Abolitionists

"As we made the high point off San Diego, Point Loma, we were greeted by the cheering presence of a lighthouse. As we swept round it in the early morning, there, before us, lay the little harbor of San Diego, its low spit of sand, where the water runs so deep; the opposite flats, where the Alert grounded in starting for home; the low hills, without trees, and almost without brush; the quiet little beach; but the chief objects, the hide houses, my eye looked for in vain. They were gone, all, and left no mark behind. I wished to be alone, so I let the other passengers go up to the town, and was quietly pulled ashore in a boat, and left to myself. The recollections and the emotions were all sad... and only sad."

"We bore round the point toward the old anchoring ground of the hide ships, and there, covering the sand hills and the valleys... flickering all over with the lamps of its streets and houses, lay a city of one hundred thousand inhabitants. The dock into which we drew, and the streets about it, were densely crowded with express wagons and handcarts... Though this crowd I made my way, along the well-built and well-light streets, as alive as by day, where boys in high-keyed voices where already crying the latest New York papers. When I awoke in the morning, and looked from my windows over the city of San Francisco, with its storehouses, towers, and steeples; its courthouses, theaters, and hospitals, its daily journals, its well-filled learned professions, its fortresses and lighthouses; its wharves and harbor... when I saw all these things, and reflected on what I once saw here, and what now surrounded me, I could scarcely keep my hold on reality at all, or the genuineness of anything."

"It had been the winter of 1835-6 that the ship, Alert, in her voyage for hides on the remote and almost unknown coast of California, floated into the vast solitude of the bay of San Francisco. All around was the stillness of nature. One vessel, a Russian, lay at anchor there, but during our whole stay not a sail came or went. Our trade was with remote missions, which sent hides to us in launches manned by their Indians... Over a region far beyond our sight there was no other human habitations, expect that an enterprising Yankee, years in advance of his time, had put up, on the rising ground above the landing, a shanty of rough boards, where he carried on a very small retail trade between the hide ships and the Indians. On the evening of Saturday, the thirteenth of August, 1859 (I again sailed into) the entrance to San Francisco, (now) the great center of worldwide commerce."

"Passing round Point Conception, and steering easterly, we opened the islands that form, with the mainland, the canal of Santa Barbara. There they are, Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa, and there is the beautiful point, Santa Buenaventura; and there lies Santa Barbara on its plain, with its amphitheater of high hills and distant mountains. There is the old white mission with its belfries, and there the town, with its one-story adobe houses, with here and there a two-story wooden house of later build; yet little is it altered — the same repose in the golden sunlight and glorious climate, sheltered by its hills; and then, more remindful than anything else, there roars and tumbles upon the beach the same grand surf of the great Pacific... the same bright-blue ocean, and the surf making just the same monotonous, melancholy roar, and the same dreamy town."

"Referring to a professor aboard ship: This passenger — the first and only one we had had, except to go from port to port on the coast — was no one else than a gentleman whom I had known in my smoother days, and the last person I should have expected to see on the coast of California — Professor Nuttall of Cambridge. I had left him quietly seated in the chair of the Botany and Ornithology Department at Harvard University, and the next I saw of him, he was strolling about San Diego beach, in a sailors' pea jacket, with a wide straw hat, and barefooted, with his trousers rolled up to his knees, picking up stones and shells... I was often amused to see the sailors puzzled to know what to make of him, and to hear their conjectures about him and his business... The Pilgrim's crew called Mr. Nuttall "Old Curious," from his zeal for curiosities; and some of them said that he was crazy, and that his friends let him go about and amuse himself this way. Why else would (he)... come to such a place as California to pick up shells and stones, they could not understand. One of them, however, who had seen something more of the world ashore said, "Oh, 'vast there!... I've seen them colleges and know the ropes. They keep all such things for cur'osities, and study 'em, and have men a purpose to go and get 'em... He'll carry all these things to the college, and if they are better than any that they have had before, he'll be head of the college. Then, by and by, somebody else will go after some more, and if they beat him he'll have to go again, or else give up his berth. That's the way they do it. This old covery knows the ropes. He has worked a traverse over 'em, and come 'way out here where nobody's ever been afore, and where they'll never think of coming." This explanation satisfied Jack; and as it raised Mr. Nuttall's credit, and was near enough to the truth for common purposes, I did not disturb it."

