Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 by Various

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If you, my reader, are a wise and kind-hearted person, (as I have no
doubt whatever but you are,) I think you would like very much to meet
and converse with any person who has formed a bad opinion of you. You
would take great pleasure in overcoming such a one's prejudice against
you; and if the person were an honest and worthy person, you would be
almost certain to do so. Very few folk are able to retain any bitter
feeling towards a man they have actually talked with, unless the bitter
feeling be one which is just. And a very great proportion of all the
unfavorable opinions which men entertain of their fellow-men found on
some misconception. You take up somehow an impression that such a one is
a conceited, stuck-up person: you come to know him, and you find he is
the frankest and most unaffected of men. You had a belief that such
another was a cynical, heartless being, till you met him one day coming
down a long black stair, in a poor part of the town, from a bare chamber
in which is a little sick child, with two large tears running down his
face; and when you enter the poor apartment, you learn certain facts as
to his quiet benevolence which compel you suddenly to construct a new
theory of that man's character. It is only people who are radically and
essentially bad whom you can really dislike after you come to know
them. And the human beings who are thus essentially bad are very few.
Something of the original Image lingers yet in almost every human soul:
and in many a homely, commonplace person, what with vestiges of the old,
and a blessed planting-in of something new, there is a vast deal of
it. And every human being, conscious of honest intention and of a kind
heart, may well wish that the man who dislikes and abuses him could just
know him.

But there are human beings whom, if you are wise, you would not wish to
know you too well: I mean the human beings (if such there should be) who
think very highly of you,--who imagine you very clever and very amiable.
Keep out of the way of such! Let them see as little of you as possible.
For, when they come to know you well, they are quite sure to be
disenchanted. The enthusiastic ideal which young people form of any
one they admire is smashed by the rude presence of facts. I have got
somewhat beyond the stage of feeling enthusiastic admiration, yet there
are two or three living men whom I should be sorry to see: I know I
should never admire them so much any more. I never saw Mr. Dickens: I
don't want to see him. Let us leave Yarrow unvisited: our sweet ideal is
fairer than the fairest fact. No hero is a hero to his valet: and it may
be questioned whether any clergyman is a saint to his beadle. Yet the
hero may be a true hero, and the clergyman a very excellent man: but no
human being can bear too close inspection. I remember hearing a clever
and enthusiastic young lady complain of what she had suffered, on
meeting a certain great bishop at dinner. No doubt he was dignified,
pleasant, clever; but the mysterious halo was no longer round his Lead.
Here is a sad circumstance in the lot of a very great man: I mean such
a man as Mr. Tennyson or Professor Longfellow. As an elephant walks
through a field, crushing the crop at every step, so do these men
advance through life, smashing, every time they dine out, the
enthusiastic fancies of several romantic young people.

This was to have been a short essay. But you see it is already long; and
I have treated only two of the four Things Slowly Learnt which I had
noted down. After much consideration I discern several courses which are
open to me:--

1. To ask the editor to allow me forty or fifty pages of the magazine
for my essay.

2. To stop at once, and allow it to remain forever a secret what the two
remaining things are.

3. To stop now, and continue my subject in a future number of the
magazine.

4. To state briefly what the two things are, and get rid of the subject
at once.

The fundamental notion of Course No. 1 is manifestly vain. The editor is
doubtless well aware that about sixteen pages is the utmost length
of essay which his readers can stand. Nos. 2 and 3, for reasons too
numerous to state, cannot be adopted. And thus I am in a manner
compelled to adopt Course No. 4.

