PART I.

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THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

_A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics._

VOL. XVII.--FEBRUARY, 1866--NO. C.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by TICKNOR AND

FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of

Massachusetts.

Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved

to the end of the article.

ENGLISH OPINION ON THE AMERICAN WAR.

The great events which took place in the United States between the first

election of President Lincoln and the accession of President Johnson

excited an amount of party-spirit in England greater than I recollect in

connection with any other non-English occurrences, and fairly

proportionate even to that supreme form of party-spirit which the same

events produced in the States themselves,--the party-spirit which, in

hostile and closing ranks, clenches teeth and sets life at nought,

seeing no alternative, no possibility, save this one only, to carry its

point or die. "I am a Northerner," and "I am a Southerner," were, during

the war, phrases as common on Englishmen's lips as "I am a Liberal" or

"a Conservative," "I am a Protectionist" (this, indeed, has about become

obsolete) or "a Free-Trader." It would be very far from correct to say

that this party-spirit has yet subsided in England; highly important

questions, personal and political, remain in ample abundance to keep it

lively; but we have at any rate reached a point at which one may try to

discuss the past phases of our partisanship, not in the temper of a

partisan. My endeavor in the following pages will be to do this,--very

imperfectly, beyond a doubt, but, as far as it goes, candidly and

without disguise.

The writer must in the first instance, in order that his remarks may be

accurately judged by the reader, essay to define his own position and

the sphere within which his observations extend. He is a born and bred

Englishman and Londoner, of parentage partly Italian. His professional

employment is that of a Government clerk, of fair average standing; he

is also occupied a good deal in writing for publication, chiefly upon

subjects of fine art. His circle of personal intimacy and

acquaintanceship is mainly made up of artists and literary men,

including especially several of those who have made themselves most

prominent in these classes within the last twenty years; and this

acquaintanceship shades naturally off, in a minor and moderate degree,

into those circles of good social standing which are rather liberally

receptive than productive of literature and art. The writer cannot

profess or affect to be "behind the scenes" of political parties, or to

have dived into the minds of the peerage over their wine or of artisans

in their workshops. He has conversed freely with many persons of culture

and many fair representatives of the average British middle classes, and

has read, in a less or more miscellaneous way, a good many opinions and

statements, in books and newspapers, on both sides of the question. His

own opinions are not strictly to the point, but may as well be stated at

once, so that the reader, if he finds or fancies a bias in the views to

be expressed in the sequel, may know to what to attribute it.

From the first symptoms of Secession to the surrender of the last

Southern army, the writer has felt a vivid interest in the great

struggle and its issues, and a thorough sympathy with the cause of the

North and alienation from that of the South,--points on which he might,

perhaps, be more inclined to dilate, were it not, that, at this late

hour of the day, Northern adherency might read like the mere worship of

success. So it is now, but so it was not, in many circles of English

society at least, during the continuance of the war. Almost up to the

very fall of Richmond, to express a decisive adherence to the Northern

cause was often to be singular and solitary in a roomful of company; the

timorous adherent would be minded to keep silence, and the outspoken one

would be prepared for a stare and an embarrassed pause to ensue upon his

avowal. At the same time that all his sympathies and hopes were for the

North, the writer entertained opinions which forbade him to condemn the

South, so far as the mere fact of secession and armed insurrection was

concerned. To take a wide view of the question, he apprehends, that, in

every fully constituted community, there are two coextensive and

countervailing rights: the right of the existent _de facto_ government

to maintain itself by all legal and honorable means, and, if requisite,

by the arbitrament of the sword; and the right of any section of the

community to reorganize itself as it may see fit for its own interests,

and to establish its independence by force of arms, should nothing else

serve,--the "sacred right of insurrection." The insurgent party is not

to be decried for the mere act of resistance, nor the loyal and

governmental party for the mere act of self-conservation and repression

of its opponents; each stands the hazard of the die, and commits its

cause to a supreme trial of strength. If the American colonies of Great

Britain were not to be blamed for the mere act of resisting the

constituted authorities, if the English Parliamentarians, the French

Revolution, the Polish Insurrection, the Italian Wars of Independence,

were justifiable,--and the writer thoroughly believes that they all were

so,--he fails to see that the Southern States of the American Union were

necessarily in the wrong simply because they revolted from the Federal

authority. And in each case he recognizes the coextensive right, so far

as that alone is concerned, of the existing government to assert itself,

and stem the tide of revolt. It is the old question of the Rights of Man

and the Mights of Man, concerning which Carlyle has had so much to say.

A trial between the Mights often throws considerable light upon the

question of the Rights; and, until at any rate the true Might has been

ascertained by this crucial test, one may without half-heartedness admit

that both of the opposing Rights, the conservative and the disruptive,

are genuine rights, mutually antagonistic and internecine, but neither

disproved by the other.

But this is only the most rudimentary view of the matter. An abstract

and indefeasible right of insurrection may exist, maintainable in any

and every case; and yet a particular instance of insurrection maybe

foolish, wicked, and altogether worthy of ruin and extinction. And the

writer believes that he is perfectly consistent with himself in thinking

both that the abstract right of insurrection existed in the case of the

Southern States of the Union and the abstract right of repression in the

Federal Government, and also that this particular insurrection deserved

condemnation and failure, and this particular repression deserved

credit and triumph,--a triumph which, when the "Mights of Men" had been

sufficiently tested, it very arduously and very conclusively managed to

achieve.

As to the question of a _legal and constitutional_ right of secession,

the writer has not the impudence to express--and scarcely to

entertain--an opinion. That is a question for American lawyers and

publicists to discuss and determine; the obfuscated British mind being

entitled to affirm only this: that there seems to have been something to

say on the Southern side of the question, as well as a good deal on the

Northern. The writer apprehends that the abstract right of insurrection

on the one hand, and of self-conservation on the other, quite overbears,

in so vast and momentous a debate, the narrow, technical, legal

question: that which it does not overbear is the rightness or wrongness

of the immediate motive, conduct, and aim of any particular insurrection

and repression, considered individually. The abstract rights remain the

same in all cases; the application of those rights differs immeasurably,

according to the merits of each several case.