"An overstrained sense of manliness is the characteristic of seafaring men. This often gives an appearance of want of feeling, and even of cruelty. From this, if a man comes within an ace of breaking his neck and escapes, it is made a joke of; and no notice must be taken of a bruise or cut; and expression of pity, or any show of attention, would look sisterly, and unbecoming a man who has to face the rough and tumble of such a life. From this cause, too, the sick are neglected at sea, and, whatever sailors may be ashore, a sick man finds little sympathy or attention, forward or aft. A man, too, can have nothing peculiar or sacred on board ship; for all the nicer feelings they take pride in disregarding, both in themselves and others. A "thin-skinned" man could hardly live on shipboard. One would be torn raw unless he had the hide of an ox."

"If the women but have little virtue, the jealousy of their husbands is extreme, and their revenge deadly and almost certain. A few inches of cold steel have been the punishment of many an unwary man, who has been guilty, perhaps, of nothing more than indiscretion. The difficulties of the attempt [to copulate with a married woman] are numerous, and the consequences of discovery fatal, in the better classes. With the unmarried women, too, great watchfulness is used. The main object of the parents is to marry their daughters well, and to this a fair name is necessary. The sharp eyes of a duena, and the ready weapons to a father or brother, are a protection which the characters of most of them — men and women — render by no means useless; for the very men who would lay down their lives to avenge the dishonor of their own family would risk the same lives to complete the dishonor of another."

"I shall never forget the impression which our first landing on the beach of California make upon me. The sun had just gone down; it was getting dusky; the damp night wind was beginning to blow, and the heavy swell of the Pacific was setting in, and breaking in loud and high "combers" on the beach... we put our oars in the boat, and, leaving one to watch it, walked about the beach to see what we could of the place. The beach is nearly a mile in length between the two points, and of smooth sand... It was growing dark, so that we could just distinguish the dim outlines of the two vessels in the offing; and the great seas were rolling in in regular lines, growing larger and larger as they approached the shore, and hanging over the beach upon which they were to break, when their tops would curl over and turn white with foam, and, being at one extreme of the line, break rapidly to the other, as a child's long card house falls when a card is knocked down at one end."

"January, 14th, 1835: We came to anchor in the spacious bay of Santa Barbara. There was only one vessel in the port. Beside the vessel, there was no object to break the surface of the bay... directly opposite the anchoring ground, lie the mission and town of Santa Barbara, on a low plain, but little above the level of the sea, covered with grass, though entirely without trees, and surrounded on three sides by an amphitheater of mountains, which slant off to the distance of fifteen or twenty miles. The mission stands a little back of the town, and is a large building, or rather a collection of buildings, in the center of which is a high tower, with a belfry of five bells. The whole, being plastered, makes quite a show at a distance, and is the mark by which vessels come to anchor. The town lies a little nearer to the beach — about half a mile from it — and is composed of one-story houses built of sun-baked clay, or adobe, some of them whitewashed, with red tiles on the roof. I should judge that there was about a hundred of them... The town is finely situated, with a bay in front, and an amphitheater of hills behind."

"Tuesday, January 13, 1835: We made the land at Point Conception... the point of Santa Barbara, to which we were bound, lying about fifty miles to the southeast of this point, we continued sailing down the coast during the day and the following night, and on the next morning.On the whole coast of California there was not a lighthouse, a beacon, or a buoy, and the charts were made up from old and disconnected surveys by British, Russian, and Mexican voyagers. Birds of prey and passage swooped and dived about us, wild beasts ranged through the oak groves... herds of deer came to the water's edge."

"Thou little bird, thou dweller by the sea, Why takest thou its melancholy voice, And with that boding cry Why o'er the waves dost fly? O, rather, bird, with me Through the fair land rejoice!"

