Part 38 (2/2)
During this year, the American currency had singularly depreciated, so that forty dollars were worth only one in specie--a fact which shows the embarra.s.sments of the country, and the difficulty of supporting the army. But the prospects of ultimate success enabled Congress, at length, to negotiate loans, and the army was kept together.
[Sidenote: Surrender of Lord Cornwallis.]
The great event in the campaign of 1781 was the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, at Yorktown, which decided the fate of the war. Lord Cornwallis, who was an able commander, had been successful at the south, although vigorously and skilfully opposed by General La Fayette. But he had at last to contend with the main body of the American army, and French forces in addition, so that the combined armies amounted to over twelve thousand men. He was compelled to surrender to superior forces; and seven thousand prisoners, with all their baggage and stores, fell into the hands of the victors, 19th of October, 1781. This great event diffused universal joy throughout America, and a corresponding depression among the English people.
After this capitulation, the conviction was general that the war would soon be terminated. General La Fayette obtained leave to return to France, and the recruiting service languished. The war nevertheless, was continued until 1783; without, however, being signalized by any great events. On the 30th of November, 1782, preliminary articles of peace were signed at Paris, by which Great Britain acknowledged the independence of the United States, and by which the whole country south of the lakes and east of the Mississippi was ceded to them, and the right of fis.h.i.+ng on the Banks of Newfoundland.
On the 25th of November, 1783, the British troops evacuated New York; and, shortly after, the American army was disbanded. The 4th of December, Was.h.i.+ngton made his farewell address to his officers; and, on the 23d of December, he resigned his commission into the hands of the body from which he received it, and retired to private life; having discharged the great trust reposed in him in a manner which secured the grat.i.tude of his country and which will probably win the plaudits of all future generations.
The results of the Revolutionary War can only be described by enumerating the progressive steps of American aggrandizement from that time to this, and by speculating on the future destinies of the Anglo-Saxon race on the American continent. The success which attended this long war is in part to be traced to the talents and matchless wisdom and integrity of the commander-in-chief; to the intrepid courage and virtues of the armies he directed; to the self-confidence and inexperience of the English generals; to the difficulties necessarily attending the conquest of forests, and swamps, and scattered towns; to the a.s.sistance of the French nation; and, above all, to the superintending providence of G.o.d, who designed to rescue the sons of the Pilgrims from foreign oppression, and, in spite of their many faults, to make them a great and glorious nation, in which religious and civil liberty should be perpetuated, and all men left free to pursue their own means of happiness, and develop the inexhaustible resources of a great and boundless empire.
[Sidenote: Resignation of Lord North.]
The English nation acquiesced in an event which all felt to be inevitable; but Lord North was compelled to resign, and a change of measures was pursued. It is now time to contemplate English affairs, until the French Revolution.
REFERENCES.--The books written on the American Revolution are very numerous, an index to which may be seen in Botta's History, as well as in the writings of those who have treated of this great event. Sparks's Life and Correspondence of Was.h.i.+ngton is doubtless the most valuable work which has yet appeared since Marshall wrote the Life of Was.h.i.+ngton. Guizot's Essay on Was.h.i.+ngton is exceedingly able; nor do I know any author who has so profoundly a.n.a.lyzed the character and greatness of the American hero.
Botta's History of the Revolution is a popular but superficial and overlauded book. Mr. Hale's History of the United States is admirably adapted to the purpose for which it is designed, and is the best compendium of American history. Stedman is the standard authority in England.
Belsham, in his History of George III., has written candidly and with spirit. Smyth, in his lectures on Modern History, has discussed the Revolution with great ability. See also the works of Ramsay, Winterbotham, Allen, and Gordon. The lives of the prominent American generals, statesmen, and orators, should also be read in connection; especially of Lee, Greene, Franklin, Adams, and Henry, which are best described in Sparks's American Biography.
CHAPTER XXIX.
ADMINISTRATION OF WILLIAM PITT.
[Sidenote: William Pitt.]
We come now to consider the most eventful administration, in many important respects, in British annals. The greatness of military operations, the magnitude of reforms, and the great number of ill.u.s.trious statesmen and men of genius, make the period, when Pitt managed the helm of state, full of interest and grandeur.
[Sidenote: Early Life of Pitt.]
William Pitt, second son of the first Earl of Chatham, entered public life at a very early age, and was prime minister of George III. at a period of life when most men are just completing a professional education. He was a person of extraordinary precocity. He entered Cambridge University at the age of fourteen, and at that period was a finished Greek and Latin scholar. He spent no idle hours, and evinced but little pleasure in the sports common to boys of his age. He was as successful in mastering mathematics as the languages, and was an admirer of the profoundest treatises of intellectual philosophy. He excelled in every branch of knowledge to which he directed his attention. In 1780, at the age of twenty-one, he became a resident in Lincoln's Inn, entered parliament the succeeding spring, and immediately a.s.sumed an active part. His first speech astonished all who heard him, notwithstanding that great expectations were formed concerning his power. He was made chancellor of the exchequer at the age of twenty-three, and at a time when it required a finance minister of the greatest experience. Nor would the Commons have acquiesced in his appointment to so important a post, in so critical a state of the nation, had not great confidence existed as to his abilities. From his first appearance, Pitt took a commanding position as a parliamentary orator; nor, as such, has he ever, on the whole, been surpa.s.sed. His peculiar talents fitted him for the highest post in the gift of his sovereign, and the circ.u.mstances of the times, in addition, were such as were calculated to develop all the energies and talents he possessed. He was not the most commanding intellect of his age, but he was, unquestionably, the greatest orator that England has produced, and exercised, to the close of his career, in spite of the opposition of such men as Burke, Fox, and Sheridan, an overwhelming parliamentary influence. He was a prodigy; as great in debate, and in executive power, as Napoleon was in the field, Bacon in philosophy, or Shakspeare in poetry. It is difficult for us to conceive how a young man, just emerging from college halls, should be able to answer the difficult questions of veteran statesmen who had been all their lives opposing the principles he advanced, and to a.s.sume at once the powers with which his father was intrusted only at a mature period of life.
