 | The Anarchiad |  |
THE ANARCHIAD.
PREFACE.
In presenting The Anarchiad to the public, now for the first time in book form, the editor feels that he is in the performance of a duty—that he becomes, as it were, an instrument of justice— a justice delayed for more than half a century, to the genius and loyalty of its authors, who were among the noblest and most talented sons of the American Revolution.
Why a work possessing the merits of The Anarchiad has not, ere this, been called up from its oblivious sleep to take its appropriate place among the honored volumes in the homes of the people—by what strange oversight it has not before been brought to public view, and placed within the reach of all, we will not attempt to say.
In 1786, Hartford was the residence of a number of the most celebrated poets of the eighteenth century—among whom, were David Humphreys, Joel Barlow, John Trumbull, and Dr. Lemuel Hopkins;—and the veins of satire which were given forth in many of their literary productions, gained for them the appellation of “the Hartford wits.”
In The New Haven Gazette and Connecticut Magazine of October 26th, 1786, appeared the initial paper of The Anarchiad. The projector of this work was Colonel Humphreys, to whose mind the plan was suggested from having seen, while in England, “The Rolliad,” attributed to Fox, Sheridan, and others. This series of papers, embracing twelve in number, were published complete in the Gazette, during the years 1786–7, and in no other journal. The last number of the series was published in the
The Anarchiad is universally conceded to have been written in concert by Humphreys, Barlow, Trumbull, and Hopkins; but what particular installment or number was written by either, has never been definitely ascertained. The fact that the papers were anonymously communicated to the publishers at New Haven, and that the authorship of any given portion of the work was never divulged by the members of this literary club, renders it almost impossible to fix upon any particular paper, or portion of a paper, and arrive at a certain knowledge in relation to its writer.
The Anarchiad is a mock-critical account of a pretended ancient epic poem, which a member of a society of critics and antiquarians had accidentally found among some recently discovered ruins, imbedded with “utensils more curious and elegant than those of Palmyra or Herculaneum,” and whose preservation, through such a long lapse of years, and amid marks of hostility and devastation, was indeed little short of miraculous. The author assumes to have taken possession of this poem in the name and for the use of the society of which he was a component part.
When this fabulous announcement was first made in the print of the Gazette, it was received with a remarkable degree of credulity by many readers. The plan was well conceived, and the details relating to it were narrated in a plausible manner; and, upon the whole, it was not half as absurd as the celebrated “moon hoax” perpetrated by the New York Sun newspaper, many years afterwards, and readily believed by multitudes in all parts of the country. Besides, public attention, but a few months previous to the announcement of the exhuming of The Anarchiad, had been somewhat aroused by the discovery of several ruined Indian fortifications, with their singular relics: the story of the early emigration of a band of Britons and Welch to this country, and of an existing tribe of their descendants, in the interior of the continent, had also quite recently been revived and circulated.
The Anarchiad is pre-eminently a New England Poem. Its publication, at a time when New England was convulsed by the evils growing out of the war of our Revolution, and when insurrectionary mobs had arisen in various parts of the land, and fears were entertained of their proceedings being imitated in others— at such a time, this fearless satire, being scattered broadcast into the homes of the people, through the columns of the weekly press, is supposed to have exerted great and beneficial influence upon the public mind, and to have tended in no small degree to check the leaders of insubordination and infidel philosophy.
But when we say that it is a New England Poem, treating mainly of affairs in that part of the Union, as they existed at the
Explanatory and historical Notes, as will be seen, intersperse the work. The editor hopes that his efforts, in this direction, to make the poem intelligible to the reader of to-day, will meet with the approbation of an appreciative public.
In the Appendix are given, in detail, and yet in as condensed a form as practicable, an account of the Disturbances in New England; of the Paper Money period; and some information concerning the Hon. William Williams, who occupies so prominent a position among the worthies immortalized in The Anarchiad. It has been our purpose, as far as convenient, to give, in these appendices, accounts of the various circumstances as they are recorded in the papers and correspondence of the time in which they occurred, instead of accepting modernized versions in the more elegant diction of the historians of our own day. While this feature will tend to gratify the antiquarian tastes of many readers, it cannot prove objectionable to any.
AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES.—No. I.
Messrs. Meigs and Dana:—I have the felicity to belong to a society of critics and antiquarians, who have made it their business and delight, for some years past, to investigate the ancient as well as natural history of America. The success of their researches, in such an unlimited field, pregnant with such wonderful and inexhaustible materials, has been equal to their most sanguine expectations. One of our worthy associates has favored the public with a minute and accurate description of the monstrous new-invented animal which had, till his elaborate lucubration, escaped the notice of every zoologist. Another has regaled his readers with a most notable catfish. A third has brought them acquainted with a hermit who surpasses all other hermits in longevity, as much as his biographer does all other historians in point of veracity. Others have spared no pains to feast the public curiosity with
Happening myself to come upon the spot immediately after this treasure had been discovered, I was permitted to take possession of it, in the name and for the use of our society. Amongst these relics of antiquity I was overjoyed to find a folio manuscript which appeared to contain an epic poem, complete; and, as I am passionately fond of poetry, ancient as
As it would swell this paper beyond the limits I had prescribed, to give a critical analysis of this inimitable work, I must content myself with observing, that the excellency of its fable, the novelty and dignity of its characters, the sublimity of sentiments, and the harmony of numbers, give it the first rank in merit amongst the productions of human genius. I might also add, that it appears, from incontestible proofs, that this work was well known to the ancients, and that, as it is the most perfect, it has undoubtedly been the model for all subsequent epic productions. Perhaps, in a future essay, I shall attempt to prove that Homer, Virgil, and Milton, have borrowed many of their capital beauties from it. At present, to show that the matter is not fabulous, as well as to give a specimen of the author's forcible style, and happy manner of expressing himself, I shall cite a few lines from the eighth book, which is denominated the Book of Vision. So lively are the descriptions following the images, so familiar and present is every object placed to our view, that the reader will, I dare say, be as much astonished as I have been myself, to find that a poet who lived so many centuries ago should have described with such amazing precision events that happened in our own times. The prophetic bard seems to have taken for the point of vision one of the lofty mountains of
And Massachusetts opens on my soul;
There Chaos, Anarch old, asserts his sway,
And mobs in myriads blacken all the way:
See Day's stern port—behold the martial frame
Of Shays' and Shattuck's mob-compelling name:
See the bold Hampshirites on Springfield pour,
The fierce Tauntonians crowd the alewife shore.
O'er Concord fields the bands of discord spread,
And Wor'ster trembles at their thundering tread:
See from proud Egremont the woodchuck train,
Sweep their dark files, and shade with rags the plain.
Lo, the Court falls; th'affrighted judges run,
Clerks, Lawyers, Sheriffs, every mother's son.
The stocks, the gallows lose th'expected prize,
See the jails open, and the thieves arise.
Thy constitution, Chaos, is restor'd;
Law sinks before thy uncreating word;
And deep in darkness 'whelms the new-born state.
I know not whether it is necessary to remark, in this place, what the critical reader will probably have already observed, that the celebrated English poet, Mr. Pope, has proven himself a noted plagiarist, by copying the preceding ideas, and even couplets almost entire, into his famous poem called “The Dunciad.”
I will conclude, by entreating that the public may be acquainted that several other extracts from these curious manuscripts will be published, should the preceding specimen meet with the applause which I am confident it merits. The blessings of paper money and confusion, as now experienced in Rhode Island, are predicted in the most awful and beautiful manner. The vision then extends to Connecticut, where we shall leave it, unless a future opportunity of resuming the subject should render a further disclosure expedient.
AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES.—No. II.
Messrs. Meigs and Dana:—In a late address, I gave you an account of the recent discoveries in the Western country, and engaged to furnish some further extracts from the epic poem called The Anarchiad, if the specimen then exhibited should meet with merited applause. I am happy to find, as a proof of the good taste of the times, that it has been read with the greatest avidity. Though I have not been able to decipher all the lines of the Vision which evidently alluded to the beautiful scenes of paper money and confusion, now so gloriously displayed in Rhode Island; yet I thought I ought not to delay to gratify the Connecticut readers with a fragment of the speech which the old Anarch makes to Beelzebub, for the purpose of persuading him to come over and help his faithful friends in our Macedonia, since his affairs were in so thriving a posture in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, that his zealous and indefatigable substitutes and apostles might carry them to perfection without any further assistance from him.
After describing, in a very pathetic manner, the necessity of his presence and personal influence, he encourages him to hope for every reasonable countenance from his faithful adherents and allies in this State. He gives as long and significant
Chiefs, mobs, conventions, to support thy cause.
See where the frogs' loquacious realms extend,
Instructions on their deputies attend,
O'er all the east new fangled magi rise,
Join croaking choirs and boast the name of wise.
Great nurse of mobs, of bankrupts, and of duns:
There Froth, the sep'rate, glows with pop'lar rage,
And G---n, type of dotards in old age.
The soil that trays and wooden dishes bore,
His full-globed paunch the brainless Bubo draws,
And solid ignorance threats the feeble laws.
And onion gardens breathe a glad perfume,
Though sunk in dust, to his own stench a prey,
Again our Laz'rus shall ascend to day;
And raise him active in thy toils again.
Where purslain harvests charm th'extended sight,
Clothe the fair fields and feed thy sons for fight;
In act to speak, his eyes a smoky fire,
His face of shadow, and his shins of wire,
See Copper graceful ride, and, o'er his cane,
Look like a pale moon sick'ning in its wane.
Seest thou, blest Wronghead, helpless how we lie?
And where is Wimble, earliest squib of fame!
Your tongues and pens must wake the factious flame!
And thou, poor Quack, behold thy efforts fail;
Could one address thy o'erstrain'd wits exhale?
Wake, scribble, print; arouse thee from thy den,
And raise conventions with thy blust'ring pen!
Old Ben, exhausted, wields the quill no more;
The Chairman's snuff expir'd as erst was sung,
And gouts have quelled the Irish Blunderer's tongue.
Where such high talents, such strong brains, survive?
These, and a thousand yet unnam'd we find—
Fame waits the thousand yet unnam'd behind.
The poetic seer has then the address, by a happy transition, to group his principal characters in solemn conclave, and to display their abilities in high debate. I am sorry I have not been able to cleanse that part of the manuscript which contains their speeches, from filth and obscurity, so as to make it entirely legible. I do not yet despair of success; and the courteous reader is only requested to suspend the gratification of his curiosity to a future occasion. In the interim, I have found, by that part of the manuscript which is still legible, that the poet progresses, agreeably to the rules of his art, in unfolding the catastrophe, by predicting that a majority should be persuaded, by the power of intrigues and sophistry, to refuse a compliance with the requisitions of Congress—that a determination should be formed, and announced to the world, that we will not pay the interest on our foreign or domestic debts—that we should furnish nothing for the support of the federal government—that we should withdraw ourselves from the Union—that all government should be prostrated in the dust—that mobs, conventions, and anarchy, should prevail for a limited time, and then—.... But I draw the curtain; the picture is too melancholy to be viewed by a patriot eye without prompting the tear of sensibility, and forcing the sigh of sorrow, that the glorious temple of Liberty and happiness
Leave not a wreck behind.”
AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES.—No. III.
EXTRACTS FROM THE ANARCHIAD, ON PAPER MONEY.
Messrs. Meigs and Dana:—The readers of newspapers through the several States in which the two first numbers of American Antiquities have been published, will doubtless remember that the subject of Paper Money was more than once mentioned. That subject forms so beautiful an episode in The Anarchiad, that it would be unpardonable not to make extracts from it. All the episodes ought to have some reference to the promotion of the principal action, as the underplots in a regular drama should conspire to the development of the main plot. Such is the superlative advantages of this very poetical digression. For it will scarcely be denied, in any part of the United States, that paper money, in an unfunded and depreciating condition, is happily calculated to introduce the long expected scenes of misrule, dishonesty, and perdition. On this point the citizens of the Union must be considered as competent judges, because they are inhabitants of the only country under heaven, where paper (of that predicament) is, by compulsory laws, made of equal value with gold and silver.
The society of critics and antiquarians, who have spared neither expense nor trouble, in recovering those valuable remains of antiquity from oblivion, cannot help flattering themselves that their disinterested labors will continue to be rewarded with the plaudits of a grateful public. They are conscious that the manuscripts from which they have already given specimens, as well as many others in their possession, contain performances in poetry and prose of a very different complexion from those which commonly appear in American newspapers. While they publicly disclaim all title to any merit in these productions, except that of assiduity in deciphering and preparing them for publication, they would advise the several printers on the continent to peruse them attentively, and to publish at least such pieces as may be applicable to their particular States. The society who are, will henceforward prosecute their research with redoubled diligence, only thinking it necessary to engage, on their part, that nothing shall appear sanctioned by them, unfavorable to freedom, literature, or morality.
It is to be remarked that the following speech is addressed, by the old Anarch, to a council of war, consisting of his compeers, his general officers, and counselors of state:
Their fairest claim to my paternal love!
Call'd from the deck with pop'lar votes elate,
The mighty Jacktar guides the helm of state;
Nurs'd on the waves, in blust'ring tempests bred,
His heart of marble, and his brain of lead,
My foes subdued while knavery wins the day,
He rules the senate with inglorious sway;
Sails in the whirlwind, and enjoys the storm.
His mate, great O---n, bustles while he sleeps;
There G---n stands, his head with quibbles fill'd;
His tongue in lies, his hand in forg'ry skill'd;
To him, my darling knave, my lore I teach,
Which he to C---s lends in many a pompous speech.
Fraud, tendry, paper bills, whate'er thy name;
That medium still, which prompts th'eternal sigh,
By which great villains flourish, small ones die.
Plant of infernal seed, without hell's heat,
Say in what mortal soil thou deign'st to cheat?
Fair from the Gen'ral Court's unpardon'd sin,
Ap'st thou the gold Peruvian mines within?
Wak'd to new life, by my creative power,
The press thy mint, and dunghill rags thy ore.
Where grow'st thou not? If vain the villain's toil,
We ought to blame the culture, not the soil;
Fix'd to that isle, it nowhere passes free,
But fled from Congress, C---s dwells with thee.
