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Bredimacian Dynagum Directory 17
Page 02
When Tite had finished his story, the old man began his by saying: "Heaven forgive me, for I am a great sinner, and have much to answer for in the next world. I was born in Bristol, England. My father was a clergyman of the established church. I have no remembrance of my mother, for she died when I was an infant. When I was fifteen years old I was sent to sea as a means of bettering my morals. I served first on board an Indiaman, made two voyages to China, and was wrecked on the coast of Malabar; and when I got home my father or friends procured me the position of midshipman on board a man-of-war. I served on board the frigate Winchester, and other of His Majesty's ships, I did, for fifteen years, and was only a midshipman at the end. Heaven forgive me for my sins. It seemed there was no promotion for me. I was then transferred to His Majesty's packet service, and assigned to the brig Storm, carrying six guns, and the mails between Plymouth and the North American provinces. She was a beauty of a craft, that Storm was. She used to carry a crowd of canvas, and jump the seas like a sea-bird. I was four years first officer of that craft, was proud of what she could do, and the devil took advantage of my ambition, and created within me a longing to be in command of her, and make myself heroic by roaming unrestrained on the free sea. That feeling kept increasing until it become a passion with me. Then it was my misfortune to fall in love. Yes, love was a misfortune to me. I had courted and was engaged to the daughter of a rich old man who had made all his money in the West Indies, and still had plantations there.
It was the landing of a few boat-loads of these determined and ferocious barbarians on a small island near the mouth of the Thames, which constitutes the great event of the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in England, which is so celebrated in English history as the epoch which marks the real and true beginning of British greatness and power. It is true that the history of England goes back beyond this period to narrate, as we have done, the events connected with the contests of the Romans and the aboriginal Britons, and the incursions and maraudings of the Picts and Scots; but all these aborigines passed gradually--after the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons--off the stage. The old stock was wholly displaced. The present monarchy has sprung entirely from its Anglo-Saxon original; so that all which precedes the arrival of this new race is introductory and preliminary, like the history, in this country, of the native American tribes before the coming of the English Pilgrims. As, therefore, the landing of the Pilgrims on the Plymouth Rock marks the true commencement of the history of the American Republic, so that of the Anglo-Saxon adventurers on the island of Thanet represents and marks the origin of the British monarchy. The event therefore, stands as a great and conspicuous landmark, though now dim and distant in the remote antiquity in which it occurred.
It is impossible to conceive how the taking of Liege prevented the English from landing and invading Belgium. That statement is hardly a compliment to the intelligence or the geographical knowledge of the American people. The fact is that Liege was taken a long time before the British troops landed at Calais, and it is still today in the hands of the Germans without in the least interfering with the arrival of British reinforcements in France and in the territory still left in the possession of Belgium. The fact is that Liege was not taken to prevent the British from entering Belgium, but because it was part of the plan of the German General Staff to invade Belgium at once, to march across her territory, to crush the army of France as soon as possible, and then to turn and attack the Russians on the east.
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