrine by any political oeconomist,
that a nation so circumstanced could be equally
powerful or prosperous, or its inhabitants equally
happy as if the public wealth flowed in a natu-
ral current through all the various classes of
the civilized world ? Such sophistry might well
pass current in England, where nobody has an
interest in questioning it, because our debt is
too insignificant to raise up antagonists to
oppose it ; but if we had seventy millions to pay
annually, a sum more than half the rental of
our whole kingdom, and if only three or four
millions of our people, out of our whole great
population, received any part of it back again,
but remained in a comparative state of poverty
and exclusion, the air would ring with ex-
clamations against the propagation of an error
so palpably dangerous and destructive, .

" It cannot, indeed, be better exposed, since it
should only be met by ridicule, than by telling

you

( 149 )

you of a loss which I personally suffered before
I left England, and for which I was not a little
laughed at amongst my acquaintance —

** I happened to go, after a theatrical repre-
sentation in London, to a general rendezvous
for refreshment in the neighbourhood of the
play-house : whilst I was at supper, there
came into my box a person in a state of great
agitation and distress. — His appearance be-
spoke the utmost poverty, and I was there-
fore not a little surprized to see him pull out
of his pocket a time-piece, of great beauty, set
round with precious stones, which he offered to
sell me just at any price I would set upon
it, adding, that nothing but finding an imme-
diate purchaser could save himself and an infant
family from destruction. I excused myself, by
saying, that I hoped he would not think I
meant to insult him by any suspicion of his
honesty, but that common prudence, as well as
justice to others, inspired a reasonable restraint
jn such a case upon the most charitable feelings.

L 3 I told

( 150 )

I told him, however, giving him at the same
lime my address, that what he asked for was at
his service, but not as the price of his watch,
which should be re-delivered on the re-payment
of the money. He seemed greatly affected by
my proposal, returned me a thousand thanks,
pressed my hands between his, and turning
aside, as if to conceal his tears, retired with the
bank notes I had given him. On returning
home I shewed the watch to my family, taking
not a little credit for having refused so advan-
tageous a bargain, saying it must be, at least, of
equal value with my own, which had cost me
five times the money. I now put my hand
into my pocket to make the comparison, but
found I had it not. To cut the matter short,
which you no doubt already anticipate, it was my
own watch I had paid for, which this ingeni-
ous stranger had deprived me of in the play-
house, and sold to me as his." Seeing my friend
almost convulsed with laughter, I could not
help saying to him, " Laughable as it may be,
it is scarcely an exaggeration of the account

you

( 151 )

you have been giving me of your country dur-
ing your late war, and if you understood Latia
I would say to you —

De te fabula narratur.

" The true way of estimating the disastrous
consequences of your present taxation, is to
figure to yourself (if you can bear the reflection)
the sensation it would at this moment produce,
if some new and unexpected source of annual
revenue were to start up to the amount of
twenty millions of your money. — Would it not in
your present condition be like a resurrection
from the dead? — Yet in this one reign you have
created a , perpetual burthen of nearly twice
that sum. Could volumes so strikingly detail
the effect of this worst of evils ?

" The cause of your distress is therefore the
clearest imaginable.^ — Your governme.it collects
in taxes so large a proportion of your property,
that the rest is not sufficient to support your
people; in such a case it is a mistake to com-

L 4 plain

( 152 )

plain of the want of a circulating medium as an
accidental and temporary cause of your difficul-
ties, capable of being removed by politic con-
trivances. We have a vulgar saying in Eng-
land, that you can have no more of a cat than
his skin; and if out of twenty shillings, not less
than ten are consumed by government and by col-
lateral burthens, ten only can remain in real and
substantial circulation ; the scarcity of money
may be lamented, and ingenious devices may
be held out as remedies, but without a radical
system of improvement, rendering property more
productive, and trade more prosperous, what
danger can be greater than opportunities of bor-
rowing, when there are no means of repaying
what is borrowed? — If land, from having sunk
below its former rental, is mortgaged to more
than half its value, would it be any thing like
an advantage to the proprietor to find out even
a fair lender, who would advance him money
on the remaining part? since, without some
means of improvement, his estate in the end must
infallibly be sold*

«' The

( 153 )

**The same consequences apply equally to com-
munities as to individuals, and there is there-
fore no safety for Armata, but, first, in the wis-
dom of her government, and in the energies of
her people, to raise the value of every species of
property, by the almost infinite ways within
their reach ; and secondly, by the immediate
reduction of her expenditure to square with
her revenue, as far as can be made consistent
with the public safety and the principles of
national justice.

" A great orator in our ancient world, when
asked what was thej^r^^, and the second, and
the third perfection of eloquence, still answered
Action, not to exclude other perfections but to
mark its superior importance ; so /, who am no
orator at all, but a plain man, speaking plainly
of the policy of an exhausted country, must
say that your first, and your second, and your
thi7^d duty, is retrenchment, meaning, as the
rhetorician, not that it is your whole duty, but
only that its pre-eminence may be felt.

"lam

( 154 )

" I am aware of the great difficulties which
must attend a satisfactory execution of this
momentous trust, but after what you have
related of Armata, / cannot doubt the result. —
On the contrary, a severe and unexampled
pressure may open men's eyes to their real con-
dition, and give such a simultaneous impulse to
your government and people, as to make them
act harmoniously and firmly, in devising and
submitting to the measures necessary for the
redemption of your affairs.

" In this grand process of restoration, it is of
the first importance that the public mind should
not take a wrong direction, looking for savings
which in the aggregate would be as nothing,
whilst principles of justice, which are every
thing, were disregarded. — Your retrenchments
must not have the character of confiscations
nor of revolutionary heat, and the different
classes of your people, so happily blended as to
have a common interest, must not be set at
variance. — No justice can be done where irri-
tation

( 155 )

tation prevails, and in England therefore no
court is permitted to sit in judgment, unless
they who are to pronounce it are dispassionate
and unbiassed. — I can see no distinction between
the members of a community in a great crisis of
its affairs — when a ship is in distress all on board
must take their turns at the pump. — The public
creditor undoubtedly lends his money upon the
faith of the whole nation, pledged through its
government to a stipulated return, and it is a
MOST SACRED PLEDGE; but the landholder im-
proves his property upon the same faith, that
he shall enjoy its profits, subject only to an
equal burthen upon all. — What colour. then is
there for saying, that, if that revenue were to
fall short to which the public creditor looked
when he lent his money, the deficiency should
be made up to him by disproportionate
burthens upon lands on which he had no mort-
gage, nor their proprietors any special benefit
from the loans?

