Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846

"Cannibal-like, it fed one part of its subjects upon the other. She drinks the blood and sweat, and tears the sinews of its labouring millions to feed a miserable aristocracy. England is now seen standing in the twilight of her glory; but a sharp vision may see written upon her walls, the warning that Daniel interpreted for the Babylonish king – 'Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin!'"

We cannot help the confusion of genders. It's so writ down in the Globe, as are all our quotations —verbatim. Here comes a fine "death or glory" blast —

"Why is it that, after all, we should so dread the shock of war? We all have to die, whether in our beds or in the battle-field. Who of you all, when roused by the clangour of Gabriel's trump, would not rather appear in all the bloom of youth, bearing upon your front the scar of the death-wound received in defence of your country's right, than with the wrinkled front of dishonoured age?"

Hoorra! – Only one more quotation from Kennedy, and that because it permits us to take a last fond look at Sims, who re-appears, for a moment, like a meteor on the scene of his past glories!

"Was it not a burning, blistering, withering shame that the cross of St George should be found floating on American soil?" [Here Mr L. H. Sims exclaimed, "Yes, and it will blister on our foreheads like the mark of Cain!"]

Mr Hamlin, a Democratic representative from Maine, one of the pattern New England states, is not far behind his Western brethren —

"Their progress was as certain as destiny. He could not be mistaken in the idea, that our flag was destined to shed its lustre over every hill and plain on the Pacific slope, and on every stream that mingles with the Pacific. What would monarchical institutions do – what would tyrants do – in this age of improvement —this age of steam and lightning? The still small voice in our legislative halls and seminaries of learning, would soon be re-echoed in distant lands. Should we fold our arms and refuse, under all these circumstances, to discharge our duty? No; let us march steadily up to this duty, and discharge it like men;

'And the gun of our nation's natal day
At the rise and set of sun,
Shall boom from the far north-east away
To the vales of Oregon.
And ships on the seashore luff and tack,
And send the peal of triumph back.'"

Mr Stanton, a Democratic representative from the slave state of Tennessee – Polk's own – observes, that war about Oregon

"Would be another crime of fearful magnitude added to that already mountainous mass of fraud and havoc by which England has heretofore extended her power, and by which she now maintains it. Did some gentlemen say that her crimes were represented by a vast pyramid of human skulls? I say, sir, rather by a huge pyramid of human hearts, living, yet bleeding in agony, as they are torn from the reeking bosoms of the toiling, fighting millions."

Peace, this person observes, is rather nearer his heart than any thing else, but

"If she must depart, if she is destined to take her sad flight from earth to heaven again, then welcome the black tempest of war. Welcome its terrors, its privations, its wounds, its deaths! We will sternly bare our bosoms to its deadliest shock, and trust in God for the result."

After all this, our readers will be little surprised to find that a Mr Gordon, from the rich and partially civilized state of New York, whose commercial relations with us are of such magnitude and importance, makes an ass of himself with the best of them.

"The next war with Great Britain will expel her from this continent. Though a peace-loving people, we are, when aroused in defensive warfare, the most warlike race ever clad in armour. Let war come, if it will come, boldly and firmly will we meet its shock, and roll back its wave on the fast anchored isle of Britain, and dash its furious flood over those who raised the storm, but could not direct its course. In a just war, as this would be on our part, the sound of the clarion would be the sweetest music that could greet our ears!.. I abhor and detest the British Government. Would to God that the British people, the Irish, the Scotch, the Welsh, and the English, would rise up in rebellion, sponge out the national debt, confiscate the land, and sell it in small parcels among the people. Never in the world will they reach the promised land of equal rights, except through a red sea of blood. Let Great Britain declare war, and I fervently hope that the British people, at least the Irish, will seize the occasion to rise and assert their independence… I again repeat, that I abhor that government; I abhor that purse-proud and pampered aristocracy, with its bloated pension-list, which for centuries past has wrung its being from the toil, the sweat, and the blood of that people."