All hail! ye knav'ries of yon little isle.
There prowls the rascal, cloth'd with legal pow'r,
To snare the orphan, and the poor devour;
The crafty knave his creditor besets,
And advertising paper pays his debts;
Bankrupts their creditors with rage pursue,
No stop, no mercy from the debtor crew.
Arm'd with new tests, the licens'd villain bold,
Presents his bills, and robs them of their gold;
Their ears, though rogues and counterfeiters lose,
No legal robber fears the gallows noose.
A pen of dragons, and a cave for bears;
A nest of vipers, mix'd with adders foul;
The screeching night-bird, and the greater owl:
For now, unrighteousness, a deluge wide,
Pours round the land an overwhelming tide;
And dark injustice, wrapp'd in paper sheets,
Rolls a dread torrent through the wasted streets;
While net of law th'unwary fry draw in
To damning deeds, and scarce they know they sin.
New paper struck, new tests, new tenders made,
Insult mankind, and help the thriving trade.
Each weekly print new lists of cheats proclaims,
Proud to enroll their knav'ries and their names;
Like lot from Sodom, from Rhode Island run.
As it is vain to expect that a whole epic poem, containing twenty-four books, should be republished in a newspaper: as it is equally impracticable to insert all the names of the worthies who were principal actors in it: and as it is the wish of the society to avoid the imputation of partiality, they direct me, as far as it may be done, to eternize those subaltern heroes here on earth, by informing the public that honorable mention is made of Mr. G--- I---, as well as of most of the horse jockies and bankrupts in the State; and particularly, that not a single name is omitted of all those persons who have given due notice in the public gazettes, of their having lodged, agreeably to law, with some justice of the peace, paper bills, for the payment of certain honest debts. These good people are specified individually, in proportion to the sums deposited, as proper to be captains over tens, over fifties, over hundreds, and over thousands, whenever the army shall be raised for the support of anarchy, or whenever that new state, (whereof the rumor runs so rise on earth,) the State of Confusion, shall be properly organized, and admitted into the confederacy. The characters of the Judges of the Supreme Court, of the Governors, Green and Bowen, the Generals, Varnum and Miller, President Manning, Dr. Hitchcock, the Colonels Sherburne and Olney, the officers of the late army, with a long catalogue of names, (comprising all the honest men in the State,) are represented as the antipodes of the preceding. These are the thousands who have never bowed the knee to Baal, and who have never sacrificed their honor or their honesty at the shrine of Paper Money.
Henry Goodwin, an attorney residing in Newport, who was reported to have written the Annual Address of the Governor of Rhode Island to the Legislature of that State, at its session in 1786.
AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES.—No. IV.
EXTRACT FROM THE ANARCHIAD, BOOK XXIII.
The voice prophetic of great Anarch hear!
From Eastern climes, by light and order driven,
To me, by fate, this Western world was giv'n;
My standard rear'd, the realm imperial rules,
The last asylum for my knaves and fools.
Here shall my best and brightest empire rise,
Wild riot reign, and discord greet the skies.
Awake, my chosen sons, in folly brave,
Stab Independence! dance o'er Freedom's grave!
Sing choral songs, while conq'ring mobs advance,
And blot the debts to Holland, Spain, and France—
Till ruin come, with fire, and sword, and blood,
And men shall ask where your republic stood.
Blest while they know what anarchy is theirs;
To know no sovereign, neither law nor Heaven.
From all mankind by traits peculiar known,
By frauds and lies distinguish'd for mine own,
Wonder of worlds! like whom, to mortal eyes,
None e'er have risen, and none e'er shall rise!
Sees God in courts, or hears him chink in gold:
Whose soul, proud empire oft has taught to stray
Far as the Western world, and gates of day;
Though plagu'd with debts, with rage of conquest curst,
In rags and tender-acts he puts no trust;
But in the public weal his own forgets,
Finds heaven for him who pays the nation's debts;
A heaven like London, his fond fancy makes,
Of nectar'd porter and ambrosial steaks.
To prize the public weal above their own;
In faith and justice least, as last in birth,
Their race shall grow, a by-word through the earth.
Long skill'd to act the hypocritic part,
Grace on the brow, and knav'ry at the heart,
Perform their frauds with sanctimonious air,
Despise good works, and balance sins by pray'r—
Cheat heaven with forms, and earth with tender-laws,
And leave the empire, at its latest groan,
To work salvation out by faith alone.
And half the business of confusion done.
From hell's dark caverns discord sounds alarms,
Blows her loud trump, and calls my Shays to arms,
O'er half the land the desperate riot runs,
And maddening mobs assume their rusty guns.
From councils feeble, bolder faction grows,
The daring corsairs, and the savage foes;
O'er Western wilds, the tawny bands allied,
Insult the States of weakness and of pride;
Once friendly realms, unpaid each generous loan,
Wait to divide and share them for their own.
O'er all the torpid limbs begins to creep;
By dull degrees decays the vital heat,
The blood forgets to flow, the pulse to beat;
The powers of life, in mimic death withdrawn,
Closed the fixed eyes with one expiring yawn;
Exposed in state, to wait the funeral hour,
Lie the pale relics of departed power;
Their ghost of empire stalks without a head.
Their great Defender of the public good;
Retired, in vain his sighs their fate deplore,
He hears, unmoved, the distant tempest roar;
No more to save a realm, dread Greene appears,
Their second hope, prime object of my fears;
Far in the south, from his pale body riven,
The deathful angel wings his soul to heaven.
Nor men, nor demons, shake my baseless throne;
Till comes the day—but late, oh, may it spring—
When their tumultuous mobs shall ask a king;
And my confusion and my empire end.
Like the torn surface of the midnight brine;
In sun-bright robes, that dazzled as he trod,
The stature, motion, armor of a god,
Great Hesper rose; the guardian of the clime—
O'er shadowy cliffs he stretch'd his arm sublime,
And check'd the Anarch old: “Malicious fiend,
Eternal curses on thy head descend!
Heaven's darling purpose can thy madness mar,
To glut thy eyes with ruin, death, and war!
I know thee, Anarch, in thy cheerless plight,
Thou eldest son of Erebus and Night!
Yes, bend on me thy brows of hideous scowl;
Roll thy wild eyeballs like the day-struck owl;
In Zion blow the trump, resound it far;
Fire the red beacons of intestine war;
The jealous breasts inflame; set hell at work,
And crown the labors of E---s B---e;
Yet, know for this, thyself to penance called,
Thy troops in terrors, their proud hearts appall'd,
E'en Shays, that moment when eternal night
Rolls dark'ning shadows o'er his closing sight,
Shall feel, 'twere better on a plank to lie,
Where surging billows kiss the angry sky;
With naked feet, on burning coals, to tread—
Than point his sword, with parricidious hand,
Against the bosom of his native land.
Dead are my warriors; all my sages dead?
Is there, Columbia, bending o'er her grave,
No eye to pity, and no arm to save?
Serenely stern, beneficently mild,
Blest Independence! rouse my sons to fame,
Inspire their bosoms with thy sacred flame!
Teach, ere too late, their blood-bought rights to prize,
Bid other Greenes and Washingtons arise!
Teach those who suffer'd for their country's good,
Who strove for freedom, and who toil'd in blood,
Once more, in arms, to make the glorious stand,
And bravely die, or save their natal land.
And crush the factions of the faithless age;
Bid laws again exalt th'imperial scale,
And public justice o'er her foes prevail;
And drive thee, howling, to the shades of night.”
On Anarch's helm a comet blaz'd his crest;
Infernal arms the shadowy demon steel'd,
And half the Andes form'd his ample shield;
Through parting clouds, high gleam'd his dreadful spear,
And shuddering earth proclaim'd the onset near;
Unmov'd, great Hesper drew th'immortal sword,
And rush'd, in vengeance,—
—The society of critics and antiquarians cannot sufficiently express their regrets, upon finding the sequel of this description so much defaced that they are not able to decide the issue of this astonishing conflict. The fragments still legible are truly sublime. And we have reason to conjecture that the combat ended with some disadvantage to the old Anarch.
Major-General Nathaniel Greene, an officer who, by common consent, is ranked only second to Washington, among our revolutionary heroes. He greatly distinguished himself at the battles of Trenton, and of Princeton. With these words on his lips, “I will recover South Carolina, or die in the attempt!” Greene went forth to engage the forces of Cornwalls at Eutaw Springs; in which conflict the American army was successful, and the power of George III, in South Carolina, was broken, and Cornwallis was soon after compelled to surrender. At the close of the war, Greene took up his residence on a beautiful plantation, a few miles from Savannah, presented him by the State of Georgia. But the period of his repose and domestic enjoyment was brief. On the twelfth of June, 1786, he was attacked by inflammation of the brain, and died on the nineteenth of the same month, in the forty-fourth year of his age.
AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES.—No. V.
EXTRACT FROM MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS FOUND IN THE SAME FORT WITH THE ANARCHIAD.
Songs on love, conviviality, martial achievements, and imperial glory, are common to all nations. The composition of such songs as tend to excite the feelings of patriotism, has been deemed an object of no small importance. It has even been supposed that this species of poetry, accompanied with music calculated for and understood by the multitude, may have as much influence on their manners, as the civil institutions of legislation. Indeed, a political writer, of eminence, has gone so far as to assert that it did not matter so much who had the power of making laws, as who had that of making songs for the people. The British seem to have sung themselves into a belief that their naval prowess is invincible. And this belief has contributed not a little to establish their empire on the main. If Americans could be taught to revere themselves; if they could be made to realize their consequence, in the scale of existence, so far from being desperate in their situation, the inhabitants of such a country, under such circumstances for happiness, might be considered as the
TO THE TUNE OF
In dalliance soft, and amorous play,
On Amphytrite's breast,” &c.
1
Where spirits dwell, and shadowy forms,On Andes' cliffs, 'mid black'ning storms,
With livid lightnings curl'd;
In thunder rais'd his voice sublime,
And hush'd the list'ning world.
2
In lonely waves, and wastes of earth,A mighty empire claims its birth,
And Heaven asserts the claim;
The sails that hang in yon dim sky,
Proclaim the promis'd era nigh,
Which wakes a world to fame.
3
Hail! ye first bounding ships that roamBlue tumbling billows topp'd with foam,
That keel ne'er plowed before!
Here suns perform their useless round,
Here rove the naked tribes embrown'd,
Who feed on living gore.
4
To midnight orgies, off'rings dire,The human sacrifice in fire,
A heavenly light succeeds:
But, lo! what horrors intervene,
The toils severe, the carnage scene,
And more than mortal deeds!
5
Ye Fathers! spread your fame afar!'Tis yours to still the sounds of war,
And bid the slaughter cease;
The peopling hamlets wide extend,
The harvests spring, the spires ascend,
'Mid grateful songs of peace!
6
Shall steed to steed, and man to man,With discord thundering in the van,
Again destroy the bliss!
Enough my mystic words reveal;
The rest the shades of night conceal,
In fate's profound abyss!
AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES.—No. VI.
EXTRACT FROM THE ANARCHIAD, BOOK XX.
The soliloquy and invocation of Wronghead, with the appearance and consolatory speech of the Anarch.
Prelude the onset of approaching war
In Wronghead's jealous soul; while thus, in sighs,
He breathes hoarse accents to the nether skies:
And wide misrule, the Anarch, old, maintains;
Orcus, and Hades! hear my fervent prayer,
And aid, if Wrongheads still deserve your care:
If you receiv'd me dark'ning from the womb,
And nurs'd the hope of mischiefs yet to come;
If busied, daily, planning pop'lar schemes,
And nightly rapt in democratic dreams,
Fair discord as a goddess I revere,
And in her vineyards toil from year to year;
To sow each jealousy, and till with care;
If I each long-face in the land assail,
At Congress, Courts, and legal powers to rail;
If I at trade, great men and lawyers' fees,
Have so harangu'd as vulgar ears to please;
If cant pretense of Liberty, the while,
Has been the universal burden of my style;
If this has gain'd me all the posts I hold,
With numerous salaries heap'd my chest with gold,
And fed my hopes that fed'ral ties no more
Shall bind the nations of the western shore;
That local schemes shall lift their narrow scale,
And our own statesmen through the land prevail;
Then, hear again, ye powers that stretch the sway,
Through the wide vast, beneath the solar day,
Hear, and dispel my anxious doubts and fears,
To me more dread than certain loss of ears.
And grey'd these locks, and dimm'd these tearful eyes,
This more minute, less blust'ring plan, I tried,
Till wish'd success began to feed my pride:
But now, alas! stern justice rears her head,
And crowds my days with fears, my nights with dread;
Had I my wish, were doom'd to guide the plow,
Are planning, still, to build a fed'ral name,
And blast my laurels with eternal shame;
The pride of courts still brightens in their eyes,
And scorning still to pay our debt with lies,
Have rais'd these martial bands to aid their cause,
To awe each mob, and execute the laws.
Shall these succeed? and shall my labor'd schemes,
Ye sov'reign powers! disperse in empty dreams?”
He spoke, and breath'd a care-corroding sigh,
Then, through a dark, deep vale, bent down his eye;
When, lo! a lurid fog began to move,
And mount in solemn grandeur o'er the grove,
Convolving mists enroll'd a demon's form,
But headless, monstrous, shapeless as a storm;
While Wronghead gaz'd, the fiend sublimer grew,
Known for the Anarch, to his raptur'd view;
Sudden, as rumbling thunder heard remote,
These stunning sounds rose, grating, through his throat:
Your every fear, and number every woe;
Their ken sweeps broader than the bounds of day,
And thrice ten lengths of hell, their nether sway;
Just o'er the precincts of chaotic night,
We held, of old, the reign; nor yet despair
To hold a wilder mental chaos there.
Are ills, at best, but not the worst we hear;
(Though they our much-lov'd mobs may sorely awe,
Give Union aid, and tone to fed'ral law,)—
More dang'rous foes arise, in learning's dress,
Arm'd with the pen, and ambush'd in the press.
The laughing youth, as lessons, learn their page,
And age, approving smiles, while dullards rage;
Their shafts all poison'd in Pierian springs,
Seem now impatient, on the bending strings,
To pierce their foes;—their arrows drink the fame
Of each unfederal politician's name.
