YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

In Memory of
W. ROBERT BLUM, JR.
Gift of
MR. AND MRS. W. ROBERT BLUM

TRAVELS OF
JOHN DAVIS
Volume n

TRAVELS OF
JOHN DAVIS
IN THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
1798 to 1802

EDITED BY
JOHN VANCE CHENEY

PRINTED PRIVATELY
AND OFFERED FOR SUBSCRIPTION ONLY TO
MEMBERS OF THE BIBLIOPHILE SOCIETY
BOSTON — MDCDX

u

CONTENTS OF VOLUME II
CHAPTER vn
Return to New York; Literary Pursuits; Mag
nificent Promises from a great Man; The Ho
rizon of Life brightens. I no longer feed on the
Vapours of a School, but depart for the City of
Washington, with a Heart dancing to the Song
of Expectation ; I mingle at Philadelphia with the
Votaries of Taste ; and am elbowed by Poets and
Prose- Writers, Critics and Philosophers; I pro
ceed to Washington; Interview with the Secre
tary of the Treasury; All my Hopes blasted; I
travel into Virginia, by the Way of Alexandria;
A Quaker opens his door to receive me, and I
exchange with him lasting Knowledge for perish
able Coin. CHAPTER VIII
MEMOIR OF MY LIFE ON THE BANKS OF THE
OCCOQUAN
Description of Occoquan Settlement ; A Party of In
dians visit Occoquan; Speech of a Warrior; A
War-Dance, and Scene of riotous Intoxication;
5

A Disquisition of the moral Character of the
Indians ; The Dispute between Buffon and Jeffer
son on the Subject of Beards satisfactorily de
cided; The Midnight Orgies of the White-Man
of America dramatized, &c. 5°
CHAPTER IX
Return from Occoquan to New York; Visit to Mr.
George on Long Island; Meditations among the
Tombs; I go to Baltimore; Mammoth Cheese;
An exchange of Letters with the Vice-President ;
A Walk to Washington; Congress assembled;
Debates; Politeness of the Vice-President; A
Journey on Foot into Virginia by the Great Falls
of the Potomac; Get benighted; A hospitable
Reception at a Log house in the Woods; The
Story of Jack Strangeways. 86
CHAPTER X
MEMOIR OF MY LIFE IN THE WOODS OF VIRGINIA
Reception at Pohoke; An old Field-School; A fair
Disciple ; Evening Scene on a Plantation ; Story
of Dick the Negro, &c. 131

CHAPTER VII
When I had heard the speech of Mr. Jefferson
there was nothing more to detain me among the
scattered buildings of the desert. On my return
to New York I became seriously busied in direct
ing the tastes and cultivating the imaginations
of the three sons of Mr. Ludlow.
The first impression of the Farmer of New
Jersey was nearly exhausted, a second edition
was in the press, and, animated by its success,
Caritat ^ published my poems in a small volume,
which I dedicated to my friend Mr. Burr, who
^ I would place the bust of Caritat among those of the
Sosii of Horace, and the Trypho of Quintillian. He was
my only friend at New York when the energies of my
mind were depressed by the chilling prospect of poverty.
His talents were not meanly cultivated by letters; he
could tell a good book from a bad one, which few modern
librarians can do. But place aux dames was his maxim,
and all the ladies of New York declared that the library
of Mr. Caritat was charming. Its shelves could scarcely
sustain the weight of " Female Frailty," the " Posthu-
7

had been recently elected Vice-President of the
United States. My book, however small, did not
scape the Mohawk reviewers. The criticism is
the production of an attorney named Beckman.
He writes the Christmas carols and furnishes
the news-carriers with addresses to their
subscribers. " Those who are sometimes disposed to amuse
their idle moments with ' trifles light as air,' may
find some entertainment in this little volume of
poems. Their chief qualities are harmony of num
bers and vivacity of expression. Not laden with
a weight of sentiment, the verses move easily and
lightly along; and, though too short to be te
dious, their brevity is not the vehicle of wit. The
author appears to possess a capacity for poetical
composition, and we should be pleased to see his
mous Daughter" and the "Cavern of Woe;" they re
quired the aid of the carpenter to support the burden of
the " Cottage-on-the-Moor," the " House of Tynian," and
the " Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne; " or they groaned
under the multiplied editions of the "Devil in Love,"
" More Ghosts," and " Rinaldo Rinaldini." Novels were
called for by the young and old; from the tender virgin
of thirteen, whose little heart went pit-a-pat at the ap
proach of a beau, to the experienced matron of three
score, who could not read without spectacles.
8

ready talents exerted on topics more dignified
or interesting. We observe several instances of
good taste and pretty description."
But the time was approaching when I had
every reason to flatter my expectation with ex
changing the Muses' bower for the garden of the
Hesperides. Colonel Burr had been elected to
the place of Vice-President of the United States,
and Colonel Burr was my friend. He had just
returned from the city of Washington and, with
the most condescending urbanity, did me the
honour to call on me at Mr. Ludlow's. Colonel
Burr observed that " Mr. Gallatin having ex
pressed a desire to procure a secretary who was
skilled in composition, he had recommended me
as a person qualified to undertake the office, and
was happy to have it in his power to acknowledge,
by any service, the sensible pleasure he had
received from my literary productions."
There is something in the professions of a
great man which never fails to impart delight;
our hopes become multiplied; the phantoms of
imagination arise in succession, and either point
to paths of pleasure or bowers of repose. I heard
" the glorious sounds " with no small emotions
9

of joy, and looked forward with anxiety to the
hour that was to exalt me from the obscurity of
a pedagogue to the magnificence of a secretary's
office. It happened that when the Vice-President
proposed to me a place at Washington the term
of my engagement with Mr. Ludlow had just
expired, and I was compelled to be decisive in the
plan of my future operations. I was under the
necessity either of resigning the situation or no
longer indulge the visions my fancy had created
from the magnificent promises held out by the
Vice-President. Hope triumphed over prudence,
and I abandoned a salary of a hundred guineas,
paid me quarterly in advance, for an exaltation
that was remote and at the same time uncertain.
In my way to the stage-office, in Courtland-
street, I called at the post-office, where, to my
unspeakable joy, I found a copious epistle from
my friend at Long Island. " Letters," says the
illustrious Bacon, "come more home to men's
bosoms than either annals or lies ; " and, as by
this time everything that relates to Mr. George
will interest the poet, the scholar and the wit,
I shall engraft without apology his letter upon
my memoirs : IO

" Long Island, June 12, 1801.
While devouring Newtown pippins and drink
ing cider to the health of your hardship in my
heart, the stage-driver brought me your welcome
epistles. At first the fellow pretended there was
no letter for me (I tolerate these liberties, because
the jehu has a pretty wife), but in a few minutes
he delivered me the packet. Jucundius est legere
quam bibere, so I left the old parson and his wife
and his daughter (her nose is like the tower of
Lebanon looking towards Damascus) and I
opened, O devil, thy budget of satire. This has
revived me, and I now walk about with your
epistles in my hand, which, however, I am obliged
to put down every five minutes to hold both my
sides while I laugh it out.
By Saint Patrick, I swear, thou art above all
men dear to me. I love thee with more than
brotherly love.
Tell me if you are about publishing your
poems? Do not go far for a title; nothing ap
pears so stiff and pedantic as a little book with
a magnificent title. Remember that Horace gives
his odes no other name than Carmina; though
he might have accumulated a thousand imposing
II

epithets to decorate his title-page. It is rumoured
you intend dedicating your effusions to Burr.
Avert it literature. Dedicate not the book to an
American. Can Burr or Madison or Adams or
even Jefferson add to the reputation of him who
aspires to be read on the banks of the Thames ?
Was there ever so stupid a priest as this? I
wonder not that you hated him. Do you recollect
when we were sitting by the fire, how you used
to hem and I to laugh at his tiresome monotony.
The old grasshopper asked me very solemnly,
today, which I thought the better translation of
Virgil, Dryden's or Davidson's ! ! ! ^ After such
an interrogation can any reasonable man expect
that I will ever go again to his church; or is he
not enough to make any man of letters Parous
deorum cult or et infrequens?
The girls in this village are mad after litera
ture; they know not what to be at. Miss T  ,
a young lady of easy deportment, elegant conver-
» Pope pronounced Dryden's translation of Virgil the
noblest version ever produced by one poet of another;
Davidson's translation is in limping, hobbling, shuffling
prose; the solace of dunces; the clandestine refuge of
schoolboys. 12

sation and bold countenance, has bought Tasso's
Gerusalemme, and digs in a dictionary for his
meaning. She asked me my opinion of Tasso and
the Italian language. ' Madam,' said I, ' the
language of Tasso is not the language of heroes,
but the singsong of fiddlers and guitar-players.
The Italian possesses neither the heroic grandeur
of the Greek, the majesty of the Roman, nor the
strength of the English language.' ' Then,' cried
she, ' you would advise me to study English.'
' By all means, madam,' said I. * And, sir,' re
joined the nymph, ' what book do you think is
best suited to a female ? ' ' Glasse's Cookery,
madam,' said I.
The trustees have increased my salary to a
hundred and twenty pounds a year, with board
ing; so, I believe, I shall continue to vegetate
and eat grass among the Newtown farmers till I
shall be enabled to look on the frowns of fortune
with a more magnanimous countenance.
You say you are writing a novel. There was
a man in Babylon ! toll de roll ! "
"June i8, 1801.
I again resume my conversation with you.
Our right reverend parson has the predicting
13

spirit of Achilles' horse; for he told me, last
night, we should have fair weather, and I per
ceive the sky is without a cloud.
The people here are become more attentive
to me of late than they formerly were; and,
though I cannot hope for intellectual felicity
yet I may expect such tranquillity as, though
inglorious, will at least be indulgent to my literary
indolence. I dined yesterday with Mrs.  , and her
daughter. The old lady told me a story about
you. She said that, instead of delivering to
Heloise the novel which I sent her by you from
West Chester, you lent it to her youngest daugh
ter and palmed upon Heloise an old history of
Rome. — I again repeat, women know not what
to be at. Mrs.  acquainted me in a whisper
that she was preparing a critique on your fugitive
poems which she should sign Artemisia, and pub
lish it in the Commercial Advertiser. Knowing
you to be one of the genus irritabile vatum, and
having the dignity of your character at heart,
I enjoin you not to reply to this Amazon with
anger, but gibbet her without ceremony to a gal
lows already made to your hands :
14

Tho' Artemisia talks by fits
Of councils, classics, fathers, wits.
Reads Malbranche, Boyle and Locke,
Yet in some things methinks she fails,
'T were well if she would pare her nails
And wear a cleaner smock. Pope.
Having this gallows in contemplation, I ad
vised Mrs.  to publish her stricture, compli
menting her on her penetration, her acuteness
and her wit. She ought to be punished for her
temerity. A woman has no business with a pen
in her hand, unless it be to compute the expenses
of her housekeeping. When a woman is ambi
tious of literary distinction she becomes dis
tracted. Look at Mrs. Wolstancroft's (I may be
forgiven for not spelling the name right) Perver
sion of Women. It is a volume of insanity. It
may be asked. Is a woman then to be debarred
access to all books? I say no. If she discovers
an avidity of reading, put a Bible into her hands.
Let a Bible be her manual; let her lisp the Scrip
tures in her childhood and digest them in her
youth. I was at New York thrice last week. The last
time I wished much to see you, and I called twice
IS

at the little tavern for that purpose; but you were
too indolent to stir out, so I left you to meditate
in your chamber and prosecute your lucubrations
while I walked solitarily round the Battery and
lamented the instability of friendship.
Heloise has just sent me my stockings and
cravats, delicately mended, by her brother. She
is an amiable little devil, and I often go to see her,
mea sola voluptas! But rather than be in love I
would change my humanity with a baboon.
I am sorry you are occupied in writing a novel,
because the world has reason to expect something
better. The mind of a young man of genius re
sembles a little stream, which, according to the
direction that chance may give it, is either lost by
mixing with other channels, or, preserving its
course, enlarges at last its waters, and flows with
the magnificence of the Nile or the Ganges.
I have sent Lang another essay to insert in his
Gazette. It is the story of an Indian warrior, a
mere cram; but no matter; anything is good
enough for these calm Americans — fruges con-
sumere nati. Do you not think Lang a silly fel
low to place Franklin's head over his shop? How
the people of New York would roar with laughter
i6

were such a paragraph as this to appear in an
opposition paper: 'Yesterday Franklin's head
fell upon John Lang, Esq., the printer, as he was
opening his shop-door, and crushed him to cin
ders. Alas! poor Yorick!' Or the following,
which would, perhaps, be more true : * Yesterday
the bust of Dr. Franklin fell on Mr. Lang, the
printer, as he was opening his shop-door but, for
tunately, striking him in the head he escaped
unhurt.' Did you ever read the life of the illustrious
Franklin? And did you ever read the memoirs
of a parish clerk? ' I, P.P. clerk of this parish,
writeth this history,' Amen ! " "June 23, 1801.
I am just returned from New York, and I sit
down to relate to thee my eventful journey.
At Brooklyn I was accosted by a quondam ac
quaintance of Georgetown to whom I was in
debted about twenty-five dollars. Vidi et ob-
stupui! I would rather have met the great devil.
But sic fata tulerunt. After I had shaken hands
with him, the barber of Brooklyn, to whom, in a
former expedition to New York, I owed one or
two shillings for cutting my hair, came up with a
17

serious face and demanded his money also. Here
were the devil and barber to pay ! * Leave, sir,'
said I to the barber, 'your damnable counte
nance, and you shall have your money.'
I had something of importance to observe to
you. I perceive with undissembled sorrow that
you admit words into your vocabulary for which
there is no authority in the undefiled writers of
English. Appreciate and meliorate are bad
word's; so are novel and derange. Of modern
writers none are more ridiculous coiners of words
than the Scotch and Welsh tourists. Of these one
introduces to desiderate and tortures it through
all its inflexions ; and another, in descanting upon
ruins, says very gravely,- they were castleated!
The inference to be deduced from the page in
which words of this kind appear is, that the
taste of the writer has been abominably vitiated.
The English language is not written with
purity in America.^ The structure of Mr. Jeffer-
* If any work can transmit the English language un-
corrupted to future generations on the banks of the
Potomac and Mississippi, it will be our matchless version
of the Bible. While religion exists in America there will
be a perpetual standard for the English language.
i8

son's sentences is, I think, French, and he uses
words unintelligible to an Englishman. Where
the d — ^1 did he get the word lengthy f Breadthy
and depthy would be equally admissible. I can
overlook his word belittle; it is introduced in
wantonness, but he has no right, that I know,
to out-adverb all other writers and improve ill
into illy. Does not his description of the junction
of the Shenandoah with the Potomac discover an
elevated imagination? But was one of my
countrymen to describe the Natural Bridge (a
huge mass of rock) * springing, as it were, up to
heaven,' would it not be said that Paddy had
made a bull ?
Come over, will you, to my potato-ground, next
Saturday, and bring with you your Adventures
of Captain Bobadil. You can pass your Sunday
with me — not in an affectation of holiness or
hypocritical groans of contrition, but in study
and meditation that lift the soul from its clay
confines and transport it to the world of spirits.
Vale! "
I journeyed delightfully from New York to
Philadelphia. My finances were good, and I was
19

going to a place where I had only to extend my
arms and catch the golden shower.
At Philadelphia I found Mr. Brown, who felt
no remission of his literary diligence by a change
of abode. He was ingratiating himself into the
favour of the ladies by writing a new novel and
rivalling Lope de Vega by the multitude of his
works. Mr. Brown introduced me to Mr. Dick-
ins,^ and Mr. Dickins to Mr. Dennie; Mr. Dennie
presented me to Mr. Wilkins and Mr. Wilkins
to the Rev. Mr. Abercrombie: a constellation of
American genius in whose blaze I was almost
consumed. Mr. Dennie was remarkable for his facility of
expression; he could not only draw for thou
sands, but had always ready money in his pocket;
and few men excelled more in colloquial fluency
than he. The Rev. Mr. Abercrombie was im
patient of every conversation that did not relate
to Dr. Johnson, of whom he could detail every
anecdote from the time he trod on a duck till he
* In connection with Asbury Dickins, a son of John
Dickins of the Methodist Magazine, he [Dennie] began,
January 3, 1801, the publication of the Port Folio,—
A. H. Smyth, Philadelphia Magazine, p. 92.
20

purchased an oak stick to repulse Macpherson.
He was a canister tied to the tail of a canister.
Mr. Brown said little, but seemed lost in medi
tation. His creative fancy was, perhaps, conjur
ing up scenes to spin out the thread of his new
novel. Mr. Dennie now conducts at Philadelphia a lit
erary paper called the Port Folio. He first distin
guished himself by the essays he contributed to
the Farmer's Museum, under the title of the Lay
Preacher. He afterwards became editor of the
paper, when its name was changed from the
Farmer's Museum, to that of the Lay Preacher's
Gazette. The essays of the Lay Preacher were
afterwards collected in a volume, which is, I be
lieve, the most popular work on the American
continent. I am of opinion that the sermons of
the Lay Preacher have rather injured than as
sisted the cause of religion; to appropriate the
remark made by Gray on Yorick, the Lay
Preacher, after exhorting his congregation to
righteousness, throws his perriwig at their heads.
The editor of the Aurora calls the Port Folio
the Portable Foolery; and his facetiousness is
applauded by one party and scorned by the other.
21

But a better quibble on the word would be, I
think, to name it the Court Olio; for it mingles
the dresses at St. James with speculations on lit
erature. — It being rumoured that Mr. Dennie
had been denominated by the British reviewers
the American Addison, the following ludicrous
paragraph appeared in the Aurora Gazette:
" Exult ye white hills of New Hampshire, re
doubtable Monadnock and Tuckaway! Laugh ye
waters of the Winiseopee and Umbagog Lakes!
Flow smooth in heroic verse, ye streams of Amor-
ioosack and Androscoggin, Cockhoko and Corito-
cook ! And you, merry Merrimack, be now more
merry ! "
Mr. Dennie passed his morning in the shop of
Mr. Dickins, which I found the rendezvous of the
Philadelphia sons of literature. Blair, author of
a poem called the Powers of Genius; IngersoU,^
known by a tragedy of which I forget the title;
Stock, celebrated for his dramatic criticisms; to
gether with several reviewers, chartam consu-
mere nati, assembled with punctuality in North
* Charles J. Ingersoll's tragedy, " Edv^r and Elgiva,"
was produced at the Philadelphia theatre in iSoi.—
Duyckinck. 22

Second Street, to the great annoyance of Mr.
Dickins who could scarcely find room to sell his
wares. But I thought Mr. Dickins not inferior
to any of the constellation; he was remarkable
for the gentleness of his manners, and displayed
not less his good sense by his discourse than his
moderation by his silence.
I have seldom been at any city in the United
States without forming an acquaintance that has
ripened into the intimacy of friendship. My love
of the Gallic idiom having led me to the shop of
Mr. Dufief, a French bookseller in North Fourth
Street, I found his conversation and manners so
perfectly agreeable that I hesitated not to accept
an invitation to dine with him at his lodgings.
Though Mr. Dufief had emigrated from France,
he was not inferior to any of the Philadelphia
citizens in the pertinacity of his diligence. He
had discovered that it was a position, not only in
Europe, but America, that the man who wanted
money was in want of everything; arid directing
his course toward the same goal for which so
many millions were panting, he practised every
art by which he could honestly put money in his
purse. He opened a bookseller's shop, and placed
23

an unsaleable bust of Voltaire over his door. He
published a French grammar on a plan entirely
new, and taught French to those who would
learn it. In a word, when I became acquainted
with Mr. Dufief he was about to open a lounging-
room for the muscadins of Philadelphia. Mr.
Dufief did me the honour to shew me every place
in or near Philadelphia that it was fashionable
to visit. The Museum, Gray's gardens, the
Quakers' meeting, and State-House yard, to
gether with the water-works at Schuylkill, and
wax-work in Shippen Street, were familiar to
the boundless curiosity of my attentive com
panion. Nor did he forget the ox, whose bulk
was so unusual to animals of the same species
on the American continent. Indeed, it ought not
to escape notice that when an ox in the United
States attains the ordinary growth of one in Eng
land, it becomes a source of riches to the propri
etor by a private exhibition.
The round of amusements at Philadelphia did
not make me neglect the Wanderings of William.
But Mr. Dickins waived his claim to the copy
right in favour of Mr. Thompson, who put it to
the press before I left Philadelphia. Mr. Thomp-
24

son had just printed a superb edition of the Notes
on Virginia, and was exceeded by no man in the
typographical elegance of the works that issued
from his press.
But the honours that awaited me at Wash
ington employed principally my thoughts. Wash
ington, on my second journey to it, wore a very
dreary aspect. The multitude had gone to their
homes, and the inhabitants of the place were few.
There were no objects to catch the eye but a for
lorn pilgrim forcing his way through the grass
that overruns the streets, or a cow ruminating
on a bank, from whose neck depended a bell, that
the animal might be found the more readily in
the woods. I obtained accommodations at the
Washington tavern which stands opposite the
Treasury. At this tavern I took my meals at the
public table, where there was everyday to be
foimd a number of clerks employed at the
different offices under government, together
with about half a dozen Virginians and a few
New England men. There was a perpetual
conflict of opinions between these southern and
northern men, and, one night, after supper, I
was present at a vehement dispute, which ter-
25

minated in the loss of a horse, a saddle and
bridle. The dispute was about Dr. Franklin. The man
from New England, enthusiastic in what related
to Franklin, asserted that the doctor, being self-
taught, was original in everything that he had
ever published.
" Sir," replied the Virginian, " the writings of
Franklin, so far from being original, exhibit noth
ing but a transposition of the thoughts of others.
Nay, Franklin is a downright plagiarist. Let
him retain only his own feathers; let those he
has stolen be restored to their lawful possessors,
and Franklin, who now struts about expanding
the gayest plumage, will be without a single
feather to cover his rump." (A loud laugh from
the whole party.)
New England Man. If accusation without
proof can condemn a man, who, sir, shall be inno
cent ? Sir, you are a Virginian. I intend no per
sonal reflection, but it is notorious that the south
ern people do not hold the memory of Franklin
in much estimation. But hear what a Latin
writer says of him. Eripuit caelo something —
Gentlemen, I have forgot the most of my Latin.
26

