University of Virginia Library

12. CHAP. XII.

After travelling all day over rough roads, and
through a dreary, barren wilderness, which is,
however, considered one of the best peopled and
best cultivated parts of the country, and where
every body was astonished to hear me speak English,
we arrived late in the evening at Louisville,
the capital of the state of Tennessee. In walking
up from the stage-coach to the inn, I stumbled over
something, and what was my horror at discovering
a dead body weltering in blood! A little way
further on, I stumbled over another, and in this

way encountered six or seven, in less than the
space of thirty yards. Inquiring the cause of their
deaths, and the reason of their exposure in this
manner, the landlord seemed at a loss to understand
me for a few minutes, which I ascribed to
my speaking pure English. After a little reflection,
however, he seemed to recollect himself.

“O—ay—yes—I recollect—we had a blow out
here last Sunday, and half a dozen troublesome
fellows, they call justices, were done for by the
brave rowdies.[1] They won't interrupt sport again
I guess.”

I turned sick at the barbarous indifference of
this immaculate republican, and asked him why
they suffered these bodies to remain thus without
burial. “O, we let them lie there as a warning
to our meddlesome magistrates, how they interrupt
gentlemanly sports again. We were just
roasting a John Bull for not drinking his allowance
of whiskey, when these gentry thought proper
to interfere, but we soon did their business.”
I may as well remark here once for all, that if I
make these republicans talk good English in my
journal, it is only because it is utterly impossible
to reduce their jargon to writing, and if it were,
no civilized reader could possibly understand it.
There is not a being living, who is a native of the
states, that can talk or write English.

I designed to question mine host still farther on
this matter, but just at the moment there was a

great uproar in an adjoining room, accompanied by
cries of murder, upon which he hurried away “to
see the sport,” as he was pleased to term it. This
sport, as I afterwards learned, consisted in a promising
young republican of about seventeen, attempting
to gouge his father, who had refused to
call for another mint julep. My companion, who
happened to look in, attempted to interfere, but
narrowly escaped losing one, if not both his eyes,
by the hands of the old gentleman, (every body is
a gentleman here) who caned him for his impertinent
interference, patting the promising youth on
the head, and swearing he would turn out a true
republican. Not content with a single julep, he
called for a whole gallon, and they both got lovingly
drunk together. Such, indeed, is the rage for
mint juleps here, that nobody will buy a farm at
any price unless it produces plenty of mint.

Reflecting on the barbarous indifference to life
which characterizes these republicans,[2] I did not
know but they might take it into their heads to kill
me, and therefore proposed to my companion, the
worthy emigrant, that we should sleep in the same
room that night, for mutual comfort and protection.
He seemed delighted with the proposal, and we
accordingly, after supper, adjourned to a double-bedded
room, the door of which we locked, my
friend putting the key into his pocket for safety. He
then took out the fifty-eighth number of the Quarterly
and began to read the review of Faux's celebrated
tour in America, which he said he could

almost swear he had written himself, so exactly
did it tally with his own observation and experience

“And do the judges actually steal pigs?” inquired
I. “Pigs!” answered my friend, “ay,
and every thing else they can lay their hands on.
It is a common thing for them to summon a man
before them, in order to insure his absence from
home, that they may have an opportunity of robbing
his pig-sty without interruption.”[3]

“And they take bribes too, I suppose?”

“You may say that,” replied he. “There is
not a judge in the whole country that can resist a
pig or two. But it is seldom so high a bribe is
offered, except when a man wants to be acquitted
of two or three murders. The most common douceur
is a paper of pins, and for this you may get a
decision which will entitle you to a thousand or
two acres of the best land in the world. You will
have to kill half a dozen squatters in order to get
possession, but this is considered a mere trifle.”

“And were you not jesting when you talked
about their burning people on a log fire, when
they refuse to drink?”

“Not in the least,” said he; “I solemnly assure
you that nothing is more common than such a frolic.
I knew several instances of fathers serving their own
children, and boys their own fathers, in this manner,
during my stay at English Prairie, and it is
certain the custom is common in all the states.”

Just at this instant a most poignant smell pervaded
our room, like that which accompanies the broil

ing of a rasher of bacon on the coals. My friend
snuffed up the savoury effusion, and exclaimed.

