Memoir and Letters of Francis W. NewmanSieveking, I. Giberne (Isabel Giberne)
Religion
Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman
Sieveking, I. Giberne (Isabel Giberne)
Newman, Francis William, 1805-1897
"Events have not even yet taken the scale from the eyes of deluded people
here. I still hear on all sides the doleful lament that 'the successes of
the North are much to be regretted, since they _can only prolong the
war_.' Mr. Gladstone [Footnote: Then Chancellor of the Exchequer.] has
just printed his recent Manchester speech, in which he sympathizes with
the South, because he does not trust the soundness of the North in the
cause of freedom!... I am calmly told that it is not for the _interest of
England_ that America should be so strong, and it is better for herself,
and for us, that she break up! England may have all India, but the United
States may not have one Mississippi, or keep the mouth of her own river. I
have never felt so unutterably ashamed for my own country, for it affects
public men and the press of London _on all sides_, with exceptions which
may be easily counted. Are you not delighted with the progress of India
for the better? It appears in the public news in many ways; but besides, I
have papers from Oudh and Calcutta which interest me extremely, and give
me the most cheerful hopes of the future. The change introduced by the
extinction of the Company's rule is prodigiously beyond what I ever dared
to expect in so short a time. I am beginning to print (for very limited
circulation!) a Latin _Robinson Crusoe_--chiefly to please a lady-teacher,
my favourite pupil. It is not a translation, but an imitation. My wife is
just returned from Brighton, where I spent Easter--but did _not_ go to the
rifle review. I feel unable to take interest in it, until Secret Diplomacy
is abolished. At this moment there is no security that Lord Russell is not
intriguing against Hungary, while possessing liberal views for Italy."
It is necessary here, I think, to add that the Hon. East India Company
had, so long ago as 1833, been deprived of its commercial privileges; but
still its directors practically ruled India under the Board of Control,
which Pitt originated. Later, in 1858, Lord Palmerston brought in a bill
which was its death-blow. The Company was to be abolished, and the Home
Government reigned in its stead in India.
In July, 1863, Newman severed his long connection with University College,
and evidently looked forward with great pleasure to uninterrupted time for
writing and studying.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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