husbanded: the consequence was, that in the hour of trial they came to the field like raw militia-men opposed to veteran troops; and in a single day the Prussian monarchy was left at the mercy of a conqueror. The event of the battle of Jena might have been predicted with perfect certainty; for in military science, as in every other science, art, or trade, practice is essential to perfection. The pugilist improves both his skill and his muscular power by daily trials and exertions; the more he uses his arms, the more tremendous is the blow which he is able to deal with them; whereas the Hindoo devotee who sits with his hands before him in the same posture of devotion for weeks and months and years, husbands his muscles till he loses the use of them. 'Oh woe to thee when doubt comes on!' says a wild German writer; it blows over thee like a 'wind from the North, and makes all thy joints to quake!' Woe indeed will be to the British statesmen who doubt the strength of their cause and of their country, and stand in awe of the enemy with whom it is engaged! And woe will be to us,..and to Europe whose deliverance must come from us,.. and to liberty and knowledge, and pure morals, and true religion, which with us (humanly speaking) must stand or fall, if the government of this mighty kingdom, in these momentous times, should be entrusted to men, as Wordsworth says of them Who talk of danger which they fear, And honour which they do not understand! We have been told of the dangers in which Lord Wellington and his army are placed ;.. this too in language which it is humiliating for an Englishman to read as coming from an English press,..language as base as the basest political cowardice could inspire, and as mischievous as the foulest treason could have dictated. But this is not the feeling of the British people; For we are the sons of the men Who conquer'd on Cressy's plain, Their sons can do again.-M. B. * What if Buonaparte himself should again enter the Peninsula with his legion of honour, and his imperial guards, and his new army of the North to put in execution his old threat of driving the English into the sea? On the banks of the Tagus we can assemble a British force numerous enough to engage with any that he can bring there, and we can supply it there with certainty and safety. Would to God that the contest was put upon such an issue! One effectual victory,. . one thorough success pursued to the destruction of an army which he commanded in person,.. and oh what a spirit would be kindled throughout groaning and humiliated Europe! We have not yet learnt to think highly enough of our own power. We must exalt ourselves if we would not be humbled by the enemy. In such times, it is worse than folly to distract the attention of government by clamouring concerning imaginary grievances; and to excite discontent in the people is, as far as possible, to betray the country. Of what should we complain? Of the public burthens? It is the war by which they are chiefly occasioned;.. carry on that war vigorously to the end, the end will be triumphant, * This part of the Essay was written while Massena was before the lines of Torres Vedras. and then the burthens may be diminished; conclude it by a precipitate peace, no diminution can be effected, and you deliver yourselves up to the enemy,..to a tyrant whose little finger is heavier than the loins of any usurper that ever yet was sent as a curse among mankind... Is it of political grievances? Under no possible or conceivable form of government could we enjoy more perfect individual liberty. An Englishman is as free in word and deed as in thought, subject to no other restriction than that which natural law requires, which is the rule of reason, that he use not his own freedom to the injury of another. And for political freedom, in what other age or country, since the beginning of the world, has it ever been so secured? That any man of upright intentions might deliver his opinions plainly and freely upon all public measures, is a fact so notorious that it might seem superfluous to assert it. If at any time within our memory it has been otherwise, (as in truth it was during the Pitt and Grenville administration,) it must be remembered that revolutionary practices were at that time carried on; and it ought not to be forgotten, that government could not have acted tyrannically unless the stream of opinion had been with it, and that for the acts of injustice which were then committed, the juries were at least as culpable as the crown-lawyers. Public opinion in those days outran the measures of government; and in the riots at Birmingham we had a specimen of what is to be expected from its supremacy. For whether the fiend who bestrides it and spurs it on, have Jacobin or Anti-Jacobin written on his forehead, the many-headed Beast is the same. |