CHAPTER VI

What need is there to tell the success of Frederick Katwingen--how he

triumphed over Castero, captivated the Stadtholder, and was the pride of

his native town? The Stadtholder attached him to his person, settled a

pension on him of fifteen thousand florins, and treated him as the most

cherished of his friends. The burgomaster was delighted to gain so

illustrious a son-in-law, and hurried forward the marriage with all his

might. On the day of the wedding, when Frederick was leading the bride

to church, at the moment when the party was crossing the market-place, a

voice whispered in his ear--"A piece of the lace she will wear at the

ball this evening." Frederick recognised the voice, though no one else

heard it. He turned, but saw nobody. After the ceremony, the burgomaster

handed the contract to the bridegroom, to which the Stadtholder had

affixed his signature. A present of a hundred thousand florins from the

governor of the United Provinces, proved the sincerity of that

illustrious personage's friendship, and that his favour had by no means

fallen off. The burgomaster was emulous of so much generosity, and

introduced a clause in the contract, settling his whole fortune on his

son-in-law, in case of Maina's death.

Behold, then, the _artiste_ praised--feted--and happy. Possessed of the

wife he loved--rich--honoured--what more had he to hope than that those

advantages should be continued him? Castero was true to his

word--reduced his violin to powder, acknowledged Frederick's

superiority, and betook himself to higher pursuits, which ended in the

great discovery of printing.

The Dutch Orpheus is freed from the annoyance of a rival. He reigns by

the divine right of his violin, the undisturbed monarch of his native

plains. His name is pronounced with enthusiasm from one flat end of

Holland to the other. In the splendour of his triumphal condition, he

has forgotten his compact with Beelzebub; but Maina reminded him of it

one day, when she told him he was about to become a father.

A father!--ha!--Frederick! That word which brings such rapture to the

newly married couple--which presents such radiant visions of the

future--that word freezes the heart of the _artiste_ and stops the blood

in his veins.

It is only now when Maina is so happy that he knows the enormity of his

fault.

He is about to be a father--and he--beforehand--basely, cowardly--has

sold the soul of his son who is yet unborn--before it can shake off the

taint of original sin. Shame! shame! on the proud in heart who has

yielded to the voice of the tempter--to the wretch who, for a little

miserable glory, has shut the gates of mercy on his own child--shame!

shame!

If Satan would consent to an exchange--if--but no--'tis impossible. The

"archangel fallen" had explained himself too clearly--no hope! no hope!

From that hour there was no rest, no happiness for the protege of the

Stadtholder--sleep fled from his eyelids, he was pursued by perpetual

remorse, and in the agonies of his heart deserted the nuptial bed: while

light dreams settled on Maina's spirit, and wove bright chaplets for the

future, he wandered into the midnight fields--across the canals--any

where, in short, where he fancied he could procure forgetfulness; but

solitude made him only feel his misery the more. How often he thought of

going to the gloomy lake where he had first encountered the Unknown! How

often he determined to complete the resolution he had formed on the day

of Castero's triumph! But Satan had said to him, "The suicide is

condemned--irrevocably condemned;" and the condemnation of which _he_

would be sure, would not bring a ransom for his first-born.

The fatal time draws on--in a few minutes more Maina will be a mother.

Frederick, by some invisible impulse, has chosen from among the laces of

his wife a rich Mechlin, which she wore round her neck on her

wedding-day. It is now to be the diabolic standard, and he goes with it

towards the door of his house, pensive and sad. When he got to the

threshold he stopped--he raised his eyes to heaven, and from his heart

and from his lips, there gushed out prayers, warm, deep, sincere--the

first for many years. A ray of light has rushed into his soul. He

uttered a cry of joy, he dashed across the street into the neighbouring

church; he dipped the lace into the basin of consecrated water, and

returned immediately to hang it at the door of his apartment.

At that moment Maina gave birth to a son, and Satan rushed impatiently

to claim his expected prey. But the tempter was unprepared for the trap

that was laid for him. On placing his foot on the first step of the

stair, he found himself pushed back by a superior power. The Mechlin,

dripping with holy water, had amazing effect. It was guardian of the

house and protected the entrance against the fallen angel. Satan strove

again and again; but was always repulsed. There rises now an

impenetrable barrier between him and the innocent being he had destined

for his victim. Forced by the pious stratagem of Frederick Katwingen to

give up his purpose, he roamed all night round the house like a roaring

lion, bellowing in a most awful manner.

In the morning, when they wrapt up the babe in the precious lace to

carry him to be baptized, they perceived that it had been torn in

several places. The holes showed the determination with which Satan had

tried to force a passage. The enemy of mankind had not retreated without

leaving the mark of his talons on the lace.

On coming back from church, Frederick ran to his fiddle; and found in a

corner of the case the deed of compact he had signed. With what joy he

tossed it into the fire, and heard it go crackling up the chimney!

All was over now; Satan was completely floored. He confessed, by giving

up the contract, that he had no further right on the soul of the newly

born, when once it had been purified by the waters of baptism. The

father had recovered the soul which the musician had bartered away!

Since that time, whenever a young woman in Haarlem is about to become a

mother, the husband never fails to hang at the door the richest pieces

of lace he can find in her trousseau. That standard bids defiance to the

evil one, and recalls the noble victory won over the prince of darkness

by Frederick Katwingen, surnamed the Dutch Orpheus. And that is the

reason that, in passing through Haarlem, the visitor sees little frames

suspended from certain houses, ornamented with squares of Mechlin, or

Valenciennes, or Brussels point. And that is the reason that, when he

asks an explanation of the singular custom, he gets only the one short,

unvarying answer--"These are the Devil's Frills!"

ADVENTURES IN LOUISIANA.

PART II.

THE BLOCKHOUSE.

Supper over, and clenched by a pull at Nathan's whisky flask, we

prepared for departure. The Americans threw the choicest parts of the

buck over their shoulders, and the old squatter again taking the lead,

we resumed our march. The way led us first across a prairie, then

through a wood, which was succeeded by a sort of thicket, upon the

branches and thorny shrubs of which we left numerous fragments of our

dress. We had walked several miles almost in silence, when Nathan

suddenly made a pause, and let the but-end of his rifle fall heavily on

the ground. I took the opportunity to ask him where we were.

"In Louisiana," replied he, "between the Red River, the Gulf of Mexico,

and the Mississippi; on French ground, and yet in a country where French

power is worth little. Do you see that?" added he suddenly, seizing my

arm, and pulling me a few paces aside, while he pointed to a dark

object, that at the distance and in the moonlight, had the appearance of

an earthen wall. "Do you know what that is?" repeated the squatter.

"An Indian grave, perhaps," replied I.

"A grave it is," was the answer; "but not of the Redskins. As brave a

backwoodsman as ever crossed the Mississippi lies buried there. You are

not altogether wrong, though. I believe it was once an Indian mound."

While he spoke we were walking on, and I now distinguished a hillock or

mound of earth, with nearly perpendicular sides, on which was erected a

blockhouse, formed of unhewn cypress trunks, of a solidity and thickness

upon which four-and-twenty pounders would have had some difficulty in

making an impression. Its roof rose about ten feet above a palisade

enclosing the building, and consisting of stout saplings sharpened at

the top, and stuck in the ground at a very short distance from each

other, being moreover strengthened and bound together with wattles and

branches. The building had evidently been constructed more for a refuge

and place of defence than an habitual residence.

A ladder was now lowered, by which we ascended to the top of the mound.

There was a small door in the palisades, which Nathan opened and passed

through, we following.

The blockhouse was of equal length and breadth, about forty feet square.

On entering it we found nothing but the bare walls, with the exception

of a wide chimney of sun-baked brick, and in one corner a large wooden

slab partly imbedded in the ground.

"Don't tread upon that board," said the old man solemnly, as we

approached the slab to examine it; "it is holy ground."

"How holy ground?"

"There lies under it as brave a fellow as ever handled axe or rifle. He

it was built this blockhouse, and christened it the Bloody

Blockhouse--and bloody it proved to be to him. But you shall hear more

of it if you like. You shall hear how six American rifles were too many

for ninety French and Spanish muskets."

Carleton and I shook our heads incredulously. The Yankee took us both by

the arm, led us out of the blockhouse, and through the stockade to a

grassy projection of the hillock.

"Ninety French and Spanish muskets," repeated he in a firm voice, and

weighing on each word. "Opposed to them were Asa Nolins, with his three

brothers, his brother-in-law, a cousin, and their wives. He fell like a

brave American as he was, but not alone, for the dead bodies of thirty

foes were lying round the blockhouse when he died. They are buried

there," added he, pointing to a row of cotton-trees a short distance

off, that in the pale moonlight might have been taken for the spectres

of the departed; "under those cotton-trees they fell, and there they are

buried."