** Neither — and for the same reasons — ought

you

( 156 )

you to lay disproportionate burthens upon the
profits of any manufactures or ingenious arts,
begun in any given state of your country, that
you may keep what is termed good faith with
a very limited number of your subjects. — Every
just government, however, must proceed in ex-
treme or in new cases with the utmost cau-
tion, taking care that no principle is adopted
which works a wrong, however small in the
particular instance it may appear, because it
opens a door to other wrongs, the extent of
which cannot be known, and saps the very
foundations of the social contract. — The true
course to be pursued is, after all, most difficult
in the details, though the principles, as I have
said, are clear; since with every qualification
of wisdom and justice in those who may have
to act, or of fortitude and patience in those
who are to suffer, differences of opinion must
always attend any sudden and cutting reforms
in great national establishments, both as to the
extent of reductions and the seasons for their
accomplishment.^ — Every class will feel most

acutely

( 157 )

acutely for itself, and it is difficult to be a righ-
teous judge in our own cause. — This prejudice
may even extend to cases where there can be
no approach to self-interest, and it may per-
haps most powerfully affect my own judgment
at this moment, when I am discussing the
policy of another world. — The first object of
retrenchment after the general peace you have
described, ought undoubtedly, to some ejctent
or other, to be the reduction of your naval
and military forces; because their services are
no longer necessary for your safety; but they
may again be necessary, and the utmost skill
and caution are therefore required to pre-
serve t\\€ix fabric and constitution, when you
diminish their extent. — The condition also of
many who have so nobly served you, is a sub-
ject / almost weep to think on. — It should be
remembered, that those brave men have been
for years together in most perilous and unwhole-
some stations; that their pay could not be suf-
ficient to support them, and in many cases their
families^lso,— left behind them, oppressed with

poverty

( 158 )

poverty and the wretchedness of separation.-—
It is surely, therefore, an intemperate spirit
that would drown the acclamations of joy for
victories purchased with their blood, by a cla-
mour to dismiss them, at once, to hopeless
misery. — A reduction you must nevertheless
make, since an unusual pressure demands it,
but let not their cause be prejudiced by imagi-
nary dangers to your civil government, which,
with one stroke of a pen, can sweep away tlieir
very name and existence. — Be firm, then, in
your purpose to lop off all burthens which lean
without necessity upon your revenues, but be
gentle and considerate in the process ; softening,
as far as possible, the severe privations which
duty may compel you to inflict.

" Let me deceive you however in nothing. — I
am no authority on this part of your case. — I
was bred to arms from my earliest youth in my
own world, and feel such an enthusiasm in every
thing that regards the naval or military pi-o-
fessions, that if the subject had arisen with us,

and

( m )^

and I had been placed in our public coun-
cils, I should probably have differed in
opinion from those with whom I differ in
nothing else."

17/

:i

oy.k'

CHAP-

( 160 )

CHAPTER XII.

In which the Author continues to deliver his Opinion upon the
State and Condition of Armata.

"Another momentous duty now presents it-
self, and of a more pleasant character. — Whilst
you are reducing your expenditure, every effort
ought to be made, and, if possible, without the
aid of new burthens, to regenerate the public
estate, which neither in its value nor in any of
its resources, has nearly reached its height. —
From an inhabitant of another world you cannot
expect details; but, founding myself upon your
own statements, I will point out some manifest
errors in your system, and advert to the most
obvious remedies :

" In the first place, then, to enable a state to
collect a great and direct revenue from the
property of the people, it ought to be a grand
object to make all collateral burthens press upon

them

( 161 )

them as lightly as possible by the most refined
policy in the administrations of all inferior
departments, and to suffer no abuses whatsoever
to prevail in them : this is not the work of a-
day,^ but of painful and long-continued labour
in the legislative body, and throughout all the;
magistracies of the country.

" That this duty has been wholly lost sight
of in a most vital part of 3'our concerns,
you have yourself admitted and lamented. —
Nothing indeed can be so extravagantly absurd
and preposterous as the management or rather
THE CREATION of your poor, by which youi:
government suffers to escape from it, (without any
relief to its subjects, but on the contrary op-
pressing and corrupting them,) an annual revenue
©f nearly half yonr general taxes when you 1;
late war began, since you have stated that above
seven millions are every year collected on that
account. — To advise you, in this case, requires
no local knowledge ; an inhabitant of the moon,
ch'opped down from it upon your surface, would,
^■^ M in

( m >

in the very next moment, be fully qualified to
condemn the absurd and disgraceful system of
your laws. — It was an insult, (though I am sure
not intended,) to ask me what England would
do in a condition to which she never can be
reduced. — England would never have per-
mitted her houses of charity, if a mistaken policy
had erected them, to be converted into the
haunts of vagabonds and prostitutes to knot
and gender in, throwing the whole burthen of
their debaucheries upon the industrious classes
of her people — England would laugh to scorn
the laboured system of folly you have described,
bringing no comfort to the necessitous, whilst it
swallows up, in many instances, the entire
property on which it professes to be a tax — -
England, instead of setting up courts through-
out the whole country to play at foot-ball with
the unhappy, whom she meant to protect,
driving them to and fro from one part of the
kingdom to the other — England would begin
by confining public charity to those who were
real objects of charitable support; and, wise m

all

( 163 )

all her regulations, would then enact a system
of equal and local contribution from all who,
from any source of property or industry, could
spare it; a contribution which the wealthy
would not feel, and which would be felt even
by the lowest orders not as a burthen, but as »
protection from ever being themselves tlie
objects of a degrading and corrupting relief. —
Those mischievous receptacles of vice and
misery, which you so justly and feelingly te-
probated, would then be everywhere rased to
the foundations ; the poor would be restored
to their domestic comforts^ and contributing
millions to an useless and devouring taxation,
would be enabled to relieve the public as they
became themselves relieved. — When by such a
new system of laws, as wise and protective as
the present is absurd and oppressive, the mites
of almost the poorest came to be dropped into
the boxes of so blessed an institution throughout
every district in your country, pauperism would
soon entirely disappear. — It often indeed exists
in its most wretched and degraded forms, when

M 2 what

( 1^4 ).

