The New Heresy: Proselytisui siibstitnted for Righteousness Two Letters To the Bishop of Oxford. By David tJrquhart. To which are added 1. “ Change in a Nation imperceptible, being caused by a change in each Man, 2. Pledge given that the Troops should not be Employed Unlawfully {^Debate of August 1 1 , 1848). 3. Correspondence with Lord John JRussell on its violation. « The Disease of this age is that people call things by wrong names, and then use the names as if they were realities.” Baron Alderson. FREE PRESS OFFICE 4, EAST TEMPLE CIL\MBEPw.S, WTirmTlIARS. -September, 1862. On the arrival in England of the news of a treaty having been signed with the Emperor of China, the Stafford Foreign Affairs Committee issued an address to their fellow-townsmen, in which this paragraph occurred: — “ Well may the Chinese call us barba- rians, for what else are we ? Will that ill-used people, think you, receive Christianity from hands stained with the blood of their countr3'men ?’ This address was dated October 1, 1858. Thereupon, Mr. UuQUHART addressed a letter to the Committee, pointing out the error of supposing that any religion remained amongst the English people. This letter was as follows : — “Your Address to your Fellow-townsmen is an admirable one, yet it contains a fatal mistake,— the assumption that it is Chris- tianity that is so preached. I refer to the passage, ‘ Will that ill- used people receive Christianity from hands stained with the blood of their countrymen?’ “ To know a Christian there is the simplest of rules, which is also a divine Icommandment,— it is ‘ By their fruits ye shall know them-’ You, not deceived in that matter, must surely know that in this land there are no longer Christians, and without Christians how can there be Christianity ? When Christianity does not exist how can it be preached ? “ The men ^abiting this land are, according to our Saviour’s definition, Children of Hell ; because, not being Christians, they seek to make Proselytes. Their fruits rise up in judgment against them— not merely those of bloodshed, but of proselytism attempted —and if, unhappily, they were to succeed, they would merely destroy, in the miserable so-called converts, that law which has been planted in them, and make them twofold more cMldren of hell than those who have been engaged in proselytising them. “ Be not deceived as to the missionaries, and by that arch-heresy first invented by a B.oman Pontiff, in derogation to the history and maxims of his Church, that religion has nothing to do with politics. If there were amongst the missionaries a single Christian, he would not be found in China or in Hindostan, but in England, denouncing a people of malefactors, and calling them to repent- ance. “ Our business, if we are not false hypocrites, does not conclude with restoring the Laws, or even commence there- We have to preach and teach our religion— the Beligion of Christ ; to refound Christianity in that place, where, above all on earth the task is difficult. The Pagan has, within himself, a natural reverence for that which real Christianity enjoins ; and to him, that Christianity is not a mortal offence as it has now become to Englishmen, who will call you an Infidel when you tell them what they are.” The Stafford Committee added this letter to their original address, and in this shape it was circulated as a handbill exten- sively throughout England. Thence it was that arose the question,^ “ Are we a Christian people or are we not?’ It was then that the Bishop of Oxford, who had so emphatically denounced in the House of Lords the nefarious procedings out of which that state of things had arisen whlch^had ended in the treaty, attended several public meetings at which he applauded the treaty, not as a wise act of Ministers, but as a Divine inter- position; and some correspondence had taken place between him ^and Mr. Ukql’hart on the subject which led the latter to infer, or to hope, that the like scandal would, if not atoned for, at least not be repeated. However, on the 1st of December, the Bishop of Oxford attended another meeting of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and again spoke. On that occasion he moved this resolution : — “ That it is the duty of a Christian people to avail themselves of every new opening which is made for the preaching of the Gospel in heathen lands.” In supporting it, he referred in the following terms to those who held that a people guilty of such deeds were not Christians, and could only become so by repentance and reparation : — “ There were those^ in this country — though he believed their numbers were butfew—vi\\Q maintained that the nature of our present connexion witli China, and the mode by which that land had been opened up to us so that we might enter it with the message of the Gospel, were of so peculiar a character as to make it unlawful for us as a Christian people to use them for the spread of Christianity. That argument was addressed to those who, like himself, had felt it their duty to oppose to the utmost the late Chinese war. Now, he had neither heard, read, nor seen anything which induced him in the slightest degree to alter his opinion as to the character of those hostilities. He still believed that our ground of quarrel was unjust, and one which a Christian people ought not to have taken up. But it was said that, holding that opinion, it was inconsistent for him to assert that the Providence of God had opened up a country to our missions, when it had in fact been opened by the issue of a war the origin of which he thus condemned. However honestly this reasoning might be put forward, it seemed to be based on an utter misap- prehension of the relations of this world to its Almighty Governor. A single verse in the second lesson for that morning would set this before every Christian man in tlie clearest light. In the account given by inspiration of the greatest crime ever committed by man on earth — the crucifixion of our Lord — what were the words used ? — ‘ Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.’ The relation was obvious. Man raged sometimes in his open sin, sometimes in Itis darkness as to what was right or wrong. But far above the tumults of this lower world sat the all-mighty and all-righteous Governor, whose exclusive attribute it was to bring good out of evil, and to join together His own omnipotent administration with the free will of the creatures of his hands. And, therefore, when the fact had been accomplished, it became the duty of His people to sit down and read the indications of the result of Providence, and instead of seeking — which was impossible — to go back to tlie state of things tliat existed before the recent change, to bring the healing influences of the truth to bear upon that which had been shattered by these convulsions, and to do, even as Nature did — to clothe the debris of the mighty earthquake with the beauty and fertility with which the vegetable growth surrounded it. He held, then, that there was no inconsistency in believing that the war in its origin was unjust, and in saying that we ought now to use the results of that war for the benefit of the people whom we had injured. Nay, if his argument was sound, that only bound a new obligation upon them as a Christian people, be- cause, if it was wrong for us to have engaged in that war, how was it possible for us now to undo the wrong ? We