University of Virginia Library

LETTER XVI.

After giving you such a long
detail of the affairs of these foresters, I
will close my correspondence, for the
present, with a brief account of the
situation of the principal persons with
whom they are or have been connected,
and whom I have had occasion to mention
in my other letters.

To begin with Mr. Bull. Though he
has given a quitclaim of that part of the
forest where his old servants and best customers

have possession, yet he retains the
northern part, together with some hunting
feats which he promised to give up to the
foresters. The chief produce of this
northern territory is the furs, which are
brought to his warehouse and wrought up
by his tradesmen. Notwithstanding the
loss of his title to the lands of the foresters,
they have not wholly forsaken him as a
trader. He keeps his fulling mills at
work, and supplies them with cloths of
various kinds, but they feel themselves at
liberty either to purchase of him or his
neighbours, or to manufacture for themselves.
He is rather more complaisant to
them in his own shop than his factors are
in some of his distant warehouses, where
they are not allowed to carry their produce
to market, nor to receive cossee, cotton,
and sugar, as formerly. However,
they have found out other places where
they can buy these commodities without
asking his permission. And as for that
capital article TEA, which was the occa
sion of beginning the controversy, they
now setch it directly from the original
warehouse of old Cang-hi, where it is
manufactured. They purchase their silks
and muslins of the first makers and dealers,
and get their wines directly from the
vineyards.

I HAVE before told you that Mr. Bull
formerly used to send the ordure made in
his family to enrich the plantations of the
foresters; but since his quarrel with them
he has been somewhat at a loss how to
dispose of it. At first he threw it into
the gutter[1] before his door. But there
was such a large quantity of it, and the
stench which it caused was so offensive,
that this expedient would not answer the
end. He then thought of sending it to a
place where some of his family had been
employed in botanizing,[2] in hope that by
adding to the fertility of the soil, they
would find more encouragement to prosecute

their inquiries, and that he should
in time receive some rent or recompense;
but this scheme, like some others, the
product of his fruitful brain, has been
hitherto attended with more cost than
profit. What will be his next contrivance
to dispose of his ordure no one can
conjecture.

He has been obliged, in deference to the
opinion of his neighbours, to sing small about
his right to stopping the high way;
and it is thought that he will not revive
his pretensions to an exclusive title to that
kind of sovereignty.

As to his domestic affairs, his wife still
rules him according to her usual maxims,
and keeps up her gaming club, where she
wins and loses alternately; but between
the shop and the drawing room, there is
enough gained to pay the interest of his
debt, though it is not imagined he will
ever be able to pay the principal. This,

like a millstone about his neck, must
finally sink him.

You may possibly be curious to know
what is become of his mother, whom I
have formerly mentioned to you as having
had some sway in his family. The
truth is, that since he married his present
wife, the old lady found her influence decreasing
and retired to her chamber, where
she has been for many years confined, and
is now wholly bed rid. Mr. and Mrs.
Bull indeed treat the old lady with much
decency, and suffer none to intrude upon
her but such company as she is fond of.
Old Madam has all the infirmities of age
about her. She will not suffer herself to
be touched nor turned in her bed; nor
the room to be aired, nor her linen shifted.
She keeps her window shutters closed, and
will not admit the least ray of light in her
apartment, but what proceeds from her
own candle, which having been once dipped
in consecrated water, is supposed to

possess all the virtues of an everlasting taper.

Now I have spoken of madam's taper,
perhaps you will be amused with some
account of it. It is a wax candle of a
common size, set in an old fashioned silver
candlestick, richly embossed and gilt,
but the rust and dust of it are so sacred,
that it is never permitted to be scoured.
The tradition is, that this candlestick formerly
belonged to St. Peter, and the candle
first placed in it is supposed to have
been lighted at the SUN, and by a mysterious
kind of uninterrupted succession, has
been kept burning ever since. By the
light of this taper, old madam reads her
bible and books of devotion, which always
lie on a table by her bedside.

