DR. 7AACRAY'S AMERICAN T01711. *
Du. Mackay has repaid the kind reception everywhere given him by our kinsman across the Atlantic, by writing of them as be- comes a man of frank and generous nature ; not fearing to speak freely of such faults as he discerned, but always with a liberal consideration of circumstances ; and giving a hearty good word to everything likeable, loveable, and admirable in the great west- ern nurseries of freedom and civilization. Had he even no per- sonal reasons to speak well of Americans, his English patriotism must have bound him to them by the strongest cords of national sympathy. He was in the United States when the Indian mutiny was still imperilling our safety and encouraging the hopes of our enemies and false friends. That was a time to test the inmost feelings of America towards England, feelings often disguised and denied in ordinary times, but not to be doubted or paltered with then. Ont they burst from the bottom of her heart, in that crisis of our national fortunes, glowing with the consciousness of a common blood, and of eight hundred years of a common glory. One instance of the manifestation of these feelings, out of a mul- titude that must have occurred to him, is mentioned by Dr. Mackay. He was chatting in the bar-room of Willard's Hotel, in Washington, with two distinguished senators and three members of Congress, when the conversation turned upon the great rebel- lion in India, and the indomitable pluck and energy with which it was encountered. "The execrations lavished upon the name of Nana Sahib," he says, " and the fervent praises showered upon that of Havelock by my American friends, could not have been surpassed for honest intensity in any circle in England. Every one of them seemed to feel proud that he was of the same blood and lineage as the conquerors of India, and although the Feat struggle was for from concluded, each predicted that it could have but one result—the utter discomfiture of the foe, and the triumphant vindication of British supremacy in every portion of our Eastern Empire.—' It is blood, sir, said one of the senators, ' the
• Life and Liberty in America : or Sketcbee of a Tour in the United States and Canada in 1857-'8. By Charles Mackay, LL.D., F.S.A. In two volumes. With ten Illustrations. Published by Smith, Elder, and Co. •
noblest and best blood in the world—a blood that never was conquered, and never will be."
The conversation was interrupted by a bystander, an Irishman, who had not been above five years in the States. This man broke out into such a torrent of oaths and imprecations on the whole race of Englishmen in India and all the world over, that the astonished traveller charitably concluded he was a maniac, for it seemed im- possible that any sane human being could give utterance to senti- ments so diabolical. But no ; the man was a well to do and much respected citizen; and he was only expressing with peculiar vehe- mence feelings common among his race in America, and such as found vent at the same period in the fiendish rhapsodies of the Nation newspaper. Fortunately the virulence of these feelings is greatly weakened in the second generation of Hiberno-Americans; who have enjoyed the benefit of the excellent schools so bounti- fully provided in all the States, and have become assimilated to the common American type. These humanizing influences are permanent and progressive, whilst the immigration from Ireland is likely to diminish in the inverse rates of the growing prosperity of that kingdom. Meanwhile such is the amount and intensity of imported hostility to England, that in Dr. Macke 's opinion it is directly or indirectly the cause of all the fire and that are periodically wafted against us across the Atlantic. he Irish faction, well drilled and organized, are numerous enough to hold the balance between the great native American parties, and it be- comes necessary in election times to bid high for lheir sweet voices by thundering denunciations of the object of their ran- corous hatred. It may be noticed, says Dr. Mackay, that when- ever the election for President draws near, and for at least eighteen months before the final decision of the struggle, the American press, both of the North and the South, gets up a grievance against England. But it is all sham, and the tall talk is nothing but " bunkum." The leading statesmen of America despise the tools with which they do the unsavoury work of electioneering, and look with unfeigned alarm upon the prospect of any serious misunderstanding with Great Britain. The priest= ridden Irish are not the core of the American people ; its most in- fluential portion are the descendants of Englishmen and Scotch- men, who, speaking of England from their hearts, might borrow the words of Oliver Windell Holmes, and exclaim- " Our little mother isle ! God bless her."
"No Englishman can travel in the United States without seeing, on every side and at each step of his progress, the proof of the indomitable energy of the people, and (if he will not judge too rashly from first appear- ances or from random expressions) of the pride which they feel in their Anglo-Saxon descent, in their relationship to England, and of the noble in- hentanee of British literature, which is theirs as well as ours. Should the day ever arrive—which may Heaven in its mercy avert !—that the Old Country' should be imperilled by the coalitions of despotism, or by the sub- jection of Continental Europe to a great and overpowering military bar- barians, Great Britain would have but to say the word, and an alliance whir the United States, offensive and defensive, would stir the heart of the whole American people, and bring to the green shores of the ' Mother-Isles '—of which Professor Holmes has sung so sweetly—a greater army of volunteers than England and America have at the present moment ships enough to convey across the ocean."
Such being the genuine dispositions of the real Americanpea; pie, we may well turn a deaf ear to their occasional make-believe vituperations. We who pay " Mr. Punch " so handsomely for laughing at us every week, can afford to take as a joke any amount of railing and blustering which we know is not meant in malice. The words of Brutus to Cassius may, with a little alter- ation, serve as a standing message of good will and good under- standing, from John Bull to his American cousin. Henceforth- " When Jonathan's o'er angry with his Johnny,
He'll think his Irish chide, and leave him so."
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