could only cut off the entail of its judgments by declaring that the more we believed we had incurred responsibility by what had already passed the more would we strive to turn its issues into a blessing.” % - Proselytism substituted for Righteousness. First Letter. Riverside, December 6, 1858. ^Iy dear Lord, — Since that of Lord Ltndhurst on the Chinese Fesolutions, the only speech I have read is your own of the first of this month, which I have just finished, and cannot lay down with- out addressing you, not in reference to its subject-matter, but on its historical bearings. That speech is spoken, not to the audience at Willis’s Rooms, but to objectors to the propagation of the Gospel in China and Japan, whose views you explain, so far at least accurately, as not being opposed to Christianity, but as adopting a different standard of Christianity from yours. Tliese objectors you describe as few in number. It is indeed a matter of sui'prise that any should exist. The purport therefore of this letter is to explain how they came into existence. I mention this that you may throw the letter in the fire, should such a narrative be without interest to you. If there be a history connected with them, it is that their growth has not been a spontaneous one. The adoption of a new standard of morab involves a painful and humiliating effort, the impulse to which must come from without. There are none of them who have not cost me, some, hours; some, months; and some, years: so that while their numbers may appear to you remarkably few, they do appear to me surprisingly many. These men had no previous homogeneity; some were earnest and pious; some benevolent and methodical; some frivolous and infidel ; some rude and disorderly. Whatever the intellectual interest of this diversified and incessant combat, the description would have no attraction, as its character will at once be seized by a mind like yours, and will be perceived to consist not in conveying anything to them, but in inducing them to give up something which prevented them from being themselves. The question will then arise, how the original transformation happened in myself. It did not come by any effort of my own, far less any purpose. I owe it to an accident, which was no other than the perception of the sense of rectitude in regard of public dealings, and the connexion of these with religion, amongst a people which I at the time, in common with my fellow-country- men, looked down upon as in all respects my inferiors, whether as regards their religious belief or their intellectual acquirements. Whilst yet a lad, I was passing the night at a Turkish bivouac fire, when some of the soldiers were narrating an incident which occurred previously to the breaking out of hostilities in 1828, which was that a small fortress had been enclosed by the advance of the Russians before the formal commencement of the war; on which I inquired how they could have suffered such proceedings. The answer was, “ How could we fire at them when war had not been declared?” Tire first impression on me went no further than amazement at their stupidity, which having been not reservedly expressed, one of the soldiers rushed to his musket, brought it to me, and, kissing the stock, said, “ Unless I use this, blessed by God, it is put in my hands by the devil.'' The whole matter now turned upon my age and the habits of my life. Fortunately I was young enough for the sense of shame not to be extinguished, and not having passed through the ordinary routine of education, I had not learned to sneer at what was different from ourselves. I was consequently struck down with shame for myself, and gained as it were the perception for the first time of a human being, on be- holding in untutored men a sense of right and wrong, in respect to the grand field on which operates human passion — one in regard to which our enlightened religion has at once abrogated every function and every duty. I had just before been engaged in the war between the Greeks and tlie Turks; I had, therefore, been, and was, a pirate; and had not so much as known it. What I suffered I can only portray by saying that, with the feelings of a repentant felon, I should have gone and offered myself to justice had there been a tribunal to take coirnisanoe of such crimes. It was only towards the morning of a sleepless night that the sense came home to me of the condition of the whole of my country- men being parallel to what my own had been, and not only my countrymen, but all the European nations; and it was then that the idea of a possible atonement presented itself in devoting myself to the attempt of awakening them from their judicial blindness. From that hour I date my intellectual existence; to it I refer every purpose and all the enjoyments of life. Perhaps the first surprise was to find such thoughts amongst the professors of a creed which I then believed to have been extended by the sword. My first study, therefore, was of the Koran, which I found, no longer to my surprise, contained the elements of in- ternational law, even as it might be expounded by Vattel, and without the exclusion on the score of religion, which blemishes the exposition of Grotius. The shock given to me by the sight of what my fellow-country- men really were, had for a time unsettled ray mind in all respects, I was in that very state which in England and in Europe has driven men into infidelity, atheism, and revolution. The perusal of the book of a religion to which, at least, compared with Chris- tians, its followers comformed themselves in their lives, might have afforded an escape, and I might have become a Mahomedan, had it not been that my next study was the Bible, perused now no longer as a thing of rote, or repeated as mere words, but striving after its sense and purpose; and then I saw that the Christian religion was not to be understood by the lives of its professors. It is this experience that enables me to cope to-day with the unbeliever and the atheist. I came homo to England wdth the express purpose of applying myself to the study of the laws, generally of nations, and particularly of England. During the period of three years, in which I was so engaged, I spoke with no man; I lived in a desert. I knew that it was my duty to qualify myself first, and if it was God’s will that there should be profit for others, I was satisfied that He would prolong my days. But in this silence I shrink not from stating, and words to that effect did even then escape me which others have recorded, that on the due application of my mind to the objects on which it was then engaged depended the future fate of my country. This is the story I have to tell of the origin of the objectors to pro- selytlsm, as attempted by those who are themselves the daily crucifiers of Christ; objectors, whose zeal and numbers cannot fail to be increased by your speech. It of course did not I'equire the commission of such a crime as that perpetrated by us in China for me to know either that it would be perpetrated, or that it would be accepted when perpetrated, and jus- tified when accepted. I had elaborated the case and argument by anticipation, and that argument was contained in the pamphlet I sent you, published sixteen years ago (Duty OF the CuurCii OF England in regard to Unlawful Wars. 1842), and as that argument went to the charging upon the Church every moral dereliction in the