The old squatter remained for a short space in his favourite attitude,

his hands crossed on his rifle, and his chin resting on them. He seemed

to be calling together the recollections of a time long gone by. We did

not care to interrupt him. The stillness of the night, the light of the

moon and stars, that gave the prairie lying before us the appearance of

a silvery sea, the sombre forest on either side of the blockhouse, of

which the edges only were lighted up by the moonbeams, the vague

allusions our guide had made to some fearful scene of strife and

slaughter that had been enacted in this now peaceful glade--all these

circumstances combined, worked upon our imaginations, and we felt

unwilling to break the stillness which added to the impressive beauty of

the forest scene.

"Did you ever float down the Mississippi?" asked Nathan abruptly. As he

spoke he sat down upon the bank, and made sign to us to sit beside him.

"Did you ever float down the Mississippi?"

"No; we came up it from New Orleans hither."

"That is nothing; the stream is not half so dangerous there as above

Natchez." _We_ came down, six men, four women, and twice as many

children, all the way from the mouths of the Ohio to the Red River; and

bad work we had of it, in a crazy old boat, to pass the rapids and avoid

the sand-banks, and snakes, and sawyers, and whatever the devil they

call them, that are met with. I calculate we weren't sorry when we left

the river and took to dry land again. The first thing we did was to make

a wigwam, Injun fashion, with branches of trees. This was to shelter the

women and children. Two men remained to protect them, and the other four

divided into two parties, and set off, one south and t'other west, to

look for a good place for a settlement. I and Righteous, one of Asa's

brothers, took the southerly track.

It was no pleasuring party that journey, but a right-down hard and

dangerous expedition, through cypress swamps, where snapping turtles

were plenty as mosquitoes, and at every step the congo and mocassin

snakes twisted themselves round our ankles. We persevered, however. We

had a few handfuls of corn in our hunting-pouches, and our calabashes

well filled with whisky. With that and our rifles we did not want for

provender.

At length, on the fourth day, we came to an upland, or rolling prairie

as we call it, from the top of which we had a view that made our hearts

leap for joy. A lovely strip of land lay before us, bounded at the

further end by a forest of evergreen oaks, honey locusts, and catalpas.

Towards the north was a good ten mile of prairie; on the right hand a

wood of cotton-trees, and on the left the forest in which you now are.

We decided at once that we should find no better place than this to fix

ourselves; and we went back to tell Asa and the others of our discovery,

and to show them the way to it. Asa and one of his brothers returned

with us, bringing part of our traps. They were as pleased with the place

as we were, and we went back again to fetch the rest. But it was no easy

matter to bring our plunder and the women and children through the

forests and swamps. We had to cut paths through the thickets, and to

make bridges and rafts to cross the creeks and marshes. After ten days'

labour, however, and with the help of our axes, we were at our journey's

end.

We began directly clearing and cutting down trees, and in three weeks we

had built a loghouse, and were able to lie down to rest without fear of

being disturbed by the wolves or catamounts. We built two more houses,

so as to have one for each two families and then set to work to clear

the land. We had soon shaped out a couple of fields, a ten-acre one for

maize, and another half the size for tobacco. These we began to dig and

hoe; but the ground was hard, and though we all worked like slaves, we

saw there was nothing to be made of it without ploughing. A ploughshare

we had, and a plough was easily made--but horses were wanting: so Asa

and I took fifty dollars, which was all the money we had amongst us, and

set out to explore the country forty miles round, and endeavour to meet

with somebody who would sell us a couple of horses, and two or three

cows. Not a clearing or settlement did we find, however, and at last we

returned discouraged, and again began digging. On the very first day

after our return, as we were toiling away in the field, a trampling of

horses was heard, and four men mounted, and followed by a couple of

wolf-hounds, came cantering over the prairie. It struck us that this

would be a famous chance for buying a pair of horses, and Asa went to

meet them, and invited them to alight and refresh themselves. At the

same time we took our rifles, which were always lying beside us when we

worked in the fields, and advanced towards the strangers. But when they

saw our guns, they put spurs to their horses and rode off to a greater

distance. Asa called out to them not to fear, for our rifles were to use

against bears and wolves and Redskins, and not against Christian men.

Upon this, down they came again; we brought out a calabash of real

Monongahela; and after they had taken a dram, they got off their horses,

and came in and ate some venison, which the women set before them. They

were Creoles, half Spanish, half French, with a streak of the Injun; and

they spoke a sort of gibberish not easy to understand. But Asa, who had

served in Lafayette's division in the time of the war, knew French well;

and when they had eaten and drunk, he began to make a bargain with them

for two of their horses.

It was easy to see they were not the sort of men with whom decent folk

could trade. First they would, then they wouldn't: which horses did we

want, and what would we give. We offered them thirty-five dollars for

their two best horses--and a heavy price it was, for at that time money

was scarce in the settlements. They wanted forty, but at last took the

thirty-five; and after getting three parts drunk upon taffia, which they

asked for to wet the bargain as they said, they mounted two upon each of

the remaining horses and rode away.

We now got on famously with our fields, and soon sowed fifteen acres of

maize and tobacco, and then began clearing another ten-acre field. We

were one day hard at work at this, when one of my boys came running to

us, crying out, "Father! Father! The Redskins!" We snatched up our

rifles and hastened to the top of the little rising ground on which our

houses were built, and thence we saw, not Injuns, but fourteen or

fifteen Creoles, galloping towards our clearing, halloing and huzzaing

like mad. When they were within fifty yards of us, Asa stepped forward

to meet them. As soon as they saw him one of them called out, "There is

the thief! There is the man who stole my brown horse!" Asa made no

answer to this, but waited till they came nearer, when one of them rode

up to him and asked who was the chief in the settlement. "There is no

chief here," answered Asa; "we are all equals and free citizens."

"You have stolen a horse from our friend Monsieur Croupier," replied the

other. "You must give it up."

"Is that all?" said Asa quietly.

"No: you must show us by what right you hunt on this territory."

"Yes," cried half a dozen others, "we'll have no strangers on our

hunting-grounds; the bears and caguars are getting scarcer than ever,

and as for buffaloes, they are clean exterminated." And all the time

they were talking, they kept leaping and galloping about like madmen.

"The sooner the bears and caguars are killed the better," said Asa. "The

land is not for dumb brutes, but for men."

The Creoles, however, persisted that we had no right to hunt where we

were, and swore we should go away. Then Asa asked them what right they

had to send us away. This seemed to embarrass them, and they muttered

and talked together; so that it was easy to see there was no magistrate

or person in authority amongst them, but that they were a party of

fellows who had come in hopes to frighten us. At last they said they

should inform the governor, and the commandant at Natchitoches, and the

Lord knows who besides, that we had come and squatted ourselves down

here, and built houses, and cleared fields, and all without right or

permission; and that then we might look out. So Asa began to lose

patience, and told them they might all go to the devil, and that, if

they were not off soon, he should be apt to hasten their movements.

"I must have my horse back," screamed the Creole whom they called

Croupier.

"You shall," replied Asa, "both of them, if you return the

five-and-thirty dollars."

"It was only fifteen dollars," cried the lying Creole.

Upon this Asa called to us, and we stepped out from amongst the

cotton-trees, behind which we had been standing all the while; and when

the Creoles saw us, each with his rifle on his arm, they seemed rather

confused, and drew back a little.

"Here are my comrades," said Asa, "who will all bear witness, that the

horses were sold at the prices of twenty dollars for the one and

fifteen for the other. And if any one says the contrary, he says that

which is not true."

"_Larifari!_" roared Croupier. "You shan't stop here to call us liars,

and spoil our hunting-ground, and build houses on our land. His

excellency the governor shall be told of it, and the commandant at

Natchitoches, and you shall be driven away." And the other Creoles, who,

while Asa was speaking, appeared to be getting more quiet and

reasonable, now became madder than ever, and shrieked, and swore, and

galloped backwards and forwards, brandishing their fowling-pieces like

wild Injuns, and screaming out that we should leave the country, the

game wasn't too plenty for them, and suchlike. At length Asa and the

rest of us got angry, and called out to them to take themselves off or

they would be sorry for it; and when they saw us bringing our rifles to

our shoulders, they put spurs to their horses, and galloped away to a

distance of some five hundred yards. There they halted, and set up such

a screeching as almost deafened us, fired off some of their old rusty

guns, and then rode away. We all laughed at their bragging and

cowardice, except Asa, who looked thoughtful.

"I fear some harm will come of this," said he. "Those fellows will go

talking about us in their own country; and if it gets to the ears of the

governors or commanding-officers that we have settled down on their

territory, they will be sending troops to dislodge us."

Asa's words made us reflect, and we held counsel together as to what was

best to be done. I proposed that we should build a blockhouse on the

Indian mound to defend ourselves in if we were attacked.

"Yes," said Asa; but we are only six, and they may send hundreds against

us.

"Very true," said I; "but if we have a strong blockhouse on the top of

the mound, that is as good as sixty, and we could hold out against a

hundred Spanish musketeers. And it's my notion, that if we give up such

a handsome bit of ground as we have cleared here without firing a shot,

we deserve to have our rifles broken before our faces."

