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nation, it is his indefeasible right to declare his opinion, and to be
exempt from persecution and reproach. He who meets such a declaration in
any other manner than by a free admission of the right, does not _feel_
the nature of the institutions under which he lives, for the
constitution, in its spirit, everywhere recognises the principle. But
One, greater than the constitution of America, in divine ordinances,
everywhere denies the right of a man to profess one thing and to mean
another. There is an implied pledge given by every public agent that he
will not misrepresent what he knows to be the popular sentiment at home,
and which popular sentiment, directly or indirectly, has clothed his
language with the authority it carries in foreign countries; and there
is every obligation of faith, fidelity, delicacy, and discretion, that
he should do no discredit to that which he knows to be a distinguishing
and vital principle with his constituents. As respects our agents in
Europe, I believe little is hazarded in saying, that too many have done
injury to the cause of liberty. I have heard this so often from various
quarters of the highest respectability,[29] it has been so frequently
affirmed in public here, and I have witnessed so much myself, that,
perhaps, the subject presents itself with more force to me, on the spot,
than it will to you, who can only look at it through the medium of
distance and testimony. I make no objection to a rigid neutrality in the
strife of opinions that is going on here, but I call for the self-denial
of concealing all predilections in favour of the government of one or of
the few; and should any minister of despotism, or political exclusion,
presume to cite an American agent as being of his way of thinking, all
motives of forbearance would seem to disappear, and, if really an
American in more than pretension, it appears to me the time would be
come to vindicate the truth with the frankness and energy of a freeman.
[Footnote 29: In 1833, the writer was in discourse with a person who had
filled one of the highest political situations in Europe, and he was
asked who represented the United States at the court of ----. On being
told, this person paused, and then resumed, "I am surprised that your
government should employ that man. He has always endeavoured to
ingratiate himself in my favour, by depreciating everything in his own
country." But why name a solitary instance? Deputies, members of
parliament, peers of France and of England, and public men of half the
nations of Europe, have substantially expressed to the writer the same
opinion, under one circumstance or another, in, perhaps, fifty different
instances.]
LETTER XIII.
Ferry across the Rhine.--Village of Rudesheim.--The _Hinter-hausen_
Wine,--Drunkenness.--Neapolitan curiosity respecting America.--The
Rhenish Wines enumerated.--Ingelheim.--Johannisberg.--Conventual
Wine.--Unseasonable praise.--House and Grounds of Johannisberg.--State
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of Nassau.--Palace at Biberich.--The Gardens.--Wiesbaden.--Its public
Promenade.--Frankfort on the Maine.
Dear ----,
Within an hour after we left the Ritterstein, we were crossing the
bridge that leads into Bingen. Like true _flaneurs_, we had not decided
where to sleep, and, unlike _flaneurs_, we now began to look wistfully
towards the other side of the Rhine into the duchy of Nassau. There was
no bridge, but then there might be a ferry. Beckoning to the postmaster,
who came to the side of the carriage, I put the question. "Certainly, as
good a ferry as there is in Germany."--"And can we cross with your
horses?"--"Ja--ja--we do it often." The affair was arranged in a minute.
The leaders were led back to the stable, and with two horses we drove
down to the water-side. A skiff was in readiness, and spreading a
sprit-sail, we were in the middle of the stream before there was time
for thought. In ten minutes we landed in the celebrated Rheingau, and at
the foot of a hill that was teeming with the vines of Rudesheim.
"Charlemagne observing, from the window of his palace at Ingelheim,"
says an old legend, "that the snow disappeared from the bluff above
Rudesheim earlier than from any of the neighbouring hills, caused the
same to be planted with vines." What has become of Charlemagne and his
descendants, no one knows; but here are the progeny of his vines to the
present hour.
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