State, alike as the result of its not having taught it aright, and of its not having denounced it when wrong, I did expect that you would have deemed it fitting to the subject, your station, and your intellectual endowments, to have disposed of these charges by a refutation, before again urging the people to “ undo the wrong,” not by repentance m themselves, and atone- ment to the aggrieved, but by contributions of money to hire missionaries. I now ask you either to refute that pamphlet or to return it. Now, admitting that your crimes are God’s work; that it is just and fitting for religious men to accept and use this, their own crime, for religious ends; that it is possible for them under this stain, according at least to the notion of Pagans, to convert to their own creed the professors of other faiths; admitting all tliis, which I imagine to be all that you contend for — may I not ask 4 The New Heresy. ypu as a fellow-countryman for your protest against the indem- nity clause in the Chinese treaty. Your “ opinions in respect to the war are unchanged;” the treaty itself has not yet become an act of God’s Providence,” it is still one of human deliberation ; it is so because the worldly members of the Government recoil from it as too atrocious. Surely you will not allow it to be said that neither yoursejf nor any other clerical member of the Church has remained other- wise than dumb when evil was to be prevented. The Indemnity Clause is the assertion that we have been wronged by the Chinese. In your speech of the 1st instant you assert that the Chinese have been wronged by us. In your judgment, therefore, the indem- nity clause is a direct falsehood. If maintained, it makes your words a falsehood ; if you assent to it in silence, you accept the interpretation. It seems to me, therefore, that your honour as a rnan, no less than ytmr consistency as a politician, leaving en- tirely out of view the apostolical character which must appertain to missionaries if the conditions of that mission be fulfilled, and the prelatic character in connexion with the political integrity and Christian conduct of the land, requires from you, not merely a solemn protest against that clause of the treaty, but the exercise of all your powers to support the reluctance of the Govern- ment in appending to it the seal of ratification by the Quebn, our Sovereign. I can tell you that lay members of the Church, and men in high position, have called upon the bodies you refer to as ‘‘objec- tors,” to exert themselves to support the Government in its present dilemma against what they hesitate not to designate, the “ insane fanaticism” which pervades the land. Let me moreover tell you, that the appeals of those bodies, and their neighbours, have already been conveyed to the foot of the throne by her Majesty’s re- sponsible advisers. I will crave your indulgence for an endeavour with you still once more. You asked at the public meeting not only for money for mis- sionaries for China and Japan, but also for the prayers of your audience for God’s blessing on this work. The “opening of the door,” as effected by troops is only put by you as to be profited by through the “ self-denial,” implying, of course, the estimable conduct of those who are to profit by it. Would it not, therefore, be of advantage in the premises to do something which would show to the Chinese, on the part of the religious community, some regard for the Christian religion, and would not the mis- sionaries be more useful in their vocation in consequence of such an act? Now, the Bible having been translated into the Chinese, and the people of that empire having the opportunity of reading it, they are acquainted with the injunctions laid upon us; as, for instance, in the sermon on the Mount, when Chkist says: “ If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar and go thy way ; first be reconciled to thy brother and then come and offer thy gift.” Of course, the merely not consenting to the demand for money from the Chinese, under the form of indemnity for our expenses in slaughtering them, would not be a reconciling of ourselves with our brother, so as to afford grounds for our continuing to offer up prayers as Christians : still, any indication, I will not say, of a de- sire to do right, but of the absence of a desire to do wrong, would greatly diminish that “antipathy” to the missionai’ies which the Bishop of London, in presiding at the meeting on the 1st of this month, had the courage to announce, to explain, and to impress upon his hearers, as a thing fitting for them to “ lay to heart.” There is a great issue here raised, even in terms; an issue which has never yet been tried upon earth. It is no less than that of attempting a scheme of religion divorced from morality. No ambiguity, even for the most unintellectually endowed, has been suffered to shroud this position, even for a moment. You were followed and seconded by Admiral Keppel, who, amidst the cheers of this so-called religious meeting, declared his trade to be blood, and his religion the propagation of the Gospel. I have no doubt that you were horrified. But it is no less certain that, bound by your previously declared Identification of the Author of good with the principle of evil, it was impossible for you, at least without retractation, even to protest — I will not say against the inhuman words so uttered, but against the presence in that assembly of one of the men on whose hands was the very blood of the Chinese, but who by your doctrine, because of that very blood, was a doer of the will of God, not in the sense of an ob- server of the precepts given to mankind, but as a confederate in certain schemes in which corporeal felons and malefactors were requisite instruments of His omnipotence. On the threshold of the new existence now opening for us, I may well be excused for endeavouring to call the attention of a man taking so pre-eminent a part in bringing it about, to some of the novel conditions with which it is associated. The first that strikes one is, that the crimes thus perpetrated up to this moment, and to which an unlimited career is now thrown open, are not desired by the people guilty of them. The second is, that that people is destitute of the physical power requisite for prosecutintible, being caused by a change in each Man. There is no duty more solemnly impressed on the mind of man, and no practice more uniformly maintained, than that of directing the young mind aright. The whole human race consciously or unconsciously, by reason, or by instinct, does apply itself to the teaching of the young, and this motive sways alike the careless and the careful, the vicious and the virtuous, the difference of manner of execution corresponding of course to the difference of disposition. This impulse is not a simple and primitive one, as is the search for food, or the shrinking from a blow ; it is a compound one, arising out of a mental operation, based itself upon an intellectual conclusion. It is this, the pronness of the human mind to failings, whether of disposition or of reason, or of both conjoined, that is to say — vices, errors, and fallacies. The imagination of man cannot attain to the representation of a human being destitute of this conception of himself, and the universal purpose of education, shows such to be, not only the estimate which he forms of himself, but the one on which he