I cannot quote so correctly now as I did once ; but
this I can assure you of, and you may rely on
my word for it, that the compliment is a very
fine one.
Virginian. I know the line you advert to. It
was an eruption of mad enthusiasm from the dis
ordered intellect of Turgot. But this is digress
ing from our subject. I maintain, and can prove,
that Franklin is a plagiarist, a downright, bare
faced, shameless plagiarist.
New England Man. Franklin, perhaps, sir,
had not that stoical calmness which a great man
in your state is remarkable for; he did not
endeavour to catch applause by baiting his
hook with affected diffidence. Franklin was
above it. His penetration discovered, and his
candour acknowledged, that sheer impudence
was at any time less injurious than mock
modesty. Virginian. Sir, an oracular darkness accom
panies your discourse. But why retreat? Why
not stand your ground? Why not evince your
self the champion of Franklin? Again I throw
down the gauntlet. Franklin, I maintain, was a
shameless plagiarist. 27

New England Man. Have you a horse here,
my friend?
Virginian. Sir, I hope you do not suppose that
I came hither on foot from Virginia. I have, sir,
in Mr. White's stable the prettiest Chickasaw that
ever trod upon four pasterns. I swopped for
her a roan horse. — Mr. Gibbs, you remember
my roan [turning to a man in the company];
I say, I swopped for her a roan with Mad
Dog, the Chickasaw chief, who lives on the
Mississippi. New England Man. And I have a bay mare
here that I bought of Nezer Mattocks at Salem.
I gave ninety dollars in hard cash for her. Now,
I, my friend, will lay my bay mare against
your Chickasaw that Doctor Franklin is not a
plagiarist. Virginian. Done! Go it! — Waiter! You
waiter !
The waiter obeyed the summons, and making
the Virginian a bow, replied, " You call, Mossa
Ryland? "
Virginian. Yes, Atticus. Bring down my
portmanteau out of my room. I never travel
without books. And it critically happens that in
28

my portmanteau I have both Franklin's Miscel
lanies, and Taylor's Discourses.
The trunk being opened, the Virginian put
Franklin's Miscellanies into the hands of the dis
putant, and desired he would read the celebrated
parable against persecution.
New England Man (reading) . And it came to
pass, after these things, that Abraham sat in the
door of his tent, about the going down of the sun.
And behold a man, bent with age, coming from
the way of the wilderness, leaning on his staff!
And Abraham arose and met him and said unto
him: Turn in, I pray thee, and wash thy feet,
and tarry all night; and thou shalt arise early in
the morning, and go on thy way. And the man
said. Nay, for I will abide under this tree. But
Abraham pressed him greatly; so he turned, and
they went into the tent; and Abraham baked
unleavened bread and they did eat. And when
Abraham saw that the man blessed not God, he
said unto him. Wherefore dost thou not worship
the Most High God, Creator of heaven and earth ?
And the man answered, and said, I do not wor
ship thy God, neither do I call upon his name;
for I have made to myself a god, which abideth
29

in my house and provideth me with all things.
And Abraham's zeal was kindled against the
man ; and he arose and fell upon him, and drove
him forth with blows into the wilderness. And
God called unto Abraham, saying, Abraham,
where is the stranger ? And Abraham answered,
and said. Lord, he would not worship thee, neither
would he call upon thy name; therefore have I
driven him out from before my face into the wil
derness. And God said, Have I borne with him
these hundred and ninety and eight years, and
nourished him, and clothed him, notwithstanding
his rebellion against me, and couldest not thou,
who art thyself a sinner, bear with him one
night? The New England man, having read the par
able, turned to the company and with tumultuous
rapture exclaimed, " What a noble lesson is this
to the intolerant! Can anything speak more
home? Why, the writer appears inspired."
" And inspired he was," cried the Virginian.
" There is nothing in that parable, sir, natural ;
every word of it was revealed. It all came to
Franklin from Bishop Taylor. There, sir, read
and be convinced. This book was printed more
30

than a century ago. It is a volume of polemical
discourses." New England Man (reading). When Abra
ham sat at his tent-door, according to his custom,
waiting to entertain strangers, he espied an old
man stooping and leaning on his staff, weary
with age and travel, coming towards him, who
was an hundred years of age. He received him
kindly, washed his feet, provided supper, and
caused him to sit down; but, observing that the
old man ate and prayed not nor begged for a bless
ing on his meat, he asked him why he did not
worship the God of heaven? The old man told
him that he worshipped the fire only, and acknowl
edged no other god. At which answer Abraham
grew so zealously angry that he thrust the old
man out of his tent, and exposed him to all the
evils of the night and an unguarded condition.
When the old man was gone, God called to Abra
ham, and asked him where the stranger was ? He
replied, I thrust him away because he did not
worship thee. God answered him, I have suf
fered him these hundred years, although he dis
honoured me; and couldest not thou endure him
one night, and when he gave thee no trouble?
31

The New England man having done reading,
the Virginian leaped from his seat and, calling
the waiter, exclaimed, " Atticus ! Tell the ostler
to put the bay mare in the next stall to the Chick
asaw; and, do you hear, give her half a gallon of
oats more upon the strength of her having a new
master." Here followed a hearty laugh from the audi
ence ; but the New England man exhibited strong
symptoms of chagrin. "Devil take Franklin!"
said he. "An impostor! a humbug! If he ever
obtains the wish he expresses in his epitaph, of
undergoing a new edition in the next world, may
his plagiarisms be omitted, that no more wagers
may be lost by them."
"His epitaph, did you say, sir?" cried the
Virginian. " I hardly think he came by that
honestly." New England Man. Sir, I will lay you my
saddle of it, a bran-new saddle. Jonathan Greg
ory, of Boston, imported it from London.
Virginian. My saddle, sir, is imported, too.
I swopped a double-barrelled gtm for it, with Mr.
Racer, of Fairfax County. And I will not only
lay my saddle against yours, sir, that Franklin
32

did not come honestly by his epitaph, but I will
lay my snaffle-bridle, and my curb, my plated stir
rups and stirrup-leathers — aye, and my martin
gale into the bargain.
New England Man. Done ! Go it ! Now for
your proof.
Virginian. Is there any gentleman in the com
pany besides myself who understands Latin? If
there is, let him have the goodness to speak.
New England Man. This gentleman, who
came with me from Salem, is not only a Latin, but
a Greek scholar. He was reared at Cambridge.
He will talk Latin with Professor Willard an
hour by the clock.
Virginian. Then, sir, I believe he will adjudge
to me your imported saddle. Will you do me the
favour to introduce me to your companion?
New England Man. This, sir, is Mr. Mead
ows. He is the author of an Ode on the Clam
Feast.^
^ The first emigrants to New England appeased their
hunger, upon landing on the shores of America, with
some shell-fish they found on the beach, known in popular
language by the name of clams. The anniversary of this
day is every year celebrated on the spot by their descend
ants, who feast upon clams. 33

Virginian. Mr. Meadows, give me leave.
Within the cover of this book you will find the
epitaph which passes as Franklin's. I entreat
you to read it aloud.
Mr. Meadows (reading).
"THE BODY
of
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Printer,
(Like the cover of an old book,
Its contents torn out.
And stript of its lettering and gilding,)
Lies here, food for worms.
Yet the work itself shall not be lost:
For it will (as he believed) appear once more,
In a new
And more beautiful edition,
Corrected and amended
By
The Author."

New England Man. Well, sir! And what
objection can you make to this? Does it not
breathe humility? Is it not a lecture on mortality?
Virginian. Sir, it was not honestly come by.
Franklin robbed a little boy of it. The very
words, sir, are taken from a Latin epitaph writ
ten on a bookseller by an Eton scholar. Mr.
34

Meadows, do, sir, read the epitaph which I have
pasted on the other cover .^
Mr. Meadows (reads) :
Vitae volumine peracto,
Hie finis JACOBI TONSON,
Per politi Sociorum principis:
Qui, velut obstetrix musarum,
In lucent edidit
Felices ingenii partus.
Lugete, scriptorum chorus,
Et frangite calamos;
Ilie vester, margine erasiis, deletur!
Sed haec postrema inscriptio
Huic primae mortis paginae
Imprimatur,
Ne prelo sepulchri commissus.
Ipse editor car eat titulo:
pic iacet bibliopola,
Folio vitae delapso,
Expectans Novum Editionem
Auctiorem et Emendatiorem.
[Gent. Mag. 1736.]
Virginian. Well, Mr. Meadows, what say
you? Is this accidental or studied similitude?
What say you, Mr. Meadows?
^ If it should be objected that Franklin was ignorant
of Latin, let it be told that an EngUsh translation of this
epitaph may be found in the Gentleman's Magazine for
February, 1736. The source, probably, from which
Franklin got his thought. 35

Mr. Meadows. The saddle, sir, is yours.
On hearing this laconic, but decisive sentence
pronounced by his friend, the New England man
grew outrageous, which served only to augment
the triumph of the Virginian. "Be pacified,"
cried he. " I will give you another chance. I will
lay you my boots against yours that Franklin's
pretended discovery of calming troubled waters
by pouring upon them oil, may be found in the
third book of Bede's History of the Church; or
that his facetious essay on the air-bath is poached,
word for word, from Aubrey's Miscellanies.
What say you?"
"Why, I say," returned the New England
Man, " that I should be sorry to go bootless home ;
and therefore I will lay no more wagers about
Doctor Franklin's originality."
At the Washington tavern I found seven Cher
okee chiefs who had attended the President's
levee on the 4th of July. They came to be in
structed in the mode of European agriculture.
Of this circumstance Mr. Jefferson speaks in his
Message to Congress : " I am happy to inform
you that the continued efforts to introduce among
our Indian neighbours the implements and prac-
36

tice of husbandry, and of the household arts, have
not been without success: that they are become
more and more sensible of the superiority of this
dependence for clothing and subsistence over the
precarious resources of hunting and fishing; and
already we are able to annovmce that, instead
of that constant diminution of their numbers,
produced by their wars and their wants, some
of them begin to experience an increase of
population." If agriculture be deserving the attention of the
Indians, it has also a powerful claim to that of
the people of the United States; for it may be
considered the firmest pillar of their national
prosperity. It is, I think, to be wished that the
principal citizens of the United States would
enrol themselves in what might be termed a Geo
logical Society, which should be divided into four
classes. The first should comprehend experi
ments made to ascertain the peculiar qualities and
comparative value of plants, together with the
purposes to which they ought to be applied. The
second should relate to the culture of plants and
the ascertaining the effects of different manures
in facilitating their growth. The third should
37

include experiments to determine the peculiar
qualities of different soils. The fourth should
be devoted to experiments for facilitating the
operations of agriculture by improvements in
machinery, and the distinguishing of what ani
mals are the best adapted to labour as it relates
to climate. In such a republic of planters and
farmers, how would the knowledge of the most
useful of all arts be promoted. Hints would be
improved into experiments, the speculations of
the theorist would be confirmed or overthrown by
an appeal to practice ; observations would be pro
duced that still tended to more useful inquiries,
and even errors would lead to important truths
by stimulating the ardour of inquiry to refute
them. Without such a society what agricultural
improvements can be expected? Planters, at
present, have no incitement to consult books or
alter their mode of husbandry. They are con
tented to tread tamely in the footsteps of their
forefathers, and consider as mere visionaries the
writers on agriculture.
I return from this digression to my business at
Washington, which was to wait on the Secretary
of the Treasury, by whom I expected to be in-
38

vested without delay in some diplomatic depart
ment. Bear witness, ye powers, with what visions
of greatness I feasted my imagination as I walked
from the tavern to the Treasury! The door
keeper desired to know my business. I wanted to
see Mr. Gallatin; but Mr. Gallatin was engaged
in an audience with the seven Cherokee chiefs,
who called every Monday morning at the Treas
ury for their weekly stipend from the govern
ment. I was somewhat chagrined that Mr. Gal
latin should suffer the savages of the wilderness
to take precedence of me (I had sent up my
name), but my chagrin soon gave place to an
admiration of his policy; for I recollected these
war-captains wore their tomahawks, and that
they were men of an irascible temper. In a few
minutes these warriors of scalping memory de
scended the Treasury stairs, which groaned under
their giant limbs, and I was ushered into the
room where the Secretary, in solemn greatness,
settled the expenditures of the nation. Mr. Galla
tin heard the object of my mission with patience,
when he, with the utmost composure, observed
that " the organization of the offices in the Treas
ury under the preceding administration, had been
39

too complicated and that, far from having any
place to give away, the employments of inferior
diplomatic agency were yet to be diminished. Yet
he was sorry, very sorry, I should travel so far
to encounter disappointment. But the Vice-Pres
ident had certainly misunderstood him. He had
not the pleasure of knowing me. It was another
person of the same name whom he had spoken of
to Mr. Burr ; but even for him there was now no
office as all such offices were, in future, to be reg
ulated by legislative power, and the legislature
thought the ramifications of offices too multiplied.
But he was sorry, very sorry, I had travelled so
far to no purpose." During this speech my colour
came and went.
Obstipui, steteruntque comae et vox faucibus haesit.
But recovering from my stupor, I replied that I
had not travelled to no purpose; for I had not
only seen the city of Washington, but also Mr.
Gallatin; and making him a very low bow, I
again walked down the Treasury stairs.
Finding a schooner at Georgetown ready to
sail for Alexandria, I put my trunk on board of
her and left without regret the imperial city,
40

where I had encountered only disappointment.
The wind being contrary, we had to work down
the Potomac. — The river here is very beautiful.
Mason's Island forms one continued garden ; but
what particularly catches the eye is the Capitol,
rising with sacred majesty above the woods. Our
boat turned well to windward, and in an hour
we landed at the Widow Bull's house, which may
be considered half way to Alexandria. Here
having quaffed and smoked together under the
shade of a spreading locust-tree, we once more
committed ourselves to the waters of the Potomac.
In approaching Alexandria, we passed an
house on our right in which the Paphian goddess
had erected an altar. Some damsels were bath
ing before the door, who practised every allure
ment to make us land; but we treated their
invitations with the insolence of contempt. Oh,
modesty ! supreme voluptuousness of love ! what
charms does a woman lose when she renounces
thee ! What care, if she knew thy empire over the
breast of man, would she take to preserve thee,
if not from virtue at least from coquetry.
It was easier landing at Alexandria in America
than Alexandria in Egypt, and I found elegant
41

accommodations at Gadesby's hotel. It is ob
servable that Gadesby keeps the best house of
entertainment in the United States. It was the
middle of July when I landed at Alexandria, and
the heat was excessive. The acrimony of the
bilious humours was consequently excited, and
the diarrhoea and dysentery prevailed among the
inhabitants. Yet the taverns were frequented;
for Americans, to preserve health, adopt the Bru-
nonian system of keeping up the excitement.
The splendour of Gadesby's hotel not suiting
my finances, I removed to a public-house kept by
a Dutchman, whose frow was a curious creature.
I insert a specimen of her talk : " This hot weather
makes a body feel odd. How long would a body
be going from Washington to Baltimore? How
the mosquitoes bite a body!" But I left the
body of my landlady to approach that of her
daughter, whose body resembled one of those pro
tuberant figures which Rubens loved to depict.
To what slight causes does a man owe some of
the principal events of his life. I had been a fort
night at Alexandria when, in consequence of a
short advertisement I had put in the Gazette, a
gentleman was deputed to wait on me from a
42

Quaker on the banks of the Occoquan, who
wanted a tutor for his children. Mr. Ridgeway
was what is called a supple Quaker. With those
of his own sect, none could be more formal; but
among men of the world he could practise all the
arts of conciliation; and knew how to flatter a
lady from the lustre of her eyes down to the taste
of her shoestring. A Quaker accompanied him
to the door, with whom he exchanged only the
monosyllables, yea and nay; but no sooner had
he turned his back than Friend Ridgeway intro
duced himself to me with the bow of a dancing-
master ; expressed the earnest desire Mr. ElHcott
had to engage me in his family, and lavished his
eloquence on the romantic beauties of the river
Occoquan and the stupendous mountains that
nodded over its banks.
The following evening I left Alexandria on
horseback to visit the abode of Mr. Ellicott. But
I had scarce ridden a couple of miles when a vio
lent storm of rain overtook me, and I sought
shelter in a tailor's shop by the wayside. The
tailor laid down his goose at my approach, and
we soon entered into a political discussion, which
ended with his lamentations over the miseries of
43

the times and a determination to support the
rights of man. It was six o'clock before the rain
subsided, and I was in suspense whether to return
to Alexandria or prosecute my journey when the
tailor informed me that only two miles further
lived a very honest farmer who accommodated
travellers with a bed. His name was Violet.
" But why," said the tailor, " not go on to
Mount Vernon?"
"What, friend, should I do there?"
"Why, sir, a gentleman is always well
received." I made the tailor an inclination of my head.
But Mount Vernon was as remote from my
thoughts as Mount Vesuvius. I pursued my
journey, but, after riding two miles, instead of
reaching the farm of Mr. Violet, my horse
stopped before the door of a log house built on
the brow of a hill. The man of the house was
sitting under an awning, smoking in silence
his pipe, and his wife occupied a chair by his
side, warbling her lyrics over the circling
wheel. " Will you alight, sir," said the man, " and
rest yourself in the shade? Your horse looks
44

well, sir. He appears to be a mighty well-condi
tioned brute. What, if I may be so bold, sir, did
he cost you ? "
"Why, sir, the creature is worth a hundred
and fifty dollars. The horse is young, quite
young. He will be only five years old next spring.
Do put your hand into his mouth."
" Excuse me, sir, I never trusts my hand in a
horse's mouth; the brute may be vicious. But
should you ever want anything done to him, I
shall be happy to serve you. My name is Kaiting.
I have long been used to cutting and splaying all
kinds of creatures."
" Can you fox and nick a horse, Mr. Kaiting? "
" Aye, sir, and cure all sorts of distempers,
whether spavins or ringbones or cribs or
yellow-water or blind-staggers or weak eyes or
glanders." " Hum ! What a catalogue of complaints is
horse-flesh heir to. But can you inform me how
far it is to the house of farmer Violet ? "
" I suspect it is a mile."
" Come, none of your suspicions, but tell me
candidly, my friend, do you think I can be accom
modated there for the night ? "
45

"Aye, as elegantly as you would be at
Gadesby's!" " And how shall I know the house? "
" It has a chimney at each end, like my own."
" The house, you say, is like yours ? "
" Psha! It is better than mine; it is weather-
boarded. I pay no taxes for my house; the tax-
gatherers value it below a hundred dollars."
I had not time to reply before a goose waddled
out of the house towards the place where Mr.
Kaiting and his wife were sitting, followed by a
tame frog that jumped in concert with his
feathered companion. It was a singular spec
tacle, and would have afforded little pleasure to
an unreflecting mind. But it was to me a most
pleasing speculation to behold this worthy couple
extending their protection to a goose and a frog ;
it verified the remark of Sterne, that the heart
wants something to be kind to.
" Then, sir," said I, " you do not consider the
frog a nuisance? You would not kill it? "
" Kill it ! I should as soon think of putting an
end to my own life. There was a gentleman
from Fredericksburg who stopped last week at
my house to give his horse a bite of clover. He
46

had hardly sat down under the awning when the
frog came out of the house and hopped towards
his chair. ' That 's a cursed impudent frog,' says
he, and lifting up his arm, he made a blow at the
animal with his whip. We were all in consterna
tion. My wife screamed, I held out my leg to in
tercept the blow; and the goose, who seldom quits
the frog, flew at the man with the strength and
fury of an eagle. It was lucky his whip missed
the frog; for, had he killed him, there would not
have been a dry eye in the house for a week."
I would willingly have protracted my conver
sation with so humane a person had not the sky,
which was overcast, indicated there was no time
to be lost. I therefore put spurs to my nag, and
departed at a gallop.
The next day I proceeded to Occoquan ; but so
steep and craggy was the road that I found it
almost inaccessible. On descending the last hill
I was nearly stunned by the noise of two huge
mills, whose roar, without any hyperbolical ag
gravation, is scarcely inferior to that of the great
falls of the Potomac, or the cataract of Niagara.
My horse would not advance, and I was myself
lost in astonishment. 47

On crossing a little bridge I came within view
of the settlement, which is romantic beyond con
ception. A beautiful river rolls its stream along
mountains that rise abruptly from its bank, while
on the opposite rocky shore, which appears to
have been formed by a volcano, are seen two mills
enveloped in foam, and here and there a dwelling
which has vast masses of stone for its foundation.
The eye for some time is arrested by the un
common scene; but it is soon relieved by a beauti
ful landscape that bounds the horizon. In a
word, all the riches of nature are brought to
gether in this spot, but without confusion.
Friend Ellicott and his wife received me with
an unaffected simplicity of manners, whom I was
happy to catch just as they were going to dinner.
An exquisite Virginia ham smoked on the board,
and two damsels supplied the guests with boiled
Indian corn, which they had gathered with their
own hands. — Friend Ellicott, uncorrupted by
the refinement of modern manners, had put his
hat to its right use; for it covered his head. It
was to no purpose that I bent my body, and made
a hundred grimaces. Mordecai would not bow
to Haman, nor would Friend Ellicott uncover
48

to the Cham of Tartary. Our agreement was
soon made. Quakers are men of few words.
Friend Ellicott engaged me to educate his chil
dren for a quarter of a year. He wanted them
taught reading, writing and arithmetic. Delight
ful task! As to Latin or French, he considered
the study of either language an abuse of time, and
very calmly desired me not to say another word
about it.

