University of Virginia Library

LETTER IV.

In my last letter I had got a little
too forward in my story, in point of
time; but as I write by piecemeal, and
often in a hurry, you must excuse chronological
inaccuracy. I now go back to
tell you, that between the lands occupied
by Marygold, and those on which Ploughshare
had made his settlement, was a large
tract of waste, where none of Mr. Bull's

family had ever been; but the report of
the plantations which one and another of
them had made, drew the attention of
Bull's neighbours. Among these, Nicolas
Frog[1] was not an idle spectator. He
was as sly a fellow as you will meet with
in a summer's day, always attentive to his
interest, and never let slip an opportunity
to promote it. Observing that Mr. Bull
was rather careless of the Forest, and
trusted his lawyers and servants with the
management of it, and knowing there
was a large slice of it unoccupied, he
clandestinely sent out some surveyors in
the disguise of hunters, to make a description
of the country, and report to him at
their return. Another good neighbour,
Gustavus the ironmonger[2] was gaping after
it, and gave out word among his journeymen,
that if any of them would adventure
thither and set up their trade, he
would uphold them in their pretensions,
and lend them any assistance in his power.
Accordingly one of them, by the name of
Casimir, ventured to make a beginning on
the shore of a navigable creek;[3] but did
not care to penetrate far into the country,
on account of the wolves and bears, which
were very numerous thereabouts. As
soon as Frog heard of this, he picked a
quarrel with Gustavus, and insisted that
the land was his by possession, because
he had already sent surveyors thither.
It happened, however, that the place
which Frog's people had pitched upon
was at the mouth of another creek,[4] at a
considerable distance; where they had
built a hut, on a point of land, and farther
up the creek had erected a kind of
lodge or hunting house,[5] for the convenience
of collecting game. On this plantation
Frog had placed Peter Stiver, a one-legged
fellow, as his overseer. As soon
as Peter heard of the quarrel between his
master and Gustavus, he thought the
quickest way of ending it was the best;
and therefore, without waiting for orders
or ceremony, he went and commanded
Casimir off the ground; and with one of
his crutches beat his house to pieces about
his ears. The poor fellow stared at
this rough treatment; but was glad to escape
with whole bones, and humbly requested
leave to remain there with his
tools, promising to follow his business
quietly, and become an obedient servant
to Mr. Frog; upon these conditions he
was permitted to remain, and the whole
tract was reputed Frog's property.

While these things were doing, John
Bull was confined to his house with a violent
fever and delirium,[6] under which
he laboured for a long time, and his imagination
was the seat of every wild freak
and strange vagary. One while he fancied
himself an absolute monarch; then, a
presbyterian clergyman; then a general of
horse; then a lord protector: His noddle

was filled with a jumble of polemic divinity,
political disputes, and military arrangements,
and it was not till after much
blood letting, blistering, vomiting and
purging, that he began to mend. Under
this severe, but wholesome regimen, he at
length grew cool and came to himself,
but found on his recovery that his affairs
had gone behind hand during his sickness.
Beside the loss of business, he had
physicians' and apothecaries' bills to pay,
and those who had attended upon him as
nurses, watchers, porters, &c. all expected
wages or douceurs, and were continually
haunting him with, How does
your honour do? I am glad to see your
honour so well as to be abroad. Some
one or more were continually putting
themselves in his way, and if they did not
directly dun him for payment, their looks
were so significant that a man of less penetration
could easily have guessed what
was their meaning.

Bull was somewhat perplexed how to
answer all their demands and expectations.
He was too far behind hand to
be able to satisfy them, and withal too
generous to let them remain unpaid. At
length he hit on this expedient: “These
fellows, said he to himself, have served me
well, and may be of use to me again.
There is yet a considerable part of my
forest unoccupied. I'll offer to lease
them tracts of land which cost me nothing,
and if they will accept them at a low rent,
they may prove useful servants, and I
shall be a gainer as well as they.” Having
come to this resolution, he began to
enquire into the affairs of his forest, and
found that his neighbours had intruded upon
his claim. Lewis had taken possession
at one end;[7] Lord Strut at the other;[8]
and Nic Frog in the middle,[9] and his own
tenants had been quarrelling with their
new neighbours, as well as among them

selves. “Hey day! says John, this will
never do; I must keep a good look out
upon these dogs, or they will get the advantage
of me.” Away he goes to Frog,
and begun to complain of the ill treatment
which he had received. Frog, who
had no mind either to quarrel, or to cry
peccavi, like a fly, evasive whore son as
he was, shrugged up his shoulders, disowned
what his servants had done, and
said, he supposed they only meant to kill
game, and did not intend to hold possession.
Bull was not to be put off so; his
blood was up and he determined to treat
Frog's servants as they had treated Casimir.
So, calling a trusty old stud out of
his compting house, “Here Bob,[10] said he,
take one of my servants with a couple of
blood hounds, and go to that part of the
forest where Peter Stiver has encroached,
give him fair warning; tell him the land
is mine, and I will have it; if he gives up
at once, treat him well and tell him I'll
give him leave to remain there; but if he
offers to make any resistance, or hesitates
about an answer, set your dogs at him and
drive him off; kill his cattle and set his
house on fire; never fear, I'll bear you
out in it.” Away goes Bob and delivered
his message; Peter at first thought it a
matter of amusement, and began to divert
himself with it; but as soon as the dogs
opened upon him he found his mistake,
and rather than run the risk of being
driven off, he quietly submitted to the
conditions proposed. “Hang it, said he
to himself, what care I who is my landlord?
Gain is my object; I have already
been at great expense, and have a prospect
of getting an estate. To remove
will ruin me; I'll therefore stay here, and
make money under Bull, or Frog, or any
other master that will let me stay.”

