THE BAY OF PLENTY TIMES. SATURDAY, JULY 4, 1874.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume II, Issue 191, 4 July 1874, Page 2

THE BAY OF PLENTY TIMES.

SATURDAY, JULY 4, 1874.

" The spirit of the times mMspeed." KIS*6 JoA, ACT IT.

To-day is the anniversary of American independence—“the glorious fourth” of July. The day i.s intimately connected with two men celebrated in history : one was Oliver Cromwell, the * other George. Washington, both central figures in great revolutions, and from the uses to which they put their position ; men whoso lives will afford us profitable reflection. Upon the fourthof July, 1653 the famous Bareboues Parliament was dissolved by Grom well, who was then made “ Eord Protector” of England, with absolute executive power, and thus was installed the most autocratic “ Republican ” the world has yet seen upon the throne of kings. Hot us overleap almost d century and a quarter. Ifc is the fourth of July, 1776! The Continental Congress are deliberating the great question of American Freedom. A writer in “ Harper’s New Monthly ’’ thus describes the scene on that eventful day:

Outside of the burred doors and dosed window 81)utters the people, with dreadful anxiety, for they knew the dissentient causes which excluded them awaited the signal which was to announce the fate of the bill. With eager ears, and eyes leaping from thoughtful doubt to hearty anticipatxon, lao faces of the multitude are turned upward to the steeple of the State House : for there batiks bell brought from London nearly a quarter ol a century previous, bearing this ' prophetic inscription from Leviticus, xxv. .- “ Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” X’he multitude heaves like the ocean under the premonitory throb and shiver of the storm. A murmurous buzz breaks through the red brick wails and barred doors. What, what does it portend . Tonguelosa and breathless the crowd gaze inquiringly at the old State House. What is the noise ? Ah ! it is the C.-eL spasm of the infant .Hercules just born to the world. A creak me noise, a swinging noise ; keep breath ye newly-baptised freemen, arid yo slumbering dem - crats of hiaope awake— ° Tne bell tolls ! And then the enchantment was broken. The United .Mates had no past, for the Republic was born;; and the thirteen Colonial sponsors rose with becoming d.gn.ty into nations, and prepared -o tig lit lor tue birthright proclaimed to the world. AV hat a contrast j s presented in tbo characters of these two men —Cromwell and AV ash mu ton —whose heroic fortunes and fame ''are' so lodo-d with the fourth of July I Cromwell was a great ruler ; AV ashiugton a great patriot ; and both, in the general acceptation,

mighty heroes. Sometimes characters which aflbrd sxrikiny; contrasts', yet present some leading features in common ; but there is no more likeness between' these two heroes than can be constituted bet ween a pious butcher and a philosophic victor, saving, indeed, that each was best suited to his time. If, however, the disinterested nobility of Washington commands our loftiest wo cannot lower our eyes to the rutted bra/.enness of the sturdy “ Protector” without regarding him with some feelings of appreciation. Cromwell was a thorough despot - —as most republicans arc in their heart of hearts —a man of distinct and selfinterested purposes a man at once fearless, reckless, energetic, and self-willed-lie was an impromptu character, pondering little, but acting much. JS T o better evidence at once of his power, and the then distracted weakness of the nation bo held alone for himself could be instanced, than the fact that after his death, Monarchy was embraced with a delight characteristic of a long separated love, and the people of England allowed the bones of its “ Protector” to be disinterred and dangled from a gibbet. It is true Cromwell has his admirers at the present tune amongst men of his own nationality; but is there not a deep suggestiveness in these facts when taken in comprision with the universal devotion of Americans to Washington. whose same is often even now invoked to calm the beat, and still the turbulence that rages and roars in the wild conflicts of political excitement —whose name is banded down, with blessings on his head, by mothers to their children, as “ The man who never told a lie.” Captain Morris, Member of the Provincial Council for Tauranga, intends shortly to call a meeting of Ins constituents in order to give an account of his stewardship.