49

CHAPTER VIII
MEMOIR OF MY LIFE ON THE BANKS
OF THE OCCOQUAN
Lo ! the moon its lustre lends.
Gilding ev'ry wood and lawn;
And the miller's heart distends
On the banks of Occoquan!
In the Bull Run Mountains rises a river which
retains the Indian name of Occoquan, and, after
a course of sixty miles, falls into the Potomac
near the little town of Colchester. In America
there are few or no rivers without falls, and at
those of Occoquan are erected a couple of mills
which, by the easy and safe navigation of the
Potomac, the richness of the adjacent country
and the healthfulness of the climate, induced the
proprietor to project the plan of a city and invite
strangers to build on it; but his visions were
never realized, and Occoquan consists only of a
so

house built on a rock, three others on the river
side and half a dozen log huts scattered at some
distance. Yet no place can be more romantic
than the view of Occoquan to a stranger after
crossing the rustic bridge which has been con
structed by the inhabitants across its stream.
He contemplates a river urging its course along
mountains that lose themselves among the clouds ;
he beholds vessels taking on board flour under the
foam of the mills, and others deeply laden, ex
panding their sails to the breeze, while every
face wears contentment, every gale wafts health,
and echo from the rocks multiplies the voices of
the waggoners calling to their teams.
It is pleasant, says Juvenal, to be master of a
house, though it stand not on more ground than
a lizard would occupy. The schoolhouse at
Occoquan was entirely my own. It was a little
brick structure, situated about three hundred
yards from the house on the rock. The front
casements looked upon the Occoquan river, and
commanded the variegated prospect of hill and
dale. I mingled seldom with the people of Occoquan,
but, shut up in my profound habitation, sought
51

an oblivion of care in writing, reading and to
bacco. Often when the moonlight slept upon the
mountain near my dwelling have I walked before
my door and gazed in silent rapture on the orb of
night, whose beams trembled on the stream that
gave motion to the mill, while the tall bark was
seen dancing on the waves at a distance, and the
mocking-bird in a saddened strain was heard
from the woods. It was during one of these
nights that, recalling the images of the evening,
I combined them in an ode :
EVENING AT OCCOQUAN
AN ODE
Slow the solemn sun descends,
Ev'ning's eye comes rolling on ;
Glad the weary stranger bends
To the banks of Occoquan.
Now the cricket on the hearth.
Chirping, tells his merry tale ;
Now the owlet ventures forth,
Moping to the sighing gale.
Still the busy mill goes round.
While the miller plies his care ;
And the rocks send back the sound.
Wafted by the balmy air.
52

Lo ! the moon with lustre bright.
In the stream beholds her face ;
Shedding glory o'er the night.
As she runs her lofty race.
See ! the bark along the shore,
Larger to the prospect grow ;
While the sea-boy bending o'er,
Chides the talking waves below.
Now the mocking songster's strain,
Fills the pauses of her brood ;
And her plaints the ear detain,
Echoing from the distant wood.
Hanging o'er the mountain's brow,
Lo I the cattle herbage find ;
While in slumber sweet below.
Peaceful rests the village hind.
Now the student seeks his cell.
Nor regrets the day is gone ;
But with silence loves to dwell.
On the banks of Occoquan.
I was never one of those who sleep well at
night. All hours are of equal value, and the tran
quillity of the night invites to study. Hence,
I have been frequently compelled to change my
lodgings, where the good woman of the house
was in fear that her curtains might catch fire and
53

set the dwelling in a blaze. But the houses in
Virginia are not very superb. The people were
never under any solicitude for the habitation I
occupied; and, had it been burnt to the ground,
a few boards and a proportionate number of
shingles would soon have constructed another.
I never yet occupied a house that was not exempt
from taxes; it was always valued by the tax-
gatherers below a hundred dollars (about 20/.
sterling), and, by an act of Assembly, for a house
not worth a hundred dollars there is no tax to
pay. From the platform of my house at Occoquan
there was a subterraneous passage which led to
a kind of kitchen. In this underground apart
ment dwelt Rachel, a negro woman, who was left
a widow with eleven children ; but her numerous
offspring were all provided for. Mr. Carter, to
whom the whole family belonged, had taken upon
him this benevolent office; for he had sold one
to Mr. A., another to Mr. B., a third to Mr. C, a
fourth to Mr. D., and so on, nearly half round
the alphabet.
The student who values his health will practise
study and exercise alternately. After reading a
54

scene in Hamlet, I took a few strides across the
room and amused myself by repeating a part of
his soliloquies. Such, for example, as
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world I
Rachel, who dwelt underneath, marvelled greatly
at the noise. Her penetration made her immedi
ately conclude that I was busied in praying, and
in the morning my character was established for
religion. " Ah ! " said the old woman to her
gaping auditors, " they may talk of this parson,
or that parson, or the other parson, but our new
coolmossa beats them all by a heap. Why, 't is
as true as the mill is now going round that he
walks up and down and prays the whole night
long." Rachel, without carrying about her the mock
ery of woe, mourned very sensibly her husband.
Let my page record the words of her affliction.
"I was reared at Port Tobacco. A heap of
likely young fellows courted me, but I refused
them all for the head coachman of Counsellor
Carter. He was a good husband; he made me
the mother of eleven children. Woe to Rachel
55

when he died. Oh! how I clap my hands and
cry! but he 's gone to the great Jehovah. I shall
never forget it; 'twas at the puUing-of-corn
time. The poor creature was a little out of his
head. He asked me if the corn was in tassel.
' In tassel,' says I ! * God help you, you had
some yesterday for dinner.' But he changed the
discourse, and he talked of the hymn-book and
Parson Weems and Pohick church. It was as
good as any sarment! Dear sweet honey! He
was a friend to the Gospel; he loved the Church
of England, and nobody can say they ever saw
him go to the Quaker meeting. Alack! Alack!
My poor husband died the next morning; I knew
his time was come; the whippoorwill cried all
night by the house, and I could not drive him
away. God help us ! Die come in every part of
the world ; Virginia, Maryland, black man, white
man, all one day or another get their mouth full
of yellow clay."
Occoquan scarcely supplied more literature
than Ovid's place of banishment on the Black
Sea. But at Clearmount, near Fauquier Court
house, lived a French gentleman of the name of
Gerardine, whose reputation for the belles-lettres
56

induced me to write to him from my solitude.
It was now I felt the bliss of having an enlight
ened friend to whom I could pour out my soul
on paper, and enjoy the intercourse of spirit with
out the mediation of an earthly frame. My
friendship with Mr. George was still unimpaired.
It was my custom every Saturday to ride to
Alexandria, where I read the northern papers at
the coffee-room, and at Thomas' bookstore re
galed myself with the new publications imported
from Philadelphia. But I sought in vain for the
advertisement that was to announce the diffu
sion of the Wanderings of William, and looking
forward with solicitude for the moment that was
to reward my labour with emolument and satisfy
my vanity with praise. In this state of suspense
I wrote my friend Dufief an elaborate epistle in
French, execrating the honeyed promises of the
great men in power who had doomed me to the
obscurity of Occoquan, and earnestly demanding
intelligence of William who occupied my waking
and sleeping thoughts.
They who delight in walking must, during the
summer in Virginia, embrace the night to stimu
late their muscular energies. The fierceness of
57

the sun would suspend the steps of the hardiest
traveller; but amidst the freshness of the night
he breathes only odours in journeying through
the woods. No walk could be more delightful
than that from Occoquan to Colchester when the
moon was above the mountains. You traverse
the bank of a placid stream over which impend
rocks, in some places bare, but more frequently
covered with an odourif erous plant that regales
the travellers with its fragrance.
Art is here pouring fast into the lap of nature
the luxuries of exotic refinement. After clamber
ing over mountains almost inaccessible to human
toil, you come to the junction of the Occoquan
with the noble river of the Potomac, and behold
a bridge whose semi-elliptical arches are scarcely
inferior to those of princely London. On the side
of this bridge stands a tavern, where every lux
ury that money can purchase is to be obtained at
a first summons ; where the richest viands cover
the table, and where ice cools the Madeira that
has been thrice across the ocean.
The English bewail the want of convenient
taverns in the United States, but the complaint
is, I think, groundless; for I have found taverns
58

in the woods of America not inferior to those of
the common market-towns in England. My de
scription of the tavern at the mouth of the Occo
quan partakes of no hyperbolical amplification.
The apartments are numerous and, at the same
time, spacious; carpets of delicate texture cover
the floors, and glasses are suspended from the
walls in which a Goliath might survey himself.
No man can be more complaisant than the land
lord. Enter but his house with money in your
pocket, and his features will soften into the blan
dishments of delight; call, and your mandate is
obeyed; extend your leg, and the bootjack is
brought you.
Having slept one night at this tavern, I rose
with the sun and journeyed leisurely to the mills,
catching refreshment from a light air that stirred
the leaves of the trees. The morning was beauti
ful ; but not the Muses nor walks nor the melody
of birds could divert my mind from the publica
tion of my novel which had been so long in the
press at Philadelphia. My publisher soon after
sent me a dozen copies of my novel together with
a number of the Port Folio which contained some
remarks on the volume. Mr. Dennie, my former
59

panegyrist, now wielded his buUrush against me ;
but I fear that, only glancing over the contents,
like the student in Gil Bias, he did not dig deep
enough to discover the soul of the licentiate. I
insert his remarks.
" The author of Poems written chiefly in South
Carolina, and the translator of Buonaparte's
Campaign in Italy, has just published a novel
entitled the Wanderings of William, or the In
constancy of Youth. The author dedicates it to
Flavia in a strain which seems to foretell the
complexion of the work. His words are, ' Avail
yourself of the moment that offers to indulge in
the perusal of this book. Take it, read it; there
is nothing to fear. Your governess is gone out,
and your mamma is not yet risen. Do you hesi
tate? Werter has been under your pillow, and
the Monk has lain on your toilet.' It was our
design at first to have abridged the story of the
work, but the inutility of the task overcame our
benevolence; for the author sacrifices reflection
to mirth, and his page, however it may be read
with interest, will not be remembered with
advantage." On the north bank of the Occoquan is a pile
60

of stones which indicates that an Indian warrior
is interred underneath. The Indians from the
back settlements, in travelling to the northward,
never fail to leave the main road, and visit the
grave of their departed hero. If a stone be thrown
down they religiously restore it to the pile; and,
sitting round the rude monument, they meditate
profoundly, catching, perhaps, a local emotion
from the place. A party of Indians, while I was
at Occoquan, turned from the common road into
the woods to visit this grave on the bank of the
river. The party was composed of an elderly
chief, twelve young war-captains and a couple
of squaws. Of the women; the youngest was an
interesting girl of seventeen, remarkably well
shaped and possessed of a profusion of hair,
which in colour was raven black. She appeared
such another object as the mind images Pocahon
tas to have been. The people of Occoquan, with
more curiosity than breeding, assembled round
the party; but they appeared to be wholly indif
ferent to their gaze. The men amused themselves
by chopping the ground with their tomahawks,
and the women were busied in making a garment
for the chief. Among the whites was a young
6i

man of gigantic stature ; he was, perhaps, a head
taller than any of the rest of the company. The
old Indian could not but remark the lofty stature
of the man. He seemed to eye him involuntarily,
and, at length, rising from the ground, he went
up to the giant stranger and shook him by the
hand. This raised a loud laugh from all the
lookers-on; but the Indians still maintained an
inflexible gravity.
When I saw the squaws a second time, they
were just come from their toilet. Woman
throughout the world delights ever in finery; the
great art is to suit the colours to the complexion.
The youngest girl would have attracted notice
in any circle of Europe. She had fastened to her
long dark hair a profusion of ribbons, which the
bounty of the people of Occoquan had heaped
upon her, and the tresses of this Indian beauty,
which before had been confined round her head,
now rioted luxuriously down her shoulders and
back. The adjustment of her dress one would
have thought she had learned from some English
female of fashion; for she had left it so open
before that the most inattentive eye could not but
discover the rise and fall of a bosom just begin-

ning to fill. The covering of this young woman's
feet riveted the eye of the stranger with its nov
elty and splendour. Nothing could be more deli
cate than her moccasins. They were each of
them formed of a single piece of leather, having
the seams ornamented with beads and porcupine
quills, while a string of scarlet ribbon confined
the moccasin round the instep and made every
other part of it sit close to the foot. The moc
casin was of a bright yellow, and made from the
skin of a deer which had been killed by the arrow
of one of the Indian youths. Let me be pardoned
for having spoken of this lady's foot with such
minuteness of investigation. A naturalist will
devote a whole chapter to the examination of a
bird, count the feathers in its wings and declaim
with the highest rapture on its variegated plum
age; and a traveller may surely be forgiven a
few remarks on the seducing foot of an Indian
beauty. Utrum horwm mavis accipe.
Of these Indians, the men had not been inat
tentive to their persons. The old chief had clad
himself in a robe of furs, and the young warriors
had blacked their bodies with charcoal. The
Indians being assembled rotmd the grave, the old
63

chief rose with a solemn mien, and knocking his
war-club against the ground, pronounced an ora
tion to the memory of the departed warrior : —
" Here rests the body of a chief of our nation,
who, before his spirit took its flight to the country
of souls, was the boldest in war and the fleetest
in the chase. The arm that is now mouldering
beneath this pile could once wield the tomahawk
with vigour, and often caused the foe to sink
beneath its weight. (A dreadful cry of whoo!
whoo! whoop! from the hearers.) It has often
grasped the head of the expiring enemy, and
often with the knife divested it of the scalp. (A
yell of whoo ! whoo ! whoop ! ) It has often bound
to the stake the prisoner of war and piled the
blazing faggots round the victim, singing his last
song of death. (A yell of whoo! whoop!) The
foot that is now motionless was once fleeter than
the hart that grazes on the mountain, and in
danger it was ever more ready to advance than
retreat. (A cry of whoo! whoo! whoop!) But
the hero is not gone unprovided to the country of
spirits. His tomahawk was buried with him, to
repulse the enemy in the field, and his bow, to
pierce the deer that flies through the woods."
64

No orator of antiquity ever exceeded this sav
age chief in the force of his emphasis and the pro
priety of his gesture. Indeed, the whole scene was
highly dignified. The fierceness of his counte
nance, the flowing robe, elevated tone, naked arm
and erect stature, with a circle of auditors seated
on the ground, and in the open air, could not but
impress upon the mind a lively idea of the cele
brated speakers of ancient Greece and Rome.
Having ended his oration, the Indian struck
his war-club with fury against the ground, and
the whole party obeyed the signal by joining in a
war-dance ; leaping and brandishing their knives
at the throats of each other, and accompanying
their menacing attitudes with a whoop and a yell,
which echoed with tenfold horror from the banks
of the river. The dance took place by moonlight,
and it was scarcely finished when the chief pro
duced a keg of whiskey, and, having taken a
draught, passed it round among his brethren.
The squaws now moved the tomahawks into the
woods, and a scene of riot ensued. The keg was
soon emptied. The effect of the liquor began to
display itself in the looks and motions of the In
dians. Some rolled their eyes with distraction;
65

others could not keep on their legs. At length
succeeded the most dismal noises. Such whoops,
such shouts, such roaring, such yells, — all the
devils of hell seemed collected together. Each
strove to do an outrage on the other. This seized
the other by the throat; that kicked with raging
fury at his adversary. To complete the scene the
old warrior was uttering the most mournful
lamentations over the keg he had emptied, inhal
ing its flavour with his lips, holding it out with
his hands in a supplicating attitude, and vociferat
ing to the bystanders Scuttawawbah! Scutta-
wawbah! More strong drink! More strong
drink! A disquisition of Indian manners cannot but be
interesting to a speculative mind. The discovery
of America, independent of every other circum
stance, is of vast importance to mankind, from the
light it has enabled us to throw upon man in his
savage state, and the opportunity it has afforded
us to study him in his first degrees of civilization.
It has even been advanced that before the dis
covery of the western continent the natural his
tory of the human species was very imperfect.
The ancient philosophers had no other resource
66

but to study the characters of the Scythians and
Germans; but in the Indians of America a much
wider field is opened to investigation. The moral
character of the Scythians and Germans was
brutish insensibility; the moral character of
the American Indians discovers little of that
quality. The Indians dwell in wigwams, which are
formed of mats or bark tied about poles that are
fastened in the earth ; and a hole is made at the
top to let out the smoke. Their principal diet is
nokehick, parched meal diluted with water; but,
where the woods invite hunting, they kill and
devour the deer, the bear, the moose and raccoon.
Their meat and fish they do not preserve by salt
ing, but drying.
Every man is his own physician; but in dan
gerous cases the patient requires the cooperation
of a priest. There is but one mode of cure for
all disorders. The sick man descends into a
heated cave, or sweating-room; from whence,
after having evacuated much of the morbid mat
ter through the pores, the patient is dragged to
the river and plunged over head and ears.
Should the case be desperate, a powaw or
67

priest is summoned, who roars and howls till
the patient either recovers or his pulse ceases to
beat. They cross rivers in canoes, which are con
structed sometimes of trees which they burn and
hew till they have hollowed them, and sometimes
of bark, which they can carry overland. It will
be readily credited that their astonishment was
very great on first beholding a ship. They were,
says a pious colonist, " scared out of their wits to
see the monster come sailing into their harbour,
and spitting fire with a mighty noise out of her
floating side."
The men in domestic life are exceedingly sloth
ful. The women perform all the household
drudgery; they build the wigwams and beat the
corn. The active employment of the men is war
and hunting. The division of their time is by
sleeps, moons and winters. Indeed, by lodging
abroad, they have become familiar with the mo
tions of the stars ; and it is remarkable that they
have called Charles's Wain, Paukunnawaw, or
the Bear, the name by which it is also known to
the astronomers of Europe.
In eloquence the Indians of America have emi-
68

nently distinguished themselves. The speech of
Logan, a Mingo chief, exhibits the force and sen
tentious brevity of a Demosthenes. I cannot re
press the impulse I feel to insert this oration ; but
it will first be proper to state the incidents that
produced it. A white man having been murdered
on the frontiers of Virginia by two Indians of
the Shawanese tribe, the colonists undertook to
avenge the outrage in a summary manner. A
Colonel Cresap collected a party and proceeded
down the Ranhaway. A canoe of women and
children, with only one man, was perceived at a
distance. Cresap concealed his boat in a recess
of the river, and crept with his men along the
trees that covered its banks. The unsuspecting
Indians passed on, when Cresap and his people,
singling out their victims, killed the whole party.
It was the family of Logan, who had long been a
friend of the whites. Such unprovoked cruelty
raised his vengeance, and, taking an active part
in the war that followed, he slew many of the col
onists and adorned his wigwam with their scalps.
At length a decisive battle was fought between
the Indians and colonists; the Indians were de
feated and sued for peace. The pride of Logan
69

would not suffer him to be seen among the sup
pliants; but, lest the sincerity of a treaty should
be distrusted from which so illustrious a chief
withheld himself, he sent by a messenger a speech
to be delivered to the white people : —
" I appeal to any white man to say if ever he
entered Logan's cabin hungry, and he gave him
not meat; if ever he came cold and naked, and
he clothed him not? During the last long and
bloody war Logan remained idle in his cabin, an
advocate for peace. Such was my love for the
whites that my countrjrmen pointed as they
passed, and said, 'Logan is the friend of white
men!' I had even thought to have lived with
you but for the injuries of one man. Colonel
Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood, and unpro
voked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not
sparing even my women and children. There
runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any
living creature. This called on me for revenge.
I have sought it; I have killed many ; I have fully
glutted my vengeance. For my country I rejoice
at the beams of peace. But do not harbour a
thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan
never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to
70

save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan?
Not one."
The Indians of America want only an historian
who would measure them by the standard of
Roman ideals, to equal in bravery and magna
nimity the proud masters of the world. The de
scendants of Romulus were ever engaged in a
perpetual succession of barbarous wars. These
wars, dignified by the historic page, are read with
veneration by the multitude; but the philosopher
contemplates them through the same medium that
he would a bloody conflict between the Chippe-
ways and Nawdowessies on one of the Ottowaw
lakes. I know not why a Catawba or Cherokee
chief should not be considered a rival in greatness
with a Roman or a Latin leader. If I understand
aright the Roman history, war seems to have been
the trade of the ancient Romans. To war they
owed their origin, and they pursued it as a
system. Let us compare with these dignified
butchers the depreciated Indians of America;
and, if a love of peace be the criterion of a great
character, how will a Roman shrink at the side
of an Indian. The Romans were ever found
to sheathe the sword with reluctance; the In-
71

