University of Virginia Library

A day or two after the public meeting, the
proceedings of which we have very imperfectly
given, while Bradshaw was attending court in
— county, a meeting of those opposed to the
re-election of Mr. Carlton was called. Jekyl was
one of the prime movers of it. It was very numerously
attended. Jekyl nominated Bradshaw
as a candidate for congress, in opposition to Mr.
Carlton, and Cavendish seconded the motion in a
very able speech, in which, with cynical asperity,
he ridiculed Carlton, and was truly eloquent in
his praise of Bradshaw. The nomination was accepted
with great unanimity.

The friends of Carlton were very much incensed
at the proceedings—they called counter-meetings,
and passed violent resolutions against
Bradshaw. The press, on Carlton's side, denounced
him unsparingly, and threw out broad
hints of charges against his private character,
which, if Mr. Bradshaw insisted upon being a
public man, should be substantiated and published.

Jekyl had, in the increase of his patronage,
been induced to enlarge his paper, and issue it

tri-weekly instead of weekly, and he was doing
very well with it. He hoisted the banner of Bradshaw,
and the moment he did so, Carlton's friends
dropped his paper. Such is the encouragement
given to the freedom of the press! And not content
with this, a squad of them had a meeting, and deputized
two of their number to wait on, and inform
him, that if he continued to support Bradshaw,
they were determined to ruin his paper, and
that, if he would take the side of Carlton, he should
be greatly benefited. “Gentlemen,” said Jekyl to
them, when they had delivered their message,
rising with indignation from his chair, “I have always
eaten the bread of honest independence, and
I thank God! whether my paper rises or falls in
this contest, while I have my health. I can still
earn it. Mr. Farren, you are a man of wealth and
influence—and I did not believe, until to-day, sir,
what was said of you—that you were a sycophant,
and a time-server. You, Mr. Lyle, are descended
from a revolutionary worthy, sir. I am sorry to
tell you what I do, that you are the degenerate
son of a worthy sire. You would sell your birthright.
Tell the gentlemen that they may do their
worst. Mr. Bradshaw was my earliest and best
friend: I believe him politically right. I won't
give up the ship, sirs—the cause—the paper—
while I have the means to circulate it. I shall
give an account in my next paper of your message,
gentlemen; and I shall publish your names, and
the names of those who sent you. Now, there's
the door—make a bee-line out, if you please, gentlemen,
and never enter it again, unless you wish
to feel the arm of one who has been an honest
blacksmith, and who will be an honest blacksmith
again, before he'll follow the tracks of either of
you.”

The day after the visit of the gentlemen, above
mentioned, to Jekyl, eighty-three of his subscribers
sent the peremptory order, “Stop my paper.”
This did not abate Jekyl's zeal for Bradshaw, nor
prevent him from publishing his interview with
Farren and Lyle, with their names, and the names
of those who sent them, in full. These gentlemen
were highly incensed, and made a most furious attack
on Jekyl, through the columns of the Gazette.
In reply, he spared them not, and dealt as severely
with Mr. Carlton. The day after this last publication,
while Jekyl was sitting alone in his office,
our reader's acquaintance, Mr. Chesterton entered.

“This—ugh!—is Mr. Jekyl, editor of the Mechanic
Advocate?”

“Yes, sir.”

“My name is Chesterton.”

“Take a chair, Mr. Chesterton,” said Jekyl,
offering him a chair.

“Give me—ugh—your hand, my boy, I'm glad
to know you—you've heard of me?”

“Yes, sir, I've often heard your nephew, and
Mr. Bradshaw speak of you.”

“Ah! you've heard of—ugh—my poor devil
business, as master Clinton called it—hey!—of my
will—sir, I had fawning knaves—Dodridge and
other sycophants, sir—ugh—ugh—who deceived
me. After my nephew left me, sir, I had nobody
but them and my slaves about me—slaves all. I

don't like—ugh—democracy, sir, your democracy;
but I honour an independent man, and I despise,
from my soul, this cringing and fawning spirit—
subscribers dropping off—hey?”

“Yes, sir, and I'm gaining a few.”

“Ugh—glad to hear it—that's good for Bradshaw.
I like that boy; he suits me to a T, to a
fraction—ugh—ugh—ugh—he'll thunder in the capital
yet, hey! suppose you know my nephew,—
Kentuck they call him,—is to marry his sister?”

“Yes, sir, I've heard so.”

“Well—ugh—of course—then I'm interested in
the family.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ugh—well then I'm interested—ugh—in you
and in your paper—ugh. I don't do it for your
d—d democracy—understand. I've no chick nor
child; Willy 'll get all, except what I leave to
Bradshaw. Ugh—ugh—may be my purse is as
deep as some others we might name, ugh—ugh—
ugh—so go a-head, my boy, and when you want
any money, I'm your man. This is to be a tight
contest; Bradshaw ought to be home; Carlton made
a stump speech last night, and abused him like a
pick-pocket. Good deal of—ugh—boisterous Billingsgate
in him—hey!—can't you make your paper
a daily, hey?—and meet that daily lie—that
gazette, with a daily—ugh—contradiction and castigation.
You must do it; I'm your man; any
time you're ready, I'm your man. Ha, ha, so you ordered
the rich, rascally, ragamuffins out, hey! we
must beat 'em, we must beat 'em—ugh—what do
you say of a daily, hey?”