Pitt was almost beyond envy, and the proud n.o.bles and princely capitalists of the richest, proudest, and most conservative country in the world, surrendered to him the guardians.h.i.+p of their liberties with no more fear or distrust than the hereditary bondmen of Turkey or Russia would have shown in hailing the accession of a new emperor. He was born to command, one of nature's despots, and he a.s.sumed the reins of government with a perfect consciousness of his abilities to rule.
He was only twenty-four years of age when he began to reign; for, as prime minister of George III., he was, during his continuance in office, the absolute ruler of the British empire. He had, virtually, the nomination of his colleagues, and, through them, the direction of all executive affairs. He was controlled by the legislature only, and parliament was subservient to his will. What a proud position for a young man to occupy! A commoner, with a limited fortune, to give laws to a vast empire, and to have a proud n.o.bility obedient to his will; and all this by the force of talents alone--talents which extorted admiration and respect. He selected Lord Thurlow as chancellor, Lord Gower as president of the council, the Duke of Richmond as lord privy seal, Lords Carmarthen and Sydney as secretaries of state, and Lord Howe as first lord of the admiralty. These were his chief a.s.sociates in resisting a powerful opposition, and in regulating the affairs of a vast empire--the concerns of India, the national debt, the necessary taxation, domestic tranquillity, and intercourse with foreign powers.
But he deserved the confidence of his sovereign and of the nation, and they sustained him in his extraordinary embarra.s.sments and difficulties.
[Sidenote: Policy of Pitt.]
The policy of the administration is not here to be discussed; but it was the one pursued, in the main, by his father, and one which gratified the national pride. The time has not yet come for us to decide, with certainty, on the wisdom of his course. He was the advocate of measures which had for their object national aggrandizement. He was the strenuous defender of war, and he would oppose Napoleon and all the world to secure preeminence to Great Britain. He believed that glory was better than money; he thought that an overwhelming debt was a less evil than national disgrace; he exaggerated the resources and strength of his country, and believed that it was destined to give laws to the world; he underrated the abilities of other nations to make great advances in mechanical skill and manufacturing enterprise; he supposed that English manufactures would be purchased forever by the rest of the world, and therefore that England, in spite of the debt, would make all nations contribute to her glory and wealth. It was to him a matter of indifference how heavily the people were taxed to pay the interest on a fict.i.tious debt, provided that, by their commerce and manufactures, they could find abundant means to pay this interest. And so long as England could find a market for her wares, the nation would not suffer from taxation. His error was in supposing that England, forever, would manufacture for the world; that English skill was superior to the skill of all other nations; that there was a superiority in the very nature of an Englishman which would enable him, in any country, or under any circ.u.mstances, to overcome all compet.i.tors and rivals. Such views were grateful to his nation; and he, by continually flattering the national vanity, and ringing the changes on glory and patriotism, induced it to follow courses which may one day result in overwhelming calamities. Self-exaggeration is as fatal to a nation as it is to an individual, and const.i.tutes that pride which precedes destruction. But the mere debt of England, being owed to herself, and not to another nation, is not so alarming as it is sometimes supposed. The worst consequence, in a commercial point of view, is national bankruptcy; but if England becomes bankrupt, her factories, her palaces, her warehouses, and her s.h.i.+ps remain. These are not destroyed. Substantial wealth does not fly from the island, but merely pa.s.ses from the hands of capitalists to the people. The policy of Pitt has merely enriched the few at the expense of the many--has confirmed the power of the aristocracy. When manufacturers can no longer compete with those of other countries, upon such unequal terms as are rendered necessary in consequence of unparalleled taxation to support the public creditors, then the public creditors must suffer rather than the manufacturer himself. The manufacturer must live. This cla.s.s composes a great part of the nation. The people must be fed, and they will be fed; and they can be fed as cheaply as in any country, were it not for taxes. The policy of Pitt, during the period of commercial prosperity, tended, indeed, to strengthen the power of the aristocracy--that cla.s.s to which he belonged, and to which the House of Commons, who sustained him, belonged. But it was suicidal, as is the policy of all selfish men; and ultimately must tend to revolutionary measures, even though those measures may not be carried by ma.s.sacres and blazing thrones.
But we must hasten to consider the leading events which characterized the administration of William Pitt. These were the troubles in Ireland, parliamentary reforms, the aggrandizement of the East India Company, the trial of Hastings, debates on the slave trade, and the war with France in consequence of the French Revolution.
[Sidenote: Difficulties with Ireland.]
[Sidenote: The United Irishmen.]
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