Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 63, No. 392, June, 1848

The effect produced upon the commercial affairs of America by the apprehension of a revolutionary movement in Great Britain, and the restoration of confidence when the news of the peaceful termination of the demonstration of the 10th arrived, are thus given in the Weekly Herald of New York: —

Sunday, April 30 – 6 p.m.

"The week just closed has been one of the most intense excitement. The most gloomy anticipations had been formed relative to the expected news from England; and we have never before seen such a panic growing out of a probable event, as that which had taken possession of the public mind. The whole thing turned upon the result of the Chartist movement in London; and such were the hopes and fears of those connected in any way with Great Britain, that it was difficult to escape the general depression. Vessels freighted for ports in England were not permitted to depart until after the arrival of the steamer. Drawers of exchange refused to sell any more bills on their agents; prices for cotton were steadily drooping in anticipation of a complete overthrow of the British government; and a thorough derangement existed in every department of industry, and, in fact, the greatest consternation prevailed. As soon as it was announced that the steamer America was telegraphed, the public mind was at once relieved, and stocks advanced, even before the news became known. The fact that the steamer was coming, that she had sailed on her regular day, satisfied all that there had been no change in the government – that the Chartist movement had not succeeded, and that, so far as political affairs in Great Britain were concerned, every thing was quiet. This gave a buoyancy to the market, and the reaction upon the public mind was tremendous. When the news was read from an Extra Herald to the crowd in Wall Street, many men shed tears, and almost a universal shaking of hands took place. Many, who imagined they were ruined, found their fears groundless; and the long, anxious faces which met us at every turn in the business portion of the city during the past week, were suddenly changed to those of joy. Vessels which have been under an embargo, will now resume their voyages; and produce which has been held back, will go forward more rapidly. Trade will again move on in the usual channels, and renewed confidence will give an impetus to commercial transactions generally. The news by the America is of vast importance, inasmuch as it has removed the immense weight pressing upon the minds of mercantile men, and given great relief to all classes; otherwise the news does not amount to much, in a commercial point of view. The advance in consols was the result more of the reaction in the public mind, caused by the manner in which the Chartist demonstration passed off, than any thing else, as the position of affairs on the Continent kept the market very sensitive."

The following article is from the Morning Express; and it is valuable for the justice of its remarks upon the anomalies which pervade the democratic American constitution, as well as our own, and which must exist under every form of government which deserves the name: —

"The Attempted Insurrection in England. – The public mind was gratefully relieved on Saturday, by the intelligence, flying like wild-fire upon the arrival of the America, that the Chartist demonstration on Kennington Common failed of its main object – viz., that of creating an insurrection among the two millions of London, like that which had been created among the million of Paris. If England had swung from her moorings, as France has, and Italy and Germany have, no one could have foreseen the consequences, or ventured to predict upon the probable results. Certain it is, however, that almost every British business-doing house in the United States would have been crushed, and the commerce of the world would have been annihilated for a season.

"The 'six points' of the Chartists of England are no doubt known to our readers. The petitioners pray (1) for annual parliaments, (2) universal suffrage, (3) vote by ballot, (4) equal electoral districts, (5) no property qualification, and (6) the payment of members. Now, at the first blush, all these seem reasonable enough, if the people want them – although there is no proof that they do, but rather proof to the contrary, – but when we remember that, in this country, not one of these points, save the payment of members of Congress, is universally recognised as the law of the land, it is not for us to say a word in favour of the Chartists of England, at least until we make their theoretical 'points' our 'points' in practice. We have no annual Congress. Members of the House are elected for two years, and members of the Senate for six years. We have no universal suffrage. The three millions of slaves do not vote. The negroes in the Free States do not vote (two or three States excepted) without a property qualification. In democratic Virginia, a man must be a freeholder to vote. In some of the other States there are also rigid restrictions. The vote by ballot is known nowhere in the Slave States. The viva voce is the only mode of voting, and it is not certain that it is not the best way. Equal electoral districts do not exist in this country. Six hundred white men in South Carolina or Louisiana elect as many members of Congress as six thousand in New York. The little State of Delaware, entitled to but one member of Congress, elects as many Senators as New York, entitled to her thirty-six members in the Lower House. Thus, whatever evils the Chartists groan under, if any, we groan under here in these, their beau-ideal, United States. But, if we are misgoverned here, or if misgovernment exists in England, it is vain to deny that it is our own fault. No revolution, no exertion of physical force, can better our condition. The cause of order is the cause of liberty; tyrants and thieves alone thrive by confusion. The progress of popular power is founded on knowledge, and the best fruit of knowledge is peace. It is kings and autocrats whose trust is in the bayonet, and whose only faith is in the rifle and parks of artillery. Let the people show they are worthy to be free by practising the virtues of freemen – by a reliance on the power of reason, on the march of intelligence, on the force of public opinion, on the justice of their cause, and the certain triumph of truth and right, naked and unarmed, except in the panoply of virtue and the majestic spirit of humanity.

