with it he conquered what? Englishmen -their equals. This man manufactured his army, out of what? Out of what you call the despicable race of negroes, debased, demoralized by two hundred years of slavery; one hundred thousand of them imported into the island within four years, unable to speak a dialect intelligible to each other. Yet out of this mixed, and, as you say, despicable race, he forged a thunderbolt, and hurled it at what? At the proudest blood in Europe, the Spaniard, and sent him home conquered; at the most warlike blood in Europe, the French, and put them under his feet; at the pluckiest blood in Europe, the English, and they skulked home to Jamaica. Now, if Cromwell was a general, at least this man was a soldier. I know it was a small territory; it was not as large as the continent; but it was as large as that Attica, which, with Athens for a capital, has filled the earth with its fame for two thousand years. We measure genius by quality, and not by quantity. Further, Cromwell was only a soldier; his fame stops there. Not one line in the statute book of Britain can be traced to Cromwell; not one step in the social life of England finds its motive-power in his brain. The state he founded went down with him to his grave. But this man no sooner put his hand on the helm of state, than the ship steadied with an upright keel, and he began to evince a statesmanship as marvellous as his military genius. History says that the most statesmanlike act of Napoleon, was his proclamation of 1802, at the peace of Amiens, when believing that the indelible loyalty of a native-born heart is always a sufficient basis on which to found an empire, he said: "Frenchmen, come home. I pardon the crimes of the last twelve years; I blot out its parties; I found my throne on the hearts of all Frenchmen,"—and twelve years of unclouded success showed how wisely he judged. This was in 1802. In 1800 this negro made a proclamation; it runs thus: "Sons of St. Domingo, come home. We never meant to take your houses or your lands. The negro only asked that liberty which God gave him. Your houses wait for you; your lands are ready; come and cultivate them ;"-and from Madrid and Paris, from Baltimore and New Orleans, the emigrant planters crowded home to enjoy their estates, under the pledged word that was never broken of a victorious slave. It was 1800. The world waited fifty years before, in 1846, Robert Peel dared to venture, as a matter of practical statesmanship, the theory of free trade. Adam Smith theorized, the French statesmen dreamed, but no man at the head of affairs had ever dared to risk it as a practical measure. Europe waited until 1846 before the most practical intellect in the world, the English, adopted the great economic formula of unfettered trade. But in 1800, this black, with the instinct of statesmanship, said to the committee who were drafting him a Constitution: "Put at the head of the chapter of commerce that the ports of St. Domingo are open to the trade of the world." With lofty indifference to race, superior to all envy or prejudice, Toussaint had formed this committee of eight white proprietors and one mulatto,-not a soldier nor a negro on the list, although Haytien history proves that, with the exception of Rigaud, the rarest genius has always been shown by pure negroes. Again, it was in 1800, at a time when England was poisoned on every page of her statute book with religious intolerance, when a man could not enter the House of Commons without taking an Episcopal communion, when every State in the Union, except Rhode Island, was full of the intensest religious bigotry. This man was a negro. You say that is a superstitious blood. He was uneducated. You say that makes a man narrow-minded. He was a Catholic. Many say that is but another name for intolerance. And yet-negro, Catholic, slave he took his place by the side of Roger Williams, and said to his committee: "Make it the first line of my Constitution that I know no difference between religious beliefs." Now, blue-eyed Saxon, proud of your race, go back with me to the commencement of the century, and select what statesman you please. Let him be either American or European; let him have a brain the result of six generations of culture; let him have the ripest training of university routine; let him add to it the better education of practical life; crown his temple with the silver of seventy years; and show me the man of Saxon lineage for whom his most sanguine admirer will wreathe a laurel such as embittered foes have placed on the brow of this negro,-rare military skill, profound knowledge of human nature, content to blot out all party distinctions, and trust a state to the blood of its sons,-anticipating Sir * Robert Peel fifty years, and taking his station | I never cared to have anything to do with by the side of Roger Williams before any them afterwards. Yet I took up the hatchet Englishman or American had won the right; for them with the rest of my tribe, in the and yet this is the record which the history late war against France, and was killed of rival states makes up for this inspired while I was out upon a scalping party. But black of St. Domingo. * * * I died very well satisfied, for my brethren were victorious; and before I was shot I had gloriously scalped seven men, and five women and children. In a former war I had performed still greater exploits. My name is Bloody Bear; it was given to me to explain my fierceness and valour. I would call him Napoleon, but Napoleon made his way to empire over broken oaths and through a sea of blood. This man never broke his word. "No Retaliation was his great motto and the rule of his life; and the last words he uttered to his son in France were these: "My boy, you will one day go back to St. Domingo; forget that France murdered your father." I would call him Cromwell, but Cromwell was only a soldier, and the state he founded went down with him into his grave. I would call him Washington, but the great Virginian held slaves. This man risked his empire rather than permit the slave-trade in the humblest village of his dominions. You think me a fanatic to-night, for you read history, not with your eyes, but with your prejudices. But fifty years hence, when Truth gets a hearing, the Muse of History will put Phocion for the Greek, and Brutus for the Roman, Hampden for England, La Fayette for France, choose Washington as the bright, consummate flower of our earlier civilization, and John Brown the ripe fruit of our noon-day, then, dipping his pen in the sunlight, will write in the clear blue, above them all, the name of the soldier, the statesman, the martyr, TOUSSAINT L'OUVER TURE. THE DUELLIST. The Duellist. Mercury, Charon's boat is on the other side of the water. Allow me, before it returns, to have some conversation with the North-American savage, whom you brought hither with me. I never before saw one of that species. He looks very grimly.