MR MICHIE'S LECTURE ON" LOYALTY. ;,

Southland Times, Issue 1103, 2 August 1869, Page 2

MR MICHIE'S LECTURE ON" LOYALTY. ;,

ROYALTY, ANP THE PRINCE'S VISITS. ;'Y" • "' The following very interesting lecture was recently delievered in Melboune by the well known barrister, Mr Michie :— - ; Mr Michie, in rising, was received witli a hearty and prolonged round of appJausjS. At, the outsfct he said that he Would endeavour to distinguish between a rational loyalty as exhibited towards virtue and talent, and that which, arose frora habit of thought rather than a strong liking active principle. That loyalty of some sort still existed in among Victorian colonists had been shown by its being so frequently referred to ia public addresses and afterwards speeches during a recent royal visit. The immediate object of the sentiment tben was a young man between three and four and twenty years of age, descended from and • in some sort the living representative of a line of princes, some illustrious and some ratber the opposite, (applause) Of the talents or endowments of this young prince, even if it became him td discourse, he was net in a. position to speak with any degree of confidence. If we possessed no actual knowledge that his intellectual qualities were greatly above the average, there was no reason for believing them to be much below it. This mueh seemed tolerably certain, that on the Duke of Edinburgh's first arrival, here we knew little more of him than that he was the second, son of the Queen, and a naval captain. Yet to welcome him there assembled on the first day of his landing something not far short of perhaps 50,000 souls. At the same time throughout the length and breadth of the land, the people were prepared with rejoicing to hail his coming when it ahould become his pleasure to appear among them. It was evident from this that loyalty might, at all events, be manifested in a great measure independently of any moral or intellectual qualities. It waS this consideration tbat made the whole subject afi perplexing as it was interesting to many minds. How came it that a simple gentlemanly young man, possessing the mysterious advantage of royal birth should drive a reflective, sober people, frantic with a desire to gaze on him? "What did they gaze on, and why did thej gaze? (Laughter.) He asked this question because be thought that almost . all must be distinctly conscious that they i could not explain the interest they took « in the Prince exactly as easily as they could accouat for the interest they might ! feel in some eminent man who had cus- ; tinguished himself in any way. For j instance, a Nelson gained a great naval r victorv, or a Wellington a land action changing the balance of power in Europe ; i a Garibaldi by individual enthusiasm and bravery infused national life into his countrymen. The names of such men were in everybody's mouth and nothing was more natural than a desire to s©d . those by whom Buch remarkable action* , had been performed. So with a G-ladstone or a Bright, men who swayed opinions in I the greatest deliberative assembly in the , world. All this was very easily compret handed, but many people asked — some of > our Eaglish critics among them— why - should crowds gather together and almost choke themselves with dust, and i raise triumphant arches, and go into , general convulsions on account of one 3 whose pre-eminence consisted in rank I alone ? One was reminded in making j such an inquiry of the barber's remark in Beaumarchais' Marriage of Vigaro-— " "What has your lordship done to earn I all this ? Tou took the trouble to be , born!" (Laughter.) Such questions as . this had been put by our English critics as if the conduct npon which they were ; commenting was something peculiar to I colonists, and unknown in the mother 1 country. H e proposed to show, before 3 he inquired further, that what some : Euglidhjournalists called the extravagance 3 of our euthusiasm had been exceeded in l England on like occasions. "Who could - forgot the popular euthusiasm at home on the occasion of the marriage of the Prince . of Wales ?If English journalists were at a loss for parallels to some of our ; loyal demonstrations, they might be I found scattered up and down in published memoirs and diaries of persons 3 who had lived at courts. "What } could be more ludicrous than 3 the description Miss Burney gave in her l journal of the excess of loyalty exhibited i in the time of George 111 ? She nar- ■ rated that when that sovereign went out l to bathe in the sea at "Weymouth, the people used to lie in wait for him and a second bathing machine went off with a band onboard playing 'Godsave the King.' (Laughter) while his majesty took his royal headers. Miss Burney also described another incident, during the royal sojourn at "Weymouth. A deputation, consisting of the mayor and town councillors, waited on Queen Charlotte to present an address, congratulating her on the recent restoration of his Majesty's health. The mayor, as he approached to present the address, was whispered by a gold stick, or silver stick, or some other stick in waiting — (laughter) — not to forget that the presenters of the address must kneel on one knee whilst passing Her Majesty. Imagine the horror and consternation of the whole court when the Right "Worshipful the Mayor merely bowed stiffly and passed on. The gold stick pursued the offender, touched hiin on the shoulder, and whispered again savagely ; " Tou should have kneeled sir." "I could'nt," replied the man, "I have got a wooden leg." (Roars of laughter.) After commenting upon incidents in the Prince's course through this colony on his visit, Mr Michie proceeded to show the evil results which ensued from the slavish adulation of kings, results mischievous both to them and to their subjects. The exercise of uncontrolled will, the gratification of every desire, too frequently caused monarchs to become- in fact tht most mean and vicious of human I beings. The Stuarts he characterised as the most perfidious race, from the first to the last of those whose names figure in