Some persons of an incredulous turn
of mind, have pretended to call in question
this mystery; but it is still held sacred
by the old lady, and by most of Mr.
Bull's own family. There are some even

among the foresters of the same opinion;
and such is the liberality in these families,
that no one is molested in the indulgence
of any innocent whim, which does not
affect the peace of the families, nor the
interest of the partnership. It was not
long after the reestablishment of harmony
between them and Mr. Bull, that these
persons sent two candles in one lantern,
and one in another, to be lighted at this
venerable taper, and dipt in the consecrated
water. Two of them were actually
lighted in old Madam Bull's presence,
and to her great satisfaction. The
other was lighted at a taper supposed to
be derived from the same original, but
“hid under a bushel” in one of fister
Peg's out houses, it not being permitted
to burn publicly in her family, where the
only candles allowed are of the manufacture
of Geneva.

There has been as long a controversy
between different opinionists on this subject,

as between the fectaries in Liliput,
about breaking the egg at the big or little
end. But it is easy enough to accommodate
the matter by granting that St. Peter's
candle, as well as those from Geneva,
were originally lighted at the SUN; that
the same source of light is open to all;
and that it is of no consequence of what
materials tapers are made, nor in what
kind of candlesticks they are placed, nor
by whose hands they are lighted, provided
they give so clear a light as to answer
the purposes of vision.

It remains only that I give you some
account of Mr. Lewis. The adventures
in his family have been very singular. I
formerly told you that he feed lawyers to
plead the cause of the foresters. These
subtile practitioners soon found that the
same arguments which they were obliged
to use in favour of the foresters, would
apply with equal propriety to the case of
Mr. Lewis's own family. He had long

been a widower, and the family was governed
by a succession of kept mistresses,
who minded only their pleasures and the
enriching of their own relations and dependants.
The tenants were abused, the
mansion house was dirty and out of repair,
and though the rents were paid into
the hands of the steward, yet much oppression
and embezzlement, and little economy,
were the constant topics of complaint.

After the alteration, produced by the
assistance of Lewis's lawyers in the forest,
they began to think it was high time to
do something of the same kind at home.
The only peaceable remedy which they
could imagine, was to persuade Mr. Lewis
to marry a reputable woman, who would
be agreeable to the family. After much
argument he was at length brought to see
the necessity of the case; and to prevent
a lawsuit, with which they threatened
him, he consented to take the wife[3] which

they recommended. She is a lady of
good sense and polite manners, and treats
him with the greatest deference and propriety.
She has had the mansion thoroughly
repaired, the floors and windows
cleaned, and the walls whitewashed, and is
not afraid to let her inmost apartments
be visited by the sun and air. The building
is now commodious, wholesome, and
pleasant, and the dirty dog kennel,[4] which
stood near the door, is demolished.

It is suspected by some that Lewis still
has a hankering after his old connexions,
but he professes love to his new wife in
the strongest terms imaginable. His cast
off mistress has had the audacity to insult
the newly married lady, and tell her that
she has no business to occupy her apartments;
that all Mr. Lewis's professions
are insincere and that she still possesses his
heart. If these ladies should go to pulling
caps, Mr. Lewis will be in a critical
situation, as indeed every man is when

two women are contending for him. It
is said that some of the neighbouring gentlemen,
who prefer concubinage to matrimony,
have taken the part of the late
mistress, and insist on her restoration to
bed and board; but how this matter will
terminate can be decided only by futurity.

He has also been very unfortunate in
some of his distant plantations and factories.
His black cattle have caught the
horn distemper; some of his farm houses
have been burnt, and it is thought that
several years will intervene before his affairs
will be set to rights.

Thus, my friend, I have endeavoured
to fulfil my promise, by giving you such
an account as I have been able to procure
of the foresters and their connexions. I
assure you I am extremely delighted with
the country and its improvements, which
exceed by far the expectations of every

person who travels this way, and has formed
what he may think a just idea of the
country, by staying at home and hearing
the reports of others. There is no possibility
of conceiving what a fine country it
is without actually seeing it; I therefore
recommend to you a journey hither, for a
two fold purpose, viz. to cure you of the
spleen, and to convince you how much
human industry and ingenuity can perform
in a short time, when nature has already
done her part toward making a
good country and a happy people.

Yours, &c.
AMYNTOR.