Mr Bunkerhoff, from Ohio, and his people —

"Would a great deal rather fight Great Britain than some other powers, for we do not love her. We hear much said about the ties of our common language, our common origin, and our common recollections, binding us together. But I say, we do not love Great Britain at all; at least my people do not, and I do not. A common language! It has been made the vehicle of an incessant torrent of abuse and misrepresentation of our men, our manners, and our institutions, and even our women – it might be vulgar to designate our plebeian girls as ladies– have not escaped it; and all this is popular, and encouraged in high places."

Mr Chipman, from Michigan, thus whistles Yankee-doodle, with the usual thorough-base accompaniment of self-conceit: —

"Reflecting that from three millions we had increased to twenty millions, we could not resist the conclusion, that Yankee enterprise and vigour – he used the term Yankee in reference to the whole country – were destined to spread our possessions and institutions over the whole country. Could any act of the government prevent this? He must be allowed to say, that wherever the Yankee slept for a night, there he would rule. What part of the globe had not been a witness of their moral power, and to the light reflected from their free institutions?" * * * *

Your Yankee proper can no more "get along" without his spice of cant, than without his chew of tobacco and his nasal twang. What follows, however, took even us by surprise: —

"Should we crouch to the British lion, because we had been thus prosperous? He remembered the time when education, the pride of the northern Whigs, was made the means of opposition to the democracy. He recollected the long agony that it cost him to relieve his mind from federal thraldom. Education was an instrument to ridicule and put down democracy."

What Mr Chipman would do —if—

"I appeal to high Heaven, that if a British fleet were anchored off here, in the Potomac, and demanded of us one inch of territory, or one pebble that was smoothed by the Pacific wave into a child's toy, upon penalty of an instant bombardment, I would say fire." * * * * "Now he (Mr C.) lived on the frontier. He remembered when Detroit was sacked. Then we had a Hull in Michigan; but now, thank God, we had a Lewis Cass, who would protect the border if war should come, which, in his opinion, would not come. There were millions on the lake frontier who would, in case of war, rush over into Canada – the vulnerable point that was exposed to us. He would pledge himself, that, upon a contract with the government, Michigan alone would take Canada in ninety days; and, if that would not do, they would give it up, and take it in ninety days again. The Government of the United States had only to give the frontier people leave to take Canada."

Though Michigan has the benefit of this hero's councils, he is at the pains to inform us that Vermont, a New England state, claims his birth, parentage, and education – a fact which we gladly record on the enduring page of Maga for the benefit of the future compiler of the Chipman annals. He closes an oration, scarcely, if at all, inferior to that of Sims, with a melodious tribute to the land of his nativity.

"If Great Britain went to war for Oregon, how long would it be before her starving millions would rise in infuriated masses, and overwhelm their bloated aristocracy! He would say, then, if war should come —

'Hurrah for Vermont! for the land which we till
Will have some to defend her from valley and hill;
Leave the harvest to rot on the field where it grows,
And the reaping of wheat for the reaping of foes.

'Come Mexico, England! come tyrant, come knave,
If you rule o'er our land, ye shall rule o'er our grave!
Our vow is recorded – our banner unfurl'd,
In the name of Vermont, we defy all the world!'"

Magnifique – superbe – pretty well! Would not the world like to know something of the resources of this unknown anthropophagous state which throws down the gauntlet so boldly? Well, in this very year of grace, the population of Vermont amounts to no less than 300,000 souls of all ages, sexes, and colours! She pays her governor the incredible sum of £150 a-year. Her exports in 1840 amounted to £60,000. Every thing about her is on the same homoeopathic scale, except her heroes!

We have by no means exhausted our file, but our patience is expended, and so we fear is that of our readers. We write this in the city of New York, in the first week of February, and the debate is still proceeding in a tone, if possible, still more outrageous and absurd. The most astounding feature of the whole is, that the "collective wisdom" of any country professing to be civilized, can come together day after day and listen to such trash, without censure – without even the poor penalty of a sneer.

