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BROTHER JONATHAN,
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION.
BY HUGO PLAYFAIR.
6
IN THKEE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
> . : . • , ■ ,j , * s ° J •
LONDON :
SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET.
1844.
EDITOR'S PREFACE.
These volumes consist of the u Playfair Pa-
pers," arranged in such order by the Editor, as
will, he trusts, meet with public approbation.
Hugo, Play fair's expedition to America was to
ascertain the truth by impartially viewing men
and things in that extraordinary and great re-
public : in which he has discovered much to
praise and a great deal to blame.
The Editor is confident that nothing but the
truth was written by Playfair, and he has sup-
pressed nothing except repetitions 5 and the only
other alteration made, was to divide the diary
form of the papers into chapters ; as all journals
contain much that would be tedious, if much
that is superfluous in diurnal writing were not
thrown off.
A ClGCXfEl
IV PREFACE.
For these alterations, and for the " Cursory
View of the Progress of America," which con-
cludes the third volume, the Editor alone stands
answerable : although he has no doubt that the
K dander" of our Brother Jonathan will be up
by telling impartially what is reprehensible as
well as what is worthy of all praise, in the
domestic institutions and manners of America.
We invite him most heartily to do the same,
in respect to the great good, and numerous evils,
which are deeply rooted in the institutions and
manners of the United Kingdom of England,
Scotland, and Ireland.
BROTHER JONATHAN,
OR THE
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION.
CHAPTER I.
HUGO'S Alt RIVAL IN THE city of bankers, bro-
kers, dollar-hunters, AND FREE-NIGGERS.
For several years before, and for two years
after, the passing of the Reform Bill in England,
there was almost daily to be seen standing or
lounging in front of the United Service Club, a
respectable and hardy-looking gentleman in a
blue frock-coat buttoned closely up to the chin,
with the left sleeve pinned to the side in a man-
ner which showed that it was destitute of the arm
that should have filled it.
VOL. I. b
4 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
recommended to me, and I may as well follow
the fellow who has, without my leave, taken the
liberty to hop off with my traps."
What a contrast to the rural districts
and backwoods, of which he had been
lately reading in some tour, was presented to
Playfair on, and immediately after, arriving
at New York ! What % perpetual mo-
tion of ships, steam-boats, carts, trucks, sledges,
merchandise, merchants, brokers, sailors, niggers,
and horses, — of rapidly-devoured meals, and
never-ceasing traffic ; of arrivals and departures ;
of fortune-making and of bankruptcies ; of po-
litics and banking ; of honesty and overreaching ;
of preaching and play-acting — does this mush-
room city of broad streets and long wharfs — of
huge warehouses, and dockyards; of gaudy signs
and dashing shops ; of brick houses, and wooden
sheds ; of great taverns and small grog stores ; of
meeting-houses and theatres — exhibit in its never-
sleeping movement, calculation, and enterprise !
" You most extravagant of fortune-makers !
you most rash of speculators ! you have had
lately one terrific destructive caution ! The most
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. O
wealthy portion of your city has been reduced to
ashes ! Ye, whose vain boast is that you allow
each of your daughters from eight hundred to
one thousand dollars a year for dress ! take heed,
that next year you have not one hundred dollars
to lodge, feed, and clothe yourselves, and your
wives, and your sons, and your beauteous, but
more extravagantly brought up than the French
or the Prussian king's daughters !" exclaimed a
prudent man of thrift of the old Dutch school,
who had just arrived from Albany.
" I do not comprehend how this prophecy can
be fulfilled," remarked Playfair. " Why squire,"
replied Mr. Reuben van Sneyder, the Albany
Solomon, " I calculate that there is a political
difference between Andrew Jackson and Nicholas
Biddle, that, according to my ciphering, may be~
fore this day twelvemonth make smash-bank-
rupts of the most bill-money-rich among these
neck-or-nothing dollar-hunters."
BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
CHAPTER II.
" There was General Boon, backwoodsman of Kentucky,
Who slaughtered bears and rode an alligator,
Who supped on rattlesnakes ; and, still more lucky,
Kept tavern, preached, drugged, and acted Praetor,*
There was a Polish lord called Skrzsknwcki,
Who here drank switchel, — in Cracow he drank votzki —
Who from Russias Nick, czar, and dictator,
'Scaped without passport, to our sweet Liberia.t
'Stead of being knouted off to cold Siberia.
There were doctors, barbers, lawyers, preachers,
Scotch, English, Dutch, four Spaniards, and two Russians,
Old maids, young virgins, widows, and French teachers ;
Some Irish duellists, some well-drilled Prussians ;
A London tailor, — twenty other stitchers;
Sharpers, brokers ; — Mexico-Andalusians,$
Hebrews, with Solomons of Nassau-new
A noted rogue, but a converted Jew."
Extract from Don Juan Travestied by the Cincinnati poets.
Liberty Hall, in Broadway, New York, is
an immense quadrangular brick building, with
* Przetor— Justice of the peace in Cincinnati.
t The free and United States of America, not Liberia in
Africa. — Editor.
$ Old Spaniards, banished as being such, from Mexico, on
freedom being declared in that Republic. r *
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 7
some glaring attempts at ornament in its front
elevation. As Playfair entered it, no powdered
liveried porter, — no head waiter, dressed like a
gentleman in black, attended to do the honours
of receiving him. There is a porter, perhaps
two or three, but they are probably all out de-
livering messages. It is therefore necessary
for whoever arrives to move on until he meets one^
of a, diozen free negroes, in nankeen trousers and
calico jackets ; who, if he be not in a u tarnation
hurry," on some slick errand, may perchance
stop, to direct the stranger to the bar, or rather
the landlady, who will in a little time settle the
number he is to sleep in, and in which the negro
who carries the newcomer's baggage from the
stage-office, or from the steam-boat wharf, will
deposit it before a cent is paid for his services.
The bedroom to which Playfair had been thus
adjudged, was like all the others, a small square
box, having a fourpost bedstead, which for two-
thirds of the year is unencumbered with curtains,
one window with starched muslin blinds, a small
chest of drawers, washhand-stand, and dressing-
table, on which latter stood a little mahogany-
8 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
framed looking-glass, and a thin cotton towel
as big as half a pocket-handkerchief.
The bed, however, was clean, and nearly twice
as large and comfortable as any found in Ger-
many ; while during the coldest night in winter
he could, by asking, have as many blankets as
would smother him. The bed was moreover
sufficiently long for the most sinewy lath of a
Kentuckian. In this bedroom he could likewise
have a small carpet, and if he wished, a fire. So
that, although it were not so crowded with useful
furniture as the dormitories of the Clarendon,
Morley's, and the London taverns of our metro-
polis ; or of the Waterloo, and Adelphi of Liver-
pool, it was certainly Playfair's own fault if he
were not comfortably put to bed in Liberty Hall,
in which there are two hundred counterparts of
the sleeping-room we have described. We may,
we believe, also add, that a very few only have
two, and brobably none more than four beds.
From his bedroom, Playfair descended to the
neit place of importance, but which the Manhat-
taners consider the first ; that is to say, the Bar.
This consequential section of Liberty Hall, is the
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 9
rendezvous of all those who smoke cigars, drink
brandy, bitters, switchel,* callibogus, lemonade,
rum and molasses, punch and shrub. In fact a
kind of cotton, flour, West India produce, British
merchandise sort of Exchange, resorted to by all
brokers, commission agents, and clerks, after a
dinner gobbled up in ten and a half minutes.
Play fair found that this was the locale where one
might learn whatever concerned dollars, bank
question, Andrew Jackson, and Nick Biddle, —
Texas, — prices of niggers, — or Carolina black
cattle ! — Liverpool cotton sales, — packet-ships, —
joint-stock companies, — railroads, — canals, —
cash, — credit, — bankruptcies, — speculations, —
and the names of all the Manhattaners, who were
men worth at least a hundred thousand dollars.
His path was, however, not now progressive,
but retrograde, or he should have first led you to
the dining-parlour, in which, by the by, all was
work and no speaking, — then slick to the bar, —
and then last of all, and very late, to the bed-
chamber, as the courtly Yankees term a bed-
room.
* Rum-and-water.
B 3
10 BROTHER JONATHAN^ OR THE
But he, like politicians, coquettes, and married
women, had a way of his own, and he therefore
proceeded from the bar to the dining-parlour.
This was a spacious parallelogram, consisting of
two great rooms, separated by a painted puny
wooden Saxon arch. The tables extended nearly
from one end to the other. At the head sat the
landlady, at the foot the landlord, — for there
happened, which is not always the case, to be such
an appendage to the establishment ; when there is
not, his place is filled up by the gentleman boarder,
usually a bachelor commission agent, who has been
the longest, and consequently, with the landlady,
best known lodger,
At this table there sat down to dinner exclu-
sive of the head and tail, about one hundred and
ten persons of the most heterogeneous casts of
origin. Among the number there were about
twenty ladies; and next to the landlady was
seated, quite as if " at home," a discreetly-aged
maiden lady, Miss Deborah Rennet, formerly a
pious quaker- dressed Methodist-chapel-goer at
Boston, and now decked out according to the
newest style of the fashionable Madame de la
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 11
Merciere, who received and still receives by each
packet from Havre, les dernieres modes de Paris.
Nearly opposite, there sat a French Chevalier
d 9 Industrie who, by assuming the title of Comte
Focqualt de la Roche, insinuated himself, when
Playfair last spent some months in France on a
visit to Sir Sydney Smith, into what was there
termed English and American society: and
whose title had especial fascination in the eyes of
Mrs. Swamp, a beautiful young American lady,
married to a grave Bostonian, who, on his union
with the blooming Miss Fins, daughter of the
late most respectable rich Squire Pharaoh Fins,
Whale-fisher, Nantucket, visited Europe, agree-
ably to a vanity now inflaming most Americans
who have accumulated a hundred thousand
dollars. The Yankee dollar-hunters, let it be
observed, are, when they visit Europe, and make
the grand tour like the John Bulls, the most
notorious of tuft-hunters.
The lady's husband was, except in money
bargains, the most unsuspecting man on earth.
The habits of mind which enabled him to become
rich, had, by thirty years influence, frozen his
12 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
heart, and rendered him the least jealous of hus-
bands. Indeed, he thought it impossible for any
woman living not to adore a man possessing the
wealth of Mr. Saul Swamp.
His wife was a beauteous, innocent, brainless,
giddy creature, about eighteen years of age, and
quite unacquainted with the society of capitals.
She considered the attentions of the said spurious
Count as exceedingly condescending on his part,
and highly honourable to herself. But however
far he might have gone to poison her mind,
strange to say, her vanity, and simplicity of
telling her acquaintance all that she saw and heard
in Paris, saved her, in a way in which those who
took an interest in her reputation may claim
ample merit. On calling on several ladies to
whom she had been introduced, she talked of
nothing but how very attentive the noble Count
had been to her during the absence of her husband,
who had left Paris for a few weeks on a journey
to Lyons, or some other place of speculation.
" He," the noble Count, " was so kind, because
the Americans had been so to his father, who
was also a Duke, and had visited America because
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL. CREATION. 13
he was driven from France by the revolutioners.
The Count would walk out with her shopping in
the Roo-dilly-pay ; ride in her carriage when she
drove in the Shaws Helizzy ; would accompany
her to the theatre, and would even dine at home
with her, and sup with her after the theatre,
either in a Cabinet de la Societe or at her apart-
ment, in the Place Vendome."
These revelations electrified her acquaintance ;
and her physician told her his mind very frankly,
and said the Count was a villanous impostor, a
swindler, and a rake, who would soon blast her
reputation, if he had not done so already. Simple
lady, innocently reared, never dreamt of " virtue
in danger !" She told all this to the Count, and
the Count challenged the physician ; but the
lady's virtue was, however, saved, although
scandal injured her reputation.
Very soon afterwards the police found it
necessary to bring up the said sham Count ; who
had, it seems, been living long under the surveil-
lance of those vigilant guardians of moral and
political order in France. Monsieur Roche, for
that turned out to be the counterfeit's name, was
14 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
found guilty, as stated by the Gazette des
Tribunaux, of defrauding many simple people,
especially women, of their money, from the time
that he first came to Paris to try his fortune as
an avocat, which profession he however never
followed. He was accordingly condemned to the
galleys; but escaping from prison, he crossed
the Atlantic, where he was now figuring, God
knows by what means, as the Baron d'Ombert.
The rogue was pointed out to PI ay fair in Paris :
but it was evident he, the sham-noble, knew nothing
of him when they met at Liberty Hall. The other
character sat table were all unknown to Playfair, ex-
cept two; one named Solomons, whom he met many
years before at the Bahamas; and the other an
old man, once a deputy-paymaster in the West
Indies, and known by the cognomen of " Doubloon
Jack." The histories of these two worthies
were understood to be so notorious, that Playfair
will probably introduce both hereafter.
There were also some Mexicans, driven from
that part of America on account of having been
born in Spain. Several Creoles, and several
Europeans of various nations; also a French
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 15
Canadian, intrusted with petitions to the British
Parliament for the redress of Canadian grievances;
a Down Easter, named Barnaby Bagster, who
had removed from republican Maine to settle in
royal New Brunswick, and much interested in
the boundary question. The Americans from
every other part of the Union were numerous,
and as opposite as their localities in their interests,
opinions, and politics.
Dinner was served up with that extraordinary
celerity with which all moves forward in this
nation of progressers ; and the demolition of
soups, fish, geese, fowls, turkeys, beef, mutton,
pork, rumpsteaks, meat pies, sausages, and hams,
with puddings, pastry, omelets, fruit, &c., even
although each carved for himself, was much more
rapid than this description. The scene which the
table presented, during the annihilation of roast
and boiled, of huge joints and unfeathered birds,
great and small, formed a subject rich, animated,
and preposterously laughable. Here a tall broker
stretched over the table, and pulled towards him
a turkey ; there a lathy, long-nosed, short-lipped
Yankee hoisted over, in front of the lady and
16 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
two others next him, a dish from two yards' dis-
tance, with a huge round of beef fortified with
cabbage and carrots, overturning the mustard and
two or three tumblers in the operation. There
one hacked over the backbone of a goose ; yonder
a Kentuckian who despised the art of carving,
tore with his bony claws a capon into atoms.
Not a word was spoken; no other noise was
heard but the cracking of jaws, and the clattering
of knives and forks, and spoons and dishes. In
little more than ten minutes about fifty of the
whole were up and off to the bar ; thirty or more
followed, in a few seconds, to the same rendez-
vous ; from which again, after each whiffed a
cigar, and gulped some cold brandy • and-water,
or a glass of punch, they hurried pellmell off to
their counting-houses, ships, shops, or auction-
rooms ; for all those who " left so slick 1 ' might
be considered as commission agents, brokers,
shopkeepers, auctioneers, and shipmasters.
Those who remained behind were far more
tardy, and were evidently determined to enjoy at
leisure both dinner, wine, and fruits. Even the
ladies, nowise loath, sat the desert out before
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 17
they retired to the withdrawing-room. Among
the fair there were, besides the landlady and
Miss Rennet, several others: one an English
governess, who had been engaged by a rich
Baltimore citizen to fulfil the " delightful task
of teaching the young ideas of his daughters how
to shout" but who had lost her place in conse-
quence of Miss Martineau*s tale about Demerara
being found in her possession. She was an
amiable and pretty young woman, who had been
herself brought up with the idea of riding in her
carriage : as she had done until her nineteenth
year, when the ostentatious display of imitating
the nobility in their household establishment,
table, servants, and equipages, which her father,
who was a merchant in London, had been guilty
of, ended in his bankruptcy and ruin.
There sat near her a young Canadian mer-
chant, who came to Liberty Hall the day before,
and who seemed to be all at once smitten with
her pensive charms. On the opposite side, next
the landlady, sat a planter from Virginia with his
wife and two tall pale daughters. Between
Playfair and the latter, sat General Boon of
18 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
Kentucky, son, we presume, of Lord Byron's hero.
He was at least six feet six inches in height —
large-boned, sinewy, and tough-looking, with
hickory- coloured skin — a keen eye, hooked nose,
short lips,and long under-jaw. He spoke of rifles,
racoons, rattlesnakes, alligators, duels,and bush-
fighting — all which was savage enough, yet far more
interesting than that general eternal subject of
talking, dollars and quotations, so offensive to
well-bred people ; and which will long continue to
distinguish the vulgar of America, as the word
money does the rich vulgar English, wherever
found, and whenever they attempt to speak.
In fact, the rich ill-bred, both in England and
America, are the only people in the world who
continually blab out what they wish above all
things to conceal, the meanness of their own
birth, by continually insulting those who happen
not to have so much of the material dross as
they possess. Who has ever passed a winter
in Paris without observing the daily folly and
ostentation of Anglo - American and English
vulgarity ?
The society, however, at Liberty Hall was
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 19
not exactly American, for we should not count
the hundred brokers and auctioneers who gobbled
up a meal in less than fifteen minutes, as bipeds
having any connexion whatever with society ;
at least not until cotton-bags, bales of merchan-
dise, shops, ships, and whale-oil, be introduced
into drawing-rooms.
Mr. Solomons, although, God knows, he also
knew in his day how to accumulate dollars, was
a man of the world, full of anecdote, brilliant
in conversation, and an epicurean. He said,
* 4 People complain of this being a miserable
world — I never wish to see a better. I wish to
remain in this planet, just as long as I have
health and wealth to enjoy my will of the good
things it contains. When that is over, I have
no anxiety about another existence.' 5 He was an
infidel, but he admitted no more.
Doubloon Jack was probably of the same way
of thinking. He loved his dinner and his bottle,
and related his stories with nearly as much
laugh-provoking effect as a friend of Playfair's,
by name Macpherson, then in some part of the
20 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
western hemisphere, but expected ere long at
Liberty Hall.
The diplomatic agent, from Canada, was a
gentleman of the old French school, vivacious in
speech, and extremely courteous in manner —
very catholic — and of a spirit and temper dis-
posed to be kind to all ; although, from principle,
opposed to all whom he considered the political
oppressors of Canada. Hence, those who knew
him not represented him as a violent demagogue.
His carriage was totally different from that of
the present generation of Frenchmen. His
manners and language were those of the day of
Madame de Sevigne. In Paris we have seen
something like his deportment in the neighbour-
hood of the Marais, and in the promenades of
the Luxembourg. He complained bitterly of
the maladministration of Lower Canada; but
neither accused the authorities of Downing-
street, nor the governor-general of designing
oppressive measures towards his country. He
believed they were misinformed and acted under
erroneous views. To the executive and legis-
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 21
lative council — a kind of hospital for incurables
— he attached all the blame, though not all the
awful responsibility of misruling Canada. He
was probably right.
There were also at Liberty Hall, two French
opera- dancers, very well-behaved, very agreeable
in their manners, and very much admired by two
young sleek-skinned quakers from Philadelphia.
Two celebrated English actors, and an actress.
Three or four dressmakers, who smiled knowingly
at as many bill-brokers ; two widows, said to be
pretty weighty in the dollar way — and who were
what are termed regular boarders ; besides these,
there were many who came to call on various
lodgers.
In short, there were travelling speculators and
adventurers, of so many shades of confession,
character, and manners, that he who would fill
up a picture of pure American society from the
assemblage at Liberty Hall, would resemble the
original about as truly as it would that of Pekin.
Yet Liberty Hall was, of all places in the great
republic, where a representative of almost every
character, good and bad, within it could be most
22 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
commonly met with. To these might generally
be added a plentiful catalogue of rogues and
honest men from Europe, the British Colonies,
and South America.
The assemblages were changeable as the tran-
sitions of a kaleidoscope. To-day twenty to fifty
new faces and characters appeared, and as many
of those who had been present the day before had
vanished. Some were some hundreds of miles on
their way south or west or north, by railroads
or steamboats. Others had left by the sailing
packets, and were, while newly-arrived guests
occupied their places in Liberty Hall, careering
over the surges of the Atlantic.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 23
CHAPTER III.
LIBERT r HALL DRAWING-ROOM.
** Are domestic comforts fled ?
Are all the nameless sweets of Friendship dead ? '
Cowper.
After dinner most of those who were not
" the regular boarders,"" engaged in the incessant
activity of 6< dollar-making/' usually spent a
portion of the evening in Liberty Hall drawing-
room, where tea and cakes and sweetmeats were
served round, and where some fair widows, beau-
tiful wives, and wrinkled maidens lisped, lolled,
and yawned away through generally, but not
always, very stupid evenings.
It frequently happens at New York, and other
commercial seaports, that young married mer-
chants, brokers, and clerks, are, with their wives,
u regular boarders f and as the husbands fly
24 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
"slick off" to their business affairs the moment
they rise in the morning, and immediately after
gobbling up their meals ; and as private sitting-
rooms are rarely found in an American hotel or
boarding-house, the pretty wives of these young
// dollar-makers have the alternative only of soli-
tude and reading novels, or theology, in their
pigmy bedchambers, or lolling in silent insipidity
half-asleep, on one of the public drawing-rooflti
sofas.
* This forms one of the greatest social evils to be
met with in the commercial cities of the United
States. It is well for the reputation of the many
beautiful women who are " regular boarders" that
they themselves are, by imitative or mother's
fireside education, with few exceptions, purely
virtuous ; and also, that no one except the
preachers has sufficient leisure for tampering
with their innocence.
Now and then a counterfeit French Count
arrives and does monstrous mischief; but gene-
rally all over the United States the preachers
are the real evil-doers ; these Jonathan Lusts,
looking as meek as Moses, yet as libidinous as
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 25
Solomon, are in truth, even by the declaration of
the public journalists, acknowledged to be innu-
merable among the more sanctified expounders of
divinity.*
On entering the drawing-room, Playfair beheld
reposing on sofas four or five young wives or
widows, who had very little to say, and who, with
the expection of the thousand charms which the
Frenchman Roche, alias Count D'Ombert, told
them they possessed, and no small share of flattery
from Solomons, they remained nearly as little
noticed as lazzaroni on the Piazza of Naples.
Their husbands can, or will, never afford time to
come away from u dollars, shares, auctions, ships,
cotton, railroad, and land speculations/ 9 until
late in the evening, and then only, on joining
their wives, to be off immediately to sleep j con-
sequently the latter, who rarely ever take out-
door exercise;, lead a most sedentary vegetating
life, which soon unfits them for all the active and
* See " American Quarterly Review," Sept. 1832, page
122. This severe remark applies only to young sectarians,
and raving youthful itinerants ; for among the well-educated
and highly-gifted clergy in the United States, are found the
most excellent characters. — Editor.
VOL. I. C
26
useful duties of society. In fact, the boarding-
house system for married people is, to say the
least, degrading ; it is, however, very convenient,
■which is sufficient for dollar-hunting husbands.
Miss Rennet and the two young widows among
the "regular boarders" mentioned in the last
chapter, cocked their caps most sprucely at the
chivalric sound of a noble personage, alias Count
D'Ombert, veritably Chevalier d' Industrie.
It has been the especial misfortune of America
to have suffered from the introduction of exotic
vices, and by an influx of foreigners, driven from
their native land by the criminality or worth-
lessness of their character. Playfair soon per-
ceived this, and we find him taking faithful
notes of the outlandish as well as the native
characteristics of life in America. These sketches
are, in truth, among the most interesting of his
peregrinations in the land of Brother Jonathan.
This was never more evident than on the
present occasion ; for, among the transient board-
ers, those born and bred in America were made
up generally of original stuff, however insipid, or
rude, or eccentric the materials. Among the
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 2J
number there, were General Boon, of Kentucky, a
rare fellow in his way ; the editor of a resuscitated
and able review, published in the capital of a
neighbouring state, a man of great excellence of
character, of much ability, as well as sharp cri-
tical acumen; a homely, common-sense-looking
man, connected with the manufacturing associa-
tion at Lowell; two or three gentlemen from
Virginia and South Carolina, more polished in
their manners, and less rigorous in their morals,*
than the Yankees, were often among the draw-
ing-room frequenters.
Solomons and Doubloon Jack also made then-
appearance, as well as some specimens of those
unprincipled hunters after gain, United States
citizens too, who consider " taking in" or u taking
advantage" over another in bargaining, not cheat-
ing ; who would not hesitate becoming parties to
fitting out vessels as privateers, as wreckers,
as slavers, no, nor yet, as may be proved, as
pirates*
* The writer no doubt means less rigorous in regard to
puritanical cant, melancholy sabbaths, &c. — Editor.
c2
28 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
CHAPTER IV.
TALK AND CONVERSATION.
" What can a Creole lady do 1
Do ! why, lie on a sofa, play with a poodle —
Eat curry and rice, and talk conversation f"
Talk conversation ! — On the evening of Play-
fair's first appearance in Liberty Hall drawing-
room, there was talk and now and then conversa-
tion. The talk was confined to the wives of the dol-
lar-hunters, to the widows, and to Miss Rennet.
The pale daughters of the Virginian planter, oc-
sionally lisped in a remark, when any thing
happened to be said about " cruelty'' 3 to niggers.
The conversation was at times spirited, varied,
and, although often uncouthly worded, and in the
principle, as well as in the spirit of expression
both unjust and unfeeling, yet to a man like
Playfair, resolved to know the truth, however
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 29
unpleasing, was interesting. A circle was often
formed consisting chiefly of the worthies men-
tioned in the last chapters, who were rich in
amusing anecdotes and narratives; of Ken-
tucky Boon, whose stories of Indians, bears,
alligators, rattlesnakes, rifle-duels, gougers, gan-
der-pluckers, and adventures on the Missis-
sippi would have startled Baron Munchausen
himself, — of the Virginian planter, who in his
manners was really a gentleman, and certainly more
intelligent than most English squires, — of the al-
ready-mentioned Canadian deputy on his way to
England, the urbanity of whose manners pleased
all, — of another Canadian who called himself un
fils de la liberte, who was far more voluble than
rational, — of the young Montreal merchant, and
the pretty, accomplished, unemployed governess,
with whom, it was plain, he was smitten, and as
evident that he was far from being disagreeable to
her,— of the able editor of the u Southern Quar-
terly Review," — of the Lowell manufacturer, —
of some gentlemen from the Carolinas, — of one or
two of French race from Louisiana, — of a haughty
Floridian, — and the aforementioned French opera-
dancers. Others occasionally dropped, or rather
30 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
slided into the circle ; but their " squeaking and
jubber" could not certainly be called conversation.
It alluded generally to some speculation^ prices
of land, rum, shares, molasses, and cotton, —
packet-ships, dollars, fortunes, and bankruptcies,
— capital jobs in buying building- lots, where the
late great fire committed such extensive ravages,
— terrible smart progressing in Michigan and
Texian land specs, in railroads, and steaming,
&c, — and damning denunciations against old
Hickory's* interfering with the United States*
Bank, and transferring the deposits.
Some of these calculators anticipated a com-
mercial crisis, but all appeared determined to
trade to the utmost extent of speculative hazard.
To Playfair they seemed quite as much infected
with the spirit of gambling as the frequenters of
the hells at St. James's and the Rue Richelieu.
The difference was, that the latter played at
roulette or rouge et noir with sovereigns or napo-
leons, and the former with commissions, cottons,
molasses, Yorkshire cloths, Manchester calicoes,
Michigan lands, rum, railroads, packet-shares,
bills, and paper dollars.
* General Jackson.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 31
"What quotations for sea islands and up-
lands ?" asked a 'tarnal speculator.
" I guess sea islands will fetch thirty cents the
pound, and uplands twenty/' replied a thin-lipped
lathy man of commissions.
" Niagara seize me, if that be'ent the first
time I never heard in my Carnal life of land sell-
ing by weight. I'll sell you a million of tons of
Michigans at half that price," exclaimed a bush-
tramper fresh from the " Far West."
61 What n'an hignoramns not for to know that
sea islands and uplands are not cotton !" ejacu-
lated a grave man of bills at long sight.
"Ha'n't you seen them *er smart wipping
harticles in Biddle's paper 'gain old Hickory, I
guess Nick's written it," observed another dollar-
maker.
u I calculates thir's only one way of gitting
the bank deposits back, — lynch the old hero ! "
remarked a third of the speculative breed.
" Terrification seize him ! — Transport him to
St. Louis, and we'd roast him on a slow fire, as
we crucified the yellow feller last year," summed
up, as the final judgment on General Jackson, a
32 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
monster of the species called " half-horse, half-
alligator,' 1 from the Missouri.*
This terrible verdict pronounced by one who
formed, no doubt, one of "the most respectable
citizens," who witnessed the diabolical scene
alluded to, at St. Louis, was, to Playfair's satis-
faction, heard with disgust by most of the com-
pany who assembled for the evening in Liberty
Hall drawing-room, and put an end for the mo-
ment to the specimens given of the commonplace
attempts at "wit and wisdom" by the resident
boarding-house class of dollar-men.
A somewhat argumentative conversation fol-
lowed.
"What a curse is slavery, which darkens even
the night of barbarism in this otherwise blessed
republic !" said the simple man of Lowell, in
adverting to the savage deed which will impart
disgrace from generation to generation on the
white demons of St. Louis.
" Sir, have you not slaves in Massachusets ?**
* " Half-liorse, half-alligator," with a "streak of the snap-
turtle," is the usual appellation of those amphibious men who
spend their lives on the banks, and as boatmen on the waters
of the Mississippi.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 33
asked Colonel Richard Wentworth, one of th e
buckskin gentlemen from Virginia.
!* Not one, squire," replied the cotton lord of
Lowell.
" Not one !" exclaimed Colonel Wentworth :
u I should not object to chop logic to prove
that."
" I conclude, squire, that all the logic of Yale
College, and all the atheism of Girard's, # will
not be able to prove there's a nigger owned in
all Massachusets," asserted the man of Lowell.
" Sir, are not the women whom you subject, to
the rigorism of hard labour for twelve hours every
working-day, to silence during those hours, — and
to the gloomy tyranny of your religious laws on a
Sunday, slaves ? Have they a will of their own ?
Have they any relaxation of mind ? In what
consists their liberty ?" asked Colonel Wentworth,
" I calculates, squire, no one compels them to
hard labour. The wickedness of the English
factories! has warned us to do what we know to
* By Girard's will religious instruction of any kind is pro-
hibited in the school of learning, for the founding andesta.
Wishing of which he has so richly provided.
t The immorality of the English and Scotch factories has
c 3
34
be the one thing needful. It is to escape the
eternal wrath that we allow none of Satan's vani-
ties at Lowell. Dancing we know is an abomi-
nation in the sight of the Lord : and it was for
this cause that we fined and flogged and carded
Jeremiah Catterwaller, the only fiddler that ever
came among us. And it is for the divine fear,
and to keep the Sabbath holy, that we do not
allow our smart lasses and spry youths to walk
out on that blessed day, but keep them within
their chambers, at prayers, and reading the re-
vealed truths; and, finally, to make them lead
godly and temperate lives, we give them tea to
drink, and savoury sermons to feed upon. As to
liberty, have they not liberty to sing hymns, to
eat the meat, and drink the drink that we know to
be best for them ? And have they not the liberty
to work if they want to eat and to drink, and to be
clothed ; and, moreover, the liberty not to work
if they want to go hungered and clothed in rags,
long been one of those crying themes of popular error which
inquiry has proved a fallacy. The domestic morality of the
manufacturing towns having, in fact, been well ascertained to
be of a higher character than that of our agricultural districts*
—See evidence before the House of Commons. — Editor.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 35
like the sluggard of old ? Now, squire, I guess my
logic has smitten your notion, as sure as David
slew Goliath of old with the little rock that
« Flew from the sling
Of Israel's king.' "
" Liberty, indeed \" exclaimed Colonel Went-
worth : " liberty to work all the week, or to
starve naked ; compulsive silence during the
week ; compulsive temperance and devotion all
the Sunday, or, expulsion from society. You
fined and flogged and carded the musician, who
dared to attempt gaining a living among you.
We Virginians may, but seldom do, flog our
slaves. We clothe them well, feed them well,
lodge them well, and when we think Jit flog
them well. If they are sick we doctor them
well, and we give them the opportunities of
amusing themselves well, either in dancing, or
fiddling, or singing, or meeting every night in
the week, and on the whole of Sunday."
" You do all that for their beastly bodies, as if
they were the brutes of the dreary wilderness ;
but for their poor souls you take no concern.
1 Woe to thee, Jerusalem P cried the prophet at
36 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
the gates before its famine and its fall. Woe to
thee, Virginia ! Woe to thee, Carolina ! Woe
to thee, Columbia ! Woe unto thee, Georgia !
Woe unto thee, Florida ! Woe to thee, all ye
dark heathenish slave states that are beyond the
Alleghanies ! The day of your downfal will
come like a thief in the night, and you will not
be found watching \>'. concluded the man of
Lowell, on rising and leaving the room.
" I guess if that there Down Easter himigrates
*mongst them Far Westers, the'll linch him,"
remarked Boon of Kentucky.
" How long do you intend your country to be
disgraced by that savage judge ?" observed the
critical Editor of the Quarterly.
" I calculate, " replied Boon, " so long as
Kentucky is Kentucky, and so long as Ohio
falls into Mississippi, and Mississippi runs to
New Orlines, Tarnation seize me if there wid
never be no fun in living without natural law,
and bewtifying the population wid gouging and
ganderplucking ; * nor widout our terrible funny
sports of rifle-duels and halligator-riding." r .
* These barbarous cruelties are certainly still very common
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 3?
" Riding an alligator, and settling an affair of
honour with rifles !" exclaimed Playfair.
" Slick and sartin ! Tarnation ! I always
crosses the Mississippi riding 'pon mine halliga-
tor — I now breeds 'em — but ven I goes hunting,
I fish for a wild un, and tames him in a flash of
time. I guess I'd cross that *er great herrin-
lake to England, on one of mine halligators.
By pumpkins! when we go to war again I
shall find terrible smart diskivveries for sartin,
squire."
" Steam," said Playfair, ic will likely change
the system of warfare."
" I calculate so," replied Boon, <* but I guess
I'll find a terrible smart diskivery against steam.
Mine alligators wersus steam-boats — mighty spry
war that, I guess, squire."
"You say, that in your country you fight
duels with rifles. These must always be dead-
shot, I suppose ?" observed Playfair.
among boatmen, lumberers, and raftsmen. It was said for-
merly every second man in Kentucky had an eye gouged
out, and every third a nose or ear gander-plucked — that is,
bitten off. — Editor.
