 | The snow-image |  |
OLD NEWS.
1. I. OLD NEWS.
Here is a volume of what were once newspapers,
each on a small half-sheet, yellow and time-stained, of
a coarse fabric, and imprinted with a rude old type.
Their aspect conveys a singular impression of antiquity,
in a species of literature which we are accustomed to
consider as connected only with the present moment.
Ephemeral as they were intended and supposed to be,
they have long outlived the printer and his whole subscription-list,
and have proved more durable, as to their
physical existence, than most of the timber, bricks, and
stone, of the town where they were issued. These are
but the least of their triumphs. The government,
the interests, the opinions, in short, all the moral circumstances
that were contemporary with their publication,
have passed away, and left no better record of what
they were than may be found in these frail leaves.
Happy are the editors of newspapers! Their productions
excel all others in immediate popularity, and are
certain to acquire another sort of value with the lapse of
time. They scatter their leaves to the wind, as the
sybil did, and posterity collects them, to be treasured up
among the best materials of its wisdom. With hasty
pens they write for immortality.
It is pleasant to take one of these little dingy half-sheets
between the thumb and finger, and picture forth
the personage who, above ninety years ago, held it, wet
from the press, and steaming, before the fire. Many of
the numbers bear the name of an old colonial dignitary.
There he sits, a major, a member of the council, and a
weighty merchant, in his high-backed arm-chair, wearing
a solemn wig and grave attire, such as befits his
imposing gravity of mien, and displaying but little
finery, except a huge pair of silver shoe-buckles, curiously
carved. Observe the awful reverence of his visage,
as he reads His Majesty's most gracious speech;
and the deliberate wisdom with which he ponders over
some paragraph of provincial politics, and the keener
intelligence with which he glances at the ship-news and
commercial advertisements. Observe, and smile! He
may have been a wise man in his day; but, to us, the
wisdom of the politician appears like folly, because we
can compare its prognostics with actual results; and the
old merchant seems to have busied himself about vanities,
because we know that the expected ships have been
lost at sea, or mouldered at the wharves; that his
imported broadcloths were long ago worn to tatters, and
his cargoes of wine quaffed to the lees; and that the
most precious leaves of his ledger have become wastepaper.
Yet, his avocations were not so vain as our
philosophic moralizing. In this world, we are the things
of a moment, and are made to pursue momentary things,
with here and there a thought that stretches mistily
towards eternity, and perhaps may endure as long. All
philosophy that would abstract mankind from the present
is no more than words.
The first pages of most of these old papers are as
soporific as a bed of poppies. Here we have an erudite
clergyman, or perhaps a Cambridge professor, occupying
several successive weeks with a criticism on Tate and
Brady, as compared with the New England version of
the Psalms. Of course, the preference is given to the
native article. Here are doctors disagreeing about the
treatment of a putrid fever then prevalent, and black-guarding
each other with a characteristic virulence that
renders the controversy not altogether unreadable. Here
are President Wigglesworth and the Rev. Dr. Colman,
endeavoring to raise a fund for the support of missionaries
among the Indians of Massachusetts Bay. Easy
would be the duties of such a mission now! Here —
for there is nothing new under the sun — are frequent
complaints of the disordered state of the currency, and
the project of a bank with a capital of five hundred
thousand pounds, secured on lands. Here are literary
essays, from the Gentleman's Magazine; and squibs
against the Pretender, from the London newspapers.
And here, occasionally, are specimens of New England
humor, laboriously light and lamentably mirthful, as if
some very sober person, in his zeal to be merry, were
dancing a jig to the tune of a funeral-psalm. All this is
wearisome, and we must turn the leaf.
There is a good deal of amusement, and some profit,
in the perusal of those little items which characterize
the manners and circumstances of the country. New
England was then in a state incomparably more picturesque
than at present, or than it has been within the
memory of man; there being, as yet, only a narrow
strip of civilization along the edge of a vast forest, peopled
savage life with the old customs of another world. The
white population, also, was diversified by the influx of
all sorts of expatriated vagabonds, and by the continual
importation of bond-servants from Ireland and elsewhere,
so that there was a wild and unsettled multitude, forming
a strong minority to the sober descendants of the
Puritans. Then, there were the slaves, contributing
their dark shade to the picture of society. The consequence
of all this was a great variety and singularity of
action and incident, many instances of which might be
selected from these columns, where they are told with a
simplicity and quaintness of style that bring the striking
points into very strong relief. It is natural to suppose,
too, that these circumstances affected the body of the
people, and made their course of life generally less
regular than that of their descendants. There is no
evidence that the moral standard was higher then than
now; or, indeed, that morality was so well defined as it
has since become. There seem to have been quite as
many frauds and robberies, in proportion to the number
of honest deeds; there were murders, in hot-blood and
in malice; and bloody quarrels over liquor. Some of our
fathers also appear to have been yoked to unfaithful
wives, if we may trust the frequent notices of elopements
from bed and board. The pillory, the whipping-post,
the prison, and the gallows, each had their use in
those old times; and, in short, as often as our imagination
lives in the past, we find it a ruder and rougher age
than our own, with hardly any perceptible advantages,
and much that gave life a gloomier tinge.
In vain we endeavor to throw a sunny and joyous air
fancy but a crowd of sad-visaged people, moving duskily
through a dull gray atmosphere. It is certain that winter
rushed upon them with fiercer storms than now,
blocking up the narrow forest-paths, and overwhelming
the roads along the sea-coast with mountain snowdrifts;
so that weeks elapsed before the newspaper could
announce how many travellers had perished, or what
wrecks had strewn the shore. The cold was more
piercing then, and lingered further into the spring, making
the chimney-corner a comfortable seat till long past
May-day. By the number of such accidents on record,
we might suppose that the thunder-stone, as they termed
it, fell oftener and deadlier, on steeples, dwellings, and
unsheltered wretches. In fine, our fathers bore the
brunt of more raging and pitiless elements than we.