The Americans complain that they have been grievously misrepresented by the British press. Mrs Trollope, Mr Dickens, and other authors, are no doubt very graphic and clever in their way; but in order to do this people full justice, they must be allowed to represent themselves. A man must go amongst them fully to realize how hopeless and deplorable a state of things is that phase of society which halts betwixt barbarism and civilization, and is curiously deficient in the virtues of both. If he wishes to form a low idea of his species, let him spend a week or two at Washington; let him go amongst the little leaders of party in that preposterous capital, watch their little tricks, the rapacity with which they clutch the meanest spoils and wonder how political profligacy grows fat upon diet so meagre and uninviting. He will come away with a conviction, already indorsed by the more respectable portion of the American community, that their government is the most corrupt under the sun; but he will not, with them, lay the flattering notion to his soul, that the people of whom such men are the chosen representatives and guides, are likely to contribute much to the aggregate of human happiness, freedom, and civilization.

As to the denunciations of Great Britain, so thickly strewn through these carmina non prius audita of the Congressional muse, we are sure they will excite no feeling in our readers but that of pity and contempt, and that comment upon them is unnecessary. The jealousy of foreign nations towards the arts and arms of his country, is no new experience to the travelled Englishman. Still, as the Americans have no reason to be particularly sore on the subject of our arms, and as they appropriate our arts, at a very small expense, to themselves, they might afford, we should think, to let the British lion alone, and glorify themselves without for ever shaking their fists in the face of that magnanimous beast. In a political point of view, however, the deep-seated hostility of this people towards the British government, is a fact neither to be concealed nor made light of. From a somewhat extended personal observation, the writer of this is convinced that war at any time, and in any cause, would be popular with a large majority of the inhabitants of the United States. It is in vain to oppose to their opinion the interests of their commerce, and the genius of their institutions, so unsuited to schemes of warlike aggrandizement. The government of the United States is in the hands of the mob, which has as little to lose there as elsewhere, by convulsion of any kind.

We are willing to believe that the person who at present fills the Presidential chair at Washington, is fully alive to the responsibilities of his situation, and would gladly allay the storm which himself and his party have heretofore formed for their own most unworthy purposes. He knows full well that the dispute is in itself of the most trumpery nature; that the course of Great Britain has been throughout moderate and conciliatory to the last degree; that the military and financial position of the United States is such as to forbid a warlike crisis; and that, if hostilities were to ensue betwixt Great Britain and his country, no time could be more favourable to the former than the present. Yet, with all these inducements to peace, we fear he will find it impossible to bring matters to a satisfactory termination. But should an opportunity occur of taking us at disadvantage – should we find ourselves, for instance, involved in war with any powerful European nation – we may lay our account to have this envious and vindictive people on our backs. We are not, therefore, called upon to anticipate the trial, and to take the course of events into our own hands; but still less ought we to make any concessions, however trifling, which may retard, but will eventually exasperate, our difficulties. Much is in our power on the continent of North America, if we are but true to our own interests and to those of mankind. We should cherish to the utmost that affectionate and loyal spirit, which at present so eminently distinguishes our flourishing colony of Canada; we should look to it, that such a form of government be established in Mexico as shall at once heal her own dissensions, and guarantee her against the further encroachments of her neighbours; and we should invite other European nations to join with us in informing the populace of the United States, that they cannot be indulged in the gratification of those predatory interests, which the public opinion of the age happily denies to the most compact despotisms and the most powerful empires.