“There!—they are at it now, I'll bet a thousand
pounds. They're broiling some poor fellow
to a certainty.”[4]

“'Tis bacon,” said I.

“'Tis a man,” said he. “I can swear to the
smell. I've had too much experience to be mistaken.”
And thereupon he began reading the fifty-eighth
number of the Quarterly again with tears
in his eyes.

It now waxed late in the night. The uproar of
the inn gradually died away, the smell of the broiled
republican subsided, and nothing was now
heard save the owl, the whippoor-will, the bull-frog,
the wolf, the watch-dog, and the sonorous
tuning of many a vocal nose, chaunting sweet hallelujahs
to the pure spirit of democracy. The
Americans are, in truth, the greatest snorers in the
world, which is doubtless owing to their all sleeping
with their mouths wide open. I was puzzled
to account for this habit, until Dr. Thornton afterwards
assured me they slept with their mouths
wide open for the convenience of swallowing a
mint julep, which was always poured down their
throats before they awoke in the morning, to keep
them from getting the intermitting fever. Late
as it was, I felt no inclination to sleep. I looked
out of the window, and by the light of the moon
could distinguish the bodies of the unfortunate
magistrates, their pale faces turned upwards, and

their white teeth shining in the silvery ray. Presently
I saw a man cautiously stealing along towards
the piggery, which is always in one corner
of the kitchen, for the sake of security. He disappeared
through the kitchen window; in a few
moments a musket was fired, and I heard no more
of the matter. The next morning all was explained.
It was a neighbouring judge, who feeling an
inclination for one of mine host's fat porkers, invaded
his pig-sty that night. But to use the landlord's
choice phrase, “he got his bitters,”—that
is to say, he was shot through the head by mine
host, who was on the watch, and I saw his body
lying with the rest the next day.

Still sleep fled from my eyes, “the innocent
sleep,” for it could not exist amid these republican
horrors. My companion grew more and more ardent
in his persuasions for me to go to bed. “We
will take turns to watch, and I will begin—Have
you any arms? give them to me.” I handed him
my pistols, and at length overcome by his persuasions
went to bed. It was long ere I could compose
myself to rest; but at length the fatigues of
the day gradually overpowered my apprehensions
and I fell asleep. How long I slept I know not,
but I was disturbed by something rummaging under
my pillow, where I had placed my watch and
pocket-book. The lights were all out, and I could
see nothing; but thinking the little Frenchman
was certainly come again, I called out “murder,”
as loud as I could, and thereupon heard the door

open, and somebody run off down the passage, as
fast as possible. Presently mine host, and several
other persons, came into the room with lights, and
inquired what was the matter?

“There has been an attempt to rob and murder
me,” replied I.

“Well, what of that?” replied mine host—
“You need not have made such an infernal uproar,
and disturbed the whole house about nothing.”

“Nothing! do you call robbing and murdering
a man nothing?”

“Yes,” replied he, “just next to nothing. I
have known a dozen people robbed and murdered
in this house, with less noise than the stirring of a
mouser. But let us see if you have lost any thing?”

On examination, I found my watch and pocket-book,
which I had placed under my pillow, safe;
but my pockets were rifled, and my pistols missing,
together with the fifty-eighth number of the
Quarterly.

“But where is your companion?” asked some
one. “Far enough from hence, by this time, I'll
warrant you;” said mine host.

“What d'ye mean by that?” said I.

“I mean that he has got your purse and pistols,
and you won't see him again in a hurry. The moment
he came into the house last night, I knew
him for the English swindler, who broke jail last
spring.”

“And why didn't you tell me he was a swindler?”
said I indignantly.

“Why, to say the truth, I took you for another.
Such pointers generally hunt in couples. Besides,
there is so little difference among us genuine republicans,
between an honest man and a swindler,
that the distinction is not worth pointing out.”

“I shall go to the justice and lay an information,”
said I.

“You needn't give yourself the trouble,” replied
mine host carelessly; “there was but one
justice left in all this county, and him I shot last
night for making free with my pig-sty.”

“O, liberty!” ejaculated I, in the bitterness of
my heart, “thou art but a name—or rather thou
art a name for all that degrades and disgraces human
nature. Well may the Quarterly”—Here
my soliloquy was cut short by the blowing of the
driver's tin trumpet, the signal for departure, and
what further I would have said must remain a secret
to posterity for ever.