See our best heroes, stagg'ring from the plain,
With eyes aghast, in curses vent their pain.
But give your toils not o'er—the human soul
Sinks, by strong instinct, far beneath her goal;
Fierce, bickering tribes, acknowledg'd once my sway,
From rising morning to the setting day;
Low bow'd the north, and all the spacious south
Receiv'd the precepts warm from Anarch's mouth;
And millions bow'd before her splendid throne,
My storm of Goths quench'd her meridian light,
And whelm'd her sons in anarchy and night:
There had she mourn'd her everlasting doom,
But the curs'd press dispell'd the midnight gloom.
Hence, learn, my seer, we shadowy powers who dwell
Far in the wilds of space, 'twixt this and hell,
Thron'd on unnumber'd whirlwinds, through the void,
Nor yet by distance, time, or place, annoy'd,
Save where our envious foe, with swift surprise,
Snatch'd that small spot where now creation lies:
Learn, though strict order guides His world on high,
Where suns emblaze, and systems vault the sky;
Yet there, we oft, in wayward whirls, control
The mystic, mad'ning mazes of the soul:
But chief, where science sheds her taintless beams,
And men are haunted worst with waking dreams;
Where prejudice is headstrong, reason blind,
The soul unpolish'd, all its views confin'd;
Where self is all-in-all; and stubborn will
Shuts out each good, through jealousy of ill.
Though in thy soul these choicest gifts preside,
With an unbounded share of humble pride;
Instinctive, in thy mind, immortal live;
Though all thy friends, late nicknam'd by our foes,
Each one his duty, task, and drudgery knows,
As plann'd by thee; yet know, my faithful seer,
These plans alone can scarce survive the year:
The lamp of science must be quench'd in night,
Till none, or next to none, can read or write;
The press, anon, in brazen chains must groan,
First watch'd and guarded by our saints alone;
The numerous schools that live along the shore,
Must fall, successive, and must rise no more;
The wits be hang'd; the Congress forc'd to flee
To western wilds, or headlong to the sea.
And he, true Anarch, here exalt his sway;
Before his face a flood of darkness roll,
Blot the dim day, and whelm the sinking pole;
Confusion, chaos, chance, his course attend,
Hoarse rumor rave, and hell's own mobs ascend;
His sons, on fierce tornadoes, hail from far
The black effulgence of his wasting car,
And throng his courts; old Night's dark eye shall glow,
Like seas of boiling tar, or hills of lampblack snow.”
AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES.—No. VII.
EXTRACT FROM THE ANARCHIAD, BOOK XII.
In this Book the Anarch, on the first success of his mobs in demolishing the courts of justice, institutes heroic games, after the ancient epic manner. Among other extraordinary contests, a prize is proposed to those of his heroes who would see farthest into total darkness, and shut their eyes longest to the clear light of day. Wronghead is the sole conqueror in this game, and is, thereupon, rewarded by the Anarch with a pair of spectacles, which showed every object inverted, and wrapped in a mist of darkness. On this occasion, Tweedle, a poet, reared under the patronage of Copper, and now principal bard of his chaotic majesty, filled with the poetic flatus, bursts forth with an eulogium on the victor:
Judge, General, Delegate, or Registrar,
Whether thou choose the high Comptroller's air,
Or frown more grimly in thy Council chair;
At Congress rail or vindicate the mob;
Thou millpede of office, hear my lays,
And aid the bard that sings thy welcome praise!
The Judge unfetter'd by the rules of law;
The self-taught General, valiant to control
The dangerous passions of the daring soul;
In Compo's scene, whose Christian spirit shone,
Spar'd the foes' lives, and gladly screen'd his own,
Or sing in strains unus'd to mortal ear,
Th'unletter'd Statesman and Anarchian seer.
Thine the dread task, on thy immortal plan,
From federal ties to guard the rights of man;
At power's deep root to lay the patriot ax,
Oppose the impost and prevent the tax;
Bid depreciation pay the public debt,
And teach the noblest art, the art to cheat;
Thro' all the States thy dark'ning mists to spread,
And shroud their scenes in chaotic shade;
O'er their true interest close the curtain draw,
Hide them from light and cover them from law;
With jealous arts misguide the wayward throng,
Supremely blind, and obstinately wrong!
With insect ken to local views confin'd,
Display thy pigmy penury of mind;
“The State surrounding with thy wall of brass;”
Bid insurrection claim thy noblest praise,
O'er Washington exalt thy darling Shays;
With thy contagion, embryo mobs inspire,
And blow to tenfold rage the kindling fire;
Till the wide realm of discord bow the knee,
And hold true faith in Anarch and in thee.
The scourge of Congress, and the dread of laws;
May never age, pain, sickness, or despair
Attack thy life with unsuccessful war;
Or late, when all thy race of fame is run,
All parts accomplish'd, and all duties done—
Proud rulers crush'd by thy supreme decree—
Our Governor, Council, Judges, men like thee;
Our debts all cancel'd in one fav'ring hour,
And Congress bared of every plume of power;
Their requisitions, by thy bold attack,
Sunk in the whirlpool of the gen'ral wreck;
From dreadful arts of Cincinnati free,
All souls reduc'd, that e'er presum'd to shine,
To one just level, and the rank of thine;
This world forsaking, fairly may'st thou rise
Above the earth, and pointing to the skies;
While the great finisher of mortal strife,
Shall close thy glories with the line of life;
Where seraphs, then, in brighter regions burn,
Go thou, a glowing seraph, in thy turn;
With souls congenial, in those realms that dwell,
Receive the meed you long deserv'd so well;
Then draw thy comrades, in the closing string,
And glad those regions with the sons you bring;
And in thy patriot bosom yield a room
For all the race of Wrongheads yet to come.
A certain great patriot lately declared, in public company, that he looked upon Shays as the greatest military character that America ever produced. The same gentleman has often asserted that the good people of Massachusetts where wholly unable to pay their taxes, and labored under intolerable grievances by the impositions of government.
At the close of the war, and previous to their final separation, the officers of the army constituted themselves into a society, called the Order of the Cincinnati, after the Roman Cincinnatus, who left his plow to repel the invaders of his country. This Order,—an imitation, in some respects, of the European orders of knighthood, and distinguished, like them, by its appropriate ornaments and badges,—was to be perpetuated through the eldest male descendants of the original members, or, falling such descendants, by the admission of such collateral relatives as might be deemed worthy. There was also a provision for admitting a proportion of leading persons not connected with the army. This Order excited a vast deal of jealousy, as tending towards hereditary aristocracy; and a great outcry was raised against it in all parts of the country. Subsequently the hereditary feature of the Order was abolished; but the organization still remained obnoxious to many. The authors of The Anarchiad were members of the State Society of the Cincinnati, and Colonel Trumbull was Secretary.
AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES.—No. VIII.
A Brief Account of the Death of that celebrated Personage, WILLIAM WIMBLE, and of his Last Words and Dying Speech. Extracted from The Huron Gazette and the Superiopolis Advertiser, Number 11,560.
On Friday last, agreeably to his sentence, William Wimble was conveyed, by the Sheriff, to the place of execution. He appeared very penitent. He expressed to the clergyman who attended him a proper resignation to his fate, and conviction of the justice of his sentence. A vast concourse of people, as is usual, attended on the melancholy occasion, in expectation of being entertained by the eloquence of so great an orator. Nor were they disappointed. In the course of his oration, after giving a beautiful narrative of his life and conversation, and offering much good advice to the spectators, he broke out into the following pathetic exclamation: “Oh! I have ventured like little wanton boys who swim on bladders, these many summers, on a sea of glory, but far beyond my depth. At length my high-blown pride broke under me,
This declaration corresponding with official information, a party of the sheriff's men arrested the Sachem and Copper, who are confined in irons, for trial.
At half past eleven o'clock, A. M., Wimble pulled the handkerchief over his eyes, and was launched from the tail of a cart, on his voyage towards that country from whose bourne no traveler returns. His friend, Tweedle, the poet laureate, has composed an Elegy in his praise. A correspondent has favored us with a genuine copy of it, which we offer, with unfeigned pleasure, for the gratification of our kind readers:
Occasioned by the awful and untimely Death of the Honorable William Wimble, who, by the coroner's inquest, was found to have come to his end by suffocation.
1
In yonder dark and narrow lodging,There rests a patriot's body,
Which, after many a slip and dodging,
Death took in safe custody.
2
What though to earth his corse consign'dMust moulder and be rotten;
His name, while it is kept in mind,
Will never be forgotten.
3
O'er him the muse a tomb shall raise,(Or she's an idle strumpet,)
And fame (if she wo'nt sound his praise)
May throw away her trumpet.
4
Mine be the task to celebrateThis hero sly and nimble;
Whose praise shall last, in spite of fate—
Who knows not William Wimble?
5
To fellow creatures he was kind,To brethren, staunch and hearty;
He help'd the weak, and led the blind,
Whene'er he led his party.
6
Nor is it true, what some have said,His kindness did not stop here—
The mean in spirit, oft he fed,
To wit, himself and Copper.
7
Though he was lib'ral, wise, and gallant,As warmest friends could wish one;
'Twas own'd by all, his chiefest talent
Lay most in composition.
8
No one could equal him for style,For art and elocution;
The genius of confusion.
9
His race of ancestors was long—Indeed, it was pretended
His race was young—but that was wrong;
From Gimblet he descended.
X
The heralds prov'd his ancient blood,By race of sire and madam,
Had crept through scoundrels from the flood,
And reach'd almost to Adam.
XI
Two pillars rampant were his arms—A beam, with slender cable,
(I think I've got the herald's terms,)
A cart and coffin sable.
XII
Should man from ills be free, t'were strange,'Twould be on earth a rarity;
So our good hero had the mange,
The itch of popularity.
XIII
He was so courteous and so bland,Throughout the whole dominion;
He shook each lubber by the hand,
And stole his good opinion.
XIV
He shone in many an office fair,By honorable seeking;
The Army, Church, and State, his care,—
A Delegate and Deacon.
XV
Adman, of Congress, asked, thus:“How comes it, Poet Timbrel!
“Your State doth send a fool to us,
“Whose name is William Wimble?”
XVI
The poet did this speech relate—“From honest views, we sent him;
“The fools are many in our State—
“He goes to represent 'em.”
XVII
And yet, though wicked wits kept sneering,'Tis plain as nose in face is;
'Twas only by electioneering,
He got and held his places.
XVIII
So once, upon the Ides of May,When great men quit their spouses,
To Hartford come, in best array,
And sit in both the Houses:
XIX
To take a seat, then, Wimble came,As every man supposes;
But soon 'twas found he'd lost the same,
When they had counted noses.
XX
How strangely does dame fortune frown,How strangely do times alter!
What long ago would buy a crown,
Will purchase now a halter.
XXI
Then straightway evils came apace:By sheriff being cited,
And judges taking each his place,
He stood of crimes indicted:
XXII
Then he, among the goose-cap tribes,With one Joe Copper, leaguing,
With other vile intriguing.
XXIII
Then, forc'd against his will, to standBefore twelve sturdy fellows;
And only holding up his hand,
They all turn'd fortune tellers.
XXIV
Who said, (ah, wonderful to tell!)By what they could discover,
Though now the man was sound and well,
His days would soon be over.
XXV
And so it did this wight betide,Just like to Tyburn's fashion,
Sublime, on two-wheel'd car, to ride,
And make a fine oration.
XXVI
But sad and mournful was his part;He scarce had made an end on't,
When off they drove the two-wheel'd cart,
And left the speaker pendent.
XXVII
Still, as great men to death draw nigher,They rise, and prove they're true wits;
Like Haman, fifty cubits.
XXVIII
Ye statesmen all, so blithe and gay,In life's delusive morning,
Here learn each dog must have his day,
And from this fate take warning:
XXIX
No further seek his faults to learn,No further search his glory—
Our fame, how short! and, mortal man,
Good lack! how transitory!
XXX
Yet shall the foolish folks, for aye,Whose brains would fill a thimble,
Striking their pensive bosoms, say,
“Here lies poor William Wimble.”
N. B.—A few copies of the last words of William Wimble, accurately compiled, and now first printed in a handbill at large, may be had at the Huron Printing Office. Price, one Copper.
The Hon. William Williams. For a brief account of his “life and public services,” together with his “crimes,” see Appendix, C.
Joseph Hopkins, Esq., of Waterbury, a gentleman who had derived an unenviable notoriety from having participated in the emoluments arising from a private coinage of “coppers.”
AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES.—No. IX.
EXTRACT FROM THE ANARCHIAD, BOOK XXIII.
The situation and soliloquy of Anarch, after having been vanquished, in single combat, by Hesper.—His mother, Night, appears to him.—Her speech, in which she comforts her son by enumerating the unexpected and powerful friends who have espoused his cause, terminates with an obscure prophecy.
His shield to havoc hewn, his armor gor'd,
His bulk immense by wounds unseemly marr'd,
His helmless front by furrowing thunders scarr'd,
Clotted with dark red gore, his horrent hair,
Like meteors streaming on the troubled air,
As heaves to heaven the huge volcano's smoke,
From his long trance immortal Anarch broke;
Nor less appear'd, escap'd from deadly fight,
Than the dread son of Erebus and Night;
Around in wrath his baleful eyes he throws,
And vents loud curses o'er his hopeless woes.
On earth an exile, and the scorn of heaven!
Robb'd of a world, by lying fates bestow'd,
Hesper victorious! I a vanquish'd god!
Gape wide, profoundest hell! in Stygian flame
Hide your lost Anarch from undying shame!
Heav'd the dark gulf and ope'd the rocking ground;
From all the extremes of chaos, wild and waste,
With hollow murmur swell'd the roaring blast;
Ting'd with sulphureous flames, obscurely curl'd,
Black clouds, expanding, swept the nether world;
Thron'd on the ascending pyramid of storm,
Rose, wrapp'd in vapors, Night's majestic form;
O'er her lov'd son she hung with pitying air,
And sooth'd his sadness with maternal care.
While past disasters rankle in thy mind!