What were the merits of this particular case? The constitutional

majority of the whole nation had elected a President whose election was

held by both parties to be tantamount to the policy of non-extension of

slavery into the Territories of the Republic, and into all States to be

thereafter constructed; and before the President elect had entered upon

his functions, before a single subsisting legal right (which might or

might not be a moral wrong) had been interfered with, while there was

yet no ground for affirming that any such right would ever be interfered

with, the Southern States declared that their minority was of more

weight than the nation's majority, that they would break up the nation

rather than abide by its award, and would themselves constitute a new

nation, founded on the maintenance of slavery within their own borders,

and its extension and propagation as opportunity might offer. This, and

not the mere fact that they were secessionists, insurgents, rebels, or

whatever harder term may be forthcoming, is the reason why the writer

disliked the revolt of the Southern States, and wished it to come to

nought; and corresponding facts regarding the Northern States,--that

they were simply upholding a constitutional act performed by the nation

at large, were contending for the majestic present and the magnificent

future of a great and free republic, were arrayed against the extension

of slavery, and might, by the force of circumstances and the growth of

ideas, find themselves called up even to exterminate the existing

slave-system,--these were the facts which commanded his homage to the

Northern cause,--not merely that they were the assertors of authority

against innovation. The case, as the writer understands it, amounts

simply to this: that the South seceded before it had been in any degree

damnified, and to maintain a system the scotching or killing of which,

though not in fact then contemplated by the North to any extent contrary

to existing laws, would have been a benefit to mankind and an atonement

to human conscience. It may perhaps seem superfluous or impertinent to

have given so many words to the statement of opinions so simple and

obvious. But the English Liberal adherents of the Northern States were

continually twitted with their assumed inconsistency in censuring the

insurrection of the South, while they approved of (for instance) the

insurrection of Lombardy against the Austrians; and it seemed impossible

to get the objectors to understand, or at any rate to acknowledge, that

motives, aims, and consequences have some bearing upon revolts, as upon

other transactions, and that one may consistently abhor a revolt the

motive and aim of which he believes to be bad, while he sympathizes with

another the motive and aim of which he believes to be good. Of course,

too, there were other objectors who denied, and will to this day not

blush to deny, that the question of Slavery was the real substantial

incentive to secession, and who paraded the minor questions of tariffs,

the conflicting interests of the productive and the manufacturing

States, and the like. These arguments the writer leaves unfingered; it

is no business of his to fray their delicate texture. All he has to say

of them here is, that, as he does not value them at a pin's fee as

representing the main point at issue, they in no way affected the

feelings which he entertained concerning the war. Again, there were

remonstrants of a still more impracticable frame of mind, who could see

the right, absolute or potential, of any despotic or constitutional

monarchy, or any conquering power, to suppress secession and revolt, but

could not conceive that any similar right pertained to the central

government of a federative republic. To hear them, the will of a

national majority was of no account in a national issue, provided the

majority of any particular State of the federation took the contrary

side. The national majority had no rights such as the strong arm of the

law, or the armed force, ought to impose upon gainsayers; it was only

the national minority which had such rights. The latter might break up

the nation; the former must not enforce any veto upon the disruption.

Why elect a President as your governmental chief, if you mean that

government should be a reality? Why not be respectable, like us

Europeans, and have a King at once? Such, briefly interpreted, appears

to have been the quintessence of the wisdom of these political sages.

The writer has now done with the exposition of his own views,--of no

consequence assuredly to his American readers, save for the clearer

understanding of what he has to say concerning the views entertained by

his British countryman at large. He has also done with the few specimens

which it fell in his way to cite of objections urged against his

colleagues in opinion, and which he was obtuse enough to imagine to be

no objections at all. He proceeds to his main subject,--the varieties of

English opinion on the American War.

These varieties may perhaps, with some approach to completeness, be

defined under the following seven heads.

1st. The party which believed in the sincerity, the right, and the

probable eventual success of the North.

2d. That which believed in the right of the North, but which doubted or

disbelieved its sincerity, especially on the question of Slavery, or its

eventual success, or both.

3d. That which cared only for the anti-slavery aspect of the contest.

4th. That which believed in the right and the probable eventual success

of the South.

5th. That which believed in the right of the South, but which doubted or

disbelieved its eventual success.

6th. That which, contrariwise, believed in the eventual success of the

South, but doubted or disbelieved its right.

7th. That which covertly or avowedly justified slavery.

To each of these parties a few words of comment must be given.

1st. The party which believed in the sincerity, the right, and the

probable eventual success of the North was, I think, extremely small

during the greater part of the war,--say, between the first Battle of

Bull Run and the capture of Atlanta. By sincerity I mean such points as

these: that the Federal Government was honestly desirous of fulfilling

its obligations towards the South; that the North, having to maintain

the integrity of the country by force of arms, was ready to make all

needful sacrifices for that object, and to lavish its blood and

treasure; above all, that the professions of dislike to slavery, the

offer of military emancipation to negroes, and, finally, the efforts to

amend the Constitution so as to abolish slavery, root and branch, were

sincere. Many, of course, believed in the right of the North, and in one

of other of these items of sincerity; few, I think, in the right, in the

sincerity throughout, and in the success as well. The delusion, that

the North, after using up its Irish and German population and its

incoming immigrants, would quail before the necessity of hazarding also

a large proportion of its own settled Anglo-Saxon population, was

extremely prevalent. Equally prevalent the notion that the North was

fighting merely for a constitutional idea, or for national integrity,

predominance, or (as Lord Russell phrased it) "for empire," without any

real regard for the interests of the negro. And when all these demands

upon one's faith had to be supplemented by a belief in the probable

success of the North, few persons seemingly ventured to commit

themselves to the whole of the proposition. Within my own personal

circle of observation, I could name but one, or, at the utmost, two,

besides myself, who, in the main, with some variations according to the

changing current of events, clung to the cause of the North in its

entirety. The first of these two persons is a painter of great

distinction and a man, in other respects, of very thinking and serious

mind, well known by name, and partially by his works, to such Americans

as take an interest in fine art. The second of the two is one of our

very greatest living poets.--As to the question of success, the

following may perhaps be a tolerably fair account of the varying

impressions of many, who, along with myself, hoped for the triumph of

the North, and were disposed, though not with any overwhelming

confidence, to believe in it. Up to the first Battle of Bull Run,

opinion was suspended or fluctuating; but in the main one's sympathies

conspired with one's information as to the comparative resources of the

opponents to produce a considerable degree of confidence. That battle

and some other Southern successes acted as a severe check; and

discouragement prevailed up to the time when the capture of New Orleans,

Grant's advance on the line of the Mississippi, and McClellan's "On to

Richmond" march righted the balance. Great uncertainty, however, was

still felt; and I should say that afterwards, between the repulse of

McClellan and Pope and the Battle of Gettysburg, most of the adherents

of the North were consciously "hoping against hope," and, especially at

the time of the defeat at Chancellorsville and the Northern invasion by

Lee in 1863, were almost ready to confess the case desperate.[A]

Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Port Hudson altered the face of affairs, and

revived a confidence which gradually strengthened almost into a

conviction, such as not all the vast difficulties which afterwards beset

Grant in his advance towards Richmond, nor all the nonsense of the Times

and other Southern journals about "Johnston continuing to draw Sherman

from his base," or Hood cutting him off from his communications, and

compelling him to retreat by that most singular of retreating processes,

the triumphal march through Georgia from end to end, could ever avail

substantially to becloud. Soon after the victory at Gettysburg, those

who were not blinded by their wishes or preconceptions saw ground for

thinking that the South had made its greatest efforts, and failed,--the

North sustained its worst rebuffs, and surmounted them.