38 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
" I guess not, squire," replied Boon.
" How not ?" asked Playfair.
" Why, squire, you old-country folks are all
quite hignoramuses about rifle-shooting and
duels. Wen I feels hungry for a duel, I rides
down upon one of my smartest alligators, to the
river-bank, and watches until I sees a raft comin
along ; and I roars out, ' Captain, your mother,
and wife, and sisters, are never no better than
they should be ;' and he thunders back, ' You be
Carnally tamashuned.' Now as I never hallows
any man to 'tarnally tarnashun me, I roars out,
till all creation shakes like an earthquake,—
< Mississippi, swaller mine 'tarnal soul, if I don't
send a pea from my rifle through your day-
peepers — so make slick ready !'
" Then if he'es any more leever as a goose, he
hankers his raft, gets his rifle, and then gets
behind a log. I whispers to mine halligator to
turn over a bit, wid his back between me and the
raft, and I gets behind ; then we crack spry as
lightning, and I calculates, if he diskivers, eeder
on one side of log or toder, the thickness of my
nail of his flesh or hair, I shaves it slick off.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 39
Wen I fights a rifle-duel widout mine halligator,
I squats behind a tree, which is much about as
sartin] a fortification as an halligator's back, I
guess."
" That is indeed desperate fighting," observed
the critic, " and I think if you had gone to old
Hickory, before the meeting of last congress,
that instead of pronouncing that terrifying mes-
sage, which was after all only a bit of Yankee
diplomacy, he would have sent you and your
halligators at once to blockade all the ports of
France."
"Wid mine halligators, I guess I would gouge
and ganderpluck all the universal population in
that there state of France," replied Boon.
* Have you had much experience in those
refinements ?" asked Playfair.
"1 never gouged, 'cept fellows that sneaked
arter the same gals as I courted, and then I
outed both their day-peepers. Fve gander-
plucked more den a hundred for no oder reason
but to bewtifye 'em, and swaller their noses.
The last fellow I gouged and ganderplucked
was so tall that ven it rained his hat was wetted
40 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
through slick twenty minutes before other folks
felt a drop splash."
il Did you ever bewtyfy women in this man-
ner?" asked the critic.
u I guess not, nor ever will, 'cept one ; and if
she ever crosses mine, or mine halligator's track,
Pd be 'tarnally tarnashuned if I doesn't as slick
as lightning gouge out both her bow-peepers, and
ganderpluck and eat all her face, and her tongue
too," replied Boon, with more than usual exult-
ation.
" Who, I pray," asked Play fair, " is the lady
that is to undergo this extra beautification ?"
" Wo-o- ! Trollope ! Trollope ! Trollope ! for
defemmeyfying the whole universal city of Cin-
cinnati/' roared Boon, looking at the same time
as if he would devour Play fair, who was then
walking out of the drawing-room.
Playfair had scarcely left the room than Boon,
biting his lips, knitting his brows, clenching hi s
fist, and looking at the door with fiendish eyes,
roared out, <c By the 'tarnal, there snakes off
that 'er tarnashun Britisher, at de minute I
vowed to ganderpluck, gouge, and bewtyfy de
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 41
old Mother of Babylon, Trollope. By the
'tarnal, my dander's up ! I feels all over hungry
for a duel ; and Mississippi swallow mine 'tarnal
sowl if I doesn't axtinguish that 'er sea-girt-isle-
qf-slavery-snaker."
On which Boon hopped, skipped, and jumped
out of Liberty Hall drawing-room in pursuit of
Playfair.
42 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
CHAPTER V.
THE DUEL.
" Ob, blood and tbunder ! and oh blood and wounds !
These are but vulgar oaths, as you may deem,
Oh, pious Yankee, and most shocking sounds :
And so they are." Byron.
Playfair had scarcely passed the bar when
he was overtaken by Boon, the latter springing
before the former, and turning round facing him
in the passage, and roaring out, in a voice resem-
bling that of a monster from the wilds, and not
that from a human being in civilized life.
" Vy you Carnal Britisher, your mother was no
better nor than she shude be. I tells ye my dan-
der^ up, and I've a duel crawling all over me ;
vich is to say I'll fight you wid rifles, or wid
pitchforks, and I swears by the 'tarnal Fll axtin-
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL, CREATION. 43
guish you, or any oder isle-of -slavery-man into
tarnashun hattoms. I says to-morrow, afore de
sun's awake, seconds or no seconds, as ye likes,
in de fields toder side of Brooklyn, or in a bed-
chamber. I says, ye son of a mother that was no
better nor she shude be, I have gived my challenge
for a terrible spry duel."
" General Boon," commenced Playfair with no
little astonishment, but with perfect self-posses-
sion, — " General Boon, I believe my mother was
a virtuous woman ; and if she were not, I do not
see that the circumstance requires you to fight
me."
u I say," interrupted Boon, u no goose-liver
satisfaction speechification, squire Britisher. I
never mines, I tell ye, what yeer mother was : it's
only my way of fishing for a duel. So, as ye
dosn't takes, here goes my toder way ;" following
up which menace, Boon rushes, flinging his right
hand towards Play fair's head in order to seize his
hair, the preliminary to that horrible brutality,
gouging.
Playfair, who understood the art of defence
well, rose his blackthorn walkingstick, and kept
44 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
off Boon by bringing the heavy thorn downclose
over the Kentuckian's right ear, with such pre
cision and force, as to sever it from his head, while
Boon himself fell prostrate in the passage.
Playfair returned to the withdrawing-room,
related what had occurred, which surprised none
of the few who still remained, and who expected
nought else : such being the frivolous grounds
for deciding affairs of honour in the Land of
Liberty.
There was, at the time, standing in the public
room, with his back to the fire, a veteran with a
weatherbeaten face in the uniform of the United
States navy. He had that moment come in from
the Bowery Theatre, and in a minute or two sat
down by the fire, requested the waiter to bring
him a bootjack and slippers, and a glass of brandy-
and-water ; which being done, he disengaged
himself of his boots, thrust his feet into the slip-
pers, drank off the brandy-and-water, and without
uttering another word walked out of the room.
The veteran's face seemed perfectly known to
Playfair; but he could not recollect when or
where he saw it. He looked a much older man,
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 45
but the lineaments were strictly the same, as
he had formerly known them. On the waiter re-
turning, Playfair asked him, who the old officer
was who had just left.
" Captain Armstrong of the United States
navy, sir," replied the waiter. "He lives at the
dockyard Brooklyn, but when he dines in the
city, or goes to the theatre, he always sleeps
here. He's a mighty silent old sort of a high
respectable gentleman, sir, — most as silent as an
old Englander."
The name soon brought the whole scene in
which Playfair first encountered Captain Arm-
strong into full recollection, and he determined
to confide to him what had occurred, and to ask
his advice as to how he should act towards Boon.
Playfair accordingly requested the waiter to go
and present his compliments to Captain Arm-
strong, and say that Mr. Playfair of the British
navy would be happy to speak with him on a
matter of importance.
Captain Armstrong sent back his compliments,
saying he would be happy to see Mr. Playfair.
" Captain Armstrong, 55 said Playfair, on enter-
46 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
ing his room, " I beg leave to introduce to you
the face of an old and obliged acquaintance."
Armstrong looked searchingly at Playfair and
replied,
" Sir, I cannot bring to my recollection the
honour of having seen or known you, far less
having done you service/'
" Captain Armstrong/' said Playfair. " It is
a long time since, but time will never with me
erase obligations — you do not forget boarding a
coaster in 1813 off the shores of Cape Breton,
and meeting with Lieutenant Playfair ?"
" Certainly not, and have I again the pleasure
to meet, I presume now Captain Playfair ?
They cordially shook hands, and entered upon
a subject which demanded immediate decision on
the side of Playfair.
" 'Tis a brutal affair altogether," observed
Armstrong, "but you must fight him and kill
him too ; that is if he does not kill you. There
must be no compromise, or the Americans, who.
may be considered almost as much a nation of
duellists as of dollar-hunters, will never give up
boasting of their bravery and courage being su-
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 47
perior to that of the English. I shall be you*
second, andgo immediately to Boon, fix the place
of meeting and the arms with which you shall
fight. He will, like all those "half-horse half-
alligator" uncivilized monsters, insist upon rifles
or pitchforks, but as he has challenged,'! shall
take care that swords or pistols will be the wea-
pons. 3 '
Without waiting the sanction of Playfair, Cap-
tain Armstrong left him in quest of Boon, whom
he found infuriated at the bar, a handker-
chief bound over his wound, the blood still trick-
ling down his neck, with his ear, which was
picked up from the floor, swimming in a glass of
rum, and he roaring out for the morning, that he
might devour Playfair.
On receiving the message from Armstrong,
that Playfair, attended by the former as his
second, would meet Boon where he pleased out of
town, a certain field behind a wood was fixed
upon as the spot of meeting next morning at
sunrise. Armstrong and Boon parted, the last
in quest of his second, M the slickest rifleman" he
said, u in all creation."
48 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
If trial by battle is a deadly affair among the
alligator-breed of the "Far West/ 5 the Yankee
race *' Down East/' have given full evidence of
their combativeness and bloody skill. The person
chosen by Boon was not, like Colonel Purity, a
non-committal, but a whole-hog- committal-man,
just arrived from the State of Maine.
In words, he had lately made a most 6l cattle-
salting speech"* denouncing England for in-
justice and tyrannical atrocities ; among not the
least of which was her " robbing Maine of half
her best soil, a soil so productive that if yOu
planted there at night a shoe nail, it grew up
before sunrise a keelson bolt, — of half her mag-
nificent forests, — of half her glorious rivers, —
of half her mountains, and half her [rocks, — of
half her mill privileges, of half her lakes, and of
half her swamps." His election to represent all
"Down East" in Congress, was the universal
suffrage corollary to such a speech.
He launched afterwards into personalities, at-
* " Salting the cattle" may be interpreted in English, hum-
bugging the swi?iish multitude. — Editor,
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 49
tacking chiefly a gallant colonel, then far away
tramping with his rifle in the savage wilds. In
America where u all creation progresses" accord-
ing to a u Far Westerns" superlative, "like a
streak of lightning," the newspapers in a few days
carried the " Down Easter's" speech from the
floor of the capitol to the log-hut of the bold
backwoodsman, who, as quick as steam on water
and steam on railroads could carry him, appeared
to demand satisfaction at Washington.
The colonel says to the senator, "Ax my par-
don, and swear I bees a gentleman."
" I guess not," replied the senator.
" Well, tarnation seize me," thundered the
colonel, " if you shan't fight me, and choose thine
own artillery and distance ; you Down Easters
have but cod-liver, and goose-heart in you, I
reckon."
"Rifles and one hundred yards, I calculates,"
twanged the Down Easter, " and as sure as Ken-
nebeck falls, I'll scatter all the froth in your
pumpkin head over Quoddy for mackerel-bait."*
* The Americans scatter'salt over the sea, where there are
shoals, as they term it, of mackerel ; this brings the fish to the
VOL. I. D
50 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
Early next morning with rifles and seconds,
they appeared on the duelling-ground. They
took their stand at fifty yards from each other,
and at the usual signal, fired.
The first round did no other damage than one
ball ripping open a part of the Down Easter's
pea-jacket, and the other shaving a slice off the
Far Westerns left mocassin.
The second round was better aimed. The
colonel lost a furrow of the skin carrying the
whisker also off one cheek, and the ear behind it,
which irritated the gallant officer not a little.
The senator's hat was perforated through and
through : on taking it off, his head was merely
grazed, a little stripe of skin only being peeled
away.
The third round was fatal to the colonel — he
was shot through the chest and fell dead on the
spot. He was buried with militia honours, and
had a funeral sermon preached for him, in which
his heroic death and countless virtues were super-
latively extolled.
surface, when they invariably take the usual bait. Quoddy
is the M Down East abbreviation of Passa-ma-Quoddy-Bay.* —
Editor.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 51
The Down Easter's duelling reputation was
thus established, and being now in his legisla-
tive capacity on his way to the capital, it was
reckoned that his rifle should at least decimate
the whole senate and House of Representatives
before the end of the session.
Such was Squire Syrian Snig, the second who,
with Boon, met, on the appointed ground, Play-
fair, Armstrong, and a surgeon. Duels not
being necessarily secrets before they take place,
several of the idle curious of New York had
made their appearance to see the sight.
Boon and his second, attended by some others,
carried four rifles, two pitchforks, and two long-
handled hatchets, for arms. The place fixed for the
meeting was a green grassy vale, skirted by a
wood, and at some distance from any of the
frequented roads. Snig insisted that if Playfair
refused to fight with rifles, Boon had a right
to the choice of one or the other of the Ken-
tuckian or backsettlement weapons, t. e. pitch-
forks or hatchets, which they had provided for
the purpose.
Armstrong stood firm to his friend : " Gentle-
d 2
52
men/' said he "neither of those weapons are used
by civilized nations: the circumstances which
have led to this meeting are of themselves suffi-
ciently atrocious ; and although Mr. Playfair has,
to prevent any possible imputation being circu-
lated, reflecting on his character or bravery,
consented to meet General Boon, he cannot
involve his own honour or his country's honour
with customs, which could only be tolerated
during the ages of barbarism. General Boon
has been the challenger and according to the laws
of honour, my friend has the choice of weapons ;
but we waive that right so far, as to give our
adversary the choice of pistols, smallswords or
broadswords, otherwise we leave the field, and on
our return to the city we shall have General Boon
posted in all the newspapers, as a ruffian, scoun-
drel, and coward.' 1 '
Boon and Snig seemed fit to cut into pieces
those opposed to them, as Armstrong with stern
coolness pronounced these words. Snig then came
forward and said, " I guess I can never only con-
sent by pistols being first tried, ten yards, and
two rounds, and no confoundment. Then, if
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 53
nother one nor toother, nor both, be ax-tinguished 9
s'pose they toss up for spear-swords, or broad
smash-swords ; or spear-swords first and smash-
swords arter, until the business is done through
slick."
Snig and Boon seemed determined on bloody-
business, and the latter roared out, (i Pistols first,
spear-swords second, and, by the 'tarnal, smash-
swords third/ 5
This was agreed to, and two braces of pistols
were loaded. The choice given to Boon, who
seized them, smelt their muzzles, examined their
locks, and chose a pair. The ground was mea-
sured, and the antagonists stood in their places,
ten paces apart.
The signal being given, both fired at the same
time, Boon's pistol sent the ball through the top
of Playfair s hat, and that of Playfair grazed off
the skin from Boon's shoulder. This, however,
was not sufficient for the Kentuckian's satisfac-
tion.
The combatants take their stand again, — the
word is given, and Boon fires first, wounding
Playfair slightly in the leg. Playfair fires in the
54 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
air, and in Europe the affair would now have
ended. — Not so in the u Smartest Nation in all
Creation !"
The u spear- swords,' 5 in English the small-
swords, were called for by Snig, — the opponents
were placed face to face, — Playfair assumed the
usual position, — and Boon, who knew nothing of
fencing, rushed at his antagonist with the confi-
dence of running him through the body by main
strength. This furious thrust was, however, not
only admirably parried by Playfair but the blade
of Boon's sword was turned off shivering in the
air and the point of Playfair's was planted
against Boon's chest so closely and surely, that
the life of the latter was completely at Playfair's
disposal. He gallantly spared it, on account of
Boon's ignorance of fencing. Saying, " I con-
clude the meeting will now terminate, for I have
full satisfaction. "
"No, by the 'tarnal! we'll go it the whole
hog," roared Boon.
u Here goes, then ; no confounding, I calcu-
lates, for the smash-swords," said Snig.
The broadswords were produced, but Arm-
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 55
strong said, " This is atrocious, it is barbarous,
savage beyond precedent ! and Mr. Snig you are
really going to force them to butcher one ano-
ther ?»
"I says, sir, I guess you're no gentleman;
and I says I'll be particularly tarnashuned if I
disn't explainify wid you when they gets slick
through with the smash-swords. 5 '
Armstrong offered no further observation. He
saw they were determined on bloody business,
and any further opposition on his part would
only end in blasting his own reputation as a
naval officer; and as the opponents took their
ground for the fourth time, he said in an under-
tone to Play fair, " The monster is resolved to kill
you, so make the most of it."
Boon, from having had practice in the use of
the singlestick could have now used the broad-
sword, if he had only patience and coolness, with
probably deadly effect ; but he again depended
on his superior strength and the weight of the
weapon, which he resolved to use hatchet-fashion,
and "split," as he said, "his enemy slick down
the middle."
56 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
With this view he struck down perpendicularly,
with great force, over Play fair's head ; but the
latter not only parried off the blow, but recovered
his defence, and made the left cut with such
dexterity and force under Boon's cheek, that he
nearly severed the Kentuckian's head from his
shoulders : the monster fell down instantly, and
expired in a few moments without uttering a word.
Snig, unmindful of Boon's corse, came up with
fierce look to Armstrong, and twanged out
menacingly, t( I calculates, captain, we may as
well do it out all universal slick now/'
" What do you mean?" said Armstrong.
" Why, fight," said Snig.
" We have/' replied Armstrong, " had enough
of bloodshed on one occasion ; on another, and
on a fitting cause, I shall have no fear of meeting
you. I have fulfilled the part I owed my friend; I
am now going to attend to my own duty, and yours
probably requires you at the capitol. I shall be
at Washington myself before many weeks pass
over ; and then, if there be any reason to adjust
or decide a point of honour, I shall meet you on
the usual grounds."
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 57
CHAPTER VI.
a further exemplification of individual
character in america, illustrated by
Armstrong's account of himself.
" This is no mine ain house."
The fatal termination of a meeting under cir-
cumstances which would, perhaps, in no other
country in the world have appealed to such a
bloody trial, while it affords one of the countless
examples of the laxity of moral principle, justice,
and executive power in America, was at first
reflected on by Playfair as one of those solemn
responsibilities to which, not his honour, but the
police and courts of justice should call him to
account.
"Come, come away, my friend," said Arm-
d 3
58 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
strong ; " Boon's and Snig's friends will take all
due care of the body. If we interfere, it will end
in perhaps a dozen of duels : they will attend
to the funeral honours, to the funeral sermon,
and to all the pomp of funeral procession and
interment/ '
" Where shall we go V said Playfair.
"Why," replied Armstrong, "honour called
me'out this morning to accompany you. We have
humbled to the ground for a time the vanity of
those duellists, who boast that America is the
smartest nation in the world. Duty now re-
quires me elsewhere. Let us go to the dockyard.
Never mind the consequences of the morning,
which will end merely by a funeral ceremony and
newspaper paragraphs."
To the dockyard, therefore, our heroes pro-
ceeded.
* You see what formidable sea-castles we have
here. Look at our plan of construction : what
length of keel and breadth of beam ! Why,
that seventy-four, which is to mount one hundred
and twenty guns, will breast the billows under her
topgallant sails, when your short, narrow, high,
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 59
old-fashioned ships, will be careering over, under
double-reefed topsails, with their lower-deck ports
a fathom under water. With that gallant ship
how I would rejoice ! It would renew my days,
to meet your old tyrant of a captain, now a
baronet, is he not ? Old as I am, I would attack
him, if he had two of your first-rates under his
command."
• After showing Playfair all the departments of
the dockyard, and all the ships then in the pro-
gress of construction, he said,
u What do you think of the Yankee fir-built
ships, and their bits of striped bunting T*
"If," said Playfair, " I should ever have com-
mand at sea, and observe your bit of striped
bunting, I shall think of the live oak over which
it waves, and be very shy of an engagement in a
gale of wind, whatever I might do in moderate
weather."
u You have the generous candour of a sailor !
Come let me conduct you to my cabin, I will give
you a sketch of my story ; the sun is over the
foreyard, and we will, I dare say, find a shot in
the locker."
60 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
They entered Armstrong's apartment, which
was a snug box enough ; its interior decorated
with various weapons, charts, nautical instruments,
and countless articles that appertain to the naval
profession, or that were collected during the
captain's voyages.
A negro woman and boy attended him. He
ordered luncheon, and Playfair observed that
he retained the early-formed predilection of an
English sailor for porter and cheese.
" Playfair," said Armstrong, " although you
and I belong now to the navies of different
countries, I am not the less happy to see you.
I have grown old in the service of the United
States, I have always been regarded with respect,
and rewarded according to my full deserts. It
is the only service in this country that is re-
spected or rewarded. Yet I am not happy— I
am alone in the world — I have no ties in or to
America : — social and domestic relations I have
none. It is true I hate the mere English govern-
ment, at least the administration which has done
me the greatest wrongs, — that has torn me from
all that was precious to my heart, — that has
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 61
blasted hope and those domestic endearments
which I once fondly trusted would surround and
cherish the decline of life — yes ! much as I hate
the government, unjustly and cruelly as I have
been treated, my heart, my associations, and my
ideas of domestic affection fondly cling to
' England with all her ills.'
Had I a wife and children in America, had I
formed those int wining ties to which, after all,
our happiness chiefly clings, I should not feel
myself alone, solitary, taciturn, and uneasy as I
now do."
The story of Armstrong may not be uncom-
mon. But it is affecting in its narration, and
may well instruct us in practising the most amiable
of Christian virtues — charity for the frailties, or
■what may or may not be culpable or criminal
in our neighbour.
During the last American war, Playfair was
first lieutenant of one of the frigates then on the
Halifax station. The captain of that gallant
ship was some years younger than his lieutenant,
but had not been one-half as long at sea. He
62 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
was naturally a tyrant, and we need scarcely say
that there is no empire on earth better calculated
for the exercise of despotism than the deck of a
man-of-war.
From his own idleness and inattention, and
from the indulgence of his captain, while for
little more than a year a midshipman, and for
another year a lieutenant, before he became com-
mander, and soon after, as post-captain, Sir
Froward Blighthonor was quite ignorant of
nautical affairs, or of his duty as an officer.
Although he had neither experience or know-
ledge, he was arrogant and presumptuous. By
his obstinacy in persisting that there was deep
water in a most intricate channel among the
Bahamas, he ran his frigate aground, and she was
only got off by landing the guns and most of
the stores. A month afterwards, from stubbornly
contending that the ship close haul would
weather Cape Hatteras, he incurred one of the
most extraordinary risks of shipwreck that ever
madman could have conceived ; and, although
the quickness of the ship in stays, when nearly
amidst the breakers, saved her, an expense equal
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 63
to half the cost of her construction was the con-
sequence of straining the ship under an extraor-
dinary press of canvass during the gale.
Before he was posted to this frigate, he had
conceived an act of wanton madness in the sloop-
of-war, which he then, at the age of not quite
twenty, commanded. His first lieutenant a sea-
man of great experience and often-tried bravery
ventured to remonstrate. The juvenile com-
mander flew into a violent passion, abused his
lieutenant, high words followed, and on their
arrival in the West Indies the lieutenant was
dismissed without pay, from a service in which
he had done faithful duty for eighteen years.
This lieutenant was Armstrong.
Sir Froward having treated Playfair also with
great disrespect, and the latter being convinced
that remaining on board the same ship with so
odious a tyrant, would blast his promotion, wrote
all his friends to exert their several interests to
have him appointed to another ship.
On his arrival at Halifax from Barbadoes, he
found an order to join the flagship of the ad-
miral, commanding at Newfoundland.
64 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
To do so without delay, he embarked in one
of those vessels which are employed as coasters,
and in carrying provisions, and especially cattle,
from Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, to
supply the fisheries and shipping at St. John's.
The skipper was a mere pilot, an Acadian French-
man, who with his three sons navigated the vessel.
They had on board an old Scotch widow, who
accompanied her oxen, mutton, and butter, to sell
them to the most advantage, and some other
passengers also accompanying their several com-
modities to market. Early on the bright calm
morning of the second day, as the tide swept the
schooner out of the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
within St. Paul's Island, and round the northern
promontory of Cape Breton, into the Atlantic, a
low, long, black, three-masted schooner appeared,
like a crocodile in ambush, lying close under
the high frowning coast. In a few minutes she
was in motion, and, in a short time, approaching
the coaster, without sails, and with inconceivable
celerity. Impelled forward by the power of from
thirty to forty sweeps, or extra-long oars, the
privateer, for such she proved, was soon within
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 65
half-gunshot distance, and then fired off a ball
which whizzed past the coaster's bows, and
splashed and rose, and splashed again and
again, over and on the surface of the sea. The
coaster immediately struck, and on approach-
ing within fifty fathoms, the privateer ordered
the skipper to launch his boat and come on
board. This was done, and Playfair accompa-
nied him.
On ascending the enemy's deck, which was
not two feet above the surface of the water,
Playfair was astonished at the length, breadth,
and power of the vessel. In midships was
swung on a swivel that formidable piece of ord-
nance called Long Tom, on the poop were four
carronades, vulgarly called bull-dogs ; and two
short pieces with large caliber were planted at
each bow. The smallarms were muskets, pis-
tols, cutlasses, and boarding-pikes. Playfair
was mistaken for the skipper of the coaster,
and led to the captain of the privateer, who
accosted him in a severe tone, and said he was
determined to punish all those whom he cap-
tured, if they had on board provisions for the
66 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
enemy. On Playfair 's stating that he was
merely a passenger, that the old Acadian who
stood at the gangway was the skipper, and that
the coaster's cargo belonged to farmers and to
a Scotch widow, also a farmer, who were all on
board, the commander of the privateer bade
Playfair follow him to his cabin ; at the same
time directing his first lieutenant to send some
hands on board the prize, and to select for the
use of the privateer two of the fattest oxen, half-
a-dozen sheep, the same number of pigSj a few
tubs of butter, and all the poultry. "Let them,
however, spare, if they can do so, the Scotch
widow's butter and mutton," was included
in the direction.
Playfair followed the "captain to his cabin,
who ordered breakfast, and then addressed
Playfair as follows :
a I am persuaded, sir, that you are, or have
been, an officer in the British navy ; what ship
did you serve last on board of?"
"On board of his Majesty's ship Growler,
Captain Blighthonor."
u I know her ; and I know her captain too
well — blast him ! What made you leave her ?
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 6j
she is a brave frigate, and, if I mistake not, you
are a fearless officer."
" It was not, you may rest assured, the fear,
but it was certainly the insolence of her captain
that made me apply for an appointment to
another ship," replied Play fair.
" Hah ! hah ! hah ! he continues, then, in his
old devilish way, damn him! Yes, cursed be
those who employ such a tyrant. I shall be
avenged, or may Heaven blast me ! Yes, per-
dition seize me ! rather than that he should
escape a terrible retaliation for his accursed
conduct."
" I have as little respect for Captain Blight-
honor as you have," remarked Playfair.
"The heartless fiend, you cannot hate
him with more unforgiving animosity than he
deserves. I am your friend ; my name is
Armstrong. I have been long an officer in the
British navy, served in the same ship that
Captain Blighthonor commanded ; the monster
blasted my prospects by having me most unde-
servedly dismissed the service. From that
moment I have owed a government, wicked
68 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
enough to employ so ungallant an officer and so
perfidious a man, nothing but revenge. You, sir,
may wait long enough for the rank of post-captain
in such an unjust service. Better join the United
States navy, for T certainly shall not allow you
to proceed to Newfoundland.'"
" I know, Captain Armstrong," said Playfair,
" I am quite in your power ; but I cannot, until
I have personally better reason, willingly aban-
don the service of my country. As for you, sir,
I am well acquainted with all the circumstances
of the tyrannical injustice to which you have
been subjected."
" Very well," said Armstrong, ee you shall go
any where you please, except to Newfoundland.
Although I wish you every good fortune, I hate
the enemy with all the malignant vengeance
which the heart of the most injured man can
cherish. I will give you the command of the
prize ; do what you please with her, but give
me your word that you proceed not to the
enemy's squadron at Newfoundland. ,,
„ I readily agree to do so," answered Playfair.
After breakfast both returned upon deck.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 69
A fresh breeze sprung up ; the lieutenant re-
turned from the coaster, and executed the cap-
tain's directions. On the deck of the privateer
were assembled at least eighty men, natives of
many countries ; several were English seamen,
who had deserted from our ships of war and
merchant- vessels ; not a few had served in the
same English sloop-of-war in which Captain
Armstrong last served as lieutenant. Play fair
observed six or seven men eyeing him, and he
immediately recognised them as seamen who
had deserted from the Growler frigate about
six weeks before, at Halifax. As he approached
the gangway, one of them, who had been cox-
swain, came up, the others following, and doffing
his hat, said,
(e I hope we are not making too free, Lieu-
tenant Playfair, for wishing your honour all
manner of good- luck. Your honour was, in all
weathers, the sailor's friend, and on board of
George's Andrew Miller, many a time your
honour saved Jack's back from the cat — not,
your honour, but that George would be true-
blue himself if he hadn't so many lubbers for
70 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
captains ; and not allowing the officers that are
true-blue, to be never no more than middies,
and left-tenants."
Poor fellow ; it was true enough, that Play-
fair often succeeded in saving them from the
lash, when the honourable captain used to
imagine they " looked mutiny, n or, when
otherwise, in his freaks of ill-temper he would
order them to be flogged.
Playfair then bid adieu to the privateer, and
to her generous-hearted, though wrong-headed,
commander. He rejoined the coaster, sailed
back to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, landed at
Pictou, and crossed overland to Halifax.
Peace soon followed, and Playfair was then,
for the first time, shelved on half-pay.
They now met under the extraordinary cir-
cumstances mentioned in the last chapter ; and
after this brief digression, we will proceed with
the sequel of Armstrong's narrative.
" Although," continued he, u on being inno-
cently dismissed the service of my native land,
I, in desperation, and in poverty, entered into
that of an enemy at war with England ; — and,
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. *Jl
although I have ever since entertained the full
spirit of revenge against the scoundrel that
ruined me, and the admiralty who sanctioned
the atrocious injustice — yet, the early principles
of a virtuous education have ever influenced
my conduct.
" Eight months before I left England, I was
married to a lady to whom I was engaged for
some years. Her family lived near London,
and mine only a mile distant. I had known
her from her infancy — our attachment grew up
with us. It was formed almost unknown to
ourselves, from our being so frequently toge-
ther — we knew not why, but we were always
unhappy asunder. The neighbours had long
remarked this; and we were set down as a
match, before we ever thought of saying to each
that we loved.
" She was an only daughter. Her father had
served as a captain in a foot regiment. He was
somewhat quick in his temper, and peculiar in
some of his habits. Her mother was one of
the dignified, calm, excellent English ladies of
the school of that day. She was by all esteemed
72 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
and loved. Her husband adored her, yet he
was cold and interested in his feelings towards
his daughter. On my marriage with Agnes
Trevor, that was my wife's maiden name, her
mother, although she was much attached to me,
was deeply affected, when she thought of the
vicissitudes of my profession.
cc When ordered to join the ship under the
command of Captain Blighthonor, my wife was
far gone in pregnancy — I petitioned for leave
to remain on shore for two months longer — -my
request was disregarded — I would have thrown
up my commission, but my father-in-law said,
if I did so, he would neither see me nor his
daughter while he lived; — that he would not
give, or leave her a shilling. He was a cold-
hearted man — I had little fortune — and nothing
to depend upon for supporting my wife or the
child she would give birth to, except the scanty
pay of my profession. I was accordingly forced
to join my ship; We were ordered to the West
India station; — and I never afterwards saw my
Agnes, nor do I know what has become of my
child — a daughter — to which, a month after my
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 7$
departure, she gave birth. I need not repeat
the story of my being dismissed from the Bri-
tish service. On my return to the United
States from the coast of Cape Breton, I was
maddened into alternate fury and despair. I
had then been four years without hearing from
or of my wife. I learnt, after that lapse, my
character had been most maliciously and de-
signedly traduced. I was termed a coward, a
traitor, a villanous outcast. It was told my
wife, that I had turned pirate — had committed
unexampled atrocities — was captured and gib-
beted. I had placed, in order to be remitted
to Agnes, nearly two thousand pounds in the
hands of an agent in Jamaica, a countryman of
my own; but he also betrayed me, proved
himself a scoundrel ; and, although he lost his
post under government, escaped to the United
States with a large fortune. Had she received
this money, her father would have thought
otherwise of me. About a year after the infa-
mous report of my piracy and execution, a little
red -faced fat man, a banker, and who had also
considerable property invested in a lucrative
VOL. I. E
74 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
manufacturing concern, became acquainted with
the father of my wife, and in a short time pro-
posed marriage to Agnes. She rejected him
with scorn; but finally being convinced, by
those who surrounded her, of my death, and
she becoming careless of existence, yielded to
her father's continually urged wishes, and ac-
cepted the hand, or rather the establishment
of a man she loathed. He proved an unworthy
and unfeeling husband. His riches had long
covered his countless sins, while he intrigued
with the most worthless women as a bachelor.
Now that he was married, he became the sub-
ject of scandal all over the most stupid county
in England. He utterly neglected Agnes, and
I have lately learnt that she died obscurely in
grief and misery, upon a small allowance which
he gave her: the marriage settlement having
been so drawn up by his lawyer, that the chil-
dren alone, should there be any, would derive
•benefit from its provisions.
" It is now twenty-three years since I parted
from Agnes. Her image is still as freshly im-
pressed on my heart, as on the day I bade her,
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. f5
alas ! a final farewell. The intelligence I re-
ceived of her marriage, I have said, drove me
to desperation. I knew it was impossible for
me to appear in England, and I immediately-
accepted the command of the United States
sloop- of- war, which was ordered to protect the
whale-ships in the South Sea. On that station
I remained four years, and soon after returning,
was promoted to the United States frigate, Sea-
serpent, then put in commission, to proceed to
the East Indies.
ei It is only ten months since I have re-
turned. Being nearly worn out in the service,
I am here superintending the outfit of that
seventy-four, now ready to launch. I have
gathered a considerable fortune, and shall, after
my present duty to the naval service, is ful-
filled, endeavour, if my child be living, to re-
cover her.
" It would be unwise for me to ask further
employment of this government; though when
I reflect on the circumstances that have driven
me an outcast from my native country, my
heart's blood still gurgles, with the passion of
E 2
76 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
being revenged on those who have so grievously-
blasted my prospects. It is time, however,
that I should check this passion, and have
charity even towards those who have irrepara-
bly wronged me."