Asa, however, did not seem altogether satisfied. It was easy to see he

was thinking of the women and children. Then said Asa's wife, Rachel, "I

calculate," said she, "that Nathan, although he is my brother, and I

oughtn't to say it, has spoke like the son of his father, who would have

let himself be scalped ten times over before he would have given up such

an almighty beautiful piece of land. And what's more, Asa, I for one

won't go back up the omnipotent dirty Mississippi; and that's a fact."

"But if a hundred Spanish soldiers come," said Asa, "and I reckon they

will come?"

"Build the blockhouse, man, to defend yourselves; and when our people up

at Salt River and Cumberland hear that the Spaniards are quarreling with

us, I guess they won't keep their hands crossed before them."

So, seeing us all, even the women, so determined, Asa gave in to our way

of thinking, and the very same day we began the blockhouse you see

before you. The walls were all of young cypress-trees, and we would fain

have roofed it with the same wood; but the smallest of the cypresses

were five or six feet thick, and it was no easy matter to split them. So

we were obliged to use fir, which, when it is dried by a few days' sun,

burns like tinder. But we little thought when we did so, what sorrow

those cursed fir planks would bring us.

When all was ready, well and solidly nailed and hammered together, we

made a chimney, so that the women might cook if necessary, and then laid

in a good store of hams and dried bear's flesh, filled the meal and

whisky tubs, and the water-casks, and brought our plough and what we had

most valuable into the blockhouse. We then planted the palisades,

securing them strongly in the ground, and to each other, so that it

might not be easy to tear them up. We left, as you see, a space of five

yards between the stockade and the house, so that we might have room to

move about in. It would be necessary for an enemy to take the palisades

before he could do any injury to the house itself, and we reckoned that

with six good rifles in such hands as ours, it would require a pretty

many Spanish musketeers to drive us from our outer defences.

In six weeks all was ready; all our tools and rations, except what we

wanted for daily use, carried into the fort, and we stood contemplating

the work of our hands with much satisfaction. Asa was the only one who

seemed cast down.

"I've a notion," said he, "this blockhouse will be a bloody one before

long; and what's more, I guess it will be the blood of one of us that'll

redden it. I've a sort of feelin' of it, and of who it'll be."

"Pho! Asa, what notions be these! Keep a light heart, man."

And Asa seemed to cheer up again, and the next day we returned to

working in the fields; but as we were not using the horses, one of us

went every morning to patrol ten or twelve miles backwards and forwards,

just for precaution's sake. At night two of us kept watch, relieving one

another, and patrolling about the neighbourhood of our clearing.

One morning we were working in the bush and circling trees, when

Righteous rode up full gallop.

"They're coming!" cried he; "a hundred of them at least."

"Are they far off?" said Asa, quite quietly, and as if he had been

talking of a herd of deer.

"They are coming over the prairie. In less than half an hour they will

be here."

"How are they marching? With van and rear guard? In what order?"

"No order at all, but all of a heap together."

"Good!" said Asa; "they can know little about bush-fighting or

soldiering of any kind. Now then, the women into the blockhouse."

Righteous galloped up to our fort, to be there first in case the enemy

should find it out. The women soon followed, carrying what they could

with them. When we were all in the blockhouse, we pulled up the ladder,

made the gate fast, and there we were.

We felt strange at first when we found ourselves shut up inside the

palisades, and only able to look out through the slits we had left for

our rifles. We weren't used to be confined in a place, and it made us

right-down wolfish. There we remained, however, as still as mice. Scarce

a whisper was to be heard. Rachel tore up old shirts and greased them,

for wadding for the guns; we changed our flints, and fixed every thing

about the rifles properly, while the women sharpened our knives and axes

all in silence.

Nearly an hour had passed in this way when we heard a shouting and

screaming, and a few musket-shots; and we saw through our loopholes some

Spanish soldiers running backwards and forwards on the crest of the

slope on which our houses stood. Suddenly a great pillar of smoke arose,

then a second, then a third.

"God be good to us!" cried Rachel, "they are burning our houses." We

were all trembling and quite pale with rage. Harkye, stranger, when men

have been slaving and sweating for four or five months to build houses

for their wives and for the poor worms of children, and then a parcel of

devils from hell come and burn them down like maize-stalks in a

stubble-field, it is no wonder that their teeth should grind together,

and their fists clench of themselves. So it was with us; but we said

nothing, for our rage would not let us speak. But presently as we

strained our eyes through the loopholes, the Spaniards showed themselves

at the opening of the forest yonder, coming towards the blockhouse. We

tried to count them, but at first it was impossible, for they came on in

a crowd without any order. They thought lightly enough of those they

were seeking, or they would have been more prudent. However, when they

came within five hundred paces, they formed ranks, and we were able to

count them. There were eighty-two foot soldiers with muskets and

carbines, and three officers on horseback, with drawn swords in their

hands. The latter dismounted, and their example was followed by seven

other horsemen, amongst whom we recognised three of the rascally Creoles

who had brought all this trouble upon us. He they called Croupier was

among them. The other four were also Creoles, Acadians or Canadians, a

race whom we had already met with on the Upper Mississippi, fine

hunters, but wild, drunken, debauched barbarians.

The Acadians were coming on in front, and they set up a whoop when they

saw the blockhouse and stockade; but finding that we were prepared to

receive them, they retreated upon the main body. We saw them speaking to

the officers as if advising them; but the latter shook their heads, and

the soldiers continued moving on. They were in uniforms of all colours,

blue, white, and brown, but each man dirtier than his neighbour. They

marched in good order, nevertheless, the captain and officers coming on

in front, and the Acadians keeping on the flanks. The latter, however,

edged gradually off towards the cotton-trees, and presently disappeared

amongst them.

"Those are the first men to frick off," said Asa, when he saw this

manoeuvre of the Creoles. "They have steady hands and sharp eyes; but

if we once get rid of them we need not mind the others."

The Spaniards were now within an hundred yards of us.

"Shall I let fly at the thieving incendiaries?" said Righteous.

"God forbid!" replied Asa. "We will defend ourselves like men; but let

us wait till we are attacked, and the blood that is shed will lie at the

door of the aggressors."

The Spaniards now saw plainly that they would have to take the stockade

before they could get at us, and the officers seemed consulting

together.

"Halt!" cried Asa, suddenly.

"Messieurs les Americains," said the captain, looking up at our

loopholes.

"What's your pleasure?" demanded Asa.

Upon this the captain stuck a dirty pocket-handkerchief upon the point

of his sword, and laughing with his officers, moved some twenty paces

forward, followed by the troops. Thereupon Asa again shouted to him to

halt.

"This is not according to the customs of war," said he. "The flag of

truce may advance, but if it is accompanied, we fire."

It was evident that the Spaniards never dreamed of our attempting to

resist them; for there they stood in line before us, and, if we had

fired, every shot must have told. The Acadians, who kept themselves all

this time snug behind the cotton-trees, called more than once to the

captain to withdraw his men into the wood; but he only shook his head

contemptuously. When, however, he heard Asa threaten to fire, he looked

puzzled, and as if he thought it just possible we might do as we said.

He ordered his men to halt, and called out to us not to fire till he had

explained what they cane for.

"Then cut it short," cried Asa sternly. "You'd have done better to

explain before you burned down our houses, like a pack of Mohawks on the

war path."

As he spoke, three bullets whistled from the edge of the forest, and

struck the stockades within a few inches of the loophole at which he

stood. They were fired by the Creoles, who, although they could not

possibly distinguish Asa, had probably seen his rifle barrel or one of

his buttons glitter through the opening. As soon as they had fired, they

sprang behind their trees again, craning their heads forward to hear if

there was a groan or a cry. They'd have done better to have kept quiet;

for Righteous and I caught a sight of them, and let fly at the same

moment. Two of them fell and rolled from behind the trees, and we saw

that they were the Creole called Croupier, and another of our

horse-dealing friends.

When the Spanish officer heard the shots, he ran back to his men, and

shouted out "Forward! To the assault!" They came on like mad a distance

of thirty paces, and then, as if they thought we were wild-geese to be

frightened by their noise, they fired a volley against the blockhouse.

"Now then!" cried Asa, "are you loaded, Nathan and Righteous? I take the

captain--you, Nathan, the lieutenant--Righteous, the third

officer--James, the sergeant. Mark your men, and waste no powder."

The Spaniards were still some sixty yards off, but we were sure of our

mark at a hundred and sixty, and that if they had been squirrels instead

of men. We fired: the captain and lieutenant, the third officer, two

sergeants, and another man writhed for an instant upon the grass. The

next moment they stretched themselves out--dead.

All was now confusion among the musketeers, who ran in every direction.

Most of them took to the wood, but about a dozen remained and lifted up

their officers to see if there was any spark of life left in them.

"Load again, quick!" said Asa in a low voice. We did so, and six more

Spaniards tumbled over. Those who still kept their legs now ran off as

if the soles of their shoes had been of red-hot iron.

