He seemed quite melancholy at the thought of living to see
this principality, the oldest in Bundelkhand, lose its independence.
Even this poor, unclothed, and starving wretch had a feeling of
patriotism, a pride of country, though that country had been so
wretchedly governed, and was now desolated by a famine.
Just such a feeling had the impressed seamen who fought our battles
in the great struggle. No nation has ever had a more disgraceful
institution than that of the press-gang of England. This institution,
if so it can be called, must be an eternal stain upon her glory--
posterity will never be able to read the history of her naval
victories without a blush--without reproaching her lawgivers who
could allow them to be purchased with the blood of such men as those
who fought for us the battles of the Nile and Trafalgar. '_England
expected every man to do his duty_' on that day, but had England done
her duty to every man who was on that day to fight for her? Was not
every English gentleman of the Lords and Commons a David sending his
Uriah to battle?[27]
The intellectual stock which we require in good seamen for our navy,
and which is acquired in scenes of peril 'upon the high and giddy
mast', is as much their property as that which other men acquire in
schools and colleges; and we had no more right to seize and employ
these seamen in our battles upon the wages of common, uninstructed
labour, than we should have had to seize and employ as many
clergymen, barristers, and physicians.
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