II. THE CONFLICT WITH NAPOLEON THE WAR OF LIBERTY 1 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 1. THE ISSUE [From The Convention of Cintra, 1809] 1. The Cause If I were speaking of things however weighty, that were long past and dwindled in the memory, I should scarcely venture to use this language; but the feelings are of yesterday-they are of today; the flower, a melancholy flower it is! is still to blow, nor will, I trust, its leaves be shed through months that are to come: for I repeat that the heart of the nation is in this struggle. This just and necessary war, as we have been accustomed to hear it styled from the beginning of the contest in the year 1793, had, some time before the Treaty of Amiens, viz., after the subjugation of Switzerland, and not till then, begun to be regarded by the body of the people, as indeed both just and necessary; and this justice and necessity were by none more clearly perceived, or more feelingly bewailed, than by those who had most eagerly opposed the war in its commencement, and who continued most bitterly to regret that this nation had ever borne a part in it. Their conduct was herein consistent they proved that they kept their eyes steadily fixed upon principles; for, though there was a shifting or transfer of hostility in their minds as far as regarded persons, they only combated the same enemy opposed to them under a different shape; 1 Napoleon's aggressions in the Spanish Peninsula had roused the national spirit in the peoples of Spain and Portugal, who in 1808 rose against him as one man. The news was hailed with joy in England as the first instance on the continent of a genuinely patriotic opposition to the tyrant. An English army under Sir Arthur Wellesley drove the French from the field of Vimiera and forced a surrender on the 30th of August. By the terms drawn up in the Convention of Cintra, the French army was allowed to evacuate Portugal with its arms and baggage. Against the weakness implied in this loss of the fruits of victory Wordsworth and many others protested vehemently. His Tract on the Convention of Cintra, like all his political utterances from 1802 to 1815, was prompted by the realization that the war against Napoleon's military tyranny must be carried to an uncompromising conclusion. For a full account of the significance of Wordsworth's views, particularly his belief in the principle of the autonomy of all peoples, see A. V. Dicey, The Statesmanship of Wordsworth. and that enemy was the spirit of selfish tyranny and lawless ambition. This spirit, the class of persons of whom I have been speaking (and I would now be understood, as associating them with an immense majority of the people of Great Britain, whose affections, notwithstanding all the delusions which had been practiced upon them, were, in the former part of the contest, for a long time on the side of their nominal enemies), this spirit, when it became undeniably embodied in the French government, they wished, in spite of all dangers, should be opposed by war; because peace was not to be procured without submission, which could not but be followed by a communion, of which the word of greeting would be, on the one part, insult, and, on the other, degradation. The people now wished for war, as their rulers had done before, because open war between nations is a defined and effectual partition, and the sword, in the hands of the good and the virtuous, is the most intelligible symbol of abhorrence. It was in order to be preserved from spirit-breaking submissions-from the guilt of seeming to approve that which they had not the power to prevent, and out of a consciousness of the danger that such guilt would otherwise actually steal upon them, and that thus, by evil communications and participations, would be weakened and finally destroyed, those moral sensibilities and energies, by virtue of which alone, their liberties, and even their lives, could be preserved, -that the people of Great Britain determined to encounter all perils which could follow in the train of open resistance. There were some, and those deservedly of high character in the country, who exerted their utmost influence to counteract this resolution; nor did they give to it so gentle a name as want of prudence, but they boldly termed it blindness and obstinacy. Let them be judged with charity! But there are promptings of wisdom from the penetralia of human nature, which a people can hear, though the wisest of their practical Statesmen be deaf towards them. This authentic voice, the people of England had heard and obeyed: and, in opposition to French tyranny, growing daily more insatiate and im placable, they ranged themselves zealously under their Government; though they neither forgot nor forgave its transgressions, in having first involved them in a war with a people then struggling for its own liberties under a twofold affliction-confounded by inbred faction, and beleaguered by a cruel and imperious external foe. But these remembrances did not vent themselves in reproaches, nor hinder us from being reconciled to our Rulers, when a change or rather a revolution in circumstances had imposed new duties: and, in defiance of local and personal clamor, it may be safely said that the nation united heart and hand with the Government in its resolve to meet the worst, rather than stoop its head to receive that which, it felt, would not be the garland but the yoke of peace. Yet it was an afflicting alternative; and it is not to be denied that the effort if it had the determination, wanted the cheerfulness of duty. Our condition savored too much of a grinding constraint-too much of the vassalage of necessity;-it