2d. The party which believed in the right of the North, but which

doubted or disbelieved its sincerity, especially on the question of

Slavery, or its eventual success, or both, was of necessity very

large,--including, as it did, in a general way, all the Northern

partisans whose strength and fulness of conviction were not great enough

to enroll them in my first division. It is extremely difficult to form

an opinion, or even a guess, on the question of relative numbers; but I

have always fancied, that, could the whole nation have been polled on

the subject, the number of Northern well-wishers would have been found

sensibly to exceed that of the Southern. Generally, men of very grave,

reflective, and unprejudiced minds, students in the philosophy of

society and history, men known for their lofty ideal of liberty or of

culture, appeared to be on the side of the North; and the calm,

unfaltering attitude, free from petulance and invective, of those

operative classes in Lancashire, whom the war ruined for a while, has

often been pointed to as showing that the more informed and intelligent

workingmen were also for the North. They endured a great calamity

without murmuring, because they thought the cause just which had

entailed that calamity upon them. Assuming this to be correct, as I

believe it to be, the question remains, What was the opinion (or perhaps

one should rather say the sentiment) of the class below this,--the great

numerical bulk of the population, who would take sides according as

their sympathies, imaginations, prejudices, or traditional conceptions

of the right might be roused, irrespectively in the main of reasoning as

to any antecedents or consequences? I incline to suppose that the most

powerful impulsion to the feelings of this class must have been that

strong anti-slavery sentiment which had undoubtedly for many years been

bone of the bone of Englishmen,--more powerful even than that sympathy

for an overmatched struggle on behalf of independence which would have

pleaded for the South. If this is a correct view, it may be inferred

that the majority of the poorer classes was for the North; as they,

without refining over the question, would regard the contest as one

between Slavery and Anti-slavery, the latter represented by the North

and the former by the South. Short, however, of some decided majority

for the North in these classes, whose views do not transpire much upon

the surface of English opinion, I fear the majority of the whole nation

would have been found to be with the South; and could I take my own

sphere of society as the criterion, I should be compelled to say that so

it was in overwhelming preponderance. A more diffused connection with

America, through the emigration movement, and through community of

interest and feeling with a democratic nation, may have combined with a

truer instinct of right in the popular heart to rectify the balance; and

in default of evidence to the contrary, I am fain to suppose it did.--A

few words must be added as to one branch of our immediate subject,--the

doubt or disbelief of the sincerity of the North on the question of

Slavery. Had no prejudice or perversity of argument been imported into

the subject, it would, I imagine, have been apparent to most of my

countrymen that the dominant party at the North was genuinely

antagonistic to slavery; that, as long as the South did not violate the

Federal Constitution, the North was trammelled from interfering with

slavery as already established by law in certain States; that the duty

immediately imposed upon the North and the Government by the act of

Secession was one and undivided,--the maintenance of the Constitution

and of the Union; but that, in proportion to the obstinacy of Southern

resistance, the antagonism to slavery would obtain free play in the

North, the slavery question would assume greater and greater prominence

as the _nexus_ of the whole debate, and those who had at first been

bound to make a stand for an extant Union and compromise would be

impelled and more than willing to fight on for reunion and abolition.

But this view of the matter was consistently distorted. The

constitutionalism and nationalism of the North figured in argument as

indifference to slavery, the steps taken towards, the emancipation of

slaves as mere hypocritical stratagems of war, and the climax of

disingenuousness was reached when the anti-conscription and anti-negro

riots of New York were fastened upon that very war-party against which

they had been levelled. Systematic misrepresentations of this nature,

invidious glosses and plausible misconstructions, did undoubtedly

conspire with the really complicated conditions of the case and the

undisputed fact of certain antipathies of race (predicable as truly of

the Northern States as of any other part of the world) to persuade very

many Englishmen that the North was not sincerely hostile to slavery, but

used the Anti-slavery or the Abolition cry as a mere feint to disguise

the lust of domination. Those who liked to be persuaded of this were

persuaded with the utmost ease; and even among men who considered the

subject without bias, many were confused and shaken.

3d. The party which cared only for the anti-slavery aspect of the

contest was large. Their attitude is to a certain extent indicated in

what has just been said. One and not an insignificant section of them

would have sided frankly with the North, if satisfied that the Northern

triumph would be an anti-slavery triumph; but, talked as they were, or

talking themselves, into the belief that slavery had little more to fear

from the North than the South, they remained, at least during the

earlier part of the war, indifferent or indignant. Others, of course the

great majority, watched eagerly every symptom and every step which

proved the North to be in earnest in the work of abolition; they

thrilled to the sounds which "proclaimed liberty to the captive,"--the

tones of Northern manifestoes and legislation, the tread of Northern

legions, and the volleys fired by negro soldiers. They got to feel a

genuine veneration and even enthusiasm for President Lincoln, and formed

probably the only section of men or women in this country who could

speak of General Butler without bringing "railing accusations." The

party was diffused over the length and breadth of the land. It numbered,

I suppose, some adherents even in the aristocratic and governing

classes,--thousands, no doubt, among the working and laboring millions;

but its central strength was in that backbone of English philanthropic

effort, the more plebeian section of the well-to-do middle class,--that

section which gravitates towards Dissent, in religion, towards

Radicalism in politics, towards Bible Societies, Temperance Movements,

"Bands of Hope," and Exeter Hall. If this section of the British

community had not remained true to anti-slavery ideas, the country would

indeed have been turned "the seamy side without." That we were spared,

in the severer crises of the war, the last uglinesses of tergiversation,

is owing mainly to people of this class, the cheapest subjects for

well-bred sneers and intellectual superiority in ordinary times.

4th. The party which believed in the right and the probable eventual

success of the South was obviously, during the greater part of the war,

a numerous one. In the earlier stages of Secession, when the chief

question before one's thoughts was that of right, I think that

comparatively few people sided with the South, though very many were

lukewarm or frigid, or actually inimical towards the North. At that time

party-spirit still respected the old-fashioned notions, that a

self-governing nation must be ruled by its own majority, not minority;

that a minority which cried out before it was hurt, and "cut the

connection" rather than the balance in its own favor, was likely to be a

factious and misguided minority; and that a new commonwealth, whose

_raison d'être_ was Slavery, had little claim to the sympathies of

Englishmen or of civilization. Others laid greater stress from the first

on the argument, that the States of the Union were all sovereign states,

which had respectively entered into a voluntary bond, and could

voluntarily withdraw from it without gainsaying; and that this ground of

right on the side of the South remained unaffected by any accessory

considerations. This view rapidly gained over the willing convictions of

Southern sympathizers, when the impulse and determination, the courage

and early successes of the South, had once roused strong feelings in its

favor. The earlier argumentative view as to majorities and minorities,

and the fundamental basis of all governments, sank into desuetude, while

the right of a compact community to independent self-government at its

own option occupied the field of vision. Vast numbers of people--I

should think, during the greater part of the war, four fifths of the

whole country--believed in the success of the South; considering it

impossible that so determined a community, with so vast a territory,

should ever be coerced into reunion, and not being prepared for an equal

amount of determination on the part of the Northern Government and

people, or for their capacity, even had the will been admitted, to meet

the required outlay in money and men. Another question, too, was

prominent in men's minds, and indisposed them to contemplating a

subjugated South. They would ask, "What is to be done with the South, on

the unlikely supposition of its being conquered? Is it to become an

American Poland?" All these considerations inclined the great majority

of the nation to believe that the South would succeed; and, of those who

so believed, a large proportion held the Southerners to be in the right,

or sympathized with them to a degree which obscured the strict question

of right in favor of preference.

5th. The party which believed in the right of the South, but which

doubted or disbelieved its eventual success, appears to me to have been

most inconsiderable up to the final stages of the war. I doubt whether I

ever met two men, prior, let me say, to Sherman's march through Georgia,

who would distinctly limit themselves to this: "I wish the South might

succeed, but I don't think it will." When the impending catastrophe of

the South was no longer disputable, the Saturday Review, the idol of our

Club-men and University-men, of those who are at once highly cultivated

and intensely English, and who fancy themselves freer from prejudice and

more large-minded than others in proportion to their incapacity to

perceive that their own prejudices _are_ prejudices,--a paper which had

"gone in for" the South with a vehemence only balanced by its virulence

against the North,--found it convenient to turn tail, and retort upon

those opponents with whom the laugh remained at last. The Saturday

Review bleated pitifully, yet unconfessingly, to this effect:--"True it

is that we have been backing up the South all the while; but we meant no

more by it than the backer of any prize-fighter or any race-horse means,

when he has made his choice, and staked his money, and shouts to adopted

competitor, 'Go in and win!' That backer does not necessarily believe

that his side _will_ be the winner, but only signalizes that that side

is his." The evasion came too late; persons who had inconvenient

memories saw through the shuffling of a pseudo-prophet, who only managed

to cast a retrospective gleam of insincerity over his fortune-telling,

to convert blunder into bad faith, and to stultify his present along

with his past position. The leek had to be eaten at last: why, after so

many "prave 'ords" of superiority and defiance, confess that the eating

of it had been more than half foreseen all along?

