СНАР. 6 had enjoyed for more than two centuries. They in vain endeavoured to prove that the habits and the poverty of the native Indians made it impossible to hope for any increase in the Indian trade. It was in vain that they obtained the evidence of the greatest authorities on Indian questions: that Warren Hastings emerged from the retirement, in which he had passed the twenty preceding years of his life, to deny that our export trade would be greatly furthered by opening the traffic with India to all who might desire to embark in it;' and that Sir John Malcolm was brought forward to declare that 'the general population of India were not likely to become customers for European articles because they did not possess the means to purchase them.'1 Parliament had the wisdom to refuse to listen to the claims of the Company, or to be guided by the advice of Indian officials. The result showed the wisdom of their decision, and the salutary effects of free trade. The trade with India was at once rapidly expanded. The value of the merchandise exported from Great Britain to India, which amounted in 1814 to 870,1777., amounted in 1819 to 3,052,7411.2 The destruction of the Company's monopoly and the beneficial influence of free trade in other words increased our trade fourfold. Extended relations were in their turn to promote still further additions to our commerce, and to draw still closer the bonds of union between the mother country and her eastern dependency. At the close of the great war, then, Britain had possessions in every portion of the world; but the importance of the dependencies, which she had won, had hardly reconciled her to the loss of the magnificent colony, which she had had the misfortune to lose. In 1 Quoted in Yonge's Life of Lord Liverpool, pp. 462 and 465. 2 House of Lords Committee, 1821, quoted by McCulloch on East India Company. I. United States. 1765, or fifty years before the date at which this history CHAP. opens, a foolish Parliament, under the guidance of an obstinate minister, had passed the famous Act which drove America into revolt, and ultimately deprived this country of her noblest colony. A little more than thirty years before the date at which this history opens the treaty had been signed which had recognised the independence of the American Republic. Men had hardly ceased to regret that the generation which had won Canada in one hemisphere, and India in the other, for the crown of England, had permitted a country, greater either than India or Canada, to be separated from the British empire. The victories of Clive and Wolfe had shed a new lustre on the shield of England, but its brightness had been obscured by the capitulations of Burgoyne and Cornwallis. England has long forgotten the lamentations of such patriots as these. Every wise Englishman, indeed, still laments the causes which drove America into revolt; but no wise man regrets that she should have won her independence. The United States, since their separation from the mother country, have increased in wealth, in population, and in resources, and the British have the satisfaction of knowing that the great transatlantic republic, whose prosperity is almost equal to their own, speak the same language, read the same literature, and claim the same origin as themselves. Thirteen provinces revolted from their allegiance to the British crown in 1776; and the thirteen stripes and thirteen stars, which the United States still place on their flag, will commemorate the revolt for ever. The thirteen States had in 1776 a free population of 2,600,000 persons. Between 1776 and 1815, however, six more States had been added to the Union, and the free population of the Republic had increased to 7,000,000. The trade of our former colony was rivalling that of our CHAP. own, and the British shipmasters loudly complained that I. the Americans were depriving them of their business. Nor was it surprising that the mercantile marine of the United States should acquire importance amidst the exceptional circumstances under which the eighteenth century had closed and the nineteenth century had opened. Every other great nation was at war, and the country which alone enjoyed the blessings of peace obtained complete immunity for her traders. Neutrality, however, is a condition which it is difficult for either a nation or an individual to maintain. A man rarely possesses the affection of two friends who have quarelled with one another, and, if he attempt to hold the scales evenly between them, he is proverbially liable to lose the friendship of both. So is it with nations. When States are engaged in all the difficulties of a close contest they are apt to regard with suspicion the attitude of an ally who regards the cause of their antagonists as favourably as their own. The suspicion too often ripens into hostility, and the neutral finds it necessary to draw the sword, in a quarrel which is not his own, for the sake of maintaining his own independence. During the earlier years of the great revolutionary war, the neutrality of the United States was not seriously affected. The Americans gained, in some respects, from the dissensions of European nations, and their merchants obtained a large addition to their carrying trade. Towards the close of 1806, however, the progress of the war had altered the previously been conducted. Britain mistress of the seas; made Napoleon master of the Continent. For fourteen years the two great rivals had been almost incessantly engaged in strife, and one had obtained virtual predomi conditions on which it had Trafalgar had made Great Austerlitz and Jena had 1 Compare the tables in Porter's Progress, pp. 357 and 418, and see also remarks on p. 399, I. nance on the land, the other on the ocean. Napoleon CHAP. saw clearly that the resources, which had enabled Great Britain to carry on the contest, depended on her trade, and that the destruction of her commerce would lead to the immediate collapse of his adversary. How, however, was the commerce of a nation to be destroyed by a ruler who had hardly a ship of war at his disposal? The arrogance of Buonaparte suggested an answer to the question. In his famous Berlin decree, at the end of 1806, he had the presumption to declare all the ports of Great Britain in a state of blockade, and to forbid the importation, into any port under his control, of the productions of either Great Britain or of her colonies. The British Government retaliated by declaring all the ports, either of France or of her allies, or from which the British flag was excluded, in an actual state of blockade, and by condemning all vessels trading to them as good and lawful prize; unless they had previously touched at a British port, and paid customs duties to the British crown. Napoleon, by the Milan decree, endeavoured to make this condition nugatory by declaring any neutral vessel, which had paid tax to the British Government, denationalised. The claims of the belligerents had thus virtually destroyed the carrying trade of America; and America avenged herself for the loss from which she was suffering by closing her ports against the flags of the rival nations. The state of things, which had thus arisen, was very memorable. The two chief belligerents had forbidden all neutral trade with their opponents. The chief neutral had excluded herself from all intercourse with the belligerents. Modern history does not perhaps contain any equally unfortunate record of the results of warfare. There was, however, a wide distinction between the decrees, which Napoleon had issued, and the orders with which the British Government had replied to them. Napoleon, powerless on the ocean, was incapable of I. CHAP. enforcing his own commands; while Britain, as mistress of the seas, was able to carry out the decisions of her ministers. The British orders, which were enforced, became consequently much more offensive to the Americans than the French decrees, which were practically unexecuted; and the Government of the United States displayed an increasing readiness to quarrel with this country. It is not necessary to narrate here the progress of the long diplomatic struggle which preceded the war of 1812; it is not possible to describe the varied results of a struggle, in which both parties achieved some successes and sustained some reverses; it is not requisite to detail the stipulations of the peace, with which hostilities were ultimately concluded at the close of 1814. These things properly refer to the history of a previous period. It is unnecessary, therefore, to relate them in these pages. Britain, then, at the period at which this history opens, had just concluded a war with the greatest power on the Continent, and with the greatest power in the New World. The perseverance of her statesmen, the determination of her people, the genius of her commanders, the indomitable bravery of her troops, had made her the foremost nation in the world. Twenty years of almost continuous warfare had extended her empire; and had arrested neither the increase of her population, nor the growth of her trade. While the thoughts of statesmen were occupied with the changing aspects of a protracted war, Watt was completing his steam engine, Arkwright his water frame, Crompton his mule, Cartwright his power-loom, Davy his safety lamp; Telford was carrying roads through the most impenetrable parts of the country; Murdoch was turning night into day by the invention of gas; Bell was launching the first British steamer, the Comet,' on the Clyde; Rennie was throwing new and beautiful bridges across the Thames. Merchants and manufacturers were alike profiting from the inventions |