While Captain Armstrong thus spoke, his
eyes, and the general lineaments of his hand-
some, although weatherbeaten countenance,
bore a striking sort of family resemblance to
the beautiful and young Mrs Hawkins, a lady
who was passenger in the ship which carried
Play fair across the Atlantic. He fancied they
might have been related, — but not knowing her
family name, or her history, it was useless, and
it might be very painful to remark the circum-
stance to Armstrong.
After a pause of some minutes, the latter
continued, " I think that, after so long an
absence, I might return to England without
being molested by the British government;
and as a citizen, naturalized fifteen years ago in
the United States, I am told I shall be pro-
tected."
" Certainly," replied Playfair.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 77
* Very well/* said Armstrong, ce I am happy
in thinking so. I shall commence, when the
seventy-four is launched to put my affairs in
order. It will require six or seven weeks to
arrange matters. My term of service in this
yard will be up in four ; I will then go for one
or two months to mend my shattered hull at
Saratoga, return here afterwards to wind up all
my concerns with the navy-board, and then,
whatever be the risk, the father shall go forth
in search of his daughter. I often dream she
is with me, and that she is now the imag eof
what dear, dear Agnes was."
The tears trickled down the furrows of the
brave man's face. Playfair bade him farewell,
saying, " We shall meet again, for I also intend
to be, during the following season, at Sara-
toga."
78 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
CHAPTER VII.
THE SLAVE-CLIPPER.
" She had a curious crew, as well as cargo,
Like that first old privateer, the Argo."
On returning to New York from the naval
yard at Brooklyn, on passing near a long black-
hulled, three-raking-masted schooner, Playfair
remarked, u How admirably that vessel is calcu-
lated for a privateer !'*
" Ah ? in time of war, capital/* replied Cap-
tain Spry, who stood near him on the deck o f
the ferry-boat, ei but," continued he, "that clip-
per was not built for a privateer, Fll warrant
you. No ! no ! not a bit of her.'*
" What then; for a smuggler?'* asked Play-
fair.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 7$
a Yes, she would do famous for that, or for a
pirate ; but if I am not far out of judgment, her
anchors will, before many weeks, grapple with
the African coast," answered Captain Spry.
" That is," said Playfair, " as a, free, not as a
slave trader ."
u Ah ! free trade in Africans, no doubt, *
replied Spry.
"But," said Playfair, "that cannot be al-
lowed ; our treaties for putting down the slave-
trade will not permit that horrible traffic ; at
least, not under the American flag."
tt Treaties and flags ! Oh, sir, mind me ; that
sneaking- at-anchor and swift-under-sail-clipper,
with her long-tom,* and her bow-barkers,
and stern-snarlers, cares plaguy little for trea-
ties ; and as for flags, there are enough of them
besides treaty-flags : they have the Portuguese
and others, plenty of them, I'll warrant you."
" This is, really*" said Playfair, " a new light
on the abominable slave-trade. If vessels are
* The long-torn is a huge piece of artillery, on a swivel in the
centre of the main deck. The others are carronades, pointing
from the bows and stern.
80 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
still fitted out at New York, there is much yet
to do before the cursed traffic is put an end to."
"The slave-trade is far greater now than
ever," observed Spry, gravely.
"Pray, Captain Spry," said Playfair, "what
do you know about it ?"
"Why, sir, four times as many niggers are
now carried from Africa to Brazils alone, than
were taken to all the West Indies and America,
and ten times as many are now drowned as
there were when your Wilberforce used to
battle their cause. "
"This is very extraordinary," said Playfair.
" How do they manage in carrying it on V 9
" Why, sir, clippers are built in one place,
and fitted out in another. It is a very profitable
business, and where there is profit to be made,
there are plenty in America, and other places,
who will find the money to fit out these slave -
vessels ; I should not wonder if that there same
clipper, was more than half-owned and fitted
out by Providence Solomons, and by another
rogue who I'm told has joined him, who goes
bv the name of Doubloon Jack."
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 81
"But," said Playfair, "how do they escape
being taken by our cruisers. "
"Taken by your cruisers !" ejaculated he,
with a stare. "Why sir, your cruisers can't
catcrr'em ! ! ! — and if they could, why the ne-
groes are thrown overboard and drowned. The
slavers then hoist a non-treaty or Portuguese
flag, show false papers, and return for another
cargo of niggers to the coast. The calculation
is that if they drown four cargoes, and land one
at the Brazils, it's what they call a. fair spec."
"Well, do you think it possible to stop this
infernal traffic V 9 asked Playfair.
" Oh yes, but not in the way you English
try? replied the captain.
" How then ?" asked Playfair.
"Why let America, England, and France,
join in sending a half-dozen smart, light-draught
well-armed steamers to the west coast, and east
along the Mozambique to the New Nigger-
trade country, and then hang every man in
every vessel found slave-trading there, and
let there be steamers also scouring the coast
of Brazils, and let them seize all vessels hav-
e 3
82 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
ing or landing slaves, and hang the crews.
Hanging, sir, is the only way to clear up
the trade. True you might save one or
two to turn evidence, and then you would
be sure to hang Providence Solomons, and
Doubloon Jack. Yes, and many more huma-
nity-talking rogues, with lots of meeting-house
goers, to boot."
" This is indeed a melancholy, but at the
same time a powerful alternative," said Playfair.
* There is no other remedy, sir. No ! no-
thing but hanging them without judge or jury,
the moment the slavers are caught. Give me/'
continued Spry, "six well-armed steam-boats,
and the power to hang without mercy the
pirates, for they are worse than pirates, and I
will be bound to America, and England, and
France, to be hanged myself, if I don't hang
the pirates, and stop the trade."*
* If the humanity of putting an end to the slave-trade were
entirely out of the question, the state of labour, in the British
and French West Indies, * where the disabled old, and the
very young as well as the sick, are to be in some way main"
tained,' cannot compete in producing sugar, with the labour of
strong, young, adult slaves, imported into Cuba and the
Brazils.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL, CREATION. 83
CHAPTER VIII.
NEW YORK QUALITY, OR YANKEE ARISTO-
CRACY.
" Doubtless the things themselves are rich and rare,
The wonder's how the devil they got there."
Playfair left the drawing-room on the even-
ing which followed the duel, on being called
upon by Mr. Palver, a personage of great
wealth, to whom Playfair had a letter of intro-
duction. Mr. Palver was really at heart a very
worthy man.
" My wife," said Mr. Palver.
Mr. Playfair, although he was a bachelor
merely because he never could afford to marry,
84 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
liked the word wife far better than lady, who
might be wife, mistress, or what not.
6( My wife," resumed Mr. Palver, " and my
daughters are to have a dinner-party and dance
to-morrow evening, and I have called now to
invite you, and as I am on my way home you
will perhaps walk with me, that I may intro-
duce you to my family."
This was a very sensible commencement ;
and Playfair walked home with Mr. Palver.
He found Mrs. Palver and her very beautiful
daughters a little formal at first ; but in a short
time easy and pleasing in their manners. This
is generally the case in American families, ex-
cept on occasions of display, which in New
York, it need scarcely be observed, are on a
most sumptuous scale.
Playfair remained long enough on his first
visit to feel as if quite domesticated in Mr.
Palver's family. Next day, at the appointed
dinner-hour, he repaired again to the mansion
of this worthy family. Mrs. Palver received
him not on the footing on which they parted
the preceding evening; but with a somewhat
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 85
embarrassed reserve, the effect not of the
feelings of the heart, but of habit in established
ideas of receiving company; a measured for-
mality in words and manner, which has been
considered decorous demeanour ; by no means,
as strangers have too often asserted, a feeling
of constitutional innate coldness.
The present occasion was, he soon discovered,
intended as one of display ; and it is not to be
wondered that, in America, as elsewhere, the
attempt at display, by those who do not under-
stand it, smothers their usual good sense.
The daughters were blooming in all the
transparent beauty of that divine loveliness of
face, and classic symmetry and elasticity of
form, of which the northern states may so
fairly be proud : but which parents and hus-
bands have so frequently to deplore, as forming
a predisposition to early decline, and a brief
exit from the present stage of love, affection,
and paternity, to a world mysterious and
unknown.
Mrs. Palver was seated, as Play fair entered,
on a capacious crimson and gold damask- covered
86 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
and gilded canape; the drawing-room was,
with the exception of an excess of French
ornaments, much like the most splendid Lon-
don ones, situated on the first floor, of a harp-
sichord form, with two polished steel English
fireplaces, in which Nova Scotian coals were
brightly burning. The ample, well-stuffed
arm-chairs, fauteuils, bergers, and sofas, covered
with rich crimson-and-gold coloured Beauvais
tapestry ; the full, flowing window-curtains, of
the same materials; the magnificent French
mirrors, ormolu pendules and chimney orna-
ments ; the statues, imported from Italy, of the
Graces, of Venus, of little Cupid, and of the
adoring child Samuel, disposed appropriately
for the bright light of superb chandeliers, gor-
geously suspended from the ceiling, to exhibit
in grand relief the masterly beauties of the
Roman artists. The loo-table, with no cards
on it ; the round table, profusely covered with
green, scarlet, and gold albums and annuals;
the whist-tables, on which lay only books ; the
glass cases, in some of which, mosaically ar-
ranged, were specimens of all the vivid con-
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 87
chology of the Bahamas ; in others, stuffed and
perched on tiny boughs, or squatting on velvet
moss, were many of the brilliant varieties of
humming and other birds, natural to the sylvan
wilds of the west. All these objects of luxury
adorned and furnished an apartment far too
gorgeous to be comfortable ; far more adapted
for exhibition than use, especially when the
tapestry of canapes and fauteuils shone forth,
as on the present occasion, in full flowery bril-
liancy ; and certainly far more adapted to look
at, than for some greasy-pantalooned owner of
a South Sea whale-ship to sit upon.
Near to, and facing Mrs. Palver, sat, on one
of the splendid fauteuils, Squire Jonah Sper-
macetti, who, from his name and relationship to
the monsters of the deep, might have been
written down as lineally akin to the famed
Jonah of holy writ.
Our modern Jonah was, however, more a
man of dollars than a man of God. His father,
who had lately died, left him owner of two
South Sea whale- ships, large enough to carry
within their bellies ten such ships as went down
88 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
in days of yore from Joppa to Tarsus, and the
great fish that swallowed the first of the name
to boot. Jonah, the spermacetti one we mean,
had, however, all along an eye, not to being
sheltered under a gourd, but to the right side
of the profit and loss account. He made one
voyage to the South Seas, to be enabled to
check the expenses of future voyages; and
another to Liverpool and to Havre to be equally
intelligent (cute he called it) in regard to the
honesty of agents to whom he consigned, or
should consign, cargoes of sperm, train-oil, and
whalebone.
"That is Squire Spermacetti, of Salem, or,
as we call him, 'Squire Spejm of Selmf for
shortness ; and which is also better, as we do
not like how he came by the long name,"* said
Mrs. Palver, when about to introduce Playfair
to him. " He is mighty lucky," she continued,
* This alluded to a scandalous report that Squire Sperma-
ceti's father was the son of his grandfather's housekeeper,
who had been nicknamed Nancy Spermacetti ; and that that
name was given to the son from being a natural child,
instead of that of the father, whose real name was Seth
Stepsure.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 89
" and worth, my brother Mahaleel calculates,
more as three hundred thousand dollars. In
fetch, I may tell you, he has to-day proposed to
me, not to them, for either of my darters ; that
is, for whichever will first have him."
"From Yeould Heeng-land slick, I guess,
squire ?" twanged forth the man of sperm-oil
and whale-gills, making an angular bow, and
scraping back a yard of the hearth-rug with his
right foot at the same time.
" Glad to see you, squire Playfair, in this
here New Yeork ; left Leeverpool per last
liner* And I calculate what are last kotations
in Gore's, t for finbone and sperm? tarnation
heavy, I guess ! ven dem der Tobins, and oders
in dee Hafrican trade, brings into such terrible
kompeeteeshun parm-hoil and hoyvroy"
" I really must confess to you, sir, my utter
ignorance of this, no doubt, very useful know-
ledge," replied Playfair ; iC and, meantime, I
prefer presenting my self to the charming Misses
Palver."
* One of the ships of the so-termed line of packets, called
like the squire, liner, for shortness, we presume.
t A very useful mercantile paper published at Liverpool.
90 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
" Smart lasses, smart lasses, squire. I guess
such a hignoramus as you be, shall never have
a spec vi dem er smart gals" concluded
Jonah.
Playfair stepped forward and presented him-
self to the young ladies.
" What an odd fish that Jonah is !" said Miss
Jemima.
"Yes, and odd enough, if you should marry
him," observed Miss Clara.
" I should rather be condemned to, I don't
know what," replied Miss Jemima.
"To be gobbled up like his namesake, I
guess," exclaimed Clara.
" A thousand times over," echoed Jemima.
"But there comes Mr. and Mrs. Fenelon
Philog, and Miss Calypso and Miss Eucharis
Prolog."
"Who," exclaimed Playfair, "are the Phi-
logs, who have such classical names V*
"Oh! Mr. Fenelon Philog," replied Miss
Jemima, "is a most smart classical man, a
great traveller, and speaks all languages."
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 91
" Greek, German, and Gaelic, no doubt,"
said Playfair.
" Oh ! yes," answered Clara.
"Then, no doubt, he also understands Phry-
gian, Phoenician, and French ?"
" Oh ! yes, and Spanish too,*" said Jemima.
" And Servian, and Slavonian, Swedish, and
Syrian ?"
"Yes/' said Clara.
u Italian and Indostanee, Hebrew and Hun-
garian V
u All, — all !" exclaimed Jemima.
u He learnt them all at Hoch-Schule, he calls
the place ; 'tis a great city in Germany," said
Clara.
" Yes, and he has them all in his library \"
said Jemima.
" Oh ! 'tis such a library !" exclaimed Clara.
"*Tis as large as the Bibliothtque du Roi in
Paris/' said Jemima.
96 Yes, and all the books are quite new," said
Clara.
u Oh ! yes to be sure they are ; — Mr. Philog
92 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
has too much gout to have old things in his
library," observed Jemima, knowingly.
" Miss Eucharis Philog says 'tis quite select,"
said Miss Clara.
"'Tis indeed select," echoed Miss Jemima,
" and yet do you know that that vulgar fellow,
young Nathan, whom we never admit, is so
vain as to go about telling, that Mr. Philog's
library is his pet- lounge"
" I am sure he never could be admitted there,
it is too select ; and I will certainly ask Miss
Calypso," remarked Miss Clara.
" Really," observed Playfair, " your friends
the Philogs must, like their library, be a very
select family."
"Oh! the Philogs," replied Miss Jemima,
(t are very first quality, I assure you, sir —really
— are the very first quality, sir."
" Oh, indeed ? I am very happy to meet so
many of your very first quality," remarked
Playfair.
The Philogs were accordingly introduced.
They had arrived only a week before from
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION 93
France — full of French intelligence and airs ;
and Mrs. Philog pulled out of a glittering Pari-
sian reticule, a despatch from Mrs. Swamp, an
American lady at Paris, to Mrs. Palver ; but of
which despatch we will say nothing until after
dinner.
94 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
CHAPTER IX.
THE DINNER AT QUALITY HOUSE.
" The table was a board to tempt ev'n ghosts
To pass the Styx for more substantial feasts ;
I will not dwell upon ragouts or roasts,
Albeit all human history attests,
That happiness for man — the hungry sinner —
Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner."
Dinner being announced by a mulatto ser-
vant, in a blue coat and white waistcoat, and the
ceremonies of who were to lead or support the
ladies to and at table, being agreed upon, Mrs.
Palver was consigned to Mr. Philog, — Mrs #
Philog to Mr. Palver, — and, that not two of
a family should be linked in the same arms,
Miss Jemima Palver, and Miss Eucharis
Philog were adjudged to Squire Spermacetti,
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 95
who, following the married leaders, descended
to the dining-parlour, with his brace of beauties,
swingingly, in spread-eagle fashion : Playfair
brought up the rear with Miss Clara and Miss
Calypso.
The dining-room was really like a good old
English dining- parlour. A coal-grate fireplace
was well adapted for heating the room and
warming plates. The wall was adorned with
old-fashioned paper, some paintings and prints
in curiously- carved gilt frames, and some
French engravings ; among which, very pro-
perly in juxtaposition, in place, but anti-expres-
sive in character, were, that of the solemn
declaration of American independence in the
old Continental Hall, Philadelphia, and that
of the theatrical flourish of the Jeu des Paumes
in the tennis-court of Versailles.* Along the
* The editor, who knew Lafayette well, was one day looking
at copies of the said paintings, in one of the General's saloons,
Rue d'Anjou, Saint Honored, Paris, when the latter observed
expressively, in English, " Ah ! you are looking at the most
faithful illustrations, although not probably intended as such,
of the then French and American character. In one — thea-
trical effect, and the mere effervescence of ideal liberty. In the
other — decision, and resolute force of true independence.
96 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
wall opposite the fire stood a mahogany side-
board, loaded with flint glass, goblets, and
glasses, and decanters filled with choice wines,
with a liquor-stand of bottles containing rum,
brandy, whiskey, and mint-julep. The room
was lighted by candelabra on the chimney-
piece, and wax-lights on the table and sideboard.
The table itself was laid out for ten persons,
covered and arranged in the usual good old
English way. A quart decanter full of sherry
on one side of the landlord, and one of Madeira
on that of the landlady.
e; Oh ma chere Mrs. Palver," exclaimed
Mrs. Philog, " how very comfortable your
sally manger be,— but, ho ! la ! quite passy, I
assure yees ; one would think by this here
sally manger that this here state of York was
only yet an ould wolgar English province."
" I am sorry we have not one more agreeable
to your taste," replied Mrs. Palver, as they sat
down to a repast which Old Curtis himself
would not have retreated from. Turtle-soup
and punch, both of which would make not the
heart, but the palate, of a Flower, or a Key, or
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 9j
of any other Don- Key rejoice, was served up hot
in a tureen, also in good old English fashion.
Mrs. Philog, however, interposed, and said,
u Ho ! ma chere Mrs. Palver, that there be now
quite wolgar, I purtest ! Do make Coriolanus
take away that there great beedett-XooYmg thing,
and serve soup as they do's in the Roo Revoly,
without your knowing where it comes from I?
This was agreed to, and Coriolanus, the
mulatto servant, was directed to convey the
tureen out of the room, and to bring in the
soup to each respectively,* in plates.
" Tarnation seize me," exclaimed Squire
Sperm of Selm, "if ever I seed such a con-
trivance for cooling turtle ! Why, ven we
have dee stirabout sent up lightning-hot from
the Camboos, we keep blowing at it hintil 'tis
spoonable."
"Oh! oh! Squire Sperm, you know that
quality must be ruled by fashion," observed
Mrs. Philog.
" I never like them there new fashions which
makes the quality of stirabout unspoonable,
* Query, Respectfully.— P. D.
VOL. I. P
98 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
which I guess it will be by sending it to cool
in that ere passage," replied Sperm, and then
shut his mouth until the turtle reappeared
plate by plate to each guest.
Cold enough it certainly had become, and
Jonah implored Mrs. Palver to have the tureen
sent for, replenished with some that was
quite hot, and which Mr. Palver commanded
Coriolanus to do; so that Playfair, and Mr.
Sperm, and Mr. Palver enjoyed a really de-
licious plate of turtle. The ladies declined
being so vulgar in presence of Mrs. Philog.
A magnificent boiled salmon, smoking hot,
stretched at full length on a long oval dish,
accompanied by lobster sauce, was laid before
Mrs. Palver, to carve and serve; a splendid
whole cod, with oyster sauce, was placed in like
manner, for the like purpose, before Mr. Pal-
ver. Both lord and lady were about com-
mencing to carve, and help their guests from
thick or thin, of those delicious fishes : but this
was too much for Mrs. Philog, who exclaimed,
* I purtest, it really makes me nerwoos — I
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 99
shall have my highstreaks* again, if I see
butchery at table. The French be so tender
that they will not never represent in the spectacle
cruelty to hanimals nor to humans ; so do pray
send them there whale fishes to Coriolanus to
carve, and sarve round in fashion, as they do
in Roo Revoly, — and do not say please have
salmon, or member fish ,f but say — Cottolett de
samoy Cottolett de moroo, as they say in Roo
Revoly. ,,
Mrs. Palver who was now gathering back
some of her usual good sense, replied, a Dear
Mrs. Philog, Coriolanus would spoil all fashion,
he has never had liberty to carve in all his born
days ; but the next time you honour us with
your dinner-company, I hope to learn better,
and have deeny reseshy tout ally frenzy, I think
you call it."
cc Madam Philog/' said Mr. Philog, " you are
so much obliged to Madam Palver for her pro-
mise, that I beg leave to submit to your bong
goo, to let dinner progress a lang lee"%
• Query, Histericks.— P.D. t Query, Cod-fish.— P.D.
$ Query, h l'Anglais. — P.D.
F 2
100
BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
Dinner went accordingly on, much to Mr.
Spernr's satisfaction, on Madam Philog consent-
ing that the "whales/' as she designated the
boiled salmon and cod, might be gillyteened on
the table.
" I shall be honoured in drinking wine with
Madam Philog, " said Mr. Palver.
" Pardonny-moa — I purtest you shall not,
as I would be having highstreaks, — no, no,
mercy biang, I shall help myself to wine as they
do in Roo Revoly."
The salmon and cod were removed, and in
came a huge roast sirloin of beef, and a boiled
leg of mutton with turnips.
ci Oh, I am shocked ! cruelty to hanimals
agin ! all New York, is still tear savage,* — but
I've made up my mind to hinder deuce fashion
and civilization, from Roo Revoly," exclaimed
Mrs. Philog.
" I partition you, marm, never to nullify the
roast beef and fat mutton 'til vee've dinnered
off 'em," murmured Mr. Sperm.
* Query, Terre sauvage.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 101
ce I do calculate we had better forego modern
fashion and civility, until we return to the
drawing- room, and meet our evening party/'
observed Mr. Palver.
" That's wolgar words/' replied Mrs. Philog,
quickly ; u you never hears em in Roo Revoly.
There's where they hinderstands purlitess, and
always says sallo, and not never heavening party,
but swer-ree; wen they quad-reel, they say
siuer-ree-dan-sand ; they never says quality in
Roo Revoly, but bo-mond, I be, mo-sew Palver,
made hup to hinderdeuce all them there term
de purlitess, wee-wee! je-swee! Yes, I guess
I be made hup Madam Palver, and barter I am
dummy sealedf I never will speak any of that
there wolgar English, for I be but made up to
say nothing but in lang de purlitess"
Meantime the party were helped to beef
and mutton; plum-pudding, cranberry tarts,
and custards followed. The dessert and wines
were excellent. On the ladies rising to go
away, Mrs. Philog said, ee I hopes you will not
* Query, Domiciled, or sealed dumb. — P.D.
102 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
sit again arter wee, moseers ;" but, as even her
own spouse seemed not disposed to budge,
the others did sit for a full hour enjoying
wine and nuts, and conversing on various topics,
about England, France, and America, before
mounting to the drawing-room.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 103
CHAPTER X-
THE SOIREE.
"It is 'strange," writes Bevoriskius, in his commentary
upon the generations from Adam, " but the facts are certain,
for I have had the curiosity to write them down with my
own pen."
On the gentlemen returning to the drawing-
room which was very brilliantly illuminated,
they found congregated a numerous party of
both sexes.
u Mo-seer Play 'fair /' said Mrs. Philog, * Je
pree loh-nor for to hinderdeuce mo fees, Moseer
Telemak Philog, he parleys Frenzy a mar-vile.'*
"I have no doubt of it, madam," replied
Playfair, bowing gravely; "all who make the
grand voyage, and the grand tour, return, not
104 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
only with the accomplishment of speaking but
thinking frenzy"
Mrs. Philog made the best polite French
bend taught her at the Rue Rivoli ; courtesying
being long since set down as the obeissance
d'une Paysanne. Telemachus, after spluttering
a few broken phrases of vile French, joined
several tall delicate lads, who seemed to have shot
up like so many heads of asparagus : they w T ere
paying their best homage and uttering the most
select smart sayings in admiration of the a la
Rue Rivoli accomplished, and the just returned
from France, Mamselles Calypso and Eucharis.
a Do, Miss Calypso, sing the last new French
music on the pyehanor" " Oh ! do too, Miss
Eucharis/ 5 prayed half a dozen of the aforesaid
white and green sprouts.
ts I am sure the Miss Philogs will delight
us," said the Misses Palver.
" They will charm us a la frenzy, no doubt/'
Playfair ventured to add ; " and Monsieur Tele-
maque, who has undoubtedly practised under
Lablache will also delight us with a proof of
his vocal powers a la frenzy."
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 105
" I never/' exclaimed Mrs. Philog, " hallowed
mo-fees to practise singing, it was a wolgarity
at Roo Revolt/, and mey-jilles have given hup
the pye-hanor, as hit was also a wolgarity at
Roo Revolt/. Their musicianer made huse only
of the harp, — to hallow, he said, the classick
forms of Calypso and Eucharist to look like
tablo-wee-wants"
" I regret we have no harp in the house,"
said Mrs. Palver.
" We could get a harp quite slick from Cyprian
Capriani's Musical Bazaar," said in one voice
a dozen of youthful admirers.
" I think it is rather too late," said the more
sedate Mrs. Palver, ll and I hope for this
occasion the piano, on which my daughters and
the Misses Froggs are tolerable proficients,
with albums, and books, and conversation,
and some quadrilles, will enable us to pass
the evening without much weariness; besides
as I cannot make out the French in the
despatch from my Parisian friend, and as it
may amuse us all, perhaps you will allow Mr.
Telemachus to read it aloud for our amusement."
P 3
106 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
" Ho, certainmang," replied Mrs. Philog,
uickly, "mo-fees reads frenzy a la mar-vile"
The despatch was accordingly handed to
Telemachus, who read as follows :
"Ma chere Madam Palver, we have spent
such a most smart happy winter in Paris, — and
I now proceeds to tacts* my souvenirs, to give
you an ^interesting history of the fetes, and
swer-rees and balls, and every other kind and
manner of delights and circumstances.
tc This will be handed you by the Philogs —
they have been such wonderful travellers, and
Mr. Philog is so great a class-seeker that he
kissed the Pope's toe at Rome, and I do not
know what else of all the English and French,
and German grand sign-oars.
"At Weena he dined with Metternitch, and
he says as Metternitch is such a terrible smart,
and polite, and liberal polite treachrean, and
*cute feel-oss- offer.
" At Munitch, Mr. Philog did two wonderful
thinks ;f — first, he wrote a German tragedy, all
* Query, Tax.— P.D. f Query, Things.— P.D.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 107
about a castle, ghosts, and a murder, in company
with the King of Munitch, who is a poet, and
for that reason they say mad. Agin he settled
with Metternitdi s humbassador a Munitch,
how to arrete the Italian kolera.
"Here in Paris, the Philogs have been the
very first bo-mond. They had all, O pree*
meer, next numero to Mu-reeces, and quite
out-shined the Duck and Dutchess of Smother-
land, who had all the premeer at Mu-reece's.
* In fact we bo-mond Nighted States citizens*
out and out-shined all the British stock-ratcy.
Jinral Hedge, he is called jinral here, and is
here now, our greatest Merican stock-rat: —
gives such grand routes ! but we never hints
that in Nighted States ; he was never in our
army, and only a middle shipman in the navy,
as we all knows. The jinral, I means Hedge,
not Hickory, \ has quite a shatter^ of a hotel in
the Fox-burg San German, 'tis so Rokoko, and
so destingy, and so quite a-la-lux, in all the
sallos and mew-bells,^ as to outshine all the
• Query, United States — P.D. t Chateau.— P.D.
f Jackson.— Ed. i § Meubles. — P.D.
108 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
shatters of hotels in Paris. The jinral has fifty
helps, all in dashy gold and red, and blue and
wight regiment-tails. The helps here are called
dum-my sties and walee dee plass, and fam de
shamber,
"The jinral has also lou'd a grand Dam
Frenzy.* And it's this Madame La Markeys
makes all the hinwitashuns, which does away
with all danger of hinwiting any but the bo-
mond, and secures all the hair-stock-rats.
" Last Wc&, at the jineraVs grand ball and
soupy,-\ all the horange-tvees that grows 7*m
^o*es in Parry, was hired to perfumerate and
hoderiferate the s«//os, and all the 60-tea J and
stockratcy of Parry was at the 6a/ and soopy.
"I sent you Galley-Gananey's§ newspepper,
which gives a most brilleyant jography of this
fore grand route of the jineraVs, and gives the
names of all the hair-stock-rats that were there.
You will see amongst 'em — first, your hum-
bell sarvant Madame Swamp, and ma-fille
* Query, Dame Franfaise.— $ Beaute.— P.D.
P.D. § Query, Galignani's.— P.D.
t Query, Soupe.— P.D.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 109
the beeuty-fool Mamsell Angioletta Swamp, —
second, the Duck and Dutchess of Smother-
land,* and the Duck andDutchess de Brawley,f
the Humbassadur and Humbassadress of Dan-
gletear, and ten thousand more. The Nighted
States Humbassadur, that's Jineral Mee-shee-
gan, wouldn't go, — he said Jineral Hedge was
too hairy -stock-radical.
€t Now after the jineral, — mind I don't mean
Hickory, nor Mee-shee-gan, but Hedge, — I must
send you smart news about the Toolereys, and
Luy Feelup, and the Quin, Madame Addle-
head,% and Klimenteen, and Maree, and the
Ducks of Horlines, and Ney-moor, and Gin-vile,
and Mopanseer ; but my despatch won't leave
more room for our other Nighted States hair-
stock-rats, than for to say, that the Royalbe the
most universal ami-belle family in all Kristen-
tom,\ and \ purtiklar purlite to Nighted States
city-sense, for all that old fellow Hickory has
been sayin in his wulgar Tinny-see\\ message
to Kongresse.%
* Sutherland.— P. D. $ Christendom.— P.D.
t De Broglie.— P.D. j| Tennessee.— P.D.
t Adelaide.— P.D. f Congress.— P.D.
1 10 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
" At the grand recepshun wen the Karnywall
began'd, I was hintroduced to the Quin. I was
in a sharmant destingy dress of red and white
striped satan silk, with silver stars on blew
ground, just like glorious Nighted States flag. I
looked so sharmant and man-knee-jick ; and the
Quin say'd she was, c hyang haze de me voir, 9 and
I said, e Shespear voter maskestea port by-angj
and I then bended, and then went on. The
ball and soopy at the Toolerys was terribly
smart, but too long for my despatch, so I will
send you one again about it.
*■ Now come the Jelowsees, I don't mean the
vindo-blhids, but the Nighted States Jelowsees.
" The first Jelowsee was Madame Fountain's.
I do'sint kondesend to know her, — cas, oh-dit
shees daarter of Gabriel Girt, the saddeler,
wot leeves near Bostown, but now shees
marred* auld Fountain, who is so gosh,f and so
rich, shee takes sich airs on hir, and pukers her
wolgar mouth so, that 111 be tarred, feathered,
and carded if I dosen't send you a kuriosity ;
* Married.— P.D. t Gauche.— P.D.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. Ill
and so here go's you, old Girt's darter's two
last cards"
The cards, beautifully embossed and gilt,
were enclosed in the letter, and now handed
round the room. On one, flourishingly en-
graved, were the following :
* ■ Madame Fountain will be at home
on Monday 29th Deer., Thursday
29th January, and on Wednesday
28th February.
" Paris, Placode la Fontaine,
29th Nov., 183—."
On the other the same announcement in
French. The despatch then went on as fol-
lows :
" Then she had the haut-dossity to send hin-
wites to two balls-kostumy.
" To the first most all the hinwited went, —
but wat do you think, she turned from her salo,
the most respectablest that was haxed, the deer
good Wealths of Karolina, Aas the deer old
folks were not kostumeyed. I should not won-
der if this woad in the end make ould Fountain
a bankrip. He never had sich a friend as the
112 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
Wealths ; and from my heart I pray the Foun-
tains were bank-rips, if it was only to humyliate
ould Gabriel Girt's darter.
u But Pm goin' to stonehush* your wick-minds.
For the second hinwitation to Madame Foun-
tain's bal-kostumy, we contrived to get the list
of hinwitations, — so we man-hatched to send
this here following billy-doo to every universal
hynwited person.
" e Madame and Mo- seer Fountain
regrate that they are deprived of the
honer and pleasure of seeing their
friends on Monday 28th February, in
consequence of Madame Fountain's
premature akoushment. 9
" So we kontrywed to keep ould Fountain and
his flirt of a wife up half the night, waiting for
a grand terribly smart party kostumey, for com-
pany, who never Jcommed, but who all sent next
day to enquire how Madame Fountain was
arter her akoushment,
" I can say no more at prisint bout our jea-
* Query, Astonish.— P.D.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 113
lousees mong Nighted States folks, than that
Tipperty Selfage, who they says was only a
commissioner for buying lion's silks to send to
New York, gives grand routes ; most as grand
as Jineral Hedge's. They says, that's the
Fountain says, if Tipperty goes on so, he'd be
a Bank-rip; and Tipperty says, that if the
Fountains go's on so, with their Ball kostumey's
they'll be Bank-rips, and have to go to Passy.*
And Madam Fountain goes about agin every
where and talks jealowsee about Jineral Hedges,
and says the Due k and Duchess of Smotherland,
and the Great British and French Stock-rats,
only went to laugh at the Hedges haudosity
and wulgaritu. I thinks there's something of
truth in this jeloowsee, for the Frinch and
Hinglish Stock-rats, never asks the Hedges
back.
" So my despatch is feeld up, and never no
more ztprisint from your loving cousine,
"Thalia Laura Constantia Eve Swamp.
* Query. — To live at Passy, which is often the retirement
of those who have overlived their incomes at Paris ; or, passS
gone-by. — Editor.
114 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
* Parry Roo Revoly,
"Numero 32, Ossgond.
ee jist looking over the Too-lereys.
U P.S. I had nerely forgot that there his a
great scandal flying about Madam Ditch and a
Count Fako-llosh,* a French nobleman, but I
think *tis all ajelowsee from the Fountains."
So ended Mrs. Swamp's despatch, and never
was sermon of itinerant preacher, in woody
wild, more attentively listened to.