6th. The party which believed in the eventual success of the South, but

doubted or disbelieved its right, must have been pretty considerable, if

my previous estimates are true; for I have already advanced the

conjecture that more than half the nation sided with the North, while

four fifths believed for a long time in the success of the South. This

fact alone, if correctly alleged, furnishes tolerable evidence of the

persistency and influence of pro-Southern papers and partisans, and

their ingenuity in so misreading the facts,

"Chè il no e il sì nel capo ci tenzona."

The event has proved that the chances of success were really very much

on the side of the North. The superiority in material resources, and

certain solid and undeniable successes obtained at and early stage of

the war, such as the capture of New Orleans, were known to be on the

same side. Slighter grounds would in most cases have sufficed to

persuade minds predisposed by sympathy that this side would win; yet the

Southern advocates shuffled and played the cards well enough to induce

an opposite conclusion in numerous instances. And no doubt many who

began by simply believing that the South would succeed went on to think

that the North deserved to lose,--partly because, upon such an

assumption, the personal superiority must have been very largely with

the South, and partly because a combatant who has no fair chance of

winning ought to give in, and not persist in shedding blood in vain. If

a big man fights a little one, and turns out upon experiment to have

next to no chance of beating him, one soon gets angry with the big one

for "pegging away," even though one may at first have perceived him to

be in the right. Such seemed to many English observers to be the

condition of the case in America. They were mistaken, but excusable; but

for the error in their premise, their deduction would have been correct,

or at least not irrational.

7th. The party which covertly or avowedly, justified slavery was

incomparably larger than any Englishman would have dreamed of a week

before the secession took place. Till then, I doubt whether any writer

of credit, except one, had ventured deliberately to affirm that American

slavery is, under limitations, an allowable and advantageous thing. That

exception is assuredly a most illustrious one, perhaps the strongest

head and stoutest heart in the British dominions, and our living writer

of the most exalted and durable fame,--Thomas Carlyle. His "Occasional

Discourse on the Nigger Question," published some years ago, ruffled and

outraged the anti-slavery mind, which then, and for some while before

and since, might fairly be termed the mind of all England. That

Discourse staggered some readers, and roused others,--roused them to

contemplate the whole question from a more fundamental and actual, a

less traditional and prejudged point of view, than had been in vogue

since our own abolition movement gained the ascendency. It became

apparent to various thinkers that the humanitarian view of the question

was not its be-all and end-all; that some facts and considerations _per

contra_ had to be taken into account; and that what one train of thought

and feeling denounced as a mere self-condemned wrong might, according to

another, be even regarded as a higher right. Still, this "new light"

upon slavery was received more or less fully by only a very few minds,

as compared with the general mass of British conviction,--a few

thorough-going believers in Carlyle, a few hardy and open-minded

speculators; hardly more, perhaps, in all, than those who would join Mr.

John Stuart Mill in saying that the right form of Parliamentary suffrage

is universal suffrage, open to women as well as men. No ordinary English

newspaper would have thought of professing at that time, nor any

ordinary English reader of tolerating, the theory that slavery is right.

(It is no part of my plan or business to discuss this question of

slavery: I will simply say, to avoid misapprehension, that, while

recognizing the profound good sense of much that Carlyle has said on

this and cognate matters, my own instinct of right and habits of opinion

rebel against the pro-slavery theory, and never allowed me to doubt

which side I was on, when the question came to its supreme practical

issue in the civil war.) Such, then, appears to me to have been the

state of English opinion on this subject when the secession occurred. On

one ground or another, a large proportion of our population and our

writers sided with the South. At first I fancy that no journal and no

average Englishman affirmed that slavery is justifiable; but, as events

progressed, it became more and more difficult to say that the South was

right, and yet that slavery was wrong. "No man can serve two masters,"

not even such a couple as Jefferson Davis and Wilberforce. The British

sympathizers, who had determined to "hold to the one," were reduced to

the logical necessity of "despising the other." It was a surprising

spectacle. The dogmas and traditions of half a century snapped like

threads, when it became their office to constrain a _penchant_.

Ethnologists and politicians were equally ready to find out that the

negro was fit for nothing but enforced servitude. Parsons,

marchionesses, and maiden aunts received simultaneous enlightenment as

to Christian truth, and discovered that slavery was not prohibited, but

was even countenanced, in the Bible. The inference was inevitable: what

Moses did not condemn in Jews thirty-three centuries ago must be the

correct thing for Anglo-Americans to uphold at the present day. Did not

St. Paul tell Onesimus to return to his master? etc., etc. Many

Secessionist organs of public opinion, no doubt, declined to commit

themselves to pro-slavery views: they started with the assumption that

slavery is an evil and a crime, and they continued protesting the same

creed. How far this creed was compatible with so rabid an advocacy of

the Southern cause,--how far it was possible for genuine abominators of

slavery to continue unfaltering their Southern palinodes and Northern

anathemas, after such acts on the part of the South as the refusal to

include colored troops among exchangeable prisoners of war, and the

massacre at Fort Pillow, and such acts on the part of the North as the

Emancipation Proclamation, and the introduction of the Constitutional

Amendment for abolition,--these are questions which appear deserving of

an answer; yet one may be quite prepared to find that the spirit of

party, which made such an anomaly possible, is blind to the fact of its

being anomalous, and has an answer pat. My own belief about the matter

is this. When the Secession began, there were two sects among the

English partisans of the South: the Carlylese apologists of slavery,--a

very small sect; and the political advocates of Secession, who, partly

with full conviction, partly as a mere matter of unchallenged use and

wont, repudiated slavery,--a very large sect. The Southern partisanship

of the former sect was perfectly logical; that of the latter unable to

stand the wear and tear of discussion, as the progress of events made it

more and more manifest that slavery or abolition was the real issue.

With this latter sect the political or other liking for the South was a

much stronger and more active feeling than the humanitarian or other

dislike of slavery; the first feeling, indeed, soon developed into a

passion, the second into a self-reproachful obstruction. Thus the

logical view, that slavery as well as the slaveholding interest was

right, exercised a powerful centripetal attraction; and many minds were

betrayed into adopting it as a truth, or using it for a purpose, without

probing the depth of apostasy to their own more solid convictions, or of

moral disingenuousness, which the practice involved. The South had to be

justified, and here were at hand the means of justification. Now that

the contest is over, I have no doubt that a large residuum of tolerance

for slavery, much larger than seemed possible for Englishmen before the

Secession, is left behind; but also that this tolerance was in most

instances factitious and occasional, and is cleared or clearing away,

and will leave the British reprobation of slavery, in a little while,

pretty nearly where it used to be of old. The orange has been squeezed:

what use can the rind be of? It rests with the re-United States, by a

just and successful treatment of the still formidable negro question,[B]

to persuade unreluctant minds in the Old Country that slavery is, in

very deed, the unmitigated wrong and nuisance which they used to reckon

it; and those who have sympathized with the North look confidently for

this ultimate result.