had too much of fear, and therefore of selfishness, not to be contemplated in the main with rueful emotion. We desponded though we did not despair. In fact, a deliberate and preparatory fortitude-a sedate and stern melancholy, which had no sunshine and was exhilarated only by the lightnings of indignation-this was the highest and best state of moral feeling to which the most noble-minded among us could attain. But, from the moment of the rising of the people of the Pyrenean peninsula, there was a mighty change; we were instantaneously animated; and, from that moment, the contest assumed the dignity which it is not in the power of any thing but hope to bestow: and, if I may dare to transfer language, prompted by a revelation of the state of being that admits not of decay or change, to the concerns and interests of our transitory planet, from that moment "this corruptible put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality." This sudden elevation was on no account more welcomewas by nothing more endeared than by the returning sense which accompanied it of inward liberty and choice, which gratified our moral yearnings, inasmuch as it would give henceforward to our actions as a people, an origination and direction unquestionably moral-as it was free-as it was manifestly in sympathy with the species-as it admitted therefore of fluctuations of gen erous feeling of approbation and of complacency. We were intellectualized also in proportion; we looked backward upon the records of the human race with pride, and, instead of being afraid, we delighted to look forward into futurity. It was imagined that this new-born spirit of resistance, rising from the most sacred feelings of the human heart, would diffuse itself through many countries; and not merely for the distant future, but for the present, hopes were entertained as bold as they were disinterested and generous. Never, indeed, was the fellowship of our sentient nature more intimately felt-never was the irresistible power of justice more gloriously displayed than when the British and Spanish Nations, with an impulse like that of two ancient heroes throwing down their weapons and reconciled in the field, cast off at once their aversions and enmities, and mutually embraced each other to solemnize this conversion of love, not by the festivities of peace, but by combating side by side through danger and under affliction in the devotedness of perfect brotherhood. This was a conjunction which excited hope as fervent as it was rational. On the one side was a nation which brought with it sanction and authority, inasmuch as it had tried and approved the blessings for which the other had risen to contend: the one was a people which, by the help of the surrounding ocean and its own virtues, had preserved to itself through ages its liberty, pure and inviolated by a foreign invader; the other a high-minded nation, which a tyrant, presuming on its decrepitude, had, through the real decrepitude of its Government, perfidiously enslaved. What could be more delightful than to think of an intercourse beginning in this manner? On the part of the Spaniards their love towards us was enthusiasm and adoration; the faults of our national character were hidden from them by a veil of splendor; they saw nothing around us but glory and light; and, on our side, we estimated their character with partial and indulgent fondness;-thinking on their past greatness, not as the undermined foundation of a magnificent building, but as the root of a majestic tree recovered from a long disease, and beginning again to flourish with promise of wider branches and a deeper shade than it had boasted in the fulness of its strength. If in the sensations with which the Spaniards prostrated themselves before the religion of their coun try we did not keep pace with them-if even their loyalty was such as, from our mixed constitution of Government and from other causes, we could not thoroughly sympathize with, and if lastly, their devotion to the person of their Sovereign appeared to us to have too much of the alloy of delusion,-in all these things we judged them gently; and, taught by the reverses of the French revolution, we looked upon these dispositions as more human-more social-and therefore as wiser, and of better omen, than if they had stood forth the zealots of abstract principles, out of the laboratory of unfeeling philosophists. Finally, in this reverence for the past and present, we found an earnest that they were prepared to contend to the death for as much liberty as their habits and their knowledge enabled them to receive. To assist them and their neighbors the Portuguese in the attainment of this end, we sent to them in love and in friendship a powerful army to aid-to invigorate -and to chastise:-they landed; and the first proof they afforded of their being worthy to be sent on such a service-the first pledge of amity given by them—was the victory of Vimiera; the second pledge (and this was from the hand of their Generals) was the Convention of Cintra. 