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The End of the Old Regime in Europe, 1776â?"1789
I. The Great States of the West
By Franco Venturi, R. Burr Litchfield PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 1991 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-03156-9
CHAPTER 1
Libertas Americana
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WITH THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, ON 4 JULY 1776, THE attention that everywhere in Europe for years had turned to the "blustering" events beyond the ocean tended naturally to change. Above the political and economic debate appeared the problem of insertion of the new American nation into the sphere of diplomatic and military relations. The war, which continued for seven years, from the civil conflict that it was at its origins, took on more and more the aspect of an international struggle, involving France, Spain, and Holland. It continually risked transforming itself into a world war. Attention was focused on the effort of Great Britain—an effort that later proved fruitless—to transport to the shores of America sufficient men, arms, and means to crush the revolt in the colonies. French policy aroused interest everywhere and tried to take this opportunity to resume the duel interrupted in 1763. Dutch, and then Spanish, intervention, as well as the wavering neutrality of Prussia, the Empire, and Catherine II, contributed much to transform the initial affirmation of the right of the British colonies to self-government into a general war. From this, to be sure, most of Europe was excluded, but still the most wealthy, powerful, and active states of the continent were involved. The war lasted for seven long years. Only when it ended, in 1783, did political discussion assume a new vigor from the effort to understand what had happened, to penetrate into the unknown reality that was emerging in America, and to discuss again the principles that, although not without difficulty, governed the new republic. The debate was particularly important in America, culminating in the Federalist and in the new constitution of 1787. This was a period of such intense political creativity that many contemporaries thought of it as a prodigy, a miracle. In Europe, the difficult process of assimilating—as well as failing to assimilate—the experience of the American Revolution was important in the fate of the last years of the old regime between 1783 and 1789.
Both the period of the war and the constitutional transformation were dominated by what was written and done in France. Many of the ideas through which Europeans perceived the dissolution of the British Empire, the birth of the new American nation, and the extraordinary effort of readjustment in old England were germinated and diffused in Paris. From here and from Holland—whose political and intellectual evolution was linked to France—came a large part of the flood of news and interpretation that lent a deep coloring to the European debate on the Britannic world. Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Price, and Mazzei presented themselves to Europe in Parisian clothing. And those works that did not put on this cloak, like the Federalist itself, and many other important elements in the debate of English radicals and American constitutionalists, finished somewhat obscured, to reemerge only after the great events of the French Revolution and Napoleonic era.
The effectiveness and limits of this French mediation were clear in Italy from the beginning of the war. One name dominated at the time, that of the Abbé Raynal, the most widely known publicist of those years. In Siena a small and an active group of professors, translators, and editors made his principal work, Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes, known, whose most important part concerned the English colonies in North America. The first French edition of this work came out in 1772, followed soon by numerous other more or less revised and enlarged reprints. In the spring of 1776 the Sienese booksellers Luigi and Benedetto Bindi promised an Italian version of the Amsterdam edition, "one volume per month, beginning in April next," to be sold for two paoli each. Eighteen volumes appeared in 1776 and 1777, the work, read the cover, of "Remigio Pupares, noble patrician of Reggio." In the sixth book of his work, the Abbé Raynal had spoken of the discovery and conquest of America by the Europeans. The editor of the Sienese version also emphasized the importance of this moment in the "history of the human species." Whereas Asia and Africa were fairly well known, "the history of America and its political and economic systems can be said to be, from our point of view, a virgin untouched by the philosophic pen." Even the tragic history of conquest of the American continent was full of indispensable lessons for modern man. "History, the master, unfortunately teaches that to punish us in this mortal exile, peace, quiet, comfort, wealth, pleasure, have always resulted from war, disquiet, hardship, discomfort, and the ill-treatment of others." After so many conflicts and contrasts, it was left to "our age to provide for the happiness of these places and our own," making good use of "precious liberty and philosophic light." Violent means were necessary. "But now the sad part of these fatal crises is finished, and through an as yet uncompleted convalescence those vast and rich lands are acquiring a vigor that will protect them from further calamities." The future of America thus presented itself as a happy outcome of a difficult past. Therefore, there was even more need to know this distant place, which was ready to open itself to "precious liberty ... the sweetest fruit of philosophical enlightenment." With book 14 began a broad description of the English colonies on the islands and the American continent. The civil and religious life of New England was examined in detail, underlining how "intolerance" had filled "those lands with calamities" just as at present an exceptional "severity still reigned in the laws of New England." Raynal printed polemically the "plea before a magistrate, not long ago, of a girl convicted of having given birth to her fifth illegitimate child." It was the famous speech of Polly Baker in defense of the right to conceive children outside of legitimate matrimony. This was a myth of the Enlightenment with a remarkable history. It was born secretly in the forties, from the pen of Franklin, and then spread in gazettes and journals through the whole British world. It was utilized by the deist Peter Annet and was then destined to pass later, through Raynal, into the hands of Diderot, who included it in his Supplément au voyage de Bougainville, using it against all those who insisted on relating "moral ideas to physical actions, which do not correspond at all." A libertarian exaltation of nature was already present in essence in the tale of Franklin, but in his work predominated a simpler popular compliance with the Christian precept of growing and multiplying in a land where growth of population was a vital element of survival. Even a "happy ending" was not lacking, half ironic and half compassionate, with the judge marrying the woman who had been condemned by law to be whipped and shamed. There was something authentically American in the figure of Polly Baker. Nor was the Abbé Raynal wrong in replying to Franklin—who chided him for having inserted into his Histoire an incident that was anything but accurate, but instead the fruit, as he revealed after many years, of his own journalistic invention—that he did not intend to remove it, "preferring the telling of your tales to the truths of others." A myth like this was better than a true history.