"But the demonstration in London is not to be without its effect on the map of the world. It is the first check that the revolutionary ball has met with since it started in Paris, and ran like a meteoric storm over continental Europe. The British empire, at all events, is safe. Whatever is to be achieved for Liberty and Progress there, has got to be achieved, as such victories have been for two hundred years past, viz., by changing the law of the land through the constitutional action of the ballot box. It is very true that the British government, for the first time for many years, has manifested symptoms of alarm over a seditious meeting, – and there was reason for it, so sudden had been the revolutions in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Milan, Venice, Munich, Wirtemberg, and indeed throughout nearly all the cities in continental Europe, – and it is very true, also, that London, in the excitement, lost her trade and forgot business for nearly a week, while the actual cost of the demonstration in behalf of law and order is estimated to be full half a million of dollars; but, as the London Times well says: —

"'It is worth at least £1,000,000 in the additional value it will give to British securities now and for good all over the world.'

"The British character, British reverence for law and order, British public opinion, now stand higher than ever. No spectacle can be more beautiful than that of 200,000 special constables qualifying from all classes of society, and taking oath to obey the officers of the law in preserving property and protecting the city. The Chartist multitude of some ten, or twenty, or it may be, fifty thousand – for authorities differ in their estimation of the number on Kennington Common, – naturally enough quailed before such a moral demonstration. Their courage all oozed out of their fingers' ends, and their leaders evaporated on the trial day, as well enough they might. The whole thing turned out a farce, or an abortion; and the 'six points' of the Charter, well enough in the main, now stand about as high, in London, under such auspices, as the 'five points' in New York.

"Rejoicing, however, as we do in this suppression of a mob demonstration in our Fatherland, we do not shut our eyes to the fact that the British ministry must keep up with the spirit and the intelligence of the age, in all possible or rational meliorations of the aristocratic features of the British constitution. There is, however, the greatest pledge that this will be done in the very form itself of the constitution, – for there can be scarcely a doubt, we think, that there is now as near an approximation to universal suffrage in the House of Commons as in our own House of Representatives, – remembering, as we must, in the latter body, the numbers and colours of its differing constituency. The Senate of the United States is no more based upon 'equal representation,' as all know, than the House of Peers."

"Wall Street on Saturday last. – If there are any among us who doubt the close union, social, intellectual, and commercial, which binds in sympathy our people with those of Great Britain, – if there are any who deemed Americans mere passive, disinterested spectators of the revolutionary crisis, which, previous accounts would have it, was to provoke a civil war in England, and to submerge all the then existing law and order there, beneath the turbulent whirlpool of mob violence – we wish they had been in Wall Street, or, indeed, in any of the other business thoroughfares in the lower part of the city, on Saturday last, about noon. We are perfectly sure that the result of the intended-to-be belligerent demonstration in the English metropolis, on the eventful 10th of April, was not more anxiously awaited in Liverpool, in Edinburgh, or Glasgow, than it was here in Transatlantic New York, albeit three thousand miles and more away from the theatre of action. Early in the morning, as soon as it was proclaimed on the newspaper bulletins that the steamer was telegraphed off Sandy Hook, men began to gather in knots at the corners of the streets, discussing the probable character of the news at hand, – and, for the time being, all business of importance was at a pause. Speculation in Ohio 6's, Pennsylvania 5's, Reading Bonds and railroad shares, was laid aside for speculation in an anticipated fresh batch of revolutions and dynasties overthrown. Cotton, flour, and grain were all forgotten, and the only article thought of in the provision line was a Provisional Government in the realms of Queen Victoria. Hanover Street, at the corner of Wall, – that well-known rendezvous for street operations, – was in a state of terrible suspense; and even the stoic who superintends the dog-market in the neighbourhood of the Custom House, concluded to suspend all transactions in his quadrupedal profession, till the character of the news should be divulged. The excitement on all hands was intense; but the suspense was of short duration, for soon the booming of cannon across the bay announced that the New America had reached her wharf at Jersey City. An hardly had the echoes died in the distance, ere a 'Wilmer,' or one of the innumerable 'Extras' that now deluged the streets, was in the hands of every body who could read. By this time the various newspaper establishments were in a state of actual beleaguerment. Into some, the rush was so unceremonious and indiscriminate, that, as the speediest means to get rid of the crowd, an individual was delegated to ascend the desk and read aloud the details of the intelligence. Englishman, Irishman, German, and Frenchman, were among the eager listeners; and according as from the reader's lips would fall some sentence congenial to the feelings of one or the other, it amused us to hear the involuntary ejaculations of applause that would now and then break out. All, indeed, were patient listeners, – the American hardly less so than the European. And now that the Chartist bugbear had eventuated in a contemptible abortion, many were the congratulations exchanged – though some expressions of disappointed hope here and there met our ear. The internal peace of England had been undisturbed – the government had wisely allowed the 'demonstration' to take place, – it had 'all ended in smoke,' – Parliament hadn't even been menaced with those awful pikes, – the vast financial and commercial concerns of the nation were not seriously affected, – in short, because every thing now gave good assurance that the mighty conflagration which has irresistibly swept over all continental Europe, consuming many a regal edifice in its march, has left unscathed the governmental fabric of Britain, and therefore preserved all the mighty interests which, falling with it in the general ruin, would have immersed half the world in bankruptcy and distress – people returned to their homes and to their places of business with better heart. The cloud of gloom that hung over the business world, the week past, in anticipation of sad tidings from abroad, at once evaporated, and in the twinkling of an eye, all was sunshine and hope again. Such was Saturday in Wall Street."