Hians have been always ready to lay down the
hatchet. That in humanity and all the softer emotions
the Indians of America will rival the most pol
ished nations of the world let facts establish.
When, after a sanguinary war between the
whites and the Indians, a treaty of peace was
concluded, no scene could be more affecting
than the sensibility with which the Indians re
stored their captives to the British. The In
dians were of the tribes of Muskingham, and
the event took place in the camp of General
Bouquet. It was with eyes full of tears that
the Indians brought their captives into the camp
of their countr3rmen. They visited them from
day to day, bringing the horses, furs and skins
which they had formerly bestowed on them while
they composed part of their families, accom
panied with every act that could display sin
cerity of affection. Nay, some even followed
their white inmates to Fort Pitt, hunting for
them by the way, and delighting to supply their
provisions. But a young Mingo war-captain evinced by his
actions that the spirit of chivalry may be found
72

in the forests of barbarous tribes. Wampanoag
had formed a strong attachment for a female
captive of the name of Helen Hopkins, and now
at the risk of being killed by the surviving rela
tions of the many unhappy victims whom he had
scalped, he accompanied Helen, who rode his
caparisoned horse, to the very frontiers of his
enemies, assisting her to ford the rivers, decorat
ing her with the plumage of the birds he killed
in the woods, and throwing into his looks all
the tenderness of a lover. The girl, from the
prejudice of education, could not refuse to
accompany the whites to Fort Pitt; but when
the party were to separate at the Ohio, all the
woman rushed into her bosom. She clung to
Wampanoag with distraction, called him by
the endearing name of husband, and with
the most bitter lamentations was torn from his
arms. Of the captives that were restored, many had
been taken when children by the Indians. These
had been accustomed to consider the Indians as
their only relations; they spoke no other lan
guage but that of the Shawanese; and beholding
their new state in the light of captivity, they sep-
73

arated from their savage benefactors with mourn
ful reluctance.
On the parting of the Indians from the British,
a Shawanese chief addressed the white men in a
short but humane speech. " Fathers," said the
Indian warrior, " we have brought your flesh and
blood to you; they are our children by adoption,
but yours by natural right. Inmates with us
from their tender years, they are wholly unac
quainted with your customs and manners; and
therefore we beseech you to treat them with kind
ness, that at length they may become reconciled to
you." It was my design to have spoken only of the
Indian in what bore a relation to his moral char
acter; but as the world has been long agitated
relative to a particular circumstance of his physi
cal construction, I cannot neglect the opportunity
to produce a testimony or two upon the subject.
" It has been said," observes Mr. Jefferson, in
his Notes, " that Indians have less hair than the
whites except on their heads. But this is a fact
of which fair proof can scarcely be had. With
them it is disgraceful to be hairy on the
body. They say it likens them to hogs. They
74

therefore pluck the hair as fast as it appears.
But the traders who marry their women and
prevail on them to discontinue this practice
say that nature is the same with them as the
whites." He who can read the concluding part of this
sentence, in which Mr. Jefferson still maintains
that tone of philosophic gravity which breathes
throughout his work, without a smile, must pos
sess more stoical composure than I. The dispute
which has been so long sub judice was not re
specting the physical woman, but the physical
man of the new world. The question in point
was about beards. It was contended for by the
philosophers of Europe that the aborigines of
America were without any hair to their chins,
and that not all the warriors of the Six Nations
could furnish one respectable beard. From this
peculiarity in the American Indian inferences
were deduced by no means favourable to the other
parts of his physical conformation; for when
philosophers have once established a position they
are seldom slow in building upon it. But the dis
pute has at length been decided, and the red man
of America is restored to his physical dignity. It
75

has been discovered that nature has not been less
liberal in her gifts to the Indian than the Euro
pean; that the Indians would have beards but
that they will not suffer them to grow. On a sub
ject of such inagnitude — a subject that has
called forth every acuteness of disquisition from
a Buffon on one side of the Atlantic and a Jeffer
son on the other — whatever positive evidence
can be produced is entitled to serious attention.
It is, therefore, with satisfaction I lay before
my readers three certificates of unquestionable
authority: COLONEL butler's TESTIMONY
The Indians of the Six Nations have all beards
naturally, a.s have all other nations of North
America which ever I saw. Several of the Mo
hocks shave with razors, as do likewise several
of the Pawnees, who have had an intercourse
with Europeans. But in general the Indians
pluck out the beard by the roots, from its earliest
appearance, . and, as their faces are therefore
smooth, it has been supposed they were without
this characteristical mark of fheir sex. I am
even of opinion that, if the Indians were to prac-
76

tise shaving from their youth many of them would
have as strong beards as Europeans. (Signed)
John Butler,
Agent of Indian A£faiTS.
(True Copy) Niagara, April u, 1784,
CAPTAIN brant's TESTIMONY
The men of the Six Nations have all beards by
nature; as have likewise all other Indian nations
of North America which I have seen. The gen
erality pluck out the hairs of the beard by the
roots as soon as they begin to appear, and hence
they seem to have no beard, or at most only a few
straggling hairs, which they have neglected to
eradicate. I am, however, of opinion that if the
Indians were to shave, none of them would be
without beards and that some would have very
thick ones. (Signed)
Joseph Brant,
(True Copy) Schenectady, April 19, 1793.
MAJOR ward's testimony
I brought up in my family at Flatbush a young
Indian of the Montauk nation, who inhabit the
77

east end of Long Island, and, having read with
interest both Buffon's and Jefferson's philosophic
chapter on beards, I would not neglect the fair
opportunity which offered to determine the dis
pute of these great men by an appeal to experi
ence. Directly the chin of this Montauk Indian
became razorable I put a razor into his hand, and
taught him to shave, inculcating with all my
powers of rhetoric how much importance there
was annexed by the world to a beard; that a
beard had a kind of mechanical operation upon
the mind; that in the ages of antiquity no man
could be a philosopher without one, and that (the
fellow had received a pretty liberal education)
it was the opinion of Doctor Swift that the reason
Daphne fled from Apollo was because he had no
beard. This mode of reasoning, together with
my own example (I am obliged to shave every
morning) induced my Indian protege to encour
age a beard. He at first shaved every other day,
but in the lapse of a twelvemonth he was obliged
to have diurnally recourse to his razor. He has
now what may be termed a handsome beard ; it is
dark, bushy and repulsive, and before he reaches
the age of thirty (he is now only twenty-three)
78

he may, I am of opinion, appear with dignity at
the court of the Grand Turk. (Signed)
Guy Ward,
(True Copy) Long Island, June 15, 1795.
Upon this subject there can be now no more
controversy. Facts will ever supersede specula
tion; and, however the casuist may argue, truth
vindicates itself. The page of Buffon that relates
to the beards of the Six Nations may eternally
enforce homage by the dignified march of its
periods ; for the page of Buffon, whether his sub
ject be the creation of the first man, the Arab
wandering in the desert, or the Mohock wanting
a beard, is ever found to blaze with magnificence
and sparkle with illustration. But it can bring
no conviction to him who submits his book to his
reason and not his reason to his book.
About eight miles from the Occoquan mills is
a house of worship called Powhick church, a
name it derives from a run that flows near its
walls. Hither I rode on Sundays and joined the
congregation of Parson Weems,^ a minister of
^ Weems, Mason L., rector of Mount Vernon parish,
before the Revolution, when the old church at Pohick
79

the Episcopal persuasion, who was cheerful in
his mien that he might win men to religion. A
Virginian churchyard on a Sunday resembles
rather a race-ground than a sepulchral-ground.
The ladies come to it in carriages, and the men,
after dismounting from their horses, make them
fast to the trees. But the steeples to the Vir
ginian churches were designed not for utility, but
ornament; for the bell is always suspended to a
tree a few yards from the church. It is also ob
servable that the gate to the churchyard is ever
carefully locked by the sexton, who retires last;
so that had Hervey and Gray been born in
America the preacher of peace could not have
indulged in his Meditations among the Tombs,
had for its attendant George Washington, became a book-
agent for Matthew Carey.
It would be difficult at this day to procure an exact
chronological catalogue of the books which he himself
wrote. Of Weems's earlier parish life we have a pleasing
notice in the travels of John Davis, who was in the United
States from 1798 to 1802, and in the latter portion of his
time frequented Weems's church at Pohick while he was
living in the vicinity.
We have not met with a record of Weems's birth or of
his birthplace. His death took place at Beaufort, South
Carolina, May 23, 1825. — Duyckinck.
80

nor the poet produced the Elegy that has secured
him immortality.
Wonder and ignorance are ever reciprocal.
I was confounded on first entering the church
yard at Powhick to hear,
Steed threaten steed, in high and boastful neighs.
Nor was I less stunned with the rattling of car
riage-wheels, the cracking of whips and the vocif
erations of the gentlemen to the negroes who
accompanied them. But the discourse of Parson
Weeriis calmed every perturbation; for he
preached the great doctrines of salvation as one
who had experienced their power. It was easy
to discover that he felt what he said ; and indeed,
so tmiform was his piety that he might have ap
plied to himself the words of the Psalmist, " My
mouth shall shew forth thy righteousness and thy
salvation all the day; for I know not the numbers
thereof." In his youth Mr. Weems accompanied some
young Americans to London, where he prepared
himself by diligent study for the profession of the
church. After being some months in the metrop
olis it was remarked by his companions that he
8i

absented himself from their society towards the
close of the day, and, conjecturing that the motive
of his disappearing arose either from the heat
of lust or a proneness to liquor, they determined
to watch his conduct. His footsteps were traced,
and they found him descending into a wretched
cellar that augured no good. But their suspi
cions were soon changed on following him into
his subterranean apartment. They found him
exhorting to repentance a poor wretch who was
once the gayest of the gay and flattered by the
multitude, but now languishing on a death-bed,
and deserted by the world. He was reproving
him tenderly, privately, and with all due humility,
but holding out to him the consolation of the
sacred text, that his sins, red as scarlet, would
become by contrition white as snow, and that
there was more joy in the angels of heaven
over one sinner that repented than over
ninety-nine persons whose conduct had been
unerring. Of the congregation at Powhick church about
one half was composed of white people, and the
other of negroes. Among many of the negroes
were to be discovered the most satisfying evi-
82

dences of sincere piety; an artless simplicity,
passionate aspirations after Christ, and an ear
nest endeavour to know and do the will of
God. After church I made my salutations to Parson
Weems, and having turned the discourse to divine
worship, I asked him his opinion of the piety of
the blacks.
" Sir," said he, " no people in this country prize
the Sabbath more seriously than the trampled-
upon negroes. They are swift to hear ; they seem
to hear as for their lives. They are wakeful,
serious, reverent and attentive in God's house,
and gladly embrace opportunities of hearing
his word. Oh, it is sweet preaching when
people are desirous of hearing! Sweet feeding
the flock of Christ when they have so good
an appetite. — How, sir, did you like my
preaching?" " Sir," cried I, " it was a sermon to pull down
the proud, and humble the haughty. I have rea
son to believe that many of your congregation
were under spiritual and scriptural conviction of
their sins. Sir, you spoke home to sinners. You
knocked at the door of their hearts."
83

" I grant that, but I doubt [shaking his head]
whether the hearts of many were not both barred
and bolted against me."
I had been three months at Occoquan when I
so often caught myself stretching, yawning and
exhibiting other symptoms of ennui, in my
chair, that I began to be of opinion it v\^as
time to change my residence. My condition
was growing irksome. There was no light,
airy vision of a female disciple, with expressive
dark eyes to consider my instructions oracular;
but I was surrounded by a throng of oafs
who read their lessons with the same tone
that Punch makes when he squeaks through a
comb. I therefore resigned my place to an old drunken
Irishman of the name of Burbridge, who was
travelling the country on foot in search of an
academy; and whom Friend Ellicott made no
scruple to engage, though, when the fellow ad
dressed him, he was so drunk that he could with
difficulty stand on his legs. I remonstrated with
Friend Ellicott on the impropriety of employing a
sot to educate his children. " Friend," said he,
" of all the schoolmasters I ever employed, none
84

taught my children to write so good a hand as a
man who was constantly in a state that bordered
on intoxication. They learned more of him in
one month than of any other in a quarter. I will
make trial of Burbridge."

85

CHAPTER IX
It was not without emotion that I quitted the
banks of the Occoquan; those banks on which I
had passed so many tranquil hours in study and
meditation. I was about to exchange the quiet
of solitude for the tumult of the world, and was
posting I knew not whither, without any object
to my journeying. I pass over the common oc
currences of the road to Washington, the contri
butions levied on my purse by the landlords of
Alexandria and those of the imperial city; but
at Baltimore an accident happened which I have
still, under every combination of circumstance,
in my memory's eye. I had left Peck's tavern
in the stage-coach at a very early hour of the
morning, when, before we had proceeded half
way down Market Street, one of the fore wheels
came off. The driver, on whose presence of
mind the safety of the passengers depended, de
serted his post in the moment of danger, and
86

leaped from his seat. The horses being without
any check, accelerated their pace, and I can only
compare their speed to the rapidity of lightning.
This was an awful moment. I expected every
moment to be dashed in pieces, and determined
to make one effort for my life, I leaped from the
carriage into the street; an example that was
soon followed by two other passengers. In my
eagerness to clear the wheels I leaped further
than was necessary, and received a bruise in my
forehead; but one of the other passengers was
mangled by the flints in the road. On looking
up I could perceive nothing but a flame before
me, produced by the horses whose shoes struck
fire as they flew. I followed the carriage with the
third passenger, who had escaped unhurt, solici
tous to know the fate of a sailor and a boy whom
we had left in the coach. We overtook it at Chin-
quopin Hill, where the horses in their ascent had
slackened their pace; and found the sailor and
the boy holding the panting cattle by the reins.
I congratulated them on their escape ; but when I
asked the sailor why he had not jumped from the
carriage, "Avast there," said the tar, "more
people are lost by taking to the boat than sticking
87

by the wreck; I always stick to the wreck! " A
fresh coach and horses conveyed us to Chester,
where I supped with Monsieur Pichon, embas
sador from France to America, and the next
morning arrived at Philadelphia to breakfast.
I sojourned a week at Philadelphia, collecting
what money was due to me for the sale of my
novel, and enjoying the converse of that mam
moth of literature, Joseph Dennie, whom I found
seated in all the splendour of absolute dominion
among his literary vassals.
T called on Dufief, but found him so occupied
in teaching French and selling books that he had
nieither leisure nor disposition for the offices of
friendship. Dufief informed me that Doctor
Priestly had called at his shop and exchanged
with him half a dozen copies of Godwin's Political
Justice foir the sermons of Massillon arid some
other religious works. "This," said the lively
Frenchman, " was poor barter, and I resembled
the hero in the Iliad who exchanged a shield of
silver for another of brass."
¦From Philadelphia I travelled to New York,
partly by water and partly by land. In the pas
sage-boat to Burlington was a sweet girl of seven-
88

teen whose voice was music, and who observed
that the Pennsylvania shore of the Delaware was
much more pleasant than the Jersey side. We got
to Burlington a little before- the going down of
the sun. It is built on the Delaware, and at a
place so near Philadelphia I did not expect to be
put in the same bed with another passenger. This
passenger was going to Canada, and was accom
panied on the road with two waggons loaded with
bale goods.
The next day we passed through Hiat's-town
which is composed of a meeting-house, a public-
house and a blacksmith's shop. The next place
of any distinction was Cat's Tail, from which to
Allentown is a rugged and almost insurmount
able road called Featherbed Lane! Strange
names these for a Christian country. From Am-
boy, which terminated our landTtravelling, we
embarked for New York, where I found a kind
reception at the house of Major Howe. The next
day I hastened on the wings pf friendship to Mr.
George, who was still employed on Long Island
in his sublime academy.
I did not fail to visit my old friends on Long
Island. Parson Vandyke was afflicted with the
89

jaundice, but his wife was still as notable and nar
rative as ever. Farmer Titus had lost none of
his accustomed hospitality; nor was Farmer
Moore less kind to the stranger within his gates.
Mr. Remsen continued to regale his guests with
Madeira, and his sons were increasing their ideas
under the tuition of my literary friend. Nor were
the daughters of these worthy people less lovely
or less amiable. Joy be to Newtown ! Joy to its
rosy damsels; and may heaven preserve their
charms from decay !
I remained a week on Long Island, enjoying
the renovation of intellectual felicity with Mr.
George, when, impatient of being without any
determined pursuit, I again departed for the
southward. It was September 21, 1801; a day
I shall ever remember in the annals of my life,
as it was a day of separation from a more than
fraternal friend, whom I have never seen since.
I embarked in the passage-boat for Amboy,
from whence I travelled in the stage-coach to
Burlington with a sea-faring man and an Indian
trader. I had never met with such blasphemous
wretches. Indeed, something might be advanced
in extenuation of the sailor, whose mode of life
90

was not favourable to external decorum ; but the
Indian trader was a man of at least threescore
years, who had mingled with reputable society.
Five miles from Burlington we crossed Ancocus-
creek, and at a public-house on its border stopped
to refresh our cattle. The old reprobate, as usual,
staggered to the bar and, as usual, vociferated
for a glass of clear brandy. The sailor proposed
drinking with him, and an interchange of oaths
followed between them to the manifest discomfit
ure of a family of way-faring Quakers, who were
sitting before the fire, and who began to groan in
concert. But the old sinner had no regard for the
feelings of the devout; he heaped his impreca
tions on the whole house because his mandate for
a glass of brandy had been neglected by the land
lord. Such characters are injurious to society
from the contagion of example. I observed a boy
in the house who laughed with gust at the oaths
uttered from the old man's lungs, which were
ulcerated with blasphemy.
Resuming our journey, a few miles brought us
to Penhausen-creek, remarkable for its circular
form and transparent stream ; and a little beyond
it we stopped at a public-house, where a very
91

pretty, lively young woman was rocking her babe
to sleep. Our journey was now soon terminated;
for in another hour we reached the Jersey bank of
the Delaware, and were conducted in a large boat
across the river to Philadelphia, where I sepa
rated without regret from my ruffian companions.
The sun was going down, and I sought for lodg
ings without delay. I proposed myself a boarder
to a Quaker woman whom I saw standing at her
door. The good matron told me she was cautious
how she took strangers, and inquired my. con
nexions. " What, pray," said I, " do you charge
a week for boarding in your house ? " She re
plied, " Four dollars." I put the money into her
hands, and she was no longer importunate on the
subject of my connexions.
I did not continue long in my lodgings. The
manners of the family petrified me. The melan
choly ejaculations of the old woman who was
striving to work out her salvation by groaning,
together with the woebegone countenance of her
husband, whose head would have furnished the
model of a bust for one of the sages of Greece,
conspired to drive me in search of another lodg
ing; and I was received into the house of
92