As a corollary to all that I have been saying in this slight analysis of

English opinion during the war, I should add,--what, indeed, American

writers have abundantly observed,--that the knowledge of American

affairs possessed by the great mass of English partisans was extremely

superficial. I will not now speak of our newspapers and pamphleteers;

but, within my own experience, among ordinary persons, who were quite

ready to take sides, and stand stubbornly to their colors, I have often

found that even such rudimentary points as the distinction between

"States" and "Territories," the Northern resistance to the extension of

slavery into Territories, the issue taken on that immediate question in

the Presidential election of 1860, the relation between the three

Federal Government and the States' governments, and the limits within

which it would be possible for a President and his administration,

however anti-slavery in principle, to interfere with slavery, were

either not understood in theory, or not practically laid to heart.

People would talk as if a Federal President were a Russian autocrat,

who, if sincerely opposed to slavery, would have nothing in the world to

do except to cancel the "peculiar institution" throughout the States,

North and South, by a motion of his will and a stroke of his pen. They

would demonstrate the half-heartedness on this matter of the North, as

represented by its President Lincoln, and the hypocrisy or truckling of

Lincoln himself, by the omission of such a sealing of their professed

faith,--not caring to reflect how utterly subversive these notions must

be of that favorite catchword of Southern partisans; "State rights." It

may be objected, "These people can have been only the extremely

ignorant." That, however, is my own conviction: but such childish

assumptions were not the less prevalent for being preposterous, nor the

less potent in leavening the mass of opinion, when the question was,

which party to adopt.

Something--but necessarily very brief and imperfect--may be added

concerning the particular organs of public opinion which sided with the

North or with the South. I shall confine myself to London publications,

not knowing enough of those in the country to treat that subject even

with fairness, much less with command of the materials. I presume,

however, that the tone of the London press furnishes a tolerable index

to that of the provincial, taking the whole average.

The political color of the English press may be summarized as either

Conservative, Liberal, or Liberal-Conservative. The Conservative daily

papers are the "Standard" and the "Herald," both rabidly Southern. The

principal Liberal ones are the "Times," "Globe," "Telegraph," "Daily

News," and "Star." Of these five journals, three were for the South, and

only two for the North,--the two which I have named last. Two other

Liberal daily papers are but little known to me,--the "Advertiser" and

the "Sun": I believe the latter was at any rate not decidedly Southern.

Everybody knows that the Times is the Englishman's paper _par

excellence_; it would hardly be unfair to call us "a Times-led

population," unless, indeed, one prefers the term, "a popularity-led

Times." Converse with ten ordinary middle-class Englishmen,--men of

business or position, receiving or imparting the current of opinion

which is uppermost in their class,--probably nine of them will express

views which you will find amplified in the columns of the Times. That

journal is neither above their level nor below it; as matters strike

them, so do they also strike the Times. Englishmen do not particularly

respect the Times; it is like them, (or in especial like the bustling,

energetic, money-making, money-spending classes of them,) and they are

like it; but an Englishman of this sort will not feel bound to "look up

to" the Times any more than to another Englishman of the same class.

They reciprocally express each other, and with no obligation or claim to

lofty regard on either side. When, therefore, one finds the Times

abiding for a long while (which is not invariably its way) by one

constant view of a question, one may be sure that it is supported in

that view by an active, business-like, prominent, and probably even

predominant body of its countrymen; but it by no means follows that the

deeper convictions of the nation, its hearty sentiments of right, for

which it would be prepared to do or die, are either represented or

roused by the newspaper. The Times, during the American War, was

cursed--or cursed its readers--with prophets, seers, and oracles, in its

correspondents; and the prophecies turned out to be ridiculously wrong,

the seeing to be purblindness, and the oracles to be gibberish. A more

miserable exposure could not easily be cited; the most indignant

American might afford to pity the Times, when, after four years of

leonine roarings and lashings of tail, its roar sank into a whine, and

its tail was clapped between its legs. The supremacy of the Times had

already been sapped by the abolition of the British paper-duty, and the

consequent starting of various penny-newspapers. If this _fiasco_ does

not gravely damage it, the reason can only, I suppose, be in the

conformity of character and of impetus already pointed out between our

average middle class and the Times. The Englishman whom the Times has

misled for four years concerning the American struggle has a

fellow-feeling for his Times even in the mortification of undeception;

for this Englishman had never supposed that the Times, any more than

himself, was actuated by profound political morality in the side it

espoused--rather by personal proclivities, clamor, and "rule of thumb."

And so, when the next great question arises, the Englishman may again

make the Times his crony and confabulator, just as he would more likely,

through general sympathy of notions and feelings, to take counsel with

private acquaintances who had erred with him in predicting success to

the South, rather than with those who had dissented from him in desire

and expectation. Certainly, however, after all allowances made, the

_prestige_ of the Times must have received a perceptible shock. The

other daily papers which I have named, along with the Times, as Southern

partisans, represent divers sections of Liberalism; and there must be

more than I am cognizant of to say in detail of their views of various

phases and at various periods in the contest. The two Northerners, the

Daily News and the Star, (the latter being specially connected with Mr.

John Bright,) represent the more advanced section of Liberalism: no

doubt their more thorough sympathy with the cause of the North was not

unrelated to their more thorough sympathy with the political

constitution and influences of the American Republic; and the same would

be true of many private Northern adherents. In general, it may be said

without much inexactness that the Northern advocates in the press

belonged either to this section of Liberalism or to the "humanitarian"

and "Evangelical" categories--those which distinctly uphold

Abolitionism, "Aborigines-Protection," etc.; while the Southerners were

recruited from all other classes,--Conservative, Liberal, and

Liberal-Conservative. To this class one may perhaps assign the last two

of the daily papers, the "Post" and the "Pall-Mall Gazette," the latter

of which, however, was firmly on the side of the North; it only started

during the final stages of the war,--a time when (be it said without any

derogation from the sincerity of the Pall-Mall Gazette) some other

papers also would probably, from the aspect of the times, have been

better inclined to take the same side, but for finding themselves

already up to the armpits in Secessionism. Passing now to the weekly

papers, of which we can name only two or three, we find the Conservative

"Press," the Anglican-Clerical "Guardian" the "Examiner,"--a

representative of a somewhat old-fashioned form of Liberalism or

"Whiggery,"--and the caustic, Liberal-Conservative "Saturday Review,"

(already mentioned,) on the side of the South; the advanced Liberal

"Spectator" on that of the North. It is a significant sign of the

widespread Southernism in all grades of town-society, especially the

young and exuberant, the man-about-town class, the club-men, the jolly

young bachelors, the tavern-politicians, that _all_ the "comic" papers

were on that side,--not only the now almost "legitimated" "Punch,"[C] a

staid grimalkin which has outgrown the petulances of kittenhood, or, as

it has been well nicknamed erewhile, "The Jackall of the Times," but

equally the more free-and-easy "Fun," the plebeian "Comic News," the

fashionable "Owl," and the short-lived "Arrow." Among the magazines, the

"Quarterly" and "Blackwood," with various others, not all of them

colleagues of these two in strict Conservatism, were for the South;

"Macmillan's Magazine," again an organ of the advanced and theoretic

Liberalism, consistently for the North, so far as it could be considered

to express aggregate, and not merely individual, views.

Of our leading writers, taken personally, Carlyle was of course against

the North, and perhaps one may say on the side of the South, as shown by

his epigram, "The American Iliad in a Nutshell,"--one of the few

instances (if I may trust my own opinion concerning so great a genius)

in which even his immense power of humor and pointed illustration has

fallen flat and let off a firework which merely fizzed without flashing.