There were forebodings, also, of a more fearful tempest
than those of the elements. At two or three dates, we
have stories of drums, trumpets, and all sorts of martial
music, passing athwart the midnight sky, accompanied
with the roar of cannon and rattle of musketry, prophetic
echoes of the sounds that were soon to shake the land.
Besides these airy prognostics, there were rumors of
French fleets on the coast, and of the march of French
and Indians through the wilderness, along the borders
of the settlements. The country was saddened, moreover,
with grievous sickness. The small-pox raged in
many of the towns, and seems, though so familiar a
scourge, to have been regarded with as much affright
as that which drove the throng from Wall-street and
Broadway at the approach of a new pestilence. There
were autumnal fevers too, and a contagious and destructive
books. The dark superstition of former days had not
yet been so far dispelled as not to heighten the gloom
of the present times. There is an advertisement, indeed,
by a committee of the Legislature, calling for information
as to the circumstances of sufferers in the “late calamity
of 1692,” with a view to reparation for their losses and
misfortunes. But the tenderness with which, after above
forty years, it was thought expedient to allude to the
witchcraft delusion, indicates a good deal of lingering
error, as well as the advance of more enlightened opinions.
The rigid hand of Puritanism might yet be felt
upon the reins of government, while some of the ordinances
intimate a disorderly spirit on the part of the
people. The Suffolk justices, after a preamble that
great disturbances have been committed by persons
entering town and leaving it in coaches, chaises, calashes,
and other wheel-carriages, on the evening before
the Sabbath, give notice that a watch will hereafter be
set at the “fortification-gate,” to prevent these outrages.
It is amusing to see Boston assuming the aspect of a
walled city, guarded, probably, by a detachment of
church-members, with a deacon at their head. Governor
Belcher makes proclamation against certain “loose
and dissolute people” who have been wont to stop passengers
in the streets, on the Fifth of November, “otherwise
called Pope's Day,” and levy contributions for the
building of bonfires. In this instance, the populace are
more puritanic than the magistrate.
The elaborate solemnities of funerals were in accordance
with the sombre character of the times. In cases
of ordinary death, the printer seldom fails to notice that
some mightier mortal has yielded to his fate, the decease
of the “worshipful” such-a-one is announced, with all
his titles of deacon, justice, counsellor, and colonel; then
follows an heraldic sketch of his honorable ancestors,
and lastly an account of the black pomp of his funeral,
and the liberal expenditure of scarfs, gloves, and mourning-rings.
The burial train glides slowly before us, as
we have seen it represented in the wood-cuts of that day,
the coffin, and the bearers, and the lamentable friends,
trailing their long black garments, while grim death, a
most misshapen skeleton, with all kinds of doleful emblems,
stalks hideously in front. There was a coach-maker
at this period, one John Lucas, who seems to
have gained the chief of his living by letting out a sable
coach to funerals.
It would not be fair, however, to leave quite so dismal
an impression on the reader's mind; nor should it be
forgotten that happiness may walk soberly in dark attire,
as well as dance lightsomely in a gala-dress. And this
reminds us that there is an incidental notice of the
“dancing-school near the Orange-Tree,” whence we
may infer that the saltatory art was occasionally practised,
though perhaps chastened into a characteristic
gravity of movement. This pastime was probably confined
to the aristocratic circle, of which the royal governor
was the centre. But we are scandalized at the
attempt of Jonathan Furness to introduce a more reprehensible
amusement: he challenges the whole country
to match his black gelding in a race for a hundred
pounds, to be decided on Metonomy Common or Chelsea
Beach. Nothing as to the manners of the times can be
no daily and continual opportunities of being merry; but
sometimes the people rejoiced, in their own peculiar
fashion, oftener with a calm, religious smile than with a
broad laugh, as when they feasted, like one great family,
at Thanksgiving time, or indulged a livelier mirth
throughout the pleasant days of Election-week. This
latter was the true holiday-season of New England.
Military musters were too seriously important in that
warlike time to be classed among amusements; but they
stirred up and enlivened the public mind, and were occasions
of solemn festival to the governor and great men
of the province, at the expense of the field-officers. The
Revolution blotted a feast-day out of our calendar; for
the anniversary of the king's birth appears to have
been celebrated with most imposing pomp, by salutes
from Castle William, a military parade, a grand dinner
at the town-house, and a brilliant illumination in the
evening. There was nothing forced nor feigned in
these testimonials of loyalty to George the Second. So
long as they dreaded the reëstablishment of a popish
dynasty, the people were fervent for the house of Hanover:
and, besides, the immediate magistracy of the
country was a barrier between the monarch and the
occasional discontents of the colonies; the waves of
faction sometimes reached the governor's chair, but
never swelled against the throne. Thus, until oppression
was felt to proceed from the king's own hand, New
England rejoiced with her whole heart on His Majesty's
birth-day.
But the slaves, we suspect, were the merriest part of
the population, since it was their gift to be merry in the
few hardships, under the domestic sway of our
fathers. There seems to have been a great trade in
these human commodities. No advertisements are more
frequent than those of “a negro fellow, fit for almost any
household work;” “a negro woman, honest, healthy and
capable;” “a young negro wench, of many desirable
qualities;” “a negro man, very fit for a taylor.” We
know not in what this natural fitness for a tailor consisted,
unless it were some peculiarity of conformation
that enabled him to sit cross-legged. When the slaves
of a family were inconveniently prolific, — it being not
quite orthodox to drown the superfluous offspring, like a
litter of kittens, — notice was promulgated of “a negro
child to be given away.” Sometimes the slaves assumed
the property of their own persons, and made their escape:
among many such instances, the governor raises a hue-and-cry
after his negro Juba. But, without venturing a
word in extenuation of the general system, we confess
our opinion that Cæsar, Pompey, Scipio, and all such
great Roman namesakes, would have been better advised
had they staid at home, foddering the cattle, cleaning
dishes, — in fine, performing their moderate share of the
labors of life, without being harassed by its cares. The
sable inmates of the mansion were not excluded from
the domestic affections: in families of middling rank,
they had their places at the board; and when the circle
closed round the evening hearth, its blaze glowed on
their dark shining faces, intermixed familiarly with their
master's children. It must have contributed to reconcile
them to their lot, that they saw white men and women
imported from Europe as they had been from Africa,
slaves to the highest bidder. Slave labor being but a
small part of the industry of the country, it did not
change the character of the people; the latter, on the
contrary, modified and softened the institution, making
it a patriarchal, and almost a beautiful, peculiarity of
the times.