"Bernard [Levin] thought Charles James Fox was the greatest politician of the 18th century. I said, "Ridiculous. He was wrong about everything," after Bernard had said that he was right about everything. "Even about not wanting to fight Napoleon?" I asked. Petronella likes Charles James Fox. They both like romantic rollicking characters. Charles James Fox seems a very similar character to Nye Bevan, flashing and spectacular but not enough substance. We all agree however that we would rather have Charles James Fox to dinner with us that night than William Pitt."

"Charles Fox had great facility of delivery; his words flowed rapidly, but he had nothing of Burke's variety of language or correctness, nor his method. Yet his arguments were far more shrewd; he was many years younger. Burke was indefatigable, learned, and versed in every branch of eloquence. Fox was dissolute, dissipated, idle beyond measure."

"Fox's Libel Act had reached the statute book in the temperate early months of 1792, making the jury the judge of the matter as well as of the fact. It was, perhaps, Fox's greatest service to the common people, passed at the eleventh hour before the tide turned towards repression."

"George III. said to his daughter, the Princess Mary, afterwards Duchess of Gloucester, who told it to me, that he never thought he should have regretted the death of Fox so much as he found he did."

"The errors of Fox—his coalition with Lord North, and his India Bill—were grave; but the warmth of his feelings and his passionate love of liberty should obtain for his memory indemnity for these or even greater faults. His affectionate temper, combined with his love of liberty, won him the attachment of devoted friends. His name ought to be consecrated in the heart of every lover of freedom throughout the globe."

"Fox was a powerful speaker, and, in the words of Burke, the greatest debater the world ever saw. Not place or power, but reputation as an orator, was the object of his ambition, as he declares in one of his earliest letters to an intimate friend and relation. He inspired affection still more than admiration. In his worst days an observer said of his party, “There are only forty of them, but every one of them is ready to be hanged for Fox.” In his earlier days, Lord Mansfield being asked who that young man was whom he saw in Westminster Hall, answered, “That is the son of old Harry Fox, with twice his parts and half his sagacity.”"

"In 1805...the Catholic question was again discussed. He would beg the House to attend to the speeches which were delivered on that occasion, one of which he should never forget, for he happened to have heard it.—He never heard a speech which made a greater impression on his mind, than that delivered by Mr. Fox during that debate."

"Had Fox lived in times less troublesome than those in which he was thrown—or had he not been opposed to such a rival as Pitt—he would, undoubtedly, have been ranked not only among those statesmen the brilliancy of whose genius has reflected honour upon the country that produced them, but among those illustrious patriots whose names, consecrated by the applause of a grateful people, are held up to the admiration of posterity as fathers of their country and benefactors of the human race. He set out in life by being the supporter of the royal prerogative, and took part with the Crown against Wilkes. But being thrown into opposition by Pitt, he quitted a line in which he saw his rival would eclipse him, and became a strenuous advocate for the rights of the popular part of our constitution. In this course the ardour of his temper carried him further than prudence could justify; and, as it generally happens in controversies, he frequently in the violence of debate supported doctrines which, perhaps, his cooler reflection would have led him to disavow. With this impetuosity of temper it is less to be wondered at than regretted that, in the general delirium produced by the French Revolution, he should have been infected with the disorder, and have connected himself with the most frantic of the reformers. It was well remarked in one of the papers of the day, that there scarcely ever lived a statesman for whom as an individual the people felt more affection, or in whom as a politician they placed less confidence."

"Froude's palliation of the intolerable egoistic, magniloquent tyranny of Henry VIII is as misplaced as the sympathy of many Whig historians for that thoroughly unscrupulous and factious political adventurer who did his best to hinder British war-effort in the early days of the struggle against Revolutionary France. I cannot bear the sonorous champion of liberty who outside the senate house spends his time with wine, women and gambling."

"As to Fox, one must not look for his model among the ancients. He is himself a model, and his principles will sooner or later rule the world. ... Certainly the death of Fox was one of the fatalities of my career. Had his life been prolonged, affairs would have taken a totally different turn; the cause of the people would have triumphed, and we should have established a new order of things in Europe."