The first of the two things is a practical lesson. It is this: to allow
for human folly, laziness, carelessness, and the like, just as you allow
for the properties of matter, such as weight, friction, and the like,
without being surprised or angry at them. You know, that, if a man
is lifting a piece of lead, he does not think of getting into a rage
because it is heavy; or if a man is dragging a tree along the ground, he
does not get into a rage because it ploughs deeply into the earth as it
comes. He is not surprised at these things. They are nothing new. It is
just what he counted on. But you will find that the same man, if his
servants are lazy, careless, and forgetful, or if his friends are
petted, wrong-headed, and impracticable, will not only get quite angry,
but will get freshly angry at each new action which proves that his
friends or servants possess these characteristics. Would it not be
better to make up your mind that such things are characteristic of
humanity, and so that you must look for them in dealing with human
beings? And would it not be better, too, to regard each new proof of
laziness, not as a new thing to be angry with, but merely as a piece of
the one great fact that your servant is lazy, with which you get angry
once for all, and have done with it? If your servant makes twenty
blunders a day, do not regard them as twenty separate facts at which to
get angry twenty several times: regard them just as twenty proofs of the
one fact that your servant is a blunderer; and be angry just once, and
no more. Or if some one you know gives twenty indications in a day that
he or she (let us say she) is of a petted temper, regard these merely as
twenty proofs of one lamentable fact, and not as twenty different facts
to be separately lamented. You accept the fact that the person is petted
and ill-tempered: you regret it and blame it once for all. And after
this once you take as of course all new manifestations of pettedness and
ill-temper. And you are no more surprised at them, or angry with them,
than you are at lead for being heavy, or at down for being light. It is
their nature, and you calculate on it, and allow for it.

Then the second of the two remaining things is this,--that you have no
right to complain, if you are postponed to greater people, or if you are
treated with less consideration than you would be, if you were a greater
person. Uneducated people are very slow to learn this most obvious
lesson. I remember hearing of a proud old lady who was proprietor of a
small landed estate in Scotland. She had many relations,--some greater,
some less. The greater she much affected, the less she wholly ignored.
But they did not ignore _her_; and one morning an individual arrived at
her mansion-house, bearing a large box on his back. He was a travelling
peddler; and he sent up word to the old lady that he was her cousin, and
hoped she would buy something from him. The old lady indignantly refused
to see him, and sent orders that he should forthwith quit the house.
The peddler went; but, on reaching the courtyard, he turned to the
inhospitable dwelling, and in a loud voice exclaimed, in the ears of
every mortal in the house, "Ay, if I had come in my carriage-and-four,
ye wad have been proud to have ta'en me in!" The peddler fancied that he
was hurling at his relative a scathing sarcasm: he did not see that he
was simply stating a perfectly unquestionable fact. No doubt earthly, if
he had come in a carriage-and-four, he would have got a hearty welcome,
and he would have found his claim of kindred eagerly allowed. But he
thought he was saying a bitter and cutting thing, and (strange to say)
the old lady fancied she was listening to a bitter and cutting thing.
He was merely expressing a certain and innocuous truth. But though all
mortals know that in this world big people meet greater respect than
small, (and quite right too,) most mortals seem to find the principle a
very unpleasant one, when it comes home to themselves. And we learn but
slowly to acquiesce in seeing ourselves plainly subordinated to other
people. Poor Oliver Goldsmith was very angry, when at the club one night
he was stopped in the middle of a story by a Dutchman, who had noticed
that the Great Bear was rolling about in preparation for speaking, and
who exclaimed to Goldsmith, "Stop, stop! Toctor Shonson is going to
speak!" Once I arrived at a certain railway station. Two old ladies were
waiting to go by the same train. I knew them well, and they expressed
their delight that we were going the same way. "Let us go in the same
carriage," said the younger, in earnest tones; "and will you be so very
kind as to see about our luggage?" After a few minutes of the lively
talk of the period and district, the train came up. I feel the tremor
of the platform yet. I handed my friends into a carriage, and then saw
their baggage placed in the van. It was a station at which trains
stop for a few minutes for refreshments. So I went to the door of the
carriage into which I had put them, and waited a little before taking
my seat. I expected that my friends would proceed with the conversation
which had been interrupted; but to my astonishment I found that I had
become wholly invisible to them. They did not see me and speak to me at
all. In the carriage with them was a living peer, of wide estates and
great rank, whom they knew. And so thoroughly did he engross their eyes
and thoughts and words, that they had become unaware of my presence, or
even my existence. The stronger sensation rendered them unconscious of
the weaker. Do you think I felt angry? No, I did not. I felt very much
amused. I recognized a slight manifestation of a grand principle. It was
a straw showing how a current sets, but for which Britain would not be
the country it is. I took my seat in another carriage, and placidly read
my "Times." There was one lady in that carriage. I think she inferred,
from the smiles which occasionally for the first few miles overspread
my countenance without apparent cause, that my mind was slightly
disordered.

