University of Virginia Library

3. CHAP. III.

In order to get rid of the little Frenchman, with
his confounded mahogany face, gold ear-rings, and
dimity breeches, who seemed inclined to be impertinently
jocular with my mistaking the way to
New-Orleans, I determined to say nothing, but
defer my journey a day longer. Accordingly I
apprized the landlord of my intention, and suffered
the stage to depart without me. With a view to
keep up my dignity, as well as to acquire all the
information possible, in relation to the country,
its people, and manners, I determined to remain in
my room all day, take my meals in dignified retirement,
and seize every opportunity of questioning
the waiter. From him I gathered many precious
items, concerning the blessed effects of the
turbulent spirit of democracy.

He solemnly assured me, that all the servants
eat off the kitchen floor in these parts, which, instead
of boards, is usually floored with mud, well
trodden by the pigs, which, in this land of equality,
are admitted to all the privileges of citizenship,
vote at elections, and, I believe, are eligible to the
highest offices, provided they are natural born
pigs. On my inquiry how they understood the
votes of these freeholders, he replied, that a grunt
was always considered as a suffrage in favour of
the democratic ticket, and a squeak for the federal
or aristocratic party. Hence abundance of pains
is taken to teach the pigs either to grunt or squeal,
according as their owners belonged to one or other
party; and many a vote was changed by certain
sly pinches of the pigs ears, as they were brought
up to give their suffrages.

The waiter further informed me, in the course
of my investigations into the kitchen, that the
poor servants, who are all blacks and slaves in this
part of the country, had neither beds nor covering
at night, but all pigged together in the same ashes,
where they often squabbled and fought all night,
either to get near a little live coal, or to keep each
other warm by exercise. As to food, one may
guess, as these vulgar democrats say—one may
guess what that is, when I state, on the information
of the waiter, that the week before I came to
Portsmouth, in this very kitchen, a murder was
committed by one gentleman of colour, on another,
in consequence of a dispute about the property of

a bone, which had been picked six days in succession.
The murderer at last seized the bone, hit
his adversary on the temple, and killed him instantly;
after which he buried him in the mud of the
kitchen, and sat himself quietly down to gnaw his
bone. The waiter further stated, that they were
allowed no cooking utensils, and that the way they
generally baked their bread, which is altogether of
saw-dust, was to lie down at night with their feet
to the fire, on the soles of which they placed the
cake. They then go to sleep, and by the time the
cake begins to burn their feet so as to wake them,
it is done. This saw-dust bread is their chief food;
but candour obliges me to state, that once in a great
while they are treated to a bit of spoiled codfish,
or tainted pork, which makes them almost run
mad with ecstacy. Determined to make the most
of this meeting with such an intelligent fellow, I
continued to question him concerning the number
of pots, kettles, stew-pans, &c. in the kitchen—
their state, quality, and condition—whether they
had any knives and forks allowed them, and if the
latter had three prongs? Whether the little negroes
were taught their prayers; and whether the pigs
were permitted to eat out of the same dish with
them? Touching the pots and kettles, he assured
me, upon his honour, that there was but one pot,
with one ear, in the whole establishment; that the
kettle was still worse off than the pot, having had
no handle within the memory of man; that the
only knife they had was half a stump of a blade,
without edge or point, which, however, was rather
a lucky circumstance, since, as they were always
fighting at meals on account of the scarcity prevailing,
they would do mischief if they had knives;
that, as to forks, it was the landlady's maxim that
fingers were made before knives and forks; that
the little people of colour were taught nothing but
swearing, and that the pigs always breakfasted before
them, on account of being considered freeholders,
and entitled to vote.

In this way I gained more insight into the nature
of the turbulent spirit of democracy, than if I
had mixed with half the people of the town, and
asked as many questions as a yankee democrat.
Indeed I had read in all our books of travels, that
these bundling, gouging republicans, although
they asked a dozen questions in a minute, were
principled against answering any. This I was told
by the waiter, arose, in a great degree, from almost
every white man being generally in court a
dozen or twenty times a year, for some offence or
other, (principally that of murder,) by which
means they got a habit of being shy in answering
interrogatories. “But,” said I, at the conclusion
of my examination, “how does it happen that
you are so plump and well clad, if your fellows are
thus naked and starved?” “Why,” replied the
fellow, showing his white teeth from ear to ear—
“Why, if master must know, I make a point of
helping myself out of the dishes, as I go in and out;
and my master keeps me well dressed, for the honour

of the house.” Alas! thought I to myself,
here is another proof of the demoralizing effects of
slavery! This honest man is obliged to descend to
the degradation of rifling apple tarts, and embezzling
mouthfuls of mutton, to keep himself from
starving!—O, Wilberforce! well mayest thou endanger
the lives of all the white people of the West
Indies, in thy attempts to benefit the blacks!—O,
Buxton! well mayest thou be permitted to poison
half the people of London with thine execrable
small beer, in consideration of thy godlike philanthropy!—And,
O, Betty Martin! well mayest
thou be allowed to hunt, shoot, and hang up the
wild Irish, in consideration of thine eloquent
speeches in parliament, in behalf of brawned pigs,
crammed turkies, and plugged lobsters!

In the evening I paid my bill, which seemed
rather to astonish the landlord, and in truth it was
a most swingeing one. At first I demurred—but
upon the poor fellow assuring me he was obliged
to charge strangers, particularly Englishmen, treble,
and sometimes quadruple, to make up for the
losses sustained by his own countrymen, and the
Frenchmen, who generally went away without
paying at all, I paid him with the air of an English
nobleman, expecting he would dub me My
Lord; but he received the money with perfect indifference,
and did not even condescend to bow or
thank me. Such is the influence of the turbulent
spirit of democracy!

