Greater Greece and Greater Britain; and, George Washington, the Expander of England.: Two Lectures with an AppendixFreeman, Edward A. (Edward Augustus)
History
Greater Greece and Greater Britain; and, George Washington, the Expander of England.: Two Lectures with an Appendix
Freeman, Edward A. (Edward Augustus)
Great Britain -- Colonies; Imperial federation; Washington, George, 1732-1799
For the career
of Washington, for the career of Bolivar, there was no room among the
colonies of Ionia or the colonies of Sicily. Between them and their
parents in the elder Hellas, there was no bitter remembrance of a time
of parting, a time of parting in anger and in bloodshed. It would seem
as if the colonial history of later times had picked out Korkyra and
Kamarina as the model colonies of the elder time. I have said that
among the worthies of old time the one whose fame is most akin to the
worthy of our day is the deliverer of Syracuse, Timoleôn of Corinth.
But that we describe him as Timoleôn of Corinth at once goes to the
root of the matter. That we have to speak of Timoleôn of Corinth, while
we can hardly speak of Washington of England or of Bolivar of Spain,
brings out in its fullest life the difference between the colonial
systems of the elder and the younger Europe. The deliverer of Syracuse
was a man of Corinth, a man whom the mother-land sent forth to free
her daughter alike from domestic tyrants and from foreign enemies.
The deliverer of Virginia and her sisters was a man of Virginia, a
man who had once played his part against the foreign enemies of the
English name, but whose abiding glory was won by parting asunder the
newer lands of England from the elder. I shrink from saying that he
had to fight against tyrants or enemies--let us strive to veil the
grievous fact under some gentler words--but so far as he had to deal
with tyrants or with enemies, they were tyrants and enemies to be
looked for in the mother-land. Timoleôn had to strive against strangers
and hirelings, against Carthage and the motley hosts which she sent
against Hellenic Sicily. Washington had to strive against strangers and
hirelings, but they were strangers and hirelings whom the elder England
sent to work the subjection of the younger. Timoleôn had to break
no tie of allegiance; in freeing the daughter city he was carrying
out the bidding of the mother. Washington had to trample allegiance
under foot; he had to become, in legal form, a rebel and a traitor;
he had to free the daughter-land in defiance of the bidding of the
mother-land and their common sovereign. In short, his work, the work of
his fellows, was to work the dismemberment of the British Empire. But
in working the dismemberment of the British Empire, they wrought, I say
once more, the true Expansion of England, the enlargement of the bounds
of the English folk, and of all that the English bears with it to all
its newly settled homes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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