Madame de Florian, in whose company I wanted
no domestic entertainment. The name of Ma
dame de Florian announces her to be a French
woman. She lived in North Third Street with
her two daughters, of whom one was between
seventeen and eighteen, the other three years
younger, and a son of five. My introduction to
this family was curious. At Fouquet's gardens,
rambling one afternoon in the shade, puffing vol
canoes of snioke from my segar and indulging
the most splendid reveries, I suddenly came upon ,
Madame de Florian and her two daughters, who
were drinking peaceably their coffee in one of
the alcoves, while the little boy was fondling a
lap-dog on the grass. The spectacle of this in
teresting group suspended my steps, which being
observed by the child, the little rogue danced
towards me and insisted upon having my segar.
The mother and sisters rebuked the child, but I
instantly delivered my segar to him and, bowing,
was about to pursue my ramble round the gar
dens when Madame de Florian, with that grace
of manner so peculiar to a Frenchwoman, ac
costed me with, Peut-etre, monsieur, nous fera
I'honneur de prendre une tasse de cafe?
93

I bowed my acquiescence, and seated myself
next the eldest daughter, who welcomed my ap
proach with a smile of enchantment. And now
all that I had read of a Mahometan paradise
rushed into my mind. The garden of Monsieur
Fouquet was the blissful region, and Mademoi
selle de Florian the houri. It is to Mademoiselle
de Florian and a few other of her countrywomen
that the young ladies of Philadelphia owe their
present graceful mien. The Revolution in France
produced a revolution in the walk of the Philadel
phia damsels. Formerly the American ladies did
not sacrifice to elegance in their walk; or, more
properly speaking, they were without a model to
form themselves upon. But when the Revolution
drove so many of the Gallic damsels to the banks
of the Delaware, the American girls blushed at
their own awkwardness, and each strove to copy
that swimming air, that nonchalance, that ease
and apparent unconsciousness of being observed,
which characterized the French young ladies as
they passed through the streets. Men and women
ran to their windows, and involuntarily ex
claimed, "Oh, heaven! look at that girl! how
beautifully she walks!" A spirit of imitation
94

was now kindled, and as both men and women
never appear more ridiculous than when they
affect qualities to which they have no pretensions,
many a Philadelphia lady provoked the malice of
laughter when she strained every nerve to com
mand the homage of admiration. Some sprawled,
some kicked, some frisked ; and it is recorded that
one girl, in despair, threw herself into the Schuyl
kill. But then, on the other hand, many polished
their natural ease into elegance.
An American girl commonly throws me into
a fit of profound thought, and to think in the
presence of a woman is an insult to her sex. The
vision of a French girl, on the contrary, banishes
all abstraction from my thoughts, and the natural
tendency of my English mind to dulness is im
proved into vivacity.
I accompanied Madame de Florian and her
family home; nor did I discover without secret
rapture that this lady took boarders. She con
fined her number to two. There was nobody now
in the house but one old gentleman ; for a young
officer who had lately occupied une chambre
garnie, was gone to Saint Domingo. There was
consequently space left for another, but how to
95

get possession of this enviable spot without an
introduction was the rub. At length the present
lodger made his appearance in the shape of Mon
sieur Lartigue, whom I had accompanied once
from Philadelphia to Charleston in the packet.
Not more astonished stood Hamlet at seeing his
royal father than I on beholding Monsieur Lar
tigue; but our mutual astonishment was soon
converted into joy, and the old man. fell on my
neck, weeping like a schoolboy. What coxcomb
was it observed the French had no feeling? The
scene was affecting, and I could perceive the eye
of my houri brimful of tears. I desired Mr. Lar
tigue to introduce me to Madame de Florian and
her daughters. Their countenances brightened;
my proposal of becoming a lodger was accepted
with, " You do us honour ! " and when the porter
brought my trvmks I heard Adelaide direct him
what, room to carry them into with a kind of
Saint-Preuxish emotion. Month of happiness
that I passed under the same roof with Adelaide
de Florian ! Happiness never to return beneath
the cloudy sky that now frowns on me as I look
towards it.
At the Indian Queen, in Fifth Street (every
96

sign in the United States is either an Indian
Queen or a spread eagle), I sometimes lounged
away an hour with some young men from
Charleston. "Where do you board?" they all
asked me. "With a French lady." "Some
Creole, I suppose; why not take your quarters up
here? I hate French customs. They never drink
tea unless they are sick." And what were the
customs of these young gentlemen who plumed
themselves on their knowledge of mankind, and
their travelled air? When not engaged with eat
ing, they were sitting in the street before the
door of the Indian Queen, drinking punch cooled
with ice, and obscured in volumes of tobacco
smoke. It is true, their discourse did not turn
on bullocks. But they were either laughing over
their nocturnal adventures in Mulatto Alley, at
Charleston, or recommending to each other the
different brothels at Philadelphia. Nor was the
stream of their conversation ever diverted unless
some young lady (who, finding the pavement
blockaded by their chairs, was compelled to walk
in the carriage road), called forth the exclama
tion of, " That 's a fine girl ! So is that coming
up the street now. There are no snakes if Phila-
97

delphia does not beat Charleston hollow! See
there, again, at the tailor's window! Harry! I '11
go over and get measured for a coat tomorrow."
At this juncture (it was a beautiful moonlight
night) an American girl, from an opposite win
dow sung, with uplifted sashes, a song to a circle
of ladies and gentlemen in the room. This cus
tom is very prevalent at Philadelphia and New
York, and it evinces there is still left in those
towns some simplicity of manners. The voice
was melodious, the shake excellent ; and when the
song was concluded, the lads from Charleston
gave it their applause. Some were in high rap
tures. "Encore! encore! bravo! bravissimo!"
followed close upon the warbling. In some coun
tries this insolence would have been resented.
The gentlemen would have rushed down-stairs
and exchanged a pass or two with the street
critics. Here it was widely different. The ladies
continued to warble in succession; the Carolin
ians grew tired of applauding, and at length each
crossed his arms and contented himself with
puffing smoke from his segar.
Not being able to obtain any employment at
Philadelphia, I thought it best to embark for
98

Baltimore, and I took my passage in the New
castle packet. The wind was fair, the sky serene,
the water smooth, and we passed Chester and
Wilmington with great rapidity. A good dinner
on board the packet and the conversation of a
motley group enlivened my spirits, and I pro
voked the laughter of the master of a ship lying
at Newcastle, whose foretopsail was loose, and
whose destination was London. How my heart
danced at the sound of that name! How my
fancy conjured up the Thames, and the spires of
the city to my view! How deliberately did I
behold myself seated in the bosom of my friends,
and how appalled was I when these illusions van
ished, and I perceived before me the shores of
Pennsylvania and New Jersey! Oh, if these are
prejudices, let me hug them to my breast, and
far away be the philosophy that would deprive
me of my feelings. We landed at Newcastle, and
were bounded in two coaches to Frenchtown,
which is a journey of sixteen miles. We stopped
to bait our cattle at Glasgow, and at Frenchtown
found a surly landlord and sorry accommoda
tions. Our number was sixteen, and for sixteen
passengers there were only six beds; hence the
99

large beds lodged three, and the small beds two,
passengers. For my part, there being a good fire,
I proposed to sit up all night and make an Indian
file with our feet to the fender; but sleep over
came me and I retired to bed, undisturbed by the
nasal trump of my bedfellow, who snorted like
a horse. It is not unworthy of remark that the
landlord would not suffer cards to be played in
his house; and that the negro girl who waited
at supper, wore a man's hat. A Quaker in com
pany aspired to be witty by calling her Caesar.
The following morning we all embarked again
for Baltimore, and on the passage a Yankee di
verted the company by producing a favourite cat
that he had stolen from the landlord (who had
refused him a pack of cards), and making the
poor animal eat a yard or more of tobacco. His
method was ingenious. He placed the cat over
a chair, and confining forcibly her feet, untwisted
a roll of tobacco; the cat, in the agony of pain,
snapped at any thing that was offered her, and
the mountebank traveller ministered his tobacco.
We dined again on the water. Among the
passengers was a pretty, modest, blushing maiden
of fifteen, whose manners were not inelegant;
lOO

but it is somewhat curious that whenever she
wanted the salt or mustard, she begged some one
to shove it to her.
Poor's Island is half-way to Baltimore, which
we passed about noon ; but in the evening we got
round Fell's Point, and at eight secured our ves
sel at Bowly's Wharf, having Federal Hill on our
opposite side.
It was the opinion of the ancient philosophers
that nature endowed man with language to ex
press his wants; but this notion has been ex
ploded by the more enlightened moderns; for it
is an observation founded on every day's experi
ence that no man is so likely to get his wants re
dressed as he who keeps them secret; the dis
closure of poverty exciting only the insolence of
contempt. The true use of speech, therefore, is
not to express our wants, but to conceal them;
and in conformity with this maxim, I kept it a
profound secret, on my landing at Baltimore, that
I had very little money left in my pocket. I ac
companied with affected gaiety a young fellow to
the city of Strasburgh, who told me he always
lodged there, and extolled the house for its con
venience of accommodation, and the landlord
lOI

for the suavity of his manners. Mr. Wyant re
ceived us with a smile of welcome, and supper
being ready, ushered us into a room where
twenty guests were sitting at table, who appeared
to be mutes; for no man uttered a syllable, but
each seemed by his looks to have just come out
from the cave of Trophonius.
During my sojournment at Baltimore a cheese
of no ordinary dimensions was landed from a
vessel, to be transported to Washington. It was
a present from the farmers' wives and daughters
of Cheshire, in Massachusetts, to the President
of the United States, and was entrusted to the
pious care of one Mr. Leland, a Baptist minister,
who is said to have smoked his pipe in solemn
silence the whole of his travels both by land and
by water. I know not the weight of the " great
est cheese in the world;" but it was, I believe,
equal in circumference to the hindmost wheel of
a waggon. Its extraordinary dimensions induced
some wicked wag of a Federalist to call it the
mammoth cheese; and by this name it is known
throughout the States of the Union. The curi
osity of the inhabitants of Baltimore was uni
versally excited; men, women and children
I02

flocked to see the mammoth cheese. The taverns
were deserted ; the gravy soup cooled on the table,
and the cats, unrebuked, revelled on the custards
and cream. Even grey-bearded shop-keepers
neglected their counters, and participated in the
mammoth infatuation. The cheese was drawn
in a waggon to the city of Washington by four
horses richly caparisoned, which were furnished
the pious Mr. Leland by the Republicans of Balti
more; and the President of the United States
received the present with every polite acknowl
edgment, and invited the Republican members
of the Senate and House of Representatives to
tender it the homage of their respects and the
respects of their homage.
I had advertised in the Baltimore paper for the
place of domestic tutor, and one morning, while
I was standing before the door of the city of
Strasburgh, the barkeeper brought me a note
very carefully sealed. I eagerly took it from his
hand, impressed with an idea that it was sent
me by some opulent merchant who wanted an
instructor for his children; and already was I
delighting my fancy with the rewards of knowl
edge, when, on opening the note, it produced
103

what Rabelais calls the most gloomy of all mo
ments, the payment of a landlord's reckoning.
"Sir: —
According to the custom of the house, Mr.
Wyant has requested me to send in your bill.
To eight days' board at 9.y. 4d. £3. I4.y. 8d.
I am, for Mr. Wyant, John Kellen."
I called Mr. Wyant into a private room. He
obeyed the summons with a true German smile.
" Wait, sir," said I, " a few days." " Mine Got ! "
cried he, " if I wait a few days, how can I go to
market? " " I will give you," said I, " my note
of hand." " Note of hand," cried he. " Mine
Got! I have a drawer full of notes of hand."
" Well," said I, " pray leave your damnable face,
and I will pay you the cash tomorrow."
I had been informed that Mr. Burr was at the
Federal city; and the Federal city, as one of our
travellers in America solemnly remarks, is only
forty-three miles from Baltimore. I was deter
mined, therefore, to give him a missive by the
post, and my missive was d la Quin:
" Sir, I am at Baltimore." 104

The next mail brought me a letter from Mr. Burr
which dissipated the clouds that obscured the
horizon of my life. He did not make answer, like
Quin's correspondent, " Stay there and be d — d; "
but in a letter breathing kindness and protesta
tions of friendship, desired me to send him the
estimate of the expenses of my late travels, which
he proposed immediately to reimburse. I retired
to my room and computed with diplomatic ac
curacy my unavoidable expenses on the road,
from the day I crossed the Hudson till I de
scended the Treasury stairs at the imperial city.
The answer of the Vice-President will evince
that he did not think himself overcharged.
" Dear Sir,
You men of letters are the worst calculators in
the world. I am persuaded I only discharge a
just debt when I enclose double your amount.
Accept the assurances of my regard.
Aaron Burr."
At this letter my pride took alarm. It produced
from me an answer and a restitution of half the
bills. los

"Sir: —
As I cannot possibly descend from the respect
ability of a creditor to the degradation, if I may
be allowed the expression, of an eleemosynarist,
I decline receiving more than half of what you
remitted me. I am.
With profound respect, &c."
Being proffered a situation in a part of Vir
ginia I had not visited, and having it in my power
to journey at my leisure by the friendship of the
Vice-President, I departed without regret from
Baltimore, on foot and alone. It was the latter
part of March when I left the once-flourishing
town of Baltimore, and again directed my steps
towards the imperial city. But my mind was
somewhat altered. Experience had cured me of
my illusions. I was no longer elated with the
hope of being lifted above the crowd; but my
ambition was contented with the harmless drudg
ery of teaching children their rudiments. After
walking a few miles I turned into a wood to call
at the house of a brother pedagogue who had
invited me the preceding evening, at a public-
io6

house, to visit him in his literary retirement.
Boys and girls rent the air with their acclama
tions as I approached the dwelling; but the
schoolmaster's daughter, a lusty lass of nineteen,
escaped into the woods, and I could only catch
a glimpse of her flying across the green. I
was not Apollo, or I should have followed this
Daphne. The board placed over Mr. Macdonald's sylvan
academy diverted me not a little. " Anthony
Macdonald teaches boys and girls their grammar
tongue; also geography terrestrial and celestial.
— Old hats made as good as new."
But Mr. Macdonald was not at home; his
daughter had fled, and I trod back the path to
the main road, where I sought an asylum under
the roof of the widow Smith, who regales the
woebegone traveller with whiskey; and
Where the gaunt mastiff, growling at the gate.
Assaults the stranger whom he longs to eat.
Old age is garrulous, and the widow did not
want for talk. She " admired " that Miss Mac
donald, instead of staying in the house to receive
a stranger, should run into the woods. For her
107

part she was never " scared " at folks, however
well-dressed; and yet all her life she had lived
in the country.
Pursuing my journey, I arrived at Elk-Ridge
Landing, where I supped at a genteel tavern with
the hostess and her sister, who are remarkable
for the elegance of their conversation and the
amenity of their manners. I found the Old
Manor-House of Charlotte Smith lying on the
table, of which the concluding part seemed to
have been moistened with tears of sensibility.
The next day I resumed my walk, refreshing
myself at Spurrier's, carousing at Dent's and
sleeping at Drummond's, — three public-houses
on the road, which the traveller passes in suc
cession. The weather was somewhat warm in
the middle of the day; but this only made the
springs more grateful, at whose waters I stopped
to allay the thirst produced by walking. Rous
seau, in enumerating the pleasures of pedestrian
travelling, makes no mention of the joy with
which the solitary walker beholds a spring on the
road; from which omission I am inclined to be
lieve that the foot-travels of the eloquent Swiss
were performed round his chamber.
io8

The next morning proceeding forward, I
reached Bladensburgh before the going down of
the sun, and at nightfall, to my great satisfac
tion, I entered the imperial city. The moon was
rising from the woods, and I surveyed the Capi
tol by its light, meditating on the future state of
the western empire, the clash of interests, the
commotions of demagogues, and the disunion of
the States ! But dumb be the oracle of prediction !
Congress was assembled at Washington, and
I was constant in my attendance on the Senate
and the House of Representatives. The Senate-
Chamber is by far the most superb room in the
Capitol; but the House of Representatives is a
detached and temporary building. Yet I loved
best to visit the House of Representatives ; there
seemed to be so much energy and freedom of
debate. It is unknown, I presume, to few of my
readers that the Vice-President of the United
States is President of the Senate. Mr. Burr was
presiding in the chair, and no man knew better
the routine of the House or how to acquit himself
with more dignity than he. I watched an oppor
tunity to make the Vice-President my salutations
as he came out of the Capitol. I remembered the
109

advice which old Polonius gave his son when he
was about to travel, and I was then travelling
myself :
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.
The Vice-President demonstrated no little
pleasure to see me, and his chariot being at the
steps of the Capitol, he took me home with him
to dine. I forget how many Members of Congress
were present at the dinner ; but, though Republi
cans, I did not think they had all an equal voice,
for some spoke much louder than others.
A reduction had already taken place of the
judiciary system of the United States; that is,
the superfluous judges were dismissed, who,
under the preceding administration had unneces
sarily augmented the expenses of civil govern
ment. The object of the Republican party in the
House of Representatives was to obtain a repeal
of the internal taxes, comprehending excises,
stamps, auctions, licenses, carriages and refined
sugars. The most eloquent in debate was Mr. Ran
dolph. He was Demosthenes; but Demosthenes
IIO

who had sacrificed to the Graces. He spoke full
an hour for the repeal of the tax on domestic dis
tilled liquors; that is, whiskey and peach and
apple brandy. At the conclusion of the debate the
Speaker very solemnly exclaimed, "They who
are for the repeal are to say aye, and they who
are against it are to say no." The affirmative
monosyllable immediately resounded from every
quarter of the building. "Aye!" "Aye!"
" Aye! " followed in rapid succession; upon which
the Speaker, with much gravity, proclaimed,
" The ayes have it ! The bill has passed! "
I took great interest in this debate, for I con
sider whiskey very cheering; but I thought it
curious that a member from Virginia should
stand up for the repeal of the tax upon that
liquor, which, now it is become cheaper, will
throw many of his countrymen off their feet.
Having amused myself a few days at the im
perial city, I rose with the sun and pursued my
journey along the banks of the Potomac. About
nine in the morning I reached the bridge at the
Little Falls; a bridge that raises the admiration
of an American, but provokes only the contempt
of an European. In fact, art in America would
III

not detain an intelligent traveller one hour; but
nature would perhaps enchain his attention for
years. Near the bridge at the Little Falls my
journey was suspended by the rain, and I found
a reception in the tavern of Mr. Slimner, a Ger
man, who, at the age of threescore was smitten
by a young Englishwoman whom he had taken
for his wife, and who had brought him a child;
a child, the darling of his dotage, which he
ludicrously termed " his little young woman cut
shorter." The rain not remitting its violence,
I was obliged to pass the night under the roof of
this fond couple; whom I, however, left at an
early hour the next morning to prosecute my
journey, purposing to take the more circuitous
road of the Great Falls of the Potomac.
I pass over in silence the common occurrences
of the road; the waggoners who returned no an
swer to my interrogations, and the plantation
curs that disturbed my reveries with their bark
ing. About noon I reached the cross-roads, and,
taking to the right, I could every minute hear
more distinctly the roar of the Great Falls. At
length I came to a spacious stream called " Diffi
cult Run ; " an appellation derived from the diffi-
112

