When
judged by the general manners of the age, the circumstances of the time
and his position, I do not believe him to have been cruel by nature or
careless of human life. The standard of military morals in vogue two
hundred years ago cannot be weighed by that in vogue to-day. The
humanity of one generation is not the humanity of the next. Wellington
was certainly not a cruel man, and he certainly was a most strict
disciplinarian. Yet it is well known that many things were done during
the Peninsular campaign which no general now would dare to pass
unpunished, which no soldier now would even dare to do; and it is quite
possible that eighty years hence our descendants will read with horror
of the deeds done by their grandsires among the rocky passes of
Afghanistan or on the burning sands of Egypt. I do not claim for
Claverhouse that he was gentle, merciful, or humane beyond his time,
though I believe him to have had as large a share of those qualities as
any of his contemporaries would have displayed in similar circumstances.
But I do claim for him that his faults were the faults not of the man
but of his age; and I maintain that his age cannot in such matters be
tried by the standard of this.
FOOTNOTES:
[49] I have been much indebted in this chapter to an anonymous pamphlet
entitled "A Note to the Pictorial History of Scotland, on Claverhouse,"
apparently printed at Maidstone; but when, or on whose authority, I have
been unable to discover.
Pages:
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167