ANTONIO PEREZ

As often as we revisit the fair city of Brussels, an irresistible attraction leads us from the heights crowned with its modern palaces, down among the localities of the valley beneath, the seat and scene of so many of the old glories of the capital of the Netherlands. On these occasions our steps unconsciously deviate a little from the direct line of descent, turning off on the left hand towards the Hotel d'Aremberg. But it is not to saunter through the elegant interior of this princely mansion, and linger over exquisite pictures and rare Etruscan vases, that we then approach it. Our musing eye sees not the actual walls shining with intolerable whiteness in the fierce summer-sun, but the towers of an ancient edifice, long ago demolished by the pitiless Alva, which once, as the Hotel de Cuylembourg, covered the same site. Beneath its roof the Protestant Confederates, in 1566, drew up their memorable "Request" to Margaret of Parma; and at one of its windows these "Beggars," being dismissed with such contumelious scorn from the presence of the Regent, nobly converted the stigma into a war-cry; and, with the wallet of the "Gueux" slung across their shoulders, drank out of wooden porringers a benison on the cause of the emancipation of the United Provinces. So prompted to think of these stirring times, we are carried by the steep declivity of a few streets to that magnificent Town Hall, where, only eleven years before the occurrences in the Hotel Cuylembourg, Charles V. had resigned into the hands of his son Philip the sovereignty of an extensive and flourishing empire. All that could be achieved by the energy of a mind confident of its own force and clearness – by a strong will wielding enormous resources of power – by prudence listening to, and able to balance, cautious experience, and fearless impetuosity – and by consummate skill in the art of government, had been laboriously and successfully achieved by Charles. To Philip he transferred the most fertile, delightful, opulent, and industrious countries of Europe – Spain and the Netherlands, Milan and Naples. His African possessions included Tunis and Oran, the Cape Verd and Canary islands. The Moluccas, the Philippine and Sunda islands heaped his storehouses with the spices, and fruits, and prolific vegetable riches of the Indian Ocean; while from the New World, the mines of Mexico, Chili, and Potosi poured into his treasury their tributary floods of gold. His mighty fleet was still an invincible armada; and his army, inured to war, and accustomed to victory under heroic captains, upheld the wide renown of the Spanish infantry. But neither the abilities nor the auspicious fortunes of Charles were inherited with this vast dominion by Philip. It is almost a mystery the crumbling away during his reign of such wealth and such strength. To read the riddle, we must know Philip. The biography which we shall now hurriedly sketch, of one of his most eminent favourites and ministers, who was, also, one of the most remarkable men that ever lived, enables us to see further into the breast of the gloomy, jealous, and cruel king, than we could hope to do by the less penetrating light of general history.

It was in the course of the year 1594, that the mother of the great Lord Bacon wrote bitterly to his brother Anthony – "Tho' I pity your brother, yet so long as he pities not himself, but keepeth that bloody Perez, yea, as a coach-companion and bed-companion, a proud, profane, costly fellow, whose being about him I verily fear the Lord God doth mislike, and doth less bless your brother in credit, and otherwise in his health, surely I am utterly discouraged, and make conscience further to undo myself to maintain such wretches as he is, that never loved your brother but for his own credit, living upon him."

This dark portrait, even from the pencil of maternal anxiety, is not overcharged with shade. A few words, which could not have been uttered by the Lady Bacon except as a prophetess, we may add in reference to the meeting of the famous Englishman and the notorious Spaniard. At that moment the public life of Francis Bacon was faintly dawning. The future Minister of State and Chancellor of England had just entered the House of Commons, and was whining for promotion at the gate of the royal favourite. The mean subservience of his nature was to be afterwards developed in its repulsive fulness. His scheming ambition saw itself far away from the ermine of justice, doomed to be spotted by his corruption. He had not then betrayed, and brought to the scaffold, and slandered his benefactor. The power and honours of which he was to be stripped, were yet to be won. His glory and his shame alike were latent. He was beginning hazardously a career of brilliant and dismal vicissitudes, to finish it with a halo of immortal glory blazing round his name.

But such a career along a strange parallelism of circumstances, although with a gloomier conclusion, Antonio Perez had already run. The unscrupulous confidant and reckless tool of a crafty and vindictive tyrant, he had wielded vast personal authority, and guided the movements of an immense empire.

"Antonio Perez, secretary of state," said one of his contemporaries, "is a pupil of Ruy Gomez. He is very discreet and amiable, and possesses much authority and learning. By his agreeable manners, he goes on tampering and disguising much of the disgust which people would feel at the king's slowness and sordid parsimony. Through his hands have passed all the affairs of Italy, and also those of Flanders, ever since this country has been governed by Don Juan, who promotes his interests greatly, as do, still more, the Archbishop of Toledo and the Marquis de Los Valez. He is so clever and capable that he must become the king's principal minister. He is thin, of delicate health, rather extravagant, and fond of his advantages and pleasures. He is tenacious of being thought much of, and of people offering him presents."