"Fame had informed me of his talents, and I soon found that he possessed a noble character, a good heart, liberal, generous, and enlightened views. I considered him an ornament to mankind, and was very much attached to him. We often conversed together upon various topics, without the least prejudice; when I wished to engage in a little controversy, I turned the conversation upon the subject of the infernal machine; and told him that his ministers had attempted to murder me; he would then oppose my opinion with warmth, and invariably ended the conversation by saying, in his bad French, “First Consul, pray take that out of your head.” But he was not convinced of the truth of the cause he undertook to advocate, and there is every reason to believe that he argued more in defence of his country, than of the morality of its ministers."

"He could be irresponsible, he was certainly reckless, and, on occasion, he was a flagrant opportunist. He can rightly be accused of achieving in his lifetime little of what he so eloquently sought. But he was also warm-hearted, generous and immensely gifted; a richly endowed human being, whose principles have become synonymous with individual and political liberty. His posthumous influence has been enormous. For his arguments—however radical, however politically inconvenient, however ahead of their time—were incontestably right. As Pitt once wearily conceded, "Mr. Fox has never been answered". His arguments on the slave trade, on religious freedom, on the freedom of speech and of assembly, on constitutional reform and in opposition to war were—in the light of eternity—unanswerable. He could be outvoted, he could be out-manoeuvred, he could be checked. But he could not be silenced and—ultimately—he could not be stopped."

"Fox could speak for four hours at a stretch without repeating himself, and in prose so magnificent that it makes the blood race simply to read it—what it must have sounded like beggars the imagination. What is more, Fox could do that after staying up all night gaming and drinking."

"Although Fox's private character was deformed by indulgence in vicious pleasures, it was in the eyes of his contemporaries largely redeemed by the sweetness of his disposition, the buoyancy of his spirits, and the unselfishness of his conduct. As a politician he had liberal sentiments, and hated oppression and religious intolerance. He constantly opposed the influence of the crown, and, although he committed many mistakes, and had in George III an opponent of considerable knowledge of kingcraft and immense resources, the struggle between him and the king, as far as the two men were concerned, was after all a drawn game...the coalition of 1783 shows that he failed to appreciate the importance of political principles and was ignorant of political science...Although his speeches are full of common sense, he made serious mistakes on some critical occasions, such as were the struggle of 1783–4, and the dispute about the regency in 1788. The line that he took with reference to the war with France, his idea that the Treason and Sedition bills were destructive of the constitution, and his opinion in 1801 that the House of Commons would soon cease to be of any weight, are instances of his want of political insight. The violence of his language constantly stood in his way; in the earlier period of his career it gave him a character for levity; later on it made his coalition with North appear especially reprehensible, and in his latter years afforded fair cause for the bitterness of his opponents. The circumstances of his private life helped to weaken his position in public estimation. He twice brought his followers to the brink of ruin and utterly broke up the whig party. He constantly shocked the feelings of his countrymen, and ‘failed signally during a long public life in winning the confidence of the nation’ (LECKY, Hist. iii. 465 sq). With the exception of the Libel Bill of 1792, the credit of which must be shared with others, he left comparatively little mark on the history of national progress. Great as his talents were in debate, he was deficient in statesmanship and in some of the qualities most essential to a good party leader."

"The giant race is extinct."

"For not even our political sky is blacker than that under which Fox withstood the policy which devoted the strength of England to the appetites and the rancours of Europe, and diverted the splendid promise of the Revolution into the catastrophe of the Empire... He had surrendered to principle a popularity to retain which he had sacrificed everything else. He watched the dismal fulfilment of all his dark predictions, as the long-protracted war became each day more disastrous to liberty in Europe and at home... Those Englishmen who have inherited the Liberalism of Fox cannot reasonably complain if they share something of his hard lot... If Liberals choose the part of Fox, they cannot escape his eclipse. Mark the splendid waste of his genius—twenty years of his life exhausted in a fruitless struggle with the nightmares of a nation; his death surrounded by the abundant and unmistakable signs of the calamities he had seen written on the wall. Let Liberals measure their strength against the triumphant forces of Imperialism, and they can look for no better issue than a glorious defeat and the ineffectual stoicism of despair."

"What subject is there, whether of foreign policy or domestic interest, or that in the smallest degree affects our Constitution, which does not immediately associate itself with the memory of Mr. Fox; and what moment so fit to address to you the observations which may be thought proper on such an occasion, as that in which your feelings are most excited by the mention of his name?"