To the sentiments expressed in these passages every British heart must respond; and we feel the more called upon to lay them before our readers from having seen some absurd and foolish ravings reprinted in this country as the verdict of the American Press upon the events which have been and are passing around us.

We do not much wonder at such passages as we allude to being quoted here, for, like many of those transatlantic extravagances which have now attained the distinctive name of "Americanisms," they certainly form rather amusing reading; but it requires only a very superficial inspection of these tirades, to see that they no more reflect the real tone of American opinions or American sympathies, than the harangues of the United Irishmen or of Conciliation Hall represent the feelings, judgments, or wishes of the Irish nation. Doubtless, among the less intelligent classes of the community, and the "Suisses" of the Press, on both sides of the Atlantic, there is abundance of rancour and bad feeling, in some cases the offspring of mere ignorance, in others of bad faith, disguised under the cloak of nationality and patriotism: but among the educated and the thoughtful portion of the public, and among the higher organs of periodical literature in both countries, a very different spirit is evidently gaining ground. A feeling of mutual respect, a spirit of cordiality is every day becoming more apparent, as the conviction of the common interest of the two countries becomes more palpable; and a union is gradually in the course of formation, which the storms that are agitating the rest of Europe will only tend, we trust, to cement and confirm. How, indeed, should it be otherwise? How, at least, should it long continue to be otherwise? For what country but Great Britain has ever sent forth from its bosom such a colony as now forms the United States of America? What colony could ever look back upon a loftier lineage than America, when, comparing her own wide and thriving domains with many of the sinking empires of Europe, she remembers her British descent, and feels, in a thousand traces of blood and thoughts and habits and morals, her connexion with "the inviolate island of the sage and free."

1

In the week ending April 29, 1848, the workers in Manchester stood thus, —

Times, May 4, 1848.

2

Imported from January 5 to October 10 —

Parl. Paper, 12th Feb. 1848.

3

Porter's Progress of the Nation, 358, 2d Edition.

4

Viz: —

– Porter's Progress of the Nation, i. 177.

5

One of the oldest and wealthiest houses in Glasgow in the West India trade has just failed for £400,000, and in their circular announcing the suspension of their payments they observe: —

"For upwards of half a century we have steadily followed our business of West India merchants, never engaging in speculations of any kind. Our assets chiefly consist of sugar estates in Trinidad and Demerara. These estates are in excellent condition, capable of making large crops; but they have been rendered worse than unprofitable and of no value by acts of Parliament – the worst of which being the Sugar-duty Act of 1846– whereby slave-made sugar was admitted to consumption in this country, on terms which the British colonies are altogether unprepared to compete with. We are, Sir, your most obedient Servants. Eccles, Burnley, & Co."

This is the truth, and nothing but the truth, honestly and manfully spoken. These gentlemen have been as completely spoliated by Act of Parliament as were the estates of the French emigrants by the Convention.