2. The Relation of National Happiness to National Independence Allowing that the "regni novitas" should either compel or tempt the usurper to do away some ancient abuses, and to accord certain insignificant privileges to the people upon the purlieus of the forest of freedom (for assuredly he will never suffer them to enter the body of it); allowing this, and much more; that the mass of the population would be placed in a condition outwardly more thriving-would be better off (as the phrase in conversation is); it is still true that in the act and consciousness of submission to an imposed lord and master, to a will not growing out of themselves, to the edicts of another people their triumphant enemy-there would be the loss of a sensation within for which nothing external, even though it should come close to the garden and the field-to the door and the fireside, can make amends. The artisan and the merchant (men of classes perhaps least attached to their native soil) would not be insensible to this loss; and the mariner, in his thoughtful mood, would sadden under it upon the wide ocean. The central or cardinal feeling of these thoughts may, at a future time, furnish fit matter for the genius of some patriotic Spaniard to express in his noble language as an inscription for the sword of Francis the First; if that sword, which was so ingloriously and perfidiously surrendered, should ever, by the energies of liberty, be recovered, and deposited in its ancient habitation in the Escurial. The patriot will recollect that-if the memorial, then given up by the hand of the Government, had also been abandoned by the heart of the people, and that indignity patiently subscribed to, his country would have been lost forever. There are multitudes by whom, I know, these sentiments will not be languidly received at this day; and sure I am that, a hundred and fifty years ago, they would have been ardently welcomed by all. But, in many parts of Europe (and especially in our own country) men have been pressing forward, for some time, in a path which has betrayed by its fruitfulness; furnishing them constant employment for picking up things about their feet, when thoughts were perishing in their minds. While mechanic arts, manufactures, agriculture, commerce, and all those products of knowledge which are confined to gross-definite and tangible objects, have, with the aid of experimental philosophy, been every day putting on more brilliant colors; the splendor of the imagination has been fading: sensibility, which was formerly a generous nursling of rude nature, has been chased from its ancient range in the wide domain of patriotism and religion with the weapons of derision by a shadow calling itself good sense: calculations of presumptuous expediency-groping its way among partial and temporary consequences-have been substituted for the dictates of paramount and infallible conscience, the supreme embracer of consequences: lifeless and circumspect decencies have banished the graceful negligence and unsuspicious dignity of virtue. The progress of these arts also, by furnishing such attractive stores of outward accommodation, has misled the higher orders of society in their more disinterested exertions for the service of the lower. Animal comforts have been rejoiced over, as if they were the end of being. A neater and more fertile garden; a greener field; implements and utensils more apt; a dwelling more commodious and better furnished;―let these be attained, say the actively benevolent, and we are sure not only of being in the right road, but of having successfully terminated our journey. Now a country may advance, for some time, in this course with apparent profit: these accommodations, by zealous encouragement, may be attained: and still the peasant or artisan, their master, be a slave in mind; a slave rendered even more abject by the very tenure under which these possessions are held: and-if they veil from us this fact, or reconcile us to it-they are worse than worthless. The springs of emotion may be relaxed or destroyed within him; he may have little thought of the past, and less interest in the future.-The great end and difficulty of life for men of all classes, and especially difficult for those who live by manual labor, is a union of peace with innocent and laudable animation. Not by bread alone is the life of man sustained; not by raiment alone is he warmed;-but by the genial and vernal inmate of the breast, which at once pushes forth and cherishes; by self-support and self-sufficing endeavors; by anticipations, apprehensions, and active remembrances; by elasticity under insult, and firm resistance to injury; by joy, and by love; by pride which his imagination gathers in from afar; by patience, because life wants not promises; by admiration; by gratitude which-debasing him not when his fellow-being is its object -habitually expands itself, for his elevation, in complacency towards his Creator. think that, to the bulk of the community, this independence is of no value; that it is a refinement with which they feel they have no concern; inasmuch as under the best frame of government, there is an inevitable dependence of the poor upon the rich-of the many upon the few-so unrelenting and imperious as to reduce this other, by comparison, into a force which has small influence, and is entitled to no regard. Superadd civil liberty to national independence; and this position is overthrown at once: for there is no more certain mark of a sound frame of polity than this; that, in all individual instances (and it is upon these generalized that this position is laid down), the dependence is in reality far more strict on the side of the wealthy; and the laboring man leans less upon others than any man in the community-but the case before us is of a country not internally free, yet supposed capable of repelling an external enemy who attempts its subjugation. If a country have put on chains of its own forging, in the name of virtue, let it be conscious, that to itself it is accountable: let it not have cause to look beyond its own limits for reproof: and, in the name of humanity,-if it be self-depressed, let it have its pride and some hope within itself. The poorest peasant, in an unsubdued land, feels this pride. I do not appeal to the example