Autograph Letter Signed "Henry M. Stanley".

Stanley, Henry Morton, African explorer (1841-1904).

Verlag: London, March 23, 1896

ALS. 2pp. 4to. An unusually lengthy and fascinating letter by Henry M. Stanley (1841-1904), Welshborn,Anglo-American journalist and explorer, to Boston-based magazine and newspaper editor, William V. Alexander (1859-1938). The letter reads as follows:"In Lord Houghton s Memoirs, it is said that on his return from a three year tour through Europe he found few people in England who agreed with him upon any foreign topic. The reason is obvious. His views had been enlarged by travel while the stay at homes had remained contracted and narrow, and they could see no merits in people born in another climate, and on another soil. Habit and association not only caused them to prefer their own country, but to disparage all other people.Josephus records in his History that the Romans once collected a number of wild beasts for exhibition, and from each country where they had been captured they had brought a sackful of earth. This earth was deposited in separate heaps around the circus, and when the wild beasts were let into the arena, each animal sought and knew instinctively its own natal soil.I have been reminded of this by the extraordinary conduct of Americans during the late warm controversy upon the Venezuelan question.I have not yet recovered from the effects of that blast of rage which came from America. I am too astonished to think of anything else much. I knew there was a moral disagreement about the limits of British Guiana which had lasted for about 250 years. The question had been transmitted to England and Venezuela from Spain & Holland, the original possessors of the country in dispute. But why America should lash herself into a fury and talk about conquering Canada & thrashing England, because of this prehistoric and miserable squabble is more than I can understand. According to instinct and nature it sounds to me that Americans should have preferred Canadian soil to anything that was in South America, and English blood to Venezuelan, but no, Americans were said to be burning with a desire to lay Canada in waste, and destroy a people allied to them by blood, language habits, connections, & institutions, because the Venezuelans differed with the English, about the limits of an uninhabited, and uninhabitable patch of swamp land near the Orinoco. There are more churches and fewer illiterates in the United States than in any other country, yet with all its education and Christianity we have this mad fury as the result. An American General General Longstreet 76 years old praying in public for a war with Great Britain can find applause from his countrymen, because it is patriotic! Well if American soil had been trespassed upon, or anything American had been violated, njured, or insulted I could understand why resentment should have been shown, but why anything connected with Venezuela should be so dear to the American heart as to make Americans hate a sister country passes my comprehension. We cannot get up any anger about this matter in this country. We are absolutelyunconcerned about it though in Society we are still discussing the convulsion inAmerica, and wondering what strange influence it was that made a whole nation of 72million act as though it had been stricken with madness. And now that you have satdown quietly in Commission to unravel the historical puzzle, we all feel more thanCommonly grateful to you, and we hope that you will arrive at a just solution of it.Now considering that the Boston Press Club has been incorporated for the purpose ofSocial intercourse, and friendly feeling among its numbers, is it too much to hope thatthey may become animated with a desire to enlarge this sphere of influence, andinclude British humanity among those deserving of their friendly regards? In this hopeI rest…"A Welsh immigrant to the United States who enlisted in the Confederate Army (he subsequently fought for the Union) and later became a war correspondent, Stanley was sent by the New York Herald in 1868 to accompany British. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 92016

Bibliografische Details

Titel: Autograph Letter Signed "Henry M. Stanley".
Verlag: London, March 23, 1896