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	''England and America'' is a letter written by [[Arthur Conan Doyle]] first published in [[The Times]] on 7 january 1896.		''England and America'' is a letter written by [[Arthur Conan Doyle]] first published in [[The Times]] on 7 january 1896.

			See also :
			* [[England and America (1893)]]
			* [[Great Britain and America]]

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''England and America'' is a letter written by [[Arthur Conan Doyle]] first published in [[The Times]] on 7 january 1896.

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== Editions ==

* in ''[[The Times]]'' (7 january 1896 [UK])
* in ''[[The New-York Times]]'' (19 january 1896 [US]) as ''The Shadow of the Past''
* in ''[[The Sacramento Bee]]'' (24 january 1896 [US]) as ''Conan Doyle on America''
* in ''[[The Daily Picayune]]'' (12 february 1896 [US]) as ''Conan Doyle Understands''

<gallery mode="packed" heights="500px">
File:The-Times-1896-01-07-england-marica.jpg|[[The Times]] (7 january 1896)
File:The-New-York-Times-1896-01-19-shadow-past.jpg|[[The New-York Times]] (19 january 1896)
File:The-daily-picayune-1896-02-19-conan-doyle-understands.jpg|[[The Daily Picayune]] (12 february 1896)
</gallery>

== England and America ==
[[File:The-Times-1896-01-07-england-marica.jpg|thumb|250px|right|[[The Times]] (7 january 1896)]]

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

Sir, — An Englishman who travels in the United States comes
back, according to my experience, with two impressions, which
are so strong that they overshadow all others. One is of the
excessive kindness which is shown to individual Englishmen. The
other is of the bitter feeling which appears to exist both in the Press
and among the public against his own country. The present
ebullition is only one of those recurrent crises which have marked
the whole history of the two nations. The feeling is always
smouldering, and the least breath of discussion sets it in a blaze. I
believe, and have long believed, that the greatest danger which
can threaten our Empire is the existence of this spirit of hostility in
a nation which is already great and powerful, but which is destined
to be far more so in the future. Our statesmen have stood too
long with their faces towards the East. To discern our best hopes
as well as our gravest dangers they must turn them the other way.

As to the cause of this feeling, it is not so unreasonable as
Englishmen usually contend. It is the fashion among us to
apportion the blame between the Irish-American and the
politician who is in search of his vote. But no such superficial
explanation as this can cover the fact that the Governors of 30
American States should unhesitatingly endorse a Presidential
message which obviously leads straight to war. A dislike so widely
spread and so fierce in its expression cannot be explained by the
imported animosity of the Celtic Irishman.

To understand the American's view of Great Britain one must
read such an American history as would be used in the schools,
and accept the statements with the same absolute faith and
patriotic bias which our own schoolboys would show in a British
narration of our relations with France. American history, as far as
its foreign policy is concerned, resolves itself almost entirely into a
series of wrangles with Great Britain, in many of which we must
now ourselves confess that we were absolutely in the wrong. Few
Englishmen could be found now to contend that we were justified
in those views of taxation which brought on the first American
war, or in the question of searching neutral vessels, which was the
main cause of the second. This war of 1812 would possibly only
occupy two pages out of 500 in an English history, but it bulks very
large in an American one, and has left many bitter memories
behind it. Then there was the surly attitude which England
adopted towards the States after they had won their independence,
the repeated frictions during the Napoleonic epoch, and the
attack upon an American frigate by a British 50-gun ship in time
of peace. After the war there was the Florida dispute in the time of
Andrew Jackson, the question of the Oregon line, the settlement of
the Maine and New Brunswick line, and, finally, the hostile
attitude of most of our Press at the time of the Civil War. Since
then we have had two burning questions, that of the Alabama
claims and that of the Behring Sea fisheries, culminating in this of
Venezuela. The history of his country then, as it presents itself to
an American, is simply a long succession of quarrels with
ourselves, and how can it be wondered at if he has now reached
that chronic state of sensitiveness and suspicion which we have not
quite outgrown ourselves in the case of the French?

If we are to blame as a community for some at least of these
unfortunate historical incidents, we are even more to blame as
individuals for the widespread bitterness which is felt against us.
We have never had a warm, ungrudging word of heartfelt praise
for the great things which our kinsmen have done, for their
unwearying industry, their virtues in peace, their doggedness in
their unparalleled clemency when war was over. We have
always fastened upon the small, rude details and overlooked the
great facts behind. In our shocked contemplation of an expectoration
upon the floor we lost sight of universal suffrage and equal
education. Our travellers, from Mrs. Trollope and Dickens
onwards, have been surprised that the versatile hard-working
men, who often combined ten trades in one to adapt themselves to
the varying needs of a raw-growing community, had not the
manners of Oxford or the repose of Sussex. They could not
understand that this rough vitality and over-bearing energy which
carried them through their task implied those complementary
defects which must go with unusual virtues. Of all English
travellers to the States, there was hardly one who did not make
mischief with his reminiscences until, in our own days, Mr. Bryce
did something to rectify the balance. And our want of charity and
true insight are the more inexcusable since no one has written
more charmingly of England than Washington Irving, Emerson,
and Holmes.

These personal and political causes of bitterness may each be
small in itself, but in the aggregate they have assumed a proportion
which makes them of national importance. Our journals
and public men are in the habit now, as a rule, of alluding to
America and Americans in the most friendly way, and that must in
time have its effect, if recent unhappy events do not change it. One
must have travelled in America to appreciate how kindly is the
temper of the people — "angelic" is the adjective which Monsieur
Bourget employs — and it is impossible to think that they can
continue for ever to feel vindictively towards a kindred nation
which has a friendly feeling for them. But the shadow of the past
still lies between us, and it may be long before it is lifted. In the
meantime we should, in my opinion, lose no opportunity of doing
those little graceful acts of kindness which are the practical sign of
a brotherly sentiment. Opinions may differ as to the value of
Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty as a work of art, but there can be no
gainsaying that as a visible sign of French friendship it carries its
message to every American who enters New York Harbour. We
have our opportunities occasionally of showing a friendly feeling.
We had such a one a couple of years ago, when I ventured to point
out in the columns of The Times that an offer of the Guards' bands
for the opening of the Chicago Exhibition might do something
towards a better feeling between the nations. The chance was
missed, but others will arise. Above all I should like to see an
Anglo-American Society started in London, with branches all
over the Empire, for the purpose of promoting good feeling,
smoothing over friction, laying literature before the public which
will show them how strong are the arguments in favour of an
Anglo-American alliance, and supplying the English Press with
the American side of the question and ''vice versa''. Such an
organization would, I am sure, be easily founded, and would do
useful work towards that greatest of all ends, the consolidation of
the English-speaking races.

Yours faithfully,

A. CONAN DOYLE<br />
Mena House Hotel, Pyramids, Cairo, Dec. 30

----
* [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:Complete Works|Back to Complete Works]]
* [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle|Back to Conan Doyle]]

England and America (1896) - Revision history

TCDE-Team at 22:55, 20 April 2026

TCDE-Team: TCDE-Team moved page England and America to England and America (1896) without leaving a redirect

TCDE-Team at 20:08, 20 April 2026

TCDE-Team at 16:06, 29 April 2020