In a subsequent quarrel which happened
between Bull and Frog—the latter

seized upon this plantation again, and
Peter recognized his old master; but upon
a compromise it was given up to Bull
in exchange for a tract of swamp[11] which
lay far to the southward. Peter continued
on the ground through all these
changes, and followed his business with
great diligence, collecting game and pelts,
and vending them sometimes to Mr.
Bull, and sometimes to Mr. Frog. However,
Bull thought it best, that in token of
subjection, Stiver should change his name;
to which he consented, and partly to
please his new master, and partly to retain
the remembrance of his old one, he
assumed the name of Bullfrog.

The whole tract which was thus gotten
from Frog, was thought too large for
one plantation, and therefore Mr. Bull,
in pursuance of the plan which he had
formed appropriated the rents of the
plantation, on which Bullfrog was feated,
to his brother, and the other was leaf

ed to two of his servants, Cartrut and
Bareclay, and sometime after another
tract was set off to William Broadbrim,
whose father had been an assiduous
ratcatcher in Mr. Bull's family; but
more of this hereafter.

Cartrut and Bareclay agreed to divide
their land into two farms, which they
called the east and west farms;[12] but when
they came to run the division line, their
compasses differed so much that they
could not fix the boundary. This was
one cause of dissention. Another was the
different humors and dispositions of their
families. Those on the East farm were
brought up under Mr. Bull's sister Peg,[13]
and as it is well known that she and her
brother had long been at variance, so their
domestics had got tinctured with the notions
and prejudices of their respective
families. The family on the West farm
was made up of persons who were subject

to the epidemic ague or shaking palsy;[14]
with some struggles from Bullfrog's and
Casimir's families. From this diversity
of constitutions and humours arose bickerings
and quarrels, a disinclination to
work and submit to family government.
These disorders continued a long while,
and business went on very slowly, till at
length the heads of both families agreed
to give up their separate leases, and take a
new one of the whole, and let Mr. Bull
appoint an overseer. By these means
peace was restored, and the new overseer,
who was supposed to be a descendant of
Julius Cæsar, gave the name of his ancestor
to the farm, which has ever since
been called Cæsarea.

There was another portion of the forest,
which lay southward of Walter Pipeweed's
plantation, and which no person
had yet taken up, though some had made
attempts and had been driven off by the

numberless musquitoes and sand flies,
which abounded in those places. Mr.
Bull was still desirous to reward his
friends in the cheapest-manner, and at the
same time to keep his neighbors from encroaching
upon him, and secure the possession
of the forest to himself. In pursuance
of his plan, and to make short work
of it at once, he leased the whole of this
southern extremity to Charles Indigo,[15]
who was expressly ordered to take
under his care and into his family all persons
who had attended Mr. Bull, in his
late sickness, in quality of nurses, druggists,
apothecaries, laundresses, upholsters,
porters, watchers, &c. &c. By this
order Charles found himself at once surrounded
by a large body of retainers of
various ranks and qualities, and being a
speculator himself, he employed a speculative
man, Mr. Padlock, who had written
a large treatise upon Ideas, to draw
up fome rules, for the management of
such a family, intending when he should
build an house, to paste it up in the parlour,
as a directory to his wife. Accordingly
Mr. Padlock went to work, and with
an exquisite mixture of political and metaphysical
knowledge, distinguished between
the hall, the parlour, the dressing
room, the gallery, the music room, the
bed chambers, the chapel, the kitchen, the
water closet, &c. shewing what was to be
done in each, and the proper subordination
of one to the other, all which would
have been of excellent service in a palace,
and among people who had got to a high
degree of resinement, but was ill suited to
the circumstances of new adventurers in a
forest. They rather needed to be instructed
in the method of felling trees,
draining swamps, digging clams, guarding
against musquitoes, killing wolves and
bears, and erecting huts to keep off the
weather. To these necessary affairs they
were obliged to attend, and Mr. Padlock's
fine spun rules were laid by and little
thought of.

Charles had pitched upon a sandy
point, between two brooks, for his mansion
house, and had made a small beginning,
when his repose was disturbed by
one Augustine,[16] a lubberly fellow, who
had taken a lease of Lord Strut, and lived
farther southward. This Strut was
the largest landholder in the country, and
was never satisfied with adding field to
field. He had already got much more
than he could manage, and had greatly
impoverished his homestead by attending
to his extra territories. His tenants were
infected with the same land fever, and
wished to have no neighbors within fight
or call. From this envious disposition
Augustine collected a rabble of lousy fellows,
and was coming to dispossess Charles,
thinking him too weak to make a defence;
but Charles was a lad of too much spunk
to be brow beaten. He armed all his
people with some weapon or other, and
advanced till he came within fight of the

place where Augustine was, who on seeing
him, took wit in his anger, and went
back, without attempting any mischief.

Another difficulty which Charles expected
to encounter was from the wild
beasts; but luckily for him, these creatures
got into a quarrel among themselves,
and fought with each other till
they had thinned their numbers considerbly,
so that Charles and his companions
could venture into the woods, where they
caught some few and tamed them, as was
the usual practice among all Mr. Bull's tenants
at that day. Of this practice a more
particular account shall be given in my
next letter. Adieu.