Ah! We had forgotten the good old merchant, over
whose shoulder we were peeping, while he read the
newspaper. Let us now suppose him putting on his
three-cornered gold-laced hat, grasping his cane, with a
head inlaid of ebony and mother-of-pearl, and setting
forth, through the crooked streets of Boston, on various
errands, suggested by the advertisements of the day.
Thus he communes with himself: I must be mindful,
says he, to call at Captain Scut's, in Creek-lane, and
examine his rich velvet, whether it be fit for my apparel
on Election-day, — that I may wear a stately aspect in
presence of the governor and my brethren of the council.
I will look in, also, at the shop of Michael Cario, the
jeweller: he has silver buckles of a new fashion; and
mine have lasted me some half-score years. My fair
daughter Miriam shall have an apron of gold brocade,
and a velvet mask, — though it would be a pity the
wench should hide her comely visage; and also a French
cap, from Robert Jenkins', on the north side of the town-house.
He hath beads, too, and ear-rings, and necklaces,
of all sorts; these are but vanities — nevertheless,
they would please the silly maiden well. My dame
desireth another female in the kitchen; wherefore, I
must inspect the lot of Irish lasses, for sale by Samuel
Waldo, aboard the schooner Endeavor; as also the likely
that I took my daughter Miriam to see the royal wax-work,
near the town-dock, that she may learn to honor
our most gracious King and Queen, and their royal progeny,
even in their waxen images; not that I would
approve of image-worship. The camel, too, that strange
beast from Africa, with two great humps, to be seen near
the common; methinks I would fain go thither, and see
how the old patriarchs were wont to ride. I will tarry
a while in Queen-street, at the book-store of my good
friends Kneeland & Green, and purchase Doctor Colman's
new sermon, and the volume of discourses by Mr.
Henry Flynt; and look over the controversy on baptism,
between the Reverend Peter Clarke and an unknown
adversary; and see whether this George Whitefield be
as great in print as he is famed to be in the pulpit. By
that time, the auction will have commenced at the Royal
Exchange, in King-street. Moreover, I must look to the
disposal of my last cargo of West India rum and muscovado
sugar; and also the lot of choice Cheshire cheese,
lest it grow mouldy. It were well that I ordered a cask
of good English beer, at the lower end of Milk-street.
Then am I to speak with certain dealers about the lot of
stout old Vidonia, rich Canary, and Oporto wines, which
I have now lying in the cellar of the Old South meeting-house.
But, a pipe or two of the rich Canary shall be
reserved, that it may grow mellow in mine own wine-cellar,
and gladden my heart when it begins to droop
with old age.
Provident old gentleman! But, was he mindful of
his sepulchre? Did he bethink him to call at the workshop
of Timothy Sheaffe, in Cold-lane, and select such
the man whose handiwork, or that of his fellow-craftsmen,
was ultimately in demand by all the busy multitude
who have left a record of their earthly toil in these
old time-stained papers. And now, as we turn over the
volume, we seem to be wandering among the mossy
stones of a burial-ground.
2. II. THE OLD FRENCH WAR.
At a period about twenty years subsequent to that of
our former sketch, we again attempt a delineation of
some of the characteristics of life and manners in New
England. Our text-book, as before, is a file of antique
newspapers. The volume which serves us for a writing-desk
is a folio of larger dimensions than the one before
described; and the papers are generally printed on a
whole sheet, sometimes with a supplemental leaf of news
and advertisements. They have a venerable appearance,
being overspread with the duskiness of more than seventy
years, and discolored, here and there, with the deeper
stains of some liquid, as if the contents of a wine-glass
had long since been splashed upon the page. Still, the
old book conveys an impression that, when the separate
numbers were flying about town, in the first day or two
of their respective existences, they might have been fit
reading for very stylish people. Such newspapers could
have been issued nowhere but in a metropolis the centre,
not only of public and private affairs, but of fashion and
might have been, and probably were, spread out on the
tables of the British coffee-house, in King-street, for the
perusal of the throng of officers who then drank their
wine at that celebrated establishment. To interest these
military gentlemen, there were bulletins of the war
between Prussia and Austria; between England and
France, on the old battle-plains of Flanders; and between
the same antagonists, in the newer fields of the East
Indies, — and in our own trackless woods, where white
men never trod until they came to fight there. Or,
the travelled American, the petit-maitre of the colonies,
— the ape of London foppery, as the newspaper
was the semblance of the London journals, — he, with
his gray powdered periwig, his embroidered coat, lace
ruffles, and glossy silk stockings, golden-clocked, — his
buckles, of glittering paste, at knee-band and shoe-strap,
— his scented handkerchief, and chapeau beneath his
arm, — even such a dainty figure need not have disdained
to glance at these old yellow pages, while they were the
mirror of passing times. For his amusement, there were
essays of wit and humor, the light literature of the day,
which, for breadth and license, might have proceeded
from the pen of Fielding or Smollet; while, in other
columns, he would delight his imagination with the
enumerated items of all sorts of finery, and with the
rival advertisements of half a dozen peruke-makers. In
short, newer manners and customs had almost entirely
superseded those of the Puritans, even in their own city
of refuge.