We set to work to pick out our touchholes and clean our rifles, knowing

that we might not have time later, and that a single miss-fire might

cost us all our lives. We then loaded, and began to calculate what the

Spaniards would do next. It is true they had lost their officers; but

there were five Acadians with them, and those were the men we had most

cause to fear. Meantime the vultures and turkey-buzzards had already

begun to assemble, and presently hundreds of them were circling and

hovering over the carcasses, which they as yet, however, feared to

touch.

Just then Righteous, who had the sharpest eye amongst us all, pointed to

the corner of the wood, yonder where it joins the brushwood thicket. I

made a sign to Asa, and we all looked and saw there was something

creeping and moving through the underwood. Presently we distinguished

two Acadians heading a score of Spaniards, and endeavouring, under cover

of the bushes, to steal across the open ground to the east side of the

forest.

"The Acadians for you, Nathan and Righteous, the Spaniards for us," said

Asa. The next moment two Acadians and four Spaniards lay bleeding in the

brushwood. But the bullets were scarce out of our rifles when a third

Acadian, whom we had not seen, started up. "Now's the time," shouted he,

"before they have loaded again. Follow me! we will have their blockhouse

yet." And he sprang across followed by the Spaniards. We gnashed our

teeth with rage at not having seen the Acadian.

There were still three of these fellows alive, who had now taken command

of the Spaniards. Although we had shot a score of our enemies, those who

remained were more than ten to one of us, and we were even worse off

than at first, for then they were all together, and now we had them on

each side of us. But we did not let ourselves be discouraged, although

we could not help feeling that the odds against us were fearfully great.

We now had to keep a sharp look-out; for if one of us showed himself at

a loophole, a dozen bullets rattled about his ears. There were many

shot-holes through the palisades, which were covered with white streaks

where the splinters had been torn off by the lead. The musketeers had

spread themselves all along the edge of the forest, and had learned by

experience to keep close to their cover. We now and then got a shot at

them and killed four or five, but it was slow work, and the time seemed

very long.

Suddenly the Spaniards set up a loud shout. At first we could not make

out what was the matter, but presently we heard a hissing and crackling

on the roof of the blockhouse. They had wrapped tow round their

cartridges, and one of the shots had set light to the fir-boards. Just

as we found it out, they gave three more hurras, and we saw the dry

planks beginning to flame, and the fire to spread.

"We must put that out and at once," said Asa, "if we don't wish to be

roasted alive. Some one must get up the chimney with a bucket of water.

I'll go myself."

"Let me go, Asa," said Righteous.

"You stop here. It don't matter who goes. The thing will be done in a

minute."

He put a chair on a table and got upon it, and then seizing a bar which

was fixed across the chimney to hang hams upon, he drew himself up by

his arms, and Rachel handed him a pail of water. All this time the flame

was burning brighter, and the Spaniards getting louder in their

rejoicing and hurras. Asa stood upon the bar, and raising the pail above

his head, poured the water out of the chimney upon the roof.

"More to the left, Asa," said Righteous; "the fire is strongest more to

the left."

"Tarnation seize it!" cried Asa, "I can't see. Hand me up another

pailful."

We did so; and when he had got it, he put his head out at the top of the

chimney to see where the fire was, and threw the water over the exact

spot. But at the very moment that he did so the report of a dozen

muskets was heard.

"Ha!" cried Asa in an altered voice, "I have it." And the hams and

bucket came tumbling down the chimney, and Asa after them all covered

with blood.

"In God's name, man, are you hurt?" cried Rachel.

"Hush! wife," replied Asa; "keep quiet. I have enough for the rest of my

life, which will not be long: but never mind, lads; defend yourselves

well, and don't fire two at the same man. Save your lead, for you will

want it all. Promise me that."

"Asa! my beloved Asa!" shrieked Rachel; "if you die, I shall die too."

"Silence! foolish woman; and our child, and the one yet unborn! Hark! I

hear the Spaniards! Defend yourselves, and, Nathan, be a father to my

children."

I had barely time to press his hand and make him the promise he wished.

The Spaniards, who had doubtless guessed our loss, rushed like mad

wolves up to the mound, twenty on one side, and upwards of thirty on the

other.

"Steady!" cried I. "Righteous, here with me; and you, Rachel, show

yourself worthy to be Hiram Strong's daughter, and Asa's wife; load this

rifle for me while I fire my own."

"O God! O God!" cried Rachel, "the hellhounds have murdered my Asa!"

She clasped her husband's body in her arms, and there was no getting her

away. I felt sad enough myself, but there was scanty time for grieving;

for a party of Spaniards, headed by one of the Acadians, was close up to

the mound on the side which I was defending. I shot the Acadian; but

another, the sixth, and last but one, took his place. "Rachel!" cried I,

"the rifle, for God's sake, the rifle! a single bullet may save all our

lives."

But no Rachel came, and the Acadian and Spaniards, who, from the

cessation of our fire, guessed that we were either unloaded, or had

expended our ammunition, now sprang forward, and by climbing, and

scrambling, and getting on one another's shoulders, managed to scale the

side of the mound, almost perpendicular as you see it is. And in a

minute the Acadian and half a dozen Spaniards, with axes, were chopping

away at the palisades, and severing the wattles which bound them

together. To give the devil his due, if there had been only three like

that Acadian, it would have been all up with us. He handled his axe like

a real backwoodsman; but the Spaniards wanted either the skill or the

strength of arm, and they made little impression. There were only

Righteous and myself to oppose them; for, on the other side, a dozen

more soldiers, with the seventh of those cursed Acadians, were attacking

the stockade.

Righteous shot down one of the Spaniards; but just as he had done so the

Acadian tore up a palisade by the roots, (how he did it I know not to

this hour, there must have been a stump remaining on it,) held it with

the wattles and branches hanging round it like a shield before him,

guarding off a blow I aimed at him, then hurled it against me with such

force that I staggered backwards, and he sprang past me. I thought it

was all over with us. It is true that Righteous, with the butt of his

rifle, split the skull of the first Spaniard who entered, and drove his

hunting-knife into the next; but the Acadian alone was man enough to

give us abundant occupation, now he had got in our rear. Just then there

was a crack of a rifle, the Acadian gave a leap into the air and fell

dead, and at the same moment my son Godsend, a boy of ten years old,

sprang forward, Asa's rifle in his hand still smoking from muzzle and

touchhole. The glorious boy had loaded the piece when he saw that Rachel

did not do it, and in the very nick of time had shot the Acadian through

the heart. This brought me to myself again, and with axe in one hand and

knife in the other, I rushed in among the Spaniards, hacking and hewing

right and left. It was a real butchery, which lasted a good quarter of

an hour; but then the Spaniards got sick of it, and would have done so

sooner had they known that their leader was shot. At last they jumped

off the mound and ran away, such of them as could. Righteous and I put

the palisade in its place again, securing it as well as we could, and

then, telling my boy to keep watch, ran over to the other side, where a

desperate fight was going on.

"Three of our party, assisted by the women, were defending the stockade

against a score of Spaniards, who kept poking their bayonets between the

palisades, till all our people were wounded and bleeding. But Rachel had

now recovered from her first grief at her husband's death, or rather it

had turned to a feeling of revenge, and there she was, like a raging

tigress, seizing the bayonets as they were thrust through the stockade,

and wrenching them off the muskets, and sometimes pulling the muskets

themselves out of the soldiers' hands. But all this struggling had

loosened the palisades, and there were one or two openings in them

through which the thin-bodied Spaniards, pushed on by their comrades,

were able to pass. Just as we came up, two of these copper-coloured

Dons had squeezed themselves through, without their muskets, but with

their short sabres in their hands. They are active dangerous fellows

those Spaniards in a hand-to-hand tussle. One of them sprang at me, and

if it had not been for my hunting-knife, I was done for, for I had no

room to swing my axe; but as he came on I hit him a blow with my fist,

which knocked him down, and then ran my knife into him, and jumping over

his body snatched a musket out of Rachel's hand, and began laying about

me with the but-end of it. I was sorry not to have my rifle, which was

handier than those heavy Spanish muskets. The women were now in the

way--we hadn't room for so many--so I called out to them to get into the

blockhouse and load the rifles. There was still another Acadian alive,

and I knew that the fight wouldn't end till he was done for. But while

we were fighting, Godsend and the women loaded the rifles, and brought

them out, and firing through the stockade, killed three or four, and, as

luck would have it, the Acadian was amongst them. So when the Spaniards,

who are just like hounds, and only come on if led and encouraged, saw

that their leader had fallen, they sprang off the mound, with a 'Carajo!

Malditos!' and ran away as if a shell had burst amongst them."

The old squatter paused and drew a deep breath. He had forgotten his

usual drawl and deliberation, and had become animated and eager while

describing the stirring incidents in which he had borne so active a

part. When he had taken breath, he continued.