“I don't think, sir, that Carlton's friends can hurt
me much more; they've stopped two hundred papers,
though, already.”

“Ugh—they have, hey? well, don't say any thing
about it, but put me down for two hundred papers.
I understand—don't do it to help a Jacobin, what
I take you to be—ugh—but I like the boy, Bradshaw,
and we must beat them.”

“I had, since I came out for Bradshaw, sixty
new subscribers, who came to the office unsolicited,
and subscribed. When Bradshaw returns, if he
determines to be a candidate”—

“Determines to be—ugh—ugh—a candidate!—
he must be a candidate; that's your—ugh—d—d
democratic Jacobinical doctrine, `neither to seek
nor decline;' ha! ha! ha!—ugh—ugh—preposterous;
but Bradshaw must hold to it, and you must
hold to him as the candidate, that's all—but I interrupted
you.”

“I was about remarking, sir, that if Bradshaw
determines to be a candidate, and I think he will,
I may safely say, I can make a daily of my paper
with a little assistance. I could give a mortgage
on the establishment; it is now free and unincumbered—I
could make a daily of it and run the
gazette hard.”

“Ugh—ugh—it must be done. Some puppy—
did you see it? some puppy of a correspondent has
an article on a stranger's meddling in politics, and
—ugh—ugh—takes me off. I'll cane him if I find—
ugh—him out—takes me off; the anonymous knave,
did you see it?”

“Yes, sir, I saw an article in that paper yesterday,

alluding to a stranger's interfering in our politics,”
said Jekyl, with a smile, which he could not suppress;
“but I was not aware he meant you, sir.”

“You smile, hey!” exclaimed Mr. Chesterton.
“Ugh—I understand: you're thinking of Pope, the
poet, hey! and mad Dennis—Dennis, the critic—
ugh—my thunder Dennis, hey?”

Jekyl protested that he was not, and that he did
not know to what Mr. Chesterton alluded.

“Don't know to what I allude—ugh—ugh—my
cough's bad to-day. Why, when Pope's Essay on
Crit—ugh—icism was published, Dennis—Dennis
and he were at daggers drawn—stepped into the
booksellers—ugh—opened the poem, and read,

Ugh—ugh—ha—`By gad! he means me!' exclaimed
Dennis—mad Dennis. Do you take now,
my boy, my brave blacksmith?”

“Yes, sir,” said Jekyl, laughing heartily at Mr.
Carlton's oddness; “I take.”

“Ha! ha! it's good, ain't it? I tell you, my
brave blacksmith, General Morgan, of our revolution,
was a blacksmith: did you know it? We
must have a caricature—ugh—ugh. I bedeviled
a fellow nearly to death once, with one of them—
ugh—you remember when Bradshaw made the
people laugh so, when he talked—ugh—about the
barring out, and put on the look of an urchin—ha!
ha!—ugh—the fellow'd make a good actor, first
rate. Well—ugh—we must have a caricature,
and have him barring old Carlton out of Congress

—ugh. Scene, Congress Hall—ugh—doors and
windows all shut, Carlton, with a switch in hand,
mounted on the backs of—ugh—what's their
names?” exclaimed Mr. Chesterton, snapping his
fingers with impatience. “Ah, I have the rogues;
mounted on the back of Farren and Lyle, trying
to get in the window—ugh—ugh—ha! ha! Bradshaw
has the window a little way open, and is
knocking him on the head with a bundle of papers,
some inscribed with the name of the measure Carlton
has been advocating, and some Mechanics' Advocate.
Hey! what do you think of it?” continued
Mr. Chesterton, who had been walking up and
down the office, every now and then, stopping before
Jekyl. “What do you think of it?” he asked,
stopping short. “Yes; and there must be a bundle
of Gazettes sticking out of Carlton's pockets,
and a fellow behind him, who is trying to get one
of them, catches him—ugh—ugh—by the coat tail,
and, ha! ha! that prevents him from getting at
Bradshaw—ugh—ugh—there's a notion for you,
my brave Morgan blacksmith.”

Jekyl, who never restrained his impulses, threw
himself back in his chair, and gave way to a hearty
laugh, which Mr. Chesterton attributed entirely
to his caricature, and was pleased accordingly.”

“Ha! ha!—ugh—a good notion, you think, hey!
who draws? who draws? I've a thousand things
here,” tapping his head with his finger; “yes, a
million, if I could only get them written down.”

Jekyl was delighted with the idea of ridiculing
Carlton, and told Mr. Chesterton that a young
friend of his, an engraver, who had a great turn

for such things, would be glad to get the job, and
would execute it admirably.

“That's the thing—the very—ugh—thing!” exclaimed
Mr. Chesterton, “let him meet me here this
evening if—ugh—you say so. And set about your
daily arrangements, by that time too, folks like your
paper—ugh—I know it will go with a little—ugh—
pushing. We'll wax the rascals!” So saying, Mr.
Chesterton departed, stopping, however, at the foot
of the steps, and calling up, “Mind—my brave Morgan,
not antimasonry—blacksmith, don't forget this
evening.”

The day, Bradshaw returned to the city, the
following article appeared in the Gazette:—