On turning round who should Playfair see
near him, but the celebrated Dr. Profundus,
* What ridiculous follies those citizens, who
make a rapid fortune in America, commit on
visiting Europe !" said he. cc Happily they form
only a portion of the ostentatious, in our com-
mercial towns, and none of the real social
stamina of the United States, — that is, our
agricultural population."
" How ridiculous/' continued he, " has that
woman, Mrs. Philog, become, in consequence
of her visit to Europe 1 I recollect her, a very
discreet, modest girl, when her father, a thrifty
* Query, Fou que de la Roche.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 115
man, kept a profitable grocery store. He left
on his death, to the Philogs, the wealth which
has turned their heads.
" What a crazed fool that Mrs. Swamp now
in Paris, must have become as her ' despatch,'
which she terms the illiterate scrawl just read,
proves.
"I also recollect her a pretty, timid, and
virtuous maiden. She has married a man, they
say, worth more than a hundred thousand dol-
lars. That wealth has also sent them travelling,
and has certainly fermented the weak woman's
brains/'
116 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
CHAPTER XI.
JONATHAN AND JOHN BULl/s BOUNDARY.
° 'Tis strange that such difference should be,
'Twixt tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee."
The arrival of a new guest always excited
curiosity at Liberty Hall ; a traveller had just
entered, who, whether good or bad, seemed to
Playfair one in whom there was something
worth the knowing.
He was clad in the homespun cloth of
the country, and he stalked into Liberty Hall,
with a large fur cap on his head, and huge gray
woollen stockings drawn over his boots and over
his trousers, up to the middle of his thighs.
He was a Down-Easter, and a genuine Yankee
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 117
politician. General Jackson; the misunder-
standing with France ; the Bank ; the Boundary
question ; the Indian war in Florida ; the
seizure of Texas ; and the (to be prepared)
message of the President to the approaching
congress, afforded ample materials for specula-
tion.
On being established in one of the dormi-
tories described in a former chapter, and dining
afterwards at the table d'hote, he made his ap-
pearance in the drawing-room. He was a man
to whom silence was as great a punishment as
solitary confinement and no work in one of the
penitentiaries. After some desultory talk his
eye caught the look of Playfair, to whom he
advanced, by saying,
a Veil, square, it ain't no use not to tell you
who I be."
" I shall be very happy to know/' said Play-
fair.
" Well, I guess ; I ain't no-committal man,*
* The non-committal men, are remarkably numerous in the
United States ; they are those who do not commit themselves,
by giving frank opinions for or against any party, or any par«
118 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
I be's Christopher Columbus purity, of Purity-
ville, justice of peace, Kernal of Purity ville
meleeshar, and keeper of Loco-foco tavern ;
goin' slick to Washington to smash down the
boundary question. Now, square, that Fm
arter kapeetulatin all my tytells, name and pro-
fesshuns, I calculates fur ceevil explanifications
and hopinions, on all politicks, as yir an ould
Englander, I guess ?*
" Yes, colonel," replied Playfair, " I am
from old England, and feel very desirous to
know whatever relates to the politics of the
United States."
u Why, square, that be a creation lot of
stuff, and would take a tarnation spell to tell.'
u But, colonel" said Playfair, evading the
boundary question ; " how are you likely to
arrange the misunderstanding with France ?"
a Why, square, I guess 'tis considerably more
than a misunderstanding ! Vee, United States
citizens, hunderstands it, I guess, as clear as
the hoshun at Sandyhook. Now, square, to
ticular denomination of religion ; but who in all those matters,
usually follow the crowd.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 119
explainify. — Suppose all my pigs at Purityville,
what goes to fatten on beech-nuts, in Beech-
wood-common,* were all to be snapped up on
the way by Major Jehosaphat GraspalPs helps,
jist kaze Major Graspall, who be'es the only
citizen but me that keeps pigs and tavern in
Purityville, had a notion that no pigs but his'n
had a right to fatten in Beechwood-common ;
and jist kaze I didn't square politicks wid him :
and 'spose Major Graspali's helps crucified
and salted and barrelled my pigs, and sold 'em
to Gineral Feed, who buys all the pork for
pervishuning the South Hoshun JVantuckersrf
an' that Major Graspall pit all the dollars
he got into his'n own count at the Purityville
bank ; would not United States Supreme Court,
then put all to rights again — quite slick, I
guess ! and give judgment, — that Major Gras-
pall snapped up all Kernel Purity's pigs, going
to the common, which is free to all the universal
creation, jist as if they com'd with never no
* Common, in America, or lands attached for common pur-
poses to a town, is often covered with the original forest,
t South Sea whale-fishing ships.
120 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
leafe to smash up Major Graspall's 'nown
beech-nuts, and consikintly, Major Graspall
must shill out back all the dollars and hinterest
and damages to Kernel Purity, and keep nu-
thitig but a whole creation full of disgrace for
his 'known self, and for all his helps. Now,
square, I calculates that Bony party was jist sich
an other tarnal pirate as Major Graspall, and
that the United States citizen's ships sailing
over the universal hoshun were considerably
pretty much like my pigs going to Beechwood-
common, and that Bony's helps, were pretty
much like Major GraspalFs helps, considerable
villing for a creation lot of bad jobs."
" Your comparisons are strong and striking,
colonel."
u Vy, square, I am considerably *termined to
make im a tarnel sight more strong and
striking, fur as soon as I shakes paws wid the
c Ould Hero,* venn I gets to the vite house,
I intends to tell the ould hero to pit a volcano?
* General Jackson, for whom ' ' Ould Hero," and "Gine-
ral," are the usual terms. Every greasy or bony hand who
likes, grasps the president's, at his residence, the White
House, Washington.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 121
hinto his message, that will blow up hall
France, if the parley-voos don't shill out slick
the carry-haiidy-seed* hinterest and hall, 'cept
the tarnel disgrace, which all creation vill leafe
wid the mounseers, for a heverlasting memorial
of tryin to chuck over the United States."
" But do you think, colonel, that the presi-
dent's message will, by any threats in it against
France, make that nation pay the money which
all the world believes is due to the United
States. 5 '
" Vy, square, I calculates so : for I hintends
that the volcanor, that the e ould hero 5 is to be
arter pitting into his message vill be /*all but a
declaration of war !"
" You don't actually wish to go to war then*
colonel !"
" Vy, not hex-ackly, square — cauze it might
help the nullifyers in nullifying the whole
United States Union."
■ " War would not then be popular," observed
Playfair."
" In Massachusetts and New York, and
* Coriander seed, a Yankee term for money.
VOL. I. G
122 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
Pencill-fanny, and away heast in Main," replied
Purity, * 'tisn't not at hall poplar to go to rail
war : 'tis never only poplar, to speechify
about war at taverns, elections, and meleeshu-
ring meetings, venn the youngsters and pa-
triots have had lashuns of switchel and cal-
libogus:* then war and privateering is tar-
nashun poplar."
" But, colonel," resumed Playfair, Cf if France
should declare war against the United States,
what would be the consequence V 9
" Vy, square, our mileeshar wid konker
France, and the United States navy wid take
all the parley-voo's navy and traders hinto
Maine, and hinto Boston and New York, as
prizes — ? 9
" That, colonel, would be popular," observed
Playfair.
" Oh ! I guess so ! 'twould be creation
poplar over all the universal States."
" But, colonel, suppose the French fleets ar-
rived in the Southern States, landed their troops
* Callibogus, a mixed drink, consisting of rum, molasses,
and spruce beer.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 123
among your slave population and induced them
to revolt^ what would be the consequence V 9 '.
tt Vy, square, that's a considerable creation of
a question to answer ; and as I never talks
about niggers, but I feels a bit non-committal
crawling over me, I guess *tis better to halt-
dress where our mileeshar conquered France,
and the United States navy made prizes of all
the parley-voo's ships. — "
** I am quite content that you should," as-
sented Playfair.
u But, square, spose we goes smash at the
boundary question V — said Christopher Co-
lumbus Purity.
a I do not exactly understand what you
mean," remarked Playfair.
"Hinders tans ! Vy, smash slick into New
Brunswick, and drive all the Britishers out ; down
north-west as we chased the Mexicans south-
west out of Texas," said Christopher Columbus
Purity as if he not only had discovered, but
conquered a new world.
" That is a question of war," observed Play-
fair, smiling significantly.
G 2
124 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
" Vy, square, tarnashun seize me if I be not
going slick to congress to demand one or
tother, all disputed territory for Maine, or rail
war wid England."
"Your expedition," observed Playfair, in a
goodnatured tone, " will not probably be very
successful; not only will you find Mr. Van
Buren, but the members of congress gene-
rally, from all I hear, averse to hostilities with
England."
" Square, you be a Britisher, and it be no
manner of calculation to make explanification
wid you, but I guess, if Van Buren and Con-
gress don't go to rail war for disputed territory,
state of Maine will/' concluded Purity, as he
turned away with something looking very much
like contempt for Britishers.
In Liberty Hall there happened to be two
views of the Boundary question, as there usu-
ally are of every other subject in dispute.
No sooner had Purity left Playfair, than
Bagster, whom we have already introduced,
came up to him, saying, —
"Squire, that be'es a democrat, go-whole~
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 125
Aog--ahead Down Easter — I be practical log-
cabin go-aheader."
He then informed Playfair that he had failed
in trade, in the state of Maine, where he at one
time had several mills on the river Schoodic;
but with a full share of the adventurous Yankee
spirit, and with no attachment to any locality
or country, except that which offered the widest
scope for his active enterprising propensity, he
tramped forth five years ago ; and, in his
rummagings came on a tract of land, in New
Brunswick, then covered with heavy wood, and
it having a powerful mill-privilege, and the
further eminent advantage, in a Yankee's esti-
mate, of there being no settlers on the river
within at least ten miles, he accordingly
squatted, that is, without grant or licence took
possession, and commenced levelling the forest.
His capital, at the time, consisted of two axes,
two saws, and some necessary edge-tools, a
month's provisions, and not one dollar in money.
" I have now" said he, a more than three
hundredacres under cultivation, growing wheat,
Indian corn, pumpkins, potatoes, clover, and
126 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
grass, — a large flock of sheep, horses, several
yokes of oxen, milch cows, swine and poultry.
A big dwelling-house, smart furniture, handsome
wife, lots of boys and girls, and a great lot of
helps — two houses for the helps, grog store,
general store, a forge with a powerful trip-
hammer, fulling-mill, grist-mill, and two
saw-mills, — all turned by water. Near these,
I have a building which be a house for school,
or meeting-house for any preachers who come
by, — all one to me whether he be British par-
son, Catholic priest, Presbyterian minister, or
Methodist preacher, — each gets something to
eat at my house, and the chapel to preach in."
Bagster could little more than read and
write, — his manners were unpolished, but not
rude; yet he had wonderful tact or address,
and, as far as related to his own pursuits, quick
powers of perception, invention, and applica-
tion. His discrimination and judgment were
of a capacious order, — a man of strong moral
as well as physical courage, he laughed at
difficulties, and wanted only a different educa-
tion to have made him a Franklin or a Jackson.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 127
Such men of Anglo-Saxon race abound in the
New World, they are the pioneers who pene-
trate, and prepare for civilization the, to all
others, indomitable wilds of the west.
He detailed to Playfair how he raised large
crops, ground his own corn, manufactured the
flax he cultivated, and the wool of his sheep,
into coarse cloths ; sold the provisions which
his farm produced, and rum and British goods,
to the lumberers ; — kept a tavern, employed
lumberers in the woods, and received also tim-
ber in payment for whatever he sold. He had
the axes and other tools required by the
lumberers, made at his forge. He ate, gambled,
and associated with his own labourers, and all
others who made his house a kind of rallying-
point for business orfun. He was frequently ob-
liged to take large credits, amounting to several
thousands, from the merchants who supply the
lumberers. After thus describing things in
detail, he wound up by saying to Playfair,
" Now, squire, as new comers never know no-
thing about clearing woods and town-making, I
am going to sell Bagster town, with lands, houses,
128 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
mills, tavern, lumber, cattle, every thing to the
New Brunswick Land Company, which I cal-
culates will make 'em progress right smartly/'
" I am surprised," remarked Playfair, <e that
you can reconcile yourself to part with a pro-
perty you have rendered so valuable by such
extraordinary perseverance and labour."
a Why, squire, that is the cause I wants to
sell ; I likes never not to go on slick progressing,
I likes to be a back settlement pioneer, wid
none ahead on me. The folks in America
marry so young, and populate for all the world
like a multiplication table. The lumber ships,
and packet ships too, carry out new comers
plaguy thick, so that all the lands from Rusti-
gouche to Schoodic, will be settled slick as
lightning. To be certain, squire of another
chance of going ahead, I have jist taken pos-
session of three mill privileges, and lots of
timber, fifty miles above any one, up the
Tobique."
" Very prudent," said Playfair.
"Them State of Maine fellors," continued
Bagster, "be mighty smart go-aheaders, and
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 129
may be will snake out* that genuyne British
territory. Now, squire, tell the British lady
queen you've now for president, that them
Maine chaps are terrification in talking war,
but in real slantindicular w T ar, they knows only
to gouge and gander-pluck;
" Now, squire, though most folks may think
that I be pretty much looking only arter mine
own go-aheading, I'm in block and heart f
proud of being a real Britisher. I knows
more, squire, — I knows that there be good
honest citizens in all New England and South
of Maine who calculates war wid Old England
wid bankruptize all the universal credit from
Boston to Balize, and from Michigan to New
Orleans."
Ci How," asked Play fair, " do you make out
that war would be so disastrous V
c $ Why, squire," he replied, e: you must know
it's universal credit as well as universal suffrage
in them here States all over. British goods
* A Yankeeism for worming slily into possession, or into a
discovery. — Ed.
f Query, Head and heart. — P.D.
G 3
ISO BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
are bought on credit in England, and sold on
credit in United States; towns, mills, canals,
railroads, sailing-ships, steam-boats, South Sea
expeditions, and the nigger trade, are all built
and made, and fitted out, and bought and sold,
and carried on by credit. ,,
" Extraordinary !" said Play fair.
u Not at all," continued Bagster, " in a nation
where they marry and populate and progress on
credit. Now," he continued, " United States
citizens knows it slick, every one of them, that
war would ruinate all this universal credit, and
paper bills, would, I guess, be worth not a
quarter as much as old continental money. —
Why squire, if it were war, I would not give a
copper cent for a Yankee paper dollar."
" But explain, if you please," asked Playfair,
* the way in which war would cause this sudden
destruction of credit."
"Why you know, squire, that war would
stop the running of all them dashing liner
packets that go back and for'ards between
Boston, New York, Philadephia, Charleston,
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 13
Baltimore, Savannah, New Orleans, and other
places and Old England.
"War, squire, would nihilate the markets in
England for tobacco and cotton and rice, and
other United States produce. Then you know,
squire, that no Yankee, or York or Virginia, or
other States bills would be worth a cent in
England, and when no States bills would be
cashed in England, I guess United States mar-
kets, and United States credit, and the ships
and the nigger business, would all go universal
smash.' 9
" That would be ruin, indeed I" said Play fair.
" I calculates so," replied Bagster ; " and so,
squire, tell the smart, spry, miss lady Queen and
British government not to be afeard of war, and
not to give one acre, or one tree, or one mill
privilege of disputed territory to State of Maine
folks ; if the lady queen and the government do's,
tell them they will be plaguy sorry for taking any
such pains to keep peace with Jonathan."
<c Is the disputed territory, then, of such
great value T* said Playfair.
" Value !" said Bagster, staring at Playfair.
132 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
"Why, squire, did ever any crittur know
Jonathan to smell and snake after what wasn't
of value : I guess not !"
* That is likely enough," said Playfair, " and
therefore, the disputed territory is no doubt
valuable.''
"Why, squire," replied Bagster, evidently
having a very cordial interest in the question,
" disputed territory has more than seven millions
of the best acres for growing Indian corn,
wheat, potatoes, turnips, and pumpkins, in all
America ; it has pine and spruce, and all sorts
of hard wood timber, and mill privileges, and
rivers, and coal and iron, and mill and grind-
stones without end : — I calculates that's value
for Jonathan to smell and snake out,"
" Certainly," said Playfair.
"But, squire, that's not all, nor half all:
suppose you give that territory to Jonathan,
you take it from England, and then I guess
you may christen it Worth Texas, and slick as
lightning it will be filled up with Yankee-go-a-
headers, for more than two hundred miles
further down than Quebec, which will chop in
two all British America."
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 133
"That,' 5 said Playfair, "would I fear be at-
tended with serious consequences."
" I guess, squire, it does not require much
ciphering to calculate that. It was only all
plain addition and multiplication and rule of
three direct, to cipher that the Anglo-Saxon-
Yankee-go-aheaders, would drive them there
Mexican critturs out of Texas.
"Why, squire, the Anglo-S axon- Yankee -go -
a-headers cannot for all the world stop going
ahead. No ! I guess not. They commenced
at the beginning to go slick-ahead; that was
the way they drove all them Indian critturs
afore them, so that they be now all, that is the
few Indian critturs that rum and powder and
smallpox hasn't ax-tinguished, far" t'other side
of Mississippi."
" That is indeed true," said Playfair.
"True, squire; yes, as true as Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John; and by pumpkins,
squire, as progressing goes on so fast, there will
be no more room in Texas, and then the go-a-
headers will drive them Mexican critturs slick
out of Mexico. I tell you, squire they will
134 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
never have done going ahead. They will drive
all them 'ere other Spanish and Portuguese
critturs out of all South America, and then
they will go on aheading west, until they come
round east, nihilating all them critturs in Japan,
and China, and Russia, and Turkey, and Pales-
tine, and Egypt, and all other critturs, till the
total world is one universal nation of Anglo-Sax-
ons. That's what I calculates by ciphering."
"Extraordinary arithmetic !" said Playfair.
" All rule of three direct, squire," said Bag-
ster, " and so tell your miss lady queen president
that if she gives up disputed territory to the
Yankee-Anglo- Saxons the ciphering by rule of
three direct will be :— If South Texas : gives
Mexico and South America to Jonathan : North
Texas (that is disputed territory) will give
Nova Scotia, and all British America to the
Yankee-Anglo-Saxon go-aheaders."
•.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 135
CHAPTER XII.
ANOTHER NEW ARRIVAL.
" The storm without might roar and rustle
Tarn cared not for the storm a whistle."
Playfair having made up his mind to re-
main some weeks longer at New York, arranged
at some expense for a separate sitting-room with
a good fire place and necessary furniture. As
to attendance he found there was some difficulty;
but this was also managed to his satisfaction.
One of the landlady's daughters having offered
to attend and help Captain Playfair to whatever
he required. This is not uncommon in the
United States, however strange it may appear in
Europe. These pretty maidens, the landladies'
136 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
daughters in America, are, without exception,
virtuous and unsuspicious, and ill befal the man
who would take advantage of their innocence,
beauty, and simple ideas.
On this as well as on others of deep interest
and curiosity, Playfair had always found good
information from Dr. Profundus.
t€ While travelling in America/' observed
Profundus, (when intelligenteering Playfair in
the knowledge which he considered useful),
" you will probably be attended by the daughters
of the landlords. Remember that these simple
maidens are held quite in as high regard, and
make as respectable marriages as the daughters
of our merchants. Their fathers usually keep-
ing an inn only as a very secondary object of
gain, and as much from the circumstance of
possessing a house in a convenient situation in
a street, or by a road, as from any particular
choice as to gain. Not that profit is neglected.
To secure convenient travelling, and the usual
comforts of inns, you must show a certain
degree of deference to the prejudices which the
landlords and landladies of America may en-
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 137
tertain; and should the pretty maidens who
attend you at table, sit down by you in the
same room, neither attribute it to want of
modesty, nor to an impertinent presumption, as
not a few, to their own discomfort, of your
fellow-countrymen have done."
This was sound advice, and Playfair was the
last man on earth not to practise it.
On the day which succeeded the evening on
which Barnaby Bagster had adjusted the bound-
ary question, and the disputed territory, in the
manner related in the last chapter, Playfair
walked after dinner down to the Battery Point,
and after viewing sea and shipping, returned to
Liberty Hall. He met Bagster at the bar, and
as usual said, "Well, Squire Bagster, what
news this evening ? v
Why, squire, not much, packet's arrived from
New Brunswick, and Maine State, but not much
news, I guess ; only Jonathan Lust, the Methodist
preacher, has been caught queer with old Jacob
Furstler's darter, and he's run slick out of the
province bragging how he's done the folks.
I calculated he'd do so; for I knowed him
138 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
when he was a lawyer, and the tarnationest rogue
? mong all the willans at Machias."
Play fair merely observed, " There is iniquity
in all countries," and then walked to his room,
where he found, as he had requested, a bright
blazing fire in the chimney, and wheeling round
the sofa, sat, or rather reclined on it, to enjoy
the cheering warmth, for, without, it blew as keen
a frosty north-wester as ever shaved the chin of
a Yankee. The landlady's daughter having
brought him up the usual ingredients to make
a glass of good punch, and a couple of those bis-
cuits called u crackers/ ' she courtesied respect-
fully, said modestly, " Squire, please any thing
more?" — wished him " a very good night," and
retired.
Playfair had bought during the day several
newspapers, and extending himself on the sofa,
read Yankee politics, glanced at advertisements,
and sipped his punch. A knock ! knock ! knock !
at his door, broke in upon his revery, and rising
and opening the door, who to his astonishment
stood there, but the most entertaining of men,
Major Macpherson, one of Playfair 's fellow-pas-
sengers across the Atlantic.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 139
After the usual ejaculations, and " How do ye
do's/ 5 of surprise and pleasure, the major said he
had just arrived from New Brunswick, where he
and Play fair last parted, that he had secured a
berth or chamber in Liberty Hall, on the same
floor as that of his friend Playfair.
In utter defiance of Temperance Societies, our
glorious friends sat down; the fire before them,
the table edged in between them, cigars, old Ja-
maica, lemons, sugar, and water, were ordered
and brought ; these ingredients, the major, who
was an experienced adept in the just proportion,
transformed into the most delicious punch that
ever was, or that ever shall be, drunk, until the
same hand commingles those most contradictory
elements.
With a bright coal fire burning before them ;
at least two quarts of the said punch in a huge
bowl ; and each with a dozen of as odoriferous
Havannahs, as were ever smuggled by a Bermu-
dian or Yankee, snug comfort and social converse
were now fully enjoyed by our naval and military
heroes.
The Mussulman may be blest with his Houries
140 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
in his seven Paradises ; and if there be an eighth
for soldiers and sailors, Macpherson and Playfair
would not have wished their mansion formed,
heated, furnished, or replenished, more to their
taste than the apartment in which they now in
goodly arm-chairs sat, under the roof of Liberty
Hall.
The subjects of their conversation for six goodly
hours, and some of the major's adventures, we
will take a future opportunity of introducing.
In the meantime it becomes necessary, in
illustration of the scenes and characters in-
troduced in these pages to" give some account
of Playfair, and of his fellow-passengers,
in the ship which carried them across the
Atlantic.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 141
CHAPTER XIII.
WHICH GIVES SOME ACCOUNT OF HUttO PLAY-
FAIR, AND OF HIS FELLOW-PASSENGERS
ACROSS THE ATLANTIC.
** So on I ramble, now and then narrating,
Now pondering ; — 'tis time we should narrate *
Now we'll get o'er the ground at a great rate." — Byron,
" Some gaed east, and some gaed west,
And some gaed to the crowVnest."— -The Bairns Rhymes,
Playfair and Macpherson crossed the
Atlantic in a packet-ship bound for Boston,
from whence they intended to proceed in the
first case either to Nova Scotia or New Bruns-
wick.
Their fellow-passengers were, a Captain Sir
Daniel O'Dougherty, a gallant son of Erin,
142 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
going to join his regiment in Canada ; Major
Lachlan Macpherson, one of the most laugh-
provoking officers who ever cc set a mess -table
in a roar f 9 a melancholy man named Hawkins,
who jumped overboard and was drowned during
the passage, — and his wife a lovely, beautiful,
young woman ; a Mr. Sanderson, who was a po-
litical economist, accompanied by his wife, and a
boy their son ; a Miss Adams, a beautiful young
American lady in whose constitution there
existed the elements of premature dissolution,
so fatal to the fair of Massachusets, and who,
accompanied by her brother, was returning
from a tour in Europe ; a Mr. Sheffield, who
accompanied a quantity of his father's cutlery
to exchange for gold in the New World, and
sundry steerage passengers, handicraft men,
and labourers, who had heard or dreamed of an
American El-dorado,
Instead of arriving at Boston, the ship was
driven by distress into the Bay of Fundy, and
the passengers landed at the port of St. John.
Of this landing and separation, Playfair gives
the following account :
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 143
"Our luggage and other travelling impedi-
ments being landed, the passengers, rather than
wait to go by sea to Boston, separated, and in
a few days went on their several ways, as pru-
dence, necessity, or inclination determined.
u Sheffield alone remained in the city of St*
John, where he hired a shop, and forgot sea-
sickness and ' swallowing a whale/ in the
profitable occupation of vending razors, knives,
thimbles, needles, pins, and other small gear.
B Mr. Sanderson, with his wife and son, pro-
ceeded to Fredericton, in order to put his
theories in practice amidst the backwoods.
All, however, with whom he talked contended
obstinately that the doctrines of Malthus, on
which Mr. Sanderson had delivered a most
physical lecture during a table-d'hdte dinner,
were utterly inapplicable to America, and espe-
cially to New Brunswick, Kentucky, and Upper
Canada. All at the same time agreed that he
spoke mighty clever, and would make a universal
smart preacher.
" Captain Sir Daniel proceeded by the route
of Madawaska and Timouskata, to join his regi-
144 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
ment, and, as he said, to keep down rebellion in
Canada.
" Major Macpherson sent his chattels by the
steam-boat up the river to the seat of govern-
ment ; and then, with a small knapsack strapped
behind, and his double-barrelled gun over his
shoulder, crossed the St. John below the
rapids, and set off on foot, through the forest,
along the Neripis road.
C( His chief object was to visit a retired
loyalist general, who had long been carrying
on destructive havoc in levelling the almost in-
domitable forest, trapping bears, and shooting
loup-cerviers. The major carried no introduc-
tion, but concluded that his rank and name
were sufficient passports to the general's hos-
pitality.
" Mrs. Hawkins left St. John's immediately
on landing, by the packet for the town of Anna-
polis in Nova Scotia. Of that lady's views we
were, however, all ignorant. Mystery still
enveloped her condition ; but it was impossible
not to think that there was much of the painful
and interesting in the story of one so young and
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 145
beautiful, — so pensively resigned to her isolated
condition, and so silent in regard to herself and
the circumstances of her late husband.
"Miss Adams, who, although there were
scarcely grounds to hope that the germs of early
decline were eradicated, had gained strength
during the voyage, and parted with her brother
by land for their native town of Springfield in
Massachusets. Good, beautiful, being ! she
inspired feelings of tenderness and love, which
resuscitated the associations of early days, when
my young heart throbbed with sympathies, the
ardour and poetry of which, years, and a life
spent mostly on seas or in wilds, have long since
tranquillized, but not extinguished.
" I cannot describe the interest I entertained
for Miss Adams. The days of love's dreams
are surely over with me, and I may say with
the French poet,
" Si vous voulez que j'aime encore,
Bendez-moi l'age d'amour."
"I promised that if ever I came within a hun-
dred miles of her father's dwelling, I would
VOL. I. H
146 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
travel those miles to see her. We parted un-
willingly, — deploring the worldly circumstances
which separate — probably for this life, not, I
trust, in the next — those who, for even a
transient acquaintance, are mutually delighted.
Often during my wanderings has it been my lot
to part, at the termination of a voyage, journey,
or temporary residence, with those whose ac-
quaintance charmed, instructed, and delighted
me: such is the fate of travellers, — on whatever
road, — whether in the calm tenour of the com-
mon 'path of life, or on the great highway of
public intercourse, or on that dread mysterious
road by which we take our final departure, on
our journeying from this world to another. That
all who are lovely, or good, or great, — the most
belovedand the most loving, — must alike, — whe-
ther the voyage or journey be long or short, sub-
mit to part, is, indeed a painful truth. We can-
not, however, while our heart retains the more
amiable sympathies, and weaknesses, cherish
the idea of never meeting again in our earthly
wanderings ; nor while hope, charity, and ra-
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 147
tional religion exist, abandon the expectation
of reacquaintance in some unknown future
condition. It is these sympathies, — these hopes,
— this belief, that alone impart bright rays to
the otherwise mysterious future' 9
h2
148 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
CHAPTER XIV.
IN WHICH HUGO PLAYFAIR GIVES SOME AC-
COUNT OF HIMSELF.
" Truth is always strange-
Stranger than fiction ; if it should be told,
How would novels gain from each exchange.
If some Columbus of the moral seas
Would show mankind their soul's Antipodes.*'
In order to make the reader acquainted with
the characters introduced in these pages, some
account of Playfair and Macpherson will, as we
have already said, now appear necessary. On
his departure for America, Playfair notes down
the following sketch of himself, that
" Being," says he, " from my childhood in-
fluenced by the spirit of inquiry, or what a cele-
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 149
brated phrenologist tells me is acquisitiveness, *
and it being so ordered that I should wander
long and far from the home of my forefathers,
I believe that however unimportant the chapter
of a man's career may be, its incidents are al-
ways worth recording, were it only c to talk with
our past hours.' I have, in consequence, and
in pursuance of the sage advice of my late uncle,
who was a great traveller, lugged along with me
whithersoever I went, a thick quarto, every leaf
of which was immaculate as the moon, on the
day I received the blessings of my parents, when
leaving their threshold for the deck of a f man-
of-war, 9
" In this book I noted down the leading oc-
currences that came under my observation. Its
pages are now closely filled up ; and several
good natured spinsters, who are delighted with
my stories, tell me that my folio manuscript
really forms a most valuable and curious
* Not according to Spurzheim, but agreeahly to the in-
terpretation of a manipulist in the Strand to a lady rather in«
elined in every way to gather gear. The Frenchman gallantly
told her, that her organ of acquisitiveness, denoted great
ardour for acquiring a knowledge of the world.
150 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
omnium gatherum, which I must publish as
soon as the non finalities of the Reform Bill will
spare the world time to read books that are good
and true.
* To print it now, would be absolute madness.
In short, my friends have even gone so far as to
say that my relatives, if I have any, would be
justified in applying for a commission of
lunatico inquirendo (I think the lawyers call it),
to secure from waste and ruin, my little income
and savings, should I exhibit symptoms of
being about to publish so true, instructive, and
interesting a collection as my omnium gatherum,
when the whole empire (according to the news-
papers) from the royal palace, to the bog-
trotter's cabin, can no longer read, learn, or
inwardly digest, any production that does not
treat of reform or political economy.
"As I find myself neither gifted with the
acuteness to see through, nor the ability to
comprehend the subtleties of these difficult but
no doubt useful theories, I am content with the
practice that has hitherto served me. So
grossly ignorant am I, in truth, of any sort
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 151
of economy, that all I can pretend to, only
enables me to cater my half-pay as a com*
mander in the royal navy, and a very small
annuity (aided always by the benefit I derive
from being a member of the United Service
Club), so as to maintain my independence and
respectability as becomes an honest man, and a
British officer,
" I had, until very lately, the honour of being
styled Captain Play fair, R.N., but our service has
got sadly into disrepute ; a ship breeder* who had
lately charge of our fleets, would have us all
* shorn of our honours :' for it was communi-
cated to me not long since, that from that date
it would be considered little less than treason
and a breach of the articles of war, to designate
a commander in the British navy, according to
the usual courtesy, captain.
" Notwithstanding this regulation, for my
spirits never were, nor ever shall be, of a
temperature disposed to mingle with the
vapors of sadness, I preserve my cheerfulness
and good-nature, read the newspapers, maga-
* Query. — Sheep breeder ? — Printer's Devil.
152 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
zines, voyages, travels, and accounts of land
and sea fights : — let what will come, I will not
allow my skull to become a house of mourning,
nor suffer any circumstance to annoy me—
excepting always the loss of health or half-pay ;
or an attack on my character, king, or country.*
" But like many others I have { rested long,
very long on my oars ;' and idleness is the
only evil that oppresses me. I have there-
fore turned to my omnium gatherum, with a
view to publish it, for the instruction of his
Majesty's ministers, particularly the first lord,
and all the lords of the Admiralty, and for the
amusement of ladies, politicians and sailors ;
but it was decided in a full council of our
club :
" That the ' omnium gatherum 9 of Hugo
Playfair, Esquire, Commander, R.N., is a
great log-book ;
" That a log-book is infallibly a journal
of facts;
" That facts which relate to the Ad-
* This, it must be observed was written just before the
demise of William IV.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 153
miralty, or to British officers who are peers,
or the so ns natural or unnatural, or re-
lations, of peers, or of the ministers' members
of parliament, cannot be published, as c the
act directs f
" That the said Hugo Playfair, Esq., R.N.,
will not consent to cancel from his journal,
some facts relative to the e righteous busi-
ness 5 at Copenhagen, the burning of Wash-
ington; the challenge sent (written on a
merchantman's register), by an English
post-captain to an American post-captain ;
and how the latter captured the frigate com-
manded by the former ; nor his account of
the water-casks, and other necessary articles
(such as machines to make salt water fresh),
sent for the naval service to the lakes of
Canada ; nor the affair at New Orleans ;
nor sundry yard-arm hangings, floggings
committed, and vessels strained and stranded,
by juvenile commanders, and post-captains ;
nor retrenchment by discharging old seamen
and officers employed in the dock-yards:
nor neglecting bravery, merit, and long
h 3
154
service, and promoting boys and young men,
whose relations have held place and power.
* This most honourable council therefore de-
crees, that if the said Hugo Playfair, Esquire,
R.N., publisheth his e Omnium Gatherum/
his name will be struck out of the list o*
British officers, that he will fall under the
especial displeasure of his Majesty's Attor-
ney-general, and that the club of which he
has long been a distinguished and most honest
but too great a truth-speaking, member, will
be subjected to the wrath and vengeance of
the Admiralty."