"I couldn't say how long the fight lasted; it seemed short, we were so

busy, and yet long, deadly long. It is no joke to have to defend one's

life, and the lives of those one loves best, against fourscore

bloodthirsty Spaniards, and that with only half a dozen rifles for arms,

and a few palisades for shelter. When it was over we were so dog-tired

that we fell down where we were, like overdriven oxen, and without

minding the blood which lay like water on the ground. Seven Spaniards

and two Acadians were lying dead within the stockade. We ourselves were

all wounded and hacked about, some with knife-stabs and sabre-cuts,

others with musket-shots; ugly wounds enough, some of them, but none

mortal. If the Spaniards had returned to the attack they would have made

short work of us; for as soon as we left off fighting and our blood

cooled, we became stiff and helpless. But now came the women with rags

and bandages, and washed our wounds and bound them up, and we dragged

ourselves into the blockhouse, and lay down upon our mattresses of dry

leaves. And Godsend loaded the rifles and a dozen Spanish muskets that

were lying about, to be in readiness for another attack, and the women

kept watch while we slept. But the Spaniards had had enough, and we saw

no more of them. Only the next morning, when Jonas went down the ladder

to reconnoitre, he found thirty dead and several others dying, and a few

wounded, who begged hard for a drink of water, for that their comrades

had deserted them. We got them up into the blockhouse, and had their

wounds dressed, and after a time they were cured and left us."

"And were you never after attacked again?" said I. "I wonder at your

courage in remaining here after becoming aware of the dangers you were

exposed to."

"We reckoned we had more right than ever to the land after all the blood

it had cost us, and then the news of the fight had got carried into the

settlements, and up as far as Salt River; and some of our friends and

kinsfolk came down to join us, and there were soon enough of us not to

care for twice as many Spaniards as we had beaten off before."

While he was speaking the old squatter descended the ladder, and led us

out of the forest and over the ridge of a low hill, on the side of which

stood a dozen loghouses, which cast their black shadows on the moonlit

slope. We found a rough but kind welcome--few words, but plenty of good

cheer--and we made acquaintance with the heroes and heroines of the

blockhouse siege, and with their sons and daughters, buxom strapping

damsels and fine manly lads, Yankees though they were. I have often

enjoyed a softer bed, but never a sounder sleep than that night.

The next day our horses were brought round from the swamp, and we took

our departure; but as hardships, however painful to endure, are pleasant

to look back upon, so have I often thought with pleasure of our

adventures in the prairies, and recurred with the strongest interest to

old Nathan's thrilling narrative of the Bloody Blockhouse.

COMMERCIAL POLICY--EUROPE

The land absolutely groans under over-material-production of every sort

and degree, as on all hands is now acknowledged. The foundations of

Manchester tremble under the ponderous piles of Cobden's calicoes, in

Cobden's warerooms, ever, like the liver of Prometheus, undiminished,

though daily devoured by the vulture of consumption. The sight of the

Pelion upon Ossa, accumulated masses of pig upon bar iron, immovable as

the cloud-capped Waen and Dowlais of Merthyr Tydvil themselves, should

almost generate burning fever, intense enough, among the unfortunate

though too sanguine producers, to smelt all the ironstone in the bowels

of South Wales, without the aid of furnace or hot blast. Broad cloths,

though encumbering cloth halls, are ceasing all over the earth--so say,

at least, the Leeds anti-corn-law sages. Loads of linens, as Marshall

proclaims, are sinking his mammoth mills; not to lengthen the lamentable

list with the sorrows of silks, of cutlery, crockery, and all other

commodities, the created or impelled of the mighty steam power that by

turns prospers and prostrates us. As the crowning point, the monster

grievance of all, comes the cramming over-production of food,

farinaceous and animal, under which the overfed stomach of the country

is afflicted with nightmare, as we learn on the unimpeachable authority

of that wisest and most infallible of all one-idea'd nostrummongers, the

immortal Cobden himself.[I]

Vast and overwhelming, however, as the ills which follow in the train of

over producing power, in the world material and manufacturing, they sink

into utter insignificance--for magnitude, they are as Highgate Hill to

sky-enveloped Chimborazo of eternal snow--in comparison with that

crowding crush, that prodigious overflow, of charlatanic genius, in the

world physical and spiritual, which blocks up every highway and byway,

swarms in every circle, roars in every market-place, or thunders in each

senate of the realm. There is not one ill which flesh is heir to, which

this race original cannot kill or cure. Whilst bleeding the patient to

death, Sangrado like, and sacking the fees, they will greet him right

courteously with _Viva V. milanos_--live a thousand years, and not one

less of the allotted number. Whilst drenching the body politic with

Reform purge, or, with slashing tomahawk, inflicting Repeal gashes, they

bid the prostrate and panting state subject rejoice over the wondrous

dispatch with which its parts can be dismembered, the arithmetical

accuracy with which its financial plethora can be depleted. Eccentric in

its motions and universal in its aspirations, for the genius of this age

no conception is too mean, no subject too intricate, no enterprise too

rash, no object too sacred. It will condescend with equal readiness upon

torturing a pauper, fleecing the farmer, robbing a church, or

undertaking "the command of the Channel fleet at a moment's notice."

With Mr Secretary Chadwick, schooled in police courts, it will

metamorphose workhouse asylums for the destitute into parish prisons,

with "locks, bolts, and bars," for the safe keeping of unfortunate

outcasts found guilty of the felony of pauperism. With Dr Kay

Shuttleworth and the privy council, when the masses want bread, it will

invite to the "whistle belly" feast of roaring in _andante_, or

dissolving in _piano_, in full choral concert mobs at Exeter Hall; it

will induct into the new gipsy jargon scheme of education at Norwood,

where the scholar is introduced to the process of analysation before he

has learned to read and almost to articulate; or the miserables

initiated into the elements of the linear, the curve, and the

perspective in drawing, whose eyeballs are glaring in quest of the

perspective of a loaf. Oh! genius profound, and forecasting of privy

council philanthropy and utilitarian wisdom; more exquisite of

refinement than Nero, who only fiddled when Rome was blazing and

wretches roasting, thou, with the wizen wand of Cockney Hullah charmed

with Wilhem's incantations, canst teach piping voices how to stay

craving stomachs; how Kay upon Jacotot may analytically demonstrate that

fast and feasting are both but synonymes of one common termination, the

difference squared by time alone, and meaning ten or threescore and ten

as the case may be. Misery is but a mockery of language after all; for

have I not heard it rampant with lungs, and hoarse with disciplined

harmony in Exeter Hall, as Hullah cut capers with his tiny truncheon,

with Royalty itself, heroic field-marshals, and grave ministers of

state, in seeming ecstasy at the sleight of hand? Just as I have heard

and seen in the _barracones_ of Bozal negroes for sale, when, at the

crack of the black negro-driver's whip, and not unfrequent application

of the lash, the flagging gang of exhausted slavery has ever and again

set up that chant of revelry, run mad, and danced that dance of

desperation, which was to persuade the atrocious dealers in human flesh

how sound of wind and limb they were, and the bystanders how happy.

Think not that charlatanic genius rests content with triumphs even so

transcendent as these. It disports itself also in "self-supporting"

colonization; it runs riot in the ruin of "penny-postage;" it would be

gloriously self-suicidal in abolition of corn-laws and free trade. Nay,

as--

"Great genius to great madness is allied."

the genius of these days looks even to St Luke's, like Oxford, as a

berth in _dernier ressort_, where a sinecurist may enjoy bed and board

at the cost of the state, and as a fair _honorario_ for the trouble of

concocting a new scheme for raising the wind, or getting a living. The

time may come, and sooth to say, seems drawing near, when Gibbon

Wakefield, seated on the woolsack, shall be charged specially with the

guardianship of all the fair wards in Chancery. Wo to infant heiress

kidnappers, when a chancellor, more experienced than Rhadamanthus, more

sanguineous than Draco, shall have the care of the innocent fold, and

come to deal with abduction! In womanly lore, his practice and

experience are undoubted; for has he not had the active superintendence,

and the arduous task, of transportation of all the womankind, virgin,

and matronly as well, exported to New Zealand on account, with other

goods and chattels, of that moral corporation, the New Zealand trading

and emigration company, which so liberally salaries him with L.600 per

annum for the use of his "principle?" Again, who so fitted as the

renowned Rowland Hill, the very prig pragmatic of pretension, for the

post of Chancellor of the Exchequer, or First Lord of the Treasury if

you will? A man who could contrive a scheme for annihilating some two

millions of post-office revenue at one stroke, must be qualified beyond

all other pretenders for dealing with a bankrupt treasury; for upon the

homoeopathic principle, the physic which kills is that alone which

should cure. The scientific discovery, indeed, is not of the modern date

exactly which is assumed; for the poet of ancient Greece, his "eyes in a

fine frenzy rolling," must have had homoeopathy in view when he sang--

"So Telephus, renown'd of yore, can tell

How cured the fatal spear by which he fell."

The disinterestedness of Rowland (not he of Roncesvalles, nor even of

the honest Macassar oil) need not be doubted, because he claims a large

reward for a penny-post scheme, ruinous as it is, utterly unavailable

and impracticable, even if as excellent as notoriously prejudicial, but

for the really ingenious discovery of the pre-paying stamp system, by a

party preferring no title to remuneration, and through which alone,

unfortunately, the pretentious project could be practically placed in

operation.