While future woe thy boding bosom rends,
Lo, Orcus wakes a new-form'd host of friends;
To nobler champions change thy fiercest foes,
And splendid triumph on thy ruin grows.
And commerce smiles on Belgia's thrifty race—
Now lift the relics of barbarian war;
Whose laurel vales with bleaching bones abound,
Where slaughter drench'd the saturated ground;
When a few heroes, wedg'd in firm array,
Held Hessian hosts and British bands at bay;
Till wider carnage round the empire spread,
For nine long years, while sad Columbia bled,
To save one central region, and restore
Each glorious exile to his natal shore.
But now, while victory greets their glad return,
The Power that sav'd, th'ungrateful miscreants spurn;
I see, through Hellgate, where the whirlpool pours,
How the day darkens, how confusion lowers;
Where Congress dwells, I see portentous signs—
Of total nature, there th'eclipse begins.
Hail! sacred spot, imperial city, hail!
Here shall our reign commence, our throne prevail;
Whence hate and discord, erst by --- hurl'd,
Clung to the British prow, and fought the elder world.
Lost to those realms that boast his early fame,
I see his friends, (but now his friends no more,)
And Vernon's sage his fated lapse deplore;
And mourns the glories of her --- fled!
'Tis he, my son, shall stretch thy dark domain,
By me inspir'd with dreams of boundless gain;
'Tis he, illustrious changeling, shall control
Each generous thought that swell'd his active soul;
Court the low crowd, his free-born spirit brav'd,
And blast the realms his former valor saved.
Our fav'rite --- directs his steps astray;
In that vile shape, predictive fate assign'd
A frame well suited to so base a mind;
To him no form, no grace, nor genius given,
But mark'd for mischief by the hand of heaven;
Him plodding patience taught to con the laws,
And knavery sold to serve the British cause,
To wealth and power in courts marine to rise,
And glut his avarice on each rebel prize;
Then foil'd, he chang'd, at our superior call,
To lure his cringing pupil to his fall;
With steady aim, his former toils to crown,
Subvert the Congress, and exalt thy throne.
The train of selfish jealousy ascends;
Blind Belisarius leads the mighty round,
Rous'd at his call, advance an airy group,
Thin, shadowy shapes, and ghastly phantoms troop;
In fancy dress, the hands fantastic join'd,
Revel to madness on his moody mind;
He sees cadets in pigmy armies rise,
And Boston fifers swarm like Hessian flies,
Creative frenzy painting on his brain,
By Congress rais'd, and paid the innumerous train,
Himself neglected, needy, blind, and old,
The R--- B--- balanced by the ---
In wild profusion spent each liberal grant,
While war alone can rescue him from want.
With learned dullness loads his lab'ring pen;
In muddy streams his rumbling wits combine
Big words convolving on the turbid line.
Yet spare thy scorn; for, lo! by friendly hands,
In Congress rear'd, the reptile Scarecrow stands;
Strange to himself, for now, no more the prig,
Swells in the powder'd majesty of wig,
But gay, like snake from wintry garb releas'd,
Shines the stiff coxcomb in his courtly vest;
And seems to wonder what's become of ---
Attempt thy ruin and oppose thy reign;
Ardent and bold, the sinking land to save,
In council sapient as in action brave,
I fear'd young Hamilton's unshaken soul,
And saw his arm our wayward host control;
Yet, while the Senate with his accents rung,
Fire in his eye, and thunder on his tongue,
My band of mutes in dumb confusion throng,
Convinc'd of right, yet obstinate in wrong,
With stupid reverence lift the guided hand,
And yield an empire to thy wild command.
Blest with such aid, shall Anarch's soul despair?
Hark! how my heroes to the field invite,
Go, more victorious in thy mother's might;
Still one last conflict waits; one gleam of day
Shall pierce thine empire with expiring ray,
Ere light and order from their seats be hurl'd,
And shade and silence veil thy vanquish'd world.
A vile insect imported from Germany during the last war; which, having been fatted on the American wheat, is attempting the total destruction of our harvest.
This couplet has since been borrowed by the famous Churchill, in his “Rosclad,” and applied to one Yates, a contemptible actor on the British theater. The public will now restore the lines to their original author.
AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES.—No. X.
EXTRACT FROM THE ANARCHIAD, BOOK XXIV.
THE SPEECH OF HESPER.
At the opening of this Book, and previous to the great and final conflict, which, by what is legible at the close of the poem, appears to establish the Anarch in his dominion of the new world, Hesper, with a solicitude and energy becoming his high station and the importance of the subject, makes his last solemn address to his principal counselors and sages, whom he had convened at Philadelphia.
From kindred realms, to save the sinking State,
A boundless sway on one broad base to rear—
My voice paternal claims your listening ear;
O'er the wide clime my fostering cares extend,
Your guardian genius, and your deathless friend.
Swept from these shores the last remains of war—
Bade each glad State that boasts Columbia's name,
To bliss unbounded stretch their ardent eyes,
And wealth and empire from their labor rise—
My raptur'd sons beheld the discord cease,
And sooth'd their sorrows in the songs of peace.
Fade like the fleeting visions of the morn?
Shall this fair fabric from its base be hurl'd,
And whelm in dust the glories of the world?
Will ye, who saw the heavens tempestuous lower—
Who felt the arm of irritated power—
Whose souls, descending with the wasting flood,
Prepar'd the firm foundations, built in blood;
By discord seiz'd, will ye desert the plan—
Th'unfinish'd Babel of the bliss of man?
In graves obscure, can tell what freedom cost,
Tho' conquest smil'd; there slain amid the crowd,
And plunged, promiscuous, with no winding shroud,
No friendly hand their gory wounds to lave,
The thousands moulder in a common grave.
Not so thy son, oh Laurens! gasping lies,
Too daring youth, war's latest sacrifice;
The purple drops his snow-white bosom stain;
His cheek of rose is wan; a deadly hue
Sits on his face, that chills with lucid dew.
There Warren, glorious with expiring breath,
A comely corse, that smiles in ghastly death:
See Mercer bleed; and, o'er yon wintry wall,
'Mid heaps of slain, see great Montgomery fall!
Their sinews stiffen'd, silver'd o'er their hair;
Their toils forgotten by the sons of scorn;
This hateful truth still aggravates their pain,
In vain they conquer'd! and they bled in vain!
Go, then, ye remnants of inglorious wars,
Disown your marks of merit, hide your scars,
Of lust, of power, of titled pride accurs'd;
Steal to your graves, dishonored, and abus'd.
And discord riots o'er the ungrateful land;
Lo! to the north, a wild, adventurous crew,
In desperate mobs, the savage state renew;
Each felon chief his maddening thousands draws,
And claims bold license from the bond of laws;
In other States the chosen fires of shame
Stamp their vile knaveries with a legal name;
In honor's seat, the sons of meanness swarm,
And Senates base the work which mobs perform;
To wealth, to power, the foes of union rise,
While foes deride you, and while friends despise.
Inglorious authors of intestine war;
Pens dipp'd in gall, and lips inspir'd with lies!
Ye fires of ruin, prime detested cause
Of bankrupt faith, annihilated laws—
Of selfish systems, jealous, local schemes,
And union'd empire lost in empty dreams;
Your names, expanding with your growing crime,
Shall float, disgustful, down the stream of time;
Each future age applaud th'avenging song,
And outraged nature vindicate the wrong.
Beyond the confines of these climes aspire—
Beyond the praise of a transient age,
To live, immortal, in the patriot page;
Who greatly dare, though warring worlds oppose,
To pour just vengeance on their country's foes.
Celestial aid, the voice of virtue draws;
The curtains blue, of yon expansion, rend—
From opening skies heroic shades descend.
See, rob'd in light, the forms of heaven appear;
The warrior spirits of your friends are near—
Each on his steed of fire, (his quiver stor'd
With shafts of vengeance,) grasps his flaming sword:
The burning blade waves high, and, dipt in blood,
Hurls plagues and death on discord's faithless brood.
The federal Union sinks in endless shade;
Each feeble call, that warns the realms around,
Seems the faint echo of a dying sound;
Each requisition wastes in fleeting air,
And not one State regards the powerless prayer.
Long on the lap of softening luxury nurst,
What fickle frenzy raves! what visions strange
Inspire your bosoms with the lust of change,
And frames the wish to fly from fancy's ill,
And yield your freedom to a monarch's will?
Where tyrants govern with unbounded sway;
See the long pomp, in gorgeous state display'd—
The tinsel's guards, the squadron's horse parade;
See heralds gay, with emblems on their vest—
In tissued robes, tall, beauteous pages, drest;
Where moves the pageant throng, unnumber'd slaves,
Lords, Dukes, and Princes, titulary knaves,
Confus'dly thine, the purple gemm'd with stars,
Sceptres, and globes, and crowns, and ruby'd cars,
On gilded orbs the thundering chariots roll'd,
Steeds snorting fire, and champing bits of gold,
A loftier gait, and lifts his neck of plumes.
High on the moving throne, and near the van,
The tyrant rides, the chosen scourge of man:
Clarions, and flutes, and drums, his way prepare,
And shouting millions rend the conscious air—
Millions, whose ceaseless toils the pomp sustain,
Whose hour of stupid joy repays an age of pain.
Hereditary kings, by right divine;
'Tis theirs to riot on all nature's spoils—
For them, with pangs unblest, the peasant toils;
For them, the earth prolific teems with grain;
Their's the dread labors of the devious main;
Annual, for them, the wasted land renews
The gifts oppressive, and extorted dues;
For them, when slaughter spreads the gory plains
The life-blood gushes from a thousand veins—
While the dull herd, of earth-born pomp afraid,
Adore the power that coward meanness made.
War guides the choice—each candidate, abhorr'd,
Founds his firm title on the wasting sword;
Wades to the throne, amid the sanguine flood,
And dips his purple in a nation's blood.
O'er the vile crowd proud oligarchy lowers;
While each aristocrat affects a throne—
Beneath a thousand kings, the poor plebeians groan.
The giddy rage of democratic States,
Whose pop'lar breath, high-blown in restless tide,
No laws can temper, and no reason guide:
An equal sway, their mind indignant spurns,
To wanton change, the bliss of freedom turns;
Led by wild demagogues, the factious crowd,
Mean, fierce, imperious, insolent and loud,
Nor fame, nor wealth, nor power, nor system draws—
They see no object, and perceive no cause;
But feel, by turns, in one disastrous hour,
Th'extremes of license, and th'extremes of power.
Your realm to parcel into petty States?
Shall lordly Hudson part contending powers,
And broad Potomac lave two hostile shores?
Must Alleghany's sacred summits bear
The impious bulwarks of perpetual war?—
His hundred streams receive your heroes slain,
And bear your sons inglorious to the main?
Will States cement, by feebler bonds allied,
Or join more closely, as they more divide?
Will this vain scheme bid restless factions cease,
Check foreign wars, or fix internal peace?—
Call public credit from her grave to rise,
Or gain in grandeur what they lose in size?
In this weak realm, can countless kingdoms start,
Strong with new force, in each divided part—
While empire's head, dissected into four,
Gains life by severance of diminish'd power?
So, when the philosophic hand divides
The full-grown polypus, in genial tides,
Each severed part, infused with latent life,
Acquires new vigor from the friendly knife;
O'er peopled sands the puny insects creep,
Till the next wave absorbs them in the deep.
From these lov'd regions, to her native sky?
She fixed her feet beyond the watery waste;
Her docile sons (enough of power resign'd,
And natural rights in social leagues combin'd)
In virtue firm, though jealous in her cause,
Gave Senates force, and energy to laws;
From ancient habit, local powers obey,
Yet feel no reverence for one general sway;
For breach of faith, no keen compulsion feel,
And find no interest in the federal weal.
But know, ye favor'd race, one potent head
Must rule your States, and strike your foes with dread,
The finance regulate, the trade control,
Live through the empire, and accord the whole.
Through ruined realms the voice of Union calls;
Loud as the trump of heaven through darkness roars,
When gyral gusts entomb Caribbean towers—
When nature trembles, through the deeps convuls'd,
And ocean foams, from craggy cliffs repuls'd;
On you she calls! attend the warning cry:
“Ye Live United, or Divided Die!”
Lieutenant-Colonel John Laurens joined the army in 1777, from which time he was foremost in danger. In opposing a foraging party of the British, near Combahee River, in South Carolina, on the seventeenth of April, 1782, he was mortally wounded, and died at the age of twenty-six years.
Major-General Joseph Warren was the first victim of rank that fell in the struggle of the Colonies with Great Britain. He received his commission in the army four days previous to the battle of Bunker Hill. When the intrenchments were made upon the fatal spot, he, to encourage the men within the lines, went down from Cambridge, and joined them, as a volunteer, on the eventful day of the battle, the seventeenth of June. Just as the retreat commenced, a ball struck him on the head, and he died in the trenches, aged thirty-five years.
Brigadier-General Hugh Mercer, a native of Scotland, served, under Washington, in the war against the French and Indians, which terminated in 1763. In the battle of Princeton, January 3, 1777, he commanded the van of the American army, composed principally of southern militia; and while gallantly exerting himself to rally them, received three wounds from a bayonet, from the effects of which he died, on the nineteenth of January.
Major-General Richard Montgomery, a native of Ireland, took command of the northern detachment of the Continental forces, in the fall of 1775. He succeeded in reducing Fort Chambree, and on the third of November captured St. John's. On the twelfth, he took Quebec. The city was besieged, and Montgomery, in the midst of a heavy fall of snow, advanced, at the head of the New York troops, along the St. Lawrence; and having assisted, with his own hands, in pulling up the pickets which obstructed his approach to one of the barriers that he was determined to force, he was pushing forward, when one of the guns of the battery was discharged, and he was killed, with two of his aids. This was the only gun that was fired, for the enemy had been struck with consternation, and all but one or two had fled. Montgomery was thirty-eight years of age.
Referring to the emission of Paper Money, a depreciated currency authorized by the Legislatures of Rhode Island and several other States. See Appendix, B.
The history of Poland, political and religious, is one of the most sorrowful in all the annals of the Papal States of the Old World. For centuries this land has been the scene of intestine and desolating war. Possessing neither a monarchical, oligarchical, nor yet a republican form of government, the throne has, from time immemorial, been usurped by force, and the assumed right to reign been contested, by sectional candidates and by adventurers, at the point of the sword; while the victorious generals and leaders have almost invariably waded to the throne through the blood of the nation.
AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES.—No. XI.
EXTRACT FROM THE ANARCHIAD, BOOK XVII.
THE LAND OF ANNIHILATION.
The critics are agreed that the intervention of gods, demons, and other supernatural agents, is absolutely necessary in epic poetry. The works of Homer, Virgil, and Milton, are indebted to this machinery for their brightest ornaments. But the Pagan system has been long explored; imitation has become trite and servile, and truth and reality, on such a subject, afford little assistance to poetic invention. Hence many eminent writers have recommended to the moderns to introduce some new kind of machinery, or to embellish their heroic poems by the agency of superior beings; borrowing from the mythology of India, or the wilder visions of the Goths.
The ideas of rude nations and enlightened ages concerning the future state and the inhabitants of another world, however erroneous in truth and theory, are replete with sublimity and horror. The hell of the Gothic bards is peopled with aerial beings, conceived by the boldest efforts of a terrified imagination; nor is there less sublimity in the extravagant inventions of the Shastah. Pictures of this kind, drawn by the
The society of critics and antiquarians have successfully deciphered the Seventeenth Book of The Anarchiad, in which the poet makes a descent into the infernal regions. It is curious to observe how closely he has been followed (as, indeed, might naturally be expected) by Homer, Virgil, and their successors in modern ages. The philosophical cause which has led all poets into those regions, we shall not attempt to investigate. The following extract is more excellent in its plan, and has suffered less from the hands of imitators. The Land of Annihilation, described in so picturesque a manner, is a valuable addition to the subterranean geography; but the theory of a race of beings, properly the denizens of that country, who, after having mixed, undistinguished, with mankind, and performed all human functions, then returned to their primitive nihility, might pass for a burlesque, if it were not found in so serious a performance.
And floods sulphureous whelm the vales of hell;
Where Naiad furies, yelling as they lave,
In fiery eddies roll the turbid wave:
The dubious bounds of nature, space, and time;
A realm extends its unessential gloom,
The vast creation's universal tomb!
There no fair suns emblaze the courts on high,
Nor moon, nor starry fires, the evening sky;
No matin clouds in ether hang their sails,
Nor moving spirit wakes the vernal gales;
But endless twilight, with a feeble ray,
Browns the dim horrors of the dusky day;
And silence, sameness, and eternal shade,
Th'unbounded wild inanity pervade.
The peerless power, Annihilation, reigns!
Eldest of fiends! whose uncreating breath
Peoples the shores of darkness and of death;
Down the deep gulf's absorbing vortex whirl'd,
Sink the vain splendors of each upper world;
Ambition's toils, the statesman's gloried name,
The hero's triumph, and the poet's fame;
Insatiate throngs, who, fired with the lust of gain,
Rive the firm earth, and force the faithless main;
Here, lulled to rest, eternal stillness keep,
And curtain'd close in dead oblivion, sleep.
His stern commands ten thousand demons wait;
To tread out empires, and to quench the stars;
Extinguish'd worlds in delug'd fires to lave—
Sweep ruin'd systems to a common grave;
Exterminate existence, and restore
The vanquish'd vacuum to the tyrant's power.
The vassal throng to desolating deeds;
But far beneath them spreads a junior fry—
The pigmy populace of the nether sky;
With feeble powers, for petty toils design'd,
Their humble province is to plague mankind,
Pervade the world, excite all mortal strife,
Inspire the wrongs, and blast the joys, of life.
Incarnate imps, and veiled in human guise;
Like man appear in stature, shape, and face—
Mix, undistinguished, with the common race;
Fill every rank, in each profession blend,
Power all their aim, and ruin all their end.
With deadly art pursues the healing trade—
The lancet wield, prescribe the poisonous pill,
Invent the nostrum, and, unlicensed, kill;
O'erload the stygian bark with frequent freight,
And crowd with angry ghosts the realm of fate.
Some vent their dogmas in the house of prayer;
With pious cant, or persecution's flame,
To vilest ends abuse each sacred name;
On rites and forms, with zeal eternal dwell,
Ope heaven for self, and doom the rest to hell:
To banish blest religion, all agree,
A work, O, Murray! fate reserves for thee!
The demon lurks beneath the lawyer's gown;
Confounds all right, and, arrogant in lies,
Spreads a dark mist before the judge's eyes;
Less dangerous thief, who, limited by fate,
Leave soul and body free, and ruin but th'estate.
Who seek on earth the politician's name;
Auspicious race! whom folly joys to bless,
And wealth and honor crown with glad success;
Formed, like balloons, by emptiness to rise
On pop'lar gales, to waft them through the skies,
In wond'ring air the fog-born meteors stand,
And shine the Wimbles of th'applauding land.
And, lo! th'expected scene advances near—
The promised age, the fiends' millennial year!
At that famed era, raised by angry fates,
See, from the shades, on tiny pinions swell
And rise, the young Democracy of hell!
Before their face the powers of Congress fade,
And public credit sinks, an empty shade;
Wild severance rages, wars intestine spread,
Their boasted Union hides her dying head;
The forms of government in ruin hurled,
Reluctant empire quits the western world.
Expert to act, eccentric to devise!
In retrogressive march, what schemes advance!
What vast resources, and what strange finance!
Chimeras sage, with plans commercial fraught,
Sublime abortions of projecting thought!
To paper coin, how copper mints succeed—
How Indian wars in brains prolific breed!
What strength, what firmness, guide the public helm!
How troops disbanded guard the threaten'd realm!
How treaties thrive! and, 'mid the sons of Ham,
The Lybian Lion shrinks before the Lamb!
New modes of taxing spring from Woglog's hands,
And peerless Wimble sells the western lands!
Their task performed; again, by sovereign doom,
The fiend compels them to their native home.
And seeks th'expansion of th'oblivious pool—
From all the clime th'innumerable crowd
Float, half-embosom'd in the genial flood;
Down the dark deep, in friendly union, flows
Tweedle's soft verse, and Copper's sounding prose;
Light Commutation, dancing on the wave
With federal Impost, finds the eternal grave;
Like bubble bright, the nation's glory rides,
And Acts of Congress load the downward tides;
By Collins steered, Rhode Island joins the train,
With all things else as transient, vile, and vain.
The coming heroes of the illustrious race;
When Wrongheads' steps shall seek their natal shore,
And Night her Blacklegs to his fire restore.
Thither, again, they tend; and there, at last,
Their projects, changes, and elections past,
Wimble shall turn to froth, to Bubo Zack;
Ben change to Copper; Woglog end in Quack:
From shade to shade, from nought to nought, decoyed,
All center whence they sprang—in one eternal void.
AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES.—No. XII.
EXTRACT FROM THE ANARCHIAD, BOOK XVII.
THE REGION OF PREEXISTENT SPIRITS.
The flattering attention of the public has engaged the society of critics and antiquarians to give some further extracts from the same Book which concludes with the description of “The Land of Annihilation.” In his progress through the shades, the Bard is attended by an ancient seer, the Merlin of the West, who explains to him the nature of the country, and the character of its inhabitants. The history of their travels is very entertaining. The account of the various regions and circles into which the Subterranean World is divided, has in many parts been copied by the famous Italian poet, Dante, in his “Inferno.” The American bard seems to have been the first who entered the Region of Preexistent Spirits, which has since been explored by the celebrated voyager, Ænas, whose observations may be found in the Sixth Book of Virgil; and notwithstanding our author made his visit at a much earlier period, his relation appears to be equally curious and authentic. That part of the Book which we shall now transcribe, contains the description of many
Down the low shores of Erebus and Death—
When, through th'obscure they saw the glim'ring glades
'Twixt Orcus central, and th'Elysian shades:
As hov'ring dreams the slumb'ring eye assail,
Unnumber'd phantoms flit among the vale;
And sounds as vague and hollow meet the ear,
As startled fancy hears, or seems to hear,
What time the mourner, through the midnight gloom,
Sees shadowy spectres issuing from the tomb:
The unreal forms the bard, astonish'd, eyed,
And ask'd the wonder from the friendly guide.
The vagrant hordes of preexistent ghosts—
Elect for earth, and destined to be born
When time's slow course shall wake the natal morn:
Approach and view, in this, their embryo home,
Wits, poets, chiefs, and sages yet to come.
Absorb'd in thought, of conscious learning proud,
Who, rapt with foretaste of their glorious day,
Now seiz'd the pen, impatient of delay:
These shades shall late in Europe's clime arise,
And scan new worlds with philosophic eyes:
Immured at home, in rambling fancy brave,
Explore all lands beyond th'Atlantic wave;
Of laws for unknown realms invent new codes,
Write natural histories for their antipodes;
Tell how th'enfeebled powers of life decay,
Where falling suns defraud the western day;
Paint the dank, steril globe, accurst by fate,
Created, lost, or stolen from ocean late;
See vegetation, man, and bird, and beast,
Just by the distance' squares in size decreased;
See mountain pines to dwarfish reeds descend,
Aspiring oaks in pigmy shrub oaks end;—
The heaven-topp'd Andes sink a humble hill,—
Sea-like Potomac run a tinkling rill;—
Columbian turkeys turn European flies;—
Exotic birds, and foreign beasts, grow small,
And man, the lordliest, shrink to least of all:
While each vain whim their loaded skulls conceive
Whole realms shall reverence, and all fools believe.
In passing farther, the seer points out the father of this system, in the soul of the famous Abbe de Pau, who was then busied in prying into futurity, by the aid of a philosophic telescope, calculated to diminish all objects, according to the squares of the distances, as has been hinted. And thus continues the prediction:
All nature lessening to the sage De Pau;
E'en now his head the cleric tonsures grace,
And all the abbe blossoms in his face;
His peerless pen shall raise, with magic lore,
The long-lost pigmies on th'Atlantic shore;
Make niggard nature's noblest gifts decline
Th'indicial marks of bodies masculine;
Nor seek the proof of those who best can tell
The well-taught duchess, and Parisian belle.
He then points out the Compte de Buffon, the Abbe Raynal, Dr. Robertson, and the whole train of imitators, attendant on their master, imbibing learning and wisdom from his lips, and preparing, in the future world, even, to excel their instructor.
Rush, with blind fury, o'er th'Atlantic tide;
He lifts, in wrath, his plague-compelling wand,
And deadly murrain blasts the fated land:
His parent call awakes the insect train—
Gnats cloud the skies, and ants devour the plain;
Thick swarming frogs attend his magic voice—
Rods change to serpents, and the dust to lice.
Here the seer took occasion to inform the bard how remarkable some of his own countrymen would become, for being the humble copyists and echoes of these transatlantic imitators; and particularly, that a great [Morris] should arise in process of time, who, never having enjoyed, the superior advantage of perusing that astonishing work of genius, The Anarchiad, or any other American poem, should dogmatically decide, in his capacity of Senator, that America never had
By mammon taught, in shillings, pounds, and pence,
In Philadelphia's happy soil, shall claim
Gold for his God, and [Morris] for his name;
With purse-proud wit, and Senatorial rank,
His critic talents glowing from the bank;
From famed Raynal's wise labors, shall declare,
That not one poet breathes Columbian air!
Shall take their cue from dictatorial France;
But, like sincere allies, each needy friend
Shall sometimes borrow lies, and sometimes lend.
The envious Burke denied that road to fame;
Stars, ribbands, mantles, crowding on his brain,
“Blows the loud trump!” and calls the jealous train;
Fills gaping herds with visionary fears
Of landless nobles, and of penceless peers;
From social rites, and charity, debars
The unpaid veterans of successful wars—
Proscribes all worth, by ostracising doom,
To death or exile, as in Greece or Rome;
While safe himself, he boasts a strong defense,
Clear from the crime of merit or of sense.
And write, like him, as man ne'er wrote before;
Grave Demeunier, with borrowed tales, and weak,
Th'encyclopedias' endless tomes shall eke—
Assert with falsehood, and with froth disclaim,
Forebode the issues, and foresee the aim;
Through time's dark vale, the plans of fate explore,
As old Tiresias, favor'd of the skies,
Gain'd gifts oracular by the loss of eyes.
From these worthies he makes an easy transition to the shade of the redoubtable Comte Mirabeau, who, having lately emerged from the Basille, has employed his tremendous pen on “the Cincinnati,” “the Navigation of the Scheldt,” “the Waterworks of Paris,” “the projected Bank of St. Charles, in Spain,” and innumerable other knotty points: in some of which he has been seconded, and in others, opposed, by his brother in scribbling and the Bastile, the perjured Linguet. It appears that the family of the Mirabeaus were predestined to be imfamous for unnatural vices. The father of the present comte was distinguished, in Paris, by the title of omi des hommes, (the lover of mankind.) The seer points out these characters, and relates the result of a council concerning their future destiny, in the following manner:
And people Sodom with the dregs of hell,
Great was the doubt, and great the learn'd debates,
Through the grand conclave of th'infernal States,
With that vile crew, if these should rise to earth,
Or future Europe better claim'd their birth;
The latter vote prevail'd; on this dark stage
Each incubus awaits the destined age;
Then shall their souls to human forms advance,
And spring to light the Mirabeaus of France.
The younger shades, for mental toils designed,
Profuse of lies, and obstinate in ill,
On every theme shall try his gall-dipt quill:
In Burke's proud steps shall equal honors claim,
A learn'd associate of Demeunier's fame.
The next group of souls who pass in review, consists of those wise civilians who have generously wasted such fountains of ink in endeavoring to instruct poor America in her own history and politics. The Abby Mably is mentioned with particular respect. Nor is a just tribute of praise denied to the modest Target, who, supposing that no laws existed in the United States, and that the people were incapable of devising any system, humanely proposed to Congress to supply that deficiency, and furnish a code for the use of the empire. The seer, on beholding his shade, thus apostrophizes:
Ye grand inspirers of the wits of France!
On blest Target exhaust your utmost power;
Shower all your gifts, and lavish all your store!
I see him, tow'ring 'mid th'applauding throng,
Pomp in his air, and bluster on his tongue;
Wave-dangling far, his wig-official curl'd—
A sign of sapience, to the western world.