* This decision, therefore, has determined for
the present, and probably as long as I live, but
not after my death, the fate of my c Omnium
Gatherum*
" Agreeably, however, to the council of all the
talents of our club, and the earnest desire of my
venerable friends, the aforesaid spinsters, with
whom (generous creatures) I often sip tea, and
chatter gossip, I have consented to print only
* Gleanings 9 from my Voyages and Travels.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 155
"My friends, the spinsters, (who are judi-
cious and experienced critics, or at least should
be, for they were in their teens when I was
winged at Copenhagen, and have ever since been
eating, not digesting, novels, spelling the re-
views, and feasting on all Crim. con, trials), de-
clare that my * Gleanings? although delicious in
all other respects, want, unfortunately, two of
the most readable, saleable, and savoury accom-
paniments, viz. c lies and scandal/
" I however differ, not only from them but
from the world. I will dare to be out of fashion,
and I will, therefore, send my ' Gleanings' forth
(like my ' Omnium Gatherum/ when heaven's
chancery has alone to deal with me), as they were
originally written, containing the truth, not the
whole truth, yet nothing but the truth. In the
arrangement only will I make any alterations,
for in order to cater for the prevailing taste of
the day, or month, some of the last wilj appear
first, and the first last. Preliminary, however,
to such contemplated and decided upon publi-
cation, and believing, as I do, that crossing the
Atlantic, and visiting America will, at the pre-
156 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
sent time, engross more attention than an ac-
count of my capture by a Yankee privateer, or
a desperate rencounter with South American
patriots, I first intend to launch forth a most
interesting account of an expedition, which I
am going to make to the New World ; and my
heroic readers must, therefore, wait the publi-
cation of the ' Gleanings' from my c Omnium
Gatherum/ and afterwards of the Opus Magnum
itself, if they live until then, before I can ho-
nestly tell them how we actually managed to
defeat and capture the combined fleets of
France and Spain; — bombarded Algiers — lost
the Macedonian — captured the Chesapeake fri-
gate — and committed the untoward crime of
destroying the Turkish fleet at Navarino, in
order to give the command of the Dardanelles,
not to the Sultan but to the Czar.
" I will, meantime, note down facts about
Imposters in Religion, Camp Meetings, Negro
Slavery, rascally Attornies, and honest Sailors ;
and I will make John Bull correctly acquainted
with Brother Jonathan, by gleaning the good
as well as the bad, from the Notes I will have
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 157
taken in every state of the American Union.
I will also introduce to English acquaintance,
Mohawks, Micmacs, Algonquins, Cherokees,
and Red Indians, and then leave my readers to
decide — who are the greatest savages — the pale-
faced Europeans, or the Red Hunters of the
West.
" I shall also tell e the something that is rotten
in the State of Canada.'
" As the world will feel the usual curiosity to
know who is the gleaner of such useful and
amusing knowledge; and, as I am considered
quite as goodnatured as an old Admiral, or my
Uncle Toby, I may mention that I was born in
a seaport town, in the north of Scotland, in the
year 1785 ; that my parents were respectable,
but not able to give me a groat to begin the
world with.
Ci My baptismal name is that of Hugo, and
that of my family Playfair, but I claim no Scot-
tish cousinship with great people.
" I was religiously and morally brought up ;
yet I hare never had the least pretension to
what the Puritans and Evangelicals call piety,
158 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
and my morality consisted and consisteth in al-
ways endeavouring to f do unto others, as I would
have others do unto me.'
u My education, like that of most young men
at that time in Scotland, was useful, not orna-
mental, for I never wrote a prize poem, or was
taught the positions by a dancing-master; no,
my instruction was limited, first, to that which
has more than any other circumstance influenced
whatever may be the defect of either, both my
character and my conduct, — namely, fireside
instruction — that of parental tuition and example;
and, secondly, to that which has been useful to
me in my profession and intercourse with the
world, a plain grammar-school routine,—
general history, arithmetic, and practical ma-
thematics in all its branches, especially naviga-
tion and gunnery. I was also instructed in the
elements of natural and experimental philoso-
phy, astronomy, geology, mineralogy, mecha-
nics, and the other useful sciences. On being
well grounded in all that could be taught at
school, relative to my intended life, I was re-
moved to Edinburgh, where I attended college
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 159
for some time. My friends in that city having
then had some parliamentary influence, they
promised to forward my views, and I soon af-
terwards entered as a midshipman on board
a frigate then lying in Leith roads.
u Since that period I have traversed oceans,
cruised along the coasts of England, France,
and Spain, the Mediterranean, Africa, America,
the West Indies, and the inland seas of Canada.
Nor have I been a stranger to bloody and des-
perate engagements, or to the climates of the
Torrid Zone and frozen regions. I received my
lieutenant's commission as soon as decency on
the part of the Admiralty could permit; and
I was promoted several years after to the com-
mand of a sloop of war on the American sta-
tion. I had then full hope of being posted, not
as a coward, but to the command of a frigate.
This justly entitled promotion I did not obtain.
My uncle, who had long sat and snored in par-
liament, and who always voted with the minister,
died. With him all my interest at the Admi-
ralty vanished.
" On returning to England I was shelved on
160 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
half-pay. I then visited Scotland ; but as
found that I had not in my native town any re-
lations living, or any one else who knew or
cared for me, I proceeded no farther than Edin-
burgh, where however I found myself a stranger,
in the country that gave me ^irth. The great
features of the scenery alone remained un-
changed, but my feelings were in association
with the fashions, the buildings, and the peo-
ple, as I knew them a quarter of a century be-
fore : for I was absent exactly twenty-five
years. I recognised a few houses that I for-
merly entered, as a welcome boy, and found
them occupied by people to whom I was an
utter stranger. I inquired about my uncle
(not the traveller, for he died in London), but
one to whom I owed little obligation, — a man
of law, whom I recollected as a rich, stingy,
bachelor, rather eminent in the labyrinths of
Scottish jurisprudence. I was informed that
he also slept with his fathers ; that for some
years he allowed his pretty cook, whom he pro-
moted to the management of his household af-
fairs, to acquire complete dominion over him,
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 161
and that a few weeks before his demise he mar-
ried the wench, and left her his whole fortune.
In less than a month she went to London,
where a needy attorney ferreted her out, soothed
her grief by giving her his hand in marriage, on
her (in love, it was said, not believed) giving
him the wealth, in accumulating which my
uncle scarcely allowed himself, or those he em-
ployed, the common necessaries of life.
" I returned to London without making one
acquaintance or discovering any person that
I knew any thing of in Scotland. I remained
in England, with the exception of a visit to
France, a tour along the Rhine, and over Swit-
zerland and Italy, for five years, with little hope
of promotion, or of being again ordered on
service.
" An accidental circumstance requires my
presence in America, for which I intend sailing
in a few days from Liverpool. After my arri-
val in the western world, I am resolved to
travel in order to gather information, and ac-
quire some further practical knowledge of the
land, as well as I already possess of the sea;
162 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
by which laudable means I will add largely to
my * Omnium Gatherum. 3
"I am now fifty-two years old, in good
health, and a bachelor, I hope to remain
so. A marriage after forty is generally folly
on the part of the man, and little better than
prostitution on the part of the woman, who
marries a broken down hull of mortality — a
human Rococo, — who might be taken for her
grandfather ; a too common occurrence in En-
gland. I will thus, at least, endeavour to avoid
even the ridiculous suspicion of antlers finding
root on my forehead ; and rely on the experi-
ment of driving away the blue devils, by talk-
ing with my past hours, and by reading and
conversing with my brother officers and others.
" My life has been full of adventure, and
checkered with many hardships, several disap-
pointments, and a few misfortunes ; but it cer-
tainly has not been without satisfaction, and
I hope usefulness. During the past, I believe
I have also had my full share of enjoyment and
happiness. On my return from the country of
Brother Jonathan, I intend, with the exception
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 163
of spending a month or two each summer at
Brighton, Dover, or the Isle of Wight, and
perhaps a visit to Paris, where I have invaluable
friends — that is, Sir Sydney and some brother
officers, passing the rest of my days in London,
where I may easily be recognised as a strongly-
framed man of the middle size, with a weather-
beaten face, and bereft of a limb, lounging
somewhere near a spot, which in imitation of
our club should have an united name — Tra-
falgar and Waterloo Place/'
164 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
CHAPTER XV.
THE MAJOR'S STORY, OR LOGIC FOR. EMI-
GRATION.
" I prithee, quoth my uncle Toby, inform me how this
matter happened." — T. Shandy.
" For law 's the wisdom of all ages,
And managed by the ablest sages." — Hudibras.
We have said, in a former chapter, that the
causes which continue to people America with
Europeans, would form a leading subject of
Playfair's enquiries. We find him, now that
he is on u dry land," giving the following ac-
count of the major :
" Of all passengers," says he, u that ever
crossed the seas, or marched to the battle-
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 165
field, Major Macpherson feared disasters the
least, and enjoyed the present hour the most.
He was a compactly built Caledonian, about
five feet nine inches high, with broad chest and
shoulders, erect military gait, and about fifty
years of age. He had a Bardolph nose, pro-
truding from the most unquarrelsome face in the
world, which blazed and blossomed in the full
splendour of an expression that pronounced a
long subsisting intimacy between the major and
his well beloved friends, whiskey toddy, and
old Jamaica. He had served in both the
Indies, in North America, and the Peninsula ;
and, whether in the camp, at the mess-table,
or on board a transport, he was, "ever and
anon, the laugh -provoking life and soul of the
social circle." No man on earth could more
readily " set the table in a roar," and regardless
whether " kings were great or not," never, as
many delighted spirits can attest, did Lachlan
Mac Pherson, lose the proper opportunity of
being " glorious I"
Let me not insinuate that he w T as otherwise
than socially fond of Highland toddy, rum-
166 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
punch, and the social tube. No, — he loved the
high inspiring bowl, and the curling whiff, only
with his friends, and for all the combined plea-
sures of good fellowship.
He had lingered since the peace in London,
eating a one-shilling-and-sixpenny dinner, and
enjoying the evening amidst a knot of brother
veterans in a snug room attached to a well-
known eating establishment: where chums of
both services love to meet, and where under the
inspiration of mountain dew, and prime
Havannah, many a gallant battle has been
fought, and many a capital story told, three
times over and over, and over again.
Unfortunately, economy was not among the
number of the major's many virtues. What with
his utter ignorance of calculation, and of po-
litical economy, not only lodging-house keepers
and all with whom he had any money dealings,
robbed him ; but in his utter want of appre-
hension as to any, excepting the momentary,
exigency, while he had a pound in his purse,
the first, in need, was free to the half of it.
His pay was consequently soon frittered away,
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 167
and at the end of ten years, he was, in various
sums, at least five hundred pounds in debt.
About the same time a somewhat plausible,
but ill-favoured person, by name Jonas Black-
shark, used to frequent the same eating-house
as the major, and as the latter was not very
guarded as to his circumstances when talking
with his brother veterans, the former, a limb of
that infernal class of legal prowlers, called bill
attorneys, soon became acquainted with the
major's affairs, and then contrived to break into
his conversation by taking his place and plate
at the same table. After much plausibility he
at length acquired the major's entire confidence,
and engaged to relieve the latter from his an-
noying embarrassments. "Nothing," said
Blackshark, " was more easy than raising
money in London. The major had only to ac-
cept ten or twelve bills for fifty pounds each,
payable at three or four months' date; and
then instead of taking them up with money to
renew them with other bills when due, two
of the major's brother officers could have no
honourable objection to write their names on
168 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
each of the bills, as it was a mere matter of form,
and with these, he, Blackshark, would easily
manage to relieve the major of the duns who
pestered and insulted him.
The bills were accordingly drawn, accepted,
and indorsed, and with those slips of paper,
Blackshark conducted the major to the usury-
shop of Mr. Micah Moses, a jeweller, in Cran-
bourne-alley, where it was arranged by the friend-
ly advice of Blackshark, that Micah would dis-
count the bills, twelve in number, of fifty
pounds each, for which he was to give forty
pounds in cash, abating therefrom, ten per cent;
interest, and two per cent, for discount, on the
amount of each fifty; also, Mr. Blackshark's
commission for his civility in transacting the
business, in all, a deduction from each forty
pounds in cash of about eight pounds. The
ten remaining pounds on each fifty it was
agreed that the major should receive in jewelry,
as Mr. Blackshark said that such was the
custom, and that it was much easier if required
to raise money on the jewelry than even on
bills.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 169
The major knowing nothing of interests, dis-
counts, or commissions, the matter was at once
settled as dictated by Blackshark. The former
being perfectly contented, on thus magically
receiving for twelve pieces of paper, a sum
greater than he had ever before, since he paid
for his first commission, had in his possession,
which added to thirty pounds received for the
one hundred and twenty pounds, price-value of
jewelry, amounted in all to four hundred and
fourteen pounds in cash.
The whole sum, however, soon vanished, in
paying, the first bills demanded, and in lending,
or rather giving to the first friend in need.
In a few months the bills became due ;
neither the major nor the endorsers were able
to honour them. Blackshark (who had actually
been the discounter of the bills, and had merely
allowed Micah for the loan of the money the
usual interest and bank commission, and half
the enormous profit, amounting to at least fifty
per cent, on the jewelry), appeared to protest
the bills and demanded money on the part of
Micah, and other nominal holders.
VOL. I. I
170 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
€c He was much grieved ; it was impossible
to renew the bills ; and his clients insisted on
immediate payment. He (Blackshark), had no
alternative but to act for his friend Micab."
Half of the bills were then dishonoured : the
others would fall due a month after. Six
writs (one for each bill) were in the name of
six nominal plaintiffs issued against each, the
accepter and endorsers of the bills, viz. the
major and his two brother officers, eighteen
writs in all.
The veterans were arrested while at dinner in
" John O 9 Groats' " eating-house, and hurried,
shillingless to a spunging-house in Chancery-
lane. There they knew not what to do or say,
and there for the night did they remain ; and,
from having no money to pay down, they had
neither light, nor meat, nor drink.
Although they had encountered all climates,
and lived in camps, in the fields, and among
savages, never did they spend so wretched a
night as this, in health and strength, in the
ce metropolis" of the civilized British empire.*
* This horrible legalized tyranny ceases now happily to
exist, except in cases of judgment being entered in court, or
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. l7l
The keeper who refused them any thing for
breakfast, intimated that Blackshark might per-
haps assist them;
" Any thing for liberty," said the major and
his friends, " we are guilty of no crime, and,
by Heavens ! is this the freedom that we fought
Britain's battles for ; and sung and roared, in
distant climes, England, Great, Glorious,
and Free."
Blackshark, who must have been near at
hand, was sent for, and soon arrived. He
looked grave, as usual, " regretted that they
should have accepted and endorsed bills without
having provided wherewith to pay them. He
affected condolence, but said, ie the case was
still worse for his clients, whose credits would
be ruined. He could not relieve them, and
unless they could get bail, they must remain
in custody."
After much affected thinking, Blackshark
where a man swears that another is going to leave the
country, the latter may still be more barbarously incarcerated"
Of all reforms that of law is most wanted in England. Under
many absolute governments, Austria and Prussia for example,
the practice of the law and the courts, is the perfection of
justice, compared to both in England. — Editor.
i2
172 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
said, " there was only one course, that he saw,
if they could not get bail, which would relieve
them. The course was for each party to give
him a power of attorney, which would enable
him to sell, and then to receive the amount of
the bills with interest and costs, out of the
value of their respective commissions, on which
condition he would pay the costs incurred, re-
lease them from custody, and take their re-
spective cognovits for the amount of the writs,
including costs."
This arrangement was at length agreed to.
The costs on each writ were, including the
arrests, lodging in the spunging-house, drawing
up of the cognovits, allowances to keepers, &c,
swelled to the amount of twelve pounds. No
doubt if the bills were taxed they would have
been cut down to less than half the sum, but
there was no time to be lost. The love of
liberty, and want of rest and food prevailed :
there was no alternative : " any arrangement,"
said the three veterans, " to breath the fresh
air, and to get outside of the infernal iron-
barred window."
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. IJ3
Powers of attorney and agreements, with
eighteen cognovits were accordingly signed,
sealed, witnessed, and delivered, adding two
hundred and sixteen pounds to the amount of
three hundred pounds, or thirty-six pounds to
each bill of fifty.
Before the period of grace, stated in the cog-
novits expired, the other bills became due, and
immediately on being protested for non-pay-
ment, eighteen additional writs were issued,
and the parties arrested, and again conveyed to
the loathsome spunging-house in Chancery-
lane. From which Blackshark again relieved
them, on their signing eighteen additional cog-
novits, payable in a month, increasing the
amount of the original debt of, strictly speaking,
four hundred and fourteen, to one thousand
and thirty-two pounds.
Blackshark, who had the full authority, and
the personal appearance when required, of the
major and his brother officers, to do so, could
have received in a very few days the price of
their respective commissions. This did not,
however, suit his views, and he retarded the
174 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
completion of the necessary arrangements for
disposing of the commissions, until the days of
grace, specified in the cognovits, expired, when
he immediately had judgments entered upon
them in court, and executions issued for each
cognovit against all parties.
He contrived that they should be arrested
at the London Tavern, when dining with an
old officer just returned from India. Had it
been daylight the latter would have relieved
them, by paying the money.
Bail could not now be taken, and the hyenas
of the land of freedom dragged from the social
board three worthy weatherbeaten defenders
of Britain's king and laws, and incarcerated
them within the filthy, unhealthy, dark wards
of Horsemonger-lane prison.
Colonel Leslie, who accompanied them to the
entrance, exclaimed, " After this let me never
again name the Black Hole of Calcutta."
The major's commission was sold for some-
thing over three thousand pounds. His
army agents, fortunately for him, managed
that one-third of the amount should be
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. lJ5
be retained until the major arrived in North
America, to be paid to his order when accom-
panied by the governors certificate of his land-
ing in any of the British provinces.
Blackshark, however, received more than
two thousand pounds, from which he deducted
the original debt, — nominally six hundred, to-
gether with the whole costs, amounting on
powers of attorney, stamps, thirty-six writs, thir-
ty-six cognovits, eighteen judgments, and eigh-
teen executions, to nine hundred and ten pounds
six shillings and eightpence — or total debt and
costs, 1510/. 65. 8c?., all arising out of an ac-
commodation for four months of £414, the
acceptance of which was concerted by a course
of fraud and conspiracy, to which thousands
are annually sacrificed.
We can no longer wonder at the emigrations
to America, the vast concourse of British resi-
dents in France, or the victims of common mis-
fortune, whom barbarous laws ruin, — and whom
the degradation established by false, although na-
tional, opinion, banish, often in despair, and with
the loss of moral and physical energy, from their
motherland.
1?6 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
Blackshark, taking advantage of their needi-
ness, advanced also small sums to the endorsers
of the major's bills, and in consequence inveigled
them into the signing of a cognovit each, which
act finally reduced them to the ruinous neces-
sity of selling their commissions.
On closing these diabolical, but successful
transactions, this fiend of an accursed practice
removed from his obscure office in Clement's
Inn to superb chambers in the Temple; and
then took into partnership another limb of the
like character, who had accumulated a large
sum of money, chiefly from the town agency
of a notorious black sheep of the law in the
north, and the agencies of several low and dis-
honest lawyers.
The major and his unfortunate friends had
scarcely got free of Horsemonger-lane prison,
before Blackshark removed with his wife and
children to a large house in one of the spacious
streets leading into Russell Square 5 where, all
at once, he came to be considered a " most re-
spectable man." That is, he occupied a hand-
some mansion, had a flaunting wife, the privi-
lege of a key to the exclusive square, in which
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 177
his children, in ? best bibs and tuckers" walked
with their semi-lady nurse, — gave dinners, and
claret, — said a long grace before and after meat, —
called up the servants to family tvorship, — par-
took of the sacrament, — went regularly to
church, — joined in the chanting, — repeated
aloud the responses, — and had his eldest daugh-
ter confirmed by the bishop.
A few weeks before Play fair's departure for
sea he met the major, whom he had not seen
since they parted, seventeen years before at
Passages in Spain. The major related his
story. All but forty pounds of the balance re-
ceived from Blackshark vanished ; and it was
evident that if he remained longer in London,
ruin awaited him. Playfair replied to this by
saying, " I am about sailing for America, and
beseech you, while you have a few pounds
left, to fly from the metropolis of land-
sharks, cross the sea with me, and acquire
possession of the American woodland track
allowed by regulation to officers of your
rank, — then marry the first blooming managing
daughter of any thriving farmer in the neigh-
bourhood of the spot you settle on, and give her
I 3
178 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
the disposal of the thousand pounds which Jyou
can draw for on settling in the province, and
then you may not only, for the remaining years
of your life, be free from the necessity of re-
quiring accommodations from Blacksharks;
but, in peace, happiness, and plenty, you may
yet live to see a colony of young Macphersons
springing from your loins."
The advice of Playfair was immediately acted
upon by the Major, and the circumstances re-
lated in this chapter are, in many respects, but
similar to countless others which force multi-
tudes across the Atlantic.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 179
CHAPTER XVI.
THE COUNTERFEIT COUNT.
" Que Dieu nous garde, done, non pas d'etre coupable mais
d'etre dupes!"
" Etre dupe ! e'est la derniere des sottises a une epoque ou
le succes est la premiere de recommendations." — Mtmoires du
Diable.
During the hours which Playfair and Mac-
pherson passed together, as related in a former
chapter, and on the following morning, more
than one event was disclosed in Liberty Hall,
which seriously regarded at least three of the
regular boarders, and which was at New York,
as would be the case elsewhere attended with
unusual scandal. We cannot give any satisfac-
tory account of the circumstances, without
briefly summing up the previous details, which
180 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
will show, we fear, a family of the Bulls in as
ridiculous and foolish a position as any of the
Jonathans with a hundred thousand dollars.
" D'Ombert, the name assumed by the coun-
terfeit count, already mentioned as one of the
boarders, was at first far more attentive to the
young widows who were both remarkably hand-
some, than to Miss Rennet. In a short time
however, his services were apparently devoted
entirely to the latter, whom he frequently accom-
panied away from the drawing-room to walk out
to the Battery-point, [to the Bowery Theatre, or
up to her bedroom which he declared was quite
a la mode de Paris,
" How delightful," she replied, " was la-mo~
dee-Parry"
i( The jealousy of the widows was, however,
not vividly remarkable, with whom he certainly
appeared to have been also very intimate a la
mode de Paris, and no doubt protested fre-
quently, first to one, then to the other, that they
were more divine and charming than angels, or
la belle Feroniere, or Genevieve, or even Eloise.
We have alluded in a former chapter to this
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL, CREATION. 181
adventurer having ingratiated himself into the
naive confidence of a beautiful American lady at
Paris, and her fortunate deliverance from the
fiend who had all but ruined her for ever.
A previous and also a subsequent portion of
the parts which he has acted, will be necessary to
develop his capability for those, which will have
rendered his name notorious at " Liberty Hall/'
so long as that notable edifice enlivens Broadway.
The " travelling English" are many of them
the most ostentatious simpletons, — the greatest
title-hunters on earth. A county commoner's wife,
as she rustles up the aisle of her parish church,
is perhaps the ne plus ultra of haughtiness, — and
her daughters fashionably educated, — that is to
say, without understanding any thing they are
taught, and rendered giddy by vanity, and
absurd by pretension, regard with adoration,
not as the Prayer-book would indicate, the
Deity of Heaven, but the lords and ladies of the
county, — its local nobility and gentry; — the
great arena of display being the county-ball or
the parish church.
Among the " travelling English" at Paris
182 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
during the winter of 183-, which Playfair
passed in that city, were Mr. Greenthorn, Mrs.
Greenthorn, and their daughter Miss Emma
Greenthorn.
Mr. Greenthorn was a country squire with an
income of about two thousand a year, who loved
provincial English life — that is to say fox-
hunting, good dinners, and meddling now and
then in the county affairs, — chiefly such as
regarded poaching. He never wished to leave
Greenthorn Hall further than the hunt of the
day carried him, and never was happy unless
he returned home to smoking-hot dinners, sur-
rounded by brothers of the chase, and when well
soaked in port and sherry, to enjoy his usual nap
in the huge ancestral arm-chair ; after which, to
close the evening with a sober rubber.
Mrs. Greenthorn was a notable and good wo-
man in her way ; delighted in precision and deco-
rum, — fixed hours, — going twice on a Sunday to
church, — strict attendance at family worship, —
and subscribing to charities, and to societies for
converting Jews and the heathens of Hindostan
and Otaheite. — The rector and bishop she looked
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 183
up to as personages to be reveredabove all mor-
tals, — I doubt not, — that they more than the
Omnipotent were most adored in church.
The lord lieutenant's and sheriffs' names were
also uttered with pompous and worshipful admira-
tion ; although she had never spoken to the first,
— and although the latter was rather too high in
rank for her to think of for her daughter Emma,
with whom, however, the young beauty had once
danced a Roger de Coverley at a county ball.
Miss Emma was really very pretty, — very vain,
— very jealous of her equals in rank, — and very
impertinent to those whom she considered in the
least beneath her, She adored young lords and
lordlings, and some of the handsome young par-
sons. She flared up her nostrils and snuffed and
sneezed at all who earned their wealth by indus-
try, — that is, those who did not inherit or receive
their property by gift, pension, legacy, or church
living. She Jiad three or four offers of marriage,
but she rejected them all, — expecting, as very
pretty young ladies and their mammas always
do, that Miss Emma would surely do better ; — as
papa could settle on her two or three hundred
184 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
a year, and she herself had the independent sum
of five thousand : which would also be secured in
the settlements : provided, her husband that was
to be, were a rich man, — (as to character that was
not to be questioned), — and would also settle
handsomely on wife and heirs. Besides, it was
ingeniously whispered to entrap a good match,
that Emmas fortune was ten thousand pounds ;
that her father, if she married to please him, and
that all was perfectly chained down in the settle-
ment, would at least give five hundred a year, and
leave her at his death, no doubt, twenty thousand
pounds more.
But marrying men in England, are not now so
numerous, or so ardent as formerly. — Settlements
are specially disliked, and fortunes are justly sus-
pected to be far less than half the usually reported
amount.
Therefore, notwithstanding all mamma's con-
trivance, and the widely-reported .large fortune
too, Emma entered her thirtieth year, and maiden
bliss was still her portion. She had heard much
of travelling, watering-places abroad, and other
fashionable foreign resorts, where capital matches
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 185
were often made, — and she teased her mamma,
and mamma worried pa, until the latter was only
let alone by consenting to start for Paris.
This departure was a memorable setting out
from Greenthorn Hall. The family preparations,
and the go abroad packing, would justify the con-
clusion that they were about to travel at least as
far as Jerusalem. The family carriage was covered
with imperials — trunks, and bandboxes, on the
top, before, behind, and suspended from the sides.
They posted to Dover; there, the drain on
Mr. Green thorn's purse was enormous.
They embarked with carriage, imperials, band-
boxes, bags, servants, and poodle, on board of the
steamboat. It blew fresh, — the gale was at
angry war with the tide. Oh ! Lord, how sick
they all were! — 'Twas death! — 'Twas then Mr.
Greenthorn first repented of leaving Greenthorn
Hall.
They at last entered Boulogne. Those polite
leeches, the touters, led them to the large New
French Hotel. Oh, heavens ! how Milord
Anglais was flattered and fleeced! Oh, what
havoc the douaniers made among the trunks,
186 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
imperials, bandboxes, &c. — such a lot of unne-
cessary flannel petticoats, fine chemises, frills,
shawls, &c. &c. Oh, how horrible ! What sa-
vages those douaniers are. JV' } import e, enough
was left to last until they should reach Paris, —
and then, to be sure, the Modes de Paris, were
alone those fit to appear in.
As they started for Paris with five horses to
their carriage, a legion of hangers-on, those
sangsues, the gargons of the house, rushed round
the porte-cocher of the Hotel du Nord. Milord
Anglais only got disburdened of them by satis-
fying the leeches with a shower of francs. Not
one word of French could father, mother, or
daughter speak ; — although the latter had long
since finished her education. Neither the foot-
men nor ladies' maids had ever left their country
before. The language they spoke was, it is true,
scarcely English, but certainly not French.
Richard, the footman, observed, ** Measter,
loakee, they bees roapes, moy oye ! for traces,
and two-a bits o' stroyng for reyns ! Moy oye !
wotena tacklinT'
Crack, crack, crack ! went the whip, and away
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 187
went the five round fat white horses with their
tails knotted, going at a sort of rolling gallop
which wheeled them, rattling with thundering
noise, over the Chaussee, out of Boulogne.
They had, however, scarcely gone half a mile,
when down bounced the postilion, — a trace too
long here, — another short there, — a knot had
slipped, — a buckle was lost. All this would
have been alarming in England ; u Mais ce n'est
rien, milord," said the postilion, and adjusting
the above-named trifles, mounted, and cracked
on to the first relais at Samer.
Here, while changing horses, the smith, or le
marechal, with two or three of his journeymen,
pretended to find a screw loose in one part of the
carriage, — in another a nut gone, — and a bolt
broken somewhere else. Without asking, or at
least getting leave, they commenced unscrewing
and hammering, and for what they did, or rather
undid, extorted twenty francs. Similar tricks
were frequently repeated.
They dined at Montreuil. Here was a precious
bill to pay ! none of the party understood one
wordoi the language; except two, in the impera-
1S8 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
tive mood, which Mr. Greenthorn was taught
by Monsieur le Commissaire at Boulogne,
— viz., "ma?igez," — " changez" That most
adroit of landladies, she of Montreuil, named
the most expensive things, as " Voulez-vous
des becasses, — Pate de foie gras de Strasbourg,
— Dindon aux truffes ? Vins de Champagne, —
Chateau Margaout, fyc. fyc." Mr. Greenthorn
could of course only reply, " mangez 1" " chan-
gez!"
If they did " mange," they did indeed
" change/' and five-franc pieces, Napoleons,
sovereigns, and Bank of England notes vanished
with a rapidity to which Mr. Greenthorn, who
was certainly no niggard, had never before been
accustomed.
They slept, or rather endured the night, at
Abbeville. But, oh, the abominable darkness
loving insects ! They only attacked pa and ma,
but the beauteous Emma was not only worried
by the leaping biters, but her lovely neck, and
temples, and arms, were all transformed into
blistered blotches by the loathsome poisonous
punaiseans.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 189
With sundry other such adventures they at
last cracked into Paris. " How these ugly streets
smell !" said Mrs. Greenthorn, as they rolled
through the Faubourg St. Denis, — " I shall be
choked,— stifled, — I shall ! I shall ! Oh ! that
nasty man there ! Emma, give me the ho de
Gollong."
They at length reached the Boulevards, where
they inhaled purer air, — and rolling down the
Rue de la Paix, and then to Rue Bivoli, were
finally lodged in splendid rooms at Meurice's,
overlooking the Tuileries.
The " travelling English" fancy that such are
the social relations in France, that they can enter
freely into the first society in Paris. No such
thing ! A distinguished man of literature or
science, or others celebrated for talent or rank,
may easily glide into the first and best circles in
Paris.
Not so with those rich English visiters who
seem to arrive for no better purpose than to
exhibit their equipages — their profusion — their
vanity — ostentation — their folly.
There exists, however, under various shades
190 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
of life in Paris, an adroitly- trained corps who
seem to have been created to minister to the
vanity and folly of the travelling English.
The corps consists of two grand divisions,—
viz., male and female. The first is " le legion
des chevaliers d'industrie" — persons who live on
their wits — as M. le Marquis, M. le Comte, M. le
Baron; their head-quarters are the residences
of the other division, who are old sows-less
intrigantes, and who also assume the titles of
Madame la Duchesse, Madame la Marquise,
Madame la Comtesse, Madame la Baronne,
These dames have usually lovers or sons who are
knights of the legion d'industrie, and whom it is
the special business of mesdames les intrigantes to
introduce to all dashing foreigners who arrive in
Paris. There are a thousand ways of managing
this. Very few of the myriads of the Bull family,
who annually flock to that capital, can bring
introductions to the British Ambassador, and
seldom to respectable residents. They usu-
ally arrive when all decent English and French
society leave town for the country.
The intrigantes have not unfrequentlysoma
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 191
connexion, and at all times sufficient acquaint-
ance, with the principal hotels and lodging-
houses — especially those in which there are ecarte
saloons : they are also found among the daily
frequenters of the principal restaurateurs.
John Bull is nowhere more foolish than when
he ceases to tread the streets or fields of his
native land. He, and Mrs. Bull, and their
daughter Polly, must see every thing in Paris.
They go to those resorts to which they can go :
to the most flashy hotels and restaurans. It
is impossible not to recognise them at first sight.
The chevaliers d'induslrie, and les intrigantes^
seize on them immediately as game, at those
flash places. Opportunities readily occur for
extending the " little sweet courtesies of life"
to the Bulls. At a restaurant or a table d?
hote, for example, in the way of recommending
and disapproving of such and such dishes — by
offering assistance in countless ways — by well
dressed-up flattery ; all so nicely directed and so
pleasing — so condescending on the part of such
highly-titled personages, as quite to enchant the
Bulls, for whom Madame la Duchesse, and
192 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
Madame la Marquise, leave cards immediately.
Oh, how delightful to exhibit in England these
tiny embossed pasteboards, with the names of
the very first families in France !
The Bul/s are now quite installed, — they are,
as they honestly believe, mingling among the
the first society on earth, — they accept polite
invitations to the ecarte saloons, Sec. These sa-
loons are usually attached to boarding-houses, at
which there are balls once or oftener in the week.
The Parisian women who frequent them have,
let it not be forgotten, lost all caste of character
except that of easy virtue.
The Bulls know nothing of all the manage-
ment — all the design in these melee assemblages,
all the acted courtesies of which enrapture Mrs.
Bull, confuses John, and turns Polly's head.
A mustached chevalier d? Industrie waltzes with
la bella Anglaise, tells her, at every turn, that she
dances like a sylph. He makes a declaration of
eternal love to her in less than an hour. He
has seized upon the happy moment to do so — she
yields — she is gone for ever I
All such, with the accompaniments, was the
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL, CREATION. 193
lot of the Greenthorns to experience. They fell
into the hands of these worse than Philistines —
les chevaliers <T Industrie, and mesdames les intri-
gantes.