These are the two things already mentioned. But you cannot understand,
friendly reader, what an effort it has cost me to treat them so briefly,
The experienced critic will discern at a glance that the author could
easily have made sixteen pages out of the material you have here in two.
The author takes his stand upon this,--that there are few people who can
beat out thought so thin, or say so little in such a great number of
words. But I remember how a very great prelate (who could compress all I
have said into a page and a half) once comforted me by telling me that
for the consumption of many minds it was desirable that thought should
be very greatly diluted; that quantity as well as quality is needful
in the dietetics both of the body and the mind. With this soothing
reflection I close the present essay.

AMERICAN NAVIGATION:

ITS CHECKS, ITS PROGRESS, ITS DANGERS.--THE BIRTH OF THE NAVY.--THE
EMBARGO.

In these palmy days of Commerce it is difficult to conceive the distress
which attended the Embargo. To form some idea of its effects at a period
when the nation engrossed most of the carrying trade of the world, let
us imagine a message from Washington announcing that Congress, after a
few midnight-sessions, has suddenly resolved to withdraw our ships from
the ocean, and to export nothing from New York, or any other seaport;
that it requires the merchant to dismantle his ships and leave them to
decay at the wharves; that it calls upon two hundred thousand masters
and mariners, who now plough the main, to seek their bread ashore; that
it forbids even the fisherman to launch his chebacco-boat or follow his
gigantic prey upon the deep; that it subjects the whole coastwise trade
to onerous bonds and the surveillance of custom-house officers; that it
interdicts all exports by land to Canada, New Brunswick, or Mexico.

Imagine for a moment five million tons of shipping detained, thousands
of seamen reduced to want, the trades of the ship-builder, joiner,
rigger, and sail-maker stopped, the masses of produce now seeking the
coast for shipment arrested on their way by the entire cessation of
demand, the banker and insurer idle, the commissioners of bankruptcy,
the sheriff, and the jailer busy. Imagine the whole country, in the
midst of a prosperous commerce, thus suddenly brought to a stand.
Imagine the navigation, the produce, and the merchandise of the nation
thus suddenly embargoed by one great seizure, upon the plea that they
might possibly be seized abroad, and some faint idea may be formed of
the alarm, distress, and indignant feeling which pervaded the entire
seaboard under the Embargo of 1807. At the period in question the
distressed seamen and ruined merchants had no railways, scarcely an
ordinary road to the West. Manufactures were almost unknown, the
mechanic arts were undeveloped, and consequently the exclusion from the
sea was felt with double force.

Why, urged the merchant and the mariner, should our property perish and
our children go supperless to bed, when we can insure our ships and
still make large profits? Would the planter reconcile himself to a law
which forbade him to harness his teams or use the hoe or the plough, and
bade him lie down and die of hunger beside fruitful fields? Does the
Constitution of the Union, which empowers Congress to regulate commerce,
authorize its destruction? And if it is the intent of Government merely
to protect our ships abroad, why are foreign vessels forbidden to
purchase or export our perishing fish and provisions? and why is our
property to be confiscated and heavy fines to be imposed, if we send it
across the Canada line, where there is no risk of seizure?--And when, in
the progress of events, it became apparent that France approved of our
Embargo, and that England, opening new marts for her trade and new
sources of supplies in Russia, Spain, India, and Spanish America, was
without a rival on the ocean, monopolizing the trade and becoming the
carrier of the world, it was impossible to reconcile the Eastern States
to this general interdict.

Many a rich man was ruined, many a prosperous town was utterly
prostrated by the shock. Property, real and personal, fell from thirty
to sixty per cent., affecting by its fall all classes of society.
A spirit of hostility to the party in power was engendered, which
outlasted the war with England, and continued to glow until Monroe had
adopted the great Federal measures of a navy, a military academy, and an
enlarged system of coast-defence.