Only after telling the whole story of Polly Baker did the Italian translator feel obliged to warn his readers, by attributing all the shame of her words to Protestantism. "One must remember that these sentiments are those of a woman raised in a sect that has embraced a thousand errors, even with regard to fornication." "The court pardoned Polly Baker," that was the name of the accused, "from penance or castigation, and it was even better for her that one of the judges married her. Nonetheless, public disapproval kept the upper hand, either because political and social order required it, or because under English government, where religion does not promote celibacy, illicit commerce between the sexes is more condemned than in states where nobility, luxury, misery, and the scandalous example of the great and even of some priests corrupt, hinder, tarnish, and discourage marriage." Franklin's tale was, in short, even more effective in Catholic lands than in Protestant ones.
But there were not many more references to recent events in the English colonies in the Sienese version of the work of Raynal, or to their growing opposition and resistance. Only with the new policy of Versailles in favor of the insurgents, and above all with the development of the revolution after 1776, did this work become the vehicle of heated declarations of sympathy and admiration for the colonies beyond the ocean. In 1776, when a version of book 8 appeared in Siena, the Italian editor could not help noting how out of place were Raynal's judgments of England, which he still believed to be a threat to the Spanish empire. "If our author had written his history a few years later he would certainly have restrained himself from menacing Spain with so many threats from the English. The disorders arisen in the colonies of this nation, which are known to the whole world, lead one to think that it will not remain long in control of its own possessions, so distant is it from being able to disturb those of other powers." As one sees from this example as well, the Sienese version of Raynal's Histoire permits one to follow the rapid mutation of interest in Italian readers in what was happening beyond the ocean: from a curiosity about history and customs, there was a change, about the year 1776, to a more lively political participation.
The idea of abstracting the pages Raynal had written about the British colonies in America soon appealed to booksellers beyond the English Channel. A History of North America appeared in London in 1776, which concealed the name of the French author. The same year, in Edinburgh, a similar compilation appeared, in two volumes, which presented itself openly as a translation of Raynal. In 1779 a second edition was published. It would be hard to think that there was no consideration in Venice of making a similar effort to translate and publish a work that aroused such great interest and discussion elsewhere. Indeed, one of the major Venetian publicists, Vincenzo Domenico Caminer, and a younger journalist and historian, Vincenzo Formaleoni, joined forces to publish, in 1776, something very similar to what had appeared in Great Britain. Many passages were left out, particularly those about religious history, tolerance, and Protestantism. By contrast, there were relatively few omissions for political reasons, although naturally even distant allusions to Venice were omitted. Raynal had echoed a commonplace found everywhere in the Europe of the seventies: "One sees a few republics without brilliance or vigor sustain themselves by their very weakness amid the vast monarchies of Europe, which sooner or later will swallow them up." He had even alluded to the atmosphere of suspicion and surveillance that weighed on these archaic republics. No trace of this is found in the text of Caminer and Formaleoni. Nor was it permitted for the Abbé to prophesy that "the Corsicans will sooner or later chase the French from their island" or for him to attack the Papal States. But despite this censorship, the Venetian edition provided important information about the problems raised by the "civil war between Great Britain and the united colonies." It presented itself above all as an illustration of the geography of a little-known land. Dedicating his work to officials in Padova, Domenico Caminer wrote: "The war burning presently in the Anglo-American provinces and the northern part of the continent, which keeps European spirits intent and in suspense, has led me to present to the eyes of the reader the theater of these distant undertakings with more precision than the maps of London and Paris, not to mention Augusta and Livorno." "But since the field of geography is sterile," he hastened to add, "when history does not seed it, I have arranged to make this Atlas more fruitful and pleasurable through the Abbé Raynal's history of these provinces, translated from French, adding the events that have occurred up to the present." Nor did the editor feel the need to sing the praises of the work he was producing, given the "applause with which it has been received in all of Europe." "This is demonstrated by the many reeditions that have appeared." He thought it useful to provide a complete version, although accompanied with "annotations correcting the excessive liberty of modern philosophy, which can mar the most precious and useful products of the human spirit." Caminer attempted to return to the origins of the extraordinary