acts. Yet, if we take up any work which commands public applause or excites public attention, whether it be historical, philosophical, ('1' imaginative, we will not fail to find it enunciated therein, not only as a profound maxim, but as a discovery of the author, that mankind is always the same. Such passages, if we observe our fellow-men in perusing them, will always be those which afford them satisfaction. If this be so, and it is so, can there arise a question of deeper interest in the study of mankind than the solution of the mystery? That solution is not difficult to find when it is methodically sought for. The satisfaction at listening to the proposition that care is useless, for such is the meaning of the maxim, arises from, and can only arise from, the consciousness that the attempt to bring up” properly has failed. The proposition may be treated mathematically, and the proofs sought for in the counter-operation. Take the case of a well- organised community where the child obeys and respects the parent, where the people obey and respect the rulers, where the rulers obey and respect the laws, where the word of man is his bond, where charity and hospitality are habits, can you conceive it possible that the proposition should be uttered or listened to, that mankind are always the same ? Such a community must be always on the alert and watchful, and there can be neither watch- fulness nor energy among men who admit as a maxim, that care is of no avail. But if we are all conscious that the conduct and charactei ot the individual is daily and hourly dependent upon the^ influences which surround him, and with which he surrounds himself, it is evident that the universal conduct and character, that is the con- duct and character of a whole people, is in like manner subject to change. It must be so subject in a far greater degree than in an individual case, for the change in a man may be counteracted by those around him, and he and they are alike conscious of any alteration ; whereas when a change is introduced affecting all, there remain no terms of comparison, and the victims of the change are unconscious of any. Herein resides that “facility of descent, which the Roman poet uses to describe the approach to hell. It is this also which furnishes the world with its events and its cata^ trophes. Here is the theory of the decline and fall of states, and also of the rise and growth of states, the one ascending where the other has sunk, as life springs from death, and fruit from ^^cay. If men were always the same, history would stand still, whether in the annals of the Old Bailey, or those of Greece, of Carthag^ of Rome, and of those states to which we belong, and by which we are surrounded. If men were always the same, there would be no more poor-rates to-day than there were under Henry the Tudor, there would be no more national debt to-day than under Charles the Stuart, there would be no more taxes to-day than under WiLLiAM of HOLLAND, there would be no more expen- diture for military establishments than in the last reign of W IL- LIAM the Guelph.* If men were always the same, the people of England of the present day, would be in receipt for their labour of as much as they were in receipt of under the Norman princes, under the houses of York and Lancaster, the Tudors and the S'TUARTS.f The change in the condition of the ag.gregate nation is, how- ever, itself the result of change in the individual, change result- ing from failure in the success of his education. The general change which acts upon us, in increased taxation, bad laws, in- fraction of good laws, oppressions at home, atrocities abroad, sufferings by misery, sufferings by deaths, sufferings by battles and defeats, sufferings by rebellions of provinces, or sufferings ultimately by successfully avenging arms from without, proceed originally, though by long and stealthy steps, from the failure of each individual parent, to inculcate on each individual child, respect and observance of that which is right, abhorrence of and resistance to that which is wrong. And thus it is, though by an extensive and complicated machinery, that the ways of Providence Avork themselves out by the method of justice, making the rules given to us for our spiritual conduct, to be followed by temporal conse- quences, the recompense in well being and prosperity for the nation that obeys the will of God, punishment in political ad- versity and national decline for such as refuse it. At the final meeting at the East India House, several of the Pro- prietors declared that they saw no reason against, but every reason for, the Directors of the East India Company being also nominees of the Government. Now, in the bye-laws of that very Company, of which the Proprietors are a constituent part, it is enacted, that no Director shall hold any office under the Government. Assuredly these Proprietors would be the very men to feel peculiar gratifi- cation in meeting in any work with the maxim, that men are always the same; not that they would be in ignorance of the fact that Hindostan, after a century of unbounded submission, had at last rebelled, or that the East India Company, after two cen- turies of unparalleled splendour and success, had at last been ex- tinguished, but because it would be gratifying to them to be able to say that the disasters in India, and the extinction of the Com- pany had not been the result of the difference in conduct and in character between themselves and their predecessors. You may subdivide the manufacture of a pin, or the government of an empire, but you cannot subdivide man. There Pi evidence has placed a bourne to his inventions, ffhe man can no more be corrupt than virtuous, in part : when the taint once^ enters it affects equally the field of foreign relations and domestic policy; of domestic duties and of social intercourse; of moral conduct and religious enjoyments. If you be changed in reference to your conduct in India, you will be changed in every other matter, and changed in a similar manner. _ ■ i i Virtue has its preventive part and attributes; without that pait it can have no existence. That part consists in taking care that it shall not itself be led astray, and far more, shall do nothing un- consciously. In the words of Jeremy Taylor, it must see that “ counsel precedes action.” This part being in our case wanting our own acts take us by surprise. If England is to-day told what England will do to-morrow, every Englishman indignantly an- swers, “ Am I a dog, that I should do this thing?” ip-m™ or the day after, he learns that it is done, and immediately aid covers that the act is the act of a man, and that too of a very wise, a very benevolent, a very firm, and a very brave man. * Under William IV. this branch of expenditure amounted to 11.000,000/., under the nresent Queen it has attained to 47,000,000/. „ t- i i + It s the admission of Hallam that the working-men of England m those so-tailed barbarous times received double the value for their labour, as comparet with the time in which he wrote. Pledge of tlie Governmentjiot to employ Troops unlawfully 17 This applies not only to what he inflicts upon others, but to I The Englishman of this age having no sense of judicial action what he endures himself; and not only to what he endures in re- j except as regards petty crimes and solitary malefactors, cannot gard to corporeal suffering, but