Aristopia/Chapter 24
It is not the purpose of this work to narrate all the details of the war for independence. Suffice it to say that, during all the war, the power and wealth of Aristopia formed the bulwark of the American cause. She realized that the welfare of the other colonies was her interest. Safe from invasion herself, she poured out men and means to repel invasion of the Atlantic colonies. Every port on the Atlantic was defended by great cannons cast in Aristopia, manned by well-trained Aristopian gunners. Everywhere, from the Kennebec to the Savannah, where invasion threatened, there were seen the long blue lines of the brigades of Aristopia, forming a firm nucleus around which might rally and a sure shield behind which might form the undisciplined and unskilled, if brave and ardent, patriots.
The soldiers of Aristopia had not the perfect marksmanship and the self-reliant, fierce, semi-barbaric fighting spirit of the frontiersmen of New York, Virginia, and the Carolinas, which made those men the best skirmishers, sharpshooters, and bushrangers of the world; nor the red-hot zeal, implacable hate, and stubborn courage of the New Englanders. But they had a calm, enduring courage of their own, and they had besides, what all the others lacked: steady discipline, willing subordination to their commanders, and skill in the tactics of the line of battle, for they had long been drilled by men who had fought under Frederic the Great. They had, too, the superiority which is ever given by education and intelligence, for Aristopia had for generations been a land of public schools.
Of her means Aristopia gave as freely as of her men. The American armies were armed with Aristopian cannon, muskets, bayonets, and sabers. The mines of Mizouri furnished lead, and the caverns of Kentucky the saltpeter from which skillful Aristopian workmen made their powder. The troops were fed largely with flour of wheat from the wood-embosomed fields of Ohio and the prairie farms of Elenwah. Ships of war were built by skillful builders at Boston, New York, Baltimore, and Norfolk, and manned by the hardy seamen of the coasts; but Aristopia furnished their cannon, powder, shot, sails, and cordage.
The fund furnished by Charles Morton supplied the commonwealth with the gold and silver needed to pay for all she bought outside of her own borders; inside those borders the public revenues paid for all. The other colonies had followed the example of Aristopia in issuing paper-money, but not with the same success, for their paper money depreciated badly, while that of Aristopia was always at par with gold and silver. Her paper-money was confined to its proper use as a medium of exchange; that of the other colonies was used as evidence of a debt the payment of which was very doubtful. In Aristopia paper-money was not, as in the other colonies, an expedient to escape from the pinch of the poverty of today by a promise to be met with the hopedfor wealth of to-morrow.
In case of a great war, it is common to say: "These burdens are too great for us to bear alone; let posterity share them, for they are borne as much for the benefit of posterity as for ourselves. Let us go in debt and let the future pay the debt." The financiers of Aristopia were trained in a wiser school. They knew that most war loans must be procured from usurers, and be paid over and over; that the borrowing generation must pay all or more than the debt in interest and the next generation must pay it in principal or go on paying it over and over in interest.
True, a paper currency offers a means of a forced loan without interest, but at the cost of terribly disordering the medium of exchange. In Aristopia, paper-money being issued solely as a medium of exchange, and not as a promise to pay a debt, no more and no less was issued than the wants of trade demanded. The Aristopian paper-money was not redeemable in gold, but in what the holders needed more than gold—any of the necessaries or luxuries of life to be had in the market, and it could not depreciate.
Every invading fleet and army which England sent over to America was either repelled with great loss to the invaders or captured. Nor was America left to fight her battles alone. The arrogant commercial policy into which England had been driven and kept by the clamors of her hordes of shopkeepers and traders, had gained her the enmity of all maritime Europe. Holland was eager to cripple her rival on the seas. France and Spain, although their despotic kings little liked to encourage rebels and republicans in America, could not let slip the opportunity to satisfy their ancient grudges. The result was a triple European alliance against England.
England could fight three European nations single-handed, but she could do nothing toward conquering America in addition. France, who had so recently lost the greater part of North America, was now determined that England should lose it, and she influenced Spain to a like determination. England could not now hope to gain anything by continuing the war, and had much to lose. Her great commerce was being destroyed. The only alternative was to acknowledge the independence of the American colonies, and to this humiliation the stubborn and dauntless mistress of the seas at last consented.
Before the war was ended, the statesmen of Aristopia were considering how they could hold Canada. The French habitans of Lower Canada, including New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, by far the majority of the population of that region, were very willing to exchange the dominion of England for statehood in the American republic. But a majority of the inhabitants of the province of Ontario were English and Scotch, recent immigrants. They certainly would not have rebelled against England. Whether they would consent to unite with the other colonies was doubtful. Many of them certainly would not. They were few in number, and their majority in the region might be overcome. The Congress of Aristopia made an appropriation to pay the expenses of ten thousand families from Ohio and Alleghany, who consented to go and settle along the northern shores of Lake Erie and Ontario and on the peninsula opposite Detroit. This completely turned the scale, and it was now certain that a majority of the inhabitants of Upper Canada were in favor of union with the other colonies and independence of Great Britain.
The Acadians, remembering with fondness their old home, were induced to return there. Their friendship for Aristopia made them favor a union of Nova Scotia with the other colonies.
So, when England objected to giving up Canada on the ground that it had not revolted, but had been overrun by the Americans, a vote of the duly elected legislatures of all the provinces of Canada demanded independence of England and union with the other colonies.