A Straight Deal [16]
not one whit better or worse than ours, acquired her possessions in various parts of the world because they were necessary to her safety and welfare, just as this continent was necessary to our safety and welfare. Moreover, the pressure upon her, her necessity for self-preservation, was far more urgent than was the pressure upon us. To make you see this, I must once again resort to some statistics.
England's area--herself and adjacent islands--is 120,832 square miles. Her population in 1811 was eighteen and one half millions. At that same time our area was 408,895 square miles, not counting the recent Louisiana Purchase. And our population was 7,239,881. With an area less than one third of ours (excluding the huge Louisiana) England had a population more than twice as great. Therefore she was more crowded than we were-- how much more I leave you to figure out for yourself. I appeal to the fair-minded American reader who only "wants to be shown," and I say to him, when some German or anti-British American talks to him about what a land-grabber England has been in her time to think of these things and to remember that our own past is tarred with the same stick. Let every one of us bear in mind that little sentence of the Kaiser's, "Even now I rule supreme in the United States;" let us remember that the Armistice and the Peace Treaty do not seem to have altered German nature or German plans very noticeably, and don't let us muddle our brains over the question of the land grabbed by the great-grandfathers of present England.
Any American who is anti-British to-day is by just so much pro-German, is helping the trouble of the world, is keeping discord alight, is doing his bit against human peace and human happiness.
There are some other little sentences of the Kaiser and his Huns of which I shall speak before I finish: we must now take up the controversy of those men in front of the bulletin board; we must investigate what lies behind that controversy. Those two men are types. One had learned nothing since he left school, the other had.
Chapter VIII: History Astigmatic
So far as I know, it was Mr. Sydney Gent Fisher, an American, who was the first to go back to the original documents, and to write from study of these documents the complete truth about England and ourselves during the Revolution. His admirable book tore off the cloak which our school histories had wrapped round the fables. He lays bare the political state of Britain at that time. What did you learn at your school of that political state? Did you ever wonder able General Howe and his manner of fighting us? Did it ever strike you that, although we were more often defeated than victorious in those engagements with him (and sometimes he even seemed to avoid pitched battles with us when the odds were all in his favor), yet somehow England did seem to reap the advantage she should be reaped from those contests, didn't follow them, let us get away, didn't in short make any progress to speak of in really conquering us? Perhaps you attributed this to our brave troops and our great Washington. Well, our troops were brave and Washington was great; but there was more behind--more than your school teaching ever led you to suspect, if your schooling was like mine. I imagined England as being just one whole unit of fury and tyranny directed against us and determined to stamp out the spark of liberty we had kindled. No such thing! England was violently divided in sentiment about us. Two parties, almost as opposed as our North and South have been--only it was not sectional in England--held very different views about liberty and the rights of Englishmen. The King's party, George the Third and his upholders, were fighting to saddle autocracy upon England; the other party, that of Pitt and Burke, were resisting this, and their sentiments and political beliefs led them to sympathize with our revolt against George III. "I rejoice," writes Horace Walpole, Dec. 5, 1777, to the Countess of Upper Ossory, "that the Americans are to be free, as they had a right to be,
England's area--herself and adjacent islands--is 120,832 square miles. Her population in 1811 was eighteen and one half millions. At that same time our area was 408,895 square miles, not counting the recent Louisiana Purchase. And our population was 7,239,881. With an area less than one third of ours (excluding the huge Louisiana) England had a population more than twice as great. Therefore she was more crowded than we were-- how much more I leave you to figure out for yourself. I appeal to the fair-minded American reader who only "wants to be shown," and I say to him, when some German or anti-British American talks to him about what a land-grabber England has been in her time to think of these things and to remember that our own past is tarred with the same stick. Let every one of us bear in mind that little sentence of the Kaiser's, "Even now I rule supreme in the United States;" let us remember that the Armistice and the Peace Treaty do not seem to have altered German nature or German plans very noticeably, and don't let us muddle our brains over the question of the land grabbed by the great-grandfathers of present England.
Any American who is anti-British to-day is by just so much pro-German, is helping the trouble of the world, is keeping discord alight, is doing his bit against human peace and human happiness.
There are some other little sentences of the Kaiser and his Huns of which I shall speak before I finish: we must now take up the controversy of those men in front of the bulletin board; we must investigate what lies behind that controversy. Those two men are types. One had learned nothing since he left school, the other had.
Chapter VIII: History Astigmatic
So far as I know, it was Mr. Sydney Gent Fisher, an American, who was the first to go back to the original documents, and to write from study of these documents the complete truth about England and ourselves during the Revolution. His admirable book tore off the cloak which our school histories had wrapped round the fables. He lays bare the political state of Britain at that time. What did you learn at your school of that political state? Did you ever wonder able General Howe and his manner of fighting us? Did it ever strike you that, although we were more often defeated than victorious in those engagements with him (and sometimes he even seemed to avoid pitched battles with us when the odds were all in his favor), yet somehow England did seem to reap the advantage she should be reaped from those contests, didn't follow them, let us get away, didn't in short make any progress to speak of in really conquering us? Perhaps you attributed this to our brave troops and our great Washington. Well, our troops were brave and Washington was great; but there was more behind--more than your school teaching ever led you to suspect, if your schooling was like mine. I imagined England as being just one whole unit of fury and tyranny directed against us and determined to stamp out the spark of liberty we had kindled. No such thing! England was violently divided in sentiment about us. Two parties, almost as opposed as our North and South have been--only it was not sectional in England--held very different views about liberty and the rights of Englishmen. The King's party, George the Third and his upholders, were fighting to saddle autocracy upon England; the other party, that of Pitt and Burke, were resisting this, and their sentiments and political beliefs led them to sympathize with our revolt against George III. "I rejoice," writes Horace Walpole, Dec. 5, 1777, to the Countess of Upper Ossory, "that the Americans are to be free, as they had a right to be,