Half a century has now elapsed since the signal failure of the Embargo.
The theorists who planned it, the cabinet that adopted it, the
politicians who blindly sustained it have passed from the stage. Angry
feelings have subsided. The measure itself has become a part of the
history of the country; but now that our commerce has again expanded,
now that our navigation, for at least a quarter of a century, has
continued to progress until it has outstripped that of Great Britain in
speed, despatch, and capacity to carry, now that it knows no superior
either in ancient or modern times, it is a fitting moment to investigate
the causes and effects of the measure which once arrested its progress.
Its history is replete with lessons; and if our late President has
failed in other particulars, he at least cautioned us, in his inaugural
address, "that our commerce and navigation are again exceeding the means
provided for their defence," and recommended "an increase of a navy now
inadequate to the protection of our vast tonnage afloat," greater than
that of any other nation, "as well as to the defence of our extended
sea-coast." To ascertain and appreciate the true causes of the Embargo,
we must ascend to the origin of our commerce and trace it downward.

The Pilgrims who sought freedom in New England were enterprising men.
The country in which they landed kindled a commercial spirit. Natural
ports and havens, vast forests of pine and oak suitable for spars and
timber, abundance of fish and whales, and the occasional failure of
their crops, all invited them to the deep. Under the rule of Governor
Winthrop, the shallop Blessing of the Bay was built at his Ten Hills
farm, and made a voyage to Virginia. Boats, soon followed by sloops,
engaged in the fisheries; brigs and ships were built for the trade with
England. Boston became noted for ship-building, and Portsmouth supplied
the royal navy with spars. The fleet which took Port Royal in 1710 was
composed principally of American ships. The New England volunteers who
in 1745 captured the fortress of Louisburg from the veteran troops of
France were conveyed by ten American ships of war.

As early as 1765, six hundred sail from Massachusetts were engaged in
the fisheries, and many American vessels pursued the trade to England,
Spain, and the West Indies. The towns of Salem, Marblehead, and
Gloucester were almost surrounded by fish-flakes. Fish, lumber, and
provisions were the great basis of trade. Ships were built and laden
with timber, and sold with their lading in English ports. Cargoes were
made up of fish, live stock, and boards, for the West India Islands.
The returns were shipped to Spain and Portugal, and there exchanged
for silk, iron, fruit, wines, and bills on England. Occasionally ships
joined the Jamaica fleet, or adventured on bolder voyages to the French
islands; but the admiralty courts at Tortola and New Providence, often
supposed to be in league with English admirals, repressed the spirit of
adventure, and annually condemned American ships on the most frivolous
pretences. The fame of American whalers had already reached England.
Burke, in his celebrated speech on America, alludes to their enterprise.
"We find them," he says, "in the deepest frozen recesses of Hudson's
Bay, and again beneath the frozen serpent of the South.....What sea
is not vexed by their fisheries? what climate is not witness to their
toils?"

No record is to be found of the shipping of the Colonies prior to the
Revolution, but there is reason to suppose that it must have exceeded
two hundred thousand tons. During the Revolution the merchantmen went
generally to decay or were captured. Some were equipped as privateers.
But after seven years a ship is in its dotage. New vessels were built
and armed. The models which figure in old pictures, with high sterns and
bows, proved too clumsy for war, and modern forms were adopted. At least
five hundred armed vessels were fitted out in the commercial States, and
among them one hundred and fifty-eight from the single port of Salem.
Some of these vessels mounted twenty guns; they captured large numbers
of English vessels, and performed feats on the ocean as brilliant as
any upon the land. At the close of the war, our shipping, although it
included many prizes, was undoubtedly reduced; but it had changed its
character. Our ships had improved in size and speed, and were manned by
officers and seamen who had measured their strength with Englishmen,
and acknowledged no superiors. From the Peace of 1783 to the Embargo
of 1807, a period of twenty-four years, is a remarkable epoch in the
history of American navigation.

At the close of the war, the country was exhausted by its long and
protracted struggle with the colossal power of England. The Eastern
States, which furnished most of the shipping, had made great sacrifices,
and had contributed more than their share in men, money, and ships to
the common defence. They were creditor States, and their means
were locked up in "final settlements." Their remaining capital was
insufficient to equip their vessels and give them full cargoes. The
country was impoverished, too, by the suits of foreign creditors, to
whom our merchants had become deeply indebted before the war. Under
these circumstances, commerce was slowly resumed. For several years
our exports did not exceed ten millions. But our merchants were not
disheartened; they gradually enlarged their trade and extended their
field of adventure; privateers were put into the India trade, and
entered into successful rivalry with the more cumbrous ships of the
East India Companies. The new Constitution was adopted, the public debt
funded, and duties imposed to meet the interest. The war-worn officer,
the patriotic merchant, and the humble capitalist, who had relied on the
honor and justice of the country, were paid in public stocks which found
favor abroad. Old capital was resuscitated and became the basis of
commerce.

