Our military resources., December 21, 1870
Our military resources.
To the editor of the Times:
Sir: I share in your anxiety respecting our armed forces, and it seems to me that during the five or six weeks before Parliament meets the public mind could not be more usefully employed than in considering our deficiencies, and, when a conclusion is reached, in asking government to supply our wants by armaments neither superfluous nor inadequate.
We are, unfortunately, a mark for national animosity on many sides. During the South American revolution the United States checked the building and sailing of cruisers to intercept and plunder the trade of Spain and Portugal, according to their own views of their obligations. When remonstrated with for not doing more, they answered that they would allow no interference with their domestic measures. When one notorious cruiser escaped from Birkenhead, during the American civil war, and our government copied the answer of Mr. Secretary Adams, we were immediately told that our repression was designedly and willfully inadequate.
In the same spirit, when arms are, during the present war, imported into France from England, but in much larger quantities from the United States, in conformity in both instances with the law of nations, the Prussian ministers, embassadors, officers, and soldiers, through whose country supplies of arms were carried to Russia during the Crimean war, and used by Russian soldiers to kill British troops engaged in a European cause—these same Prussians inveigh against us as enemies, and treat the Americans as blameless friends.
From these two instances I infer that the envy and hostility which have pursued every wealthy commercial nation in ancient and modern times are now dogging our steps, and will one of these days burst out into open aggression.
The facility with which Prince Gortchakoff and Count Bismarck threw off the trammels of treaties in their own cause, and upon their own testimony, shows but too clearly how easy it will be to find a pretext for attacking, first, an ally of England, such as Holland or Austria, and then England herself.
We have been subject since 1815 to occasional panics, often causeless and generally excessive. But if we have been affected in former days with unreasonable fear, that is no reason why we should now be buoyed up by extravagant hope—
“Fear’s elder brother, not so sad;
“The merrier fool of the two, but quite as mad.”
Why should we suppose the British Channel impassable to the ships and boats of an enemy? Is it impossible that a fleet may be required to relieve from danger our fellow-subjects in Jamaica while an expedition is preparing in the Texel for the invasion of England? Could we send a part of our army to assist an ally while we have so small a force of regular troops and so few thousands of embodied militia? Why not raise, by ballot if necessary, and embody one hundred thousand militia? In six months they would be admirable troops. Captain Sherard Osborn holds that a fleet equipped in the Scheldt against us ought to inspire no apprehensions, and at the same time advises us to line our east and north coasts with ships of war. His practical advice proves that he does not feel the security he affects. Lord Derby warns us against “an essentially retrograde step,” and at the same time assumes that we might possibly be called upon to repel an invasion of one hundred thousand men.
Even were I not an Englishman I should feel what many Germans, many Frenchmen, many citizens of the United States feel—admiration and reverence for a nation which, since 1641, has given her best blood in the cause of liberty; and since 1688 has furnished a model, often improved and purified, of a state in the enjoyment of civil and religious freedom.
Being a member of that state I feel responsible, as one of the public, to Europe and to the world for its preservation. I compare it with the great overwhelming autocracy, or rather stratocracy, of Russia, where, as I read in your telegram of to-day, “the Moscow town council having, in their congratulatory address on the Black Sea question, petitioned the Czar to add liberty of the press, tolerance of all religions, and other reforms to the blessings be has conferred upon his subjects, their address has been returned with a reprimand.” I see here what sort of government is prepared for the Turkish provinces now striving to obtain freedom from their own Sultan. I compare our condition again with the efforts which, since 1789, France has made in vain to combine liberty and order. I compare it with the state of Germany, and I ardently wish success to her new institutions, while I have some fear that her liberty may be stifled by a surplus of kings, princes, lords, and squires.
In the midst of these examples I Wish to see England made impregnable, with the motto of our volunteers, defense, not defiance.
Your obedient servant,