It was a fearful time for men who loved their country, not only with
deep affection, but with a wise and forecasting interest. A revolution
of the worst type was in progress. Not the present alone, but the
future, was being laid waste. The marvellous reform accomplished by
Father Mathew, the self-reliance which had grown up in the era of
monster meetings, and the moral teachings of Davis and his friends were
being fast swallowed up by this calamity. The youth and manhood of the
middle classes were scrambling for pauper places from the Board of
Works, and the peasants were being transformed into mendicants by
process of law. These calamities, related of a distant and savage tribe,
would move a generous heart; but seeing them befall our own people, the
children of the same mother, and foreseeing all the black, unfathomable
misery they foreshadowed, it was hard to preserve the sober rule of
reason.
The gentry, who were responsible in the first place for the protection
of the people from whom they drew their income, insisted that the
calamity was an imperial one and ought to be borne out of the exchequer
of the empire.
Pages:
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215