LAST WEEK.
The intelligence from Italy has almost become wearisome, because day after day the telegraph brings us little more than scraps of foregone conclusions. Victor Emmanuel was to enter Naples—the young Bourbon Francis was to quit Gaëta: the first of these events has come to pass—the other, not. The troops who a week ago were still numbered as adherents of the falling king, during the last seven days have been gradually passing over to the Italian side. The French admiral, who at first had opposed himself to the operations of the Sardinian fleet, after having consulted his oracle at Paris, has ceased to hamper its officers with threats and demonstrations. The drag-net is drawn closer and closer around Gaëta, and in all probability by the time this number of our publication is delivered to the reader, the fallen sovereign will have perceived the uselessness of further resistance, and will have taken his final departure from the kingdom which he and his father so grievously misgoverned. So far it is well; but during the Last Week the eyes of all Englishmen have been turned not only to the other side of the Atlantic, but upon the broad surface of the Atlantic itself. Our young Prince, the heir to the proud sceptre of the British Isles, had been lingering somewhat too long upon his homeward road. There had been, it could scarcely be called, anxiety about him—for reason and experience told us that there was no real cause for apprehension—but at least we should gladly have seen him back amongst us once more. The feeling was honourable to the nation, and to the Sovereign who has discharged the duties of the Royal office in so gracious and temperate a manner, that any anxiety which might have fallen upon her was felt as though it intimately concerned every private household in the land. There was far more in this than mere adulation of the Porphyrogeniti, for it is much to be doubted if many Englishmen, not being actually connected with the Court, would have very seriously disquieted themselves about the sorrows of old Queen Charlotte. The Lady who now sits upon the throne of the Three Kingdoms may fairly reckon upon the love of her subjects, for she has deserved it. She has not only played her own part well, but she has brought up her children in a way which will fit them to discharge the duties of their station; so that, in England at least, loyalty will not be a feeling of by-gone centuries. The greatest concern was everywhere expressed for Queen Victoria—it was almost worth while that she should have endured those few days of suspense, that she might know how strong was the feeling of personal attachment to herself throughout these islands, independently of mere political considerations.
The southerly gale of Wednesday se’nnight, and the telegraph of last Thursday, have put an end to the public solicitude and the private apprehension. The young Prince is back again in the country which one day—may it be a far distant one!—he will be called upon to govern. But how about these lumbering war-steamers, which, upon trial made, turn out to be no steamers at all, but just the old frigates and line-of-battle ships, with a skuttle of coals on board to be used in case of dire emergency? Not so had we understood the matter, although of course we ought so to have understood it. The long continued easterly gales of this November will have done us good service after all—although at the Prince of Wales’s expense—by proving to us that despite of all our mechanical improvements, and all our outlay, we have not as yet succeeded in getting a steam fleet, but only a fleet which can be used as such for a brief space—and at critical moments. Our task is not yet accomplished—we can scarcely be said to have entered upon it. Whatever the truth may be as to this or that particular form of iron-clad vessel, or as to what may be the preferable lines upon which our war-steamers should be laid down for the future, there can be no doubt that we are but just entering upon the scientific epoch of ship-building. With our unbounded command of iron and coal, with our ascertained superiority in engineering skill, and with the longest purse in our hands, it will be strange, indeed, if we do not keep easily a-head of our rivals. If the British sailor ruled the broad seas in former days, the British engineer must do so in days to come. If under such conditions, and with such means at our disposal, we do not hold our own against the world, we deserve our fate.
This visit of the young English Prince to the United States has been made at no ordinary period either of the world’s history or of the history of the States. How is it in all our difficulties—how is it in all their difficulties—that we, the subjects of the British Queen, and they, the citizens of that wonderful confederation of Republics, do not perceive that the best and wisest policy for us both lies in close and cordial union? If we would measure the advantageous consequences which would follow from such an union, not only to all who speak with British tongue on either side of the Atlantic—but to the whole human race—we have but to consider the inevitable results of hostilities between Great Britain and the United States. These would be nothing less than the total extinction of political liberty throughout the world. The principle of military despotism, as put in practice upon the continent of Europe, would, for a time at least, be imposed upon mankind. Where in Europe at the present moment, save in the British Islands, is freedom of thought upon political subjects to be found? Is it in France? ask M. Berryer,—ask all the great statesmen and writers of the Orleans dynasty who have been reduced to silence under the iron rule of the present Emperor! Or is it in Austria, where a free thought, if expressed but in a whisper, is an overt act of high treason against the Hapsburgs? Is it in that miserable Prussia, where human beings, under the vain fictions of constitutional forms, are ticketted, and labelled, and registered, and handled like botanical specimens in a hortus siccus? Is it in Spain, where political life might be regarded as dead altogether, if it were not that every now and then a military émeute takes place at Madrid, and one general is ousted, and another takes his place, whilst the Sovereign majestically