Ruskin also would appear, from some occasional expressions in what he

has published, to have adopted the same view; as, indeed, he very

generally does "Carlylize" when Carlylean subject-matter engages his

pen. For the North three of the most distinguished and resolute writers

have been Mr. John Stuart Mill and Professors Cairnes and Goldwin

Smith,--men on whose position and services in their own country to the

Federal cause it is assuredly not for me to dilate.

* * * * *

Having thus far, to the best of my ability, sketched the varieties of

English opinion concerning the great conflict, I must now endeavor to

analyze somewhat more in detail the phases and motives of that large and

powerful section of it which was hostile to the North. Something has

been already said or implied on this matter as we proceeded; but it

remains to be distinctly accounted for. If, at the time when England

bestowed cheap tears upon the sorrows of Uncle Tom, cheap aristocratic

homage upon Mrs. Stowe, and cheap or indeed gratis advice upon "American

sisters," any American or Continental paper had prophesied (seeing

farther into a millstone than Times prophets during the war) that the

issues between Slavery and Abolition would, in a very few years, come to

a tremendous crisis and not less tremendous arbitrament, and that the

great majority of the most trained and influential British opinion would

then be found on the side of the champions of Slavery, and against those

of Abolition, the prediction would have been universally treated by

Englishmen as an emanation and a proof of the most grovelling malignity,

not less despicably silly than shamelessly calumnious. The time of trial

came; and what no one would have ventured to suggest as conceivable

proved to be the actual and positive truth. There must have been some

deep-lying reason for this,--some reason which remained latent below the

surface as long as the United States were regarded as one integral

community, but which asserted itself as soon as Abolition and Slavery

became identified, on the one hand, with national indivisibility, and,

on the other, with disruption. It seems impossible to doubt, that, had

the maintenance or the dissolution of slavery been the sole question,

England would have continued true, without any noteworthy defection, to

her traditions and professions reprobating slavery; and that, as she did

not decisively so continue, other incentives must have intervened,--the

cause being in fact tried upon a different issue. Wherefore? It is to

that question that I now address myself.

Four motives appear to me to have been puissant in indisposing

Englishmen to the Northerners. I speak generally of all such British men

and women as sided with the South, and whom I imagine to have been not

much less than half the whole number of those who took sides at

all,--but more especially of the class in which Southern sympathy was

the very prevalent rule, and Northern sympathy the scanty exception.

This class comprehended the members of the leading professions, army,

navy, church, and bar, the writers upon events of the day in newspapers

and elsewhere, and, broadly speaking, the moneyed and leading social

circles,--in short, "the upper classes"; and, to trust my own

experience, not only these, but the great bulk of, at any rate, the

professional middle class as well. For instance, in the Government

office to which I belong, comprising some hundreds of _employés_, of

whom a tolerable percentage are known to me, I can recollect only one

person, besides myself, whom I knew to be decidedly for the North,--and

he, by the by, is an Irishman. I have used above the term "the upper

classes"; but I believe that the aristocracy, properly so called, was by

no means so Southern as the society next below it. The first of the four

motives in question is one in whose potency it gives me no pleasure to

believe, but it was, I think, by far the most powerful of all. The

English,[D] as a nation, dislike the Americans as a nation. This is a

broad statement, which I make, because, as far as my powers and

opportunities of observation extend, I believe it to be true; but I am

quite prepared to find it contested, or summarily denied, by many of my

countrymen,--the more, the better. The dislike, be it greater or less in

fact, appears to me to rest upon two main foundations.

In the first place, the Englishman is a born Conservative, or, to use

the old phrase, a Tory. Toryism is of two kinds,--political and social.

The majority of the nation is certainly not, at the present day, Tory in

political preferences, though there is still a large leaven of that

feeling also. But very many persons who are political Liberals are

social Tories: they venerate the aristocracy; they batten daily upon the

"Court Circular"; they cling to class distinctions in theory, and still

more in practice; they strain towards "good society" and social

conformity; their ideal is "respectability." Indeed, it appears to me

that comparatively very few English people are free from some tincture

of Toryism in either political or social sentiment, or both: one knows

many Radicals, some Democrats, and even a few theoretic Republicans; but

it by no means follows that all or most of these are not Tories in

grain, in some part of their mental or personal anatomy. A total

revulsion in public and popular feeling would have to take place,

before, for instance, such an institution as our House of Lords could be

in any practical danger: no such revulsion appears to be within the

purview of any one now living, even as a matter of opinion, much less of

practical performance. I believe, that, if universal suffrage were to

become the law of the land to-morrow, not much difference would ensue in

the _personnel_ or the tone of the House of Commons. It could hardly

help ensuing, in the long run, by the inevitable reaction Of

institutions upon the people who exercise or undergo them, and, with a

changed House of Commons, much else would, no doubt, be changed; but

there seems strong reason to doubt whether a democratic constituency

would, in the earlier stages, produce a decisively democratic body of

representatives. As regards English opinion upon the American dispute,

nothing was commoner than the remark, that the Southerners were "the

better gentlemen," or "represented the aristocratic element," and

therefore commanded the speaker's good wishes in their struggle; and

this not necessarily from members of the landed gentry, or from

political anti-liberals, but equally from Liverpool merchants, or others

of the middle class. The remark may have been true or incorrect,--with

that I have nothing to do; but it was very generally accepted in England

as accurate, and represented a large body of consequent sympathy. In

like manner, people were slow to believe in the possibility of Lincoln's

competence for his post; because he rose from the populace to his great

elevation, they inferred that he was a boor and a bungler, not (as might

have seemed equally fair and rather more logical) that he was a capable

man; and, with a foregone conclusion, they were quite ready to construe

as blundering and grotesque that line of policy and conduct on his part,

which, after a war of no immoderate length, resulted in the surmounting

of obstacles which they had dubbed insurmountable.

This innate British temper--aristocratic, conservative, or Tory,

whichever one may term it--is the first of the two foundations whereon

English dislike of Americans appears to me to rest. The second is a

natural, though assuredly not a laudable feeling,--the residual soreness

left by our defeat in the old American War of Independence. Far be it

from me to say that the English nation at large, or Englishmen

individually, brood gloomily over that defeat, or, with active and

conscious malignity, long for the desolation of their brothers in blood,

language, and a common history. To say that would be as strained and

exaggerated, and as contrary to British practicality and freedom from

vengefulness, as to deny that some degree of soreness and distance

remains would seem to me uncandid. Englishmen are quite ready to

believe, and to light upon the casual evidences, that Frenchmen remember

Waterloo, and would have no objection to wipe out the reminiscence upon

occasion; and Frenchmen and Americans may probably perceive that like

causes lead to like results in the Englishmen's own case, although the

latter are less quick-sighted regarding that. There is, I apprehend,

quite enough soreness on the subject to lead us to watch the career of

the United States with jealousy, to take offence easily where the

relative interests of both countries are concerned, to put the less

favorable of two possible constructions upon American doings, and to

feel as if, in any reverse which may happen to the States, a certain

long-standing score of our own, which we did not clear off quite

satisfactorily to ourselves, were in a round-about course of settlement.

