Boston Sunday Courier, of 19th April, 1868, where this Letter is reproduced.)In the Temple Library, London, I have since found a Copy: and, on strict survey, am obliged to pronounce the whole Pamphlet a FORGERY,--especially the Two Letters to "Berryer MINISTER OFMARINE;" who was not yet Minister of anything, nor thought of as likely to be, for many months after the date of these Letters addressed to him as such! Internal evidence too, were such at all wanted, is abundant in these BERRYER Letters; which are of gross and almost stupid structure in comparison to the MOLE one. As this latter has already got into various Books, and been argued of in Parliaments and high places (Lord Shelburne asserting it to be spurious, Lord Mansfield to be genuine: REPORT OF PARLIAMENTARYDEBATES in Gentleman's Magazine for NOVEMBERand for DECEMBER, 1777, pp. 515, 560),--it may be allowed to continue here in the CONDEMNED state. Forger, probably, some Ex-Canadian, or other American ROYALIST, anxious to do the Insurgent Party and their British Apologists an ill turn, in that critical year;--had shot off his Pamphlet to voracious Almon; who prints without preface or criticism, and even without correcting the press. (NOTE OF JULY, 1868.)]
Montcalm had been in the Belleisle RETREAT FROM PRAG (December, 1742); in the terrible EXILLES Business (July, 1747), where the Chevalier de Belleisle and 4 or 5,000 lost their lives in about an hour. Captain Cook was at Quebec, Master in the Royal Navy;"sounding the River, and putting down buoys." Bougainville, another famous Navigator, was Aide-de-Camp of Montcalm. There have been far-sounding Epics built together on less basis than lies ready here, in this CAPTURE OF QUEBEC;--which itself, as the Decision that America is to be English and not French, is surely an Epoch in World-History! Montcalm was 48 when he perished; Wolfe 33.
Montcalm's skull is in the Ursulines Convent at Quebec,--shown to the idly curious to this day. [Lieutenant-Colonel Beatson, pp. 28, 15.]
It was on October 17th,--while Friedrich lay at Sophienthal, lamed of gout, and Soltikof had privately fixed for home (went that day week),--that this glorious bit of news reached England. It was only three days after that other, bad and almost hopeless news, from the same quarter; news of poor Wolfe's Repulse, on the other or eastern side of Quebec, July 31st, known to us already, not known in England till October 14th. Heightened by such contrast, the news filled all men with a strange mixture of emotions. "The incidents of Dramatic Fiction," says one who was sharer in it, "could not have been conducted with more address to lead an audience from despondency to sudden exultation, than Accident had here prepared to excite the passions of a whole People. They despaired; they triumphed; and they wept,--for Wolfe had fallen in the hour of victory! Joy, grief, curiosity, astonishment, were painted in every countenance: the more they inquired, the higher their admiration rose. Not an incident but was heroic and affecting." [Walpole, iii.
219.] America ours; but the noble Wolfe now not!
What Pitt himself said of these things, we do not much hear. On the meeting of his Parliament, about a month hence, his Speech, somebody having risen to congratulate and eulogize him, is still recognizably of royal quality, if we evoke it from the Walpole Notes. Very modest, very noble, true; and with fine pieties and magnanimities delicately audible in it: "Not a week all Summer but has been a crisis, in which I have not known whether I should not be torn to pieces, instead of being commended, as now by the Honorable Member. The hand of Divine Providence; the more a man is versed in business, the more he everywhere traces that! ...
Success has given us unanimity, not unanimity success. For my own poor share, I could not have dared as I have done, except in these times. Other Ministers have hoped as well, but have not been so circumstanced to dare so much. ... I think the stone almost rolled to the top of the hill; but let us have a care; it may rebound, and hideously drag us down with it again." [Ib. iii. 225; Thackeray, i. 446.]
The essential truth, moreover, is, Pitt has become King of England;so lucky has poor England, in its hour of crisis, again been.
And the difference between an England guided by some kind of Friedrich (temporary Friedrich, absolute, though of insecure tenure), and by a Newcastle and the Clack of Tongues, is very great! But for Pitt, there had been no Wolfe, no Amherst;Duke Ferdinand had been the Royal Highness of Cumberland,--and all things going round him in St. Vitus, at their old rate. This man is a King, for the time being,--King really of the Friedrich type;--and rules, Friedrich himself not more despotically, where need is.
Pitt's War-Offices, Admiralties, were not of themselves quick-going entities; but Pitt made them go. Slow-paced Lords in Office have remonstrated, on more than one occasion: "Impossible, Sir; these things cannot be got ready at the time you order!" "My Lord, they indispensably must," Pitt would answer (a man always reverent of coming facts, knowing how inexorable they are); and if the Negative continued obstinate in argument, he has been known to add:
"My Lord, to the King's service, it is a fixed necessity of time.
Unless the time is kept, I will impeach your Lordship!"Your Lordship's head will come to lie at your Lordship's feet!
Figure a poor Duke of Newcastle, listening to such a thing;--and knowing that Pitt will do it; and that he can, such is his favor with universal England;--and trembling and obeying. War-requisites for land and for sea are got ready with a Prussian punctuality,--at what multiple of the Prussian expense, is a smaller question for Pitt.