It was natural that, with the lapse of time and increase
of wealth and population, the peculiarities of the early
the generations of their descendants, who also had been
alloyed by a continual accession of emigrants from many
countries and of all characters. It tended to assimilate
the colonial manners to those of the mother country,
that the commercial intercourse was great, and that the
merchants often went thither in their own ships. Indeed,
almost every man of adequate fortune felt a yearning
desire, and even judged it a filial duty, at least once in
his life, to visit the home of his ancestors. They still
called it their own home, as if New England were to
them, what many of the old Puritans had considered it,
not a permanent abiding-place, but merely a lodge in
the wilderness, until the trouble of the times should be
passed. The example of the royal governors must have
had much influence on the manners of the colonists; for
these rulers assumed a degree of state and splendor
which had never been practised by their predecessors,
who differed in nothing from republican chief-magistrates,
under the old charter. The officers of the crown, the
public characters in the interest of the administration,
and the gentlemen of wealth and good descent, generally
noted for their loyalty, would constitute a dignified circle,
with the governor in the centre, bearing a very passable
resemblance to a court. Their ideas, their habits, their
code of courtesy, and their dress, would have all the
fresh glitter of fashions immediately derived from the
fountain-head, in England. To prevent their modes of
life from becoming the standard with all who had the
ability to imitate them, there was no longer an undue
severity of religion, nor as yet any disaffection to British
supremacy, nor democratic prejudices against pomp.
which was soon to render them an independent republic,
it might have been supposed that the wealthier classes
were growing into an aristocracy, and ripening for
hereditary rank, while the poor were to be stationary in
their abasement, and the country, perhaps, to be a sister
monarchy with England. Such, doubtless, were the
plausible conjectures deduced from the superficial phenomena
of our connection with a monarchical government,
until the prospective nobility were levelled with the mob,
by the mere gathering of winds that preceded the storm
of the Revolution. The protents of that storm were not
yet visible in the air. A true picture of society, therefore,
would have the rich effect produced by distinctions
of rank that seemed permanent, and by appropriate habits
of splendor on the part of the gentry.
The people at large had been somewhat changed in
character, since the period of our last sketch, by their
great exploit, the conquest of Louisburg. After that
event, the New Englanders never settled into precisely
the same quiet race which all the world had imagined
them to be. They had done a deed of history, and were
anxious to add new ones to the record. They had
proved themselves powerful enough to influence the
result of a war, and were thenceforth called upon, and
willingly consented, to join their strength against the
enemies of England; on those fields, at least, where
victory would redound to their peculiar advantage. And
now, in the heat of the Old French War, they might well
be termed a martial people. Every man was a soldier,
or the father or brother of a soldier; and the whole land
literally echoed with the roll of the drum, either beating
the march towards the frontiers. Besides the provincial
troops, there were twenty-three British regiments in the
northern colonies. The country has never known a
period of such excitement and warlike life, except during
the Revolution — perhaps scarcely then; for that was a
lingering war, and this a stirring and eventful one.
One would think that no very wonderful talent was
requisite for an historical novel, when the rough and
hurried paragraphs of these newspapers can recall the
past so magically. We seem to be waiting in the street
for the arrival of the post-rider — who is seldom more
than twelve hours beyond his time — with letters, by
way of Albany, from the various departments of the
army. Or, we may fancy ourselves in the circle of listeners,
all with necks stretched out towards an old
gentleman in the centre, who deliberately puts on his
spectacles, unfolds the wet newspaper, and gives us the
details of the broken and contradictory reports, which
have been flying from mouth to mouth, ever since the
courier alighted at Secretary Oliver's office. Sometimes
we have an account of the Indian skirmishes near Lake
George, and how a ranging party of provincials were so
closely pursued, that they threw away their arms, and
eke their shoes, stockings, and breeches, barely reaching
the camp in their shirts, which also were terribly tattered
by the bushes. Then, there is a journal of the siege of
Fort Niagara, so minute that it almost numbers the
cannon-shot and bombs, and describes the effect of the
latter missiles on the French commandant's stone mansion,
within the fortress. In the letters of the provincial
officers, it is amusing to observe how some of them
campaigners. One gentleman tells us that he holds a
brimming glass in his hand, intending to drink the health
of his correspondent, unless a cannon-ball should dash
the liquor from his lips; in the midst of his letter, he
hears the bells of the French churches ringing, in Quebec,
and recollects that it is Sunday; whereupon, like a good
Protestant, he resolves to disturb the Catholic worship by
a few thirty-two pound shot. While this wicked man
of war was thus making a jest of religion, his pious
mother had probably put up a note, that very Sabbath-day,
desiring the “prayers of the congregation for a son
gone a soldiering.” We trust, however, that there were
some stout old worthies who were not ashamed to do as
their fathers did, but went to prayer, with their soldiers,
before leading them to battle; and doubtless fought none
the worse for that. If we had enlisted in the Old French
War, it should have been under such a captain; for we
love to see a man keep the characteristics of his country.[1]
These letters, and other intelligence from the army,
are pleasant and lively reading, and stir up the mind
like the music of a drum and fife. It is less agreeable
to meet with accounts of women slain and scalped, and
infants dashed against trees, by the Indians on the frontiers.
bears, driven from the woods, by the uproar of contending
armies in their accustomed haunts, broke into the
settlements, and committed great ravages among children,
as well as sheep and swine. Some of them prowled
where bears had never been for a century, penetrating
within a mile or two of Boston; a fact that gives a
strong and gloomy impression of something very terrific
going on in the forest, since these savage beasts fled
townward to avoid it. But it is impossible to moralize
about such trifles, when every newspaper contains tales
of military enterprise, and often a huzza for victory; as,
for instance, the taking of Ticonderoga, long a place of
awe to the provincials, and one of the bloodiest spots in
the present war. Nor is it unpleasant, among whole
pages of exultation, to find a note of sorrow for the fall
of some brave officer; it comes wailing in, like a funeral
strain amidst a peal of triumph, itself triumphant too.