Among the former, appeared conspicuous, our
counterfeit count, under the title of the Marquis
de Montfort. He was rather tall, certainly
handsome, wore his black hair frizzled, and his
mustaches and beard a la Charles Premier d 9
Angleterre.
cs How condescending and polite a nobleman !"
said Mrs. Green thorn ; " he actually called first
three times, and now he does us the honour of
dining with us five times a week."
Miss Emma lost her heart; yes, and her
head too, before the end of the last figure of the
first contredanse, in which she figured with the
ravishingly-dear marquis. Eternal love and
Emma's charms formed the enchanting fluid which
he distilled, or rather instilled, into Emma's
ears and heart, and with which he intoxicated
her brains, or rather her fancies.
They soon talked of that, in France, serious
VOL. I. k
194 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
contract — marriage. T mean serious as to pre-
liminaries.
The marquis's father is still living — he is an
old Carlist. His ideas are chained to ancient
usages. He dislikes plebeian connexions. He
resides at his great chateau near Dijon. He re-
fuses his consent unless his son marries a woman
of enormous fortune.
The marquis produces his father's letters, he
s hows and reads them to Emma. She is misera-
rable — her mother is in anguish — both worry the
father to come down handsomely. Mr. Green-
thorn gives drafts, which are handed to the
marquis's notary, for five thousand pounds.
Emma's money is also transferred from the
English to the French funds, in the name of the
notary ; all to be secured firmly to the joint use,
during life, of the marquis and his wife, and then
to the heirs of their body, by the " Contrat de
Managed The marquis takes a splendid apart-
ment in the Rue Royale, for four thousand
francs a year. He buys superb furniture, costing
eight thousand more. Mamma is enchanted,
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL. CREATION. 195
and says it will really be shabby in pa, not to
make the young folks a present of the furniture,
as the marquis has laid out such sums for the
new carriage and horses.
Mr. Greenthorn is even teased or coaxed to
consent to this. The marquis's father, a delight-
ful old gentleman, then appears. The contract
of marriage is signed — the lovers are united in
holy wedlock — the marriage is pompously an-
nounced in the Morning Post, and Court Journal,
and in Mr. Greenthorn's county paper.
A splendid honeymoon is spent at Paris —
another moon commences. — One evening of its
first week, the marquis does not come home.
Emma ! miserable Emma ! sits up or walks her
salons, waiting for him the whole night. Some
terrible accident must have happened — she is
disconsolate — they send next day, and the day
after to the Morgue — his body appears not there
— inquiry is made at the police, where, by the
vigilance of that famed institution, it is discovered
that he has left France by passport under his
real name, Roche, — and that he himself, and the
fine old gentleman, who personified his father
k 2
196 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
as well as the notary and other trustees and
clergyman, were all counterfeits under assumed
names, — the letters and papers forgeries, — that
the marriage was not legal, — that Roche was the
natural son of a grocer in the Rue St. Denis, —
that he and the pretended notary had fled with
all the money received from Emma and her
father, — that the new carriage and horses were
only hired by the day, — that the splendid furni-
ture was not paid for, — and that for both, if Mr.
Greenthorn did not pay, his daughter, as a
foreigner, would be arrested and detained.
On deliberation, Mr. Greenthorn came, at last,
round to something like sober judgment. He
decided that the wise course was to leave France
without delay. He paid half the value of the
furniture, and gave it all up, to him who supplied
it. He paid half a year's rent to rid his daughter
of the apartments, and also the hire of the new
carriage and horses, to free her from the claim to
both. Then packing up, and settling his bill at
Meurice's, he left Paris, with his wife and
daughter, for ever. Three months as " travel-
ling English," having left him minus at least ten
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 197
thousand pounds. His daughter bereft of her
fortune and of her reputation ; for they found
out to their sorrow, that the marriage was a mere
show, got up by a conspiracy of chevaliers d In-
dustrie and intrigantes, — and then the further
mortification of returning to Greenthorn Hall
with Emma, not exactly in state of single
blessedness.
Mortifying and distressing as were the conse-
quences at Greenthorn Hall, the whole that had
passed was soon forgot at Paris, and in less than
a year, the counterfeit marquis returned under
another name, — that which we have mentioned
in a former chapter — Count Foqualt Roche.
He then changed his scene of action, became
acquainted with other circles, — drove a dashing
cabriolet by day, — and had his chariot for the
night. He even insinuated himself into con-
nexion with a benevolent institution. This
occurred after the affair, before related, with the
beautiful American lady at Paris. By this time
the money swindled from the Greenthorns had
vanished in sensual pleasures and other extrava-
gances. Under pretence of a benefit for the
1-98 BROTHER JONATHAN^ OR THE
institution alluded to, he got up the project of a
subscription ball, or some such amusement. By
this manoeuvre he raised a large sum of money,
with which, before the day appointed for the ball,
he absconded from Paris, reached Havre, and on
board one of the American packets sailed for
New York.
Here he fixed himself as a scientific travelling
nobleman from France. Here he was the most
courteous-mannered man that i( Liberty Hall"
ever lodged. Here he gained the heart of Miss
Rennet, — and here, on her wealth being trans-
ferred some days before, in his name to the
principal Bank in New York, they were married.
It was now that the Boston sausage-maker's
daughter, under the title of the Countess D'Om-
bert, exulted in her happy fortune in not having
married an Unitarian parson or a Methodist
preacher.
" No morning sun," it has been said, " lasts a
whole day/' If the sun did shine brightly on
this bridal morn, it assuredly closed the evening
amid an utter darkness, in which there was more
of the infernal than *' weeping and wailing, and
gnashing of teeth."
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 199
The wind blew a gale from the west. A
packet-ship sailed that night for France. One
of the negro waiters was missing from the hotel.
The count left his spouse in "Liberty HalP
drawing-room, as he said, for a few moments.
In half an hour she became restless and impa-
tient, she ascended to the rooms, prepared for
their first nuptial night. Horrible ! — all the
count's luggage was gone, — and the countess,
raving in despair, rolled on the floor and would
not be comforted.
Next morning the pilot of the packet brought
a note to " Liberty Hall." It was from the
missing negro, to a fellow-waiter, communicating
in substance, that he had entered into the service
of, and carried the French nobleman's traps on
board the packet, and that he was, with his new
master (who told him, the negro, to call him only
Mr. Roche), sailing for France before the favour-
ing gale. The money deposited in the counter-
feit count's name was, every cent of it, withdrawn
by him, the very day he married, and exchanged
for good bills at sight, on Paris.
It was only now that even the marriage which
200 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
had been celebrated privately, was made known
to the inmates of " Liberty Hall,'' and to the
surprise of all others, the two handsome widows
burst forth into as inconsolable anguish, as that
which overwhelmed the deserted wife herself.
Money he had not obtained from them — but
he flattered their vanity, and managed so
effectually on the respective weak points of their
characters, and succeeded further, by giving
each, unknown to the other, a written promise of
marriage, that the consequences of six weeks'
intimate acquaintance has probably before this
time produced another brace of young democrats,
whose mothers it is hoped will so train them in
i( the way in which they should go," as to efface
every element of infamy which they may inherit
from the Counterfeit Count,
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 201
CHAPTER XVII.
SAFETY OF FEMALES TRAVELLING ALONE IN
THE UNITED STATES, A PROOF OF THE
AMERICANS BEING THE MOST POLITE
PEOPLE IN THE WORLD.
" Are Columbia's sons so good or so cold,
As not to be tempted by woman or gold V*
The sad scandal brought on the three lady-
boarders in " Liberty Hall," as described in the
last chapter, by a swindling adventurer, formed a
deplorable contrast to the general conduct of men
towards women in the United States.
In no country can the fair sex, young or aged,
beautiful or uncomely, travel alone with such
confident safety as in the United States of
America. — In England, a young lady may, as far
as the public conveyances are in question, travel
generally, but certainly not always, without an-
k3
202 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
noyance when unaccompanied by a protecting
friend : but let wife, widow, or maid, unprotected,
enter a diligence in France, and if either have
any pretensions to beauty, all the arts that se-
duction can contrive are practised for her ruin ;
— what French mother ever trusted her un-
married daughter out of her sight elsewhere than
at a nunnery, — or at a boarding-school, which is
guarded with equal vigilance ?
In America, a young and beautiful woman
may travel over at least all the old states, without
fear of being insulted, or the delicacy of her feel-
ings being offended. She has only to retain the
ordinary modesty and dignity of female charac-
ter, to be respected and guarded ; and it must
also, in common justice, be remarked that it is
rare indeed to meet women in this republic of
republics who are deficient either in modesty,
virtue, or becoming self-respect. Jonathan un-
derstandeth not the language of Lord Chester-
field, nor doth he comprehend speaking much
and meaning nothing, when he talks to the fair
sex. But, practically, no one will so readily give
and insist on giving place aux dames.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL, CREATION. 203
You ! who have travelled by American stages,
— or voyaged in American steam-boats, — or
visited Saratoga, or Balston, or Long Island, or
the White Sulphurs, — or who have passed
through the tedium of that period when all the
stars and stripes are represented by deputy at
Washington, will bear witness to the truth of
what we proclaim. Let us therefore honestly
concede to Jonathan, that if women, when
travelling, can do so alone and with perfect
safety in the United States, and also without the
delicacy of virtue being tampered with, con-
sequently, America is de facto, and Europe is
not practically , the politest nation in the world.
This was the opinion which Hugo Playfair
formed, when one of Erin's gallant sons, who
had a day or two before arrived at Liberty Hall,
on his way back to England, from his regiment
in Canada, exclaimed, " Not a bit of it ! 'tis no
politeness, nor good manners at-all-at-all, 'tis only
that Uncle Sam* is ever and entirely running in
* The United States citizens collectively, from the initials
U. S. ; and in contradistinction to Jonathan, or Yankee, which
terms the citizens of the south apply to those of the New
England States. — Editor.
204 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
love after the dollars, and never at all has a mind
after the ledies."
Hugo Playfair was, however, content in his
belief of the proofs given him of the fallacy of
Major 0'Conamara , s accusation. Susannah
Rennet, whom Playfair has introduced in a fore-
going chapter as one of the counterfeit count's
many victims, was not more than thirty-five years
old, although the temperament of the climate and
the nature of her constitution, gave her a much
more advanced appearance ; for her complexion,
like that of one wretchedly sea- sick, resembled
in colour meager whey. — In this free country,
where it is still the privilege of all to know every
thing, it would scarcely be possible to have passed
two or three days in the same hotel with
Susannah, and be ignorant of her pedigree,
history, and intentions. Therefore it was gra-
tuitously told to Playfair, by a fellow-traveller
of hers, that Susannah was the daughter of a
sausage-maker in Boston, and that the great
fame and extensive sale of her father's sausages
enabled him to leave his son two hundred thou-
sand dollars, and to Susannah half that sum.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 205
There are but few American citizens, with fortunes
of a hundred thousand dollars, or more, but who
are invariably tories, and fancy themselves aris-
tocrats. But, oh ! spirit of Pelham, such aris-
tocrats ! such "fools of quality!" There is
scarcely a man in the United States, except
among the Southern planters, worth a hundred
thousand dollars, who has either the manners of
a gentleman or the civility of a tradesman.
Poorer men at the same time are generally very
civil persons, and the farmers of the old states are
the best bred of all. We have seen a few of the old
gentlemen of the school now gone by, never, alas !
to return, in America. These were the landed
gentlemen who were bred up, as well as born,
before the revolution. They are indeed gone for
ever. Playfair, therefore, having found those
fled of whom he once knew some noble remnants,
resolved, before he returned to Europe, to draw
the portraits of citizens worth at least a hundred
thousand dollars. These delineations we shall
find no doubt so true, that the dollar-nobles, or
Uncle Sam's quality-folk, will not only at once
recognise themselves, but all others will know
them at first sight.
206 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
Susannah, according to her fellow-traveller
Mr. Spry Slimes account, having a hundred
thousand dollars, considered herself, although a
sausage-maker's daughter, a match for any man
of the oldest families in Boston : that is, one of
those houses, the founder of which was early
honoured by being one of the first men of those
who were of sufficient consequence to have had
their passage and expenses to America de-
frayed by the English treasury.* But as she
had no greater pretensions to beauty, than she
had to her family being recorded in the early
history of Massachusets, and as her lips were
especially repulsive, from their only half overlay-
ing the black jagged remains of what were for-
merly teeth, the substantial part of her attractions
was not sufficiently tempting to insnare even one
of the " tarnal dollar-hunters."
* Query, Does this mean a man whose sentence was only
short of being hanged at Tyburn, and consequently transported
for life? If so, the remark is not charitable ; and, only for
Hugo's obstinacy in speaking the truth, he would never have
alluded to such a page of colonial story. It is not, how-
ever, expressed in bad temper, but evidently to expose vanity
— not, certainly, in the spirit of the Ursa Major, who said,
" Sir ; they are a nation of convicts, and should be thankful
for any thing we do short of hanging them." — Editor.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 207
Her hopes in Boston were almost wholly di-
rected to the preachers. She for a long time
constantly attended the fashionable church of a
celebrated doctor. From disappointments or
" hope deferred," while years were creeping over
her, she became u sick at heart" of Unitarianism.
She consequently changed her creed and followed
the Baptists, until two preachers, who she believed
were devoted to her, both married on the same
day two sisters, each possessing youth, beauty,
and nearly a hundred thousand dollars. This
was not to be endured, and Susannah became a
Methodist; but as the numerous love-feasts of
which she partook were fruitless in realizing her
matrimonial speculations, she abandoned the
white cravat whiners. Being at last persuaded
that she had no chance at Boston, and some la-
dies, with printed pretensions to ancestry, having,
wherever Susannah's name was mentioned, said
that her dollars sent forth the perfume of sausages,
she left the City of the Pilgrim Fathers for the
City of Brokers ; the latter being considered a
far better field for speculation of all kinds than
Boston; she, therefore, with no very agreeable
208 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
recollections of her native town, travelled on to
New York, where she determined to take up her
ground at one of the largest and most frequented
boarding-houses in Broadway. She has, as we
have seen, and as Benjamin Franklin would have
predicted, " paid too dear for her whistle."
In the same stage which conveyed Susannah
Rennet from Boston to Broadway, there was ano-
ther fair passenger, and it may be pleasing to the
lovers of innocence and virtue to know that such
amiable beings as Lucy Plympton form the
general rule., and those like Susannah and the two
widow boarders at " Liberty Hall/* the particular
exception to that rule, in the female character, of
all but the slave states of America.
The object of Lucy^s journey was also a matri-
monial one, but she was very differently circum-
stanced from Susannah. Lucy had not more
than a hundred dollars in the world, but she had
exquisite beauty, charming sweetness of disposi-
tion, and the most winning fascination playing
over and around the very simplicity of her man-
ners. The Yankees, to better their fortunes, like
the Scotch, travel south ; and a young lawyer of
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 209
Massachusets, whose heart Lucy had taken from
him, left it with her, and went south, taking hers
instead with him. He went in search of practice,
and after some wandering, commenced business
as a lawyer in that, we should expect least liti-
gious of cities, Philadelphia.
He had so far succeeded, although he began
without a dollar, that, about a month before the
affair of Susannah, he wrote Lucy, " that absence
from her made him, as might always be expected,
wretched; that he had now so much practice that
he was certain of making a fortune, that a help-
mate would enable him to pro- gr ess more surely;
that he could not by any means leave his busi-
ness, for even a week, as every thing now pro-
gj-essed so fast, that in one day, if he left his
business, it would certainly fly away from him ;
and that as Lucy held his heart so closely en-
chained to her, he never could get it back unless
she came with it. He therefore sent her a hun-
dred dollars to pay all expenses to Philadelphia ;
and Lucy in consequence came on to New York,
dined at " Liberty Hall," and left an hour after
by the stage, with gladdened spirits, and with in-
210
nocence and love to support them, on her way to
join Hezekiah Bunker, who will, we have no
doubt, make her a most provident husband, and
she, in changing her name for one far less pretty,
will as doubtless make him a most loving and
notable wife.
Such a sketch of virtuous happiness is one of
those which frequently, among many evils, relieve
social life in America.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 211
CHAPTER XVIII.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION.
" II n'y a rien plus genant, dans l'habitude de la vie que ce
patriotisme irritable des Americains. L'etranger consenteroit
bien a louer beaucoup dans leur pays ; mais il roudroit qu'on
lui permet de blamer quelque cbose: c'est ce qu'on lui refuse
absolument." — De Tocqueville.
It has become an oft-repeated truism, that it
is the common vanity of the Americans to expect
that you will praise every thing in their country.
It is equally true that they will themselves find
abundant fault, sectionallj/, with men and things ;
but they cannot bear that an European should
blame any thing, whether it be duelling, slavery,
or intolerance of opinion. It is thus that they
have established themselves, in all the fulness of
their vanity, as the first nation in the world:
which vanity, notwithstanding the ridiculous and
212 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
often ungracious way in which it is expressed, has
no doubt aided them in their extraordinary pro-
gress. The French statesman was not far from
the truth who so frankly said, " every French-
man considers France the first country upon
earth, — and he himself, if the opportunity for
action were offered him, the first of all French-
men, — and more, that if there be any thing wrong
in nature, that it so happened because the Deity
did not on its creation consult a Frenchman."
Although the Frenchman is vain enough indi-
vidually to entertain this fancy, yet if you get
into French society, either in a diligence or a
drawing-room, you then witness how frankly and
fearlessly they discuss, and how they balance
and praise men and things with all the efferves-
cence of feeling, and all the freedom of sentiment,
but always in polite expression. The vanity of
the French, although, in common-sense judg-
ment, frothy and ridiculous, has however served
them much. It has carried them through great
difficulties, and stimulated them to great achieve-
ments.
John Bull, with all his bluntness, although he
may boast — " give me old England," — and that
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 213
" one Englishman will beat ten Frenchmen,"
will not only allow you to, but join you in, find-
ing fault with whatever is wrong, or seems wrong,
whether in politics, in laws, in corporations, in
travelling, at inns, or on board steam -boats. His
national character is proud, yet this pride, like
the vanity of the Frenchman, has moved his heart
to do great, chivalrous, and generous things.
The honest heavy German, who loves with all
his heart his revered Vater-land, if he have a
feeling it is not sufficiently appreciating his
own sterling worth, — not being sufficiently proud
of his country , v
That which the American citizen will not be
contented with, do what else to please him,
is your not going " the whole hog 5 ' with him in
declaring the United States to be —
" THE SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION."
No doubt the Spanish Grandee still con-
siders his degraded nation the first in Europe.
Where we may find
" All patriots, save nobility,
All brave, save fallen chivalry.'*
214 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
It is however undeniable that in any country,
except America,* the traveller may say as little or
as much as he pleases in praise of the country he
lives in or travels over. But in the Great Republic
you must praise, you must admit that there are
no social evils — you must blame nothing, there
seems no refuge, but nolens volens, however
glaringly in the face of facts, and against your
conviction, and though as evidently
" Convinced against your will,"
and
" Of the same opinion still," —
to declare that the Free and United States of
America, is, without exception or abatement,
"THE SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION."
Now our friend Hugo Play fair was the man not
to be convinced against his will, either by all the
politicians that ever clamoured in congress, or
"salted the cattle for the fall markets" at a
log-cabin Caucas Meeting, f
This determination not to be convinced, against
* Surely China and the celestial empire is one other excep-
tion ? — Editor.
t These political terms for duping electors will] be found
satisfactorily explained hereafter. — Editor.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 215
the authority of facts, which facts proved most
stubborn things, in the way of smoothing the
roads on which he has journeyed was, however,
persevered in by Hugo Playfair. He and the
major resorted, it is true, to several good-natured
expedients to conciliate those whom they en-
countered : such, for instance, as Playfair writing
and printing a short and entertaining account of
himself, and the major doing the same before
they left New York, for the inland country ; so
that they might answer at once and easily the
questioning of the curious, by- saying, on handing
a couple of pamphlets to the landlord or land-
lady of whatever inn they stopped at, " we wish
to tell you all about us, — these pamphlets will
let you know who we are, where we come from,
what we have been doing, where we are going,
and what we are going to do. Can you give us
lodging and food ?"
Several discussions arose on the question of
which is the first country on earth ? At the end
of each of these national contentions, a Parisian
Ballet-master ejaculated — " Ah, mon Dieu, non !
216 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
c est la belle France ! Paris ! Le Palais Royal !
Eh ! le Palais Royal ! Le Palais Royal ! !»
And Major Conamara invariably wound up the
subject with —
a Be dad, gintlemen, yer all of yees after
forgetting the Emerald Isle, 5 '
11 That first flower of the earth,
That first gem of the sea."
The Americans, however much they were at
sectional variance with each other, claimed one
and all the right to be considered the first people,
and the first country on earth.
Never could this be more conspicuous than on
the occasion we now allude to, when Hugo Play-
fair gave his opinion honestly and fearlessly
amidst an assemblage who came from and would
carry back his opinions to every state of the
Republic of Republics.
At Liberty Hall there were congregated,
Down Easters and Far Westers, Yankees and
Yorkers, Nantuckians and Cape Codians, Rho-
diansaud Trojans, Bush Trampers, and Squatters,
Philadelphians and Floridians, Nul lifters and
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 217
Buckskins, Gougers and Lynchers, Louisianians
and hentuckians, Mississippians and Michigans,
Georgians, and Texeans, Loco-foco-men, Log-
cabin and hard cyder voters. All these were of one
accord in adjudging themselves the cleverest
folks, and the Free and United Republic of
Republics the smartest nation in the uorld. But
as this was invariably disputed by Major O'Co-
namara, and by Monsieur de Paris, the French
Consul-general at New York, as well as by
Captain Loyalus Bluenose, master of the
schooner Royal Adelaide of Annapolis, Nova
Scotia, and never assented to on the part either
of Hugo Playfair or of Major Macpherson, nor
even by a brace of notorious persons, namely,
Providence Solomons, and Doubloon Jack ; con-
sequently Uncle Sam's supremacy was not fully
established among that numerous assemblage,
which seemed, from their varied physiognomy,
looks, language, manners, and character, as if
there had been centralized within Liberty Hall,
for Hugo Playfairs convenience, all the lights
and shadows of American society.
The question of Uncle Sam's pre-eminence
VOL. i. L
218 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
among the nations of the earth was not, however,
given up by his representatives. One of his
organs of speech, opinions, and nationality,
namely, General Genesis Groorooster of Utica,
in the state of New York, seldom allowed an
evening to pass in Liberty Hall drawing-room,
without bringing national pre-eminence on the
carpet of discussion.
This bold republican, whose family, on settling
in New England during the reign of Charles I.,
changed their name from that of Groocock to
Groorooster, was by professions, first a school-
master in a small town in Massachusets, from
which he rose in the world to be a land-surveyor
on the line of the Hudson and Erie great canal,
and was now keeper of the largest tavern, and
of the best assorted retail goods store, in the
flourishing city of Utica ; which great city the
said great canal has created. He became, in
consequence of the influence thus acquired,
General of Militia, justice of peace, and a re-
presentative in the New York State legislature.
On one evening when there were a much
greater than the ordnary number of lodgers and
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 219
boarders in the drawing-room, Groorooster, after
some previous discussion about America, launched
forth on his favourite subject, national pre-emi-
nence; he spoke much in the same strain and
words as he would have addressed the assembled
representatives of the State at Albany, and as fol-
lows : " Citizens and strangers," said he, " verily,
when Solomon said there was no new thing under
the sun, he did not calculate that there was a new
world. I guess this was 'cause want of its dis-
covery is history reason, that America isn't found
in the bible geography. Now, citizens and
strangers, 'tis 'cause strangers are not American
historians, that they be unbelievers in not having
faith in the free and glorious and great states of
our mighty Republic being the cleverest popula-
tion, and the smartest nation, in all the universal
history of all the created world. I guess and
calculate, by the rule of history, that our pil-
grim fathers left England, the land of bondage,
near two hundred years ago, to create a land of
civil and religious liberty, in a country wild and
wooded, and inhabited by heathens, and I guess
and calculate, that history says how they pro-
l2
220 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
gressed in driving the heathens out of the land,
in getting through the woods and up the rivers,
and exploring and settling down east and away
south, and far west, till they became the cleverest
population and the smartest and independent est
and finest nation in all the universal creation.
" Citizens and strangers, we have, in general,
lived to witness the United States progressing
over the Alleghanies, — to the Ohio, — to the
Wabash, — to the Mississippi, — to the Missouri, —
to the great lakes, and, oh ! ivondrous and terrible
over the tarnal snow mountains to the city of
Astoria on the great Pacific Sea. We shall, I
guess, most on us, live to witness Texas and
Mexico, and all the darkened nations of South
America civilized by our going ahead — progress-
ing, fellow-citizens, — and I guess it's no uni-
versal great calculation, that the institutions, the
language, the learning, the smartness, the steam-
boats, the newspapers, and the railroads of this
mighty great nation of States, will prog ess over
the north to Hudson's Bay and Greenland,—
over the far west to New Archangel and Behring's
Straits, — and south over Mexico, Central Ame-
-
wan
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 221
rica, Peru, Brazil, Paraguay, Buenos Ayres,
Chili, Patagonia, and Terra del Fuego. That's
what I prophesies by reading history."
<f Mais, mon Dieu ! I protest tout-a-fdit
against all you do say. — Pardonnez! — You be
not de first, or de cleverest, or de most galant,
or polls nation in de universe ! You be exacte-
ment one great peuple-canaille of never-sleep, go-
ahead-head-head, all — all — for dollar — dol-1-a-ar
— doMa-a-a-ar — noting but for de dol-la-a-a-a-
ar I" exclaimed Monsieur de Paris, out of patience
with Groorooster.
On this a Doivn Easter, a notable man, a
great speaker at Caucus meetings, by name
Methusalem Melt, major of militia, manager of
the salt-boilers at Kops-cook, owner of seven sows
and of the schooner named " What's that to
you ?" — rose from off three chairs, over which he
had spread his long legs, body, and arms,
and spoke forth in support of the general pre-
eminence of the United States, and of the State of
Maine in particular, as the state par excellence. %
" Citizens," said he, " from every one of them
ere universal states, and you there strangers
222 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
from all 'era jographical points of all creation,
I've gotten on mine legs to speechify, and will
make my speech jist as 'twere to be 'fore Con-
gress, and jist as true as if for the printer to pit
into the free press of this here free country.
Now veriJy, citizens and strangers, 'tis jist as
exact to cipher that United States, the land of
liberty, is the only land of liberty, as that State
of Maine is the smartest state atween Mexico
Gulf and Fundy Bay. In this here free country
we have liberty to do and say and write every
manner of thing that we have a mind to do. At
the last Caucas meeting, which was a preliminary
meeting, convened at Bangor city, the metropolis
of Maine State, to consider what we should 'arter
conclude upon, I made a speech which was pit
into the day-press, weekly press, half-weekly
press, and one-third weekly press, over all the
universal Union. I keeps a copy of it in my fob,
and as it jist speaks wot all State of Maine con-
stituency would pit into a speech, I will progress
and read it. My speech at Caucas meeting is
vy-dy-ly-zyd :*
* Query, Videlicet.— P.D.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 223
" ' Fellow-citizens/ says I, e we are assembled
here in our metropolis by the act of our own free
liberty, — not bidden, I calculate, by any despotic
officials, as in that 'ere land of bondage of Bruns-
wick province, or in them 'ere Canada provinces ;
but we be here convened by manifestation of
that natural human power, which gives every
citizen of this here land of freedom a woice in
directing the progressing of himself, of the public
at large, of the State of Maine in particular, and
of the United States in general; This is clear
as Penobscott river, and as true as that all dis-
puted territory belongs to Maine, and as full of
justice and right as that Maine militiar will go
and seize possession of, as well as right to, all
disputed territory : this being, as I cipher,
genuine explanation and rail nature of self-
natural government.
" c Brother citizens, we have witnessed 'mazing
things in these our days ; we've seed in purticklar
this mighty city of Bangor chopped out of the
black, green, dreary wilderness, and the 'mazing
district of Maine progressing from a savage and
scareful land of woods and rocks, and bears and
224 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
Ingins, and tiger-cats, and fowls, to be one of the
powerfullest states of this almighty Union. We've
our rfown governor and legislature, our n , oiv)i
state laws and privileges, our ?i , oivn clever-pro-
gressing and smart* population, — we've common
roads, railroads, court-houses, jails, colleges,
militiar barracks, note and dollar banks, schools,
and meeting-houses, — cities and towns in multi-
tudes without number, — great ships, clever brigs,
little schooners, small canoes, and leviathan
steam-boats. We've the fertilest farms, the big-
gest taverns, the handsomest wives, the beautiful-
est girls, the spryest men, the smartest orators,
the bravest militiar, and the inviticiblest generals
in all creation.' "
"You are one great Gascon, dat be all," in-
terrupted M. de Paris.
" I would overrun your whole state with a
ragged regiment of white boys," said Major
CTConamara.
" Would you ?" said a man of engines and
rifles, from the military college of West Point,
* Smart, in common American parlance, means intelligent
and talented. — Editor.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 225
" I guess we United States' engineers be now
contriving a torpedo, which we can direct under
^ocean 'cross the Atlantic, so as to blow into
universal atoms them 'ere ( sea-girt isles of
slavery/ "
A general loud involuntary burst of laughter,
from all the foreigners present, followed this
piece of bombast ; and there being some one from
almost every state of the union present, a dis-
cussion as to sectional pre-eminence succeeded to
the satisfaction of none, and the general question
of national superiority was wound up by Groo-
rooster, who rose and said, " We've had much
speechification, which has a most nullified edi-
fication, jist 'cause no one never calculates by
history. I takes history to nullify all contraries,
and I says the rule of history is as certain as the
rule of three ; and the rule of history jist nullifies
all contraries against free and United States
being
u THE SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION,"
cause history proves that France licked all uni-
versal Europe, and England licked all France,
and all Europe and all Africa and all Asia, and
l3
226 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
every nation of 'em quite slick. All creation
knows United States licked all England, and
consikently, free and United States of America
can lick all the universal created world."
" In truth, the citizens of this land of bondage
boast more than all the nations of the earth,"
observed Profundus, as he and Hugo left the
drawing-room together.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 227
CHAPTER XIX,
BONDAGE.
" L'Amerique est done un pays de liberte, ou, pour ne
blesser personne on ne doit parler librement ni des particulieres,
ni de l'Etat, ni des Gourernes, — ni des Gouvernments, — ni
des enterprises privies ; de rien, enfin, de ce qu'on y recontre,
sinon peut-etre, du cliuiat et du sol : encore trouve-t'-on des
Americains prets a d^fendre l'un et l'autre, comme s'ils avaient
concouru a les former." — De Tocqueville.
As Hugo, the Major, and Profundus, ac-
companied by M. de Paris, were taking their
usual morning walk on the battery point, enjoy-
ing a view of the wide bay of New York, over
which numerous steamers were scouring, and on
which were multitudes of sailing ships under
way, they were abruptly interrupted by meeting
228 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
General Genesis Groorooster, and Major Me-
thusalem Melt, both of whom accosted Hugo
and Profundus, demanding explanation or satis-
faction, as to their having uttered the words
" Land of Bondage and Boasting" on leaving
the dining-room on the preceding evening. They
also demanded of M. de Paris what he meant by
the term Gascon.
" I never utter the language of double mean-
ing, — take my words literally, and make the
most of them," replied Hugo.
" I am a German," said Profundus, "and I am
germain also to the words expressed by my
friend Mr. Playfair."
u And I am one Frenchman," said M. de
Paris, " and what I mean I also do say, and
what I do say I do mean, and de Gascon is de
most grand boaster in France, and you be des
Gascons of l'Amerique. So you"' take dat, Mon-
sieur le General, and Monsieur le Major, me no
be frightened by your rifell, or by your duel/
needer, messieurs."
Major O'Conamara at this moment joined
them, and hearing the words rifle and duel,
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 229
exclaimed, " Be dad, are yees gdin to be after
an affair of honor ? if 'tis to be a rale fight en-
tirely Fll be your second, and 'tis many a time
that I've been, and never have I let my principal
give over till he shot his opponent. 55
ts On this occasion," said Profundus, " what-
ever these gentlemen may think, we are to have
no duelling ; I know how this barbarism may be
avoided even in this land of liberty ; to which
country we are perfectly willing to concede much
that is praiseworthy, but to which neither Mr.
Playfair nor I will ever sacrifice the truth.''
" Certainly," said Playfair, " and as far as I
can learn, if an absence of pleasure, — if in-
cessant perseverance in making rich fast, — if the
most daring spirit of speculative adventure, — if
indefatigable resolution, and continued labour in
subduing obstacles opposed by nature, — if en-
countering by navigation all the dangers of the
seas, in all climates, — if unprecedented pro-
gress in settlement and population constitute
the formation of the first nation upon earth, then
may we accord to the Americans what they are
so conceited as to arrogate.
230 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
u The moral rottenness of negro slavery must,
however, be first abolished, and the bondage to
public opinion replaced by integrity of expression,
before the old world, and many many honest
citizens among themselves, will yield to America
moral joined to physical equality among the
nations of the earth,"
" I concur/ 5 said Profundus, " in every word
my friend has spoken. 55
"And me also — me do agree — 'tis all very
very true — every one word be very true/ 5 ex-
claimed M. de Paris.
" True as the hill of Howth, and most
honourable, be dad, for a Frinch gintleman to
say so bold a truth," said O'Conamara.
" But I guess that you now calculates we
be the only free universal land of liberty V asked
Groorooster, somewhat beaten down in his
temperament.
" I admit no such thing/ 5 replied Profundus,
" and I still entertain the opinion that you have
more extensive bondage, even among the so-
called free people, than exists in any other
country. 55
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 231
" That's sa'in, not provin, I guess," said
Major Methusalem.
" I can easily prove whatever I say," replied
Profundus.
" I calculates I dares you to that long chalk,"
said Groorooster.
" Very well, sir ! let us see," answered Pro-
fundus.
" Bondage to popularity is the servility to
which every person holding office in the United
States is enslaved.
" Bondage to opinion, especially sectional
opinion, is that to which every inhabitant of, or
traveller in, the United States is subjected.
" It is," continued Profundus, " this evil of
being from infancy trained to observe that
caution of expression, that slow coldness, and
gravity of utterance, and monotony or evenness of
key, so remarkable in the speech of Americans,
that makes so many of the citizens non-committals.
