187 SKETCHES OF FOREIGN MANNERS. FOREIGN ASSOCIATION. WE had fervently hoped, during a war, unparalleled in duration and severity, that if ever the blessing of peace should be restored, all would be well again: we had hoped, that at least we should be brought back to our previous situation, with that improvement in humility and gratitude, which the remembrance of past sufferings, and recent deliverance from those sufferings would seem naturally to produce. If our pleasant feelings in such a prospective event were shaded at all, it was simply by the irreparable and individual loss of a father, son, or brother, which almost every family, of every rank, had sustained. Peace was at length providentially granted to our arms and to our prayers; but all the blessings we had anticipated did not return in her train: Ease still recants Vows made in pain, as violent and void. Were it not almost doubtful whether in some respects the change may have proved a benefit, if it should be found to be the choice between the two evils, the waste of human lives, or the decay of moral principles? Some scrupulous persons may even think it requires no very correct arithmetic to determine on the comparative value of perishable lives and immortal souls. What then was the first use we made of a benefit so earnestly implored, a blessing which we fondly flattered ourselves would be converted to so many salutary purposes? This peace, for which so many prayers were offered, so many fasts appointed; this peace, whose return was celebrated by thanksgivings in every church, and, as we hope, in every house, and in every heart, to what purpose was its restoration devoted? - This peace was seized on, not as a means to repair, in some measure, the ravages which were made on the commerce, the property, the comforts, as well as the population of our country; but must it not, in many instances, be said truly, though most painfully said, to vary their nature, and enhance their malignity? Instead of sedulously employing it to raise us to our former situation by a prudent restriction in our indulgences, by an increased residence in our respective districts, and an endeavour to lighten the difficulties of government, by the continued contribution of its rightful supplies; instead of using it to mitigate the distresses, and to restrain the crimes of the lower orders, by living in the midst of them, each at his natural and appropriate station, and thus neutralising a spirit of disaffection, which took advantage only of their absence to break out; - instead of improving its opportunities, or providing against the impending scarcity, which the desertion of the rich increased almost to famine; by giving employment to the industrious, relief to the sick, and bread to the famished; instead of each sentinel remaining at his providentially-appointed watch, at this critical moment, a very large proportion of our nobles and gentry, and an indefinite number of our laity, and not a few of our clergy, that important part of the community, of which the situation is peculiarly local, all these, as if simultaneously seized by that mania which, in fabulous history, is said to have sent one unfortunate object of divine persecution wandering through the world,— all these important portions of our country at once abandoned it. The only use they made of peace was to fly, with most unrighteous speed, to the authors of our calamities, and of such calamities as it might be thought could not at once have been forgotten; to visit a country which had filled our own with widows and orphans, which had made the rest of Europe a scene of desolation. - Not only hundreds of thousands of our country, men, and women, and children, but millions of our money, so severely wanted at home, were transported from every port to visit this lately execrated country. To visit, did I say? that had been little; a short excursion to feed the eye, and gratify the taste with pictures and statues, might have been pleaded as a natural temptation. Here we conceive the grave Christian moralist will censure the writer, as much as she censures the emigrants. He will say, "The desire is too natural to be right." If we plead in mitigation of damages, that it was innocent curiosity, we shall be told, that it was a curiosity which one of our first parents believed innocent, but which lost them both Paradise. If it was a desire of knowledge, it might be a knowledge better unknown; if to cure those prejudices, "for which our country is a name so dear," such prejudices may better be retained than cured. But be this as it may, the truth is, that to multitudes France was not made a place of a visit, but a home. For when these wonderful productions of art were restored to the places from whence they had been feloniously taken, did that allay the hunger of emigration? France became the settled residence of multitudes. France was made a chosen scene for the education of English, of Protestant children! Sons and daughters, even in the middle ranks of life, were transported thither with an eagerness, as if the land of blood had been the land of promise. And as all fashions descend, not a few of our once simple, plain-hearted English yeomen were drawn in to follow the example of their betters, as they are not very correctly called. The infection became general, nor has time as yet stayed the plague. A late French wit*, who always preferred a calumny to a fact, and was more fond of giving a neat turn to a sentence than of speaking truth, * Voltaire. |