the History of Great Britain. Charles I. was described, even by his panegyrist, Clarendon, as an unprincipled man, ready to sacrifice his tools when they had served his purposes. Charles 11. obtained a good deal of popular favor in his time, but was equally worthless in character. When n& was dying* he said, "Don't let Nell Itarv.e/' but iieyeT thought of ma King a provision for her while he lived; .The Pretender befooled all the poor Highlanders who clung to him. Georges 111. and IV. both wi ought fearful mischief; the one through obstinacy, and the other through his licentiousness, George 111. persisted with the American war after all hope of success was gone, and needlessly embit' ere d the relations between the two countries. George IV. lied deliberately wbeu he instructed his friend Mr Fox to contradict Mr Pitt's assertion in the House about his marriage with Mrs fitzherberb. The " fif st gentlemen in Euf ope " was turned out of the betting ring as a defaulter: He would have d"isOwried his iawful wife, and be suffered his niigtresy (Perdita I&obinson) to die in indigence. He 1 cast off Bruinmfcl, the companion of his pleasures, and thought no more of him than a cast-off old shoe. "With such precedents, then, of princely bearing before their eyes, why should people who had any pretensions to knowledge of human uature be so put about as some of our . citizens were the other day on reading that £3500 mtd been put on the Imperial estimates to bear the expense of the presents made by the Duke of Edinburgh when in Australia? (cheers.) When Captain Cook took out of his stock of glass beads, looking glasses and red cloth with which to win the affections of the savages of the South Sea Islands, who ever expected he was to bear the cost of ihem as well . as distribute them ? (Laughtef.) Still he niust admit this $3500 looked i;oo,mvich &s if Borneo had kept a book ledger, and had therein, debited to Juliet the costs of any little presents he had made to her during his moonlight courtship, with the object of afterwards putting the value on old Capulet's estimates if the businass should ever come to a marriage settlement. (Loud laughter.) He referred to the manner in which the satellites of kings relieved their feelings by ridiculing behind their backs those in whose presence they could hardly stand Upright ; and then stated that the king* and most especially an absolute king, must live and tabve and h&ve his very being in an atmosphere of falsehood. A king might, in troublous times, have many courtiers, but he would have few friends. Let them consider how many royal families had fallen in their own generation; Where was , now the family of Louis P'hilip'pa of France^where the exroyal family of Naples? All Europe a few years back beheld the King of Hanover, the first cousin of our Queen, driven from his kingdom, and Bismarch was how coolly pfocEjedirig td appropriate his great income under the view that he and other exiles, whom Bismarck called reptiles, were using their wealth to inflame the German mind, through the Press, against the interests of Prussia. The lecturtr referred to the fate of Maximilian, and of the loss of his throne by King Otho of Greece ; and said that the last, but not the least, case which they must look at was the expulsion and flight of Isabella of Spainj the last of the p&or Bourbons, fis she was called, Americans of the United States, whom he had known in England, would sometimes quiz English loyalty, and delicately insinuate that in America there were no subjects — that every citizen there was a sovereign and entirely master of himself, which was, they said, the very essence of true liberty . There was a time, he confessed* when such Representations made an impression on him, and even now it might perhaps be said that a republican form of government was the best which human reason ever invented, but the condition to accompany that remark was an important one, namely, that the community to live under such a government should be at once thoroughly wire, honest, and unselfish, and thoroughly free from all disturbing passions in the administration of that government. (Cheers.) He thoroughly believed that a disastrous effect had been for many years produced on the morality of English principles by the Eoyal Marriage Act of 1777, passed at the suggestion of the proud, though short-sighted King George 111. under very discreditable circumstances, and with indecent haste, by one of the most contemptible Parliaments that ever sat within the ancient chapel of St. Stephen's. Greorge 111. had conceded to him by that act an additional point of prerogative. He obtained a law which enacted that no descendant of the blood of G-eorge 11., with the exception of those married into foreign families, should have power to marry without the consent of the Sovereign, and any such marriage was by it declared void. The lecturer gave further particulars respecting this act, saying that under it George 111. became not only King of G-reat Britain and Ireland, and assumed the useless title of Elector of Hanover, but also supreme over the affections of all the members of his own family with the trifling exceptions named in the bill. He carried that act to suit his own merely personal feelings. Only a few years before the Duke of Gloucester, his brother, had married the Countess Dowager of Waldegrave, who, however, was not exactly received at court, where she attended, as either his wife or bis mistress, but held a sort of suspended position, like Mahomet's coffin. That was enough to outrage the king, but soon came another outrage of the same kind. In 1777 the Duke of Cumberland, another brother, announced his marriage with Mrs Horton, whom he at once recognised as tbe Duchess of Cumberland. She was the sister of that Colonel Luttrell who took such an active part in tbe Wilkes affair, and Walpole is said to have asked if anything could have been more severe than to have seen the Eoyal