culty in crossing it. But no place could be more
romantic. On one bank towered a majestic moun
tain, from the side of which rocks, hanging in
fragments, menaced the traveller with destruc
tion, while others that had tumbled into the
stream interrupted its course, producing a tumul
tuous roar that absorbed the cry of the water
fowl hovering over the waves. I was in suspense
whether to ford this run or wait for a guide on
its bank, when I descried two boys on the oppo
site shore, who obeyed my call with alacrity, leap
ing from rock to rock till they reached the spot
where I stood. With the assistance of a pole they
conducted me to the opposite bank, where I
learned that one of my young guides was called
Basil Hurdle, and the other Jack Miller.
I now ascended a hill that led to the Great
Falls, and on a sudden my steps were suspended
by the conflict of elements, the strife of nature.
I beheld the course of a large river abruptly ob
structed by rocks, over which it was breaking
with a tremendous roar, while the foam of the
water seemed ascending to the clouds, and the
shores that confined it to tremble at the convo
lution. I gazed for some time in silent awe at this
"3

war of elements when, having recovered from
my admiration, I could not help exclaiming to
the great Maker of heaven and of earth, " What
is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the
son of man, that thou visitest him? " For several
hours I continued gazing at these falls, lost in
musing over the grandest object the universe can
supply ; and when I beheld the wilderness around
me I could not but be impressed with the idea
that nature delighted to perform her wonders in
the secrecy of solitude. The obstruction of these
falls to boats conveying the produce of the inte
rior country to Alexandria and the city of Wash
ington has been obviated with unremitted labour
by the construction of locks, and large boats
ascend and descend without much difficulty. Of
these locks it may be expected that I should give
some account; but after the noble spectacle of
the falls I had no disposition to examine an aque
duct devised probably by the incitement of avarice
or luxury. When I journeyed fifteen miles out
of the beaten road, it was not art but nature that
called me.
A little below the falls on the bank of the
Potomac stand a few scattered buildings which
114

form a kind of hamlet called Charlotteville. The
first settler in this savage wilderness was the lady
of General Lee, from whose Christian name the
place takes its appellation. At a house of enter
tainment kept by Widow Myers, I was accommo
dated with a supper and a bed. This buxom
widow was by persuasion a Methodist, and pos
sessed of considerable property. Into what part
of the world has not love found his way? The
goatherd in Virgil discovered him to be an inhab
itant of caverns ; and the Widow Myers acknowl
edged his power in the wilderness of the Potomac
Falls. The muscular form of a young Scotch
man enchained the glances of the pious widow,
whose eyes seemed to say to the bravmy Cale
donian, " Stay me with flagons, comfort me with
apples; for I am sick of love."
On leaving the Great Falls of the Potomac,
I was followed by a dog, whose attendance I
rather encouraged than repulsed. I was tired
of travelling alone, and I wanted a companion.
An European who has confined his travels to his
own country can have but a very imperfect idea
of the forest scenery of America. His imagina
tion, familiar only with open and clear grounds,
"5

will scarce form an adequate conception of the
endless and almost impenetrable woods in the
Western Continent. It was through such woods
that I now journeyed with an accession of cheer
fulness from the company of my dog, and smoking
tobacco in my march, with which I never went
unprovided. I never remember to have felt a
more perfect exemption from care than in my
journey from the Potomac Falls. I rioted in
health, and I walked forward oblitusque meorum
obliviscendus et illis. I embraced the universe
as my country, and it was wholly indifferent to
me where I terminated my pilgrimage; for
whether I ended my days in the wilds of the
Potomac or the close of Salisbury, "the earth
with her bars " [would have been] " about me
for ever." I ate my dinner in a log house on the
road. It was kept by a small planter of the name
of Homer. Such a tavern would have raised the
thunder and lightning of anger in the page of
my brother travellers in America. But the la
mented scarcity of American inns is easily ac
counted for. In a country where every private
house is a temple dedicated to hospitality, and
open alike to travellers of every description,
ii6

ought it to excite surprise that so few good tav
erns are to be found? When, therefore, the trav
ellers through the United States curse, in their
pages of calamity, the mosquitoes, fleas, bugs and
ticks that interrupt their slumbers, they make the
eulogium of American hospitality.
The inhabitants of these woods are remarkably
prolific; they obey at least one of the divine in
junctions, — they increase and multiply their
species. Mr. Homer was out felling the lofty
trees of the forest, but Mrs. Homer was sitting
by the fire, surrounded by half a dozen girls and
boys and giving a bosom of maternal exuberance
to a child she held in her arms. A curly-pated
boy and girl were eating their dinner on the
hearth. It seemed to be short commons; for,
after thrusting their fingers into the platter, they
licked them with great gusto. " Come, you eat
the sop," cried the boy, " the egg belongs to me."
" No, it don't," said the girl, " for mammy's hen
laid it."
Leaving the hut of Mr. Homer, I walked
vigourously forward, indulging the hope I should
get to Frying-Pan before night. But before dusk
I found myself bewildered in the woods, whose
117

solitude was rendered more melancholy from the
cry of the owl. I had given myself up for lost,
and was taking the flint from my pocket to kindle
a fire and pass the night under a tree when the
sound of the axe, chopping wood rejoiced my
hearing. Not more delightful was sleep ever to
the weary or water to the thirsty than the sound
to my ear. Guided by the noise of the axe, I
got to a tobacco plantation; but I had scarce
leaped the fence when a couple of huge dogs
assailed me, barking, advancing and retreating
all in a breath. Now, thought I, if these curs
were to devour me what an ignominious death
would terminate my pilgrimage on earth. Fear
is not only an ignoble, but dangerous, passion;
and, had I turned and endeavoured to escape
from these bloodhounds, it is a hundred to one
but I had been seized in that part where honour
is said to be lodged. I therefore stood my
ground, and called lustily to the house. My cry
was not unheard; the door was opened, and a
lad advanced with a light which he had fixed in a
calabash. " The way, my friend, if you please,
to Frying-Pan?"
" Frying-Pan ! 'T is a right difficult road to
ii8

find in the dark. You must keep along the worm
fence — Jowler, begone! — Hush your mouth,
there, you Rover ! — Begone, I say, you bloody!
— You must keep strait along the worm (i. e.
crooked) fence till you come to a barn — but I
would advise you to avoid the brushwood about
the barn because of a nest of rattlesnakes — and
the old one is mighty savage. — Well, when you
have left the barn on your right, take the path
that leads into the woods, and keep the main
road the whole way, without turning either to
the right or left, till you come to the track of the
wheel, then cross right over into the next wood,
and that will bring you to Frying-Pan Run, and
then you could not go wrong if you was to try
at it."
"My friend, will you favour me with a
draught of water ? "
"Yes, sure. Come, walk with me into the
house. You, Rover, hush your noise, you negur !
— Jowler, if you don't hush, I '11 make you rally
for something!"
On entering the log house I found a man sit
ting with his wife and five children before a blaz
ing fire of wood. My reader, do you not envy me
119

the sensations with which the strings of my heart
vibrated on beholding this domestic group ? The
weary traveller, after losing his way in the awful
woods of America, stoops to enter at the door
of a little log house, and, happy to be once more
in the society of his fellow creatures, finds the
roof under which he has got shelter large enough
for his heart's desire.
Hospitality is the prominent feature in the
character of a Virginian, and I had a presenti
ment that I was housed for the night. When I
had drunk my water, which tasted the more de
licious from being administered to me by a fine
girl of seventeen (she had two pitch balls stuck
in her head for eyes), I rose to depart; but the
man of the house accosted me, saying, " Be con
tent, I pray you, and tarry here all night. The
day is grown to an end; tomorrow I will send
my son to put you in the way." The children now
considered me as one of the family and, moving
their chairs, made room for me to come within
their circle. " My dogs," said the man, " gave
you a rally. But I reckon it was the little
dog you brought with you that made them so
savage." 1 20

" Oh my! what a pretty little lap-foist! " cried
the eldest girl. "Indeed, indeed, he's right
beautiful." "Mary," said a boy about nine years old,
" he 's for all the world like the little dog that
Jack Hatchet bought of Squire Carter's driver.
He 's spotted just like him. I '11 lay you he came
out of the same bitch."
" Do hush. Bill," said Mary. " The gentleman
brought the dog with him from England."
" An Englishman once," said the eldest son,
" borrowed a dog of me, and was ashamed to
return him. He carried him to England. If I
was ever to go there I would make a point to find
the dog out. How big, sir, is England ? "
" Nearly, sir, as big as the State of Virginia."
" Oh, Mary," said the next sister, " what a
great big place ! "
" Then," said the young man, " I should give
it up for a bad job. I did not reckon that
England had been bigger than Prince William
County." Supper (that is tea) was now got ready; nor
was it without a grateful emotion that I beheld
the mother of this worthy family unlock her Sun-
121

day cupboard and hand her eldest daughter part
of a loaf of sugar to break for the repast. Wil
mot, the eldest son, now departed. I discovered
afterwards that he was courting the daughter of
Mr. Strangeways' neighbour, whom he never
failed to visit after the labour of the day. It was
plain he was a lover by the care he took in adorn
ing his person, changing his leggings for a pair
of Philadelphia-made boots, and his frock for a
fashionable coatee. The first character of love
is a diffidence of pleasing.
After supper we again drew round the fire.
I had for some time perceived an unusual blaze
in the chimney; but supposing it to come from
aji oven, I said not a word. At length the good
woman exclaimed, "The plague! there's our
chimney on fire again. We must pull down the
rubbish, or we shall get no peace." Mr. Strange
ways now rose with great composure and, seizing
a large staff, went out to the back of the chimney,
where he raked away the rubbish, while Mary,
catching up a gourd, filled it thrice with water
and helped to extinguish the conflagration.
As the night advanced I could not but meditate
upon the place my worthy host designed for my
122

repose. I formed a hundred conjectures. He
surely would not cherish me in the bosom of his
numerous family ! And yet I could perceive only
one room in the house. There were three beds
in the room. Of these I discovered that the back
one belonged to the two eldest girls; for, while
Mr. Strangeways, his wife and I were yawning
in concert over the fire, I perceived Mary, from
the corner of my eye, steal softly to her nest and
slip in tmder the clothes; an example that was
quickly followed by EUza who, with equal arch
ness, crept in by her side. Pure and simple ig
norance! To dread no eye and to suspect no
tongue is the prerogative of the family to whom
these manners belong. At length Mr. Strange
ways asked me if I was willing to go to bed, and,
upon my replying in the affirmative, he fetched
a ladder from an outhouse into the room, and
having placed it against the wall, he ascended a
few steps, and opened a trap-door in the rafters,
which I had not perceived led to a cockloft.
"Did you ever mount a ship's ladder?" said
Mr. Strangeways. I replied that I had, a thou
sand. "Then," said he, "be kind enough to
follow me." 123

I followed without betraying the least emotion
of surprise ; none but a rustic would have uttered
an exclamation at the novelty of the staircase.
I found a decent bed in the room appropriated
to my reception; and, when Mr. Strangeways
had opened and closed the shutter of the window
in a manner which, after travelling so long in
America, I could not but understand, the worthy
man bade me a good night and left me to my
repose. 1 soon fell asleep ; nor were my slumbers
disturbed by the vision of an exorbitant landlord
appearing to levy contributions on my purse, with
a long bill in his hand. I rose the next morning
with the sun, and descended my ladder. The
family were all stirring. The father and sons
were at the plough, the mother was getting ready
breakfast, and the two girls were at their spin
ning-wheels. The sound of these instruments
was not quite so harmonious as that of a piano;
but I know not whether a woodland nymph, giv
ing rapid motion to her spinning-wheel, be not a
more captivating object than a haughty town
dame running her fingers disdainfully over the
keys of a harpsichord.
The morning was ushered in with rain, which
124

continued throughout the day. It was the wet
season in April, a time very favourable to the
planting of tobacco. I therefore continued
housed: I had got into pleasant quarters, and
I opposed but feebly Mr. Strangeways who in
sisted, with much hospitality, that I should tarry
another night under his roof. I passed the day
in talking with Mary, and gazing on her dark
eyes. She had dressed herself with no little
coquetry, and I could perceive, when she contem
plated her white frock and blue sash, that she
thought herself a finer lady today than she was
yesterday. Enviable maid ! With her, dress and
happiness were synonymous terms.
We had breakfast next morning, and the old
man was gone to cultivate his tobacco, when a
pedlar came to the door. The appearance of Sam
Lace lighted up joy in the eyes of Mary and
Eliza. The pedlar first exhibited his ballads.
"Here," said he, " is the whole trial, examination
and condemnation of Jason Fairbanks, who was
executed at Philadelphia for cutting off Peggy
Placket's head under a hedge, on the road to
Frankfort." " Lord," said Eliza, " what a wicked fellow !
125

I would not live in one of those great big towns
for all the world. But I wonder whether it is
true?" " True," replied Mary, " certainly it is. Don't
you see it is in print? "
" And here," cried the pedlar, " is the account
of a whale that was left ashore by the tide in the
bay of Chesapeake, with a ship of five thousand
tons in his belly, called the Merry Dane of Dover.
She was the largest ship ever known."
"And is that true, too?" said Eliza.
"True!" cried Mary. "How can you ask
such a question? Do you think they would put
it in print if it was not true? "
" Come, pedlar," said I, " let us examine the
contents of your box. Have you any earrings? "
At this interrogation I could perceive the
bosom of Mary rise to her chin.
" Yes, sir," said the fellow, " I have earrings
that would be an ornament to the ears of the Presi
dent's lady. I have them at all prices, from five
dollars down to one and a half. My five dollar
pairs are fit for the first tip-top quality breeding."
" Let me see some," said I, " that are fit for
the first, tip-top, quality breeding."
126

" There," said he, " is a pair — and there is an
other that a duchess need not be ashamed of. I
sold the fellow pair last week to Squire Cart-
wright's lady in Gloucester County."
I thought the heart of Mary would have burst
[from its bondage. It made her little bosom heave
wp and down like a bird that was dying.
" Mary," said I, " do me the favour to accept
that pair of earrings; and Eliza, I beg you will
take the other."
Eliza had put on her little straw bonnet to visit
Miss  , at the shrine of whose beauty Wilmot
was offering his incense, and she now danced off
with an accession of happiness from the present
I had made her. The pedlar strung his box over
his shoulders and, seizing his staff, pursued his
journey through the woods.
And now it was necessary to separate from the
family of the log house in the woods. Yet I could
not leave Mary without emotion. Oh, my reader,
if you are a lover of a happy face, it would have
done your heart good to have beheld the counte
nance of this Virginian damsel when her mother
had hung the earrings to her ears! The spin
ning-wheel no more revolved with the magic of
127

her hand. Mary was sitting cross-legged (I hope
I need not gut this naughty word of its vowels)
in her chdir, and had placed on her lap a little
looking-glass in which she was beholding herself.
She uttered not a word. Real happiness is not
loquacious. The mind under its influence is con
tent with its own sensations.
After walking a mile and a half, I met a boy
sauntering along and whistling, probably for
want of thought. " How far, my boy," said I,
"is it to Frying-Pan?" "You be in the Pan
now," replied the oaf. " I be, be I," said I.
" Very well."
Frying-Pan is composed of four log huts and
a meeting-house. It took its name from a curious
circumstance. Some Indians having encamped
on the Run, missed their frying-pan in the morn
ing, and hence the name was conferred on the
place. I did not deign to stop at Frying-Pan, but
prosecuted my walk to Newgate, where, in the
piazza of Mr. Thornton's tavern I found a party
of gentlemen from the neighbouring plantations
carousing over a bowl of toddy, and smoking
segars. No people could exceed these men in
politeness. On my ascending the steps to the
128

piazza every countenance seemed to say, " This
man has a double claim to our attention; for he
is a stranger in the place." In a moment there
was room made for me to sit down; a new bowl
was called for, and every one who addressed me
did it with a smile of conciUation. But no man
asked me where I had come from or whither I
was going. A gentleman is in every country the
same; and if good breeding consists in sentiment,
it was to be found in the circle I had got into.
The higher Virginians seem to venerate them
selves as men ; and I am persuaded there was not
one in the company who would have felt embar
rassed at being admitted to the presence and con
versation of the greatest monarch on earth.
There is a compound of virtue and vice in every
human character. No man was ever yet fault
less, but whatever may be advanced' against Vir
ginians, their good qualities will ever outweigh
their defects, and when the effervescence of youth
has abated, when reason asserts her empire,
there is no man on earth who discovers more
exalted sentiments, more contempt for baseness,
more love of justice, more sensibility of feeling,
than a Virginian. 129

At Newgate my pilgrimage was nearly at an
end; for Mr. Ball's plantation was only distant
eight miles, and it was he whom I was going to
visit. But it was now necessary to bestride a
horse; for in Virginia no man is respected who
travels on foot; and as a man of sense will con
form with the customs of every country, and at
Rome, as my Lord Chesterfield elegantly ob
serves, kiss either the Pope's great toe or his
b — k — e, I put myself to the expense of a horse,
and with the argument of a stick I prevailed on
him to advance.

130

CHAPTER X
MEMOIR OF MY LIFE IN THE WOODS
OF VIRGINIA
The rugged and dreary road from Newgate to
New Market, in Prince William County, is bor
dered by gloomy woods where the natives of the
State and emigrants from New Jersey cultivate
on their plantations Indian corn, wheat, tobacco
and rye. After passing Bull Run, a stream that
takes its appellation from the mountains of the
same name, the traveller comes to the intersection
of two roads, and is in suspense which to take. If
he travels the left it will bring him to the unac
commodating town of New Market, where publi
cans, tax-gatherers and sinners waste the day
in drinking and riot; but the right will conduct
him to the hospitable plantation of Mr. Ball, who
never yet shut his door against the houseless
stranger. 131

Having come to Bull Run, I stopped at a kind
of waggoner's tavern on its border, to inquire
the way to the plantation. Old Flowers, the land
lord, reeled out of his log hut towards my horse,
but was too much intoxicated to make a coherent
reply; so giving my steed his head, I was all
passive to his motions till, overtaking an old
negro man, I demanded the road to Mr. Ball's.
The old negro was clad in rags, if rags can be
called clothing. He was a squalid figure of sixty,
and halted as he walked. He was grunting some
what in the manner of an old hog at an approach
ing shower of rain, and he carried a hickory stick
in his right hand with which he was driving the
cattle home from pasture.
"Is this the way, old man, to Mr. Ball's?"
"Aye, master, I'm going there myself; and
should have got to the plantation a couple of
hours before sundown, but the red bull was
strayed after old- mother Dye's heifers, and it
cost me a plaguy search to find him in the woods."
Good company on the road, says Goldsmith, is
the shortest cut; and I entered into conversation
with the negro.
" Then you live with Mr. Ball? "
132

" Aye, master, I live with the squire and do a
hundred odd jobs for him. You 're going to see
him, I reckon. Some friend, it's like enough.
The squire is a worthy gentleman, and I don't tell
a word of lie when I say he would not part with
me for the best young negur that was ever
knocked down at vendue. There was Squire Wil
liams of Northumberland wanted to tempt him by
offering for me a young woman that was a house
servant, a seamster, and could work at the hoe.
But old birds is not to be catched with chaff.
' No, no! ' says master, ' I shan't easily meet with
the fellow of Dick again; he is a gardener, a flax-
beater, and a good judge of horse-flesh. No, no !
If I part with Dick, I part with my right hand

man.' "