The disappointed emigrant from English Prairie
did not make his appearance, and I pursued my
journey, wrapt in solitary reflections. Insensibly
I fell into a train of thought which led to an
inquiry into the extraordinary paradox, that a
country like this, destitute of every virtue, and
devoid of every attraction under heaven,[5] should
thus have imposed upon the whole world (except
the Quarterly Reviewers) and lured from all parts
of Christendom, crowds of emigrants, who, tired
as it would seem, of the calm and happy security
of legitimate governments, have sought misery and

disappointment in these barbarous wilds. But mankind,
thought I, have ever been the dupes of boastful
pretension, and arrogant assumptions of superiority.
The credulity of ignorance is unbounded;
and when we revert to the belief even of sages
and philosophers; the errors of Galileo and Copernicus,
with regard to the great system of the universe,
the blunders of Newton, and the follies of
Philopoemen, it were hardly just to blame the errors
of the common people. It is, therefore, excusable
in the peasantry of distant countries, that
they should be thus seduced by thousands, to leave
their homes, by the impudent falsehoods every
day palmed upon them by Mr. Birkbeck, and
other retailers of radical trash.

But there is one thing which puzzled me at first.
Notwithstanding the disappointments of these poor
people, their being gouged, dirked, roasted, and
having their pigs stolen by the judges; their being
regulated and rowdied, and obliged to cut down
trees as big round as a hogshead—notwithstanding
there is neither law, gospel, decency, or morality
in the whole country, and that no honest person
can possibly live in it; notwithstanding that every
emigrant, without exception,[6] is sighing ready to
break his heart, to get home; notwithstanding all
this, I say it is a remarkable fact, that not one in
a thousand ever goes home again! They actually
seem to be fascinated to the spot, by the charm of

misery and despair, like the bird which flies into
the jaws of the rattle snake, in pure horror of his
detestable rattles, and poisonous tooth. Nay some
of them even contaminate the pure Cockney blood
of Englishmen, of which the old giants were so
excessively fond,[7] by mixing it with that of the
“guessing, gouging, bundling damsels” of this
detestable democracy. Not content with flirting
with them, they actually marry them, that
is, when they are very rich, which indeed is some
extenuation. But in justice to these unfortunate
men, I must acknowledge that such are the pains
taken by these republican damsels to attract and
entrap our countrymen, that it is a miracle that
any one escapes. I happened to go into a shop,
not long since, to buy a laced cap, on speculation,
for which the man asked nearly twice as much as
when I looked at it some time before. On my complaining
of this, he replied—

“O, sir, the price of laced caps has risen a hundred
per cent. lately.”

“From what cause?” said I.

“Why, sir, the truth is, that Major Tightbody
the tall, handsome Englishman, has lately
arrived, and the young ladies have been pulling
caps for him at such a rate, that it is computed
upwards of five hundred have been more or
less torn to pieces in consequence. Judging from

your appearance, sir,” continued he, bowing, “I
should not be surprised if you had been accessary
to the destruction of a few.” Whereupon I bought
his cap without further hesitation. But to return:

The pertinacity with which these poor deluded
emigrants, persist in remaining in this miserable,
degraded, debauched, deistical country, convinces
me that people may actually be persuaded out of
their five senses. This is the only way of explaining
the phenomenon; for it is impossible, by any
other hypothesis to account for their continuing
to suffer in this dog's misery when they can be
sent home free of expense, provided they will
only make affidavit on their arrival that there
is neither food, raiment, religion, law, or honesty
among these republicans. As an illustration
of this unaccountable attachment to misery,
I will state an incident that occurred to me
in Philadelphia. In strolling about one morning,
who should I meet but the unfortunate, deluded,
and seduced emigrant I had picked out of the gutter
in New-York, and procured a free passage to
England. The fellow was, as usual, pretty handsomely
“corned,” as my friend, the communicative
traveller, has it.—On expressing my surprise,
at his being still here, in this miserable country,
he hickupped out—

“Why, please your honour, I considered better
of it afterwards”—for, says I, “this is a d—d
miserable country to be sure, but then Old England
is rather worse, and a prudent man, will always

stick to the lesser evil, my hearty.” “Go to
the—,” said I. “I'm going to the tavern,” quoth
he, and staggered over to the sign of some famous
Yankee general; I believe they call him Washington.