in regard also to mental affections. That which has been held a duty, that which has been held a pri- vilege, and that Avhich has been held an honour, have all equally fallen before that insidious process of self-deception gone through in the recesses of the mind of each individual of the community, in which are combined the consciousness in each of his power- lessness to act, and the pretence in all of the possession of free institutions. If there was one claim to honourable distinction amongst the nations of the earth which every Englishman prided himself upon, holding it at the same time to be a distinguished inheritance, and an unparalleled protection, it was the institution of Trial by Jury. It was so held until the hour when a judge announced his intention of moving a law for its suppression. That announcement produces no indignation, no assembly of nobles at Runnymede, no popular pilgrimage of grace at York; there is no voice raised to exclaim, “ Nolumus leges Angliac mutari;”* and this institution will go just as the Prerogative of the Crown, the Rights of the People, the Power of the Parliament (its legal power), and the honour of the Land. In this process of accepting what is done, because it has been done, there is first afforded an irresistible temptation to do evil to those persons who are peculiarly exposed to seductions of this de- scription by their possessing power. Such persons had to be strictly watched and stringently controlled even when they stood in their proper position of having to obtain a prior consent before acting. Now they are placed between the alterna- tive of encountering obstructions in carrying out their purposes if they submit those purposes to any species of deliberation; and of the most perfect facility, if they simply pass by all forms of the constitution; they have only to act in secret, and then this being a free country, every man holds himself a party to the act, and his honour is involved in maintaining it. Take, for instance, the Par- liament returned upon the bombardment of Canton. To the people the effect of the process repeated on each suc- cessive step, that is to say, on each succeeding event, is accumu- lation at once of cowardice and corruption. When the English- man that has said to-day, “ Am I dog, to do this thing?’ learns to-morrow that it has been done, he does not accept it as a proper thing simply because it has been done, but because having been done, he sees no means of rectifying it. When a functionary has not persuaded the council into a wrong course, but has acted without the council, taking advantage of his official station to issue orders, he has committed an act against which there is no recourse but punishment. Just as when an agent in a private concern has violated his trust, a case is presented only to be dealt with judicially. ■\Ve will not suffer the laws of England to be changed. continue to reprove, where he feels himself powerless to resist, and he therefore comes to approve under the consciousness of servitude.^ As the act itself has been one of tyranny, so does the compliance in the act become one of slavery; and through this ghastly portal he passes down to the condition of corrupuon in the adjusting of his conscience to the crime that has been com- mitted, and of dishonour, in the degradation that he has incurred. Phus it is that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children. For the disregard of duties, to pass into the prone ac- ceptance of servitude, guilt and suffering, requires a lengthened period of time, it may be ten, it may be a hundred generations ot gradually deteriorated men; but in the breast of each of those living at this moment in England are treasured up the results of every evil step of their fathers downwards from the time that their steps first deviated from the path of duty. For any one man to recover himself it is requisite that he should lift from off himself the Incumbent pressure of the ages that have gone before him; all the wrong that has been meditated and ac- complished; all the fallacies that have been invented and dissi- pated; all the false respect that has been generated and incul cated; all the evil passions that have been simulated and instilled. Whilst clearing the eye of his mind so that he shall no longer take darkness for light, so that he shall not be utterly crushed t)y the throng pressing upon him, so as to temper his spirit, and to arm his faculties to stand up against false authority, and not to sink before hatred and contempt — it is not enough for him to see through the hollowness of an intellectual pretence; he must dare to break with his friend, relative, benefactor, teacher, and come out from amongst a generation of vipers, no less than fools, slaves pretending to be free, children of hell considering them- selves the depositary of God’s truth upon earth. ° Who is there equal to such a task? Not men who have f^rown into years, or at least to maturity, in that class whose life consists in standing well with others. Whilst Christ was on earth no man of worldly station came to him but by night. The apostles were selected from among the operatives of Judea. Wlien times are evil, it is that false judgments prevail, and the rectifiers are not to be sought for in the educated classes; it is the “bringing up’ that has done the mischief. What is wanted, is that the ignorant should know that their strength lies in their being free, from the learning of the wise, and the cowardice of the great. “ Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God hath chosen the foolish thin<«-3 of the world to confound the wise, and the Aveak things to con- found the mighty.” These words are to be found in the Bible, a book that might even yet convert Englishmen, if they happily ‘ called themselves Buddhists or Hindoos. D. U. Pledge of the Government not to Employ Troops Unlawfully. House of Commons, August 11, 1818. {From “ Hansard's Delates.”') Mr. Urquh.vrt rose to postpone until Monday his motion relative to the ex- penditure for diplomatic agents abroad. Sir De Lacy Evans Avould take the opportunity of reminding the lion, member for Stafford that he had on a former occasion spoken disresjicclfully of : General D’ Aguilar, Colonel Brotherton, and Brigadier General M'Doughal. | He thought the hon. member was not justified in speaking in such terms j of disparagement of those who served their country by serving in the armies i of her allies. I Mr. Urquhart. — I will assure the honourable and gallant member for West- j minster that he is perfectly correct in the statement that he has made regarding i mvsell'; he has hit tlie right nail on the head. II is precisely the part I ham 1 taken, in the affairs of Greece that is the oriyin of these conclusions, which the hon. and rjallant gentleman says I have been so persemring in placing before ' my countrymen. He will recollect that these circumstances occurred in my \ early life ; but they are the key to my subsequent conduct. It was the share 1 had iu that war, and the instinct of its injustice, that first led me to investi- gate this great subject ; and wlieu I did discover the delusion under which | I had laboured in common with my fellow-countrymen 1 did feel nivsclf opjirpsed witli a load of shame and guilt, and I have been impelled unceasingly , aken others in like manner, and therebv to recover the sense of law and right among