The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1855-07-19

Italian Peninsula, to advise the despots of the
latter country to grant constitutions and inter-
nal reforms to their subjects-advice partially
acted upon.
Our Government supported the Sultan id
his noble refusal to surrender the Hungarian
and Polish refugees to the vengeance of Nicho
las and Francis Joseph; and now, in the re-
gions of the Baltic and the Black Seas, we are
striking blow in behalf of freedom and
for the advancement of civilization" the like
of which in grandeur the world has never seen
before. This present war is no petty local
struggle for ones own rights, but heroic self
sacrifice on the part Of the two leading nations
of the civilized world, for the sake of humanity
and the peaceful progress of mankind in arts
science, and industry.
In this enumeration, must not in candor
forget to stigmatize Sir James Graham, and his
letter-opening; such thing will not occur again.
| know nothing which SO shocked the feeling of
Englishmen. A bare majority of one only
stood between him and a vote of censure from
House of Commons where his Government
had an ordinary majority of $50. The capture
OF the fieet of the Portuguese junta by our fleet,
in lS47, and that under the regime of a Wing
majority, was very disgraceful. 1t was done at
the instigation of Prince Albert; but Lord Pal
merstOn will do no such thing second time,
nor will the British people, who have paid since
lS48 greater attention to their foreign affairs,
allow it to be done. Neither of these faults
were of first magnitude, neither inflicted a Sc
rious injury upon the worlds progress.
/ am happily not driven to the years that
have elapsed since Canning's time, if wish to
prove that British foreign policy has frequent
ly been of liberal tendency. Go back to the
era of Queen Elizabeth, and mark our glorious
resistance to hateful ultra-Popish Spain and her
ascendency in Europe. Did England /" strike
no blow for freedom" when she helped the
struggling republican Burghers of the low conn
tries, when in that cause she shed the blood of
her Sir Philip Sidney? Did not the English
Commonwealth do noble act when it stood
between the hunted Vaudois and the reeking
sword of the House Of Savoy? And, again, did
not the United Kingdom "strike blow tend
ing to the advancement of civilization" when
under William of Orange we defended the
Netherlands, their free press, and Protestant
ism against the inscriptions ambition of Louis
XIV? Perhaps the less | say in behalf of our
policy since the treaty of Utrecht until that of
Vienna, the better for truth and decency. But
the important question is, what results as
whole from a consideration of our foreign poll
cy for the past three centuries? This: that as
the popular life of the nation has been vigorous
and active, in the same proportion has our for
eign policy been liberalizing, commendable, and
worthy of England. When the popular life of
the nation has been overgrown and choked by
dvnastic or oligarchic weeds, just so has Brit
aims foreign policy been debased and immoral.
l oppose this summary generalization on Brit
ish foreign policy, to that Of the Tribune on the
same subject. The British people have been
making themselves felt in the State more and
more for thirty years. The present war against
&c he
d priori reasoning, taken from the lessons of
the past, we should expect to find mot, with the
New York Tribune, that England can never
possibly strike a blow for civilization" butt
that England's present popular foreign policy
is worthy of herself and of the sympathy of all
cosmopolitan minds; and so in fact it Isl let
Muscovites, slave-owners, and Anglophobes,
say what they will.
Your position, sir, which tn Tribune contro-
verted, was that the "outward action" of Eng
land upon the world had been, on the whole,
humanizing and civilizing. You instanced her
colonization might you not have added her
navigators and maritime discoveries, from
Cabot and Drake down to Cook and Franklin
Might you not have instanced her Mungo
Parks, Bruces Davisons, and Barths? Might
you not have adduced the missionary stations
scattered all over the savage world, to bring to
ity and civilization There is the African
sIavetrade squadron, and the bombardment Of
Algers by Lord Exmouth. But enough the
case is sufficiently proven.
l have said nothing of India, because my to-
tai ignorance of Indian affairs and history dis
ables me from speaking of them.
A last word to Americans upon our Foreign
Policy for the future. Plain, plebeian English
men, like myself are in hopes that Great Britain
will henceforth exercise a decisively liberal
constitutional influence upon Europe. Lord
| Clarendon's heart and soul is in this work.
Beside the French nation, we look for our allies
to the Progressionists of Spain, the Parliament
arians of Denmark, the German Liberals, the
Swedish People, and the Italian Constitution
alists, of the Cauvour and Marriott stamp. We
hope to be constitutiOaal-liberaI as a comnau-
nity; many individuals among US will 60 for
more, but these have no chance of welding the
community. Is it unreasonable to add, that
we reckon upon an entente cordiale with the
| freemen of the Northern American States
| And, unless Americans consent to the eternal
supremacy of the Anti Anglican party, / be-
| lieve we shall have it. For, seriously, you
atatesmen, where and with whom do you intend
| to be !? Kossuth, whom you have been quoting
so prodigally against England, tells you that al
present " You have NO Foreign Policy" 1t may
be it is happier for you that you have none. /
pass no opinion upon this point; it is certainly
far better than being Muscovite. But while you
have not made up your minds, we have made
up ours. We hare q policy, constitutional.
liberal policy, aGd i appears to me, very hum
BILE son of England as ! am, that it would be
more decent in Anti English Americans to rail
at the new tendencies of our outward policy a
little less loudly, until they have some better
policy of their own to offer to the world. II
appears to me that it would be more modest to
be q little less indignant against Lords Russell
| Clarendon, and Palmerston, until our Anglo
phobes have something better of their own to
Show than President Fierce, Attorney General
| Cushing, and Senator Douglas. 1t appears to
me that it would be more sensible to abuse
| Lords Stratford de Radcliffe and Howden a
| little less violently, so long as the pratical
| American commentary thereupon is an Hon.
| Pierre Soule and John Y. Mason. We give
| a respectful ear to the censorious humor of our
| cousins; but we are in this Gx-that when, in
Difference 10 their ohjurgations, we begin tc
think of setting ourselves right by their pattern
we are discouraged, perplexed, and know not
what to do, at the sight of the model Governors
and Qiplomatists set up by your Anti-English
| party, for the edifcation and imitation of the
benighted countrymen of
A PLYMOUTH NoNCoNFoRNIsT.
Joseph Medill, Esq, lately of the Cleveland
Leader, has retired from that establishment
and become connected with the Chicago GIL
Tribune