Such was the lamentation over Wolfe. Somewhere, in
this volume of newspapers, though we cannot now lay
our finger upon the passage, we recollect a report, that
General Wolfe was slain, not by the enemy, but by a
shot from his own soldiers.
In the advertising columns, also, we are continually
reminded that the country was in a state of war. Governor
Pownall makes proclamation for the enlisting of
soldiers, and directs the militia colonels to attend to the
discipline of their regiments, and the selectmen of every
town to replenish their stocks of ammunition. The
magazine, by the way, was generally kept in the upper
loft of the village meeting-house. The provincial captains
are drumming up for soldiers, in every newspaper.
employed on the lakes; and gives notice to the officers
of seven British regiments, dispersed on the recruiting
service, to rendezvous in Boston. Captain Hallowell, of
the province ship-of-war King George, invites able-bodied
seamen to serve his Majesty, for fifteen pounds, old tenor,
per month. By the rewards offered, there would appear
to have been frequent desertions from the New England
forces; we applaud their wisdom, if not their valor or
integrity. Cannon of all calibres, gunpowder and balls,
firelocks, pistols, swords, and hangers, were common
articles of merchandise. Daniel Jones, at the sign of
the hat and helmet, offers to supply officers with scarlet
broadcloth, gold lace for hats and waistcoats, cockades,
and other military foppery, allowing credit until the payrolls
shall be made up. This advertisement gives us
quite a gorgeous idea of a provincial captain in full
dress.
At the commencement of the campaign of 1759, the
British general informs the farmers of New England
that a regular market will be established at Lake George,
whither they are invited to bring provisions and refreshments
of all sorts, for the use of the army. Hence, we
may form a singular picture of petty traffic, far away
from any permanent settlements, among the hills which
border that romantic lake, with the solemn woods overshadowing
the scene. Carcasses of bullocks and fat
porkers are placed upright against the huge trunks of
the trees; fowls hang from the lower branches, bobbing
against the heads of those beneath; butter-firkins, great
cheeses, and brown loaves of household bread, baked in
distant ovens, are collected under temporary shelters of
and other toothsome dainties. Barrels of cider
and spruce-beer are running freely into the wooden
canteens of the soldiers. Imagine such a scene, beneath
the dark forest canopy, with here and there a few
struggling sunbeams, to dissipate the gloom. See the
shrewd yeomen, haggling with their scarlet-coated customers,
abating somewhat in their prices, but still dealing
at monstrous profit; and then complete the picture with
circumstances that bespeak war and danger. A cannon
shall be seen to belch its smoke from among the trees,
against some distant canoes on the lake; the traffickers
shall pause, and seem to hearken, at intervals, as if they
heard the rattle of musketry or the shout of Indians; a
scouting-party shall be driven in, with two or three faint
and bloody men among them. And, in spite of these
disturbances, business goes on briskly in the market of
the wilderness.
It must not be supposed that the martial character of
the times interrupted all pursuits except those connected
with war. On the contrary, there appears to have been
a general vigor and vivacity diffused into the whole
round of colonial life. During the winter of 1759, it
was computed that about a thousand sled-loads of country
produce were daily brought into Boston market. It
was a symptom of an irregular and unquiet course of
affairs, that innumerable lotteries were projected, ostensibly
for the purpose of public improvements, such as
roads and bridges. Many females seized the opportunity
to engage in business: as, among others, Alice Quick,
who dealt in crockery and hosiery, next door to Deacon
Beautineau's; Mary Jackson, who sold butter, at the
ornamental-work, near the Orange-Tree, where also were
to be seen the King and Queen, in wax-work; Sarah
Morehead, an instructor in glass-painting, drawing and
japanning; Mary Salmon, who shod horses, at the southend;
Harriet Pain, at the Buck and Glove, and Mrs.
Henrietta Maria Caine, at the Golden Fan, both fashionable
milliners; Anna Adams, who advertises Quebec
and Garrick bonnets, Prussian cloaks, and scarlet cardinals,
opposite the old brick meeting-house; besides a
lady at the head of a wine and spirit establishment.
Little did these good dames expect to reäppear before the
public, so long after they had made their last courtesies
behind the counter. Our great-grandmothers were a
stirring sisterhood, and seem not to have been utterly
despised by the gentlemen at the British coffee-house;
at least, some gracious bachelor, there resident, gives
public notice of his willingness to take a wife, provided
she be not above twenty-three, and possess brown hair,
regular features, a brisk eye, and a fortune. Now, this
was great condescension towards the ladies of Massachusetts
Bay, in a threadbare lieutenant of foot.
Polite literature was beginning to make its appearance.
Few native works were advertised, it is true, except sermons
and treatises of controversial divinity; nor were
the English authors of the day much known on this
side of the Atlantic. But catalogues were frequently
offered at auction or private sale, comprising the standard
English books, history, essays, and poetry, of Queen
Anne's age, and the preceding century. We see nothing
in the nature of a novel, unless it be “The Two
Mothers, price four coppers.” There was an American
specimen, — the author of “War, an Heroic Poem;” he
publishes by subscription, and threatens to prosecute his
patrons for not taking their books. We have discovered
a periodical, also, and one that has a peculiar claim to
be recorded here, since it bore the title of “The New
England Magazine,” a forgotten predecessor, for which
we should have a filial respect, and take its excellence
on trust. The fine arts, too, were budding into existence.