what can be saved amongst the lower classes,
instead of being deposited weekly, for their own
benefit, is consumed nightly, in haunts where
liquid fire is prepared for them, utterly destroy-
ing their constitutions, and disqualifying them
from all the duties of good husbands, or fathers,
or subjects, notone of which an habitual drunkard
was ever yet qualified to fulfiL

" But the subject of your pauperism is far from
being finished. — Humanity cannot pronounce
that the poor shall receive no alms when they
can work, if there be no work for them. — -
Every thing therefore you have said regarding
those oppressive burthens, in the whole of which
I have just concurred with you, must go com-
pletely for nothing, and be without any possible
remedy until this radical and destructive defect
in your present condition is removed,

" Your laws for the support of the poor
were made in a sound and wholesome state of
your country, when it was a just legal presump-
t- ^ . -f/ 2 -i tion,

( 165 )

^ion, that every man who was able and willing
to work might find employment ; but that is not
the case now, and the evil may be most distinctly
traced to your great taxation, and to an erroneous
policy, which, by depressing agriculture, has
depressed every thing else. — ^To use the words
of a great poet of England, * We track the felon
home.' — This most important subject lies within
the narrowest compass, and may be summed up
in a word. — Indeed, you have almost exhausted
it yourself, and I have little that is my own to
offer. i'^\id .{h^K^llr:

" The mischief began in the mistaken system
you adopted for the importation of foreign
grain; but however your government might
have been perplexed and almost overborne on
the first consideration of the subject, I cannot
anticipate that it will suffer such a monstrous
evil to continue.— It must surely see that the
profits of a few importing merchants, engaged in
speculations of this description, can never cir-
culate with the same advantage as if the same

M 3 capital

( 166 )

capital were flowing in various channels as a
kind of irrigation of wealth through every nook
and cx)rner of your island, giving universal spirit
to agriculture, and employment to millions who
must become national burthens when it declines.

" You will now, of course, ask for the remedies,
which appear to me as obvious as the evils to
which they are to be applied. — You must not
expect that remedial effects can be sudden,
when the causes of your difficulties are con-
sidered; but if they are wisely adopted and
firmly persevered in, I will warrant the

RESULT.

^* The SOIL, then, of every country, and the
-bringing to the utmost perfection its various
productions, are the foundations of all wealth
and prosperity.— You might as well hope to see
the human body in active motion when palsy
had reached the heart, or a tree flourishing after
its roots were decayed, as expect to see manu-
fiactures, or arts, or industry of any description

( 167 )

progressive, when agriculture has declined^-^
In an island like Armata, where the earth
and the climate are so propitious, no man
ought to be able to set his foot upon, the
ground, except upon the public roads, or the
streets of cities, without treading upon human
sustenance; and it ought to be a fundamental
policy to bring your entire surface into the best
considered use by prudent and appropriate culti-
vation.— Well directed bounties, and skilful
relaxations of your imposts where they press
too severely, might still accomplish this object;
and the unnatural state of yonr country for so
long a period most imperiously demands the
attempt ; as, without some immediate exertion,
thousands, perhaps millions of acres, will soon
fall back into the desart more rapidly than they
were reclaimed.

" This retrogression of agriculture would be
portentous, if the causes were not obvious. —
The lands I principally speak of w^ere not
brought into cultivation by a natural course of
^^^^^ jvi4 bus-

'( 168 )

husbandry, but were forced into production
at an expense that your markets during war
could only repay ; and the utmost exertion of
unprotected proprietors can never, I fear, redeem
them from the consequences of such an improvi-
dent course — the State alone can save them, and
the public loss will otherwise be ten-fold the
amount of the greatest sacrifice which need be
made to prevent returning barrenness from deso^
lating your land.

" It is not Money that government could be
asked for, but, as I hav^e just said, the skilful ma-
nagement of revenue, and an unremitting atten-
tion in her legislature to the smaller springs of
national oeconomy, which are not examined or
thought of when the body politic is in a rude state
of health, — the science of agriculture is by no
means at its height; and in the almost miraculous
advance of chemistry, new means may be found,
from the concentration of known composts and
the discovery of new, to lessen the cost of
culture, and to increase its returns.— But here
'Cj^ h \!i again

( m )

'again your revenue stalks like a ghost across
my path whichever way I turn; as otherwise
you have a superior unbounded source of im-
provement trodden under your very feet, and
cast as refuse into your rivers, beyond all that
chemistry is ever likely to discover. — You have
-^alt, you say, in endless abundance, but your
necessity turns it into money, even to forty times
its value, instead of spreading it abroad for vari-
ous uses, to rise up in property which no money
could purchase. — After thus taxing to the very
bone this life's blood of your people, why, to be
consistent, do you not bind up by law their
veins and arteries to prevent circulation? — Do
you know what salt alone would do for you if
it were not seized upon as revenue and clung to
perhaps as a plank which you cannot quit in
your distress? — I will speak of its other uses
hereafter; but can you be so ignorant as
not to know, that by taking the tax upon
it directly as money, you rob yourselves of
iifty times its amount in the productions
of your soil, in your fisheries and manufac-
1 '^ tures,

( 170 )

tures, and in the universal prosperity of the
country ?

" Lime, which has caused to start into life the
most inert and sterile parts of Great Britain, is
just nothing as a manure when compared wdth
salt, which differs from it, besides, in two remark-
able qualities, decisive of its superior value. —
Lime, and I believe all other known composts,
are powerful only according to the quantities
in which they are used, whereas salt, to be use-
ful, must be sparingly employed; it corrupts
vegetable substances when mixed with them in
^mall quantities, but preserves them when it
predominates in the mass. — It is needless there-
fore to add, that independently of its compara-
tive lightness, the expense both of the article
and its carriage must be very greatly diminished.
Yet you rob the mother of your people of this
food which indulgent nature has cast into her
lap, sufficient, as you will see hereafter, to
feed all her children, even if their numbers
were doubled.

^' Nothing

( 171 )

" Nothing indeed can so clearly expose the
infinite danger of pubHc profusion, as the neces-
sity it imposes upon almost all governments, of
direct taxation upon articles of universal and in-
dispensable consumption : such revenues are un-
doubtedly always great^ and, in moderation, are
therefore the best; but when they are pushed
beyond the mark, which an enlightened view
of the whole concerns of a country would make
manifest to a great statesman, the advantages
obtained are countervailed and become nothing ;
because they dry up other sources of wealth
and improvement which would carry even
greater burthens, whilst the national prosperity
was preserved.

