The Express.
London, England, 1855-01-31 00:00:00

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.-A PARALLEL.

ONE hundred years ago the nation was in much
the same position as it is at present. War had not
indeed commenced, but it was imminent. Early in
1765 the house received a message from *e Crown
asking for a vote of credit to put the establishments
on a war footing. There was then an incompetent
Ministry, as there has been of late. The Govern-
ment was carried on under a system of patronage.
in ,which the claims of merit were ignored, while
family connexion or the principle of seniority was
the only mode by which promotion was possible.
There was a Duke of NEWCASTLE then, high in the
Ministry, and as innocent of lofty energies as his
modern representative. There was, in short, a
Ministry capable of bringing a powerful country
to the verge of destruction, although containing
within it, one man who was able to save the country
—the elder PITT, afterwards Earl of Chatham.
The parallel up to this point runs rather close ; it
will be found that it runs still closer as we go
on. The capacities of the Ministry for damaging
the country were most convincingly shown. They
mismanaged the war to such an extent that
the country was brought into a condition of the
greatest danger. They commenced, as our present
Ministry commenced, with a sort of compromise be-
tween peace and war. They would doubtless have
issued orders to an Admiral to bombard Odessa,
had they been at war with Russia, but not to take
it. What they really did was to teU Sir E. HAWKE,
their Admiral, to attack any ships of the line hemight
happen to meet with, but not to meddle with vessels of
inferior rate, and to spare trading vessels. They
rushed into the war without having soldiers or sailors.
There were not enough sailors to man the western
squadron. The incompetent Minister sent out :an
incompetent admiral. Our military force at Minorca

wee left without support, and we lost the island. The
rotas were excited beyond measure at the miserable
minor in which the war had been tarried ea. They
demanded justice, and the Ministry, alarmed
et the excitement, sacrificed an admiral whose
oely fault was that he was not equal to
the position in which he had been placed.
Brno was shot. If anyone wishes to com-
pere the periods more closely, he will find the mate-
rials in the first volume of Mr. MAIISEY3 " History
of George the Third," just published.
The situation of England appeared desperate, but
there was one man who would never despair. He
saw the miserable condition to which the country
was reduced by the aristocratical factions, which had
hitherto monopolised power. He knew that the
nation had within itself forces equal to any emer-
gency, and which the aristocracy could not appeal
to. This man wu the elder Prrr, the " great
Commoner." He declared that he alone could
an the nation ; and when power was placed in
his hands he did save it. What was the nature
of his measures ? The tints of the year for
active military proceedings was well nigh past
when he came into power. Nevertheless, the
great statesman did not lose time in deliberation.
Re sent out an expedition against Rochefort.
8o admirably was it planned that the French
monarch himself took it for granted that the
place would fall. The expedition indeed failed, but
the failure may be ascribed to the military incapacity
of the officers who had been appointed under the
old system of promotion by seniority. But Prrr
would not be bound by any system which wu not
founded upon common sense and universal justice.
He violated the laws of professional etiquette io
a way that must have agitated every perruque
in the Government offices. Treading under foot
every tradition of the War-office, he selected
Wolin, a young regimental officer, as the leader of
the expedition to Canada. Picots; with 7,000 men
under his command, captured what was considered
to be an impregnable position, held at the time by
one of the most experienced French generals. A
great man was then at the head of the administra-
tion. He was able to select great agents, and the
country was saved. Is there no lesson here for us ?
Is it not quite clear that we are being sacrificed
because we have no statesman great or powerful
enough to break through the rules of mere
traditional routine? Pirr violated them all
is the most flagrant manner by his 'elu-
tion of Wotrz. The consequence of this was that a
colony was gained for the empire, which is now one
of its greatest ornaments. The moral of this is, that
we want a statesman, or that we want liberty
of action granted to men who are at present kept
down, or thrust backward by the operation of the
rigid laws of professional routine. Let us have at
the direction of affairs a man who has the confidence
of the nation, and the war will produce all those
effects which its advocates expected—Daily News.