It may perhaps be rejoined, "Even admitting what you have said as to

British conservatism and soreness, and consequent dislike of Americans,

this furnishes no reason why the more influential classes in England

should have sided with Southern rather than Northern Americans." But I

cannot acknowledge the force of the rejoinder. The United States are,

like any other nation, represented by their Government, with which the

Northern and Union section was in harmony, the Southern and Disunion

section in conflict; indeed, the very fact of secession divided the

South from the obnoxious entity, the United States, and so far ranged

the South under the same banner with all other antagonists of the States

and their Government. The anti-American might with perfect consistency

plead for his Southernism, "Not that I disliked Carolina less, but that

I disliked Massachusetts more." Besides, there was a very prevalent

impression that the Southern Confederacy would be an essentially

aristocratic commonwealth, as contrasted with the democratic Northern

Union,--an impression which the peculiar conditions of society in the

South would hardly have failed to justify to the full, had a cessation

of the war allowed the Confederacy to develop internally, according to

its own bias. Rumors were even rife of a possible monarchy; and leading

Southerners were credited with the statement, that the best upshot of

all, would popular prejudice in the South but allow of it, would be to

import a king from the English royal family. Such rumors may have been

fallacious, but they were not unacceptable to the British Tory. On the

other hand, the disruption of the United States by the secession of the

South was continually spoken of as "the breakdown of Democracy," or "the

bubble of Democracy has burst." The experiment of a great federative

republic--or, one might say, of a great republic, whether federative or

otherwise--was held to have been tried, and to have broken down. The

fact that there would be two republics, jointly coextensive with the

original one, went for little, inasmuch as neither of the two could be

as powerful as that one, and they would be divided by conflicting policy

and interests, even if not engaged in active hostilities. All these

considerations were not only powerful determinants to Southernism, but

in themselves balm to the conservative heart, and hardly less so to that

overwhelming section of educated liberal opinion in this country, which,

genuinely liberal though its politics may be according to the English

standard, abhors all approach towards what is termed "Americanizing our

institutions," and is fully as eager as the strictly conservative class

to lay hold of any facts which may make monarchy appear a stable, and

republicanism an unstable system. It was but a very short time before

the fall of Richmond that I heard an Englishman, so far from

anticipating the catastrophe of the South, repeat the threadbare augury

of the Times and other journals, that the remaining Federal States would

yet split up into a Western and an Eastern aggregation. The Cerberus of

Democracy was to start his three heads off on three different roads, by

that process common in many of the lower animal organisms, known to

zoölogists as "fission"; and monarchists were fain to augur that very

little of either bite or bark would be thereafter native to his jaws.

Such are the grounds on which I think that British conservatism and

soreness produce a widely diffused feeling of national dislike to

Americans, and that this dislike, beyond all other motives, indisposed

multitudes to the Northern cause. Three other motives conducing to the

same result remain to be analyzed.

Many Englishmen believe--as will have been abundantly apparent to

Americans during the vicissitudes of the last few years--that the

greatness of the United States involves a serious danger to England,

whether in the projects upon Canada which are attributed to the States,

or in other directions, such as that of naval power. It is no business

of mine to discuss the validity of this belief, but simply to record it

as one important motive why the success of the Federal Government was

not desired. It is a substantial and a reasoned motive; and very few

persons, whether in England or out of it, are so cosmopolite or

calm-minded as to assume that the growth and aggrandizement of a foreign

power, in its proportional relation to one's own nation, are matter for

brotherly satisfaction and congratulation without _arrière pensée_,

provided always that growth proceeds from internal conditions honorable

to the foreigner, and not in themselves derogatory or offensive to the

home-power. Few will heartily say, "Let our neighbors and competitors

develop to their uttermost, and welcome; be it our sole care that we

also develop to _our_ uttermost. They shall run us as close as they

like, and shall find that we do not mean to be run down." To say this

might be an act of national Christianity; but it is not one which has

ever been in very active exercise or popular repute. It may be observed,

too, that, besides all other causes of national vigilance or jealousy,

the Trent affair, at an early date in the war, brought the whole

practical question very forcibly home to us; and though Englishmen

almost unanimously, within the limits of my reading and hearing,

protested that a rupture with the United States would be formidable and

disabling only to that belligerent, (a point on which I ventured to

fancy that British self-confidence might not have fathomed all the

possibilities of Providence,) the crisis did not the less tend to rouse

all our defensive and some of our aggressive instincts, and to weight

the scales of public feeling against the North. The question of perils

from American power then passed out of the region of mere theory, and

became practical and imminent. The danger itself dispersed, indeed, as

suddenly as it had come, but the impression remained.

Another motive for siding against the North was the abstract hatred of

war, which has grown to be a very widespread and genuine feeling in

England,--and, in my humble opinion, a most befitting and praiseworthy

one,--active whenever we are in the position of outsiders, and overborne

only when our own passions and real or supposed interests are involved.

The great majority of the nation plunged headlong into the Russian War,

and the grip of the British bull-dog's teeth upon his opponent was not

easily loosed, even when good cause for loosing it appeared. We had no

more notion of retiring from India in 1857, when the Indian mutineers

used some cogency of material argument to make us do so, than we should

have of retiring from Ireland, if a new Irish rebellion occurred; but

when the question was merely that of breaking up a vast republic beyond

the Atlantic in the interests of negro slavery, the horrors and

wickedness of war were obvious and impressive to us. That historical

phrase of General Scott's, "Wayward sisters, go in peace!" was very

generally, and I think rightly, regarded as expressing one of the points

of view which might with honor, caution, and consistency have been acted

upon, when the tremendous decision between peace and war had to be made.

The opposite point of view was also tenable: it was adopted with

overwhelming impulse by the Federal Government and the loyal States;

and, having been carried out to a triumphant conclusion, may be admitted

to have been the wisest and most patriotic, even by persons who (and I

will not deny having been one of them from time to time during the war)

were induced to doubt whether any cause, however equitable, and any

object, however righteous and great, sufficed to justify the frightful

devastation and carnage which their prosecution involved. If such doubts

beset the adherents of the North, of course the view of the matter

entertained by opponents of war in the abstract, who were also on the

side of the South, was incomparably stronger in reprobation of this

particular war. True, it might be urged, that the South, and not the

North, both furnished the _casus belli_, and began the actual

hostilities by the assault upon Fort Sumter; but it was not the cue of

Southern partisans to admit that this internal action of certain

sovereign States of the Union was of a nature to justify coercive war on

the part of the North, while the fact that it rested with the North to

decline or accept the challenge was patent to the friends of both

belligerents. Thus, when the enormous magnitude and horrors of the war

startled English onlookers, the odium, in the opinion of many, attached

to the North: a view which, though it might not stand the test of strict

investigation, or of a severe discussion of principles and provocations,

was superficially maintainable, and not to be anyhow argued out of all

plausibility. "The South is defensive, and the North aggressive," one

disputant might say. "Yes," would be the reply, "at this stage of the

contest; but ascend a step higher, and it is the South which made an

aggression on the Union, and the North is defending that." "Still, the

North might have abstained from defending it, and might have said,

'Wayward sisters, go in peace!'" "It might; but it saw good reason for

saying the reverse." "Still, it might." This seems a fair enough

statement of the case between North and South, so far as the mere

question of fact as to responsibility for the war is concerned. Beyond

this, one must go to the larger questions, whether any causes justify

war, and whether this individual cause was one of them,--questions, as I

have said, to which the English mind tends to return a negative answer,

save when England herself is affected. The very men who could least see

a pretext for a war by the Federal people against the seceded States

were those who would most eagerly have rushed into a war to sustain the

British claim in the Trent affair.