of Britain or of Switzerland, for the one is free, and the other lately was free (and, I trust, will ere long be so again): but talk Now, to the existence of these blessings, with the Swede; and you will see the joy he national independence is indispensable; and finds in these sensations. With him animal many of them it will itself produce and courage (the substitute for many and the maintain. For it is some consolation to friend of all the manly virtues) has space those who look back upon the history of the to move in; and is at once elevated by his world to know-that, even without civil lib-imagination, and softened by his affections: erty society may possess-diffused through its inner recesses in the minds even of its humblest members-something of dignified enjoyment. But, without national independence, this is impossible. The difference between inbred oppression and that which is from without, is essential; inasmuch as the former does not exclude, from the minds of a people, the feeling of being self-governed; does not imply (as the latter does, when patiently submitted to) an abandonment of the first duty imposed by the faculty of reason. In reality, where this feeling has no place, a people are not a society, but a herd; man being indeed distinguished among them from the brute; but only to his disgrace. I am aware that there are too many who | it is invigorated also; for the whole courage of his country is in his breast. In fact, the peasant, and he who lives by the fair reward of his manual labor, has ordinarily a larger proportion of his gratification dependent upon these thoughtsthan, for the most part, men in other classes have. For he is in his person attached, by stronger roots, to the soil of which he is the growth: his intellectual notices are generally confined within narrower bounds: in him no partial or antipatriotic interests counteract the force of those nobler sympathies and antipathies which he has in right of his country; and lastly the belt or girdle of his mind has never been stretched to utter relaxation by false philosophy, under a con ceit of making it sit more easily and gracefully. These sensations are a social inheritance to him: more important, as he is precluded from luxurious-and those which are usually called refined-enjoyments. Love and admiration must push themselves out toward some quarter: otherwise the moral man is killed. Collaterally they advance with great vigor to a certain extent -and they are checked: in that direction, limits hard to pass are perpetually encountered: they meet with gladsome help and no obstacles; the tract is interminable.-Perdition to the tyrant who would wantonly cut off an independent nation from its inheritance in past ages; turning the tombs and burial-places of the forefathers into dreaded objects of sorrow, or of shame and reproach, for the children! 3. The Grounds of Hope Here then they, with whom I hope, take their stand. There is a spiritual community binding together the living and the dead; the good, the brave, and the wise, of all ages. We would not be rejected from this community: and therefore do we hope. We look forward with erect mind, thinking and feeling it is an obligation of duty: take away the sense of it, and the moral being would die within us. Among the most illustrious of that fraternity, whose encouragement we participate, is an Englishman who sacrificed his life in devotion to a cause bearing a stronger likeness to this than any recorded in history. It is the elder Sidney-a deliverer and defender, whose name I have before uttered with reverence; who, treating of the war of the Netherlands against Philip the Second, thus writes: "If her Majesty," says he, "were the fountain, I would fear, considering what I daily find, that we should wax dry. But she is but a means whom God useth. And I know not whether I am deceived; but I am fully persuaded, that, if she should herself fail, other springs would rise to help this action. For, methinks, I see the great work indeed in hand against the abusers of the world; wherein it is not greater fault to have confidence in man's power, than it is too hastily to despair of God's work." The pen which I am guiding has stopped in my hand, and I have scarcely power to proceed. I will lay down one principle; and then shall contentedly withdraw from the sanctuary. When wickedness acknowledges no limit but the extent of her power, and advances with aggravated impatience like a devouring fire, the only worthy or adequate opposition is that of virtue submitting to no circumscription of her endeavors save that of her rights, and aspiring from the impulse of her own ethereal zeal. The Christian exhortation for the individual is here the precept for nations-"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father, which is in Heaven, is perfect." SONNETS ON THE CRISIS WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1802-1811) "Fair Star of Evening" Fair Star of evening, Splendor of the west, Star of my Country!-on the horizon's brink Thou hangest, stooping as might seem, to sink On England's bosom; yet well pleased to rest, Meanwhile, and be to her a glorious crest Conspicuous to the Nations. Thou, I think, Shouldst be my Country's emblem; and should'st wink, Bright Star! with laughter on her banners, drest In thy fresh beauty. There! that dusky spot Beneath thee, that is England; there she lies. Blessings be on you both! one hope, one lot, One life, one glory! I, with many a fear For my dear Country, many heartfelt sighs, Among men who do not love her, linger here. On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic Of Venice did not fall below her birth, day: |