第300章

The whole turmoil, cost, and paraphernalia of such a course would be injurious to us in the extreme, and the loss of our commerce would be nearly ruinous. But the injury of such a war to us would be as nothing to the injury which it would inflict upon the States. To them for many years it would be absolutely ruinous. It would entail not only all those losses which such a war must bring with it, but that greater loss which would arise to the nation from the fact of its having been powerless to prevent it. Such a war would prove that it had lost the freedom for which it had struggled, and which for so many years it has enjoyed. For the sake of that people as well as for our own--and for their sakes rather than for our own--let us, as far as may be, abstain from words which are needlessly injurious. They have done much that is great and noble, ever since this war has begun, and we have been slow to acknowledge it. They have made sacrifices for the sake of their country which we have ridiculed. They have struggled to maintain a good cause, and we have disbelieved in their earnestness. They have been anxious to abide by their Constitution, which to them has been as it were a second gospel, and we have spoken of that Constitution as though it had been a thing of mere words in which life had never existed.

This has been done while their hands are very full and their back heavily laden. Such words coming from us, or from parties among us, cannot justify those threats of war which we hear spoken; but that they should make the hearts of men sore and their thoughts bitter against us, can hardly be matter of surprise.

As to the result of any such war between us and them, it would depend mainly, I think, on the feelings of the Canadians. Neither could they annex Canada without the good-will of the Canadians, nor could we keep Canada without that good-will. At present the feeling in Canada against the Northern States is so strong and so universal that England has little to fear on that head.

I have now done my task, and may take leave of my readers on either side of the water with a hearty hope that the existing war between the North and the South may soon be over, and that none other may follow on its heels to exercise that new-fledged military skill which the existing quarrel will have produced on the other side of the Atlantic. I have written my book in obscure language if I have not shown that to me social successes and commercial prosperity are much dearer than any greatness that can be won by arms. The Americans had fondly thought that they were to be exempt from the curse of war--at any rate from the bitterness of the curse. But the days for such exemption have not come as yet. While we are hurrying on to make twelve-inch shield plates for our men-of-war, we can hardly dare to think of the days when the sword shall be turned into the plowshare. May it not be thought well for us if, with such work on our hands, scraps of iron shall be left to us with which to pursue any of the purposes of peace? But at least let us not have war with these children of our own. If we must fight, let us fight the French "for King George upon the throne." The doing so will be disagreeable, but it will not be antipathetic to the nature of an Englishman. For my part, when an American tells me that he wants to fight with me, I regard his offense, as compared with that of a Frenchman under the same circumstances, as I would compare the offense of a parricide or a fratricide with that of a mere commonplace murderer. Such a war would be plus quam civile bellum.

Which of us two could take a thrashing from the other and afterward go about our business with contentment?