"He was loud, turbulent, & threatening, at these times talking in a manner very unlike himself, & being extremely angry with all around Him— The Q: was now in no favor, He called Mr Pitt a rascal, & Mr Fox his Friend."

"Who was the best speaker you ever heard? Fox, during the American War—Fox in his best days; about the year 1779."

"I heard him [Robert Peel] express a low opinion of Fox. So far as Fox's private character is concerned, Peel may have been right; but, as a public man, Fox had certainly a remarkable power of grasping general principles."

"In his tour of Switzerland (September 1788) Mr. Fox gave me two days of free and private society. He seemed to feel, and even to envy, the happiness of my situation; while I admired the powers of a superior man, as they are blended in his attractive character with the softness and simplicity of a child. Perhaps no human being was ever more perfectly exempt from the taint of malevolence, vanity, or falsehood."

"Little did I think that I should ever live to regret Mr. Fox's death."

"Charles Fox...[had] the combination of gifts which made him the most attractive Englishman who ever gave his mind to parliamentary politics. Somehow the influence which persuaded Edward Gibbon to say, “Let him do what he will; I must love the dog,” has been transmitted down to us, and somehow, too, the cause of English liberty which he made peculiarly his own embodies the glow of his personality... Fox himself felt the democratic potency of those contests and gave emphasis to it in his own words: “It is the energy, the boldness of a man's mind, which prompts him to speak, not in private but in large and popular assemblies, that constitutes, that creates in a state, the spirit of freedom.” He drew strength and courage from the vast London crowds who swayed before him, and it was there he learned his hatred of censorship, repression, informers; his trust in the people."

"It is impossible to read the speeches of Fox, at this time, without feeling one's heart yearn with admiration and gratitude for the bold and resolute manner in which he opposed the war, never yielding and never repining, under the most discouraging defeats; and, although deserted by many of his friends in the house, taunted with having only a score of followers left, and obliged to admit that he could not walk the streets without being insulted, by hearing the charge made against him of carrying on an improper correspondence with the enemy in France, yet bearing it all with uncomplaining manliness and dignity. The annals of Parliament do not record a nobler struggle in a nobler cause."

"The main ingredient in the dislike of Fox seems to have been moral disapprobation. The wit, cynicism and urbanity of much of the fashionable world should not blind us to the fact that large sections of the community were sober, god-fearing and respectable, took their tone from the king, and were genuinely disgusted at the spectacle of Fox's furniture being put into the streets, or the leader of the opposition hurrying from the House of Commons to conduct a Faro bank. "Can you, as honest, rational men," appealed a broadsheet to the Parents of Westminster, "give your support to the high priest of drunkenness, gaming, and every species of debauchery that can contaminate the principles you would early wish to inculcate in your offspring...?" It was the paradox of Fox's life that, incomparably the sharpest weapon in his party's armoury, he was also its most grievous liability."

"Pitt's reputation would have been less decisive had not it contrasted so pointedly with the public image of his main rival. Indeed, it is not easy to explain why a man, so attractive in his private circle, should have been so distrusted by the public at large. It would be too simple to see Fox as the victim of unrelenting propaganda. Paragraph after paragraph, it is true, dwelt on his debts, his gambling, his love affairs, and reminded readers that his father had once been called "the public defaulter of unaccounted millions". The accusation of "Cromwell" was particularly effective. It was reported to be the "received notion among the inferiors" in Yorkshire that Fox was "attempting to dethrone the King and make himself an Oliver Cromwell". In Lancashire the name of Fox was said to be "most universally execrated", and in Gloucestershire "the Good Women and the Mob" exclaimed against him and the India bill "with an honest vehemence that will not permit them to discriminate between the Minister and the Man". But he was hounded in this way because he was peculiarly vulnerable, and because the public was prepared to believe the worst of him."

"It was left...above all to Charles James Fox himself to defend the liberties of the subject, freedom of the press and of public meeting against the encroachments of a panicky Government. Fox was almost certainly wrong in his estimate of the danger from France, especially after Napoleon's coup d'état, and Whig opposition to the war had a tendency to degenerate into factiousness, but his defence of liberty was a vindication both of his own courage and of the liberal tradition."

