University of Virginia Library

LETTER VII.

An account of the trigging of the wheels of government.

Dear Cousin Ephraim.—I've wrote you three postscripts
since I wrote you a letter, and the reason is,
these Legislaters have been carryin on so like all possest,
and I've been in looking at 'em so much, I could
n't get time to write more than three lines at once, for
fear I should be out of the way, and should miss seeing
some of the fun. But thinkin you'd be tired of
waiting, I tried to get the printer to send my letter yesterday;
but he told me right up and down he could n't.
I told him he must, for I ought to sent before now.—
But he said he could n't and would n't, and that was
the upshot of the matter, for the paper was chock full,
and more tu, of the Governor's message. Bless my
stars, says I, and have we got a Governor done enough
so he can speak a message? Yes, indeed we have,
says he, thanks be to the two great republikin parties,
who have saved the State from the anarkee of the Jacksonites
and Huntonites; the Governor is done, and is
jest a going into the Lesislater, and if you 'll go right
up there, you can see him. So I pushed in among the
crowd, and I got a pretty good squeezin tu; but I got
a good place, for I could elbow it as well as any on 'em.
And I had n't been there five minutes, seemingly, before
we had a Governor sure enough; and a good stout,

genteel looking sort of a man he was tu, as you would
see in a whole regiment, taking in captains and all.—
Nobody disputed that he was finished pretty workman-like;
and he ought to be, for they 'd been long enough
about it. So they concluded to swear him in, as they
call it, and he took a great oath to behave like a Governor
a whole year. Some say the wheels of government
will go along smooth and easy now, as a wheelbarrow
across a brick yard; but some shake their heads, and
say the wheels will be jolting over rocks and stumps all
winter yet; and I dont know but they will, for the
Governor had n't hardly turned his back upon 'em and
gone out, before they went right to disputing agin as
hard as ever. I was a good mind to run out and call
the Governor back to still 'em. But I could n't tell
where to look for him, so they got clear of a drubbing
that time. I know he 'd a gin it to 'em if he 'd been
there; for what do you think was the first thing they
went to disputing about? It was how many Governor's
speeches they should print this winter; jest as if
the Governor could n't tell that himself. Some wanted
three hundred, and some five hundred, and some seven
or eight hundred. Finally they concluded to print five
hundred; and I should think that was enough in all
conscience, if they are all going to be as long as that
one they printed in the Courier yesterday. In the next
place, they took up that everlasting dispute about Mr.
Roberts' having a seat; for if you 'll believe me, they've
kept that poor man standing there till this time.

I'll tell you how tis, Cousin Ephraim, we must contrive
some way or other to keep these Jacksonites and
Huntonites out of the Legislater another year, or we
shall be ruin'd; for they make pesky bad work, triging
the wheels of government. They 've triged 'em so
much that they say it has cost the State about fifteen
thousand dollars a'ready, more than 'twould, if they
had gone along straight without stopping. So you may
tell uncle Joshua that besides that bushel of corn he lost
in betting about the Speaker, he'll have to shell out as

much as two bushels more to pay the cost of triging the
wheels. Jingoe! sometimes when I've seen the wheels
chocked with a little trig not bigger than a cat's head,
and the whole legislater trying with all their might two
or three days, and couldn't start it a hair, how I've
longed to hitch on my little speckled four-year-olds,
and give 'em a pull; if they wouldn't make the wheels
fly over the trigs in a jiffy, I wont guess agin. 'Tother
day in a great convention, when both Legislaters met
together to chuse some Counsellors, Mr. Boutelle and
Mr. Smith of Nobleborough tried to explain how 'twas
the wheels of government were trig'd so much. Mr.
Boutelle, as I have told you a-fore, is a national republican,
and Mr. Smith is a democratic republican.—
They differed a little in their opinion. Mr. Boutelle
seemed to think the trigs were all put under by one class
of politicians, and from what he said, I took it he meant
the Jacksonites. He said ever since the Legislater began,
the moment they started the wheels, that class of
politicians would throw under a chock and stop 'em;
and which ever way they turned, that class of politicians
would meet 'em at every corner and bring 'em up
all standin. Mr. Smith seemed to think another class
of politicians had the greatest hand in it, and it was
pretty clear he meant the Huntonites. He said when
they first got here, that class of politicians sot the
wheels of government rolling the wrong way; they put
the big wheels forward, and the Legislater had been
going backwards ever since, just like a lobster. And
the Huntonites not only trig'd the wheels, whenever
they begun to roll the right way; but as soon as the
`blessed Governor' was done they trig'd him tu; and
though he had been done four days, they would'nt let
him come into the Legislater so that their eyes could
be blest with the sight of him. So from what I can
find out, the Jacksonites and Huntonites both, are a
troublesome contrary set, and there must be some way
contrived to keep 'em out of the Legislater in future.

It seems soon after you got my first letter, uncle

Joshua tackled up, and started off to Boston with a
load of turkeys and apple-sauce. I had a letter from
him t'other day, as long as all out doors, in the Boston
Advertiser. He says he got more for the turkeys than
he expected tu; but I think its a plaguy pity he did'nt
bring 'em to Portland. I know he'd got more than he
could in Boston. Provision kind is getting up here
wonderfully, on account of these Legislaters being
likely to stay here all winter; and some think the'll be
here half the summer tu. And then there's sich a
cloud of what they call lobby members and office hunters,
that the butchers have got frightened, and gone to
buying up all the beef and pork they can get hold on
far and near for they are afraid a famine will be upon us
next. Howsomever, uncle Joshua did well to carry his
`puckery apple-sauce' to Boston. He could n't get a
cent for't here; for every body's puckery and soar
enough here now.

Give my love to father and mother and cousin Nabby.
I shall answer their letters as soon as I can.