a nation from whose breast within a single generation it has utterly passed away. The hon. and gallant member seetns very needlessly sensitive at once, and contemptuous in reference to certain epithets which I have used, and which he chooses to say, and says justly, apply to myself no less than to those in reference to whom 1 had used them. But if I remember correctly, and if I have read aright, discussions which took place in former years in this House, the hon. and gallant gentleman was not merely charac- teiised as a pirate, but as a condottiere; conscriuciitly if the hon. and gallant gentleman now says that he is indifferent to such an allegation as coming from me, I am not at all surprised. The words which 1 have uttered here have not been uttered for the first time, nor has the picture w hich has been drawn the merit of originality. These charges have been asserted repeatedly, without exciting the hon. and gallant gentleman’s sensitiveness. As to Geiicrai I)’ Aguilar, I entertain peculiar respect for his personal character; but the hon. and gallant member will see that the question raised is a great and public matter; he will see that it is nothing less than that whole subject which has produced the volumes of Suarez, and Vattel, and Gkotius, and all the great authorities upon international law; he will see that we are touching no less a question than the lawfulness or the unlawfulness of the acts of one nation j'n regard to another. This question was raised by the hon. and gallant gentle 18 Pledge of the Government not to employ Troops unlawfully. himself. I did uot rush unexpectedly forward and tumble a correspondence upon the table. I was listening to the details of the army estimates, without the remotest intention of taking part in the discussion, when, in reference to tlie Catfre war and the officers engaged in it, the hon. and gallant member him- self called the attention of the House to the services rendered in China. Upon that oceasion I said that there was a line to be drawn between the one and the oilier, because in the one case the officers had acted under lawful and in the other under unlawful orders. My observations were consequently directed, not agaiust the officers employed, but against their employers. {Lord John Rus- sell here entered the House, and took his seat on, the Treasury Bench.^ I am glad at length to see the noble Lord in his place. I invite the attention of the noble Lord, who is a eonstitutional authority, to the question we are now dis- cussing, of the lawfulness of orders for making war. I had not in my mind, on the occasion to which I refer, any individuals ; but certainly it was my duty, as a representative in this House, before voting money to be expended for such jmrposes, to do my best to call the attention of the Government and of the House to the possible lawlessness of the service on which those men might be sent ; and this was an act of mercy to them to prevent them as well as the nation from being subjeeted to the disgrace and guilt of such acts. My obser- vations, moreover, were addressed to the noble Lord at the head of the Foreign Department, and yet the hon. and gallant officer (Sir De La.cy Evans) brings the charge agaiust me that I had taken the occasion of his absence to make such statements and allegations. I trust I have satisfied the hon. and gallant gentleman that I was not guilty of what he attributed to me ; I trust, also, that I have made it clear to him, both from what I have stated regarding the motives which have led me to enter upon this investigation, as well as from the particular reasons which induced me to make the remarks in question on the Army Estimates, that I have no personal feeling in this matter ; that I am mooed by no other feeling than that of deep shame for my country's guilt, and by a desire at all events to rid my own conscience from a share in it. If there he one circumstance which I could more than another have desired, it is to have been an officer employed in any one of those unlawful expeditions, that {disobeying the orders of my superiors) I might, by bearing testimony to the law, have redeemed by my own blood the nation from- this delusion. I further say. Sir, that I have not lived in vain since I have raised this question — the legality of war — in the Senate of this nation, and denounced in its own face its crimes in the hour of its guilt and folly. Sir, the question of the lawfulness of the order depends not upon the autho- rity from which it emanates, but on the character with which it is invested. The order to a military man to draw a weapon or to shed blood in a foreign laud must be the act of the Ci’own, accompanied with all the legal formalities which the wisdom of our ancestors has deemed necessary to surround and to check so awful a prerogative. Lord J OHN Russell. — Sir, the hon. gentleman is raising a very large ques- tion. We are now in committee upon the navy estimates, and I trust the hon. gentleman will allow the committee to proceed. Mr. Urquhaut.- — Sir, the noble Lord was not present wlien the hon. and gallant gentleman beliind him made the observations to which I reply. The noble Lord was not present when I gave way with every desire not unnecessarily to interfere with the public business, ana postponed my motion. I therefore deserve, I think, the indulgence even of the noble Lord. I had characterised certain acts in a certain manner, and the hon. and gallant gentleman tells me that I had no right to do so ; but he has not so much as touched on the ground of that qualification. The hon. and gallant gentleman says these officers acted under lawful authority, and he does not know what lawful authority means. He says that he would act in obedience to a superior. An order has to be lawful in itself before it can be lawfully obeyed ; and I appeal to the hon. and gallant gentleman, would he, as a military man (and I believe that military men understand much better than civilians their rights and duties, and have some sense of discipline which civilians have not), take upon himself the respon- sibility of firing upon a crowd uot offending him unless the magistrates had interfered, and unless the Riot Act had been read ? [Sir De Lacy Evans dis- sented.] Is he so little of a soldier as uot to know that he is responsible for every act he does ? and that when he has not the due warrant he cannot touch one of his fellow-eitizens in the streets, nor use the weapon that is hanging by his side ? Is he to suppose that any authority is to justify him when he goes forth with thousands and tens of thousands to attack a whole people, and that such an act is not horrible unless sanctioned by the law and witn the warrant of the Queen ? If the hon. and gallant gentleman will answer me one question, I am content to leave the subject. If he will say that he has the right at home to use his weapons without warrant, I will not add one word more ; and on the other side I shall not add one word more if he says, “ I know I have no autho- rity to act as a soldier unless I am authorised by the civil power.” That position no military man will deny in regard to home affairs, and the same rule must hold with respect to foreign affairs. That which is the Riot Act at home is the proclamation of war abroad. Sir De Lacy Evans. — The hon. member says he will be satisfied if I answ’er Ids question ; I therefore tell him that I should