"Come down 50 years nearer to our own time, and you find a statesman, not long in office, but still held in the affections of all persons of liberal principles in this country, and in his time representing fully the sentiments of the Liberal party—Charles James Fox (Cheers.) Mr. Fox, referring to the policy of the Government of his time, which was one of constant interference in the affairs of Europe, and by which the country was continually involved in the calamities of war, said that although he would not assert or maintain the principle, that under no circumstances could England have any cause of interference with the affairs of the continent of Europe, yet he would prefer the positive policy of non-interference and of perfect isolation rather than the constant intermeddling to which our recent policy had subjected us, and which brought so much trouble and suffering upon the country."

"[On 11 June 1784] I asked him [Samuel Johnson] if it was true as reported, that he had said lately, ‘I am for the King against Fox; but I am for Fox against Pitt.’ JOHNSON: ‘Yes, Sir; the King is my master; but I do not know Pitt; and Fox is my friend.’ ‘Fox, (added he,) is a most extraordinary man; here is a man (describing him in strong terms of objection in some respects according as he apprehended, but which exalted his abilities the more) who has divided the Kingdom with Caesar; so that it was a doubt whether the nation should be ruled by the sceptre of George the Third, or the tongue of Fox.’"

"Charles James Fox, who, though through some of the perverse fortunes and accidents of political life, only held high office twice in his life, and in each case for a very brief time, was acknowledged by all good judges to be second to none among the Parliamentary speakers in what we are accustomed, and rightly, to describe as the Golden Age of British eloquence."

"I will only mention one other circumstance as tending to show the fallacy of Mr. Bright's opinion. He quotes Charles James Fox as a great authority for peace. I happen to know, from the only living authority from whom that information could be derived—I happen to know that Charles James Fox, the great Minister who resisted the revolutionary war so long, told his colleagues each and severally, on his deathbed, that the great war in which they were then engaged could not be brought to a conclusion; he enjoined them to prosecute it with vigour, and I, among others, look back with gratitude to the results of that great contest."

"...the following passage from Major Cartwright's Memorandum Book: “On Sunday the 10th of April, 1814, Earl Stanhope informed me that in conversation with Mr. Fox and a third person, Mr. Fox said ‘Parliamentary reform was a fit thing to be made use of in argument in the House of Commons, but not to be carried into execution.’” Lord Stanhope also mentioned the same fact to Major Cartwright's friend, Mr. Holt White, and in the same words."

"I die happy."

"So fully am I impressed with the vast importance and necessity of attaining what will be the object of my motion this night, that if, during the almost forty years that I have had the honour of a seat in parliament, I had been so fortunate as to accomplish that, and that only, I should think I had done enough, and could retire from public life with comfort, and the conscious satisfaction, that I had done my duty."

"There is not a power in Europe, no not even Bonaparte's that is so unlimited [as the British monarchy]."

"Bonaparte's wish is Peace, nay that he is afraid of war to the last degree."

"As to War I can only say that my opinion is clearly that it will not be. I can tell you my reasons for this opinion in two sentences. 1st. I am sure that Bonaparte will do everything that he can to avoid it. 2nd. that, low as my opinion is of our Ministry, I cannot believe them quite so foolish as to force him to it, without one motive either of ambition or interest to incite them."

"However it may have happened, it is an excellent thing, and I do not like it the worse for its being so very triumphant a peace for France...The sense of humiliation in the Government here will be certainly lost in the extreme popularity of the measure...this rascally people are quite overjoyed at receiving from Ministers what, if they had dared to ask it, could not have been refused them at almost any period of the war. Will the Ministers have the impudence to say that there was any time (much less that when Bonaparte's offer was refused) when we might not have had terms as good? Bonaparte's triumph is now complete indeed, and, since there is to be no political liberty in the world, I really believe he is the fittest person to be the master."

"...for the truth is, I am gone something further in hate to the English Government than perhaps you and the rest of my friends are, and certainly further than can with prudence be avowed. The triumph of the French Government over the English does in fact afford me a degree of pleasure which it is very difficult to disguise."