developments in America. For this it was necessary to look at the history "of each one of these provinces." Strange and impressive was the past of these lands, not only because of the struggles among the English, French, and Spanish, and the continual encounters with the natives, but above all because of the marks left by the European religious developments of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Enthusiasm had dictated the legislation of New England. "A singular mixture of good and evil, of wisdom and folly" was evident there everywhere. "No one could participate in government without being a member of the established church. The death penalty was decreed for witchcraft, blasphemy, false testimony, adultery, and for sons who cursed or struck their parents." "Pleasure was prohibited in the same way as vice or crime." Penalties were prescribed for swearing and working on Sundays. "It was a grace to be able to expiate an omission of prayer or an indiscreet oath with money." "But what one can hardly believe is that the cult of images is prohibited ... under pain of death." Intolerance is maintained "with the sword of the law." Thus the Quakers were persecuted. The case of the witches of Salem was deemed a typical consequence of such policy. Great, although superficial, was the admiration Raynal showed for the "capricious, but humane and peaceful, sect" of the Quakers, and he provided a detailed picture of Pennsylvania. Diverse and contorted were the roots from which this new and unexpected plant had grown, that Raynal attempted to assess in some General Reflections on the Anglo-American Provinces. This was surely a curious mosaic where ingrained prejudices were set beside the most recent and authentic reports. Thus he repeated the theory that "under that foreign sky the spirit is enervated as well as the body. Lively and penetrating in youth, it perceives quickly, but does not succeed in lengthy meditation or become accustomed to it." It was thus not surprising that "America has not yet produced a good poet, an able mathematician, or a man of genius in any art or science." "They [the Americans] almost all have a facility for everything, but show no decided talent for anything in particular. Adults mature before we do, but remain backward when we are reaching our prime." Still, the future seemed tinted with rosy colors. "We expect that more cultivation may enlighten the new hemisphere, and better education correct the penchant of the climate for weakness and voluptuousness. Might not a new Olympus, an Arcadia, an Athens, a new Greece perhaps arise on the continent and the islands around it: Homers, Theocrituses, and above all Anacreons? Will a new Newton perhaps arise in New England?" The English colonists meanwhile were preparing the ground. Perhaps one day, "in a singular reversal, if in the Old World the arts have passed from south to north, in the New World one may see the north illuminate the south."
The deportation of criminals and the temporary or permanent slavery of whites and blacks nonetheless raised great obstacles to such hopes. Nor could one close one's eyes to the fact that the colonists, "healthy, robust, big men," did not yet make up a nation. Tenacious in preserving the "principles and customs" of their homelands, they risked causing the ruin of the American colonies with their "internal dissentions." Everything would depend on the "method of government." The problems to be resolved might seem insoluble. In America, as elsewhere, "rich and poor, proprietors and mercenaries, masters and slaves, form two classes opposed unfortunately to that of citizens.... Everywhere the rich seek to obtain much from the poor at little expense; everywhere the poor seek to have their labor rewarded at a high price; but the rich will always set the rules of this unequal market." This was "the original evil of society," to which only more or less successful remedies cound be applied. In America all would depend on the "distribution of land" and on the civil laws, which tend "for the greater part to preserve property" and should at least be "simple, uniform, precise." This was made difficult particularly by the "initial vice" in the English colonies of having inherited the "old constitution of the metropolis." "Since the present government [of Great Britain] is only a modification of the feudal one ... many customs have remained which, being initially only so many abuses of slavery, are all the more felt because of their contrast with the present liberty of the people." A fragile compromise was born from giving "so many rights to the nobility," while "feudal rights diminish, are cancelled, and change." "Thus so many laws provide exemptions for a single principle, there are so many interpretations, and so many new laws are entirely opposed to the old ones. For that reason there is no law code so confused and handicapped in the whole universe as the civil laws of Great Britain. The wisest men of that enlightened nation have often raised their voices against such disorder. But their cries were not heard, or the changes born from their protests have only increased the confusion." In the colonies the evil had only become worse.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The End of the Old Regime in Europe, 1776â?"1789 by Franco Venturi, R. Burr Litchfield. Copyright © 1991 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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