" To continue' this momentous subject, be
assured that the very being of your country,
abo*oe all at this moment, depends upon your
making your own soil support your most ex-
tended population, and that to consider popu-
lation as an evil, is to be wiser than God, who,
in your earth as in mine, commanded man to in-
crease

( 172 )
t^rease and multiply, and who, I am persuaded,
throughout all creation, has ordained that no-
thing should go backward or stand still.

" If there wrere no other proof of the pre-
eminence of agriculture, let it be remembered
that it is the greatest source of labour, and in
a proportion little understood, because it not
only comprehends the direct and immediate
labour upon its surface and in its bowels^ but
the labour also of various arts and manufactures,
whose raw materials it produces. — Labour, in-
deed, is the salt of the earth, the preserver and
nourisher of all things — the curse that man
should eat his bread with the sweat of his brow,
was mercifully repealed in the very moment it was
pronounced, and was changed even into a bless-
ing— Labour gave him bread, and a comfort along
with it, which nothing like labour can bestow.
If the earth produced spontaneously, it might
be a paradise for angels, but no habitation for
beings formed like ourselves; without labour,
what could support or adorn the whole fabric

of

( 173 )

of society ? — It would vanish like an enchant-*
ment * f

r " The curse of death was also revoked, not
only by the promise of immortal life hereafter,
but to deliver man at the very moment from the
barrenness of the earth that was cursed. — With-
out death, he might have toiled and sweated, but
the ground would have yielded nothing ; death
therefore was ordained to revolve with life in a
mysterious and fructifying circle. — The cor-
ruption of all created things returning into the
bosom of nature, brings them back again to re-
Ward the industry of man. Every animal that
dies ; all vegetables, and they have lives also,
every substance which dissolves and becomes
offensive, every heterogeneous mixture, which
upon the surface would stagnate and become
malignant, brought back by human wisdom
into their allotted stations, become the future
parentsof a renovated world.

" Can we suppose then that God has per-
formed

( 174 )

formed those stupendous miracles for nothing?
When our Scripture tells us that man was formed
from the dust of the earth, it should not perhaps
be taken in a sense too literal — to the Almighty,
matter was not necessary for his creation,
though his frame was to be material — it may
mean that he could live only by the earth, and
was to return to it after death.

"The first national object then is to feed
your own people, and to find employment
FOR THEM A LL. On sucli asubjcct you cannot ex-
pect details, nor can you need them. — In a country
whose splendid history you have passed along
like a kind of fairy tale before me, your means
must be infinite. — You have not only the rich-
est and most various surface to work upon, but
subterranean treasures, inexhaustible and un-
equalled ; you have still to make new roads and
railways, and canals, and facilities of yet undis-
covered descriptions, for the transport of their pro-
ductions, which should over-spread your soil as if
there were a net-work thrown over it. — The car-
riage

( 175 )

riage of manure, of materials for building, and
of all articles of traffic, or provisions, are heavy
taxes upon the raw materials, and by every pos-*
sible means should be diminished ; an obser*
vation equally applying to every species of human
labour, Avhether employed upon the earth of
in arts and manufactures, which should be cur-^
tailed and lessened not only by the utmost stretch
of accidental inventions, but should be drawn
out and rewarded and consecrated by the state.

" This may be thought a paradox whilst the
poor are calling out every where for employ-
ment ; but be assured no greater delusion ever
existed than that the matchless ingenuity of
your people, in the construction of mechanical
aids, can in any possible instance be an evil.
I was shocked, indeed, to hear of outrages,
which I should have expected only to have
existed amongst the very dregs of a civilized
people. The mistaken or rather the delirious
incitement, is when numbers are unemployed ;
but how many more would be without employ-
ment,

( 176 )

ment, or rather how many thousands, and tens
and hundreds of thousands would be starving,
if the machinery they attack were overthrown ?
In the present condition of your country you
could not send a single bale of your manufac-
tures into a foreign market, if they were to be
worked up only by manual labour, and then not
only the turbulent destroyers, but the most
diligent of your people must perish. Having
been blessed with religious parents, my mind
was directed, from my earliest youth, to contem-
plate the benevolent dispensations of an offended
God ; and in nothing have they inspired a more
Constant and grateful admiration than that when
the first and greatest of his works had been cast
down for disobedience into the most forlorn and
helpless condition, he should not only be gifted
to subdue to his use and dominion all inferior
things, but that, fashioned after the image of
Heaven, he should be enabled to scan its most
distant worlds, and to augment his own strength
in mitigation of his appointed labour, by engines
so tremendously powerful as would crush, with
J ■ a sin-

( 177 )

a single stroke, his weak frame to atoms, whilst
they form, under his directing skill, the smallest
and most delicate things for the uses and orna-
ments of the world.

" You must beat down those insane outrages
by the whole strength and vigour of your laws.
Select the guiltiest for condign punishment;
but let no such guilt he spared''

Morven here expressed his highest satisfac-
tion. Taking me by the hand, he assured me
that the v try existence of Armata depended upon
the most unremittmg execution of the laws in
this respect; and I was glad to find that her
government had* acted with the greatest promp-
titude and firmness in stigmatizing and punish-
ing this opprobrium of a civilized world.

As I was preparing to finish the little I had to
say to him, he desired we might pause a moment,
that what had been last said might be the better
remembeped ; and opening the door, which led

N to

( 178 )

to the adjoining apartment, I found a supper of
twelve covers prepared for us, and a mixed
company of men and women, apparently most
accomplished; but being then an utter stranger
to the language, I shall postpone all my obser-
vations upon Armatian society till I have to
speak hereafter of the manners and amusements
of the capital ; yet I cannot pass over that the
-• women I saw Were most beautiful, several .o£
them singing delightfully, and that, from their
address and manner of speaking, it was well,
perhaps, for my repose, that I could not under-
stand what they said. — The reader, indeed, will
have to condole with me hereafter that I ever
became more susceptible.

CHAP-

( 179 )

CHAPTER XIII.

In which the Author concludes his Opinion upon the' State and
Condition of A^^at a.