A self-made Solon for the rising States.
In the next department appear the souls of those European historians and biographers who have amused their readers with many fairy tales, the scenes of which they have had the complaisance to lay in America. We are sorry the length of this number prevents our enlarging upon this part of the Book. The seer enters into a detail of their falsehoods, with great accuracy and minuteness; and even condescends to notice the history of Connecticut, invented by Parson Peters, the fag-end man of M'Fingal. But he pays particular attention to the great genius of D'Auberteul, who has so ably displayed his creative talents in embellishing the late American revolution; describing the manner of cutting up the crown into thirteen pieces, and sending it to the several States; and giving the interesting novel of the amours of General Washington; with a great variety of particulars, equally true and instructive. He concludes with the following sublime address to his shade, which has been closely copied by Pope, in one of his smaller poems:
Oh spring to light! auspicious sage, be born!
The new-found world shall all your cares engage;
The promised lyre of the future age.
No more shall glory gild the hero's name,
Nor envy sicken at the deeds of fame;
Nor radiant truth the historic page inspire;
But lost, dissolved in thy superior shade,
One tide of falsehood o'er the world be spread;
In wit's light robe shall gaudy fiction shine,
And all be lies, as in a work of thine.
Thus said that distinguished litterateur of France, M. Raynal, in 1774, in these words: “On dolt etre etonne que l' Amerique n' ait pas encore produit un bon poete, un habile mathematicien, une homme de genie, dans un seul art, ou une seule science.” 7 Hist. Phil. pa. 92 ed. Maestricht. To which, a writer in the New Haven Gazette of May 8, 1787, says: “When we shall have existed, as a people, as long as the Greeks did before they produced a Homer, the Romans a Virgil, the French a Racine and Voltaire, the English a Shakspeare and Milton, should the reproach prove true, we will enquire from what unfriendly causes it has proceeded that America has not inscribed any name in the roll of poets. In war we have produced a Washington, whose memory will be adored while liberty shall have votaries, whose name will triumph over time, and will, in future ages, assume its just station among the most celebrated worthies of the world. In physics we have produced a Franklin, than whom, no one of the present age has made more important discoveries. In astronomy we have Rittenhouse, who, we suppose, is second to no astronomer living.” But M. Raynal was not the only Frenchman who had traduced the genius of America. Years previous, the Count de Buffon, in the National Academy of Science, had advanced the theory of the tendency of nature to belittle her productions on the opposite side of the Atlantic. M. Pau, also another eminent savant of the French Academy, had endorsed this proposition. While in Scotland, Dr. Robertson had published a “History of America,” which appeared to have for its especial mission the disparagement of the country, and abounded in deprecatory allusions to the American people.
The New York Daily Advertiser having reported, in its issue of March 18th, that the Hon. Robert Morris, of the upper house of the Pennsylvania Legislature, had traduced American genius, in the Assembly of that State, by endorsing the assertion of M. Raynal, (see page 72,) a correspondent, in a later issue, undertakes “to review the matter with candor.” He refers to a “celebrated poet who is supposed by many to possess a genius equal to Swift, with the superior advantage of a much chaster pen, and more philanthropic spirit. This writer's ‘M'Fingal’ hath been published in Europe, and received with applause. The author is John Trumbull, Esq., of Hartford. The ‘Vision of Columbus,’ [since revised and reconstructed, and now called ‘The Columbiad,’] by Mr. Barlow, of Connecticut, is also said to be a work of great poetic merit. Not confining ourselves simply to poetry, we might mention, with exultation, that animated and elegant historical performance of the revolution, a ‘History of South Carolina,’ by the American, Robertson. This rich soil of freedom, which has already given to the world a crowd of heroes, doubtless will produce a luxuriant growth, and quick succession of fine poets, profound philosophers, and eminent statesmen—some just bursting forth into light, while others are shooting up to the highest eminence of fame, as yet attained to by none.”
These words occur in Edmund Burke's pamphlet put forth against the Order of the Cincinnati, (see page 87, note.) The outcry raised against this Order, in America, was presently reechoed from Europe, where hereditary aristocracies were losing their popularity. Besides Burke, in England, the afterwards so celebrated Mirabeau, of France, then well known as a writer, sent forth a pamphlet against it; as also did Linguet, and many others.
DISTURBANCES IN NEW ENGLAND—THE SHAYS REBELLION.
In the month of September, 1786, a Convention of the people of Maine was sitting at Portland, to consider the expediency of forming themselves into an independent State. This, however, was but a trifle, compared with the disturbances which now began to appear in the southern and western counties of Massachusetts. The General Court had voted customs and excise duties, producing a revenue sufficient to meet the interest on the State debt; but it was necessary, also, to meet the indebtedness of the principal, and to make some response to the repeated requisitions of Congress. As the annual State tax amounted to near a million of dollars, many of the farmers had fallen behind in their payments. They were also encumbered with private debts, to which last, costs were added. A multitude of suits were pending in all the courts; County Conventions, called to complain of grievances, had been followed, in Worcester and the counties west of it, by armed mobs, which prevented the courts from sitting. The real difficulty seemed to have been, the poverty and exhaustion of the
The Gazette of Sept. 14th, gives the following, as “late intelligence from Massachusetts:”
We hear from Massachusetts, that the public attention is much excited by the discontents which are prevailing in that State. Conventions have been formed for the purpose of redressing the supposed grievances of the people. The week past, about four hundred men assembled at Northampton, and prevented the sitting of the Court of Common Pleas. From what we can learn, the following are the causes of their discontent: 1. The sitting of the General Court in Boston; 2. The abuses in the practice of the law, and exorbitancy of the fee table; 3. The existence of the Common Pleas and General Sessions, in their present mode of administration; 4. The appropriating the revenue arising from the impost and excise, to the payment of the interest of State securities; 5. The unreasonable and unnecessary grants made by the General Court to the Attorney-General and others; 6. The servants of the government being too numerous, and having too great salaries; 7. The Commonwealth's granting aid, or paying moneys, to Congress, while their accounts remained unsettled; 8. The want of a circulating medium. This last grievance is generally acknowledged in all the States, in a greater or less degree, except in the State of Rhode Island, which seems to be as much distressed by a circulating medium as Massachusetts is for the want of one.
In the same paper is published a proclamation “by His Excellency, James Bowdoin, Esq., Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” setting forth, among other things, that on the 29th day of August, “a large concourse of people from several parts of the county, assembled at the court-house in Northampton, many of whom were armed with guns, swords, and other deadly weapons, and with drums beating and fifes
The condition of things in Massachusetts attracted the very serious attention of Congress. It was feared that the malcontents, who were very numerous in the western part of the State, might seize the arms in the federal arsenal at Springfield, and muster in sufficient force to overturn the government. Congress accordingly voted to enlist thirteen hundred men to sustain Massachusetts in putting down the insurrection in her borders; and a special requisition of half a million of dollars was made upon the States of the Confederacy, to support these troops. But the insurrection broke out before the government soldiers could be mustered. Daniel Shays, of Pelham, a late captain in the Continental army, at the head of a thousand armed men, marched on to Worcester, and effectually prevented the session of the Supreme Court, in that town. (See page 6.) Subsequently, at the head of a smaller number of men, he marched to Springfield, and there prevented the session of the court being held. Likewise at Northampton, the Court of Common Pleas was prevented from holding its usual session.
A letter dated Boston, November 29th, states that “orders have been issued by his excellency, the Commander-in-Chief, for the militia to hold themselves in readiness to march, at the shortest notice. They were in consequence of information received,
Beyond the preventing of the session of the courts, the insurgents do not seem to have had any plan. Governor Bowdoin immediately called out the militia of Massachusetts to the number of four thousand, which troops were placed under the command of General Lincoln. This force, in the midst of one of the severest of winters, marched through Worcester, on their way to Springfield, to relieve General Shepard, who was guarding the federal arsenal there, at the head of a small body of western militia. The insurgents had now assembled, at this point, to the number of about two thousand, in three bodies, under Shays, Luke Day, of West Springfield; Adam Wheeler, of Hubbardston; and Eli Parsons, of Adams. The former, having demanded possession of the federal arsenal, approached from Wilbraham, to take it. General Shepard, with great promptness, brought his small ordnance to bear upon the advancing column of the insurgents, and, when they persisted in approaching, he gave the order to fire. The first discharge was purposely directed over their heads; and when the pieces were leveled at their ranks, a cry of murder arose from those in advance, who broke the ranks, and fled in dismay, leaving three of their comrades dead upon the field. The insurgents, receiving information of the approach of General Lincoln with reinforcements, hastily retreated, in the direction
To the Hon. Major-General Lincoln:
Sir:—Unwilling to be any way accessory to the shedding of blood, and greatly desirous of restoring peace and harmony to this convulsed Commonwealth, we propose that all the troops on the part of government be disbanded immediately, and that all and every person who has been acting, or any way aiding or assisting in any of the late risings of the people, may be indemnified in their person and property, until the setting of the next General Court; and no person be taken, molested, or injured, on account of the above said risings of the people, until a fair opportunity can be had for a hearing in the next General Court, respecting the matters of complaints of the people; and that all matters rest as they are in all parts, until that time, and all the persons that have been taken on the part of government, be released without punishment. The above conditions to be made sure by Proclamation, issued by his Excellency the Governor: On which conditions, the people now in arms, in defense of their lives and liberties, will quietly return to their respective habitations, patiently hoping and waiting for constitutional relief from the insupportable burdens they now labor under.
DANIEL SHAYS. Per order Daniel Gray, Chairman. Wilbraham, Jan. 25, 1787.But General Lincoln had no authority to conclude a treaty
The General Court having been called together on the 30th of February, a declaration of rebellion was put forth, and money was voted, with additional troops to supply the place of Lincoln's men, whose term of enlistment would soon expire. The border States were also called upon to assist in arresting and dispersing the insurgents, some of whom lurked in their extreme towns, from whence they made predatory excursions into Massachusetts, and often kidnapped and carried off with them the more prominent friends of government and order. The States of New Hampshire, New York, and Connecticut, promptly complied with the request of Massachusetts; but Rhode Island and Vermont were more backward. Governor Collins, of the former State, in reply to the letter of Governor Bowdoin, requesting that the fugitives who were deeply concerned in the rebellion might be given up, according to the articles of confederation, replied, that “in consequence of the misconduct of the postmaster, your letter has but just been opened, in the upper house, and I sent it to the lower house,
And thus ended the Shays rebellion.
PAPER MONEY.
At the close of the war of our Revolution, it was found that a large proportion of the wealthy men of the Colonial times had been extirpated; while another part had become impoverished by the war. A new moneyed class had sprung up in their places, especially in the eastern States. These were principally individuals who had suddenly acquired their possessions by engaging in privateering, and by speculations in the fluctuating paper money which abounded during the war. At the same time, large claims against their less fortunate neighbors had accumulated in the hands of these men, many of whom seemed disposed to press their legal rights to the utmost. The sudden fortunes realized by the war had introduced a spirit of luxury into the maritime towns; and even the tastes and manners of the inhabitants of the rural districts had in a measure become tainted by the effects of military services, in which a large proportion of the male population had been more or less engaged. From various causes, the commnnity was fast becoming divided into two embittered factions of creditors and debtors. The certificates of the public debt, parted with at a great discount, by the officers of the late army, and others to whom they had been given, were fast accumulating in the hands of a few speculators, able to wait until the times should resume their wonted activity. With the examples of the Continental currency before their eyes, an opinion gained ground among the people, oppressed
Pending the passage of this bill, John Jenckes, John Brown, and Thomas Trueman, members of the lower house, put themselves on record as adverse to its passage, stating their objections in detail, and concluding with the following: “Notwithstanding the specious pretenses under which the bill has been introduced, as if it were intended thereby to relieve the distressed, we conceive it to be calculated only to accommodate certain persons, who, being deeply indebted for real estate and other property, purchased under contracts to be paid for in solid coin, and who have now promoted this matter to serve their own private purposes: and although we are ready to unite in any reasonable act to relieve the distressed, we are fully convinced the passing of this bill is not a measure which will have that tendency.”
Subsequently, at the same legislature, an additional act was passed, declaring that if any person should charge for goods or other commodities, a greater price in paper tendry than in specie, such person should forfeit and pay the sum of one hundred pounds, one-half of which sum reverted to the complainant, and the remainder to the State. This law, though similar to that formerly recommended by Congress, to support the credit of the Continental money, was now generally regarded as oppressive and unjust, and obtained for Rhode Island an unenviable notoriety. The bill was virulently opposed
To illustrate the beatific workings of the Rhode Island law, we cite the following statement of affairs in Newport, published about a month after its passage:
The merchants have almost universally shut up stores, and business of every kind is stopped. The country withholds the usual supplies of provision, which distresses principally the sticklers for their iniquitous money, being generally those who are impoverished, or largely in debt, who please themselves with this easy way of being freed from the just demands of their creditors. On Friday, serious riot and disorder prevailed. A number of persons, headed by one Wanton and one Anthony, insolently demanded that the stores in which corn was lodged, should be opened, and the corn sold for the new emission. One of the merchants, who was a Quaker, was so intimidated by their threats, that he consented. But they were not equally successful in their attempt upon another store; the owners of which resented the demand, and determined to defend their property, upon the risk of their lives. The number which collected to preserve the peace, and to assist in defending the property endangered, was so great, and their passions so justly warmed, that the fate of the ringleaders of the riot hung on the slenderest thread. At length, Mr. Collins, Governor of the State, and two of his council, appeared. He stopped to call away one of the ringleaders of the riot, and went to his house. A council was called. The Governor and civil officers were present. Vigorous steps were thought best, by the majority; but the Governor assured them that he had informed one of the ringleaders that if he again violated the peace, he should exert his utmost authority for the support of the government, and that he replied he might depend upon his peaceable conduct in future. On this, the council arose. Notwithstanding the assurance of this disturber of the peace, he soon after made an unprovoked attack upon one of the persons who had appeared in defense of the property in danger. A number of persons interfered, and the tranquillity of the city continued when our last accounts left them. The same disorder begins to pervade every
The following anecdote, which is related by the Providence Gazette, as occurring in Newport, is illustrative of another phase which the paper money system assumed:
A butcher had sold meat for paper money, till he was no longer able to furnish his stall by means of that medium, and resolved on refusing it. A silversmith demanded to purchase beef for paper, and a young man who had charge of the stall in the absence of the butcher, said his orders were to sell for hard money, only. The former persisted, weighed off a lot, and tendered paper; but the man refusing to receive it, the beef was carried off. The butcher, on returning to his stall, was informed of the circumstance, and immediately repaired to the shop of his paper money customer, who, being absent, he laid out a number of articles, the prices of which were ascertained by a person who attended the shop. The silversmith soon after arrived, and acquainted the butcher that he had lodged complaints against him for violating the good and wholesome laws of the State, by refusing to receive paper money for beef. The latter assured him he was sorry for the occasion: had he been present the paper money would probably have been received; and proposed a compromise. The former replied that it was too late, and that the laws must have their course. The butcher then said he had laid aside sundry articles of silver ware, amounting to about six pounds, for which, the paper was laid down. The silversmith, now, in his turn, declined receiving it, alleging that because his stock had cost him silver, he must have half the sum in hard money. The butcher replied that his stock of beef had also cost silver; and, after some altercation, carried off the articles, leaving the silversmith to reflect on the consistency of his conduct. The knight of the cleaver, in his turn, entered a complaint; and the silversmith is about to commence a suit against him: so that the affair is likely to produce business for the gentlemen of the law.
