Palladium Of Virginia And The Pacific Monitor

THIRTY YEARS AGO.
From the London Annual.

Thirty years ago, there were many hundred of millions of human beings alive who are now dead. It requires not the aid of inspiration to foretel the same catastrophe respecting hundreds of millions now living, in thirty years to come.

Thirty years ago, all Europe was involved in the French Revolutionary War, the most atrocious and diabolical strife in which the lives of men were ever thrown away, since the age of Nimrod, by the most humane, intellectual, and religious nations under the sun, in comparison with whom nearly all the rest of the people of the earth are cruel, ignorant, idolatrous barbarians! Such is the consistency of human character. We dare not prophecy that the crimes and cruelties of a similar conflict will be renewed for thirty years to come.

Thirty years ago, Mr. Pitt was in the zenith of power, and Mr. Fox in the nadir of opposition, balancing between them our political sphere, amidst those disturbing forces of tremendous energy, which then were shaking the whole system of civilized society around. They are now sleeping side by side, under their marble tombs, in Westminster Abbey, and our little world of politics is in equilibrium still without them. “We ne’er may look upon their like again;” and yet what reason is there to question that two as great as they, and better paired to serve their country, by union rather by contention, may arise in thirty years to come?

Thirty years ago, this kingdom was divided against itself by the Aristocrats and the Jacobins, the first of whom were willing to sacrifice the liberties of their country to prevent the latter from extending them by a reformation of abuses. The one monopolized all the loyalty, and the other all the independence, in the land, and each with equal pretensions—that is, with none at all. The legal fiction of “Constructive treason” was invented in those days, and explained with such consummate clearness, in a speech of nine hours, by the present Lord Chancellor, then Attorney General—that no twelve honest men could be found to understand it—consequently, the accused were most ignorantly acquitted. May never a Jury be more enlightened for thirty years to come!

Thirty years ago, the National Debt was some two or three hundred millions. By able management it has been raised, in the interval, to thrice that sum. But it already shews such symptoms of decay, that, unless some new war be engaged in to recruit it, there is cause to fear it may be reduced to the first named amount in thirty years to come.

Thirty years ago, the Slave Trade was a lawful, honorable, human and Christian occupation. It is now piracy, and persons engaged in it are liable to be “hanged by the neck until dead,” at the yard arm. Human laws are ever varying—justice is eternal. Slavery itself is now as awful, honorable, humane, and Christian a thing as the slave trade was then; there are some signs of the time which afford a hope that, by a natural demise, a legal execution, or actual suicide, our colonies will be rid of this curse in thirty years to come.

Thirty years ago, Bonaparte was not known except as an artillery officer in the French army. His campaigns in Italy, Germany, Egypt, Syria, Poland, and Russia; his exile at Elba, his return to Paris, his overthrow at Waterloo, his imprisonment at St. Helena, and his death, have all been and gone, and as if they never had been, except in their consequences which will not cease to be implicated with the fate of nations till the world’s end. There may be a boy at school this day, or rather at home, during the midsummer vacation, who shall arrive at equal eminence of power, glory, and dominion, over the destinies of man, through life and beyond the grave, in thirty years to come.

Thirty years ago, the small pox was a perpetual pestilence, walking in darkness throughout the world, wherever ships and armies, merchants or travellers from Europe had visited. Vaccination has chased this fiend from the rising of the sun to the going down of the sun, and from the shores of Greenland to Patagonia. There will scarcely be a pock marked face to be seen thirty years to come.

Thirty years ago, there was scarcely a poet living among us, except Cowper and Peter Pindar. There are now as many authors of volumes of verse as days in the year—aye, even in a leap year—we had almost said hours. The works of thirty of these may, perhaps, be remembered for thirty years to come.

Thirty years ago, there was neither gas lights nor steam packets, nor safety lamps, nor life boats, nor a hundred other useful mechanical and philosophical inventions. All these will most probably be improved beyond what can be anticipated for thirty years to come.