When Morven visited me next morning, he
expressed his impatience to hear what had been
left unfinished the night before ; and I then pro-
ceeded as follows : —

" The more I reflect upon every part of your
statement, the more I am convinced that a
grand s^^stem of well directed industry, sup-
ported at once by your government and people,
would give an entire new face to your country ;
but it cannot be even begun without re-casting
the laws which regulate the importations of
what your own soil could produce. I am sen-
sible that this subject is complicated in the
details, and that I cannot be qualified to deal
with them; but a sound principle gives a
sure direction throughout all the branches of

N 2 - political

( 180 )

political oeconomy. Until you come into the
full enjoyment of what wisdom is sure to bestow,
you must, of course, have temporary arrange-
ments according to circumstances, that provi-
sions may be always obtained at steady and
reasonable rates ; but, in the meantime, your
undoubted policy is universal cultivation,
and when that is accomplished, or so far ad-
vanced as to feed your people, not a blade
or seed, or grain of any description ought to be
permitted to enter the ports of your country,
times of famine or scarcity excepted; and
even then the quantity should be measured by
the decision of some high and responsible tri-
bunal, to secure unfluctuating prices, not so high
as to distress the poor, nor so low as to throw
them out of bread, when the landholders, who
employ them, are undersold by general and
jobbing importations.

" To speak plainly — It is my clear opinion
that this cannot be accomplished in the present
state of things, except by protecting duties,

which

( 181 )

which should be so regulated as to ensure im- 1
portation, without enabling it to overpower the
agriculture of your own country.

" It would be speaking at random to be more
particular in concerns so new to me, but the
principle is universal. Importations of natural
productions may occasionally/ be politic, because
manufactures are often taken in return ; but
advantages may be purchased too dearly, and no
price can be more ruinous than when foreign
harvests have an injurious interference with the
natural productions of any nation.

" To avoid this evil, affecting alike manufac-
tures and agriculture, protecting duties have
been constantly resorted to by all governments,
and I cannot even conceive the danger of adopt-
ing them upon the present occasion, nor the
difficulty of settling their amounts. — After
fixing a proper standard, you might then keep
up your present warehousing system, that you
might always have a supply; securing to the
t \y^> \ ^*^i^ vu -^ N 3 i m po r te«*

( 182 )

importer a fair prospect of profit, without
which he would not import, but still keeping
him in subordination to vour own cultivators,
without which your own soil will infallibly be
neglected. — This system, however, need be but
tiemporary, like parental duties towards an infant
until his growth and strength are completed;
because, to say that notwithstanding the most
politic protections and bounties, such a country
^s you have described to me will be found
unequal in the end to the support of its own popu-
lation, or that provisions are likely to be dearer
in proportion a& your whole surface is brought
into well-directed cultivation, are propositions
which no man in England, who dreaded the re-
straints of amad-house, would vent«feto advance.

- " Anticipating, therefore, that a more pro-
tective system will now be speedily adopted,. I
may revert with some hope to the condition of
your poor. When agriculture shall have re-
vived, and with it the labour which is insepa-
rable from its prosperity, the ancient legal
H>; i<H\ui i 'C^ ^'^ presumption,

( 183 )

presumption, that men who can work may find
employment, will revive also; and you may
then, without inhumanity or injustice act up to,
or even re-enact your ancient laws which limit
the objects of relief to those whose activities,
from age, or from disease, or in short from any
disabling infirmities, have been destroyed. I
know nothing, of course, of your various dis-
tricts or of the burthens imposed upon them, but
I should not be at all surprized if, from the very
evils we have been discussing, the rates should
Be found to be greater in the agricultural than
in the manufacturing departments ; because
your husbandmen and country servants, of all
descriptions, when employed upon lower wages
or discharged from employment, would fall of
course as burthens upon the places where their
families were settled ; but on the renovation of
agriculture the very reverse of this would
immediately succeed, and the rates in these
places would not only be the lowest, but would
lead to universal reductions, because, as labour
increased and extended, wages would extend

N 4 and

( 184 )

and increase in proportion, the whole of which
would circulate amongst your manufacturers
and traders, who lost their best customers when
agriculture declined.

. " You are not, perhaps, aware of the propor-
tional ascendancy of land over other sources of
wealth and employment. — But speaking gene-
rally, and not from any positive calculation, a
tax upon property in England would bear upon
land and houses, as opposed to trades and manu-
factures, in the proportion of above seven to
three; and in the numbers of actual contri-
butors of above jfi?Mr to two, — This disproportion
marks besides only the pre-eminence of agri-
culture in the ordinary condition of a nation ;
but if England were in your exhausted condi-
tion, and were called upon for a mighty exertion,
you would see how her genius would triumph. —
When pressed down with a weight which
threatened destruction, her energies would
rebound, and raise her as much higher than
her former elevation, as difficulties appeared
1 to

( 185 )

to sink her beneath it. — It is in adversity only^^.
that nations, Hke individuals, can be estimated ;
hke ships, you can know nothing of them in a
harbour ; you must try them in the storm, and
prove them by the weather that they make. —
England, I am sure, — (but it is a romance so to
speak of her, as in a state she can never be
brought to) — England would begin by a grand
systematic benevolence to the distressed — but
her wisdom would inform her that this humane
deliverance would be only ruin to her people,
if not immediately followed up by a system
which would enable them to support themselves ;
and, remembering the efforts she had made for
other nations, which were comparatively unbur-
thened, she would regulate all her concerns with
them upon a just scale, and by well-considered
imposts, until she could cherish all her children
in her own bosom, by making her fertile soil
repay protected cultivation, neither mocking
the husbandman by the ruinous vibrations of
markets, nor distressing the poor by prices
beyond their reach. — When property was thus

: ;.</ put

( 186 )

put into the true road of returning to its value,
neither charities nor bounties would be neces-
sary ; proprietors would do the rest for them-
selves— self-interest is the most spirited reformer ;
capitals would no longer be wanting, when
land was the best of all securities; and, to com-
plete the process, she would brush away the
cobwebs of fraudulent money-dealers, the most
destructive of all the vermin that infest the
earth. — Loans, like all other contracts, should
either be the objects of unlimited traflBc, or the
law that constitutes the exception should be
strictly maintained. — When a maximum is esta-
blished for interest, it ought to be rigorously
enforced; differences of risk are shallow
subterfuges to support annuities, e.vcept in cases
where the borrower has no gf eater estate than
for his own life; because when he has a full
dominion over his property, and offers it as a
security, the resort to a contingency, which is
forced upon him by the lender to evade the lait
that would rescind the conti^act, and punish the
extortion, is a gross and impudent fraud, fbi*
>uv^ which

( 187 )

\\rhich the usurer should forfeit his character
and his money. — Whilst this subterfuge is tole-
rated, proprietors of land must continue to be
exposed to the greatest difficulties, and in its
present depressed condition a greater relief is
wanting than even the abolition of this destruc-
tive imposition. Your government, m some
way or other, should contrive facilities for loans
upon estates, until the storm that now desolates
them has passed away.