circle thus punished through their own instruments. The Duke of G-loucester, on his brother acknowledging Mrs Horton, at once acknowledged the countess as his wife, and the Royal Marriage Act was then passed. Never, perhaps, had a law t'iillen more ostensibly short of wist it was intended for. It was through the King's so-called paternal affection for his family that his son, the Prince of Wales, should have a goodly number of E'ngijgh concubines but not one English Wife ; ihdi bis second son, the Duke of York, should be' tender the thraldom of Mrs Clarke and disgrace the high office be held of Command er-inChief as never before or since it was disgraced, by allowing bis clever and commercial mistress to sell cominisions in his father's army, which thus provided means for filling the exchequer of a shameless and extravagant wanton. It was that act which burthened the State with the fam- , ilyofthe Duke of Clarence and Mr? Jordan. The Duke of Cumberland was also such a treacherous profligate as made his name a by-word and £ contempt. He (Mr Michie) referred; at some length to bhe dvi)a wrought by the act, and the necessity there was for its repeal, in order that the children of the Sovereign,* more especially those who were not likely to occupy the throne, should marry according to their affections, pass gracefully into society, and thus by marriage consult not ouly their own inclinations, but, perhaps irfake themselves independent of ! the British taxpayer. There was now, he said, a spirit of progress abroad which would not be scared from any Question. Everything old aud new was being weighed in utilitarian scales, and even highest rank was commencing to see that to be respected it must work. Almost daily they saw noblemen beginning to discover that if they could not maintain tbeir children they must put them to some form of, honest industry.. (Cheers.) The Duke of A'rgyle; recently' placed oiie of his younger sons iv a wine me'reharit's house in Edinburgh, and what sensible man would think the worse of him if he only sold a good article, (laughter) and distinguished himself by introducing the best Australian vintages to the home markets. (Renewed laughter.) Another nobleman, Lord Claud Hamilton, had i invested in the stock of the Panama Steam Navigation Company, and it was to be hoped that he would be far more fortunate 1 in his next selection. Even the Duke of Edinburgh was an investor and a shareholder iv a gold mine in New Zealand, and should he ever taste of the intoxicating delights of receiving dividends, it would doubtless add much to his pleasant recollectidns of his viait to the southern hemisphere. But if) however, it should be his misfortune* to be among the worsted,- he would, doubtless, receive it as a little ©'hastening of the spirit, that is if the loss where not put oh the estimates (loud and continued applaiise) ; and he would experience a little of that peculiar mining fortune which had made So many both wiser and soerer men. He (the lec-tu'rer) had sketched a few of the leading indications of the times, and from them he concluded that human affairs worked wholesome enough in the whole of the world. There was an advancement and ripeness of social, intellectual and moral progress, which had never been paralleled in the world's history. What were the mighty conquests of Alexanders or Csesars when compared with such noble progress in modern times, these days df the Suez canal and of the railway connecting ihe Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans — when the whizzing locomotive shot through tunnels hundreds of fathoms under those mighty barriers, the Alps, which were almost insurmountable to the genius and perseverance of a Hannibal and a Napoleon ? Side by side with the mightystrides of modern science there were advancing social and moral reforms of equal greatness ; when prejudice* ignorance, greed, and oppression were being swept away, and even that gigantic national wrong, the Irish Church, was now trembling and tottering in ruin. (Applause.) Even the House of Lords itself was taking homoeopathic doses of two life peers a year. (Laughter and applause.) There was however yet another step in the direction of advance, and that was, Mr Childers commands the Channel fleet. It was said by some that despite the noble signs of advancement to which he had referred, there was a deadly war pending between the two greatest powers of the world, England and America. But he had faith in the spirit of moderation which was abroad, that it would do much to avert such a calamity ; and it was to be hoped that a Christian consideration for human lives, a regard for the interests of commerce, and a recollection of the pernicious effects of high taxation, would all tend to avert what must be a dire calamity to the moral, social and political advancement of tbe times. But if these considerations did not prevail, he was not without hope that the evil would be fully and entirely averted ; for Sumner might deliver himself of speeches, and Napoleon might plot and intrigue, but this stood sure — Childers co/ninanded the Channel fleet. (Loud applause.) From a perusal of the account given by the ' Times ' of a review of the Channel fleet, they would find that it was the first time within the knowledge of history in which the first Lord of the Admiralty commanded the fleet under his charge, in person, when on the open sea, and attended divine service on the deck of his own flag- ship. It was a noble omen of the time to see Lord High Admiral Childers take the sea and command his Channel fleet when the rumors of war disturbed the tranquillity of the world. It must be a i source of gratification to Australians too, : that this very effective Lord High Ads miral had received his first political training in this colony. (Applause). In I saying good night, he must apologise if, > in the course of his remarks, he had > given offence or bad wounded the feelings t of any one who thought differently from . himself. He was not largely endowed

with the feeling of veneration for those fori&s aiid usages which some respected, but he had Hot laughed at any of them except where it was out of his power to resist ifc. What he would wish the most earnestly to impress on the young men of the Early Closing movement was, that all rank, no matter how exalted, was totally insignificant and unworthy of respect, if it was wilhout moral character and worth. He would have them ever to remember that in all rauks of society, from the lowest to the highest, intellectual worth and integrity must rule and secure for their happy possessor honor and respect from his fellow men. He would also remind theft* that in the world everyone had his own honor and position in his control, and in his hands ifc lay for him to place himself in a position of honor or or shame.