Dismissing minor worthies, such as Benjamin Hawes, junior, of the

Commission of Fine Arts, selected probably and appropriately from the

consideration that home-produced _savonnerie_ may lead to clean ideas of

taste, and who, in his own interest, would be a capital Commissioner of

Excise; and Bowring, so well qualified to be chairman of a general board

of Commissioner Tourists, from his multifarious practice--come we at

last to Cobden, of corn and colonial fame, fiercely struggling with

gaunt O'Connell himself for stentorian supremacy--

"Linguae centum sunt, oraque centum,

Ferrea vox."

Cobden and the colonies! The conjunction is euphoniously alliterative at

least, if not a consistent consequence; yet who more fit to perform at

the funeral as the undertaker who alone has got the hearse and mules all

ready for the job? Cobden, who has denounced--more still, has passed

sentence upon--the colonies, should be the executioner. All hail,

therefore, to the Right Hon. Alderman Richard Cobden, M.P., Secretary of

State for the Colonial Department--worthy compeer of the Cabinet, where

sit Lord Chancellor Gibbon Wakefield, and First Lord of the Treasury

Rowland Hill! Rare will be the labours of the trio; the

"self-supporting" supported on either hand by a destroying angel.

In the prospective cabinet of _Charlatanerie_, composed _inter aliis_,

moreover, in addition to the Haweses, the Bowrings, the Brights, the R.

R. R. (why does not the man write the names out in full, as Raving,

Roaring, Rory) O'Moores, there is, however, already a "split;" the

members are each and all at sixes and sevens, for as each has his own

sovereign conceit, so each would rule sovereign over the rest, and bear

no rival near the throne. All would be kings, but not in turn. That

powerful and sarcastic writer, Paul Louis Courier, depicts the same

regiphobia as raging among the Parisian _Charlatanerie_ of his day; and

with an anxious care for his own reputation and respectability, thus

purges himself from contact or connexion with it:--"_Ce qui me distingue

de mes contemporains et fait de moi un homme rare dans le siecle ou nous

vivons, c'est que je ne veux pas etre roi, et que j'evite soigneusement

tout ce qui pourrait me mener la._" Chadwick and Cobden are agreed upon

pauperizing the whole kingdom; but the former insists upon keeping the

paupers in bastiles, whilst the latter requires them in cotton

manufactories; both are agreed upon the propriety of reducing the

labouring classes to diet less of quantity and coarser of quality, by

which the rates of wages are, and are to be, ground down: but Chadwick

naturally insists, that to new poor-laws the post of honour should be

assigned in the work of desolation; whilst Cobden, though acknowledging

their efficient co-operation as a means to an end, and their priority as

first in the field, fiercely contends for the greater aristocratical

pretensions and more thoroughgoing operation of corn-law abolition. The

Wakefield "self-supporting" colonial specific comes into collision,

moreover, with Cobden's "perish all colonies." Kay Shuttleworth vaunts

the superiority above all of his analytical schemes for training little

children at Norwood to construe, for after age,--

"The days that we went gipsying a long time ago;"

whilst Hullah simpers forth, in softest accents of Cockaigne, the

superlative claim of choral shows in Exeter Hall--

"That roar again, it had a dying fall.

Oh! it came o'er my ear like the rude north,

That bursts upon a bank of violets."

Bowring and Hume did, certes, pull together once in the matter of Greek

scrip; but, _Arcades ambo_ no longer, the worthy doctor turned

anti-slavery monger, whilst Joseph, more honest in the main, cares not

two straws whether his sugar be slave-grown or free, excepting as to the

greater cheapness of the one or the other. So also with Hawes, never yet

pardoned by the financiering economist of "cheese parings and candle

ends" for the splendid Thames tunnel job, and L200,000 of the public

money at one fell swoop. These people range under the generic head

_Charlatanerie_, as of the distinct species classified as _farceurs_

according to the French nomenclature. For other species, and diversities

of species, of a lower scale, but of capacity to ascend into the higher

order with time and opportunity, the daily papers may be usefully

consulted under the headings devoted to the "pill" specific

line--_pildoras para en contrar perros_, as the Spanish _saynete_ has

it.

Happily the country need never despair of salvation, even should the

cabinet prospective of _farceurs_ fall to pieces, for there yet remain

two species of a genus taking higher rank in the social system; species

that really have a root, a name, and pretensions hereditary or

legitimately acquired. These each affect philosophy, and represent it

too; they of the caste hereditary in _grande tenue,_ they of the new men

with much pompous parade of words, and all the Delphic mystics of the

schools. They are none of your journeymen--your everyday spouters--in

the Commons or common places. They exhibit only on state occasions,

after solemn midnight preparation made; their intended movements are

duly heralded beforehand; their approach announced with a flourish of

trumpets. They carry on a vast wordy traffic in "great principles;" they

condescend upon nothing less than the overthrow or manufacture of

"constitutions"--in talk. The big swagger about "great principles"

eventuates, however, in denouncing by speech from the throne repeal as

high treason, and O'Connell the repealer as a traitor to the state; and

next, with cap in hand, and most mendicant meanness, supplicating the

said traitor--denounced--repealing O'Connell, to deign acceptance of one

of the highest offices in the realm. Their practice in the

"constitution" line consists in annihilating rotten borough A because it

is Tory; in conserving rotten borough B because it is Whig. The grand

characteristic of each species is--_vox et preterea nihil._ Need I

further proclaim them and their titles? In the order of Parisian

organization they stand as _faiseurs_ and _phraseurs._ You can make no

mistake about the personality ranged under each banner; they are as

perfectly distinguishable each from the other, though even knit in close

and indissoluble alliance, as Grand Crosses of the Bath from Knights of

the Garter. At the head of the _faiseurs_ you have Lord John Russell,

Lord Viscount Palmerston, and Lord Viscount Howick. You have only to see

them rise in the House of Commons--Lord John, to wit--

"Pride in his port, defiance in his eye"--

to be led into the belief that

--"Now is the day

Big with the fate of Cato and of Rome."

The physical swell of conscious consequence--the eye-distended "wide

awake" insinuation of the inconceivable, unutterable things--the grand

sentiments about to be outpoured--hold you in silent wonderment and

expectation. You conceive nothing less, than either that the world is

about to come to an end, or the _millennium_ declared to be the "order

of the day." You imagine that the orator will lose self and party

in his country. Nothing of all this follows, however. You

have some common-places, perhaps common truisms, some undefined,

mean-all-or-nothing, declamation about "constitution" and "principles,"

by way of exordium; for the rest, Rome is sunk as if it existed not,

down to the peroration it is all about Cato himself, and his little Whig

party about him.

--"Parturiunt montes,

Nascitur ridiculus mus."

Chief of the _phraseurs_ stand Mr Babington Macaulay and Mr Lalor Shiel,

the peculiarity of whose craft--a profitable craft of late

years--consists in furbishing up old ideas into new and euphonious forms

of speech. Of the one it may be said, that

--"He could not ope

His mouth, but out there flew a trope."

The other more finished leader of the class mystifies you with

metaphysics, half conned and unmastered by himself--more anxious still

to make his points than to please his party; and, of the two, would

rather sink his country than his climax. He is a rhetorician, a dealer

in set phraseology, an ingenious gatherer and polisher of "other men's

stuff." Of the _faiseurs,_ may be repeated what Marshal Marmont, in his

_Voyage en Hongrie, en Transylvanie,_ &c., says of the _faiseurs_ of

Paris--"_Subjugues par le gout et cette manie d'uniformite absolue, qui

est la maladie de l'epoque, et qui resulte de principes abstraits, dont

l'application est presque toujours funeste aux peuples qui l'eprouvent,

ils ignoraient combien il est dans la nature des choses et dans le bien

des nations de modifier l'organization sociale suivant le temps, les

lieux, suivant le plus on moins grana degre de civilization, et d'apres

mille circonstances, qui ne peuvent etre prevues d'avance, mais que le

legislateur capable apprecie au moment ou il est appele a fonder la

societe."_ On the cession of the Illyrian provinces, by Austria, after

the battle of Wagram, the _faiseurs_, or abstract principle men, of

Paris, were prompt with their plans, not for "constitutions"--Bonaparte

had put an end to that branch of their _metier_--but for reorganizing

the laws, administration, &c., of Transylvania _de fond en comble_,

without knowing any thing of the people or country, without having seen

either the one or the other. Marmont, appointed governor of the ceded

provinces, who had studied on the spot the institutions established by

Austria, found these so perfect and well adapted to the genius and

inclination of the population, and the purposes of government, that he

opposed the _faiseurs_ with success, and, by his representations,

induced Bonaparte to confirm and act upon what existed.

This immense agglomeration, this monstrous over-production of the tribes

of _farceurs_, _faiseurs_, and _phraseurs_ is a misfortune of the first

magnitude--a pest worse than that of the locusts which lay waste the

land of Egypt, as here the substance of the people is devoured.