If "On the subject of your manufactures I have
nothing further to add — their prosperity depends
upon the unfettered ingenuity of your matchless
people ; but you ought to remember that their
condition is not the same as when you mono-
polized the commerce of your world, and that
at an enormous expense which leans riiost
heavily upon them, you have set up foreign
markets to rival them. The details of this
mighty concern is the office of your statesmen,
and I trust will be wisely considered. You have
:iuiii.t;»f: said

( 188 )

said that the improvement of your fisheries had
not reached its height. — This is the moment to,
reach it by the most unremitting exertions. —
Neither the sea nor the land can have been
enjoyed to the full, whilst your population is
under difficulties for support. — There are no
doubt with you, as with us, various roots of cheap
and easy culture, which though at once prolific
and nutritious, are not by themselves inviting to
the appetite, nor sufficient for a life of labour,
without a mixture of animal food.— In times of
distress, therefore, when the plough may fail
you, a well ploughed ocean would be a constant
refuge. — You can there have no unpropitious
seed times, nor uncertain harvests ; — tempests
could only disperse the reapers for a short season,
and the crop would always remain undamaged in
a boundless extent.— Even in England the system
of supply is far from being perfect; it is brought
to an astonishino: heiorht for the luxuries of
London, yet is still defective in the more mo-
mentous department of general and cheap dis-
Ujiia tribution ;

( 189 )

ti'ibution ; but, depend upon it, our legislature
will never rest till this great object is accom-
plished.

" With you, I fear, there is a fatal bar to
improvement. — Be assured every attempt to-
wards it must be abortive, whilst you keep up
your duty upon salt; because the allowances
you make to those who are engaged in fisheries,
when guarded by the necessary forms to prevent
frauds upon so important a revenue, render them
of no use whatsoever, and fish can never be .
made a support for an inland population in their
natural state. — Is it not, then, the height of folly
to have resort to foreign fisheries at an immense
distance, when other nations leave their own
coasts and come almost into your harbours,
from the superior abundance of your seas? —
They take your finest fish — they cure them
with your own salt, the best in all your world,
which is duty-free when exported ; they main-
tain their people in comfort, whilst your's arc
everywhere starving, and prosper by a trade

out

( 190 )

out of which you might drive all nations before
you, securing your maritime greatness, whilst
you increased your internal strength.— In the
creeks and harbours of all countries, the smaller
fish are always so numerous, that they are used
for manure in quantities that almost exceed
belief.— Is it certain that with the use of
salt they might not be applied also to
purposes more useful, and instead of being
entirely cast out in large masses to fructify by
corruption, be preserved from it by chemical
skill, and be devoted to the subsistence of
mankind ?

" Another momentous subject still more, if
possible, demands your attention, and with that
I shall conclude. — One of the first sentences
you uttered to me, after snatching me from the
grave, made an impression upon me which I
shall carry there hereafter. You said that this
highly-favoured island had been the chosen ii;i-
strument of Divine dispensation, and that if she
deserted or slumbered upon her post, she would

be

( 191 )

be relieved and punished — Beware that this
penal moment is not at hand. — Why do you
now permit despotisni and fanaticism to palsy the
freedom of the rising world, when your duty
and your interest are struggling for precedency
to crush them at a blow ? — If that vast continent
were governed according to the humane maxraisr
of civilized nations, you would have no right
to wrest the sceptre out of hands however un-
worthy to wield it; but since you have been
placed for so many ages in the high post of
honour for the advancement of human happi-
ness, you ought to suffer no other nation to run
on before you in the rescue of suffering million*
from famine, dungeons, and the sword. — Re-
collect your eulogium upon the triumphs of
chemistry and mechanics : — apply them to the
mines and other productions of those vast re-
gions; not as robbers or task-masters, but in
the liberal spirit of commerce with their people,
by which you might resuscitate your own
country whiUt, you wer^jj^rf^thing new life
into th^ir^t" ,

The

( i92 )

' The noble minded Morven seemed much
pleased and affected, and spoke as follows, but
in a voice so subdued as if he almost wished not
to be heard :

" There are difficulties in the way of what
you propose so warmly. — The project your
honest zeal has suggested might kindle a new
war throughout our whole world, which might,
in the end, be destructive of the happiness and
freedom you justly hold so sacred.-^— There are
many desirable objects of policy that a^ not
within our immediate reach, and which we
must wait Heaven's own time to see accom-
plished ; but the principle should be consecrated,
and the occasion closely watched for its' earliest
application."

" Not a moment," I answered, " should ever
be lost in any thing we have to do, when we are
sure we are in the right; there is no time but
the present for the performance of a practicable
moral duty : England, in such a cause, would

set

( m )

set at nought all the nations of the bid world if
the new one invoked her assistance. Such a
great work could not be begun prematurely. —
If the sun stood still of old in the camp of the
Israelites, it would now rush to the west with
increased velocity and lustre, to shine on the
British standard, if it stood planted even for a
inoment in the night.*

" I have now finished all I have to observe
upon the condition of your sublime country. —
Looking at it with the eager curiosity of a
stranger, bred in one which has long been the
admiration of its own world, and not wishing
to see her in any thing surpassed, yet I
am obliged in justice to say, that I consider

• It may be proper here to inform the reader, that when it
is six in the morning in Armata, it is midnight in the new
world alluded to, because this twin planet with the earth re-
volves also round its axis from west to east in twenty-four
hours; and Armata being eastward of the new world, nearly
ninety degrees of longitude, it follows as above-mentioned,
that when it is six in the morning in Armata it must be mid-
night in the new world ; every 15 degrees of a great circle of
360 being equal to an hour of time; 15 times 24 being 360,

o Armata

( 194 )

Armata in no respect behind her, except in the
state of your finances. — I have not, indeed, been
able to trace the smallest defect in any of your
institutions, nor in the condition of any of your
concerns, that does not come manifestly home to
your revenue, which corrupts your government
whilst it depresses your people.

^ " Your energies are still happily undiminished,
your industry is unabated, your courage unsub-
dued, your morals uncorrupted ; but you have
the same sacrifices, for a season at least, to sub-
mit to, as an individual may have to make,
though with the highest qualifications, if his
expenses have gone beyond his estate; and un-
less you now guard with skill and firmness this
heel of the Achilles, the result must be fatal.