In 1793 our tonnage had risen to 488,000 tons; and in 1799 it had grown
to 939,488 tons, and was still increasing. The aggressions of France
in 1798 and 1799 were met with a bold spirit and proved of brief
continuance, a proper chastisement was inflicted on the corsairs of
Africa, the honor of the flag was maintained, our commerce moved onward
until the close of 1807, and by the official report of that year our
tonnage had increased to 1,208,735 tons, or at least five hundred per
cent. in the first twenty-four years after the close of the war. The
revenue had risen to fifteen millions, and the official report of the
Treasurer showed a balance in the Treasury of eighteen millions in bonds
and money; it stated, also, that twenty-six millions of the public debt
had been extinguished in the seven years preceding. Our ships, too,
had become the great carriers of the deep; our exports for 1807 were
$108,343,750, of which $59,622,558 were of foreign origin; our ports,
remote from the seat of war, had become the depots of goods; and our
commerce, whitening the surface of every ocean, had begun to tempt the
cupidity of contending nations. In 1807, the United States, in addition
to its domestic produce, which went principally to English ports,
exported of foreign goods, in round numbers, to

Holland, . . . . . . . . $14,000,000
French ports, . . . . . . 13,000,000
Spanish " . . . . . . 14,000,000
Italian " . . . . . . 5,500,000
Danish " . . . . . . 2,500,000
English and other ports,. 10,000,000

In those prosperous days of navigation, during the first period of
twenty-four years after the Peace of 1783, the merchants of our country
were accumulating riches; but a check was given to their prosperity by
the Embargo, closely followed by acts of non-intercourse, by war, and
by sixteen years of debility which ensued. In 1814, our tonnage was
diminished to 1,159,288 tons, a point actually below that of 1807; and
at the close of the second epoch of twenty-four years, in 1831, during
which our population had doubled, the tonnage remained at 1,267,846
tons, having virtually made no progress in the second epoch of
twenty-four years, commencing with the Embargo.

We now enter upon the third epoch of equal length, from 1831 to 1855,
which stands out in bold relief a striking contrast to the gloomy
period which it followed, and bears some resemblance to the epoch which
preceded the Embargo, showing the recuperative power of a commerce
destined to float after the most disastrous shipwreck.

Peace had continued down to 1831; the debt incurred during the war was
at length reduced; new breeds of sheep were imported, and manufactures,
aided by new inventions, were established on a permanent basis; our new
fabrics began to demand more raw material; the culture of cotton
was thus extended; railways were constructed; England, relaxing her
commercial code, opened her marts to our breadstuffs; the great
discovery of gold followed. Each of these causes gave an impulse to
navigation, and at the close of the third epoch of twenty-four years,
in 1855, our tonnage had outstripped that of England both in amount and
effective power, and had risen by the official report to 5,212,000 tons,
exhibiting a gain of more than three hundred per cent. The ratio of its
advance may be inferred from the following table:--

Tonnage of ships built in 1818 55,856
do. do. 1831 85,962
do. do. 1832 144,539
do. do. 1848 318,072
do. do. 1855 583,451

Let us contrast these three epochs we have named. During the first, our
navigation sprang from infancy to manhood, surmounting all obstacles and
bidding defiance to all foes. In the second, in the vigor of manhood, it
was withdrawn by a mysterious and pusillanimous policy from the ocean.
This very timidity invited aggression, seizures and war followed, and
the growth was checked for nearly the fourth of a century. In the third
epoch it resumed its onward march, stimulating improvement, and thereby
accelerating its own progress, until at length the offspring has
surpassed the parent and taken the lead in navigation. Mark the
contrast: the three epochs were of equal length: the first witnessed
a growth of five hundred per cent.; in the second there was an entire
paralysis; in the third, renewed progress of more than three hundred per
cent.

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