-Pray, sir, what is your name? I understand you speak English. Savage. Yes, I learnt it in my childhood, having been bred for some years among the English of New York. But, before I was a man I returned to my valiant countrymen, the Mohawks; and having been villanously cheated by one of yours in the sale of rum, Duellist. Bloody Bear, I respect you, and am much your humble servant. My name is Tom Pushwell, very well known at Arthur's. I fession a gamester and man of honour. I am a gentleman by my birth, and by prohave killed men in fair fighting, in honourable single combat; but don't understand cutting the throats of women and children. Savage. Sir, that is our way of making war. Every nation has its customs. But by the grimness of your countenance, and that hole in your breast, I presume you were killed, as I was, in some scalping party. How happened it that your enemy did not take off your scalp? Duellist. Sir, I was killed in a duel. A friend of mine had lent me a sum of money. After two or three years, being in great want himself, he asked me to pay him. I thought his demand, which was somewhat peremptory, an affront to my honour, and sent him a challenge. We met in Hyde Park. The fellow could not fence: I was absolutely the adroitest swords-man in England. So I gave him three or four wounds; but at last he ran upon me with such impetuosity, that he put me out of my play, and I could not prevent him from whipping me through the lungs. I died the next day as a man of honour should, without any snivelling signs of contrition or repentance; and he will follow me soon; for his surgeon has declared his wounds to be mortal. It is said that his wife is dead of grief, and that his family of seven children will be undone by his death. So I am well revenged, and that is a comfort. For my part, I had no wife— I always hated marriage; my mistress will take good care of herself, and my children are provided for at the foundling hospi- | to be ashamed of my company? Dost thou tal. know that I have kept the best company in England? Savage. the war-whoop. I challenge you to sing. | Thoughts of great deeds were mine, dear Friend, when Come, begin. This fellow is mute. Mercury, this is a liar. He has told us nothing but lies. Let me pull out his tongue. Duellist. first The lie given me! and alas! I dare not resent it. What an indelible disgrace to the family of the Pushwells! This indeed is The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes. damnation. Alas, that love should be a blight and snare O my honour, my honour, to what infamy To those who seek all sympathies in one!— art thou fallen ! LORD LYTTELTON. Such once I sought in vain: then black despair, DEDICATION OF “THE REVOLT OF | Which crushed and withered mine, that could not be ISLAM" TO HIS WIFE. So now my summer-task is ended, Mary, With thy beloved name, thou Child of love and light. The toil which stole from thee so many an hour, Aught but a lifeless clog, until revived by thee. Thou Friend, whose presence on my wintry heart To meet thee from the woes which had begirt it long, No more alone through the world's wilderness, I journeyed now: no more companionless, And cherished friends turn with the multitude To trample: this was ours, and we unshaken stood I Now has descended a serener hour, And, with inconstant fortune, friends return; And Death and Love are yet contending for their prey. And what art thou? I know, but dare not speak: Yet in the paleness of thy thoughtful cheek, They say that thou wert lovely from thy birth, I wonder not--for one then left this earth, Shines on thee through the tempests dark and wild, Truth's deathless voice pauses among mankind! THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN. [NOTE. Employment of very young children in faotories had, in 1846, become such an evil that the best talent in England joined in urging its amendment, which proved effective, for the Factory Act was passed in 1848, limiting the hours of labor and the age at which children could be employed.] I. Do ye hear the children weeping, O, my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years ? They are leaning their young heads against their moth ers And that cannot stop their tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, They are weeping in the playtime of the others, II. Do you question the young children in the sorrow, The old man may weep for his to-morrow, The old tree is leafless in the forest, The old hope is hardest to be lost: III. They look up with their pale and sunken faces, For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses "Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary; "Our young feet," they say, "are very weak! Ask the aged why they weep, and not the children, And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering, IV. "True," say the children, "it may happen That we die before our time, Little Alice died last year, her grave is shapen We looked into the pit prepared to take her- If you listen by that grave. in sun and shower, It is good when it happens," say the children, V. Alas, alas, the children! they are seeking Death in life, as best to have! |