It produces cant at Boston, it creates public
arrogance, but no individual frankness on public
questions in the south.
" The only freedom of giving utterance to
232 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
thought is said to be in the far west. This is
not true — for if any governor of a western state
were to attempt to execute any instructions or
advice from the central government, if such in-
structions were not in accordance with the sec-
tional opinions of the public, and ideal interests of
his state, he would not only lose his popularity,
and be excluded from re-election, but the ma-
joritu would at once annihilate his power during
the remainder of his official term.
" This forms a rottenness in the power of the
United States, which Europeans generally neither
understand or estimate.
" Bondage to opinion, in fact, paralyzes the
executive authority of the government, which
can neither enforce the strict observance of the
laws, nor bring the whole power of the union to
bear collectively, as a great nation, upon any great
question of domestic or foreign policy.
" The Americans talk c heroics about "war/
but all this bragging is sectional not confederative,
and never will become sufficiently adhesive to
prove mighty under the present constitution of
the United States.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 233
" Its most deleterious evils are, however, those
affecting private life, in the character of which
this bondage to opinion subdues the moral
grandeur of thinking, speaking, and acting, upon
principle ; and creates, instead, the hypocrisy of
that cautious utterance, which sacrifices truth,
honour, and all the generous effervescences of the
heart, rather than assume the moral courage of
escaping from this bondage to opinion.*
" Rather," observed Playfair, " than live sub-
jected to this despotism, let me have a lodging
with some books in Eddystone Lighthouse."
The parties now separated in peace. But
whether General Genesis Groorooster and Major
Methusalem Melt still persist in contending that
the Americans are —
"THE SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION,"
we have not for the present time the means to
make known.
* It is only necessary to read the American newspapers to
be convinced of the full truth of what is here stated. — Editor.
234 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
CHAPTER XX.
LOW-RANK, MIDDLE-RANK, AND HIGH-RANK.
" L'inegalite des conditions.commence a s'y fait sentir. —
La tendance anti-democratic de commerce perce au grand
jour." — Chevalier.
" Odi profanum vulgus et arceo." — Horace.
From the battery point Play fair, Profundus,
De Paris, the Major, and O'Conamara, returned
to dinner, which was as hastily gobbled up by
four-fifths of the boarders as on all similar occa-
sions ; quick despatch being as much the order of
the day in eating, as in sending off steam- boats
or packet-ships.
It was a dry frosty night out of doors ; the four
friends retired soon after dinner to Playfair's
comfortable sitting-room, which was enlivened by
a brightly-burning coal fire, and in which the
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 235
party, furnished with cigars, some good Scotch
"whiskey, sugar, and boiling water, now sat to
enjoy the evening by talking over the affairs of
the morning, and the strange medley which so-
ciety in America exhibits to the stranger.
No man understood the lights and shades, and
extravagances, as well as the virtues, of American
character, better than Dr. Profundus, who was
a man of the world as well as a learned man.
Born in Germany, carried in his childhood
by his parents to the United States, sent back
to be educated at Gottingen, left independ-
ent in his fortune, he travelled over Europe,
mingled with the best society in Germany, in
France, and in England. He afterwards vi-
sited during several years every part of the
American republic, observing the progress of
the country, and the social, moral, and physi-
cal character of the people.
After some discussion, remarks on the morning
scene, and on the blustering of Groorooster and
Melt, the gradation of rank in New York became
the subject of conversation.
" I am entirely out of my reckoning as to the
236 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
latitude and longitude of this region of high rank
in New York, in the country of equality and de-
mocracy !" exclaimed Play fair.
" Yes, society has here its ranks, its grades,
and its pretensions as elsewhere," observed Pro-
fundus.
"I have witnessed great extravagance and
display ; but nothing aristocratic. I mean no-
thing like that aristocracy which arose under
feudalism ; but still there appears a strict separa-
ration of classes dividing American society," re-
marked Playfair.
" True ! quite true," observed Profundus ;
" the Irish labourer, who loves to linger earning
a far better subsistence after landing in the sea-
ports of America than he ever dreamed of in the
" First flower of the earth and first gem of the sea,"
for himself, his Sheelah, and his darling spalpeens,
looks with no little authority over the negro-
porter ; the carter or truckman if he be a ivhite
man, despises both ; — the cobbler all three ; — the
shoemaker and other little handicraft-people, all
the foregoing ; the fashionable tailors and boot-
makers all the latter. Then come the milliners
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 237
and fancy shopkeepers, looking with supreme
contumely on the grocer, on the spirit dealer,
slopseller and such-like. After which come the
castes of commission agents, brokers, skippers,
custom-house, and shipping clerks, small ship-
owners, and small lawyers, all a s?nart fry in
their several ways, forming a sort of exalted
smart-middle-cracy , ' booming' over all the
others, but who, when engaged in the daily
intercourse of dollar -making, are as obsequi-
ous, but not half so polite, to all they intend
to wheedle, as any silk-merchant's shopman in
New Bond-street or Regent-street, to my Lady
Duchess of South, or North, umber-lands ."
" True, I have remarked and been amused at
all this," remarked Playfair.
" The brokers, agents, and speculators of the
middle-cracy" continued Profundus, " almost
invariably, by the most daring engagements,
either make a fortune of from one to two or three
thousand dollars, or become bankrupts. There
is no alternative between the one and the other,
and the chances are about the same as those of a
238 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
man who goes to a Rouge et Noir table to win a
fortune, returning without a frank or shilling.
** Extraordinary \ v ejaculated Play fair.
" Yes ! " continued Profundus, u bankrupt-
cies are in fact more frequent, than realization
of fortunes, among the class of American or
rather Yankee (for they are nearly all from the
New England States) speculators alluded to.'"
" When such failures take place, the Yankee
is in no way discouraged. He does not remain
dejected, and inactive. No ! — he perhaps moves
south to the Carolinas and Floridas, to Alabama
or Louisiana, — or perhaps to the (t regions of the
far west."
" In short to make a determined dollar-hunter,
the sharpening of his qualifications by two or
three failures appears to be a requisite portion of
experimental education, — a proof that his inven-
tion and wits have been subjected to the genuine
speculative ordeal of 'a universal smash/
" Yankees, thus experimentally prepared,
spread themselves over every state of the union.
In the south they alone seem to maintain the
energy which, among the slave-owners, would
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL. CREATION. 239
otherwise rise but little above the vegetative
existence consequent to the sensual indulgences
which enervate their bodily and intellectual
organization."
"That is one way of progressing/' observed
Playfair.
" No doubt !" continued Profundus, " in the
south the Yankees are the revivers of enterprise,
as the preachers in the north are the revivers of
Puritanism."
" Is it true," asked Playfair, u that when the
Yankees become slave-owners they are the most
heartless of masters ?"
" It is as notorious," affirmed Profundus, " as
that the Scotchman who went forth through the
world in order to " do weel," with no other stock
in trade but a head full of parochial school
reading, writing, and arithmetic, and the rules of
book-keeping by double entry;, — with his mind
also well saturated with the Presbyterian doctrines
of election and predestination, at the same time
with an obstinately-formed will to make his own
election sure, was (honour to the emancipation,
he no longer can be) the most merciless of task-
240 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
masters, the most relentless of floggers, whenever
he became an overseer or driver of a gang of
West India slaves."
"I have witnessed this myself in Jamaica,"
said Playfair.
"The Yankee speculators," continued Pro-
fundus, '*' whom I have alluded to, although they
tread over or rather run slick through the instruc-
tive ordeal of one or more bankruptcies or total
' smashes/ often make large fortunes afterwards :
then it is that they, and their wives, and their
daughters, become the most ostentatious, and in
regard to display the most extravagant of moving
absurdities, and fancy themselves the smartest
aristocrats in all creation*
'* Houses fitted up, at least some rooms* in
them, — with the most costly French tapestry,
mirrors, Parisian clocks, and other ornaments,
and English furniture, gaudily displayed to look
at, and to astonish the wives and daughters of
the less fortunate Manhattans.
66 The daughters cannot appear, even en desha-
* How numerous are their counterparts in (England ! —
Editor.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL, CREATION. 241
bilk, covered with any thing less costly than the
production of some renowned Parisian modiste.
' I //allows my darters twelve hundred dollars
apiece for tirelettj you might hear as a common
expression, affectedly lisped forth from between
the teeth and thin lips of a New York commis-
sion agent's wife, in e talking conversation' with
the better half of a cotton or ship broker.
w Have but a peep at their parties, and the ex-
hibition of accomplishments ; for the simpering
daughters of these ' York Yankees' have like-
wise finished their education. Yet I believe it
would be as rare to find among them one, who
could either vocally or instrumentally display
much if any taste, feeling, or mastery, in music,
or one who could produce a drawing that did not
outrage all the rules of perspective, and all the
lights and shades of colouring."*
44 You have all the severity of your German
moralists," said Playfair.
"It is all true," continued Profundus. "If
the young beauties dance, it is no more than
* The means of accomplished instruction are however to
be found in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. — Editob.
VOL. I. M
242 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
angular distortions of the easy graceful forms in
which nature moulded them. If they speak, it
is affected utterances in squeaking falsetto of
fancied politesse. Poor things ! — how can it
happen otherwise ? we are all what we are by the
accident of our education. The whole burlesque
on what I speak of, is only an attempt, or rather
that of their parents, to soar far above their
natural atmosphere ; the latter being, throughout
creation, that in which animals come into the
world, and in which they are bred up, that is
educated, until they attain full growth and
strength. This morally applies, as truly to the
sphere of habits and manners, as physical circum-
stances do to the laws of natural history.'* #
6i I quite agree with you/ 5 said Playfair. " All
that I find really good in myself I trace chiefly
to the education I received by imitation and in-
struction at my mother's fireside.
" No doubt/' continued Profundus, u this ab-
surdity of struggling and believing to be, what
people are not, is one of the greatest follies, and
often the greatest source of domestic calamity, in
England as well as in America, with the difference
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 243
that in the latter misfortunes are easily, as far as
attaining comfortable subsistence, overcome.'*
* The family of the ' Braggs,' " said Playfair,
"are widely generated and spread amidst the
Anglo-Saxon race, whether in the United King-
dom or the United States/ 5
" True !" nodded Profundus.
" Well ! are those your veritable American
aristocracy ? I shall no doubt be asked on re-
turning to England," said Playfair.
" No ! they are not \" said Profundus.
" Who then are they ?" asked Playfair.
" The aristocracy of America, if there be such,"
said Profundus, " are the more highly-gifted
professional gentlemen, especially those of the
bar and bench, and those of the medical, and
occasionally of the clerical professions. To
these add that upper stamina* of strength, the
* The general virtual stamina of strength is that of labour,
especially that of agricultural labour, which in a country of
universal suffrage is the influential stamina of power ; and
which, while it continues so extensively agricultural, can
never become very dangerous, until the simple credulity of
quiet life is infected, as among the habitations of the peasantry
in the Lower Canada, by the poisonous designs of dema-
gogues.
M 2
244 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
taciturn unostentatious, American merchant,
the head or partner of the old-established
houses, rare men fast passing away ; and then
add that still higher stamina of respectability,
the principal or leading gentlemen farmers, and
you have then indeed the only aristocracy,
honest and true, of the United States.
"Now in New York society, although the
rich man is quite as much worshipped, and his
wealth also considered as seemingly the gift
which makes him a man to be looked up to, as
riches are in England, yet the aristocracy I
have described are not, either in this or in any
other great town in the republic, men who wish
you to be introduced to them, or to be pointed
out to, as Mr. Timothy Tradeworth, or Mr.
Silas Wigson, worth 200,000 dollars."
The latter will have little material, to work dangerously
upon, while the rural population generally have each some
property, and the ample means of Jiving comfortably hy
common industry. Let not the slave population, however,
be considered in this view, and if humane means be not soon
acted upon in regard to them, a terrible collision, as Jefferson
predicted, will take place.
j The labouring population and handicrafts people of large
towns are the material whom demagogues lead away with
success, for agitation, and not for sober utility. — Editor,
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 245
CHAPTER XXI.
THE AMERICAN MERCHANT.
* f 11 y a deux aristocraties, l'aristocratie de naissance et
l'aristocratie de capacite j je ne parle pas de l'aristocratie
de l'argent, celle-ci n'a pas de chance de s'affermir, et ne
possede d'influence que lors qu'elle est avec l'une des deux
autres." — M. Chevalier.
"The legions," continued Profundus, cc of
commission agents, brokers, and other eternal
speculators and dollar-hunters of the same caste,
must not be confounded with the great Ameri-
can merchant, the senior partners of long-esta-
blished firms.
(i This is a grave, taciturn man, who seems in
an everlasting state of thinking, who is slow and
difficult in conversation, and who, generally,
246 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
never in his life has troubled his head about
politics. He is almost invariably a federalist,
and the very idea of a war with England or
France is the very last event in the world that
he would be reconciled to. He hates the demo-
crats, merely because the latter meddle with
the Bank and the currency. In truth, to be a
successful politician in the United States re-
quires all the reverse of this. The former is
often benevolent, generally in donations to
public institutions.
" The American merchant, whether at Bos-
ton, New York, Philadelphia, or Charleston, is
a sort of prince who sends his fleets to all parts
of the world ; round Cape Horn to trade in the
South Seas, and then to carry sandal-wood to
China, and tea from Canton to Hamburg, with
sundry other such compound voyages, which
occupy two or three years, and the instructions
for which to the captain are drawn up with
a discretion, intelligence, and forethought that
would immortalize any first lord of the admiralty.
cc The great American houses of this descrip-
tion are connected by enormous transactions
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 247
with Europe, especially with England : and
although the democrats, from the president
downwards to the lowest workie of an universal
qualificatory may be very wordy about war, and
persist loudly in the way of e salting the cattle/*
that if England loses Canada, Jonathan
will not allow the British flag to wave over
Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, or Newfoundland,
to overawe the stripes and stars of liberty :
yet I am convinced that so disastrous to the
trade and navigation of the United States would
a war with England be, that not only the great
American houses, but all the commercial inter-
ests of the republic would from expediency join
so efficiently in opposition to the government,
as either to force a termination of hostilities in
a very short period, or break up the Union.
" Of the probability and consequences of such
a war, and of circumstances which may threaten
a separation between Canada and England, you
may yet, I hope, have an opportunity of noticing
in the course of your Transatlantic peregrina-
tions.
* The art of gulling the swinish multitude.
248 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
* In regard to England and America, despite
the popularity-hunters, the great union of in-
terests is the strong body of security, not suffix
ciently appreciated or understood by politicians,
which has been entered into between the
British and American merchants.
" You must not, I repeat," concluded Profun-
dus, " mix up the specimens of American citi-
zens we have been talking of, nor the legions
of commission agents, brokers, and other sleep-
less speculators and dollar-hunters of the same
caste, with the great American merchant."
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 249
CHAPTER XXII.
PROVIDENCE SOLOMONS.
" Heureux pays que le Nouveau-Monde ; 'ou les vices de
I'homme sont presque aussi utiles a lasociete que ses vertus !"
— De Tocquevxlle.
Playfair, the Major, O'Conamara, and M.
de Paris, being much edified at the description
of American character drawn by Profundus, the
former said, " There is, I am convinced, some-
thing in the history of those two worthies, Solo-
mons and Doubloon Jack, well worth the know-
ing. Do you know any thing about them ? for
I am as curious in respect to the men who
flock to and settle, as about those who were
born in America."
(i I know enough of both," answered Profun-
m 3
250 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
dus, " and their histories are at least as inte-
resting as those we have described ; I mean
the chief genuyne heads of American go-a-
headers ; leaving out the poor slaves, and the
free coloured people, and the wretched abori-
gines who have hitherto been classed and
hunted as if of the family of inferior animals.
" Swindlers from the British colonies,* the
United Kingdom, from France, and occasionally
rogues from other parts of Europe. Honest,
slow Germans, and lively Irish emigrants, —
blunt English, — thrifty Scotch, — and frugal
Swiss, annually contribute to multiply the po-
pulation at an incredibly rapid progress, with-
out their having little other character than that
which was peculiar to them in the countries
where they were born and reared.
" But among the most notable specimens
already mentioned at Liberty Hall, after the
' Counterfeit Count/ we will find Providence
* Among the vilest characters in the United States are those
whose evil deeds have driven them from the British Provinces*
Canada also is infested hy swarms who were too bad to be en-
dured even among the worst of Yankees.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 251
Solomons and his friend Doubloon Jack, who
certainly deserves a sketch, as forming a light
or shadow of New York, or rather of its most
heterogeneous population. Solomons and Jack
must, therefore, take the lead.
" During the last war, at the time when the
royal family of Spain were detained in France
by Napoleon, I visited the West Indies, and
was more than once at Nassau, New Provi-
dence.
" Solomons then dwelt there. He was con-
sidered a most successful merchant, and bold
speculator. A contraband trade to a great ex-
tent was carried forward with Cuba and Spanish
America. We were at war with Spain and her
colonies, but the trade was profitable to British
subjects, and the government of England was
not, as in days of yore, foolish enough to give
orders to his majesty's cruisers to arrest the
illicit commerce between her colonies and those
of Spain.*
" The Spanish colonies had then abundance
* This was one principal grievance of which the Old Colo-
nists justly complained.
252 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
of doubloons and dollars, and they wanted Bri-
tish manufactures of all kinds. England had
destroyed the Spanish fleets, and prevented Old
Spain furnishing as formerly her fabrics, or
those of other states, to her American pos-
sessions.
" In short the English, and the citizens of the
United States made capital profits in the con-
traband trade with Cuba and the countries
south of the Gulf of Mexico.
ee The misfortune was, that smuggling could
not, nor ever can, be carried on without a
disregard for truth and honesty ; smugglers
very easily pass into the transition of slave
traders and pirates. The Caribbean seas and
the intricacies of the Bahamas have, almost
since the discovery of America, been the choice
resorts of those desperadoes.
"All I have since heard and seen of So-
lomons leaves no doubt that, exclusive of his
other lucrative pursuits, he has long been a
party to fitting out vessels for both purposes ;
nor do I suspect the morals of Doubloon Jack
to have been a whit more squeamish.
SMARTEST NATION IX ALL CREATION. 253
" Solomons's Liverpool agents, whoever they
were, seem also to have been quite alive to his
and their own interests.
" One part of their business was to send him
out, at stated periods, a fast sailing brigantine,
loaded with suitable British manufactures.
Both this vessel and cargo, immediately on her
arrival, was, with Solomons on board, de-
spatched for the north coast of Cuba. There
he landed, — met at accustomed places Spanish
purchasers, who agreed with him as to the
advances which they w r ould pay on his general
invoice, and bringing the amount of dollars and
doubloons with them, came alongside his
vessel at night, in a sufficient number of large
boats to carry ashore the cargo.
"This elicit business w r as conducted to the
mutual advantage of sellers and purchasers for
several years. Now that the consequences of
the detention in France of the royal house of
Spain w r as a peace between the latter country,
including her possessions, and the whole British
Empire, Solomons's commerce was to compete
with fair and more honourable traders.
254 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
a Ere this, however, could be known in Cuba,
his Liverpool correspondent despatched a swift
ship and valuable cargo, immediately on their
receiving intelligence of peace with Spain. The
vessel had a quick passage to Nassau, So-
lomons proceeded with her as usual to Cuba, —
landed, — produced his invoice, — said nothing
of the peace, — and the purchasers came as
formerly with their boats alongside at night,
bringing their gold and silver with them. On
ascending and lodging their treasure on deck,
Solomons, instead of delivering them the goods,
pinioned them one by one, — then hoisted them
overboard back into the boats, swore that he
had a right to plunder the enemies of England,
and that he would shoot any one of each boat's
crews if they did not instantly pull for the
shore. Carrying off with him far more than
double the amount that the cargo would have
sold for a month afterwards, he sailed for the
Gulf of Mexico, and there, before the news of
peace arrived, disposed of his merchandise to
contraband dealers at an enormous profit.
" War between England and the United
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 255
Stales succeeded. Here a vast speculative
field opened for Solomons's adventurous spirit.
Smuggling and privateering were now to *be
boldly entered upon. He accordingly, a Bri-
tish subject, entered into partnership with some
ship-owners at Baltimore ; as owner of several
smart schooners, ' regular clippers? which sailed
so quickly, e as not to be caught by a flash of
lightning. 9 These, with forged registers and
papers, were employed during the war, smug-
gling between the British West Indies and the
United States.
" There is, or was some twenty years ago,
hung at one of the custom-houses at Jamaica,
a large fish-bone with the inscription, — * This
IS THE JAW OF THE SHARK WHICH TURNED
KING^S EVIDENCE AGAINST JONATHAN. 5
" Jonathan surely mis-guessed his calculating,
to allow a fish to bear witness against him !
But so it happened. About the period I men-
tioned — the first year of the war, if I remember
well, — one of the clippers alluded to was sur-
prised and brought to by one of your sloops of
war, near Mahon Bay, Jamaica. She was sub-
256 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
jected to search of course, and by her papers,
which seemed quite in order, she appeared to be
originally an American vessel, taken lately as a
privateer on the coast of Nova Scotia, condemned
and sold as a prize ; and then, registered at Ha-
lifax as a British vessel, was fitted out on ac-
count of her extraordinary swiftness to run
between Halifax and Jamaica : from which by
her clearance she was now returning laden with
coffee, rum, &c, to the former port. His Ma-
jesty's ship accordingly allowed the e clipper' to
pass. In a few minutes, however, a huge shark,
which had been plunging and curvetting round
the schooner, was attracted to the sloop-of-
war, — no doubt by a tempting piece, of fat
pork, fastened on a strong barbed hook, trail-
ing from a chain at the stern. The shark
darted at, and swallowed flesh and hook to-
gether, — was thus caught, — and soon hoisted
on deck. Being immediately ripped up, — the
readiest way of slaughtering a monster so te-
nacious of life as this terrible sea- dragon — a
sailor roared out —
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 25?
" Jack ! — Tom ! — Bill !— Look out for your
letters, — here's the postman come on board."
" In fact a leather case tumbled out of the
shark's maw. It contained the Clipper's real
papers, — register, invoices, letters, &c, which
the captain, on being surprised by an English
armed vessel, threw overboard, and they were
immediately gobbled up by the voracious
tyrant of the deep. By the papers it was
evident that the schooner was a smuggler,
sailing not for Halifax, but from a cove in
Mahon Bay for Baltimore. It 'being calm, and
the Clipper being still quite near the sloop-of-
war, the former was fired into, taken, and sent
for condemnation back to Jamaica. The letters
gave information of another Clipper being at
Mahon Bay under false colours. His Ma-
jesty's ship proceeded there, took that Clipper,
and sent her also, with her cargo, to be con-
demned. In both these vessels Solomons had
a concern. As to the success of the privateers,
and his consequent share of gain or loss, report
spoke variously. When peace came on, these
vessels were otherwise employed ; one or two
258 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
were among the pirates, which committed such
horrible atrocities at the Bocus's of the Gulf
of Paria, and at some of the intricate passages
of the Bahamas.
" Others as wreckers frequented those
dangerous coral reefs, stretching from the
Caycos and Eastern Bahamas, where it is al-
leged that when ships were found, as often
happens, stranded, with their mariners either
on board, or tented, unable to get off, on some
near rocky islet, the crews of the wrecker in-
variably put the former to death, to prevent
further inquiry relative to plunder. « It is, in-
deed, but too true, that the crews of those
vessels called wreckers, that is schooners and
sloops (the latter often from the Bermudas),
who frequent dangerous parts in search of ship-
wrecks, consist of persons whom the law might
well hang as pirates.
te The slave trade, however, from all reports,
formed the great object of enterprise, which
Solomons and his associates pursued.
" The British Parliament having declared
the traffic in slaves illegal, the slavers alluded
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 259
to, notwithstanding the expense and vigilance of
the English armed vessels, along the African
shores, almost invariably carried off their car-
goes of human flesh ; about half of which were
landed alive in the Brazils, and in the slave
states of America. At this moment I have no
doubt that a large share of Solomons's wealth
is still invested in this abominable commerce.
It is even well known that many of the slavers
which go to Mozambique and other parts of
East as well as to West Africa, to supply the
markets of Brazil and Cuba with young strong
adult slaves, are as much the property of per-
sons residing in the United States as of Spa-
niards or Portuguese."
260 BROTHER JONATHAN OR THE
CHAPTER XXIII.
DOUBLOON JACK.
*' Faults in the life breed errors in the brain,
And these reciprocally those again."
Cowpeh's Progress of Error,
" Doubloon Jack," continued Profundus,
<e was, about sixty years ago, born somewhere
north of Berwick-upon-Tweed. His real name
was John Lochead, or, as he was commonly
called at school, Jock Locheed. His parents,
decent farmers, were, like most rural families in
Scotland, not wanting in that laudable ambition,
which makes them content with many a scanty
meal in order to give to one of the family an
MARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 261
education for one of the professions, — divinity,
drugging, or doing.*
u Jack learnt fast, at school : his memory
retained every thing except the ' Mother's
Catechism,' and the e Psalms of David C a
portion of both which is given by all Scottish
Dominies on the Saturday to be learnt by rote
on the sabbath, in order to prevent that day
being kept otherwise than holy. These tasks
were to be repeated in a whining tone on the
following Saturday, or the delinquent was sub-
jected to the severe indecent corporal punish-
ment of horsing.
" I recollect," observed Playfair, (C with
horror the brutal Goth, my first master ; and
although I could repeat every line of any
ten or twenty verses from Ramsay or Burns,
almost after one reading, I never in my life
could recollect more than one rhyme of a
psalm, nor one passage of the c Westminster
Divine's Confession of Faith, 1 nor was I ever
* Writers or Scotch attorneys, when also land agents, are
often called Doers. Like Glossin, in " Guy Mannering,"
they often do, or at least did, landlords out of house and
home.
262 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
prepared with any answer when subjected to
the spiritual cross-questioning of our school.
u In that respect, I fear, I was quite as re-
provable as Jack himself. The dread of flog-
ging was, I am quite sure, that which paralyzed
my memory, which on every other head was
sufficiently retentive."
" Jock," continued Profundus, "not being able
to get by rote any thing bearing upon holy har-
mony, or foggy divinity, was so unmercifully
horsed, that he not only abominated the idea of
becoming a minister of the gospel, but it created
in him a disrelish throughout life for all who
were engaged in sacerdotal functions.
" He was sent to the college at Edinburgh,
where he advanced rapidly in all but religious
learning. The law appeared the field for him,
and being a young man of quick apprehension
and capacious head, in short process of time,
he became a writer or attorney. This profes-
sion has unfortunately in all countries too often
the effect, not only of narrowing the natural
generosity of the soul, but the business of a
writer or attorney, especially, when connected
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 263
with the management of land, develops tempta-
tions to commit acts of perfidy, too attractive
to be resisted by those whose hearts are not
strongly fenced in by high moral principles. It
would appear the latter was not the case with
Jock Locheed.
e: Being very plausible he soon managed to
get a fair share of business, particularly in
matters of litigation among the farmers of the
Lothian s. He had acquired in a remarkable
degree the gift of speaking fluently, and the
art of persuasion, or rather that of cajoling.
" It was really astonishing how he insinuated
himself into the acquaintance of great folks.
At that time it was customary for the first lord
of the admiralty to visit Edinburgh annually.
On one of those occasions Mr. Lochead (we
must no longer call him Jock), wormed himself
into the minister's presence, and the latter was
really very much taken with the manner and
ability of the former. The statesman, no doubt,
calculated on some occasion turning up in which
Mr. Lochead could be made useful, at a time
when Scotland was, in its parliamentary re-
264 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
presentation, little else than one great putrid
borough, possessed, managed, and fructified, by
the Dundases.
" After his intercourse with the statesman,
Lochead returned to his little office, but it now
seemed too small for him to sit down in. In-
deed the idea fastened on his brain, that Edin-
burgh itself was too confined a theatre for his
abilities. In the mean time he wanted money,
and he sat down resolved to accumulate suffi-
cient to establish himself in London, not as an
attorney, but to enter himself at one of the
inns of law, and to become a barrister. At all
hazards he determined to fasten himself on the
then first lord of the admiralty.
"The devil, considering Lochead a fitting
subject, soon put an irresistible temptation in
his way. A will, which involved in the nn-
ravelable meshes of Scottish jurisprudence the
property of a wealthy widow, was put secretly
into Lochead's hands. There is a registry
office in Edinburgh, in which it is legally ne-
cessary to record all deeds and testaments which
give title to property. The object was, to have
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 265
the will alluded to being recorded with altera-
tions which would change the testator's dis-
position of the property.
" By skilfully erasing or obliterating;, by
gome chemical process, several words and
names and filling up the same with the names
and words reedful, Lochead managed this, and
had the will registered accordingly ; he pocket-
ing aforehand, from the worthy rogue who was
to benefit by the rascality, two thousand pounds.
u Lochead now considered himself a ' made
man/ and prepared to leave the capital of
Scotland for the metropolis of the empire.
But the devil had not yet done with him.
One of the witnesses who saw the will signed,
happened to be looking over the book in which
it was recorded, and read it once from cu-
riosity. His memory had retained a different
idea of the way in which the property was left
by the testator, and he mentioned this to one
of those whom he had considered, but who now
appeared not to be, a legatee.
"An inquiry was set on foot. The will was
found to have passed for registry through the
VOL. I. N
266 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
hands of Lochead, and he was suspected of the
forgery, which it was evident had been com-
mitted. But proof was wanting as to who was
the guilty person, and, as far as legal pro-
ceedings were in question, Lochead escaped.
All, however, were convinced that he was the
man ; those of his own profession shunned
him ; his business vanished ; and his good
name, at least in Edinburgh, was gone for ever.
" At this time toryism was omnipotent in
Scotland. In whatever regarded politics the
judges were the most corrupt of men. The
highly-gifted Harry Erskine was expelled from
the faculty of advocates, merely for professing
to be a whig, — and his splendid speech, defend-
ing himself, which would at this day be re-
echoed over half the world, was unheeded by
all but a few honest modern e Marvels,'
" I recollect," observed Playfair, " that when
Muir and Palmer were tried at Edinburgh for
treasonable language and proceedings, the for-
mer, in his defence before the Judges, said,
c Jesus Christ himself, the saviour of mankind,
was a reformer,' ' Yes ! and he was hanged
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 267
too for it/ replied the Chief Judge in a pas-
sion.*
" In order,' 5 continued Profundus, u . to secure
the First Lord of the Admiralty, or in other
words, the then proprietor and bestower of all
Scotland's patronage, Lochead became upon
the occasion of those prosecutions, an instru-
ment more fit for corruption, than which, the
devil himself could not have raked up from
the whole infernal multitude of toad-eaters,
rats, and subservients of misrule.
"Lochead now closed his establishment at
Edinburgh, and removed to London.
** His habits were not expensive, and he had,
unlike most of his countrymen arriving in the
capital, sufficient money to maintain himself
if he chose independently, during the time neces-
sary to be admitted at the bar.
u He was entered at Lincoln's Inn with lit-
* This was Braxfield, not old Lord Hermand, who long after
in his dotage quoted Guy Mannering, which he was reading
on the bench, while a very important cause relative to the
boundary of an estate was pleading. The then law Lords of
Scotland, with two or three splendid exceptions, were bigoted
dotards, whom no post could dignify. — Editor.
N 2
268 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
tie difficulty. At the same time he engaged
in writing for the daily press. Stoutly did he
defend all that the ministry of the day did.
Highly did he extol the Dundases for good
deeds which they never committed.
" He had his reward.
<e The latter would have brought him into par-
liament, to misrepresent some fortunate Scotch
borough, that would have been to represent the
interests of some three or four franchised punch-
drinking magistrates, by voting for the minister
who would provide in India, or elsewhere, for
the sons of those corporation worthies.
"The hour for Lochead to appear in the
senate was not, however, yet come. He was a
discreet man. The minister was discreet too.
It was better that the former should first, as one
so gifted no doubt would, acquire celebrity at
the bar. The day for admission arrived. The
benchers having however been made fully ac-
quainted with Lochead's history, especially the
affair of the will, and his diabolical agency during
the trials of Muir and Palmer, resolved that the
bar should not be disgraced by his name. All
his efforts were ineffectual.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 269
"At that time the great Lord Erskine was
astonishing the world by the magic of his
eloquence, and the force of his argumentative
powers. Mackintosh had pronounced his splen-
did speech in defence of Peltier. Both knew
the character of Lochead and his connexion
with the ministerial press ; and it was said that
they had so managed that his admission to the
English bar should be rendered impossible.
Be that as it may, he forsook the attempt.
a The minister, however, did not forsake
him. Lochead's object now was, first to realize
a fortune, — then to acquire such distinction in
the senate, as would entitle him at least to an
under secretaryship of state. At home the
minister had then no lucrative office vacant.
The yellow fever had, however, created one in
Jamaica. ^1 do not recollect whether it was
a paymastership, or something as good in the
commissariat, or the treasurership of the island;
it was one or the other, I believe the latter : we
will take it for granted.
" He repaired by the first Falmouth packet to
his post. Here the new treasurer had certainly
270 BROTHER JONATHAN^ OR THE
no great field open for those abilities and acquire-
ments, which would, had he had a fair character,
have secured him proud distinction in England ;
but a wide dominion opened to him its prolific
temptationsj in the regions of Mammon.
" England was at war with Spain, and Loc-
head had, in virtue of his new office, in which
monied securities and calculations, and issues^
became the chief, indeed the only matters of his
care, formed an acquaintance with Providence
Solomons, who had then visited Jamaica on
some speculative adventure.
"The sagacious perceptions of both soon
discovered how very useful the one could be to
the other. The current specie of the Spanish
colonies consisted of doubloons and dollars.
The former were carried to Jamaica in some-
what abundant quantities, in payment for Bri-
tish goods, smuggled into Cuba and Mexico.
The commissariat drew bills on England for
the pay of troops, &c. ; these were either dis-
counted by the treasury or by other purchasers
at the current rate of exchange, which depended
on the abundance or scarcity of specie.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 27l
"Speculating in these exchanges formed a
very gainful source of profit to Lochead. His
ideas of accumulating wealth, however, far out-
ran not only these profits and the savings from
his salary, but the fertile genius which directed
him at the beginning of his career to change a
will, now gave birth to the conception of forging
money. Not, however, the coin of his own
sovereign.
