General Sherman proposes to travel.--Having thoroughly explored his own country, he intends to complete his education in foreign parts.
This is the true course.
His home tour has been extensive and instructive.
Having made a satisfactory investigation of the bowels of this continent, he intends to look a bit at the inside of other continents and see if they are all right and sound.
Before his departure, he will visit one or two more interesting localities in his native land, which will not require more than two or three months. Then he will make ready to cross the
Atlantic.
Says our
Charleston correspondent:
‘
"It was only the other day that
Mr. Anthony Barclay, formerly British consul at New York, and now a resident in
Savannah, was repulsed by
General Sherman with the remark, that as soon as the rebels were disposed of (which he seemed to think would be done in a few months) the
United States would turn their guns against
Great Britain.
He said the ocean would soon swarm with five hundred Federal cruisers, which would sweep the
British flag from the sea; and that after
England had been sufficiently reduced and exhausted, he would land upon her shores and pitch his tent in
Hyde Park."
’
We should like to have beheld the countenance of that worthy and respectable Englishman,
Mr. Anthony Barclay, upon this announcement.
He must have been highly gratified and entertained.
Although not now a representative of Britain, he might, by virtue of his long services in that capacity, have ventured on this occasion to return her thanks to
General Sherman for the promised honor.
But
Mr. Barclay has lived a long while in New York, and has heard
Americans talk before.
The venerable
Mr. Bull has, in general, a very quiet way of receiving American compliments of this kind.
He really seems to regard Yankees as mere children, who do not know the full significance of their own language.
As long as they confine their valor to words, he yawns in their faces.
Even
General Sherman's truculent demonstration will produce no other effect than
Don Quixote's challenge to the
Lion in the menagerie to come forth and do him combat.
The door was thrown open for the
Lion to emerge, and he arose, stretched his huge limbs, and lying down again, with his posteriors at the door, composed himself to slumber.
We shall not be surprised if this is the only reply that the
British Lion vouchsafes to
General Sherman.
But it will not compromise the dignity of that majestic beast if we, who have no authority to speak for the
Lion, nevertheless venture to suggest certain considerations on his behalf which may tend to palliate his disrespectful mode of treating American grandiloquence.
When
General Sherman promises to pitch his tent in
Hyde Park, we are very much afraid that
Hyde Park will either never hear of the threat, or that it will be more amused than terrified.
One
Napoleon Bonaparte, who walked over all
Europe with as little difficulty as
Sherman did over
Georgia, and who met, fought and conquered, at every step of his way, armies of hundreds of thousands of veterans, splendidly equipped, and led by the best military genius of their native lands, once made a threat somewhat similar to that of
Sherman.
But we submit that the achievements of
Napoleon formed a better basis for such a menace than that of
Sherman; that his neighborhood to
England made an invasion more practicable; and that, having all
Europe at his back, and possessing an amount of military talent almost, if not quite, equal to that of the
Yankee general, a threat from his lips was not calculated to make Englishmen laugh.
Nevertheless, even he never carried through that little enterprise; no hostile footstep profaned the soil of perfidious
Albion, and
Napoleon never reached any portion of her territories except St. Helena.
And does
Sherman think, because he has run through the
State of Georgia, retreating in good order from
Atlanta to
Savannah, with not even "
Major Jones" to dispute his progress, nor "
Simon Suggs" to harass his rear, that he is going to pitch his tent in
Hyde Park?
We are no great admirers of English policy, but English power is another and different matter.
We may not admire the rapacity and sanguinary appetites of the
King of Beasts, but, for all that, should not be anxious to provoke him to a trial of muscle.
An empire which confronted
Europe half a century ago with a fleet of a thousand ships (not old merchantmen converted into gunboats, but genuine men-of-war, manned by British hearts of oak,) and nearly a million of soldiers in the field (not men of buckram on muster-rolls), and which has to-day the means of equipping still larger fleets and armies, to say nothing of two millions of volunteer yeomanry within her own limits, may be excused for failing to tremble at the threats of
General Sherman.
Even Ledru Rollin, that rabid French Republican, seems to entertain a very different idea of the resources and greatness of
England from the politicians and soldiers of the
United States. "Who can deny," he exclaims, "that
England, in an industrial and manufacturing point of view, has become the first in the world?--the chief moving power, the universal agent, the sovereign people of credit, circulation and commerce?
"Who can deny that British agriculture, on an equal extent and quality of soil, gives a greater return for the labors of the husbandman than lands the most furrowed by the plow or favored by the sun?
"Who can deny that the
British isles--two miserable little spots when looked at on the map of the world — have for centuries taken their place among the greatest empires, and obtained an illustrious place in the history of the earth?"
You might as well deny the existence of the sun as deny any of these things.
To overwhelm any audacious comparison,
England has only to exhibit its fleets, its harbors, its domains, its banks, its manufactories, its iron foundries, its markets, its docks, its arsenals, its girdle of colonies, and fortresses encircling the globe,--composing an empire larger than ever obeyed the laws of
Rome.
The pen cannot describe the animation of its harbors, the activity of its commercial and manufacturing cities, the extent of its rural industry.
Figures alone can convey an idea of its immensity.
Great Britain, which is only two hundred leagues long, and the soil of which is far from rivalling in richness the plains of
Lombardy or
Aragon, yields annually to the labor of the husbandman a revenue of about £140,000,000 sterling; an income, great as it is, which is almost doubled by the value of similar productions in its dependencies and colonies.
Its industry, commerce and manufactures yield a revenue superior to that magnificent landed estate; thanks to its inexhaustible mines, to its admirable system of internal communications, conducted by eighty six canals and seventy lines of railroad, in all, the general income of the
British Empire is nearly £500,000,000 sterling.
Its power among the nations is rendered manifest by the number and greatness of its fleets and dominions.
In
Europe it possesses the lesser islands which adjoin
Great Britain--
Ireland,
Gibraltar,
Malta, and the
Ionian islands; in
Asia,
Hindustan, with its tributary States; Ceylon, and its forced allies in Scinde and the
Punjaub — that is, almost an entire world; in
Africa,
Sierra Leone, with its dependencies, the
Isle of France, Fernando Po, the Cape, and St. Helena; In
America, Upper and
Lower Canada, the
West Indies,
Bermuda,
Newfoundland, and all the lesser provinces of
North America; in Oceanic, the whole of New Holland and
New Zealand;
Norfolk island and New Caledonia.
These united territories contain a hundred and fifty millions of inhabitants, including the twenty-eight millions of the
British isles.
As to its commercial marine, two facts are sufficient to make its immensity known.
It has nearly thirty thousand vessels, including those propelled by steam, besides eight thousand in the colonies; and in a single year it exports more than £28,000,000 cotton goods — an amount for a single article greater than the whole export of the manufactures of
France for everything put together.
And so,
General Sherman, who has taken
Savannah, is going to take
London!
He will pitch his tent in
Hyde Park!
Oh, most puissant!
Let
Victoria and the House of Lords hasten to the shore, with ropes about their necks, in token of submission!