To gratify, by one dreadful blow, a cruel king and a guilty passion, he murdered his friend. The depth of his misery soon rivalled and exceeded the eminence of his prosperity. Hurled from his offices and dignities, deprived of the very title of nobility, condemned by the civil, and excommunicated by the ecclesiastical tribunals, cast into prison, loaded with irons, put to the torture, hunted like a wild beast out of his own country and many a nook of refuge in other lands, Perez, who had been "the most powerful personage in the Spanish monarchy," was, when we first meet him in the company of Bacon, an exile in penury. And so he died, an impoverished outcast, leaving to posterity a name which befits, if it cannot adorn, a tale, and may well point a moral.

The "bloody" Perez was the natural son of Gonzalo Perez, who was for a long time Secretary of State to Charles V. and Philip II. Of his mother nothing is known. The conjectures of scandal are heightened and perplexed by the fact that he was ennobled when a child, and that, amidst all the denunciations of his overbearing behaviour and insufferable arrogance, he is never reproached with the baseness of his maternal lineage. Legitimated in infancy by an imperial diploma, Antonio was literally a courtier and politician from his cradle.

"Being of a quick understanding, an insinuating character, and a devotedness which knew neither bounds nor scruples, full of expedients, a nervous and elegant writer, and expeditious in business, he had gained the favour of Philip II., who had gradually given him almost his entire confidence. He was, with Cayas, one of the two secretaries of the council of state, and was charged principally with the despacho universal; that is, with the counter-sign and the conduct of the diplomatic correspondence and the royal commands. Philip imparted to him his most secret designs, initiated him into his private thoughts; and it was Perez who, in deciphering the despatches, separated the points to be communicated to the council of state for their opinion, from those which the king reserved for his exclusive deliberation. Such high favour had intoxicated him. He affected even towards the Duke of Alva, when they met in the king's apartments at dinner, a silence and a haughtiness which revealed at once the arrogance of enmity and the infatuation of fortune. So little moderation in prosperity, coupled with the most luxurious habits, a passion for gaming, a craving appetite for pleasures, and excessive expenses, which reduced him to receive from every hand, excited against him both envy and animosity in the austere and factious court of Philip II.; and, on the first opportunity, inevitably prepared his downfal. This event, too, he himself hastened by serving too well the distrustful passions of Philip, and, perhaps, even by exciting them beyond measure against two men of his own party, Don Juan of Austria and his secretary Escovedo."

It is impossible to imagine that the character of Philip was not fathomed by Perez. The peril of his position, as the depositary of the innermost secrets of the king, could not have escaped his acute mind. The treachery of his daily services, to which, in the words we have quoted, allusion is made, must have perpetually reminded him how probably he was preparing for himself the ruin which before his own eyes had struck and destroyed more than one of his predecessors. At the same time, the bent of his disposition carried him readily enough into intrigue, deceit, and cool remorseless villany. He was not retarded by any scruple, or abashed by any principle. But he did not lack sagacity. The power which he loved and abused was acquired and retained easily, because the exercise of his talents had always been quite in harmony with the natural flexion of his mind. In the conduct of public affairs, Philip never had a minister who more dexterously conformed reasons and actions of policy to the will, or prejudices, or passions of the sovereign. All the extravagance, and even towards so terrible an enemy as Alva, all the insolence of Perez, could hardly have shaken his security. From what he knew, and what he had done, Philip, it is true, might at any moment be tempted to work his downfal, if not his death; but, in consequence of that very knowledge and his very deeds, the value of such an adviser and such a tool was almost sure to protract and avert his doom. The disgrace and misfortune, therefore, of Perez, however enveloped afterwards in the mantle of political delinquency, are to be traced to more strictly personal causes. It is a curious, interesting, and horrible story.