6

The inquest set on foot by the magistrates of Glasgow in support of their deputation, showed that six railway companies alone connected with that city could, if aided by government, employ for a year workmen as follows: —

Embracing, with their dependants, at least 120,000 persons, besides mechanics and others indirectly benefited.

7

Gil Blas, lib. 2, c. 5.

8

This is within the mark. It, has lowered the funds from 100 to 80, or a fifth; railway stock on an average a third; West India property nine-tenths; and mercantile stock, in most cases, nearly a half.

9

Bank of England notes in circulation, —

– Alison's England in 1815 and 1845, Appendix.

10

Free-Trade in Emigration. – The numbers who embarked in Europe, in 1847, for Canada, were 90,006; viz., from England, 32,228; from Ireland, 54,329; from Scotland, 3,752; and from Germany, 7,697. Of the whole number, 91,882 were steerage passengers, 684 cabin, and 5,541 were infants. Deducting from this aggregate the Germans and the cabin passengers, the entire number of emigrants who embarked at British ports was 89,738, of whom 5,293 died before their arrival, leaving 84,445 who reached the colony. Of these, it is estimated that six-sevenths were from Ireland. Among the thousands who reached the colony, a large portion were labouring under disease in its worst types, superinduced by the extremity of famine and misery which they had suffered previous to embarkation. Of the 84,445 who reached the colony alive, no less than 10,037 died at arrival – viz., at quarantine, 3,452; at the Quebec Emigrant Hospital, 1,041; at the Montreal Hospital, 3,579; and at other places in the two Canadas, 1,965 – leaving 74,408. But of these no less than 30,265 were admitted into hospital for medical treatment. Thus it will be seen that more than one-seventh of the total embarkations died, that more than one-eighth of the total arrivals died, and that more than one-third of those who arrived were received into hospital. Up to the 12th of November last, the number of destitute emigrants forwarded from the agency at Montreal to Upper Canada was 38,781; viz., male adults, 12,932; female adults, 12,153, children under twelve, 10,616; infants 3,080. —Report of Executive Council, Canada. Parl. Paper, May 5, 1848.

11

The Angler's Companion to the Rivers and Lochs of Scotland. By Thomas Tod Stoddart. William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London. 1847.

12

Guesses at Truth. By Two Brothers. Third Edition. First series.

13

We have not thought it worth while to adhere in our quotations to the somewhat affected manner of spelling which the brothers Hare have adopted. For instance, asked and wished are spelt askt and wisht: we have but one l in traveller, and the French word ragouts is rather oddly travestied into ragoos. The substitution of t for ed in the participle of many verbs, is the most systematic alteration attempted. Now the d and the t, as is very well known, slide into one another by such fine gradations that it is impossible to determine, in many cases, which of these two letters most accurately represents the pronunciation in general use. As the termination ed is what is understood by grammarians as the regular form, and is, moreover, in possession of the ground, it seems very futile to take any pains to alter it. In the instances we have already mentioned, wisht for wished, askt for asked, the new orthography is no nearer to the actual daily pronunciation of the words than the old and received mode of spelling. We do not pronounce wished and asked as we do the word waft. Give the full sound of the t in these words, and a pronunciation is introduced quite as novel as the mode of spelling.

14

Killed, Died – both terms adapted from the Indian figurative language.

15

The Mexicans are called "Spaniards" or "Greasers" (from their greasy appearance) by the Western people.

16

Bent's Indian trading fort on the Arkansa.

17

Meaning, – if that's what you mean? The "stick" is tied to the beaver trap by a string; and, floating on the water, points out its position, should a beaver have carried it away.

18

Scalped.

19

Soles made of buffalo hide.

20

The Hudson Bay Company, having amalgamated with the American North West Company, is known by the name 'North West' to the southern trappers. Their employés usually wear Canadian capôtes.

21

A spice of the devil.

22

"Euker," "poker," and "seven-up," are the fashionable games of cards.

23

Antelope are frequently called "goats" by the mountaineers.

24

An Indian is always a "heap" hungry or thirsty – loves a "heap" – is a "heap" brave – in fact, "heap" is tantamount to very much.

25

The young untried warriors of the Indians are thus called.

26

There is a great difference between an Indian's fire and a white's. The former places, the ends of logs to burn gradually; the latter, the centre, besides making such a bonfire that the Indians truly say, that "The white makes a fire so hot that he cannot approach to warm himself by it."

27

A pithy substance found in dead pine-trees.

28

This paper was written and despatched from Paris by our correspondent before the affair of the 15th May, when Citizen Sobrier and Citizen Caussidière seem to have played such parts as might have been expected of them.