Conflagrations may, and do, occasionally diminish the number of

cotton-mills, and lighten the warehoused accumulation of cottons, or

other inert matter; but no lucky plague, pestilence, or cholera, comes

to thin the crowded phalanx, and rid this empire of some portion of the

interminable brood of mongers of all shapes and sizes. As Horace says--

"'Tis hard, but patience must endure

And bear the woes it cannot cure."

And now, leaving this discursive preliminary sketch, the length of which

was unpremeditated, of the leading influences which are fast hurrying to

social disorganization, it is time that once more we stand face to face

with the one disorganizing doctrine of _one-sided free trade_; with the

banner on which the _phraseurs_ and _farceurs_ have inscribed the

cabalistic devices, in flaming characters--"Leave the imports alone, the

exports will take care of themselves;" and, "A fixed duty is a fixed

injustice." One might be tempted to believe the first borrowed from the

armorial bearings of Lord Huntingtower's "bill" friends, whose motto is,

or should be--"Leave the fools alone, and the knaves will take care of

themselves;" the second is clearly no better than a petty-larceny

paraphrase of Newgate felony, in whose code of duties it stands decreed,

from all time, that "a fixed law is a fixed despotism."

The history of industry and commerce in every country, from the most

ancient down to modern times, gives the lie to these pertly pretending

truisms; for there is scarcely one branch of manufacture to be named

which does not owe its rise, progress, and perfection, to the protective

or financial, or both combined, control exercised over imports. If we

look at home only, where, we ask, would the woollen manufacture be now,

but for the early laws restrictive of the importation of foreign

woollens, nay more, restrictive of the export of British fleeces with

which the manufactories of Belgium were alimented? Where the cotton

trade, even with all Arkwright and Crompton's inventions of mule and

throstle frames, and the steam-engine wonders of Watt, but for the

importation tax of 87 per cent with which the cotton manufactures of

India were weighted and finally crushed? Where the British iron mines

and the iron trade, now so pre-eminent over all the world, but for the

heavy import duties with which the iron of Swedish, Russian, or other

foreign origin was loaded? And so also, may it be asked, in respect to

almost all industry and production. If, as contended, the woollen,

cotton, and iron industries would not only have been created, but much

more largely have flourished, without the aids and appliances of

friendly tariffs, the one-sided free traders are, at least, bound to

something more potential than mere assertion and idle declamation in

support of the vague allegation. They have the evidence of facts patent

and abundant to confront and gainsay them; they shall have more; but is

there to be no reciprocation of facts counter? Is the evidence and the

argument to remain all on one side, and on the other nothing but wordy

nothingness--

"Dat inania verba,

Dat sine mente sonum."

Where are the unknown lands of factories and furnaces, of puddling and

power looms, of steam-engines and blowing machines, all self-created and

"self-supporting," scorning the crutches of patronage, and high-mounted

on the stilts of free, or one-sided free trade? Either they exist in the

shape of matter tangible and substantial; or they exist not except as

_chateaux en Espagne_ are dreamt of, or as bubbles blown and chased by

idle urchins--modern philosophers in petticoats. This bubble-blowing has

been, indeed, converted into something of a mine of industry of late

years, most successfully _exploite_ by all the _chevaliers d'industrie_

of the race of _farceurs_ before referred to. Let us not forget,

however, that one of the most indefatigable of the class, after various

and many voyages by sea, and travels by land, in quest of the

picturesque in political economy, did, indeed--or says so, and has

compiled a book to prove it--light on this long-sought, never-before

discovered land, in whose Arcadian bowers sits enthroned the very genius

of trade, free and unfettered as the eagle in his eyry on the crowning

crest of St Gotthard. Would you know this thrice-blest region--"Go climb

the Alps," as the Roman satirist bids--it is Switzerland snugly

ensconced in their bosom.

Nevertheless, before the title of Switzerland Felix be fully conceded,

the legitimacy of its derivation remains to be investigated. The

concession can only be registered upon three conditions fulfilled. It

must be shown, _firstly_, that manufacturing industry was not fostered

in its early stages by the governing power; _secondly_, that if it had

attained a large development unprotected, the proportions of such

development shall have been at the least equal, as upon the theory of

free trade they should be superior, to the ratio of progression

manifested in other countries where protection has been the ruling

principle; _thirdly_, that free trade was not a necessity imposed by

circumstances and position, not the result of a barter of value for

value, but of free and spontaneous choice, and as the result of the

profound conviction of the superior excellency and adaptability of the

abstract principle. We shall deal briefly with the subject, because it

has been discussed more at length heretofore in those special articles

in which we have treated of the rise and progress of the cotton

manufacture in this and other countries. In regard to the first

condition, it was established on a former occasion, that the ruling

powers of one or more of the Cantons, did advance large capitals, and

offered more, in order to encourage and assist in the establishment of

cotton-spinning mills, with machinery of the most perfect construction,

under the superintendence, and with a share in the profits, of persons

duly skilled from England. Happily, one of the individuals to whom such

offers (on the basis of a L100,000 capital) were made, and by whom

declined, then and subsequently one of the largest exporting merchants

of Lancashire to Switzerland, and the Continent generally, still lives,

and we have had the statement confirmed by himself within the last two

or three years. This was somewhere between 1795 and 1800, further our

memory does not serve for the precise date at present, nor is it

indispensable. A manufacture thus, as may be said, artificially created

and bolstered up, we do not say unwisely, does not assuredly answer the

first condition required. With respect to the measure of the

manufacturing development, the data are unfortunately wanting for

precise verification; for Switzerland possesses no returns of foreign

trade at all, nor can any satisfactory approximation be arrived at from

inspection of the official tables of the foreign and transit commerce

now before us of Holland, Belgium, and France, through which all the

transmarine intercourse of Switzerland must necessarily pass. The

exports and imports of Holland, by the Rhine, are not so classed as to

show what proportion appertains to Germany and what to Switzerland, as

both stand under the one head of Germany and the Rhine. In the Belgian

tables, Switzerland does not enter at all until 1841, therefore they can

afford no materials for the comparison with former years. From the

French tables, more scientifically constructed, correct information may

be gathered, so far as the commerce with and through France. But we are

wanting nearly altogether in materials for estimating the land traffic

of Switzerland with Germany and Italy. Taking the French tables alone,

it may be collected, however, that the commerce of Switzerland has been

considerably on the increase with and through France. In the cotton

trade, for example, the imports of raw cotton in transit through Havre,

for Switzerland, had already augmented from 2,973,159 kilogrammes in

1830, to 6,446,703 kilogrammes in 1836; and again, from the latter term,

to 104,842 metrical quintals in 1840, which declined to 77,534 in 1841.