not act against a crowd unless the Riot Act were read. Mr. Uequhart. — Sir, I close now my argument. I have here the judgment of Chief Justice Tindal in reference to the affairs of China; but I prefer the judgment of tlie hon. and gallant gentleman, who has no crotchets such as might be attributed to that learned Judge or to myself. Captain Hakeis. — Sir, I rise to order. I do not think we need have a chapter of Geotius or Vattel read. (Cries of “ Oh !” and “ Oi'der !”) Mr. Hume. — Sir, I do not agree in every partieular with my honourable friend (Mr. Uequhaet), but I nevertheless go along with him to a great extent. I think the observations which have fallen from him of very great importance, and I think that he ought to bring on this subject separately, and uot mix it up with these estimates, because the operations, as far as the navy concerns have been conducted, are regulated under lawful orders. The ques- tion to be considered is the conduet of those who have issued the o.ders ; and I promise my hon. friend that if he will bring the subject forward as a separate motion I will give him my assistance. I think it better not to mix up this question with the navy or army estimates. If the navy or army have acted w'rong, they may have done it with no idea of its being' illegal. I apprehend that those who have acted illegally in the first instanee ought to be brought to justice, and not the gallant officers who have carried the orders into execution. I agree with my hon. friend that it is a question of vast importance, involving as it does the law of nations. I therefore hope he will postpone his observa- tions now upon these estimates, and take another opportunity of introducing them by way of motion. I dare say he will find an opportunity before the session is over. Mr. Uequhaet. — Sir, I am very much indebted to my hon. friend (Mr. Hume) for his suggestion. If my hon. friend had attended to what I have said, he would have seen that I was not proeeeding to quote the authority of Geotius or Vattel, but that I preferred the authority of the hon. and gallant gentleman the member for Westminster (Sir De Lacy Evans). The noble Lord (Lord John Russell) two nights back gave me an answer with which I was forced then to be content, and which I wish now to record. I slated to the noble Lord that I should divide the committee on every item of the esti- mates, unless I had the assurance from himself that the navy would not hence- forward be employed unlawfully ; and the noble Lord on the third oceasion of my asking made this answ^er, that the navy “ would not be employed exeept according to the law of nations.” I believe that this was the statement of the noble Lord, and if I am wrong I beg to be oorreeted. Now, then, I beg that the past may be borne in mind. I have obtained that assurance from the noble Lord that the troops of her Majesty are no longer to be employed in violation of the law of nations. From the non. and gallant member for Westminster I have got the the judgment that the Riot Act is required to legalise force. Now! assert, in like manner, that it is agaiust the law of nations to draw a weapon against a foreign power without a formal declaration of war. Subject at an end. Correspondence relative to Lord John Russell’s Pledge. Invertrossach, Callander, Perthshire, Oct. 9 , 1848 . My Lord, — A correspondence relative to Naples, purporting to be offieial, has appeared in the Times of the 5th and 6th October, winch imposes upon me the painful necessity of addressing your Lordship. I will specially call your Lordship’s attention to a letter dated Messina, 11th August, and signed by the Commanders of an English and French vessel of war, which threatens the use of force agaiust the Commander of the Forces of the King of the Two Sicilies, and by that threat coerces him into disobe- dience of his Sovereign’s orders. This violation of the pledge given to me by your Lordship, that “ the troops of her Majesty should henceforward be employed only according to the law of nations,” imposes upon me the duty and obligation of requiring now from your Lordship the fulfilment of that pledge, as it gives me the right to know your Lordship’s intention in that respect. The case has arisen which I had anticipated, but not in the form of an order manating from this country. Subordinate officers have taken upon them- selves, without authority from home, or at least without such authority as it was convenient to make public, to violate the laws of nations and the laws of England, and again to exhibit England as a pirate and buccaneer. The fulfilment, therefore, of your Lordship’s pledge must be according to the case, which is now one no longer of prevention, but of punishment. 1 therefore claim to be informed of the course which your Lordship intends to adopt with respect to the delinquents. The pledge given to me on the 9th of August, and reiterated again on the nth, was general, namely, that the troops of her Majesty should be employed only according to the law of nations. But a few days later the application was made specially to Naples, and to the particular circumstances of the present case, and the motion of Sir John Walsh was withdrawn upon the assurance given that the King of Naples should not be interfered with in his operations in Sicily. Notwithstanding the forebodings which induced me, towards the close of the session, to press with so much importunity for that pledge, the perusal of this correspondence has filled me with grief, shame, and indignation. I have, how- ever, one ground of hope in your own sense of personal honour, being, as you now are, committed formally, and in the face of the House of Commons, not to violate in this respect, or suffer the violation, of your country’s laws. I have the honour, &c., D. Uequhaet. Bight Hon. Lord John Russell, 'M B. Correspomlence relative to Lord John Ptussell’s Pledo-e. 19 Minio, Oct, 12, 1848. Sir,— I have liad the honour to receive vour letter of the 9th instant respect- ing a correspondence which has appeared in the Times newspaper of the 5th and 6th October. n would not be fitting that I should enter into any explanation of the course which the Government intends to pursue with respect to the affairs of Naples and Sicily. You seem, however, to have misunderstood, or peiiiaps not have heard, tlie answer which I made to Sir John Walsh in the House of Com- mons. I said, in substance, that I would not bind or fetter the Government in any way as to its future proceedings; but that, as a matter of fact, no orders had been given to stop tlie Neapolitan expedition about to proceed to Sicily. With respect to the bearing of the law of nations on these transactions, it was not my meaning to subscribe to any interpretation which you might nut , upon that law. ^ I have the honour to be, .r. „ Your obedient servant, D. Urquhart, Esq.,M.P. j. Russell. Invertrossach, Callanckr, Perthshire, Oct. 18, 1848. ^fy Lord, — I have had the honour to receive your letter of the 12tli, which 1 have perused with feelings of deep sorrow. Your personal honour is pledged to a certain course. It is alleged by me, to whom that pledge was given, that it has been violated, and the question of the violation consists solely in the legality or illegality of certain acts. My allega- tion is, that coercion used against the King of Naples is a violation of the law ot nations, and therefore of your