At the “old glass and picture shop,” in Cornhill,
various maps, plates, and views, are advertised, and
among them a “Prospect of Boston,” a copper-plate
engraving of Quebec, and the effigies of all the New
England ministers ever done in mezzotinto. All these
must have been very salable articles. Other ornamental
wares were to be found at the same shop; such as violins,
flutes, hautboys, musical books, English and Dutch
toys, and London babies. About this period, Mr. Dipper
gives notice of a concert of vocal and instrumental
music. There had already been an attempt at theatrical
exhibitions.
There are tokens, in every newspaper, of a style of
luxury and magnificence which we do not usually associate
with our ideas of the times. When the property
of a deceased person was to be sold, we find, among the
household furniture, silk beds and hangings, damask
table-cloths, Turkey carpets, pictures, pier-glasses, massive
plate, and all things proper for a noble mansion.
Wine was more generally drunk than now, though by
no means to the neglect of ardent spirits. For the
apparel of both sexes, the mercers and milliners imported
good store of fine broadcloths, especially scarlet, crimson,
brocade, and gold and silver lace, and silver tassels, and
silver spangles, until Cornhill shone and sparkled with
their merchandise. The gaudiest dress permissible by
modern taste fades into a Quaker-like sobriety, compared
with the deep, rich, glowing splendor of our ancestors.
Such figures were almost too fine to go about town on
foot; accordingly, carriages were so numerous as to
require a tax; and it is recorded that, when Governor
Bernard came to the province, he was met, between
Dedham and Boston, by a multitude of gentlemen in
their coaches and chariots.
Take my arm, gentle reader, and come with me into
some street, perhaps trodden by your daily footsteps, but
which now has such an aspect of half-familiar strangeness,
that you suspect yourself to be walking abroad in a
dream. True, there are some brick edifices which you
remember from childhood, and which your father and
grandfather remembered as well; but you are perplexed
by the absence of many that were here only an hour or
two since; and still more amazing is the presence of
whole rows of wooden and plastered houses, projecting
over the side-walks, and bearing iron figures on their
fronts, which prove them to have stood on the same sites
above a century. Where have your eyes been, that you
never saw them before? Along the ghostly street — for,
at length, you conclude that all is unsubstantial, though
it be so good a mockery of an antique town — along the
ghostly street, there are ghostly people too. Every
gentleman has his three-cornered hat, either on his head
or under his arm; and all wear wigs, in infinite variety,
— the Tie, the Brigadier, the Spencer, the Albemarle, the
Feather-top. Look at the elaborate lace-ruffles, and the
square-skirted coats of gorgeous hues, bedizened with
silver and gold! Make way for the phantom-ladies,
whose hoops require such breadth of passage, as they
pace majestically along, in silken gowns, blue, green, or
yellow, brilliantly embroidered, and with small satin hats
surmounting their powdered hair. Make way; for the
whole spectral show will vanish, if your earthly garments
brush against their robes. Now that the scene is
brightest, and the whole street glitters with imaginary
sunshine, — now hark to the bells of the Old South and
the Old North, ringing out with a sudden and merry
peal, while the cannon of Castle William thunder below
the town, and those of the Diana frigate repeat the sound,
and the Charlestown batteries reply with a nearer roar!
You see the crowd toss up their hats, in visionary joy.
You hear of illuminations and fire-works, and of bonfires,
built on scaffolds, raised several stories above the
ground, that are to blaze all night, in King-street, and on
Beacon-hill. And here come the trumpets and kettledrums,
and the tramping hoofs of the Boston troop of
horse-guards, escorting the governor to King's Chapel,
where he is to return solemn thanks for the surrender
of Quebec. March on, thou shadowy troop! and vanish,
ghostly crowd! and change again, old street! for those
stirring times are gone.
Opportunely for the conclusion of our sketch, a fire
broke out, on the twentieth of March, 1760, at the
Brazen-Head, in Cornhill, and consumed nearly four
hundred buildings. Similar disasters have always been
epochs in the chronology of Boston. That of 1711 had
its baleful dignity to one which has ever since retained
it. Did we desire to move the reader's sympathies on
this subject, we would not be grandiloquent about the
sea of billowy flame, the glowing and crumbling streets,
the broad, black firmament of smoke, and the blast of
wind that sprang up with the conflagration and roared
behind it. It would be more effective to mark out a
single family, at the moment when the flames caught
upon an angle of their dwelling: then would ensue the
removal of the bed-ridden grandmother, the cradle with
the sleeping infant, and, most dismal of all, the dying
man just at the extremity of a lingering disease. Do
but imagine the confused agony of one thus awfully disturbed
in his last hour; his fearful glance behind at the
consuming fire, raging after him, from house to house,
as its devoted victim; and, finally, the almost eagerness
with which he would seize some calmer interval to die!
The Great Fire must have realized many such a scene.
Doubtless posterity has acquired a better city by the
calamity of that generation. None will be inclined to
lament it at this late day, except the lover of antiquity,
who would have been glad to walk among those streets
of venerable houses, fancying the old inhabitants still
there, that he might commune with their shadows, and
paint a more vivid picture of their times.
The contemptuous jealousy of the British army, from the
general downwards, was very galling to the provincial troops. In
one of the newspapers, there is an admirable letter of a New
England man, copied from the London Chronicle, defending the
provincials with an ability worthy of Franklin, and somewhat in
his style. The letter is remarkable, also, because it takes up the
cause of the whole range of colonies, as if the writer looked upon
them all as constituting one country, and that his own. Colonial
patriotism had not hitherto been so broad a sentiment.