"An agent from a manufacturing house of
plated wares at Birmingham, was then acting
for his employers at Kingston.
"Lochead sent for him, and having first
taken care, under some bond or other special
instrument, to guarantee secrecy, asked him if
fictitious doubloons could not be manufactured
much in the same way as medals, but with a
small quantity of bullion, so as to be only
detected by mere assay, a scrutiny not often
resorted to in the Spanish colonies.
" The Brummagem man entered at once into
the treasurer's views, and contracted to have
manufactured five thousand such doubloons at
the price of fifteen shillings each. The whole
272 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
of this false coin arrived in about six months by
a packet from Liverpool, — and through the
agency of Solomons, who had a large percent-
age on the transaction, the false Doubloon's were
circulated in Spanish America, receiving for each
twenty dollars, or about three pounds eight
shillings sterling.
" A fresh order was sent to Birmingham, but
the right of search, then so rigidly practised by
his majesty's ships, proved on many occasions
sad means of detecting the most ingenious
frauds.
" A scarcity of specie occurred at the same
time by an unusual drain upon the Jamaica
commissariat. The admiral on the station de-
spatched for Halifax one of his fastest-sailing
sloops of war, to bring back money to replenish
the exhausted coffers.
" This vessel of war, a few days after sailing,
boarded a brig from Liverpool bound to Kings-
ton. The papers were as usual examined. In
the manifest of cargo there appeared five
boxes of specie consigned to the treasurer.
This was the one thing needful required at
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 273
Jamaica. The commander of the sloop-of-
war considered himself justified in taking the
treasure on board and returning at once to
Kingston.
" On arrival the boxes were opened by the
customs, when lo ! an invoice and letter to the
treasurer appeared within; the first charging
the doubloons at sixteen shillings each — the
letter apologising, or accounting, for the extra
charge of a shilling as arising from the higher
price of bullion.
" Lochead was at once suspended by the
government from his functions as treasurer. It
was attempted to try him for forgery. His de-
fence was, that he did not counterfeit the King
of England's coin, that he did not circulate any
of the fictitious doubloons in His Majesty's do-
minions, that his oath of allegiance was tanta-
mount to rendering it his duty to do his utmost
against the enemies of his sovereign, — and that
he could not devise any possibly more efficient
means of annoying and injuring them, than by
debasing their currency and ruining their credit. #
* Not long since, a Count Milligan was convicted at Paris
of forging and circulating Bank of England notes. His de«
H 3
274 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
" He saved his neck, but lost his office, and
was besides rendered incapable of ever holding
place in His Majesty's service.
" From that day forward he became known
by the name of Doubloon Jack. The usual
refuge of scoundrels — a foreign country — was
still open to him. He chose the United States,
where he actually managed to be admitted to
practise as a lawyer. He lost no opportunity
of reviling England, and every thing English,
He now assumed the republican with as much
zeal as he had formerly practised servility to
toryism.
ee He continued his connexion with Solo-
mons, and I have no doubt invested money
largely, in the same speculative adventures of
privateering and piracy, smuggling, and slave-
trading. He has neither wife nor children,
at least no legitimate offspring. He has, how-
ever, led a life balanced between that of a
sensualist, and that of a worldly wise man,
who despises all moral accountability.
fence was, that he did so in order to retaliate effectively on
England for the injury inflicted on France by Mr. Pitt, who
Milligan asserted, had deluged the country and destroyed ere"
dit, by circulating millions of forged assignats. — Editor.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 275
tt He continues to reside in one or other of
the seaports of the republic, but has for some
years ceased to practise at the bar. The last
time he appeared was to prosecute, most male-
volently, the master of a British ship, on an
unfounded charge made by a sailor, who ran off
from the vessel, and contrary to all law, sued
the captain for the full amount of wages ; Dou-
bloon Jack concluding, — tf Yes ! I would hazard
to defend this hardy tar, even before the san-
guinary courts of that sea-girt Isle of Sla-
very? "
276 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE WORRIES.
*' We bold these truths to be self-evident : that all men are
created equal ; — that they were endowed by their Creator with
certain unalterable rights ; — that among these are life, li*
berty, and the pursuit of happiness.'" — Declaration of American
Independence.
On the morning following the evening which
Play fair and his friends spent in his snuggery,
as the major named it, the latter and former,
with Profundus, were together at breakfast be-
low in Liberty Hall dining-room, when half-a-
dozen or more young lads, clad in uniform, a
dress rarely seen in New York, and who had
escaped on leave, or otherwise, from the military
school at West Point, rushed, as noisily and
unceremoniously as students in all countries
usually do, into the room, exclaiming, t€ By the
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 277
'tarnal Mars, wees had a frolic to quilt the
Workies. They bees comin down Broadway."
u Who are the Workies ?" asked Playfair.
u The Workies/ 3 answered Profundus, u are
an association of the working class, which was
formed in this country some years ago, and
whose strength was never of much consequence,
except perhaps at elections. The principles
they hold forth are, that there is too extensive
a system of instruction in the United States,
that this extensive education produces all the
existing evils, by enabling those who know too
much to cheat those who know less, and that
they (the Workies) are instituted in order to
level down all education to the level of the school
of the Workies" !
" By the hill of Howth ! 'tis then no wonder
at all at all," exclaimed Major CTConamara,
w that the military gintlemen who've just come
in should be after having a bit of plissant diver-
sion wid them same Workies f and then turn-
ing round towards the republican heroes, asked,
fC You did beat them all entirely, didn't ye ? Fll
be bail ye ded."
278 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
" No, squire, I guess we didn't, but we cal-
culate we shall !" replied the young squad, nem,
con.
The procession of some hundreds of levellers,
with banners flying, had now approached oppo-
site the windows, and Ulysses, one of the negro
servants, said, " De Workies be, I guess, 'niver-
sal foolish to tink by march march wid de color
flyin to Workie Hall, to make speech, and print
it in de noospaper, dat it will lebel de college
and de Congress — I hab many time been asked
to be Workie ; me say no no, I guess "
The procession passed, — little further notice
was taken of it, — the military cadets laughed at
them, — sat down to breakfast, and gave speci-
mens quaint and formal of West Point smart-
ness. The Workies had their speeches, how-
ever, printed in the newspapers, with as much
care as Martin Van Buren, Daniel Webster, or
Mac GufFy, the duellist, would have attended to>
in order " to salt the cattle for the fall markets."
This formality having passed, no more was
heard of the New York Workies than of the
Trades' Unions in England.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 279
Thus it is with the world, at least under
representative governments. Associations of
levellers often do mischief but seldom good.
The Chartists have displaced the Trades 5 Unions
in England. In New York, the so-named, by
themselves and the press, " Loco-foco, — Jackson-
Van-Burenite, — whole-hog, — hard-money — Sub-
treasury-bill, — hard-fisted democrat party ;"
and their opponents, the Log Cabinite, — Tip-
pecanoe, — hard-cyder, Harrisonite party, are
now becoming at their meetings, processions,
— in their speeches, and in the violence of their
respective newspapers, the two great parties
which will disturb the peaceful and respectable
order of society until it be decided whether
Martin Van Buren is to be re-elected, or whe-
ther Harrison, or, as the hard-cyder drinkers
style him, the Hero of Fort Meigs, is to be the
next chief magistrate of the " Land of Liberty, 33
280 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
CHAPTER XXV.
NEW YORK HOSPITALITY.
" The hospitality of our fathers— the best first — the best
always."
" New York is one of the most hospitable
towns, not only in the world, but in the United
States, if Charleston and Baltimore be not ex-
ceptions," observed Profundus, after some con-
versation on the good and bad which abound in
that commercial city.
a This," said Playfair, "with numerous other
virtues and generosities, may assuredly cover
a far greater multitude of sins than the most
puritanical raker- up of peccadilloes can ever re-
gister."
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 281
«|
True ! quite true," replied Profundus ; a I
have, it is true (but my object has been, and is
to make people ashamed of their absurdities),
exposed certain glaring manners and ideas since
your arrival in the land of Brother Jonathan ;
and as I wish you also to do on your return
to England, I will continue to hold up to
the scorn of mankind counterfeit counts and
scoundrels of all professions, as well as all the
absurdities and atrocities which are the curses
of this or of any other nation.
u But at the same time I will never forget the
really personal worth, the sincere kindness, and
the honest English as well as national feelings,
which distinguish the leading families, and they
are many, at New York.
" At these houses I have found myself a wel-
come guest. Their social firesides present much
of the characteristic endearments of domestic
comfort, and as much happiness as probably
can be obtained, under Heaven's blessing, by
the wisest management, and the most virtuous
and honest conduct.
" The mothers and daughters of the perma-
282 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
nently established families of New York are
alike distinguished for virtue and quiet amiable
manners. Depravity is only found among the
very low and the intriguing political press and
lawyers. Female education, among the aris-
tocratic class I have described, has one blemish,
a fault equally common in England, — that of
straining the mind, and wasting the years of
instruction rather in the learning of accomplish-
ments, than what would really be useful and or-
namental; I mean instead of the instruction
which informs, and which the memory would
retain, as the elements of practical, elegant, and
graceful conversation.
"In this respect there is certainly an ab-
sence of easy utterance: especially until you
are (and if you are respectably introduced, that
will soon be the case) on an intimate under-
standing with the family ."
These observations were made on the oc-
casion of Playfair and Profundus going to dine
and spend the evening at the hospitable house
Mr. S , to whom Mr. R , of Liverpool,
had given Playfair a letter of introduction. Mr.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 283
S is a principal partner in one of the old-
established mercantile establishments already
mentioned. He was brought up in the
house in which his father before him was
the leading partner, and in the course of busi-
ness visited England more than once. He
was naturally and by habit taciturn, and re-
quired to be led into conversation. Yet he
never hesitated to give any information that was
civilly asked for. " Indeed/ 5 observed Pro-
fundus, " I have to acknowledge the same, in
gratitude, to every respectable man with whom
I have conversed in this country P
On the present occasion, Playfair and his
friend were most kindly received, and Mr.
S related, with something approaching
historic detail, the growth and progress of the
commerce between the United States and Eng-
land, particularly that between New York and
Liverpool.
Among other elements of this extraordinary
trade, he mentioned, " that his father had some
year between 1790 and 1800 shipped eight bags
of cotton, the produce of the United States,
directed to the then and still respectable house
284 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
of R Brothers, of Liverpool, and the then
collector of the customs of that port seized the
said eight bags of cotton, under the presump-
tion of there being no cotton the growth of the
said United States. (i Behold !" continued Mr.
S , " Behold ! what a mighty trade the
cotton has become since those days. Behold
our mighty ships and liners running between
the United States and the United Kingdom.
Down Easters may speechify mighty high about
disputed territory and war with England, and
ambitionists may talk and write about universal
liberty and Canadian independence, — but what
would we do without them smart ships and
liners ? — Where would be our markets for cot-
ton and rice, and tobacco, if there should come
to pass a war with England ? I recollect last
war too well — we soon got mighty tired of it."
u I guess, sir," he continued, " if the Presi-
dent and all his democrats were to declare war
agin England, we would not give them cash to
carry it on for six weeks.
" All the ambitionists, sir, have scarcely cre-
dit for a dollar, and politicianers have most over
the Union nothing but their speechifications to
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 285
gain or lose by. They all talk popularity,
and mighty fine sayings, but *tis all for e salting
the cattle/ sir, 'tis all for e salting the cattle/ sir."
" Well, sir," observed Playfair, " if a war
with England, which God forefend, were ac-
tually to take place, what would be the conse-
quences ?"
" That would be, sir, prophecy to foretel.
Great evil and nullification, that would be cer-
tain. Our trade would be ruinously invaded,
and our credit jepperdised, ^rnost as bad as by
Old Hickory's tyrant war upon the bank.
The war with England would, I calculate, settle
the boundary question in your favour, if you be
a leetle more wise than when peace was made in
the year Jif }een, and no good that I can pro-
phesy could come out of war but Nigger's man-
cipation over all the Union."
So far the conversation before dinner with
the usually taciturn but sensible Mr. S .
Mrs. S was a lady of rather the sedate
school, the excellent mother of seven children —
four sons and three daughters. The latter were
brought up under the maternal roof, and edu-
286 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
cated under the direction of a governess from
England, who, it is pleasing to have the oppor-
tunity of saying, to the honour of Mrs. S ,
and in admiration of the excellent feelings of
her heart, that she considered the latter, not
only in the family, but in the presence of all
company, exactly upon a similar footing with
herself.
" This," said Playfair, tt is to me delightful.
For often have I observed, especially in the
families of the ostentatious rich in England,
governesses, who were generally reduced by the
mad or rather criminal extravagance of parents,
— treated, even in the presence of the very chil-
dren whose minds they were employed to nou-
rish and form, with less respect than ' my lady's
femme de chambre/ or my lady's poodle."
" No !" said Mrs. S , " 'tis impossible
for me, while I cherish the maternal love which
every good mother ought for her children, not
to regard, far above any of our fashionable com-
pany, the friend, for such I consider her, in
whom I have the confidence to entrust the
virtue, and the instruction which I know will
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 287
involve the happiness and well-being of my
daughters, and who at the same time relieve
my own mind of much anxiety in regard to
them."
Indeed, the daughters of this excellent lady,
with their admirable governess, in company
with their mother, and looked upon and ca-
ressed with proud happiness by the father,
was one of the most delightful scenes one could
behold.
The sons were also trained up in the way
in which they should go by their father. The
two eldest had visited England and France,
and the only blemish in their manners was a
dash of European foppery and fashionable slang,
which, as the Atlantic winds had not blown off,
they carried back to America. But they were
now assigned, each as clerk, to a special de-
partment of the counting-house, and a year or
two of business routine will rub out every tint
of Rue-Rivoli or Regent-street frivolity.
The company at dinner consisted of the fa-
mily of Mr. S , including the amiable gover-
ness, — of Dr. M , a most excellent man,
and practical, though learned in Greek, — and
288 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
his sister, a delightful and well-bred young lady.
They had also visited France and Italy, but
they returned only with information and good
sense. There were also a merchant from Liver-
pool, another from Halifax, one from New-
foundland, a New York merchant and his wife,
and a planter from the island of Antigua, who
admitted that no evil consequences resulted
from emancipating the negroes, and that they
had done wisely in taking the advice of their
good Governor-general, Sir Evan Mac Gregor,
in abandoning the apprenticeship, as they now
found that hired labour did more than forced
work.
The house of Mr. S was, in its accom-
modations and furniture, one of those in which
substantial comfort and convenience were studied
more than show.
The furniture was solid and rich, but not so
gaudy as is frequently the case in the com-
mercial cities of America. Yet silk hangings,
turkey carpets, rosewood tables, sofas, bergers,
chairs, or-molu clocks and ornaments, marble
slabs, a grand Broadwood, and large mirrors,
were not wanting.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 289
The dining-room, with it, velvety crimson
paper, and figured merino window- curtains of
similar colour, exhibited much the same com-
fortable-looking aspect as such an apartment
does in the house of a great London or Liver-
pool merchant.
A cheerful coal-fire in a well-burnished grate,
a glass, broader than high over the mantelpiece,
a stout carpet over the floor, a large appropriate
rug in front of the shining steel fender, an ob-
long massive mahogany table and sideboard,
chairs of the same wood, covered with red
leather, and handsome bronze lamps, shedding
mellow light over the whole, with a few neces-
sary or ornamental addenda, completed the
furniture.
The dinner was excellent, the wines of the
best quality. There was as usual in America a
double superabundance, otherwise all was in old
English taste.
The turtle-soup, the fish, the huge sirloin of
beef, the boiled turkey, the roasted fowls, and
canvass-backed ducks, # were all admirable.
* This delicious waterfowl is peculiar to America.
VOL. I. O
290 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
Paris could not have furnished better pastry nor
half so good a dessert. The pine-apples and
oranges, ripened under a Jamaica or Cuba sun ;
the richly-flavoured New Town pippins, and
Montreal pomme gris, and various dried fruits,
preserves, and jellies, might all, with the other
good things common in this city, well tempt
the whole corporation of London across the
ocean to dine with the worthy magistracy of
New York ; an event which will no doubt fre-
quently occur, after the great steamers with their
five hundred horse power engines, now con-
structing, are made to navigate the Atlantic,
even at the expense of making Lord Somebody,
who declared the thing impossible, u swallow,"
as he said, " the boilers."
The ladies sat for some time after the dessert
was served, and then withdrew for the draw-
ing-room. The gentlemen filled a bumper, and
toasted them.
Mr. S then asked the company to fill
another, and then proposed — "The health of
the Virgin Queen of England/' which was drunk
with three times three.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 291
Mr. S proposed, * The President of the
United States/' begging leave, by way of preface,
to remark, that in doing so he must state that he
did not commit himself by drinking to the honour
of Martin Van Buren, who, by meddling with
financial business which he could not compre-
hend, and going the whole -hog with Hickory,
drove relentlessly, as he would a gang of (e Nig-
gers," the commercial interests of the Union into
a crisis, that would be calamitous to the credit and
trade of the nation. With this reservation, he
had no objection to drink the health of the chief
magistrate of the United States, which was done
with the honours.
The merchant from Halifax then proposed
" the health of Nicholas Biddle, the bold up-
holder of commercial credit." This toast was
honoured with enthusiastic cheers.
" Negro Emancipation," — " The land we
live in," — " England and America, — the mother
and daughter, long may they live in affectionate
harmony, and bound together as they are by
language, associations, and interests, may they
ever be united for the benefit of mankind!"
o 2
292 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
were the other toasts given; the latter was
proposed by Dr. M .
In the intervals, the major told some of his
queerest stories. The merchant from Halifax,
a stout loyalist, indeed almost every man in
Nova Scotia (except a few demagogues of law-
yers and scribblers) is such, condemned with un-
sparing eloquence the Canadian agitations, —
those from the West Indies lauded the gene-
rosity of the British government, not only in
the very liberal and opportune compensation
made to the parties for emancipating the negroes,
but for their mutually advantageous commerce
which had arisen from unshackling trade by the
British Government.
The Newfoundland merchant said, (i the same
policy was equally advantageous in supplying
the Newfoundland fisheries, although the
blunder committed at the peace, by giving the
west and northern shores of Newfoundland to
France, was not yet remedied. Neither was it
wise to have even a representative government
to the scattered fishery settlements of New-
foundland, the British constitution in miniature
being in practice a great nuisance."
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 293
Mr. A , of Liverpool, observed " that
General Jackson, instead of withdrawing the
deposits from the United States' Bank, and
distributing the surplus revenue among those of
the several states where it would repose use-
lessly, should have allowed it to have been ad-
vantageously laid out in public works, especially
in railroads and canals."
ei Now, however, as England and America
had abandoned, in principle, although only to a
very limited degree in practice, the crooked policy
of taxing commerce, except for raising the neces-
sary revenue; New York being the great inlet and
outlet of America, and Liverpool being, in re-
gard to the western w T orld, the same for Eng-
land, those cities could not fail to go on pros-
pering, and increasing in population and wealth ;
and whether ever Liverpool should become, as
he, Mr. S , certainly considered it ought,
from its central position, the capital of the three
kingdoms, — New York would assuredly become
the great all-ruling city of America, that would
dictate wholesome influence over the Union,
and prevent the advantageous alliance which
294 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
now existed between both nations being en-
dangered by all the demagogues east or west of
the Atlantic."
On returning to the drawing-room they found
an answer to those who formed the dinner-
party. Three or four intelligent gentlemen,
two of them barristers, and seven or eight young
persons, the sons and daughters of neighbours
who had come in to spend the evening.
The conversation was more varied than usual.
The ladies sang and played simple melodies,
Scotch and Irish, Moore and Burns. A quadrille
on the carpet, and other amusements passed
the evening, much as in a social English
family circle where friends and neighbours
throw aside the stiff ceremony of formal
etiquette.
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 295
CHAPTER XXVI.
A SMASH, AND UNCLE SAM ? S HONESTY.
" Many live by tbeir wits only, but they break for want of
stock."
" Rather go to bed supperless, than rise in debt."
" Silks and satins, scarlets and velvets, put out the kitchen
fire," as poor Richard says.
Profundus had so thoroughly, and so freely
from bias, studied the social and political con-
dition of the United States, that the information
which he communicated, whether as to slavery,
moral character, or the political institutions of
the country, might well be taken down as truth
and wisdom.
Soon after the late calamity in trade, which
had caused a majority of the great commercial
296 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
houses of New York, and other large cities, to
suspend their payments, it was loudly con-
tended that every dishonourable evasion would
be taken advantage of by the Americans.
Playfair, anxious as he has proved himself to
be, to know the truth, relied upon Profundus,
whom the instinct of Playfair's judgment seized
upon as the person of all others entitled to his
full confidence.
" You were in this country when the late
crisis in trade happened ?" asked Playfair.
" Yes," said Profundus, " I was at Philadel-
phia when that calamity broke forth."
" Grave news to-day from New York," said
an excellent quaker friend to me on meeting
him in Chesnut-street.
u What may that be, my friend," I asked.
" A serious commercial calamity," he replied,
cc which will afflict us generally, and ruin the
speculative and heedless part of the community
at New York, — they call it a commercial hurri-
cane, that furnisheth a fat harvest to the lawyers*
as that pestilence of the Lord, the cholera,
did to the doctors. Shoals of protests, say the
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 297
New York correspondents, are pouring in oceans
of dollars to the notaries."
" Very superlative language/ 7 I observed to
my sensible friend.
ee Very true, friend," he replied ; " commer-
cial hurricane, they of New York denominateth
it ; — a hurricane, mine friend, dealeth havoc in
its way, and it passeth quickly over, and again
all is fair, unless it be the actual prostrate.
Not so with this commercial crisis, which all
discreet men had long foreseen, and which will
long undermine confidence between man and
man."
" Numerous merchants and speculators, with
the hope of accumulating large fortunes in their
operations, run in debt beyond their ability to
pay. — They will force the banks to suspend the
payment of specie, with the double object of
relieving themselves from being called on to
pay for the present, and finally paying in a de-
preciated currency. Thus will they throw their
losses on other portions of the community,
which have no hand in their money-making
schemes. Every farmer and mechanic who
03
298
BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
hath a dollar note on hand when the banks
stop, will be made to pay ten cents of the specu-
lator's losses ; every one who has a five-dollar
note, fifty cents ; every one who has a ten-dol-
lar note, one dollar; and every man who has
a hundred-dollar note, ten dollars. The bank-
note circulation of the country is at least one
hundred millions of dollars, so that the specu-
lators, by stopping the banks, will throw on the
people their own losses, to the amount of ten
millions of dollars in that single operation ! The
depositors in banks will also be made to bear
their ten per cent, of the speculator's losses.
" Thus there is no calculating where and how
the calamity may end."
" Making haste to be rich, and trading with-
out capital,* have then been," I observed, " the
* A number of merchants from all parts of the United States
assembled soon after the beginning of the crisis. They passed
several resolutions, disclaiming all party feelings or motives,
which they declared to have been the bane of the country.
They agreed that rash speculations in lands, building lots,
stocks, and shares, by men of limited resources, the importa-
tion of bread stuffs, the great excess of importations over ex-
ports, by which large foreign debts had been contracted, and
intense political excitement had all contributed to plunge the
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 299
causes of this commercial ruin; this calamity
may produce future benefit ; it may purify the
trading community and spirit."
" Were that of a surety to follow, we might
verily consider the present calamity a blessing ;
but I doubt this : for no sooner do they of New
York, I meaneth the speculators, get into a
credit and become possessed of a few thousand
dollars, than they get into costly houses, fare
sumptuously, dress expensively in French
fashions, bring up their daughters in pride and
extravagance, spend much time at Rockaway,
Long Island, become bankrupts, pay some in
full to set them up again, and cheat all their
other creditors."
u Such a course of proceeding and living will
in all countries," I observed, " end in ruin ; but
the New Yorkers, attribute the blame to the
government, and that the President's war
against the bank has produced the ruin."*
country into a state of unparalleled difficulty. Finally, they
warned their fellow-countrymen to " leave the delusive mazes
of speculation, and return to the practice of industry and eco-
nomy/'
* A New York paper, attacking the Washington Globe, —
the government organ, — says, "The course of the officia 1
300 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
" In fact, friend, they speak truth ; but the
great causes of ruin are those that I have
mentioned."
" A very intelligent English traveller, Mr.
Hodsons, writes in one of his letters — c The
frauds and subterfuges in cases of insolvency
exceed every thing I could have conceived, and
as long as America continues this system, she
must not be surprised to find her deficiencies
blazoned forth and exaggerated by foreigners,
who have probably only known her in her com-
mercial character. 5 ' 1
" Is there general truth in these charges ?"
asked Playfair.
" The charge," replied Profundus, " in regard
to subterfuges in cases of insolvency may still
paper of the Administration is becoming so audaciously
wicked, that it is proper it should be as generally as possible
held up to the scorn and condemnation of honest men of all
parties. Will it be believed that only one or two days ago*
this same paper called for a suppression of all party feeling
under the national calamity that has befallen us ? Yet is the
ink scarcely dry with which the words were printed, than there
appears in its columns, the attempts of a desperado, by foul
falsehood to array one class of society against another, for the
evident purpose of turning the current of public indignation
from those who have caused the evils he points out."
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 301
in many cases be made against Americans in
traded but with much limitation to that written
twelve or thirteen years ago by the excellent
author from whom you quote, and I fear many
houses in London, Liverpool, and Glasgow,
would say that subterfuges on the part of those
to whom they give credit in the timber and
ship-building business of Canada and New
Brunswick, are quite as frequent as in the
United States. Yet if resolutions passed at
public meetings speak the public voice, the
* The New York Chamber of Commerce in 1823 made the
following declaration in a memorial to Congress, for a general
bankrupt law, to provide for an honest distribution of an in-
solvent's estate :
" Without a general bankrupt law all the creditors of a
merchant who fails, have not an equal chance of receiving a
dividend of his estate. When a merchant's affairs become
embarrassed in any of our commercial cities (the practice
is so uniform that it has become a perfect system), he assigns
all his property in the first place to pay his confidential friends,
who have lent their names and their money, and thus given
him a false credit, which has been the means of imposing on
others ; or he has already assigned, as security for usurious
loans from some of the harpies which infest all our cities,
every thing which he has of any value, and his honest creditors
get nothing. The truth of this has been felt, and will be
acknowledged by almost every commercial man in the United
States."
302 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
Americans must be indeed the most dishonest
people on earth. A few days after the general
crisis happened a meeting was held of the in-
habitants — no ! of the rogues of Philadelphia,
when they spoke out and published their con-
fession of dishonesty as followeth :
" ' Whereas a design not only exists, but has
been openly avowed by the head of the British
party in the United States— namely, by Nicholas
Biddle, President of the British Bank, and by
the leading organs of the British party, and by
all those papers throughout the United States,
which are devoted to foreign interests, and sup-
ported by foreign funds, and with which our
country is so abundantly afflicted — to permitand
absolutely to enforce, in this season of public dif-
ficulty, the export of American specie to foreign
countries, thereby to bolster up, with the
treasure and lawful currency of the United
States, the ruinous fortunes of European mo-
narchies :
" c And whereas at the present time, during
the semblance of peace, there remains an active
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 303
war between the two hemispheres of monar-
chical Europe and Republican America, and
whereas this war, instead of being carried on
openly, as in years past, by fleets and armies,
is conducted more insidiously and danger-
ously by means of fraudulent money-transac-
tions :
" ( And whereas the object of this struggle has
been, and is, to make this young nation (free as
it is of debt and expensive government) to feed,
by the tribute of its surplus wealth, the old,
decayed, indebted, and insolvent governments
of all Europe :
" e And whereas there exists in this city
Nicholas Biddle, and his party, in the active
employ of a foreign enemy, whose special occu-
pation it is to seize upon every advantage, to
augment every difficulty, to create every em-
barrassment, and to subtract every dollar from
circulation :
" ( Resolved, — That these United States are
indebted to no nation under heaven; that to
the specie, treasure, and lawful current coin
304 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
within our borders, no foreign claims do, or can
exist ; and further that the United States is
the only civilized country on the globe!! 3 "
A New York journalist remarked on the
proceedings at Philadelphia as follows :
"We cannot forbear to express our astonish-
ment that a large assemblage of people could
be brought together in Philadelphia to counte-
nance the expression of such wicked absurdi-
ties, and that some of our respectable contem-
poraries there should have published them.
We have here also, it is true, a knot of politi-
cians of the same school, but they chiefly con-
sist of outcasts from the British island — fellows
who have figured at trades' union and radical
meetings, the hangers-on in Bow- street, and
minor theatres, and they are as contemptible
in number, as they are in character ; nor
would their written effusions ever have found a
place in any newspaper in this city of decent
standing."
" Instead of dishonesty " continued Profundus,
" I believe that honesty, in regard to fulfilling
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 305
obligations, is the peculiar characteristic of the
United States, and that if the rogues from
Europe who take refuge in the republic were
abstracted, as little knavery would be found
to prevail in this country as in the states of
Europe.
" Credit is every thing to a man in the United
States, and an honest name is essential to credit.
It is therefore the interest of an American in
trade to be honest, even if he be not such from
principle.
" The great body of the people, it must be
remembered, are farmers. With few exceptions,
they are from principle moral and honest. All
the great American houses of long standing,
and such of the latter — like that of the unble-
mished Arthur Tappan — as have been subjected
by the crisis to suspension of payment, are ho-
nest from highly honourable respect for charac-
ter and reputation. Nay, even the greater part
of the proprietors of slave estates are honest in
their pecuniary engagements.
u Swindlers infest New York, New Orleans,
306 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
and other commercial towns ; but generally, I do
believe, that honourable principles prevail, —
and the fact has been so far proved, that the
greatest exertions will at all times be made by
the American merchants to remit money and
export produce to liquidate their obligations to
those of England, and that the commercial in-
terests generally will act upon the integrity of
the following excellent and most honourable
advice, which was given at the time by
Mr. Biddle:
" ' In such a state of things,' said he, e the
first consideration is how to escape from it —
how to provide, at the earliest practicable mo-
ment, to change a condition which should not
be tolerated beyond the necessity which com-
manded it. The old associations, the extensive
connexions, the established credit, the large
capital of the bank of the United States render
it the natural rallying-point of the country for
the resumption of specie payments. It seemed
wiser, therefore, not to waste its strength in a
struggle which might be doubtful, while the
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 30?
executive persevered in its policy, but to
husband all its resources, so as to profit by
the first favourable moment to take the lead
in the early resumption of specie payments.
Accordingly the bank of the United States
assumes that position. It will co-operate
cordially and zealously with the government
banks, with all the other banks, and with
any other influences which can aid in that
object.
66 e In the mean time two great duties devolve
on the banks and the country. The first re-
gards foreign nations — the second, our own.
We owe a debt to foreigners by no means large
for our resources, but disproportioned to our
present means of payment. We must take care
that this late measure shall not seem to be an
effort to avoid the payment of our honest debts
to them. We have worn, and eaten, and drunk,
the produce of their industry — too much of all,
perhaps, but that is our fault not theirs. We
may take less hereafter, but the country is dis-
honoured unless we discharge that debt to the
308 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
uttermost farthing. The second duty is to our*
selves. We should bear constantly in mind,
that the step which has been taken is excusable
only on the ground of an overruling necessity.
We must not make the remedy itself a disease.
It is our duty to substitute some effectual
restraint, which may enable us to restore the
currency, without delay or difficulty, to a safe
and wholesome condition. The result of the
whole is, that a great disaster has befallen the
country. Its existence thus far only a mis-
fortune — its continuance will be a reproach,
from which all true men must rally to save
her/"
Nothing can be more honourable than these
observations and advice ; and although the ex-
tensive prevalence exists, not among the agri-
cultural population — not among the old esta-
blished commercial houses, of taking advantages
of circumstances to act fraudulently on the part
of the adventurers in all the States ; yet Europe
must cleanse herself of many impurities which
blacken the character of speculators in every
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 309
one of her cities, before she condemns America
under the charge of dishonesty.
There are also causes which give a colour to
iniquity in America which renders fraud less
odious in her cities, except in the eyes of
foreigners, than in Europe,
Annual elections, and those who come either
into power by them, or when there is an
election for president, dismissing from the public
service all the employes, and appointing new ones
to every post from among those who voted for
them, are the most futile causes of dishonesty.
To some extent in the higher offices under
the government, a removal from office, or, rather
a resigning of place, is the case in England :
but such changes do not interfere with any of
the judges, except the lord chancellor, nor
with the chairman and other officers, down to
the lowest clerk, or supervisor, or gauger of the
customs or excise, as is the case in the United
States.
This indiscriminate system of dismissal and
of new appointments is one of the greatest
sources of infamy in the United States, and,
310 BROTHER JONATHAN, OR THE
after slavery, the most rotten part of the moral
or social condition of the country.
Foreigners also complain that they are far
more harshly treated by the customhouse than
American citizens are, on importing goods into
the United States.
For some years the manufacturers of the
United States, have opposed the importation of
foreign fabrics: the citizens of the United
States who have been embarked in importing
goods from foreign countries, have also raised up
their voices against the importation of goods
into the United States from other countries by
foreigners. Both the former are very nume-
rous, and have great influence at elections, espe-
cially when that of election for president is to
take place ; and to their political influence as
voters, the executive, the judges, the employes,
high and low, give way. This is declared to be
most vexatiously the case at present, as the
approaching election for president renders it
vital as to the continuance in office of any one
now employed in the customs, should Van
Buren not be re-elected, as every new president
SMARTEST NATION IN ALL CREATION. 311
t
fills every office by those, or by the nominees
of those who secure him in his election,
Under these circumstances, the employes of
the customs are accused of meeting the wishes
and interests of the American manufacturers
and importers, by harassing the foreign im-
porter; and even the judges and the juries
and lawyers are asserted to be unjust and
partial to all who are not United- States
Citizens ; merely the continuance in every office
depends upon the majority of votes being for
Martin Van Buren.
Independent of mere individual, sectional
interests form another cause of intriguing and
overreaching : but making a very full allowance
for all these moral and political impurities, the
population of the United States, generally, and
especially all those born and brought up in
America as farmers, fulfil the engagements
INTO WHICH THEY ENTER WITH AS MUCH
FIDELITY AS THE INHABITANTS OF EUROPE.
END OF VOL. I.
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