pledge. In vour reply to me you do not deny that this act is such violation, but mstead of accepting the consequences you offer two evasions. The first — that it IS not fit that you should intorm me respecting the future intentions of her Majesty s Government in respect to Naples and Sicily. The second— that it was not your meaning to submit to my interpretation of the law of nations If the case was not such as I have stated it to be, it was for your Lordship to show that I was hi error ; but your Lordship does not even give me your interpietation. Ihe meaning of the sentence is, “I gave you, it is true, my word not to break a certain law, but I reserved it to myself to interpret that law, and further to conceal that interpretation.” Your Loidship was not ignorant of what I meant. The promise was neither sought or given, save on the most explicit understanding of its application. I had repeatedly complained of acts of a similar nature, and denounced them as unlawtul ; these acts being interference where England had no ground, and without the formalities which are requisite to justify the use of force or the threat of it. It was against such lawless exercise of authority that I asked the pledge, and I know not what other meaning your Lordship could have had in giving it to me. Y^our Lordship is perfectly right in saying that I was not present when the explanation was given to Sir John YYalsh, which induced him to withdraw his motion ; but I am aware of their nature and effect. The object of that motion vyas to arrest intervention in the affairs of Naples, apprehended principally from the presence and menacing attitude of the squadron of Admiral Park.ee. These were explained by you by the existence of differences between England and Naples, upon three points affecting British interests exclusively, and in conse- quence the motion was dropped. On the occasion of the pledge given to me, which is the subject of this corre- spondence, I withdrew the opposition which I should otherwise have persisted in, and I did so solely because I trusted to your word, as a man of honour and' accepted that word in the plain meaning of the term. ’ I have the honour, &c., Bight Hon Lord John Busse!'!', M.P. ^ QUhart. The above corr^pondence appeared at the time in a Staffordshire paper. It was introduced hy a letter, which is here subjoined because of its linking so clearly political events and historical struggles with theii real though unobserved cause the coir uE of heart of every man in a community which can be so disposed of ° unooservea cause , tire coiruption oi Amongst the papers of the Minister of War at YTeiina a letter has been found, and an extract from it published, of the deepest importance to the European community. One of the first men of Austria there expresses his con- viction that England was in understanding with Bussia, and that Prance fol- lowed England. If this be so, a more alarming state of things could not be imagined. That it is so, I do as certainly know as I know that I live. This is what for years I have laboured to present to my countrymen. This is what, when asserted by me, appeared most preposterous. Yet it is the conclusion which the ablest diplomatic servant of the Imperial Crown of Austria has lornied, upon grounds which are his own, and without even the knowledge, upon my part, that he eiitertained them until I perused the wonderful extract in the Times of the 20th October, which I subjoin. The Radicate, ^ YTenna paper,* publishes some letters found in possession of Latoer. Ihe followmg curious passage occurs in one of them, written byM Prokesch, under date Athens, August -30, 1848 “ ‘ IV hat makes me most uneasy are our unfortunate relations with regard, to Hungup. I think we ought not to deceive ourselves as to the complete separa- tion of that country, and it would be one of the greatest blunders possible to turnish the Hunganans with the means of affecting their object. I explain that staUofaffaip hythe co-qpera^foiiq/’EsxERHAZY and Zorc? Palmerston, and hy the tnflump which the latter exercises with us. Now, I have for years considered Lord Palmerston our most decided enemy, and still consider him to be so ; and to trust to Imgland, as long as that man guides her policy, appears to me an anachroiusin scarcely to be equalled.’ “ The writer of the letter then proceeds ; — ® hear daily complaint that we want men. We have men ; but we place me most important affairs into the hands of those who are not fit for them, lhat is, in fact, our deadly evil. The Bussians gain ground in the Danubian Principalities. VV e have (in the year 1829), with an inactivity bordering on treason, allowed the mouth of the Danube to fall into their hands, and that at the very moment when the position of the Bussian army was such that the cabinet of St. Petersburg readily would have listened to any protest. Perhaps even now we shall allow ourselves to be duped by phrases, and we shall assist * The Editor, Dr. Beclier, was executed shortly after the suppression of the insur- rection. the Bussians in establishing their paramount influence as far as the Drave and save. Ihe iorte resists, but there is no one to back her. France follows in tne trmnofhnglpd; England is in understanding with Russia; and Austria ^ <1 who ought to take the lead, are nothing but zeros.’ M. Prokesch is a Sclave, but not of the Greek Church ; and if there be in ^uxope a race and a class calculated intellectually to cope with Russ body, who are familiar with all the instincts of the Muscov-j^ '”'’' frotn his purposes. During the Levant negotiations, fromi . Brokesch w'as Austria’s chef d'etat major, and since 183^®'®“'-' Weiff minister in Greece. In 1834, two articles in the Augsburg bn the East created considerable sensation. They were attributed to M. Von Hammer and f persons ; I at once concluded that they were from the pen ot M. Prokesch, from haying perused a letter of his to a common friend on the subject of the East. I did not think that Germany could have produced two such men engaged in the same field. ‘ “ With talents of the first order, conjoined to integrity, M. Prokesch was removed from Vienna, and sent with sealed lips, under a diplomatic livery, to a spot where he could neither seriously inconvenience, nor minutely tracl the workings of the system which has made the capitals of Europe, and especially vuh^on* intrigue, so as now to convert them into pivots of con- The second extract of M. Prokesch bears on the commercial treaty with Austria. He blames Prince Metternich there, seeing one side only. In reierence to this matter, I could bear testimony to Prince Metternich whose purpose was to secure to England the navigation of the Danube; but “^Jsfa ^as frustrated by the English minister ‘ in understanding with “ But no allegation of criminal purpose like that of M. Prokesch could be made against a servant of the Crown, unless the nation and its leaders had become heedlep to right and wrong ; and, therefore, as connected with the same matter, I enclose a coi-respondence I have had with Lord John Bussell on the violation of the pledge he had given me that British troops should be employed henceforward only in conformity with the law of nations. It is only alter the plain hue of duty is past that there can be cunning design or trea- cherous purpose. In a betrayed state the traitor is not alone criminal— alone he IS not despicable.