University of Virginia Library

LETTER XLIV.
In which Captain Downing tells about the Legislature's
making Lawyers.

My Dear Old Friend, — I begin to feel as uneasy
as a fish out of water, because I havn't writ to you for
most two weeks. Now, old March has come, and found
us digging here yet; and sometimes I'm most afraid we
shall be found digging here, when we ought to be at
home digging potatoes, or planting of 'em at least. I've
been waiting now above a week for the Legislater to do
something, that I could write to you about; but they
dont seem to get along very smart lately. Sometimes
the wheels almost stop; and then they start and rumble
along a little ways, and then they drag again. I dont
think we shall get through before sometime next week,
if we do before week arter. These secret sessions take
up a good deal of time. I dont see what in natur they
have so many of 'em for. I tried to get into some of
'em, but they wouldn't let me; they said lobby members
had no business there, and shot the door right in my
face. There's one kind of business though that they
carry on here pretty brisk lately, and that is, making
lawyers. Some days they make 'em almost as fast as
uncle Ephraim used to make sap-troughs; and I've
known him to chop off and hew out two in fifteen minutes.

But for all the Legislater can make 'em so fast, it is
as much as ever they can get along with all that come
and want to be made over into lawyers. And 'tother
day, when the law committee got pretty well stuck, having
so many of 'em on hand, a new batch come up, and

Mr Hall of your town moved to refer them to the committee
on manufactures. This is a capital committee to
make things, and I havn't heard any complaint since,
but what they can turn 'em out as fast as they come.
It rather puzzled me at first to know what made every
body want to be worked over into lawyers; so I asked
one of 'em that stood waiting round here a day or two,
to be put into the hopper and ground over, what he
wanted to be made into a lawyer for? And he kind of
looked up one side at me, and give me a knowing wink,
and says he, don't you know that the lawyers get all the
fat things of the land, and eat out the insides of the oisters,
and give the shels to other folks? And if a man
wants to have any kind of an office, he can't get it unless
he's a lawyer; if he wants to go to the Legislater,
he can't be elected without he's a lawyer; and if he
wants to get to Congress, he cant go without he's a lawyer;
and any man that don't get made into a lawyer as
fast as possible, I say, is a fool. The whole truth come
across my mind then, as quick as a look, why it was that
I spent two or three years trying to get an office, and
couldn't get one. It was because I wasn't a lawyer.
And I dont believe I should have got an office to this
day, if my good friend President Jackson hadn't found
out I was a brave two fisted chap, and jest the boy to go
down to Madawaska and flog the British.

We've agreed unanimously to support Governor Smith
for re-election; and he'll come in all hollow, let the
Jacksonites and Huntonites say what they will about it.
Our party know too well which side their bread is buttered,
to think of being split up this heat. I should
write you more to day, but I feel so kind of agitated
about these secret sessions,[2] that I cant hardly hold my
pen still. I'm a little afraid they are intriguing to send

on to the President to take my commission away from
me. It has been thrown out to me that I ought to be
down to Madawaska, instead of being here all winter.
Some have hinted to me that Mr Clifford has taken a
miff against me, because the other day when he was
chosen Speaker pro. tem. one of my friends voted for
me; and he thinks I was a rival candidate, and means
to have me turned out of office if he can.