National Republican., 1881-11-26
All ENGLrsHMAN,s VIEW.
Oac ITundred Ycnrs AEo-Our Revelation
nry uueroea.

The difference in the importance which
mind of the American and in that Of the English
man is of course immense, and naturally so. To
the former the spot upon which each skrmish
was fought Is sacred ground; while the dcath
OF exciting incident In their short national and
colonial history drives the author and the
poet with never ceasing freshness 10 those
with us almost forgotten fields for his
story and his lay. The names and deeds Of each
general have been imprinted on the mind OF the
American from his youth up. To claim descent
from those Legislators and warriors who called
from comparative obscurity 10 be tho founders Of
what must seon be the greatest Nation upon earth
to the present generation is a source OF tho most
patdonablc pride. Names and traditions that we
in England have never heard-nay the names of
even
BRITISH SOLDIERS THAT BLED FOR Us
IN that long list of uitlcss victories and disastrous
defeats, and that we have long forgotten-stil live
In tho freside lore OF every good Americans
household. When the whole facts Of the case are
borne IN mind. aud when 1t is recollected what a
sorry figure we cut us u Nation throughout the
whole business, there is nothing very remarkable
perhaps in the oblivion to which British literature
has consigned those ill-starred campaigns. The
almost unique perfection of washinglon's career
and character has, IL Is true, lifted him out of the
obscudty that wells the names aud deeds OF his
contemporaries. Howe and Burgoyne, Cornwall
lis, Clinton and the traitor Arnold, Bunkcr's uill
anu Saratoga, Brandywinc, and Yorktown arc all
names that, at any rate, have q familiar ring 10
most OF us; but how many of us have ever had our
attention drawn to the career, for instance, Of
Alexander Hamilton, n college student of New Jer-
scy who,
BEFORE HE WAS TwESTY,
was Wasbington's most trusted ado dc camp and
adviser, and at thirty had framed and drawn out
a Constitution for the United Statcs7 The very
names of Green, of Schuyler, OF Putnam, the Lees
and n host of others whom grateful transatlantic
posterity never weares OF recalling, have with us
little or place. The echoing hoois of Tarletons
troopers, "whom the State militia avoided as they
would many Wild beasts still ring in the legends
ofVirgnia and the Caroinas. In the rooms OF
the Historical Society ofthe former State his por
trait, by Sir Joshua Reynolds. now hangs, showing
a singularly handsome YOUTH in the uniform of
last century British dragoon, in the act of buck
ling on his sabre, amid the usual concomitants Of
rearing chargers, .unmbered cannon, streaming
banners, and background obscured by the smoke
ofbattlc.
FEW ENoLisHMEs, IMAGINE,
would be any the wiser If they were told that the
subject of the painting was Colonel Tarlcton. 1t
W uld be hard TO ibid in our history any other In
| stance ofdsastrous defeat the memory of which is
so little fraught with bitterness. The sentiments
which made such a war possible-strained even In
those days of bigotry and corruption-are as dead
as the lips which gave them utterance, while
George Ill. whatever may havo been his
motives, must appear, with his servle Min
listers, by tho light Of modern times, IN no
other aspect but that Of an arrogant and stiff
necked prosecutor The number of loyalists, II Is
true, was large; but upon the whole they were
confined rather to distinct localities than to any
distinct social order. AS in all great crises, many
men OF course sprang quickly from obscurity to
fame, both as legislators aud wnrrlors-as Patrick
Henry, for instance, Nathaniel Greene. the hero
of the Southern campaign and the bloody field of
Eutaw Springs but as rule all the prominent
names of that period belonged to what may be
called the aristooracy OF the colonies.-B. In the
Pull Mall Ga.Cite.