University of Virginia Library

LETTER X.

I SUPPOSE you are by this
time impatient for the story of the lawfuit;
how it began and how it was carried
on and ended. I will give it to you as
briefly as so long and intricate a matter
will bear to be told; and I am apprehensive
you will think that Mr. Bull was so
ill a politician, or so badly advised, as actually
to pick a quarrel with his best customers.
But facts will speak for themselves.
Know then, that by the advice of
his dear wife and her gambling junto, Mr.

Bull was prevailed upon to send a dozen
pounds of tea to each of his tenants, as a
present, in token of his extreme good will to
them, and because he knew that they loved
it, and at the same time to order his clerks
to charge three pence per pound for the
paper and pack thread in which this exhilarating
weed was wrapped. This trifling
sum he expected would be paid on
demand, in acknowledgment of their good
will to him as their kind and generous
landlord, who had protected and defended
them against all opposers, and would still
continue to protect and defend them as
his beloved children and obedient humble
servants.

The knowledge of his intention happened
to come to them sooner than the
present, and they began to argue thus among
themselves—“Ha! how comes
this? What is freer than a gift? If Mr.
Bull really intends the tea as a prefent,
why does he exact three pence? Had he

offered it to us as an article of merchandise
as usual, we might have taken it if we
had liked the price, or left it if we had not;
but this is a new way of trading to which
we have not been accustomed. There is
a design in this. If we receive this present
and pay the trifling acknowledgment
of three pence, by and by we shall have a
present with six pence annexed, and another
with a shilling, and so on. If we once
establish a precedent there is no knowing
where to stop, and by these presents
we may be gulled out of all our loose
corns, and afterwards our real estates may
be demanded! No, it is better to prevent
an evil than to cure it. We will have
none of your presents, Mr. Bull, if this
is to be the consequence. We have paid
our debts well—you have had the exclusive
benefit of our trade, and have become
rich by it, and now in your old age
you are grown trickish—It is time for us
to be on our guard and keep a sharp look
out, for if a man does not take care of
himself who can he expect will take care
of him?” Fortified with these arguments
they waited for the approach of the messengers
which were on the road with the
present.

One of them came to Charles Indigo's
house, and with Mr. Bull's compliments
begged his acceptance of a package of
tea—“Throw it into that cellar, said
Charles, and let it lie there till I have
considered of the matter.”

Another came to William Broadbrim—but
as the way to William's mansion
was through a long, crooked, miry
lane, he had ordered the porter to stop
him, and give him liberty to return without
delivering his message.

Peter Bullfrog did the same, but
some part of the tea being smuggled into
the house, as soon as Peter knew it he
threw it into the gutter.

John Codline had the greatest difficulty
about Mr. Bull's present. He
would gladly have sent back the messenger,
but unluckily for him the gate which
led to his house was held fast by Bull's
under steward, who constantly watched
and attended there to observe who went
in and out, which service he was more
particularly fond of, because he expected
a douceur for opening and shutting the
gate. Having admitted the messenger
and received his penny, he stiffly refused
to let him out again without having
delivered the present. The see was
tendered, but this could not prevail; the
family were uneasy, they were loth to
assront Mr. Bull, and yet determined not
to receive his present. They could not
account for the conduct of the understeward
on any other principle than this,
that he expected to get a share of the
three pence per pound, and of all other
profits arising from future presents; and
was afraid he should lose it if he let the

messenger return. The family was called
together in the chapel, where they held a
long consultation, sent several messages
to the under steward, who held fast the
gate, and finally refused to open it. They
were driven at length to an extremity and
threw the tea into the vault, where it
perished, at the same time protesting that
the whole blame ought to be charged on
the under steward, as they had no intention
of injuring Mr. Bull if they could
have avoided it.

As soon as this was known in Mr. Bull's
family, his wife fell into a violent hysteric
fit, and in her raving phrenzy denounced
all the vengeance which it was in her
power to execute, on these refractory, ungrateful
tenants, who would not accept a
present when it was so freely offered to
them. But when she came a little to herself,
she was persuaded by her gambling
companions not to attempt any thing against
the whole body of the tenants, lest

they should be driven by necessity to form
an union among themselves, which might
defeat the plan; she therefore proposed to
Mr. Bull to single out one of the most refractory
of them, and shew his resentment
in a particular manner to him, hoping
that the others would be intimidated and
let him suffer alone, and be glad to get off
so well themselves. The person singled
out for the object of resentment was John
Codline, and the mode of resentment was
as ridiculous as it was malicious, for it was
nothing more nor less than to send a bailiff,
with a pack of blood hounds, to stand
before the great gate that led to the front
of his house. This, it was thought, would
strengthen the authority of the under
steward who had the key of the gate, and
would reduce the family to this dilemma,
either to receive no company and carry
on no business, or else to submit to Mr.
Bull's new mode of trading.

The reason assigned for this particular
mode of revenge was, that Mr. Bull, as
lord of the manor, claimed a kind of
sovereign right to the high way. He had
for a long time exacted an acknowledgment
from all passengers; whenever they
happened to meet any of his horses or carriages
on the road, whether he was there
himself or not, they were obliged to douse
the hat, or they might be sure of receiving
a stroke of the whip, if not of being run
down by his servants, who had special orders
not to let any omission of this nature
pass unpunished.

In consequence of this manœuvre on
the part of Mr. Bull, every person who
had any business to do with John Codline
was stopped in the road, and ordered to
go back, or pass by like the Priest and
Levite, on the other side. However,
those who had a mind to see him, found
means to climb over the fence, or to go
up a narrow lane, which, by the help of a

stile and a foot path, led them to Codline's
back door.

This species of punishment exposed
Mr. Bull to the ridicule of all his neighbors.
It also proved quite ineffectual to
the purpose for which he designed it. Instead
of hindering company from coming
to Codline's house, it brought more; and
he received many letters from those who
could not come in person. But, what was
of more service to him than letters or visits
was this, that many who were indebted
to him came and made payment, and
those who had at various times received
favours from him when they were in distress,
sent him presents, and encouraged
him to keep up a good heart, promising
to stand by him to the last extremity, if
he should be reduced to it.

It has been observed, that one advantage
which Mr. Bull expected would arise
from this specimen of his refined policy

was, that it would disunite the tenants,
and frighten some or perhaps all the others
into a compliance with the new mode
of traffic. This expectation was grounded
on one of the Fables of Esop, which
relates, that a fox who had been caught in
a trap, and disengaged himself by the loss
of his tail, whenever he appeared among
the foxes, was the object of their ridicule;
upon which he endeavoured to persuade
them that he had been travelling to learn
fashions, and that the newest fashion was
for foxes to cut off their tails as a useless
and burdensome appendage, and boasted
how much more light and nimble he had
become since he had parted with that encumbrance;
to which an old fox replied,
that if he would do justice to his argument
he ought to produce the shears with
which he had cut off his tail, for the conviction
of his brethren.

This fable, and the moral couched under
it, raised a great deal of vain expectation

and triumph in the family of Mr.
Bull; but the foresters had another of
their own making, which was a match for
it. A man meeting a serpent in the field,
struck at him with a stick, and there being
but one in his view he thought to kill him
immediately; but the snake set up such a
hiss as brought a dozen more out of their
holes, who attacked the proud murderer
in front, rear, and flank, and obliged him
to take to his heels for safety. This fable
was so much admired among the foresters
at that time, that they had an engraving
made on all their message cards, of a
wounded serpent, with this motto, Join
or die.

Adieu.