Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1857-12-10
A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

Although the hundredth year IS an era IN
the life of man which few are favored to see,
a century is but short period in the life
time of nations. Yet what wonderful and
political changes have been crowded within
the last hundred years!
Just one hundred years ago, Give laid in
India the colossal foundations of English
power and began that career of conquest
which has made England to India, what
Spain was to Mexico and Peru.
Just one hundred years ago, the Seven
Years War which began in the wilderness of
America, was beginning to rage in Europe.
1t ended in the year 1853, after one of the
most desperate struggles recorded in history,
with the recognition of the rights of Prus-
sia as a first class European power, and the
transfer of the empire of North America
from France to England-a change prelu-
ding yet greater change soon to come.
A hundred years ago Spain was still a
great power, though then in her decline
The empire of the greater part of the New
World was hers. Its galleons still filled the
royal treasury at Madrid with gold from its
mines.
A hundred years ago, Bourbon still sat
on the throne of France. The reign of feu-
dalism and the degradation of the masses,
seemed established forever. A proaigate
court, emulating the wickedness Of profit
gate king, Louis XIV knew not that it was
merry-making on ground which would soon
open and swallow it up. 1t saw not the
writing on the walls of its chambers of
revelry.
A hundred years ago, America was will
derness, peopled beyond the central line of
longitude of the States of New York and
Pennsylvania, only by traders and trappers.
Pittsburg was a French trading point. Lake
Erie was French inland sea. The Indian
and the buffalo roamed along the Mississip-
pi, whose lakes and rivers sometimes reflect
ed for moment the wandering faces of the
Jesuit missionary and the French trader
Much less thana hundred years ago-in l76S
we believe-Lord Hillsborough, the English
colonial secretary, issued an order prohibit
ing the extension of English settlements be-
yond the Alleghanies
What revolutions has the last century wit
messed 1t has seen the most magnificent
conquest made in India the world ever saw,
and it now sees the power of the conquerors
trembling in the balance. 1t has seen A
merica peopled, England reformed of many
ancient abuses, the Bourbons expelled from
France, France revolutionized, and greatest
of all, the coming of New World into be-
ing. 1t has seen great empires overturned.
1t has seen an obscure Corsican rising to the
virtual dictatorship of Europe, humbling in
the dust the crowned heads of dynasties of
a thousand years, and taking to wife daugh-
ter of the Caesars. 1t has seen the rise of a
great republican empire, founded on the
principles of eternal justice, more glorious
than Rome in the palmiest days of her vast
dominion, whose founding struck the knell
of aristocratic rule, and preluded the tri-
umph of democratic principles the world
over. Last and best of all the changes it
has witnessed, it has seen the masses every
where awaking to sense Of their rights and
becoming greatpower whose good will even
despots court. Bayonets ruled the world a
hundred years ago. Public opinion rules it
now. That is the difference between 1857
and 1857.--Rock Island argus.