Upon the passage of the bill for the new emission, much dissatisfaction began to be expressed by holders of the latest emission of the Continental paper, which was then considered as little better than worthless. Many of these “promises to pay” were held by citizens of the neighboring States; and not a small amount of the same was in the hands of Massachusetts men. A correspondent of the Sentinel thus writes:
A citizen of Massachusetts wishes to be informed whether the Legislature of Rhode Island have made the continental new emission which was issued by that State, a tender equally with the emission they are about to issue; if they have not, the other States will justly consider them as cheats, traitors to the nation, public robbers, and armed plunderers of their neighbors. It is hoped by every friend of America, that the wicked folly of Rhode Island may be a warning to all the other States to avoid the dangerous plan of paper money.
About the time of the passage of the Rhode Island bill, a similar enactment passed the legislature of New York. The following extract, referring to this act, is from a letter dated at New York city, April 19th, 1786, and addressed to a gentleman in Philadelphia:
The paper money bill is passed, making it a legal tender in all cases of prosecution—an inducement for people to refuse paying their debts, which many imagine was not altogether necessary. This operates as a general obstruction to business, which will not only prevent people fatiguing themselves too much, but will liberalize men's notions of property, and, in time, may bring back the apostolic practice of having all things in common. It will also take off our hearts and lessen our affections for this transitory world, the fashion whereof changeth; and further, verifies the proverb, that “riches take to themselves wings and flee away;” and shows the particular pertinence of the wise man's question, “What good bath a man of all the labor wherewith he laboreth under the sun?”
In a letter dated Philadelphia, April 12th, 1786, the writer says:
A few days ago a vessel arrived at this city, from New York, with a cargo of wheat for sale, driven from that port by the dread of paper money, and attracted to Philadelphia by the solid coin of the Bank of North America.
Never did a more favorable opportunity present itself to the State of Pennsylvania to enrich herself at the folly and inconsistency of her sister States. Should Maryland and Delaware issue paper money, agreeable to the wishes of the lazy and involved of their citizens, and Pennsylvania call in, by taxes, all her late paper emissions, there can be no doubt but that Philadelphia will soon become the Amsterdam of the United States. Before the emission of our present paper currency, the Bank of North America was the reservoir of the greatest part of the specie in the country.
The friends of the paper money may be reduced to the following classes: 1st, debtors; 2d, speculators; and 3d, brokers: —while its enemies are all honest lawyers, doctors, parsons, merchants, and farmers.
The annexed “Price Current of the Paper Emissions in the different States, August 19, 1786,” is reported by Jacques La Blanch, “two doors east of the cells:”
Pennsylvania Paper, 10 per cent. discount.New Jersey Paper, 15 per cent. discount.
New York Paper, (counterfeit.)
Rogues' Island Paper, 500 per cent. discount.
North Carolina Paper, 50 per cent. discount.
South Carolina Paper, 20 to 25 per cent. discount.
The subjoined is a fair specimen of the many repinings given vent to through the newspapers, at this time:
The period of the late war was considered as the paper age of this country. We were told that it was to be succeeded by a golden one, after the peace. But, alas! peace is arrived, and the paper age,—or as it might be more properly called, the paper rage,—still remains.
Connecticut, fortunately, and to her credit let it be said, never for a moment contemplated entering upon the magnificent scheme inaugurated by her less thoughtful and more enterprising neighbors. A gentleman writing from Hartford, under date of June 12th, 1786, says: “Our legislature has not been knavish enough to adopt that pernicious principle which prevails, in our neighboring legislatures, of placing private debts on a footing different from what the parties intended at the contract. A tendry law—a law which infringes every rule of justice, and annihilates every security in society—a law against which the vassals of an European despot would rise in rebellion—has yet no existence in Connecticut. We only regret that a measure of this kind, which has placed New York, Rhode Island and New Jersey, on a level with the worst tyrants in monarchies, had not fewer promoters and abettors in our legislature.”
As Connecticut, therefore, was wholly free from any participation in the paper money scheme, her citizens could well afford to look with complacency upon the tumult and turmoil their neighbors had by their own free will and act brought home to their doors; and her poets and wits did not fail to make the misfortunes of their brethren abroad the subjects of many a good-natured reprimand, and of innocent burlesque.
In some “New Year's Verses” printed in the American Mercury, at Hartford, for January 1, 1787, the following allusion is made to the paper currency:
Then, too, your politicians oldTurn rags, by tons, to solid gold;
Till artists, scarcely at the halves,
Would fashion them to molten calves:
While all the jacktars at the oar,
With all the knaves and fools ashore,
To keep these gods upon the hough—
Till their own saints before 'em fall,
As once the Jews bow'd down to Baal.
The “Subaltern,” an “old friend” of the printer of the Gazette, informs the latter that a petition is preparing to be presented to his Excellency, the Governor, to convene the legislature for the express purpose of emitting paper money; and as the expense of paper, printing, and signing, would be considerable, the Gazette's correspondent, in order to save the costs attending the convening of the legislature, submits the following, as the outlines of such an act:
Whereas Peter Blacklegs and his associates, inhabitants of the State of Connecticut, have ever lived as nearly obedient to the laws of the land as was absolutely necessary to keep them from the whipping-post and pillory; and have been at more pains to obtain property by indirect means, than it has cost others by fair, open and direct ones, to get rich: and they having once been loaded with debts, which, by the laws, they were nearly being forced to pay; when, fortunately for them, the late war occurred, and paper money was plenty, they paid their creditors in a depreciated paper, which was worth nearly one-twentieth of the solid property for which they were in debt. Being by this fortunate event made easy in their circumstances, they have ever since been cabaling for the good of the public, as in meeting at taverns to increase the revenue by the consumption of excisable articles, and watching for opportunities to obtain new credits, till they have again become largely in debt to a set of men who have no merit but that of being industrious, enterprising, and honest, and who are now so unjust, impertinent, and daring, as to bring actions for the recovery thereof.
Be it enacted, &c., That the said Peter Blacklegs and his associates be, and are hereby exonerated from all claims, debts, dues and demands, either of a public or private nature; and all suits now pending against them are hereby stayed. And to the end that no subject of the State may hereafter be
The Boston Daily Advertiser, about a week later, published the annexed startling “piece of information,” for the benefit of “all whom it may concern:”
To all Little Rogues and Great Blockheads.—The following alarming intelligence is communicated for their information and caution. A dangerous plot is on foot for a combination of all the wicked wits in every State throughout America. Their plan is, the moment they catch a little rogue in his tricks, to hold him there, call all the world to see and deride him, and then whip him as severely as the surgeons shall think he can bear, and live. A blockhead whose skin is too thick to feel the rod, is to be dressed in an ass's skin, with large ears pending from his head, and to be publicly paraded, in this manner, on a wooden horse, through the principal town of the State he dwells in. Should such a child of turpitude be discovered, as a little rogue and great blockhead united in one person, on a signal given, the wretch is to be made to run the gauntlet, and be severely whipped through the whole continent. In the neighboring State of Connecticut, they have already taken hold of one Peter Blacklegs, a great dealer in paper money; and it is thought not unlikely but they will whip him to death before they have done with him; as they appear inclined to show no mercy to him; to the great terror of little rogues, who have been used to plead public good, to cover their purposes, and are now constantly in bodily fear of the cat of nine tails, or jackass skin and wooden horse.
The Gazette, through the month of October, 1786, published the following
Proposals for printing, by subscription, as soon as a sufficient number of subscribers shall appear, to defray all expenses and clear the editor two thousand pounds, a new edition of PAPER MONEY, upon the following plan: It will be printed on thick paper, that it may be easily divided, one bill into two, which will be very profitable. The device, on one side, will be, Dr. Faustus paying the devil for the “black art,” in paper money: in the devil's mouth, these words, “Cursedly bit, by G---!” On the reverse, the devil tendering his paper money to the States of New York and Rhode Island, for the debt he owes them for not granting the impost. In his mouth, these words, “Gage de mon amor”—[token of my love]—the States accepting the money, for fear of offending their tutelar deity. The price, to subscribers, will be four shillings per dozen, the first month; eight, the second; and will rise proportionally, as it is to appreciate five per cent, per month.
N. B.—Subscribers are desired to send in their names before the millennium commences, because then all fraud is to cease; whereas the present plan is to cheat everybody.
Belphegor Copperplate.Some six months later, Mr. Copperplate communicates with the well-wishers of paper money, in the subjoined advertisement:
The well-wishers of PAPER MONEY are now respectfully informed that the subscriber has on hand, and is prepared to furnish them with any description of paper bills they shall choose, from the smallest cents [It is difficult to determine whether the word is cents or sense in the manuscript] of Congress, up to the federal American eagle. As the device upon the bills was new, great pains was taken to have it well engraved; as, in all probability, this will be the last time the devil's image will be stamped upon Connecticut copper. The editor presumes this circumstance will meet with universal approbation. He is, however, very sorry to inform the public that the engraver was guilty of a small mistake, and that was, in not placing the right head upon one of the devils; and it
The following treatise on paper money, which we find in the Gazette, will, we doubt not, prove generally acceptable, on account of its brevity. It is said to have been the production of a Dutch farmer:
Money IS MONEY—AND—PAPER IS PAPER.
But notwithstanding all that was said against the issue of paper money, even those States which discarded the plan as disreputable and dishonest, were far from enjoying a sound currency. The excessive importation of foreign goods had drained the country of specie. The circulating medium consisted principally of treasury orders on the State tax collectors, and depreciated certificates of State and federal debt. Even among those in favor of meeting the public liabilities by taxation, there was a lack of agreement as to the way in which taxes should be raised. The unlimited importation of foreign goods, and the consequent pressure upon domestic manufacturers, had diminished, to a considerable extent, the old prejudice against custom duties. A party had sprung up, in favor of raising a large part of the public debt in that way, thus reviving the old Colonial schemes for the protection of domestic industry by duties upon foreign goods. This, however, was opposed by merchants, as injurious to their interests. And while there was this confliction of opinions as to which was the better method, another and a large party were dissatisfied with either.
THE HON. WILLIAM WILLIAMS.
As the nickname of William Wimble so frequently occurs in The Anarchiad, it seems proper that some mention should be made of the personage burlesqued under this name, and of the causes which prompted our poets and wits to hold him up to the public gaze as an especial object of ridicule, and of their undisguised contempt; the political inconsistencies which were charged upon him; and some account of the Wimble controversy;—all of which should be fairly understood, in order properly to appreciate the numerous satires directed against him.
Without entering into a detailed and unimportant narration of the early history and private life of Mr. Williams, it will suffice our purpose to say, that at different periods in a long term of political service, he held numerous offices of honor and trust in the gift of the people.
Besides having been, for a number of years, a Judge of the Windham County Court, Mr. Williams represented the State, for one term, at the federal capitol. He also occupied, for several successive years, a seat in the upper house of the Connecticut Legislature.
His politics appears originally to have been strongly tainted with toryism; though at a later period of his life he established himself ostensibly upon the platform of the Democratic party. He was virulently opposed, in common
Mr. Williams was a Senator in the Connecticut Legislature, in 1786, and at that session, was among “the gentlemen nominated by the votes of the freemen, to stand for election” the following year, “as sent in to the General Assembly.”
With a patriotic desire of aiding his party in the approaching election, and at the same time to brighten the prospect of being able to secure the seat to which he had been nominated, Mr. Williams, in the month of April, 1786, transmitted by private conveyance, a political document or “Address,” to his friend and political partner, Joseph Hopkins, Esq., of Waterbury, desiring him to examine said address, and, if its contents met with his approval, Mr. Hopkins was requested to correct the manuscript for the printer, and to dispatch it forthwith to New Haven and Litchfield for publication in the organs of the Democratic party in each of said counties. Mr. Williams earnestly desired that his address should be printed “before the next freeman's meeting shall be held, which will be in about two months.”
This address, (to which was appended the signature, “Agricola,”) together with a letter of instructions from Mr. Williams to Mr. Hopkins, were delivered into the hands of Mr. David Smith, for conveyance to Waterbury. During the transit of these despatches from Lebanon to Waterbury, and through some hocus-pocus arrangement not defined in any rule of mathematical science, the contents of Mr. Williams's private letter-political became known to the public as soon as to Mr. Hopkins; and the Society of the Cincinnati, through its
The subjoined is the commencement of the famous Wimble war, and made its appearance in the Hartford Courant. The reader is to understand the patriotic epistle annexed, as being a copy of the letter from Mr. Williams to Mr. Hopkins:
The following is said to be the genuine copy of a letter from a patriot in one part of the State, to a patriot in another part of the State.
[Private.]