In the morning, as usual in all parts of this

country, we set forth before daylight, so that I
could not see my fellow-passengers. Two reasons
combine to produce this republican custom of travelling
before day, and after dark. In the first
place, it gives opportunity for robbing the stages,
the drivers and owners of which, as I am assured,
are, generally, in league with the bands of robbers
which infest all parts of this country, to the number,
sometimes, of two or three thousand in a band.
In the second place, as there is generally one or
two pick-pockets in every stage-coach, and forty
or fifty in every steam-boat, the darkness gives a
capital scope for the exercise of this fashionable
republican vocation. Aware of this, I always rode
with my hands in my pockets, and was now
indulging in this salutary precaution, when a sudden
jolt of the jarvie brought my head in full contact
with the back of a passenger on the seat before
me. “Diable!” exclaimed a voice which seemed
to be familiar to me, and then all was silent again.
Not long after, there exploded a sneeze which shook
the whole vehicle. “My G—d!” ejaculated I,
“I'm sure I've heard that sneeze before; it must
be my little Frenchman!”—But there was no
help for it now, and I determined to keep him at
an awful distance.

Daylight showed the mahogany face, gold ear-rings,
and dimity breeches of the little Frenchman,
and by his side the communicative traveller.
All at once it occurred to my mind, that these two

men were accomplices in some scheme for robbing
me. What confirmed me in the suspicion was,
the confounded civilities of the little Frenchman,
who expressed infinite pleasure on the occasion,
and offered me a pinch of snuff every two minutes.
“We thought we had lost you,” said he “and
were regretting the absence of such an agreeable
companion.” I made no reply but by a stiff inclination
of the head, and continued with my hands
in my pockets, my pocket-book in one, and my
watch in the other. “Pray, Monsieur, what a
clock is it?” said the Frenchman. Aha! thought
I, are you thereabouts? So I told him my watch
had run down, and held it faster than ever.

This mode of disposing of my hands was very
inconvenient on these rough democratic roads, and
occasioned me to bounce about, to the no small annoyance
of these Jonathans, who threw out divers
unmannerly hints, which I treated with perfect
contempt. “He must have his pockets full of
guineas,” said the little Frenchman in a whisper,
winking at the same time at the communicative
traveller. I understood all this perfectly, and
when we stopt to dine, managed to exhibit a neat
pair of hair triggers to these two worthies, who
exchanged very significant looks thereupon. “It
won't do,” observed one to the other, in a desponding
tone.

The house we put up at for the night was in a
lonely wood, at a distance of several miles from
any human habitation. The owls whooped, the

wolves howled, the whippoorwills whistled, the
frogs croaked, the caty-dids, caty-didded it, the
crickets chirped, and every sound seemed fraught
with melancholy thoughts and mournful anticipations.
During supper, and afterwards, I perceived
an exchange of mysterious looks between the
Frenchman, his companion, the landlord, and his
wife, and detected them in various secret conferences.
In one of these I overheard the landlady
say, in reply to some question of the communicative
traveller, who seemed to be an old acquaintance,
“we killed him last night, poor old creature;
I was almost sorry for him.” My blood ran cold
—some poor old traveller, doubtless, thought I.

Having very little doubt but there was a plan to
rob and murder me in this lonely place, I determined
to defeat it by sitting up all night with a
pistol cocked in each hand, ready to defend myself.
In spite of the hints and questions, and entreaties
of the landlord and his wife, I persevered
in my plan, although I was obliged to take to the
kitchen fire, under pretence that they were going
to make up a bed for themselves in the room where
I was. In this situation I continued, a pistol ready
cocked in each hand, until, as I judge, about
two or three o'clock, when a door suddenly opened
and a bandit cautiously entered with a dark lantern
in his hand. Thinking there was no time to
be lost, I let fly at him, and he fell flat on his face
bellowing murder with all his might. Immediately
there was a great stir; the landlord, his wife,
children, servants, the stage passengers, and lastly

the little Frenchman and the communicative traveller
bounced in, helter skelter, crying out “what's
the matter—what's the matter.” I stood with the
other pistol ready to fire, and bade them approach
at their peril. “Diable!” exclaimed the little
Frenchman, stooping down to examine the body,
“he has killed our driver.” “Not exactly,”
cried the fellow, jumping on his two legs as brisk
as a grasshopper—“but if I don't have him up
before the justice for shooting at a fellow for only
coming in to light his lantern, to see to put together
his horses, darn my soul.” I insisted upon it,
he was a genuine bandit, and that he had come into
the kitchen on purpose to rob and murder, or at
least keep me in custody till my friends paid my
ransom. But I found they were all in league
against me, and was finally glad to compound with
the pretended stage-driver, by treating him to a
pint of whiskey. It is thus that strangers are always
served in this democratic paradise. They
must either sit still and be murdered by inches, or
pay a composition for defending themselves. To
carry on the deception, the fellow with a dark lantern
was actually mounted on the coach box, with
a view, I suppose, of making a more successful attempt
the next night. But in this he was disappointed,
for the moment we got to Boston, I took
my portmanteau under my arm, darted round a
corner, and hid myself in a remote part of the city.
In my retreat I heard the little Frenchman exclaim,
“Diable! this is what you call taking
French leave, I think.”