3. III. THE OLD TORY.
Again we take a leap of about twenty years, and
alight in the midst of the Revolution. Indeed, having
just closed a volume of colonial newspapers, which
represented the period when monarchical and aristocratic
sentiments were at the highest, — and now opening
another volume printed in the same metropolis, after
such sentiments had long been deemed a sin and shame,
— we feel as if the leap were more than figurative. Our
late course of reading has tinctured us, for the moment,
with antique prejudices; and we shrink from the
strangely-contrasted times into which we emerge, like
one of those immutable old Tories, who acknowledge no
oppression in the Stamp-act. It may be the most effective
method of going through the present file of papers, to
follow out this idea, and transform ourself, perchance,
from a modern Tory, into such a sturdy King-man as
once wore that pliable nickname.
Well, then, here we sit, an old, gray, withered, sourvisaged,
threadbare sort of gentleman, erect enough, here
in our solitude, but marked out by a depressed and distrustful
mien abroad, as one conscious of a stigma upon
his forehead, though for no crime. We were already in
the decline of life when the first tremors of the earthquake
that has convulsed the continent were felt. Our
mind had grown too rigid to change any of its opinions,
when the voice of the people demanded that all should
be changed. We are an Episcopalian, and sat under
the high-church doctrines of Doctor Caner; we have
been a captain of the provincial forces, and love our king
Plains of Abraham. Among all the refugees, there is
not one more loyal to the back-bone than we. Still we
lingered behind when the British army evacuated Boston,
sweeping in its train most of those with whom we held
communion; the old, loyal gentlemen, the aristocracy
of the colonies, the hereditary Englishman, imbued with
more than native zeal and admiration for the glorious
island and its monarch, because the far intervening
ocean threw a dim reverence around them. When our
brethren departed, we could not tear our aged roots out
of the soil. We have remained, therefore, enduring to
be outwardly a freeman, but idolizing King George in
secrecy and silence, — one true old heart amongst a host
of enemies. We watch, with a weary hope, for the
moment when all this turmoil shall subside, and the
impious novelty that has distracted our latter years, like
a wild dream, give place to the blessed quietude of royal
sway, with the king's name in every ordinance, his
prayer in the church, his health at the board, and his
love in the people's heart. Meantime, our old age finds
little honor. Hustled have we been, till driven from
town-meetings; dirty water has been cast upon our
ruffles by a Whig chambermaid; John Hancock's coachman
seizes every opportunity to bespatter us with mud;
daily are we hooted by the unbreeched rebel brats; and
narrowly, once, did our gray hairs escape the ignominy
of tar and feathers. Alas! only that we cannot bear to
die till the next royal governor comes over, we would
fain be in our quiet grave.
Such an old man among new things are we who now
hold at arm's length the rebel newspaper of the day.
groan of spiteful lamentation. Where are the united
heart and crown, the loyal emblem, that used to hallow
the sheet on which it was impressed, in our younger
days? In its stead we find a continental officer, with
the Declaration of Independence in one hand, a drawn
sword in the other, and above his head a scroll, bearing
the motto, “We appeal to Heaven.” Then say we,
with a prospective triumph, let Heaven judge, in its own
good time! The material of the sheet attracts our
scorn. It is a fair specimen of rebel manufacture, thick
and coarse, like wrapping-paper, all overspread with
little knobs; and of such a deep, dingy blue color, that
we wipe our spectacles thrice before we can distinguish
a letter of the wretched print. Thus, in all points, the
newspaper is a type of the times, far more fit for the
rough hands of a democratic mob, than for our own
delicate, though bony fingers. Nay; we will not handle
it without our gloves!
Glancing down the page, our eyes are greeted everywhere
by the offer of lands at auction, for sale or to be
leased, not by the rightful owners, but a rebel committee;
notices of the town constable, that he is authorized
to receive the taxes on such an estate, in default
of which, that also is to be knocked down to the
highest bidder; and notifications of complaints filed
by the Attorney-general against certain traitorous absentees,
and of confiscations that are to ensue. And who
are these traitors? Our own best friends; names as
old, once as honored, as any in the land where they
are no longer to have a patrimony, nor to be remembered
as good men who have passed away. We are
but comfort ourselves because we still keep our principles,
without gratifying the rebels with our plunder.
Plunder, indeed, they are seizing everywhere, — by the
strong hand at sea, as well as by legal forms on shore.
Here are prize-vessels for sale; no French nor Spanish
merchantmen, whose wealth is the birthright of British
subjects, but hulls of British oak, from Liverpool, Bristol,
and the Thames, laden with the king's own stores, for
his army in New York. And what a fleet of privateers
— pirates, say we — are fitting out for new ravages, with
rebellion in their very names! The Free Yankee, the
General Green, the Saratoga, the Lafayette, and the
Grand Monarch! Yes, the Grand Monarch; so is a
French king styled, by the sons of Englishmen. And
here we have an ordinance from the Court of Versailles,
with the Bourbon's own signature affixed, as if New
England were already a French province. Everything
is French, — French soldiers, French sailors, French
surgeons, and French diseases too, I trow; besides
French dancing-masters and French milliners, to debauch
our daughters with French fashions! Everything
in America is French, except the Canadas, the
loyal Canadas, which we helped to wrest from France.
And to that old French province the Englishman of the
colonies must go to find his country!
O the misery of seeing the whole system of things
changed in my old days, when I would be loth to change
even a pair of buckles! The British coffee-house,
where oft we sat, brimfull of wine and loyalty, with the
gallant gentlemen of Amherst's army, when we wore a
red-coat too, — the British coffee-house, forsooth, must
of the royal arms above the door. Even the street it
stands in is no longer King-street! Nothing is the
king's, except this heavy heart in my old bosom.
Wherever I glance my eyes, they meet something that
pricks them like a needle. This soap-maker, for
instance, this Robert Hewes, has conspired against my
peace, by notifying that his shop is situated near Liberty
Stump. But when will their misnamed liberty have its
true emblem in that Stump, hewn down by British
steel!