" Has your master a large family ? "
" Aye, a house full of children. Four and three
makes seven. There 's seven young ones alto
gether, four girls and three boys. Master War
ing is a sharp one. He found a nest of bees in
the woods, which I reckoned nobody know'd any
thing about but myself; and will make nothing
of climbing a hickory after an owl's nest, and
pulling out old and young by the neck. Concern
133

it, an owl always scares me. He '11 turn his eyes
round and round, and look all manners of ways
at once ! "
"Have you good hunting in the woods?"
" Aye, rat it, sir, I reckoned you was coming
to hunt with master. But God help us, hunting
is all over : the New Jersey men have cleared the
woods. When I was a lad I used to track the
wolves on the snow, and never tracked one that
I did not catch. Master, I don't tell you a word
of a lie, if you '11 believe me, when I say that in
one winter I got fifteen dollars reward from the
Justice at New Market for the heads of wolves.
And then there was such mighty herds of deer;
the woods was fested with them. We would not
take the trouble to hunt them. All we had to do
was to tie a bell to the neck of a tame doe, and
turn her into the woods. A little after sundown
we got ready our guns, and stood behind the out
house. Presently we could see the doe trot
towards home, followed by half a dozen bucks
prancing after her. Then we crack away at them
altogether, and hie! they come tumbling down
by hundreds! "
The conversation of the negro held me engaged
134

till we got to the plantation. I then gave him my
horse, and walked through the garden to the
house. In my way through the garden I passed
two young ladies gathering roses, who, however
immured in the woods, were clad with not less
elegance than the most fashionable females of
Europe. They were beautiful in face and form,
and I asked them, with a bowing mien, whether
Mr. Ball was at home. They replied that their
papa was in the parlour, and with much sweetness
of manner directed me by the shortest path to the
house. Mr. Ball received me with undissembled
accents of joy. He said he had long expected my
coming, and was gratified at last. A nod to a
mulatto boy placed refreshments on the side
board, and in a few minutes the family assembled
to take a peep at the schoolmaster.
The first impression made by Mr. Bell decided
that he was a gentleman; and I was not a little
delighted with the suavity of his manners and the
elegance of his conversation. When the children
withdrew, I entered on the terms of my proposed
engagement, and presented to him a letter which
I had been honoured with from Mr. Jefferson.
I knew my host to be a Virginian who favoured
135

the administration, and thought a letter from the
President would operate on him like witchcraft.
But I was unacquainted with my man. Mr. Ball
was not to be biassed by the whistling of a name ;
he read my letter more from complaisance than
any motive of curiosity; observed that a man's
conduct could alone decide his character; con
gratulated himself upon the acquisition of a man
of letters in his family, and offered to engage me
for a twelvemonth at a salary of a hundred
guineas. I acknowledged the honour he did me,
and engaged with him for a quarter of a year.
The following day every farmer came fi-om the
neighbourhood to the house, who had any chil
dren to send to my academy; for such they did
me the honour to term the log hut in which I was
to teach. Each man brought his son or his
daughter, and rejoiced that the day was arrived
when their little ones could light their tapers at
the torch of knowledge. I was confounded at
the encomiums they- heaped upon a man whom
they had never seen before, and was at a loss
what construction to put upon their speech. No
price was too great, for the services I was to ren
der their children, and they all expressed an
136

eagerness to exchange perishable coin for lasting
knowledge. If I would continue with them seven
years! only seven years, they would erect for
me a brick seminary on a hill not far off; but for
the present I was to occupy a log house, which,
however homely, would soon vie with the sublime
college of William and Mary, and consign to
oblivion the renowned academy in the vicinity of
Fanquier Court House. I thought Englishmen
sanguine, but these Virginians were infatuated.
I now opened what some called an academy,^
* It is worth the while to describe the academy I occu
pied on Mr. Ball's plantation. It had one room and a
half. It stood on blocks about two feet and a half above
the ground, where there was free access to the hogs, the
dogs, and the poultry. It had no ceiling; nor was the
roof lathed or plastered, but covered with shingles.
Hence, when it rained, like the nephew of old Elwes, I
moved my bed (for I slept in my academy) to the most
comfortable corner. It had one window, but no glass,
nor shutter. In the night, to remedy this, the mulatto
wench who waited on me, contrived very ingeniously to
place a square board against the window with one hand,
and fix the rail of a broken-down fence against it with
the other. In the morning, when I returned from break
fasting in the " great big house" (my scholars being col
lected), I gave the rail a forcible kick with my foot, and
down tumbled the board with an awful roar. " Is not
my window," said I to Virginia, " of a very curious con-
137

and others an old field school; and however it
may be thought that content was never felt within
the walls of a seminary, I, for my part, experi
enced an exemption from care, and was not such
a fool as to measure the happiness of my condi
tion by what others thought of it. It was pleasur
able to behold my pupils enter the school over
which I presided; for they were not composed
only of truant boys, but some of the fairest dam
sels in the country. Two sisters generally rode
on one horse to the school door, and I was not so
great a pedagogue as to refuse them my assist
ance to dismount from their steeds. A running
footman, of the negro tribe, who followed with
their food in a basket, took care of the beast, and
after being saluted by the young ladies with the
curtesies of the morning, I proceeded to instruct
them with gentle exhortations to diligence of
study. Common books were only designed for common
minds. The unconnected lessons of Scott, the
tasteless Selections of Bingham, the florid ha
rangues of Noah Webster, and the somniferous
struction ? " " Indeed, indeed, sir," replied my fair dis
ciple, " I think it is a mighty noisy one."
138

Compilation of Alexander, were either thrown
aside or suffered to gather dust on the shelf, while
the charming Essays of Goldsmith, and his not
less delectable novel, together with the impressive
work of Defoe and the mild productions of Addi
son, conspired to enchant the fancy and kindle a
love of reading. The thoughts of these writers
became engrafted on the minds, and the combina
tions of their diction on the language of the pupils.
Of the boys I cannot speak in very encomiastic
terms, but they were perhaps like other school
boys, that is, more disposed to play truant than
enlighten their minds. The most important
knowledge to an American, after that of himself,
is the geography of his country. I therefore put
into the hands of my boys a proper book, and
initiated them by an attentive reading of the dis
coveries of the Genoese. I was even so minute as
to impress on their minds the man who first de
scried land on board the ship of Columbus. That
man was Roderic Triana ; and on my exercising
the memory of a boy by asking him the name, he
very gravely made answer, Roderic Random.
Among my male students was a New Jersey
gentleman of thirty, whose object was to be ini-
139

tiated in the language of Cicero and Virgil. He
had before studied the Latin grammar at an acad
emy school (I use his own words) in his native
state ; but the academy school being burnt down,
his grammar, alas ! was lost in the conflagration,
and he had neglected the pursuit of literature
since the destruction of his book. When I asked
hira if he did not think it was some goth who had
set fire to his academy school, he made answer,
" So it is, like enough." Mr. Dye did not study
Latin to refine his taste, direct his judgment, or
enlarge his imagination; but merely that he
might be enabled to teach it when he opened
school, which was his serious design. He had
been bred a carpenter, but he panted for the
honours of literature.
Optat ephippia bos, piger optat arare caballus.
Such was the affectation or simplicity of this
man, that he impressed his fears the English stu
dents would interrupt his acquirement of Latin.
Not knowing whether to storm or laugh, I ad
vised him to retire with his books into Maddison's
Cave. The Blue Ridge Mountains were in sight from
140

the plantation of Mr. Ball, and the rays of the
descending sun gilded their summits. But no
situation could be more dreary. It had neither
the wildness of nature, nor the uniformity of art;
and in any month of the year would inspire an
Englishman with thoughts of suicide. I never
saw slavery wear so contented an aspect as on
Pohoke plantation. The work of the slaves was
light, and punishment never inflicted. A negro
who had run away, being brought back by a per
son who recognized him, he was asked by Mr.
Ball the reason of his elopement. " Because," said
the fellow, " I was born to travel." This man,
I presume, was a predestinarian. On the Sabbath
the negroes were at liberty to visit their neigh
bours. Woman, of whatever colour, delights in
finery; and the girls never failed to put on their
garments of gladness, their bracelets and chains,
rings and earrings, and deck themselves bravely
to allure the eyes of the white men. Nor are they
often unsuccessful ; for, as the arrow of a strong
archer cannot be turned aside, so the glance of
a lively negro girl cannot be resisted. The verse
of Virgil will apply to the people of Virginia :
Alba Ugustra cadunt, vaccinia nigra leguntur.
141

Several families from New Jersey were settled
in the neighbourhood. The characters of men
are best illustrated by comparison, and it may not
be useless to compare the Jersey man with the
native Virginian. The New Jersey man puts his
hand to the plough; the Virginian only inspects
the work of his farm. The New Jersey man lives
with the strictest economy, and very seldom visits
or receives visits; the Virginian exceeds his in
come, loves to go abroad, and welcomes, his guests
with the smiles of hospitality. The New Jersey
man turns every horse out to labour, and walks
whither he has to go on business : the Virginian,
thinking it degrading to be seen on foot, has
always his riding-nag saddled and fastened to
the fence. The New Jersey man is distinguished
by his provincial dialect, and seldom enlarges his
mind or transfers his attention to others: the
Virginian is remarkable for his colloquial happi
ness, loses no opportunity of knowledge, and
delights to shew his wit at the expense of his
neighbour. Neither si dancing-master, a pedlar,
or a maker of air-balloons was ever encouraged
by a New Jersey man.: but on a Virginian they
never fail to levy contributions. The treasury
142

of the pedlar is in vain laid open to the eyes of
the New Jersey man; neither the brilliant water
of the diamond, the crimson flame of the ruby,
nor the lustre of the topaz has charms to allure
him; but the Virginian, enamoured of ornament,
cannot gaze on them with impunity. He empties
his coffers of every dollar to adorn the apparel
of his wife and daughters.
Of my female students there was none equal
in capacity to Virginia. The mind of this fair
creature was susceptible of every culture; but
it had been neglected, and I opened to her worlds
of sentiment and knowledge. Geography was one
of her favourite studies. The greatest trifler can
scarce inspect a map without learning something ;
but my lovely pupil always rose from it with a
considerable accession of knowledge. Imparting
such new ideas was no undelightful employment,
and I often addressed my rose of May in an
appropriate ode.
It was my desire to open to my pupil the treas
ures of Shakespeare; of that poet whose works
will be studied with increasing rapture on the
banks of the Mississippi, the Ohio and Potomac
when the language in which Voltaire reviled him
143

shall have perished with the wreck of nations.
But the library of the plantation did not supply
the poet of nature, and I was almost in despair,
when on a shelf in a miserable log house I found
the first volume of Theobald's edition. The book
I obtained for a trifle, and I removed it to my
school. I shall not easily forget the feeling with
which my pupil read aloud that beautiful and
natural scene in the Tempest where Miranda
S)mipathises with Ferdinand, who is bearing logs
to Prospero's cell. No scene can be more exqui
sitely tender, and no lips could give juster utter
ance to the speeches of its characters than those
of my fair disciple. Her voice possessed more
magic than Prospero's wand. I was transported
into fairy-land. I was rapt in a delicious dream
from which it was misery to be waked. All
around was enchantment. And what Ferdinand
had before exclaimed on hearing the music of
Ariel, I applied in secret to the voice of Virginia :
This is no mortal business, nor no sound
That the earth owes.
The female mind seems peculiarly adapted to
relish tender poetry; and in the Elegy of Gray
144

and the Ballad of Goldsmith, I spread before my
pupil a rich banquet to exercise reflection. Such
poets are ever read with advantage ; for they em
bellish nature and virtue with an elevated but
chaste imagination.
My pupil was, perhaps, not a regular beauty;
but her form was exquisitely delicate, and there
were a spirit and expression in her countenance
that charmed more than mere regular features.
Her hair was rather light for eyes perfectly black.
Voila mon eleve : il faut encore y joindre
Un petit nez, mais un nez fait au tour,
Nez retrousse comme le veut I'amour.
As the studies of my pupil never tired, so the
relation of them will never fatigue me. She
learnt French with avidity, and it was no un
pleasant task to hear her give utterance to the
musical language of a Sevigne. The epic narra
tive of Fenelon, and the pathetic tale of Saint-
Pierre were the French books that most delighted
her. But she thought the translation of Paul and
Virginia from the pen of Miss Helen Maria Wil
liams more beautiful in her attire than that of the
author. "The sonnets," exclaimed Virginia,
" are so pretty. Indeed, indeed, sir, they are! "
145

The rose, the queen of flowers, and theme of
the Persian poets, grew abundantly in the gar
den, and my girls never came to school without
having gathered clusters of them to decorate
their dress. Hence I breathed only fragrance in
a circle of happiness. How unspeakably delight
ful was the employment of cultivating the taste
of Virginia ! By the magic of the belles-lettres I
was opening the avenues of her innocent heart
to friendship and to pity; I was exciting its nat
ural susceptibility for every mild and tender pas
sion that can soften humanity.
Let the reader throw aside my volume whose
mind feels disgust from the images afforded by
a school in the woods of America. I deprecate
not his severity. I write not for such feelings.
But, reader, if thou art a father, or if thy mind,
uncorrupted by the business and vanities of life,
can delight in the images of domestic privacy,
thou wilt derive more real satisfaction from the
picture of a group of schoolboys at play than
from the conflict of the Austrians with the
French on the plains of Marengo.
My recreation, after school in the evening, was
to sit and meditate before my door in the open
146

air, while the vapours of a friendly pipe admin
istered to my philosophy. In silent gravity I lis
tened to the negro calling to his steers returning
from labour, or contemplated the family group,
on the grass-plat before the dwelling-house, of
whom the father was tuning his violin, the
mother and daughters at their needles, and the
boys running and tumbling in harmless mirth
upon the green. Before me was an immense for
est of stately trees; the cat was sitting on the
barn floor; the firefly was on the wing, and the
whippoorwill in lengthened cries was hailing the
return of night. I was now, perhaps, called to
supper, and enjoyed the society of Mr. Ball and
his family till the hour of their repose, when I
returned to my log hut and resumed my pipe
before the door. The moon in solemn majesty
was rising from the woods; the plantation dog
was barking at the voices of the negroes pursuing
their nightly revels on the road; while the mock
ing songster mimicked the note of every bird that
had sung during the day.
A skilful chymist will endeavour to extract
good from every substance, and I declined not
the conversation of a man because his face dif-
147

fered in colour from my own. Old Dick, the
negro whom I had met on the road, never failed
to visit my cell in the evening, and the purpose of
his visit was to obtain a dram of whiskey. Dick
said that it comforted him, and I never withheld
my comfort from him. As I considered old Dick
a much greater philosopher than many of his
white brethren who have written volumes on res
ignation under misfortunes, but could never bear
the toothache patiently, I always put him upon
talking about himself; and one evening when he
came to see me, I desired he would relate to me
the story of his life.
Story of Dick the Negro
" I was born at a plantation on the Rappa
hannock River. It was the pulling-of-corn time,
when Squire Musgrove was Governor of Vir
ginia. I have no mixed blood in my veins. I am
no half-and-half breed, no chestnut-sorrel of a
mulatto; but my father and mother both came
over from Guinea.
When I was old enough to work I was put to
look after the horses, and, when a boy, I would
148

not have turned my back against the best negur
at catching or backing the most vicious beast that
ever grazed in a pasture. Squire Sutherland had
a son who rode every fall to look at a plantation
on James River, which was under the care of an
overseer. Young master could not go without
somebody on another horse to carry his saddle
bags, and I was made his groom. This young
chap, sir [here Dick winked his left eye], was a
trimmer. The first thing he did, on getting out
of bed, was to call for a julep; and I honestly
date my own love of whiskey from mixing and
tasting my young master's juleps. But this was
not all. He was always upon the scent after
game, and mighty ficious when he got among the
negnr wenches. He used to say that a likely
negur wench was fit to be a queen; and I forget
how many queens he had among the girls on the
two plantations. My young master was a mighty
one for music, and he made me learn to play the
banger. I could soon tune it sweetly, and of a
moonlight night he would set me to play, and the
wenches to dance. My young master himself
could shake a desperate foot at the fiddle. There
was nobody that could face him at a Congo min-
149

uet; but Pat Hickory could tire him at a Virginia
jig- The young squire did not live long. He was
for a short life and a merry one. He was killed
by a drunken negur man, who found him over-
ficious with his wife. The negur man was hanged
alive upon a gibbet. It was the middle of sum
mer; the sun was full upon him; the negur lolled
out his tongue, his eyes seemed starting from
their sockets, and for three long days his only
cry was * Water ! water ! water ! '
The old gentleman took on to grieve mightily
at the death of his son. He wished that he had
sent him to Britain for his education; but after-
wits is of no use ; and he followed his son to that
place where master and man, planter and slave,
must all at last lie down together. The planta
tion and negurs now fell to the lot of a second
son, who had gone to Edinburgh to learn the trade
of a doctor. He was not like Squire Tommy. He
seemed to be carved out of different wood. The
first thing he did, on his return from Britain, was
to free all the negur people on the plantation, and
settle each on a patch of land. He tended the
sick himself, gave them medicine, healed their
15°

wounds, and encouraged every man, woman and
child to go to a meeting-house that every Sunday
was opened between our plantation and Fred-
ericksburgh. Everything took a change. The
young wenches who, in Master Tommy's time,
used to put on their drops, and their bracelets,
and ogle their eyes, now looked down like modest
young women, and carried their gewgaws in their
pockets till they got clear out of the woods. He
encouraged matrimony on the plantation by set
tling each couple in a log house on a wholesome
patch of land; hired a schoolmaster to teach their
children, and to everyone that could say his let
ters gave a Testament with cuts. This made me
bold to marry, and I looked out sharp for a wife.
I had before quenched my thirst at any dirty
puddle ; but a stream that I was to drink at con
stant, I thought should be pure ; and I made my
court to a wholesome girl who had never bored
her ears and went constantly to meeting. She
was daughter to old Solomon the carter, and by
moonlight I used to play my banger under her
window and sing a Guinea love-song that my
mother had taught me. But I found there was
another besides myself whose mouth watered
151

after the fruit. Cuffey, one of the crop hands,
came, one night, on the same errand. I am but
a little man, and Cuffey was above my pitch; for
he was six foot, two inches high, with a chew of
tobacco clapped above that. But I was not to be
scared because he was a big man and I was a little
one. I carried a good heart, and a good heart
is everything in love.
' Cuffey,' says I, ' what part of the play is you
acting? Does you come after SaU?'
' May be,' says he, ' I does.'
* Then,' says I, ' here 's have at you, boy ! ' and
I reckoned to fix him by getting the finger of one
hand into his ear, and the knuckles of the other
into his eye. But the whoreson was too strong
for me, and after knocking me down upon the
grass, he began to stomp upon me, and ax me if
I had yet got enough. But Dick was not to be
scared; and getting his great toe into my mouth,
I bit it off and swallowed it. Cuffey now let go
his hold, and it was my turn to ax Cuffey if he
had got enough. Cuffey told me he had, and I
walked away to the quarter. My master the next
day heard of my battle with Cuffey. He said that
I ought to live among painters and wolves, and
152

sold me to a Georgia man for two hundred dol
lars. My new master was the devil. He made
me travel with him handcuffed to Savannah,
where he disposed of me to a tavern-keeper for
three hundred dollars. I was the only man ser
vant in the tavern, and I did the work of half a
dozen. I went to bed at midnight, and was up
an hour before sun. I looked after the horses,
waited at table, and worked like a new negur.
But I got plenty of spirits; and that, I believe,
helped me.
The war now broke out, and in one single year
I changed masters a dozen times. But I knowed
I had to work, and one master to me was just as
good as another. When the war ended I was
slave to Squire Fielding, at Annapolis, in Mary
land. I was grovsm quite steady, and I married
a house servant who brought me a child every
year. I have altogether had three wives, and
am the father of twelve children, begot in lawful
wedlock; but this you shall hear.
My wife dying of a flux, I was left to the
management of my children; but my master soon
saved me that trouble, for directly they were
strong enough to handle a hoe, he sold the boys
153

to Mr. Randolph of Fairfax, and the girls to
Squire Barclay of Port Tobacco. It was a hard
trial to part with my little ones, for I loved them
like a father ; but there was no help for it, and it
was the case of thousands besides myself. When
a man has been used to a wife, he finds it mighty
lonesome to be without one ; so I married a young
girl who lived house servant to a tavern-keeper
at Elk Ridge Landing. It is a good twenty-five
miles from AnnapoUs to the Landing-place; but
a negur never tire when he go to see his sweet
heart, and after work on Saturday night I would
start for Elk Ridge, and get to my wife before the
supper was put away. Dinah was a dead hand
at making of mush; but she could not love it
better than I. ' Dinah,' says I to her one night,
' if you was a queen what would you have for
supper ? ' ' Why, milk and mush, Dick,' says she.
* Concern it ! Dinah,' says I, ' why if you was
to eat all the good things what would there be
left for me?*
I was not perfectly satisfied with my new wife.
I had some suspecion that she gave her company,
when I was away, to a young mulatto fellow; but
as her children were right black, I was not much
154

troubled. I never could bear the sight of a
mulatto; they are made up of craft. They are
full of impudence, and will tell a black man that
the devil is a negur; but I believe one colour is as
much akin to him as another. I did not keep to
my second wife long. She was a giddy young
goose, fond of dress. She wore a ruffled smock,
and on a Sunday put on such sharp-toed shoes
that the points of them would have knocked out
a mosquito's eye. If her children had not been
right black and right ugly, like myself, I should
have suspected her vartue long before I had a
real cause.
I had made Dinah a present of a little lap-
foist; a right handsome dog as you would see;
ond one Saturday, at negur daytime [a cant term
among the negroes for night, they being then at
leisure], a mile before I got to Elk Ridge, the little
foist came running up to me. ' Hie,' thought I,
' Dinah must be out gadding,' and looking forward
I saw a man and a woman run across the main
road into the woods. I made after them; but I
was g-etting in years, and a walk of twenty miles
had made my legs a little stiff. So after cursing
till my blood boiled like a pitch-pot, I walked on to
155

