The herald., 1898-12-25
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OUR ENGLISH FAMILY !
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BY ENOCH KING HT


1t seems to be generally believed that any
proposed alliance between the United States
and Great Britain comes of something new
or, strange, and is. not thoroughly natural
growth. The common belief amongst read
ers of history, especially young readers, is
that the people who settled America be
longed all to one class of thinkers, and broke
away from the old country, leaving all the
rest of the English nation holding a separate
view, and all thinking alike. That is to
say, that the Puritans were set of men who
gathered themselves together and sepa-
rated from England to make distinct;vely
new country, founded upon absolutely df-
ferent opinions from those held by the peo-
pie whom they left behind. Now this is
not true. There was no breaking away of
any fixed class, leaving another fixed class
at home; but the Puritan movement, like
all great movements, came from a tremen-
dous religious awakening, common to all
the people of England. Those who came
to Holland were the extremists, largely Sep.
aratists, but there were many divisions and
classes amongst those who are commonly
called Puritans, and those who staid at
home were of the same purpose and opin-
I iollS as tHOst W no cdHle away anu III an tlie
future lives the difference between the
Purtans here and the Puritans at home was
the inevitable difference of environment.
The Puritan movement wrought out itself;
/ il was not managed. Ignorant and learned
alike broke away from the established
church. but the Puritan was the same in
/ England, Holland and America. The move
ment was born of English liberty of thought,
and that intense individual belief that has
characterized the race everywhere.
| The great time of the awakening was
when the Armada was scattered. And
when l read last summer how Captain Phil
p, when the last of the Spanish ships
went down, off Santiago, called his men to-.
gether and asked them to remember that
the Almighty's purpose was in it, my mind
went back to more than three centuries ago,
when off the coast of England, Britain 9
half-savage fighters fell on their faces before
the god OF battles as SPANS fleet was
scattered by storm and battle stress. The
Puritan spirit was born of the old awaken
lng through Spain's assault upon England,
then the stronghold of Protestantism; and
1t wrought equally great changes there
as it wrought in the new world. Our an
cestors did not hate England, and we took
from her all our policy life, except that
which came from the Pilgrims stay in Hol-
land. The Puritan customs and habits of
thought were practically the same in Eng
land as they were in the colonies. If the
eolonists were strict in religious belief, so
we're those whom they left behind in Eng
Ind. Ii we hanged nineteen witches in
New England, more than ten times as many
received different punishments in England.
and the trials of witchcraft excited as much
attention in England as here, the great Sir
Matthew Hale presiding at some of the
trials. And England never despised or
deserted her colonies here, which was the
beginning OF her successful colonization. Her
most cultivated teachers came here, her
most learned clergymen came here, her
most chvalrous soldiers gave their lives in
help OF the colonies; and from the siege OF
Louisburg to the final breaking OF the French
| power AT Que bee, the best blood OF England
was shed in saving the country from Latin
rule
| When the Revolution came, was there a
divided America and a divided England? :?
Surely there was. The American revolu-
tion was fought in the British parliament as
p.alnly as 1t was fought on our battlefields :
here, and the spirit of English liberty was
on our side. Charles James Fox, William
Pitt, Edmund Burke, were all against the
Hanoveran King George and his ministry,
and but for the ancient and whim steal no.
tons OF the king as TO the prerogative OF the
crown, the American Revolution would
hardly have been possible, and the affairs
OF the colonists might have been settled
without bloodshed Indeed, the American
/ ReT0lutlOn a civil bor
between two peoples; and the greatest men
OF England We're on the side of the Amer
cans. When Burgoyne surrendered at Sar-
atoga it was Wapole who said: Thank
God English liberties are safe But if
Eng land wa divided in sentiment as to the
war, so were the Coonists We had CON
servatives then, men who believed that the
war should never have been fought, or a.
least might have been postponed, and when
1t was ended more than hundred thousand
leading men among the colonists went back
to make their homes in England. We are
just beginning to read American history
Alright, and to understand that terrible as
was the war of the Revolution, it was more
nearly terrible civil strife than a war be.
tween two strange peoples; and the tri-
umph OF the Colonists and their sympa-
thizers in England was triumph of English
liberty and manhood
As to our second war with Great Britain,
| the most that can be said CT it is that the
cause was really so slight that in the ar
| ticles OF peace the difficulties that brought
on the war were never mentioned: and the
best explanation OF why that war was fought
is found in the fact that the whole world
was, at that time, in the business of war
with all the binding passions and jealouses.
| In 1928 came the Holy Alliance, which
was aimed first at restoring King Ferdinand
TO the Spanish throne, from which he had
been deposed by Napoleon, and second, to-
wards the restoration to Spanish rule of her
colonies on this continent which had
broken away from her. Here gland acted
friendly part towards us. She not only
refused to join in that alliance, which would
have threatened the new world, but it was
an Englshman, George Canning, who urged
upon our minister at st. James the asser-
ton and the application OF the Monroe doe
trne, which has never yet been seriously
questioned by any nation, and no doubt ls
| all the stronger because it has never become
the written law.
| The next demonstration Of friendship to-
wards America came in the early ffties, at
| the beginning of the agitation for the At
antc cable and of steamship service be-
tween the two countries. There was long
era of good feeling, greatly emphasized by
the well remembered visit of the Prince OF
Wales to this country; the good effects of