The memorable struggle of the Netherlands against the domination of Spain was at its height. The flames kindled by the ferocity of Alva had not been extinguished by his milder but far less able successor, the Grand Commander Requesens, who sank under the harassing pressure of the difficulties which encompassed him. Upon his death, the Spanish court, alive to the momentous issues of the contest, invoked the services of one of the most celebrated men of the age. Don John of Austria, who saved Europe and Christianity at the Gulf of Lepanto, and had repeatedly humbled the Crescent in its proudest fortresses, was chosen to crush the rebellious Flemings. The appointment was hardly made, when clouds of distrust began to roll over the spirit of Philip. The ambition of his brother was known and troublesome to him, as he had baffled but two years before a project which Don John took little pains to conceal, and even induced the Pope to recommend, of converting his conquest of Tunis into an independent sovereignty for himself. Believing these alarming aspirations to be prompted by the Secretary Juan de Soto, whom Ruy Gomez had placed near his brother, Philip removed Soto and substituted Escovedo, on whose fidelity he relied, and who received secret instructions to divert, as far as possible, the dreams of Don John from sceptres and thrones. But a faithless master taught faithlessness to his servants. Escovedo, neglecting the counsels of Philip, entered cordially into the views and schemes of Don John, until the sagacious vigilance of Antonio Perez startled the jealousy of the Spanish monarch by the disclosure, that Don John intended, and was actually preparing to win and wear the crown of England. Such a prospect, there can be no doubt, tore his sullen soul with bitter recollections, and made him resolve, more sternly than ever, that the haughty island should groan beneath no yoke but his own. The mere subjugation of England by Spanish arms, and the occupation of its throne by a Spaniard, not himself, were insufficient to glut the hatred, and avenge the insulted majesty of Philip. For his own hands and his own purposes he reserved the task; and at a later period, the wreck of the Armada strewed the shores of Britain with memorials of his gigantic and innocuous malignity. Dissembling, however, his displeasure, he permitted Don John to expect, when the Netherlands had been pacified, his approval of the invasion of England.

"At the same time, to become acquainted with all his brother's designs, and watch the intrigues of Escovedo, he authorized Perez, who was the confidant of the one and the friend of the other, to correspond with them, to enter into their views, to appear to gain his favour for them, to speak even very freely of him, in order to throw them the more off their guard, and afterwards to betray their secrets to him. Perez sought, or, at the very least, accepted this odious part. He acted it, as he himself relates, with a shameless devotion to the king, and a studied perfidy towards Don Juan and Escovedo. He wrote letters to them, which were even submitted to the inspection of Philip, and in which he did not always speak respectfully of that prince; he afterwards communicated to Philip the bold despatches of Escovedo, and the effusions of Don Juan's restless and desponding ambition. In forwarding to the king a letter from Escovedo, he at once boasts, and clears himself of this disloyal artifice. 'Sire,' says he, 'it is thus one must listen and answer for the good of your service; people are held much better thus at sword's length; and one can better do with them whatever is conducive to the interest of your affairs. But let your majesty use good precaution in reading these papers; for, if my artifice is discovered, I shall no longer be good for any thing; and shall have to discontinue the game. Moreover, I know very well that, for my duty and conscience, I am doing, in all this, nothing but what I ought; and I need no other theology than my own to comprehend it.' The king answers – 'Trust, in every thing, to my circumspection. My theology understands the thing just as yours does, and considers not only that you are doing your duty, but that you would have been remiss towards God and man, had you not done so, in order to enlighten my understanding, as completely as is necessary, against human deceits and upon the things of this world, at which I am truly alarmed."

The laurels of the conqueror of the Turks drooped and withered in Flanders.

"This young and glorious captain found, in the provinces confederated at Ghent, an incurable distrust both of the Spaniards and himself. The profound and skilful policy of the Prince of Orange raised obstacles against him which he could not surmount. In spite of the moderate conditions which he offered to the assembled States-General, he was received by them much less as a pacificator than as an enemy. They refused to authorize the departure of the Spanish troops by sea, fearing they might be employed against the provinces of Holland and Zealand, and they required that they should repair to Italy by land. Don Juan saw his designs upon England, on this side, vanishing. Without authority, money, or any means of establishing the domination of the king, his brother, and of supporting his own renown, he took a disgust to a position which offered him no issue. Accustomed, hitherto, to rapid and brilliant enterprises, he desponded at his impotency; and already a prey to gnawing cares, which were leading him slowly to the tomb, he demanded his recall."