Where shall we buy our next year's almanac? Not
this of Weatherwise's, certainly; for it contains a likeness
of George Washington, the upright rebel, whom we
most hate, though reverentially, as a fallen angel, with
his heavenly brightness undiminished, evincing pure
fame in an unhallowed cause. And here is a new book
for my evening's recreation, — a History of the War till
the close of the year 1779, with the heads of thirteen
distinguished officers, engraved on copper-plate. A
plague upon their heads! We desire not to see them
till they grin at us from the balcony before the town-house,
fixed on spikes, as the heads of traitors. How
bloody-minded the villains make a peaceable old man!
What next? An Oration, on the Horrid Massacre of
1770. When that blood was shed, — the first that the
British soldier ever drew from the bosoms of our countrymen,
— we turned sick at heart, and do so still, as often
as they make it reek anew from among the stones in
King-street. The pool that we saw that night has
swelled into a lake, — English blood and American, — no!
all British, all blood of my brethren. And here come
for rebels! Who are not rebels now! Even the women
are thrusting their white hands into the war, and come
out in this very paper with proposals to form a society
— the lady of George Washington at their head — for
clothing the continental troops. They will strip off
their stiff petticoats to cover the ragged rascals, and then
enlist in the ranks themselves.
What have we here? Burgoyne's proclamation
turned into Hudibrastic rhyme! And here, some verses
against the king, in which the scribbler leaves a blank
for the name of George, as if his doggerel might yet
exalt him to the pillory. Such, after years of rebellion,
is the heart's unconquerable reverence for the Lord's
anointed! In the next column, we have scripture parodied
in a squib against his sacred Majesty. What
would our Puritan great-grandsires have said to that?
They never laughed at God's word, though they cut off
a king's head.
Yes; it was for us to prove how disloyalty goes hand
in hand with irreligion, and all other vices come trooping
in the train. Now-a-days men commit robbery and
sacrilege for the mere luxury of wickedness, as this
advertisement testifies. Three hundred pounds reward
for the detection of the villains who stole and destroyed
the cushions and pulpit drapery of the Brattle-street and
Old South churches. Was it a crime? I can scarcely
think our temples hallowed, since the king ceased to be
prayed for. But it is not temples only that they rob.
Here a man offers a thousand dollars — a thousand dollars,
in Continental rags! — for the recovery of his stolen
cloak, and other articles of clothing. Horse-thieves are
on horse-back. And is not the whole land like a beggar
on horse-back riding post to the devil? Ha! here is a
murder, too. A woman slain at midnight, by an
unknown ruffian, and found cold, stiff and bloody, in her
violated bed! Let the hue and cry follow hard after
the man in the uniform of blue and buff who last
went by that way. My life on it, he is the blood-stained
ravisher! These deserters whom we see proclaimed
in every column, — proof that the banditti are
as false to their stars and stripes as to the Holy Red-cross,
— they bring the crimes of a rebel camp into a
soil well suited to them; the bosom of a people, without
the heart that kept them virtuous — their king!
Here, flaunting down a whole column, with official
seal and signature, here comes a proclamation. By
whose authority? Ah! the United States — these thirteen
little anarchies, assembled in that one grand
anarchy, their Congress. And what the import? A
general Fast. By Heaven! for once the traitorous
blockheads have legislated wisely! Yea: let a misguided
people kneel down in sackcloth and ashes, from
end to end, from border to border, of their wasted
country. Well may they fast where there is no food,
and cry aloud for whatever remnant of God's mercy their
sins may not have exhausted. We too will fast, even at
a rebel summons. Pray others as they will, there shall
be at least an old man kneeling for the righteous cause.
Lord, put down the rebels! God save the king!
Peace to the good old Tory! One of our objects
has been to exemplify, without softening a single prejudice
proper to the character which we assumed, that the
were men greatly to be pitied, and often worthy
of our sympathy. It would be difficult to say whose
lot was most lamentable, that of the active Tories, who
gave up their patrimonies for a pittance from the
British pension-roll, and their native land for a cold
reception in their miscalled home, or the passive ones
who remained behind to endure the coldness of former
friends, and the public opprobrium, as despised citizens,
under a government which they abhorred. In justice to
the old gentleman who has favored us with his discontented
musings, we must remark that the state of the
country, so far as can be gathered from these papers, was
of dismal augury for the tendencies of democratic rule.
It was pardonable in the conservative of that day to mistake
the temporary evils of a change for permanent diseases
of the system which that change was to establish.
A revolution, or anything that interrupts social order,
may afford opportunities for the individual display of
eminent virtues; but its effects are pernicious to general
morality. Most people are so constituted that they can be
virtuous only in a certain routine; and an irregular
course of public affairs demoralizes them. One great
source of disorder was the multitude of disbanded troops,
who were continually returning home, after terms of service
just long enough to give them a distaste to peaceable
occupations; neither citizens nor soldiers, they were very
liable to become ruffians. Almost all our impressions in
regard to this period are unpleasant, whether referring
to the state of civil society, or to the character of the
contest, which, especially where native Americans were
opposed to each other, was waged with the deadly hatred
to commit mutual havoc with undisturbed good humor.
The present volume of newspapers contains fewer
characteristic traits than any which we have looked
over. Except for the peculiarities attendant on the
passing struggle, manners seem to have taken a modern
cast. Whatever antique fashions lingered into the war
of the Revolution, or beyond it, they were not so
strongly marked as to leave their traces in the public
journals. Moreover, the old newspapers had an indescribable
picturesqueness, not to be found in the later
ones. Whether it be something in the literary execution,
or the ancient print and paper, and the idea that
those same musty pages have been handled by people
once alive and bustling amid the scenes there recorded,
yet now in their graves beyond the memory of man; so
it is, that in those elder volumes we seem to find the life
of a past age preserved between the leaves, like a dry
specimen of foliage. It is so difficult to discover what
touches are really picturesque, that we doubt whether
our attempts have produced any similar effect.
| The snow-image | |