Our returns do not enable us to state with exactitude whether the whole,

or what portion, of the transit of cotton for the two latter years was

destined for Switzerland, because our French tables do not, as up to

1836, embrace the details of the separate transit trade to each country,

but only the total quantities. The increase of imports by way of France

must not, however, be taken to all the extent as an absolute increase,

nor can we conclude, with any assurance, that it was an increase upon

the whole. For, in consequence of some important reductions in the dues

agreed to by France in order to favour and attract the entire transit

trade of Switzerland through its territory, the cottons formerly passed

to Switzerland through Rotterdam and Antwerp by the Rhine, have been

sent by way of Havre. Thus, on consulting Mr Porter's Tables of Trade,

we find that the twenty-one millions of lbs. of cotton re-exported to

Holland and Belgium in 1837, had decreased, in 1840, to little more than

twelve millions. What proportion of the twenty-one millions was destined

for Switzerland, there are no means of ascertaining, except from the

returns in detail of the Rhine navigation, the existence of which, in

any available shape, may be doubted. Assuming that the whole of the

cotton passing in transit through France was for Switzerland, we find a

quantity equal to about seventeen millions of pounds, in 1841, as

required for the supply of the cotton manufacture; or say, on a rough

average of 1840 and 1841, nineteen and a half millions of pounds. Now,

considering that the cotton manufacture has been established in

Switzerland above a century, these figures certainly demonstrate any

thing but an extraordinary rate of progress. The cotton manufacture of

Russia does not number half the years of existence, and yet the average

consumption of raw cotton, in 1840 and 1841, was nearly thirteen

millions of pounds, and of cotton yarn, rendered into cotton,[J] about

twenty-three millions more. It must be noted, moreover, that whereas

subsequently to the inventions of Arkwright and Crompton, Switzerland

drew nearly the whole of her yarns for making into cloths from England,

not possessing herself any spinning machinery until the commencement of

the present century, and then but to a trivial extent, with scarcely any

augmentation of importance, until some years after the general peace of

1815; yet that, within the last twenty years, the use of machinery has

been extensively introduced, cotton factories have spread on all sides,

for working which water-power in abundance afforded every facility, so

that she now spins nearly all the yarns necessary for her fabrics, and

imports from England but a very slender quantity of the higher counts

still required for her finest muslins. Those imports do not perhaps

exceed, if they reach to, one million pounds per annum. Of many

merchants in Manchester, thirty or forty years ago, extensively engaged

in furnishing that supply, but one or two at present are to be found. It

remains, therefore, doubtful whether there has been any material

progress in the cotton manufactures of Switzerland, so far as the

quantities of fabrics produced, and the weight of cotton consumed, for

many years past. Through the commercial arrangements before referred to,

her special trade with France in all commodities has been on the

increase; but, as the usual result of the commercial treaties of France,

all to the advantage of France. Thus, for 1841, the imports (special

trade of internal consumption) of France from Switzerland are stated at

twenty-two millions of francs only, whilst the exports of France to

Switzerland amounted to thirty-nine millions. This, be it observed, is

the result of _one-sided free trade_, which opens its gates to all,

whilst partially favoured only in return, when at all. Switzerland, for

example, is free to the import of French cottons; France hermetically

sealed against those of Switzerland. The general trade, that is,

inclusive of transit and special, had also materially improved; the

aggregate imports representing eighty-three millions of imports into,

against eighty-nine millions of exports from Switzerland; or that the

general trade with France had rather more than doubled since 1832,

imports and exports together. The transit portion of this general trade,

representing all the transmarine movement of Switzerland, is that

rather, it may be said, carried on with the United States Spanish

America, Brazil, &c., in which the greatest improvement of her foreign

trade had taken place. She has, on the contrary, very largely lost

ground in Germany, where she enjoyed marts for her manufactures, before

the establishment of the Commercial Union, of an extensive and

profitable description, from the advantages of her geographical

position; and it is probable, that from the same cause she will have

lost no inconsiderable portion of the share her merchants had in the

supply of Turkey, Persia, and other countries on the shores of the

Mediterranean and the Black Sea. With Holland and Belgium, her

commercial relations would seem to have been sensibly on the decline, so

far as the returns, available and comparative, enable us to form an

opinion. Upon a balance, therefore, of increase, upon one side, and

decrease on the other, there is reasonable ground to question any

progress in Switzerland, at all commensurate with the general

accelerated movement in manufactures and commerce of other industrial

countries about her, and beyond the seas; in exemplification of which,

we have on other occasions presented, as we shall continue to present,

evidence which may not be questioned.

Therefore, it results, that the second condition in proof of the

superiority of the free, or one-sided free trade principle, as

represented in Switzerland, the embodied _beau ideal_ of the theory, is

not fulfilled. It were easy, indeed, to show the absurdity of a

pretension to the rigorous reign of a principle, in a country where,

though the federal government levies are merely nominal duties on

imported commodities, for other than which it is and must ever be

powerless, whatever the will, yet in the separate cantons or chief towns

with barriers, scarcely any article enters and escapes without payment

of an octroi impost, equal to a moderate state duty on importation at

the ports or frontiers of other states. What would be said in this

country, if wool, cotton, or any commodity entering free, or at merely

nominal rates, at London or Liverpool, were to be taxed on arrival at

Leeds or Manchester, for purposes of local revenue or local protection?

We may afford to dismiss the third condition in the smallest space. Free

trade in Switzerland, such as it is, is not an affair of principle, of

conviction, therefore of choice, as ridiculously pretended, but a

necessity arising out of her geographical position. On all sides she is

surrounded _enclavee_, amidst states which hold the gates of ingress and

egress. Close the Rhine and the Seine against her, and she must

surrender commercially at discretion, as she politically does, to such

terms as may be dictated. A heavy _peage_ upon river or land transit,

ruins her manufactories, her industry, root and branch. She is too happy

only, therefore, to be tolerated with a passage to the sea, on the hard

terms of surrendering the just rights of her own industry to the free

invasion of foreign competing products; she makes, _ex necessitate_, the

sacrifice of a large portion, in order to save the remainder. Would you

have the commentary? Read it in the miserable fare, the low wages, the

toil unremitting and uncompensated, of the operative masses; in the

depressed rate of profits, the strict, painful, but indispensable

frugality of master manufacturers and capitalists, when perchance

capitalists may be found, of Switzerland surnamed Felix, over-borne by

foreign competition, as depicted in the Report of that romance writer,

Mr John Bowring himself, who, of all men, in his own particular case,

would be the last to advocate short commons, shabby salaries, or petty

profits. Switzerland, therefore, answers none of the conditions required

for the demonstration of the free trade theory upon the greatest profit,

or even upon the greatest happiness principle, the _verba ardentia_ of

anti-corn-law declaimers, and utilitarian poetasters, notwithstanding.

But if the case of the free and one-sided trade theory breaks down in

its one only deceptive personification, the proofs are strong and

abundant in behalf the cause of the legitimate principle of protection

to industry, or of the reciprocity principle well understood, which

involves essentially the principle of protection. Let us discursively

range over Europe, in further addition to the evidence, which, in

respect of Russia, has already been assigned; and, as with regard to

Spain, and Russia as well, we shall not hesitate to signalize the abuse

of a righteous principle, where in practice it degenerates into the

Japanese barbarism of almost absolute prohibition and isolation. A

comparison betwixt Switzerland and Japan, two nearly stationary states,

where all around is in progress in the industrial sense, ruled upon

economical principles so opposite and conflicting, would be a labour

both amusing and profitable; but unfortunately the adequate materials

are wanting in the one case as in the other; state-books of account and

custom-house returns, are as rare and unheard of in Nangasaki as in

Helvetia. Fiscal exactions, however, are not unknown in either, the

difference being, that the despotic majesty of Japan undertakes them

upon his own account, whilst the people of the Alps, as intractable,

with better right, impose and levy for their own use and behoof. Withal,

to the one-idea'd philosophy of your absolute theory, systematic,

uniformity men of the present day, it should seem an extraordinary

paradox, putting all speculation to rout, that despotic Japan should be

as prosperous, more powerful, more free from intestine convulsion,

although more ancient of standing, therefore to be presumed enjoying at

least as much happiness as free and unfettered Switzerland, rioting

betimes in all the freaks of liberty and revolution.

We do not propose to extend our enquiries into the history of industrial

progress in other lands further on the present occasion, than to such

external demonstrations, as measured by imports and exports, as may with

most convenient brevity and fidelity answer the purpose in view. The

possession of authentic documents in ample degree, expository of the

past and present conditions of social and material interests in almost

all the civilized states of the world, would enable us to follow out, in

minute detail, the rise, the career, the vicissitudes of each; but

although, on future and suitable occasions, we may be induced to resume

and pursue the task already commenced in former numbers, it is not

necessary now, and would far outstrip any possible space at our

disposal. Commencing with Austria, it may be shown, that even with an

ill-considered economical _regime_ of, until of late years, general

prohibitions and restrictions, with the incessant and ill-judged policy

of forcing manufacturing industry, for the hasty development of which

the natural foundations were not previously laid, whilst neglecting the

cultivation and encouragement of those varied agricultural and mining

treasures, with which, through the length and breadth of her territory,

she is so abundantly stored, the advance of Austria, commercial and

manufacturing, need not assuredly fear comparison with that of

free-trading Switzerland. The following are the returns of the foreign

trade of the Austrian empire, excepting for Hungary and Transylvania,

which will be found hereafter for the years cited. Other documents are

in our possession, bringing the information down to 1840, but as not

entirely complete in respect of a portion of the traffic by the land

frontiers, whilst in results they differ little from the last year of

the table here given, it is not worth while to make the addition.

Imports. Exports. Total.

1829 By sea & land 95,321,861 florins. 107,254,048 202,575,909

1830 ... 99,545,289 ... 110,587,974 210,133 263

1831 ... 94,116,471 ... 98,937,022 193,053,493

1832 ... 107,825,991 ... 115,007,352 222,833,343

1833 ... 106,270,012 ... 116,624,202 222,894,214

1834 ... 107,781,409 ... 111,092,942 218,874,351

1835 ... 121,482,876 ... 115,217,804 236,700,680

1836 ... 130,865,339 ... 122,284,173 253,149,512

1837 ... 120,897,761 ... 119,721,758 240,619,519

1838 ... 127,445,295 ... 134,908,064 262,353,359

The florin is equal to 2s. 0d. 4-10 sterling. The increase under the

head of importations within the ten years was equal, therefore, to

nearly 33 per cent, and on exportations about 24 per cent. Amongst the

imports may be remarked raw cotton to the value of about L.1,273,000;

among the exports, raw silk, for about L.2,400,000; linens, for about

L.770,000; woollens, for L.2,268,000; glass and earthen-ware, L.584,000;

round numbers all. A mean value, imports and exports together, from 1835

to 1838 inclusive, of about twenty-five millions sterling annually, does

not certainly represent a commercial movement so large as might be

expected in an empire of the territorial extent, numerous population,

and rich natural products of Austria. But, as appears, its progression

is onwards; and seeing that, in 1836, she entered on the laudable

undertaking of revising and reforming her prohibitory and restrictive

system; that, in 1838, another not inconsiderable step in advance was

taken by further relaxations of the tariff; and that she is at the

present moment occupied with, and may shortly announce, fiscal

improvements and tariff reductions of a more wisely liberal spirit

still, it is not to be doubted that, with the accompanying extension of

agricultural and mining industry, Austria is destined to take a much

higher rank in the commercial world than she has yet attained.