the tavern. I found Dinah in the kitchen, but the
mulatto fellow was not there. She ran to me, and
fell on my neck. I hove her off. ' Begone, girl,'
says I ; * no tricks upon travellers. Dick, in his
old age, is not to be made a fool of. Did not I
see you with Paris, Mr. Jackson's mulatto?'
* Lackadaisy ! Dick,' says she, ' I have not stirred
out of the house. I swear pointblank I have not.
I would kiss the Bible, and take my blessed oath
of it! ' ' Nor the foist either,' says I. ' Get you
gone, you hussey, I will seek a new wife.' And
so saying I went upstairs, made her gowns and
her coats and her smocks into a bundle, took the
drops out of her ears and the shoes off her feet,
and walked out of the kitchen. I trudged home
the same night. It troubled me to be tricked by
a young girl, but it was some satisfaction to know
that I had stripped her of all her clothing. Fine
feathers makes fine birds ; and I laughed to think
how she would look next Sunday; for I had left
her nothing but a homespun suit, that she had
put on when she got back.
I now said to myself that it was right foolish
for an old man to expect constancy from a young
girl, and I wished that my first wife had not got
156

her mouth full of yellow clay. Half a mile from
Annapolis by the roadside is a graveyard. It was
here my poor wife was buried. I had often heard
tell of ghosts, and wanted to see if there was any
truth in it. I stole softly to the hedge that skirted
the road. ' Hoga,' says I, ' does you rest quiet?
Hoga does you rest quiet? Say, Hoga ! and quiet
old Dick.' I had hardly said the words when the
leaves began to stir. I trembled as though I had
an ague. ' Hoga,' says I, * don't scare me.' But
in less than a minute I saw a black head look over
the hedge, with a pair of goggle-eyes that flamed
worse than the branches of a pine-tree on fire.
' Faith,' says I, ' that can't be Hoga's head ; for
Hoga had little peepy eyes.' I took to my heels
and run for it. The ghost followed quick. As
luck would have it, there was a gate across the
road. I jumped the gate, and crawled into a
hedge. The ghost did not follow. The gate had
stopped him. But I heard him bellow mightily;
and when I peeped over the hedge I saw it was
Squire Hamilton's black bull.
My master at Annapolis being made a bank
rupt, there was an execution lodged against his
negurs. I was sent to Alexander, and knocked
157

down at vendue to old Squire Kegworth. I was
put to work at the hoe. I was up an hour before
sun, and worked naked till after dark. I had no
food but homony, and for fifteen months did not
put a morsel of any meat in my mouth but the
flesh of a possum or a raccoon that I killed in the
woods. This was rather hard for an old man,
but I knowed there was no help for it.
Squire Kegworth was a wicked one. He beat
Master Tommy. He would talk of setting us
free. * You are not,' he would say, ' slaves for
life, but only for ninety-nine years.* The Squire
was never married; but an old negur woman
kept house, who governed both him and the
plantation. Hard work would not have hurt me, but I
could never get any liquor. This was desperate,
and my only comfort was the stump of an old pipe
that belonged to my first wife. This was a poor
comfort without a little drap of whiskey, now and
dan, and I was laying a plan to rtm away, and
travel through the wilderness of Kentucky, when
the old squire died. I was now once more put up
at vendue, and, as good luck would have it, I was
bid for by Squire Ball. Nobody would bid
158

against him because my head was gray, my back
covered with stripes, and I was lame of the left
leg by the malice of an overseer who stuck a
pitchfork into my ham. But Squire Ball knowed
I was trusty; and though self-praise is no praise,
he has not a negur on the plantation that wished
him better than I; or a young man that would
work for him with a more willing heart. There
is few masters like the squire. He has allowed
me to build a log house and take in a patch of
land, where I raise corn and watermelions.^ I
keep chickens and ducks, turkeys and geese, and
his lady always gives me the price of the Alex
ander market for my stock. But what 's better
than all. Master never refuses me a dram; and
with the help of whiskey I don't doubt but I shall
^ Dick's log hut was not unpleasantly situated. He
had built it near a spring of clear water, and defended it
from the sun by an awning of boughs. It was in Mr.
Ball's peach-orchard. A cock that never strayed from his
cabin served him instead of a time-keeper; and a dog
that lay always before his door was an equivalent for a
lock. With his cock and his dog, Dick lived in the
greatest harmony; and notwithstanding the pretensions
of a white man to superiority over a "black one, neither
the cock nof the dog would acknowledge any other master
but Dick. 159

serve him these fifteen years to come. Some of
his negurs impose on him. There's Hinton, a
mulatto rascal, that will run him in debt; and
there 's Let, one of the house girls, who will suck
the eggs and swear it was a blacksnake. But
I never wronged master of a cent, and I do the
work of Hinton, of Henry, and Jack without
grumbling. I look after the cows, dig in the
garden, beat out the flax, currycomb the riding-
nag, cart all the wood, tote the wheat to the mill,
and bring all the logs to the schoolhouse."
Such is the history of the life and slavery of
Dick the negro as he delivered it to me word for
word. It will, perhaps, exhibit a better picture
of the condition of negroes in America than any
elaborate dissertation on the subject. But it
aspires to more credit than the mere gratification
of curiosity. It will enable the reader to form
a comparison of his own state with that of an
other, and teach him the unmanly grief of repin
ing at the common casualties of life when so many
thousands of his fellow creatures toil out with
cheerfulness a wretched life under the impreca
tions and scourgings of an imperious taskmaster.
i6o

Mr. Ball was son-in-law to Counsellor Carter,
of Baltimore, who had formerly resided in the
woods of Virginia, and emancipated the whole
of his negroes except those whom he had given
with the marriage portion of his daughter. Of
this he afterwards repented, and in a fit of reli
gious enthusiasm wrote a serious letter to Mr.
Ball, exhorting him to free his negroes, or he
would assuredly go to hell. Mr. Ball, whose
property consisted in his slaves, and whose family
was annually augmenting, entertained different
notions ; and with much brevity returned answer
to the old gentleman's letter, " Sir, I will run the
chance." But the period is hasting when I must leave
Mr. Ball and the worthy families in his neigh
bourhood, and another page or two will conduct
me out of the woods of Pohoke. I had been three
months invested in the first executive office of
pedagogue, when a cunning old fox of a New
Jersey planter (a Mr. Lee) discovered that his
eldest boy wrote a better hand than I. Fame is
swift-footed; viresque adquirit eundo. The dis
covery spread far and wide, and whithersoever
I went I was an object for the hand of scorn to
i6i

point his slow, unmoving finger at, as a school
master that could not write. Virginia gave me
for the persecutions I underwent a world of
sighs; her swelling heavens rose with indigna
tion at old Lee and his abettors. But the boys
caught spirit from the discovery. I could per
ceive a mutiny breaking out among them, and
had I not in time broke down a few branches
from an apple-tree before my door, it is probable
they would have displayed their gratitude for my
instructions by throwing me out of my school
window. But by arguing with one over the
shoulders and another over the back, I main
tained with dignity the first executive office" of
pedagogue. I revenged myself amply on old Lee. It was
the custom of his son (a lengthy fellow of about
twenty) to come to the academy with a couple
of huge mastiffs at his heels. Attached to their
master {par nobile fratrum) they entered with
out ceremony Pohoke Academy, bringing with
them myriads of fleas, wood-lice, and ticks. Nay,
they would often annoy Virginia by throwing
themselves at her feet, and inflaming the choler
of a little lap-dog which I had bought because of
162

his diminutive size, and which Virginia delighted
to nurse for me. I could perceive the eye of Vir
ginia rebuke me for suffering the dogs to annoy
her; and there lay more peril in her eye than
in the jaws of all the mastiffs in Prince William
County. " Mr. Lee," said I, " this is the third time I
have told you not to convert the academy into
a kennel, and bring your dogs to school." Lee
was mending his pen " judgmatically." He made
no reply, but smiled.
I knew old Dick, the negro, had a bitch, and
that his bitch was proud. I walked down to
Dick's log house. Dick was beating flax.
" Dick," said I, " old Farmer Lee has done me
much evil." — "I don't like the old man myself.
Master," said Dick. — " And his son, repugnant
to my express commands, has brought his father's
two plantation dogs to the academy. Revenge is
sweet — "
" Right, Master," said Dick, " I never felt so
happy as when I bit off Cuffey's great toe and
swallowed it."
" Do you, Dick," said I, " walk past the school-
house with your bitch. Lee's dogs will come out
163

after her. Go round with them to your log house,
and when you have once secured them, hang both
of them up by the neck."
"Leave it to me, master," said Dick, "I'll fix the
business for you in a few minutes. I have a few
f adoms of rope in my house — that will do it."
I returned to the academy. The dogs were
stretched at their ease on the floor. " Oh, I am
glad you are come," exclaimed Virginia ; " those
great big dogs have quite scared me."
In a few minutes Dick passed the door with his
slut. Quick from the floor rose Mr. Lee's two
dogs, and followed the female. The rest may be
supplied by the imagination of the reader. Dick
hung up both the dogs to the branch of a pine-
tree. Old Lee lost the guards to his plantation;
the negroes broke open his barn, pilfered his
sacks of Indian corn, rode his horses in the
night; and thus was I revenged on Alexander
the coppersmith.
Three months had now elapsed, and I was
commanded officially to resign my sovereign
authority to Mr. Dye, who was in every respect
better qualified to discharge its sacred functions.
He understood tare and tret, wrote a copperplate
164

hand, and, balancing himself upon one leg, could
flourish angels and corkscrews. I therefore gave
up the " Academy School " to Mr. Dye to the joy
of the boys, but the sorrow of Virginia.
Virginia bewailed my impending departure
with tears in her eyes. " Alas ! " said she, " I
must now quit my French, my poetry and Eng
lish grammar ! I shall be taught no more geog
raphy! I shall no more read in Paul and Vir
ginia, but be put back into Noah Webster's horn
book! I shall [sobbing] do nothing but write
and cypher! I wish Mr. Dye would mind his
own business. I wish, instead of coming to teach
school, he would go and work at the crop."
I now once more seized my staff, and walked
towards Baltimore. It was a killing circum
stance to separate from Virginia; but who shall
presume to contend against fate?
I still, and shall ever behold Virginia in my
fancy's eye. I behold her fair form among the
trees. I contemplate her holding her handker
chief to her eyes. I still hear a tender adieu
faltering on her lips, and the sob that choked her
utterance still knocks against my heart.
Phyllida amo ante alias; nam me discedere flevit.
165

A MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR
[JOHN DAVIS]
The opinion formed of a writer is generally
transferred by association from his profession to
his life, and he is considered as having all his days
done nothing but kept the press and paper-mill
in motion. I cannot lay claim to this honour.
My life has been passed chiefly in voyages and
travels. It was never my fortune to repose under the
shade of academic bowers. This, however, was
not owing either to the angusta res domi, or
local circumstances. I was reared in the lap of
opulence, and Salisbury, my native place, boasts
a grammar-school, that initiated Addison in the
elegancies of literature.
I had read, or rather lisped, four books that
determined my future life; namely, Robert
Drury, The Unfortunate Englishman, Pierre
Vaud, and Capt. Richard Falconer. Nothing
now would satisfy me but going to sea, and a
ship was the idol of my mind.
i66

My first voyage was an Indiaman called the
Essex, Capt. Strover. We went to St. Helena,
Batavia and China. It was in the year 1787, and
I was literally a sea-boy upon the high and giddy
mast, being little more than eleven years old.
I returned to England charmed with a sea life.
The voyage seemed nothing, and before I had
been ashore six months, I again, if I may so ex
press myself, shoved off my boat.
I embarked (1790) in the Worcester, Capt.
Hall. We touched at Hunzuan,^ and proceeded
to Bombay. In the Essex, the chief mate was
Ebenezer Roebuck, a man conspicuous for his
courage, consummate seamanship and rigid dis
cipline." The chief officer of the Worcester was
Owen Ellis, a disciple of Roebuck, full of fire,
fancy and mischief. Our captain and he did not
agree. Hall was timorous ; Ellis rash. Hall was
uncommonly corpulent; remarkable for the cir
cumference of his belly, and Ellis swore the ship
could never be in trim, as by being in the cabin
he brought her down by the stern.
* See a magical description of this fairy island by Sir
William Jones.
^ Mr. Roebuck has left the company's service; he is
now constructing docks in India. 167

Off the high land of Chaul, the Worcester was
attacked by Angria's Pirates. Our captain was
scared almost to death.
Obstupuit, steteruntque comae, et vox faucibus haesit!
Ellis saved the ship. He jumped down on the
gun-deck, and cast loose a midship-gun. "A
match here ! " said he, while he was pointing the
gun with a handspike. The match was brought
by the ship's cook from the galley-fire; a man
named John Thornton had primed the g^n, the
chief mate gave it to the Moors in style, and dis
persed the mosquito fleet. A loud laugh now suc
ceeded the hallooing, dawling, cursing and swear
ing, that before shook the good ship Worcester
from stem to stern. For no sooner did the Moor
taste our pills than he put his helm up, wore right
round upon his heel, and went away before the
wind ; this was the ship ; the ketch, brig and gal-
livats did the same.
We took a hundred company's recruits to Bom
bay. Among these was a German (Oberstein) of
dissipated fortune, but elegant education. Now
did my mind first catch a ray of intellectual light ;
now was it ordained I should not be all my life
illiterate. I began to learn French under Ober-
168

stein between the tropics; in my watch upon deck
my station was in the maintop, to haul down the
topgallant studding sail at the approach of a
squall, or to go up and hand the royal. For our
topgallantmasts were folded, and our royal yards
rigged across. When the boatswain's mate piped
starbowlines, I walked up the main rigging into
the top. I always put Le Sage in my pocket ; and
in the maintop of an East Indiaman, under a
cloudless tropical sky, when the breeze was so
steady that for days we had no occasion to start
either tack or sheet, I began to cultivate the lan
guage of the court of Louis the fourteenth.
I was several months on shore at Bombay. I
lodged at the country tavern. It was kept by Mr.
Loudwick, and shaded with cocoanut and banana
trees. My landlord had a complete set of Euro
pean magazines; I rather devoured than read
them; and it is to the perusal of these volumes
that I ascribe that love of the belles-lettres which
has always made me loathe the mathematics and
other crabbed sciences. For whoever, after hav
ing lived in a beautiful country, where all was
fruit and flowers and fragrance, could seek an
abode in a rugged, bleak and dreary region.
169

Neither Mr. Loudwick nor Mrs. Loudwick
could talk English. I now thanked my stars that
I had learnt French in the maintop of the Worces
ter, and conversed with my host and hostess in
their own idiom.
From Bombay we went twice down the Mala
bar coast, anchoring at every port. I landed at
Cochin where Camoens wrote his Lusiad,^ and at
Anjengo, where Eliza was born ; " and I was en
gaged in the reduction of Cannamore under Gen
eral Abercrombie. In our passage home I landed
at the Cape of Good Hope.
When I returned to England, I found my
brother had embarked as a cadet for Madras.
He was a considerable time ensign to a battalion
of native infantry at Kistnagherry, a hill fort, in
the Baramhal country. At the taking of Pondi
cherry he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant ;
he died a captain at Madras. His account of the
Sepoy soldiers in India is full, elegant, accurate:
it was first communicated by him in a letter from
India to the editor of the European Magazine,
* See Mickle's Lusiad.
' See Sterne's Letters to Eliza, and Raynal's Apos
trophe to Anjengo. 170

and adopted in the article Sepoy by the compilers
of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Sic vos non vobis —
On my return to Salisbury from my second
voyage, the love of literature that had been
lighted up in my mind, directed my attention to
our family library. We had a room full of books,
but I was made a student by the perusal of a small
pamphlet; Spence's Life of Magliabechi and Hill.
The Life of Hill engaged me with superior inter
est, and set me about learning Latin. My pleas
ure in reading an English book was diminished
by not knowing the sources of its classical allu
sions, and of the propriety or efficacy of their
application I could be no judge. By the happiest
fortune in the world I got Mant's Phaedrus, with
a parsing index, which strewed flowers in my
road, and obtained me the rewards of study
without undergoing its toils.
In the beginning of 1793, I was sent into the
navy. In the Active frigate, Capt. Nagle, I went
to the Orkneys, Cadiz, and into the Elbe. Being
turned over with the ship's company to the Artois,
(her former commander Lord Charles Fitzgerald
171

was given the command of the Brunswick, seventy-
four) I belonged a year and a half to a flying
squadron of frigates; namely, the Pomone, Sir
John Borlase Warren, the Arethusa, Sir Edward
Pellew, and the Diamond, Sir Sidney Smith. Our
cruising ground was the coast of France, and our
port of rendezvous was Falmouth.
The Artois was the fastest sailing frigate of
the squadron. She could sail round the others.
No ship could touch her, whether going large,
or close-hauled. We were always the first up
with the chase; and on the twenty-first of Octo
ber 1794, after an action close, vigourous and
persevering, the Revolutionnaire, French frigate,
hauled down her colours to the Artois. It is true
the Diamond at that juncture had come up, and
that Sir Sidney had placed her in a position to
rake the Frenchman; but had Capt. Nagle been
alone, her resistance could have been of no avail,
as she had long slackened her fire before she
struck.^ During the conflict the other ships of
the squadron were hull down astern; the Are
thusa was the sternraost ship; and Sir Edward
Pellew, the whole time he beheld us blazing away
* See Naval History of the last war.
172

at each other, was heard to exclaim, " God bless
Nagle and the Artois." On our quarter-deck fell
heutenant Craigie of the marines,^ and three sea
men. Captain Nagle was knighted by his majesty
for the action.
In 1798, 1 embarked in a small brig at Bristol,
for the United States. I had before made some
progress in Greek, and begim the study of the
language of harmony, with the Father of Poetry,
and the Bible of the Ancients. In Latin I had
looked into every writer of the Julian and Au
gustan ages; the study of French had always
been to me like cracking of nuts ; and in my ver
nacular idiom I had neglected no writer from
Bunyan to Bolingbroke. Lowth put me au fait of
all the critical niceties of grammar; and when
I read it was always with an eye to new combi
nations of diction,
I translated at New York, Buonaparte's Cam
paign in Italy, a considerable octavo, and pro
ceeded to the south. I now experienced the
advantage of having educated myself. By im
parting what I knew of English, French and
* A monument has been erected at Plymouth in mem
ory of Mr. Craigie. 173

Latin to others, I was enabled to gratify my dis
position to travel, and to subsist comfortable.
I visited South Carolina, Georgia, Maryland and
Virginia. I, however, have no further desire to travel.
It is true I should like much to cross again the
Atlantic, but then that would be to go home. I
am only a sojourner in America. When the cold
turf presses against my breast, I hope it will be
one dug out of the valleys of my native land.^
In 1802, 1 returned to England. I landed from
the ship within twelve miles of my mother's house.
It commanded a view of the English channel, and
the tall English fleet. I did not stay long in
Hampshire. I proceeded to London, where my
tirae was divided between pleasure and literature.
I published a large volume of my own peregri-
^ I have been in the four quarters of the globe, yet
never saw I a spot that pleased me like my own little Eng
land. Oh ! it is a nice little island — a tight little island !
Its cities are not disgraced by dirty editors of papers —
apostates — " wicked sarpents; " — blackguards, as desti
tute of any real politics as they are of religion; calling
themselves, risum teneatis amid. Republicans and Fed
eralists ! One, daubing Jefferson with a plaisterer's trowel
— the other, pelting him with human excrement! Qui
capit ilie facit. Let the galled jade wince.
174

nations. I wrote an American tale, called Walter
Kennedy — A Life of Chatterton, and a novel,
entitled The Wooden Walls Well Manned; or,
A Picture of a British Frigate.
In the winter of 1804, I returned to America.
I embarked at Liverpool for New York. I came
in the steerage — it being a rule with me, never
to throw my money into old Davy's locker.
Our passage, however, in the Cotton Planter,
was a rough one. I never witnessed severer
gales. It was necessary to keep the broad axe
sharp, when the ship was lying to, in case she
should go on her beam-ends ; that we might cut
away her weather-rigging or the masts, in order
to enable her to get upon her legs again.
And now, to the holy keeping of that Great
Being, whose protecting arm extends over land
and sea, I commend myself and ray readers.
[From The First Settlers of Virginia, an historical
novel ... 3d edition. Wilmington, Del. . . . 1825.]

The End

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