" Remember always the noble eminence you
stand on, and that no other nation is quali-
fied TO TAKE YOUR PLACE. In the name of
God, then, let this awful but animating consi-
der^tipEL inspire you— --Be fi.rm in your resolves^-
!-^in;A Be

( m )

Be patient under temporary privations — Be
obedient to your government, and preserve your
greatness by the wisdom which made you
great."

I now felt myself exhausted in my weak
condition, by an exertion to which I fear rny
readers may have thought, all along, my mind
as much as my body was unequal, but my
generous protector was satisfied, and as night
was coming on, he left me again to my rest.

o 2 CHAP-

( 195 )

CHAPTER XIV.

The Author expresses his wish to visit the Capital of ArmatA, hut
Jirst proceeds to one of her great Sea Parts.

When Morven came next morning into my
apartment, I found myself so much recovered
from my fatigue and the bruises I had suiFered
amongst the rocks, that I told him I was ready
to attend him any where, and was full of impa-
tience to see, in all its parts,' so noble a country
as he had described; particularly its capital,
of which he had as yet said nothing in his
general and more important history.

He seemed highly pleased with my proposal,
and said he would send for his son to accompany
me, whose youth and modern manners made
him a much fitter companion for such an expe-
dition than himself

The capital, he said, would fill me with

admiration

( m )

admiration and wonder, as the city of Swaloal
was, beyond all question, the greatest, the
richest and the most illustrious in that world.
I was struck with the name as he pronounced
it, which he had not mentioned before; and
although I well remembered the blunder which,
from the habits of association, 1 had before
made in the etymology of Armata, yet I could
not help inquiring why this metropolis had
obtained so singular an appellation. Morven,
in answer, said, that he was himself no etymo-
logist or antiquary, and could only inform me
that Swaloal was a word in the Armatian
language, signifying the city long known by
that name. I smiled at this luminous explana-
tion, saying, it reminded me of an anecdote of
our George the Second, who, being a foreigner,
asked one of the lords of his bed-chamber the
meaning of the English word bespatter; to
which his lordship, seemingly much pleased with
the easy task imposed upon him, assured the
king that he could not have chosen a word
whose signification was plainer, or more familiar

o 3 — " It

( m )

— " It is just, Sire," he said, " as if youu
Majesty were to bespatter we, or as if I were
to bespatter your Majesty."

Morven now smiled in his turn; and I
observed to him that nothing was often more
unsatisfactory than the derivations of words of
all descriptions; though the subject was un-
doubtedly interesting, and frequently threw
great light upon ancient history, but sometimes
no light at all; as was the case, I thought, with
our famous city of London, which could never
have had its name from King Lud, though so
often supposed; because King Lud reigned
before the time that Julius Csesar was in Britain,
who, nevertheless, called it in his Commentaries
the city of the Trinobants, which he could not
well have done if it had so recentli^ received
its name from a prince in the island; Csesar's
first landing being, I believe, in the time pf
Cassibalaunus, who was brother to Lud, and
succeeded him; neither could the city have
been called London from Lud's Toxvn — town

not

^ ( 199 >

not being a British but a Saxon word; and there-
fore, if that had been its true derivation, it would
have been called Caer Lud, and not Lud's
Town — But it is still more strange how it
should have been called Londinum, by Tacitus,
as that was only its Latin name after it was
called London; an appellation which it never
had in the time of the Britons, nor until the
Saxon aera, when it received the name of
Lundew, but with a tennination then bestowed
upon all well-fenced places, or such as had forts
or castles — viz. Lundenburg and Liinden Ceaster.
This name of Lunden was afterwards changed
to London, neither of them being at all in
honour of King Lud, but adopted by the Saxons
from the metropolitan city of Lund^;?, in SconC"
land or Sconia, then a place of great traffic in
the eastern part of Germany. The further,
indeed, we trace the connection with King Lud,
the more it will fail us; as Ludgate could
never be from thence, gate not being British ;
and, what is still stronger, Ludgate was for-
merly Leodgate ; Leod, signifying in Saxon,

0 4 M

( 200 )

folk or people, and the name of Leodgate^ there-
fore, with all due submission to King Lud, was
given to this great public passage, as the folk's
gate or entrance, the port urn populi in that
quarter of the city."

" You quite overpower me with your learn-
ing," said Morven; " our great city, like Lou--
don, has also changed its names and termina-
tions, but as to the reason of those changes, I
cannot even hazard a conjecture. — In very
ancient times it was styled only Swalo, after-
wards SwALOMOR, and in succeeding periods
SwALOUP, and Swalodun, or Swalodown;
but, for a century at least, it has been univer-
sally known by the name of Swaloal." — I
asked here with some impatience, whether those
idem sonans terminations had the significations
as in our language, and on his answering in the
negative, I was still more puzzled. — " None of
those terminations," he added, " whether taken
by themselves, or used only as adjuncts, have the
most distant approach to the meaning which,
\- , t even

( 201 )

even adopting your English orthography, we
should annex to them, nor indeed any meanings
at all; but the monosyllables Out and In, and
more so when used in the plural, as in Armata,
are two of the most significant words in its
whole language, and Outs and Ins are therefore
as opposite as the two poles which distinguish
the hemispheres of both our planets." This un-
expected conclusion threw me still more wide
of all application to our language or to our-
selves,

Morven now said he had dispatched a mes-
senger for his son, that we might settle the plan
of our journey, and in a few hours he arrived
in a very handsome carriage, which I shall
not describe at present, as it rather belongs
to my description of the capital hereafter.
He was a very handsome young man, highly
accomplished, as I understood, according to the
fashions of his day, and so full of spirits and
life, that he had not been two minutes in the
room, nor made any inquiries concerning me,

when

( 202 )

when he seemed most impatient that we should
go some where else, saying that the great ships
were paying off, and that he would drive me
down to the town near which I had been wrecked.
I endeavoured to excuse myself, not being yet
provided with the dress of the country, nor
indeed with any other than that in which I had
buffeted the waves and thumped against the
rocks; but he would not hear of such an object
tion. — " Sailors," he said, " went round and
round the world, and saw people by turns in all
dresses, and whole nations without any dresses
at all, — that the admiral was his friend, and
would be happy to see us," — He said all this in
perfectly good English, which he had learned
from his father and grandfather, and seemed so
amiable and good natured that I thought it best
not to refuse him, and we drove off immediately,
but not until he had acquainted Morven that
we should return to supper, when he hoped we
should have music, and that he should set out
with me for Swaloal next morning as soon as it
was light.