12th August, 1786.Worthy and Dear Sir:—Entertaining a high opinion of your good sense, integrity, and virtue, and the more happy to believe your sentiments agree with mine, in the interesting subject of the enclosed address; I therefore venture to send it to you, with a desire, if the substance should be agreeable, you would be so good as to correct, alter or model it as you please, and send it to New Haven printer first, Litchfield, or whom you think proper, soon as possible, as it is very probable efforts are and will be made and making to secure a majority in the next Assembly in favor of the first plan mentioned therein.
You have doubtless observed, in the papers, the Cincinnati Society requested to give a universal attendance, at New Haven, the 12th September, next, on matters of importance, &c. What they are, you can guess as well as I.
The freeman's meetings in our two counties are second Tuesday of September. I wish it may reach them before.
It was with much reluctance the writer meddled with the matter. I believe nothing but a sense of duty compelled. Having long waited, and anxiously expected that you or some other patriot would have done it much better.
His [honor] was with me, yesterday, before it was quite done. I asked his opinion, &c. He was pleased to speak more favorable of it than it deserved. His opinion is firmly fixed with ours. Gov. W., [Oliver Wolcott,] you know, is most strongly the other way. But I think the majority of the U. H.
A rhythmical and satirical version of the foregoing, by our poets and wits, was published in the same number of the Courant as that from which the above is copied. It is as follows:
The following is said to be the genuine copy of a letter from a poet in one part of the State to a poet in another part of the State.
[Private.]
12th August, 1786. Dear, Worthy Sir:—Ere you read moreMy letters private,—shut the door,—
As I believe your patriot heart to
Be quite brimfull of sense and virtue;
And as you know I'm such another,
We doubtless think alike, good brother.
I therefore send you this address,
And you must send it to the press.
To suit our party, as I should,
I've told some fibs, for public good;
If they're too little, or too few,
No one can set them right, like you—
So I beg you'll alter, fix, and model,
As suits that puzzling piece, your noddle—
And strain them through your scribbling sive,
That fools who read may all believe;
Then, from your copper-coining mint,
Let them pass current out in print.
And print it everywhere you can, sir;
Lose not a moment, in this instance,
For the majority's against us;
And all the world that's firm and steady,
Believes us fools and knaves already.
You see, sir, by the last Gazette,
The Cincinnati are to meet:
Their fair pretense is but a blind—
There must be roguery in the wind,
If, from the schemes that we are brewing,
We guess what other folks are doing:
So, print my plan of orthodoxies,
And have it out before our proxies.
My fears forbade to touch the matter,
But sense of duty got the better;
You must believe this, false or true,
And I'll believe as much for you.
I've waited, anxious that yourself,
Or other patriotic elf,
Who could have done it so much better,
Would do the job—and save this letter.
That you're a patriot, can't be doubted—
The proof is plain enough about it,
Since you have made, for years, of late,
One-half the uproar in the State:
Like tinker erst, to aid his calling,
“Great is Diana!” ne'er ceased bawling.
While I was puzzling and inditing;
He read my piece, and lik'd my wit,
And prais'd me till I almost split:
He's the right man to suit my taste—
Depend upon't, we have him fast;
Just as we please, we'll drive our guide,
As beggars set on horseback, ride.
That W[olcott] is a dangerous man;
He's honest—so dislikes our plan;
And since he's stubborn yet, and stout,
We must find means to turn him out.
The U[pper] H[ouse,] which makes me sad,
Have some few more almost as bad;
I think the major part, d'ye see!
Are right—that is—are just like me.
Pray do n't betray me to the rabble,
But keep my name impenetrable;
I might, for making all this rout,
As well be hanged, as get found out—
Should lose my place—which cost such pain—
And never get ten votes again.
Hoping to see you, in October,
With face full long, and cant full sober:
So pray be cautious, sly, and nimble—
Your loving servant,
William Wimble.
In the New Haven Gazette of the following week (October 19th, 1786) appeared the appended letter, which the reader
The following is said to be the genuine copy of an intercepted letter, which is supposed to have been written in answer to the letter from a patriot in one part of the State to a patriot in another part of the State.
[Private.]
August 23, 1786.Honored and Dear Sir:—I have received, with very great satisfaction, your letter dated the 12th day of this instant, August. I thank you most heartily for the favorable opinion you entertain of me as a patriot, and am pleased to find that we agree so entirely in sentiment. I am sorry to acquaint you that there seemed to be some marks of violence upon the seal, insomuch that I am really afraid that some evil-minded persons have opened and taken copies therefrom; which, you are sensible, might be of infinite disadvantage to our public as well as private character. But I do not think those sons of sophistry will dare to print or make use of our correspondence, because several great names are hinted at therein. I am glad to hear—has given his opinion so strong on our side.
It becomes us to be excessively circumspect, or we shall not be able to carry all points. We must secretly communicate our proposed nomination and advice to a few leading men in the towns, on whose discretion we can rely. For should our plans be detected, we shall undoubtedly be charged with intriguing, in an unjust and unconstitutional manner. This would be furnishing a handle for our opposers to use against us, and we may be sure they would not fail to do it.
I need not, surely, to tell you, honored and dear sir, that the present is a very dark and difficult day. The good people of this State must not be crowded, however the matter may be. It is necessary, for their interest, that we should keep up our influence amongst them. Indeed, you are not unacquainted with my laboriousness; and if it did not look a little like vanity, in me, I should say, successful labors in this vineyard. I desire not, praised be God, to take more merit to myself than I deserve; but am so conscious of having
I shall not spare my pains and labor, to get a good Assembly elected, so far as my little influence extends: and hoping, with you, we shall meet with many of our trusty and beloved friends, in October,
I remain, &c., ------As in the preceding instance, so in the present, the wicked poets and wits tortured the contents of Mr. Hopkins's private prosodial composition into a public satire in poetical measure and most complete Hudibrastic verse:
The following is said to be the genuine copy of an intercepted letter, which is supposed to have been written in answer to the letter from a poet in one part of the State to a poet in another part of the State.
[Private.]
August 23, 1786. Dear, Honored Sir:—I've got your letter,Which makes me feel a great deal better;
I thank you, from my very gizzard,
You think me such a patriot wizzard;
And in that point am pleas'd to find
That you and I are of a mind.
I'm dreadful sorry to reveal
I've found some violence on the seal,
Which makes me fear it was broken open,
And some rapscallions have been copying.
This might make us (as they'd contrive it)
Stink both in public and in private:
But since great names are therein hinted,
I think they'll never dare to print it:
That --- is as bad as we;
And we shall find him, fairly tried,
The better half upon our side.
That's a fine piece to fill the weekly
Gazettes, that you've signed “Agricola.”
You know I never used to flatter;
I'll change some words, but keep the matter,
And send it through our prints, in turn, all,
First midwif'd in New Haven Journal.
We have great need of circumspection,
To gain our points in next election,
And send our secret nomination
To leading men, of tried discretion,
Whom we have taught to vote by rule,
And never tell tales out of school:
For, should our secrets get to leaking,
They'll charge us all with vile intriguing;
This our opposers would make use on,
To prove we'd broke the constitution:
And sons of sophistry and scandal
Would shake us sorely by that handle.
I need not tell you, honored sir,
We're in a dark and dismal stir;
However the public's torn and tatter'd,
The people must be coax'd and flatter'd—
Their interest, sir, and ours, require it—
We'll ride this hobby till we tire it:
You know I've labor'd in this vineyard,
And led our chosen like a swine herd;
And (though I say't that should not say't)
Old B[radford] knows, and all our neighbors,
The luck of my laborious labors.
I thank my stars I never itch'd
To have my merit too high pitch'd;
For I have always thought, and said,
I had less merits than I had.
And yet I knew, and still I know it,
It lay so deep I could not show it:
But, when I think what feats I've done—
Made speeches, wrote, and rid, and run—
And recollect how few have back'd me
When all the wicked wits attack'd me;
Now our good cause begins to flag,
'Twould be injustice not to brag.
My pains and watchings shan't be sparing
The next Assembly to get a share in:
We'll choose good folks, you may depend,
As far as my weak means extend—
And join you, next October session,
Just as your honor has been wishing.
Our friends will meet us there, no danger,
From Colonel W[adsworth] down to [Granger;]
I wish I could as safely say
That you'll be in, beyond next May:
Your humble servant,
Joseph Copper.
To the Honorable William Wimble, Esq.
Some two weeks later, quite a spirited correspondence was carried on by Mr. Williams, through the columns of the Connecticut Journal, and General S. H. Parsons, in the Gazette; Mr. Williams affirming that he had good reasons for believing that the letter written by himself to Mr. Hopkins was delivered inviolate to Colonel David Smith, for conveyance some eighteen or nineteen miles; that, a considerable time afterwards, it was sent to Mr. Hopkins, having been first broken open and copied; and that said Colonel Smith carried a copy of the same and exhibited it to his brethren of the Cincinnati Society;—General Parsons having had the principal hand in employing a poet to burlesque him, &c.
Mr. Parsons, in reply, denies that any communication in regard to the letter in question was ever made to the Society of the Cincinnati, by Colonel Smith, or any other person; and affirms that he has in his possession a copy of the letter referred to, and that he came honestly by it, and in a manner concerning which Mr. Williams would probably never be any the wiser. Mr. Parsons is also willing to take his Bible oath that he never had the pleasure of employing a poet to burlesque any man under the signature of “William Wimble;” that he had no agency in procuring the publication of the first letter, and that he never saw the second one until it was in print.
Colonel Smith, referred to in this correspondence, addresses a letter to the public, through the Gazette, over date of November 6th, in which he says: “I did receive a letter about the first of September last, addressed to Joseph Hopkins, Esq.
In a note to the publishers of the Gazette, dated November 3d, Mr. Williams, after correcting several errors in his communication previously published in that paper, says: “Corrected as it ought to be, the strictures upon it will give the writer no trouble. Who also conceives it very unbecoming to enter into a personal quarrel with any man in this way.”
At this juncture, “Benevolence, Jr.,” comes to the rescue of Mr. Williams. He despises the treatment his friend has received from the hands of the wicked wits. He assumes that Mr. Williams was the first object against whom some evil-minded fellows hurled their puppy venom. Not designing to exhibit to their fellow citizens the real character of the man, they pushed far beyond even poetic propriety, and endeavored to stamp the character of knave and villain on the same person they would make a fool. The writer contends that all who are acquainted with Mr. Williams must acknowledge the rectitude of his intentions; and however politically wrong they may be, that they are not in the least degree owing to a corrupt heart. “However wrong Mr. Williams may have been, his evil geniuses cannot be justified in so many falsities as they have set forth, nor in their weak and mean attempts to injure his integrity. Piece after piece is ushered in, or expires, with Wimble, Wimble! However apropos that nickname may be, I will not contend; but even that is picturesque of a dirty spirit, in the writer. I can easily justify Mr. Williams for sending his composition, so often sarcastically alluded to, to the person criminated for the desire of the private emoluments arising from the making of coppers. There are so many wicked wits and snarling critics, that a peaceable man
In the Gazette of November 23d, “Trustless Fox” constitutes himself a champion for the case of Mr. Williams, and gives a metrical version of the letter of General Parsons, before mentioned. The author evidently intended to wake the “echo” of the rhythmiical letters of “the wicked poets and wits,” which had previously been put forth; but he seems to have failed in his purpose, and is pretty severely criticised by one “Benevolence, Sen.,” in an article published a few weeks later. The latter, who appears to believe that “Benevolence, Jr.,” and “Trustless Fox,” are one and the same person, makes reply to both, in these words: “You ought, my son, to have reflected that any confession that Mr. Williams was a fool, would operate more to his disadvantage than to the highest impeachment of his integrity; for when men call each other rogues and rascals, it is evident to the candid and impartial, that passion has usurped the place of reason, and that neither party are to be believed; whereas, a deliberate acknowledgment
The next advertisement which is gratuitously published for the benefit of Mr. Williams, we find in the “Newsboy's Eclogue for January, 1787,” as printed in the Hartford Courant:
The politics of these intriguing days—
And public faith, and Democratic dreams.
With Humphrey's strains, and Barlow's moving lays:
No more his plots reveal'd, should he deplore,
And wicked wits should versify no more.
As Trumbull, witty, and sublime as Dwight,
Copper should brighten in the polish'd strain,
And Trustless Foxes seek their holes again.
Let selfish York her impost still withhold:
Yet fools as great, Connecticut maintains;
Rest here, my muse, and seek no foreign strains.
And Shattuck rise, illustrious, from the jail;
In coward hands let legal power expire,
And give new subjects to my sounding lyre.
An Indian Fort that old Anarchiads bears?
And tell what bards explore the wondrous mine,
And I'll the prize of poetry resign.
Republic forms, without their power, can stand;
Or if our Congress e'er to life shall rise—
And I'll resign the politician's prize.
The poets and wits continue their persecutions of Mr. Williams and his friends, in the following lines, (an imitation of Freneau,) from the Gazette of January 25th, 1787:
To sing Wimble, and Wronghead, and Copper, in rhyme—
Spectator, the great, is far more sublime;
His jibes and his jeers,
His satires and sneers,
His tricks and his reas'nings are so very fine,
By the cause of King Shays, I wish they were mine.
Must Wronghead, unfeeling, all satire defy?
And with your comfort, leave Copper to sigh!
His sun's in the West;
By wits he's distrest;
His friends who attempt to blacken their muse,
Have genius scarce equal to blacken their shoes.
In the Connecticut Courant of March 15th, 1787, “A Plain Man,” in a letter dated from “Sharon in Conicticot,” thus addresses the publishers:
Misters Printors:—I Desir to se you manefest yure impartialty by printing equaly alik for boath sids, All the larnin and wit seems now to be printed for folks who are in faver of fedral government—they say tis all on their sid—but I mean to sho um the conterary—For my part I acknowledge bouldly I am wun of what they cal the untifedral parte or faxion, that is Ime
On “the great, the important dai,” notwithstanding all the satires that had been directed against these gentlemen, Mr. Williams and his friend Hopkins were duly elected members of the next General Assembly. The publication of “An Elegy on the [political] Death of a Patriot,” (see page 41,) was, therefore premature. And years afterwards, the familiar voice of Mr. Williams continued to be heard wherever a Convention was held, or a party of politicians were assembled.
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