On

( 203 )

On approaching the port, I observed a great
alteration — the stately ships I had seen in full
equipment, being now ranged as a kind of hulks
for miles together; so that I could not help
asking why so grand a fleet had been dismantled,
and tlie answer was a proud one for Armata :

^' Because the fleets of our world," he said,
'^ are lying dismantled by their sides — the ocean,
which re-echoed through all its caves with the
thunder of foreign navies, is now silent as the
grave — their cannon are all spiked or upon ouf
battlements, and their flags are the ornament^
of our halls: — yonder, (pointing to an. immense
number at a distance,) yonder are their brave
crews, delivered from all their toils."

When we got into the town, I was surprized
tp see that by far the greater part of them were
hale, robust men, in the highest state of comeli-
ness and health, though most of them had been
ten or twelve years at sea, without ever setting
fopt upon the land, and many of them much

longer.

( 204 )

longer. — Every one of them had his lass, decked
out with a profusion of ribbons of the same
colour as in her sailor's hat. — They were full of
glee, and full of money, the whole of which, I
was told, must, according to an immemorial and
inexorable custom, be spent among the ladies in
one day, and indeed they seemed most alert in ob-
serving it, as they were parading the streets with
music, and shops and places of entertainment
of every description gaped wide open to receive
them. — I was invited to dine with their officers,
where I met the most pleasant men I had ever
conversed with. — The table was not quite large
enough for us all, but they would hear of no
difficulties, and as some of them had left an
arm or a leg behind them, we were able (to use
a seaman's phrase) to stow the closer. — They had
all of them the same frank, gentleman-like
manners, which distinguish our most accom-
plished countrymen ; but there was something,
at the same time, in their aspect, which gave ,
me an idea of how unmoved they must have
stood amidst unexampled difficulties and dan-
gers.

( 205 )

gers. — Wishing that nothing in such noble
beings should be imperfect, I said to their com-
mander, *' Why don't you some how or other
contrive to improve the manners and conduct
of your seamen, who are now filling your streets
with noise and confusion amidst their women ?"
" You might as well ask me," answered this
great officer, " why God has not made an ele-
phant like an ape ; or why he has fashioned all
things to fill their allotted stations. — Our sailor
of Armata is an animal non-descript, and must
in nothing be changed or touched. — I am no poli-
tician.— You may reform parliament for any
thing I care, but don't attempt to reform dur
sailor, — The love of woman is his distinguishing
feature, he lavishes every thing upon her, and
returns to sea when his money is spent ; with-
out this passion, even in its excess, our ships
would be receptacles of abomination and hor-
ror.— The sexes are the elements of the world ;
there is male and female in every tree and plant
down to the grass we tread upon; and you might as
well complain, that their farinas mixed with one

another

( 206 )

another in the upland country, as condemn th^
transient amours of our seamen upon the shore*
I respect as much as any man the sanctities of
marriage, and acknowledge its usefulness in the
social world; but you must not thkik of con-*
tending too roughly with the ancient character^
istics of mankind. — You may scour an old coin
to make it legible ; but if you go on scouring, it
will be no coin at all'"'

" I could only say in reply to all this, that I
was the last man in the world to object to the
admiration of women, and that what he had
said of its usefulness to the inhabitants of ships
was quite unanswerable; but that no human
beings could go beyond our English sailors, who
Byevertheless were most sedate and considerate,
generally married, and remarkable for the
parsimonious care of their money, most of them
keeping regular accounts with some banker
or slop-seller whilst they were at sea." — " If
that be so," said Morven, " Your sailors could
never fight like ours'' — I took fire at this, (the

...... only

( 207 )

only excuse perhaps for what follows) — " A
British sailor," I replied, (trembling with indig-
nation,) " a British sailor, Sir, would fight
with the devil, and in the service of his country
would enter hell itself to seek him out." — ^The
admiral, whose jealous feelings did not extend
to another world, shook hands with me most
heartily, and after a few more bottles, I took
my leave.

My young companion at the same time called
for his carriage, and we set out by moon-light
on our return. As we went along, he asked
me, " how I had — * * # #

# # # * # ' # #

«: # 4& * * # #

I cannot describe my mortification at being
here obliged to acquaint my readers that the
printer has this moment returned to me all the
remaining part of my narrative, immediately fol-
lowing what is above printed, being about four
hundred pages in my closest manner of writing,

saying

( 208 >

saying it was so obliterated by the sea-water in
my shipwreck homewards, as not to be at all
legible. I must now therefore abruptly, and
most unwillingly, close my publication, at least
for the present ; earnestly entreating the indul-
gence of the public to refer to the Postscript
for a fuller explanation of my situation, and of
the extreme difficulty I cannot but feel in sub-
mitting to them what is now published in sa
unsatisfactory and mutilated a state.

POST-

( 209 )

POSTSCRIPT.

1 HAVE felt great difficulty in consenting to
publish, at present, what is now offered to the
world. — I was aware that, after having described
in all its details so extraordinary a passage to an
unknown world, it could not but give an air
of fable to the whole of it, to be seen sallying
forth from Mr. Murray's in Albemarle-street,
without a single word having been said of the
means by which I got back again to the earth.
The scale was however turned in favour of
immediate publication. — The loss of my manu-
script, when I was shipwrecked in Ireland on
my. homeward voyage, was irretrievable, and I
had no choice left after my return to England,
but to publish at once what remained of it, or to
let curiosity languish, or perhaps be considered
as an impostor. — There was another inducement
to pursue this course. — If the public shall take
no interest in the part now before it, the other
i p had

( 210 )

had far better be suppressed; and, on the other
hand, if it should be called for by those who
have read the first, it will give fresh spirit to a
composition which must now be extremely dif-
ficult.

If I could have saved the rest of my manu-
script amongst the breakers, which I should
have done, if, like the part preserved, it had
been inclosed in leather, I should have trusted
without fear to my materials, and to the interest
they could not but have created when viewed
all together; and even amidst all the obstacles I
have to contend with, from the part published
being only a dull narrative, interspersed with no
amusing incidents, I feel some confidence that
my work will derive sufficient support from
what may be expected in its sequel, — An ac-
count of the great city of Swaloal cannot but
excite the curiosity of London.

FINIS.

0

London : Printed by C. Rowortb, Bell-yard, Temple-bar.

HX cErskine, Thomas Erskine^

Sll Armata 2d ed.

1817

E7

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