Lastly, there was a generous and an especially English motive for

anti-Northern partisanship,--the feeling of sympathy with the weaker

side, which was unmistakably the Southern; a generous motive, but not to

be trusted too far in deciding between any two litigants. Besides the

mere inferiority of strength, the splendid valor and enterprising spirit

of the South stirred the British heart and blood, and commanded

numberless good wishes; while, for some time after the first battle of

Bull Run, a prejudice, not readily amenable to reasoning, clung around

the Northern arms, and impeded many from doing full relative justice to

the military temper and prowess of the Unionists. There was, moreover, a

very widespread impression that the North was carrying on the war

chiefly by means of mercenaries,--Germans, Irishmen, and "the

offscourings of Europe," as the uncomplimentary phrase ran,--who

enlisted for the sake of the bounty, and were equally prompt at

exhibiting their indifferentism to the grave issues at stake and their

blackguardism in dealing with the hostile populations. The Southerners,

on the contrary, figured as a chivalrous territorial body driven to

fight "for their hearths and homes," (I have even seen "their altars" in

print,) waging a noble defensive war against preconcerted spoliation and

despotism. To this moment, many people have phrases of the above sort

upon their lips.

Then there were certain personal feelings which told powerfully in the

same direction,--personal partly to the English as a nation, and partly

to the more prominent actors in the war. The contrast between the

American colonies of Great Britain throwing off their allegiance to the

Old Country because they saw fit to do so for their own interests, and

the government of the Federation of these same ex-colonies insisting

that some of them, which in their turn see fit to break loose from the

Federal pact, shall not do so, under the alternative of war and the

pains of treason,--this contrast is assuredly a glaring one; many people

considered that it amounted to a positive anomaly,--not a few to a

barefaced act of tyrannic apostasy. The personal feeling of the English

people, their national _amour propre_, conspired to lead towards this

harshest construction of the facts: it was so tempting to convict our

old adversaries out of their own mouths, and make them, by the logic of

events, read out either their recantation of the Colonial Revolution, or

their self-condemnation for the Anti-Secession War. I have already

explained to what extent these views appear to me to be tenable, and

where their weak point lies: that both the insurrection of the colonies

against England, and that of the South against the Federation,--both the

repressive measures of England against the colonies, and of the

Federation against the South,--were in themselves founded on an

indefeasible right, and abstractly defensible; and that the "casting

vote," (so to speak,) in both cases, depends, not upon any wordy denial

of the right, but upon a thorough estimate of all the attendant

conditions, and prominently of the "mights of man."

So far for one phase of the personal question. The other phase pertained

to the character and the deeds of some leading actors in the war-drama.

To most English apprehensions, _the_ hero of the war, from an early

stage of it up to his tragic death, was Stonewall Jackson, whose place

was afterwards taken, in popular esteem, though not in coequal

enthusiasm, by General Lee, both of them Southerners; while the _bête

noire_ of the story was General Butler, the Northerner. It would be

futile to expound the reasons of this, patent as they are to everybody;

or to inquire what deductions from the renown of Jackson and Lee, or

what allowances for the position of Butler, a judicial review of the

whole case would proclaim to be equitable. I will only remark here,

that, as far as my observation extended, no one complained of Jackson,

when it transpired that he had been resolutely in favor of refusing all

quarter to Northern soldiers: a severity, not to say barbarism, which,

be it right or wrong in itself, would undoubtedly have appeared to many

atrocious enough, had it been the doctrine of any Northern general, and

beside which the sternest measures of Butler look lax and conciliatory.

In like manner, the terrible treatment of Northern prisoners, and the

most savage act of war in the whole contest, the massacre at Fort

Pillow,[E] seemed hardly to graze that delicate susceptibility of

Southern partisans which was lashed into a white rage by a few words of

printed proclamation from Butler's hand; the facts were either ignored,

or dismissed as of secondary importance in the general conduct of the

war. Of two other prime actors in the contest, President Davis and

President Lincoln, the popular judgment seemed equally arbitrary. Of

course each had his admirers among professed Southern or Northern

adherents: it is not in that aspect that I speak of them for the moment,

but rather as figures in the popular imagination. As such, Davis was

credited with all the qualities of a powerful statesman; while Lincoln

showed as a not ill-meaning, but grotesquely inadequate and misplaced

oddity, a sort of mere accident of mob-favor, and made abundant mirth

for the mirthful: how justly the event has perhaps demonstrated. Among

the Northern generals, I think that the only one who became to some

extent generally popular, though bitterly denounced in adverse quarters,

was Sherman,--not only for the splendor and originality of his practical

achievements, but for a certain incisive and peremptory realism in his

administrative proceedings, which almost marked him with a touch of grim

humor.

I have thus sought to account for the anti-Northern bias in a large

number of my countrymen, by their dislike of the American nation and

polity, arising partly from the remains of soreness left by past

defeat,--by the jealousy of American power, as a practical danger,--by

the hatred of war,--and by the sympathy for the gallant weaker

combatant. I am compelled reluctantly to add, that the particular

operation of these various influences reflects no credit upon British

consistency of farsightedness. The conservative temper which stiffens

Englishmen towards America was the very same which, in the interests of

the moment, led them to justify violent revolutionary measures, and

armed resistance to the constitutional and national majority. The

greater the conservative, the greater the advocate of insurrection. In

like manner, the English detestation of slavery was overwhelmed by

sympathy for an "oppressed" community, whose oppression (apart from the

much-paraded tariff and other such questions) consisted in a definite

intimation that they would not henceforward be allowed to enlarge the

area of slavery, and in a suspicion present to their own minds that even

the existing area of that cherished institution would be narrowed, and

finally reduced to nought,--expunged "as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it

and turning it upside down." The friends among us of constitutional

liberty and of legality, the enemies of anarchy, the unseduced

execrators of slavery, the upholders of the tie of brotherhood across

the Atlantic, may well look back with shame to the time--and it was no

matter of days or weeks, but a period of about four years together--when

the loudest and most accepted voices in England exulted over the now

ludicrously delusive proposition that the United States were a burst

bubble, and slavery the irremovable corner-stone of an empire. It may be

a lesson to nations against the indulgence in rancor, the abnegation of

the national conscience, and the dear delight of prophesying one's own

likings. "Now, therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in

the mouth of these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil against

thee."

The collapse of the South came at last; and nearly at the same moment

came the murder of a man whose modesty, integrity, firmness,

single-minded persistency, unresentfulness, and substantial truth of

judgment have been invested by his fate with an almost sacred depth of

interest and significance,--President Lincoln. Amid the many momentous

bearings of these events, it is for me to note only one of comparative

unimportance,--the effect which they produced upon English public

opinion. There was, I think, a certain good-fortune for Southern

sympathizers, in the fact that the announcement of Lincoln's death

almost synchronized with that of the surrender of the Confederate

armies. After so many confident anticipations and loud predictions of a

Southern triumph, so many denunciations of the policy, acts, and leaders

of the North, these sympathizers found themselves in a sort of

cul-de-sac when Richmond had been taken. Lee had yielded, Johnston was

yielding, and the very same "butcher" Grant, "ruthless" Sherman, and

"Yahoo" Lincoln, whose savageries and imbecilities had been the theme of

annual moral-pointing, were reading the world a lesson of moderation and

self-forgetfulness in victory, such as almost seemed to shrink from the

plentitude of a triumph which was a humiliation to some of their

countrymen. The sympathizers found that they were and had long been of

the party in evil odor with that modern "Providence which sides with the

stronger battalions," not to speak of the older "God of Battles." They

were pulled up sharp in the direction they had been going in, and the

alternative of turning right round and retracing their steps was a very

awkward and unwelcome one. The assassination of Lincoln came to their

relief. They could join, without insincerity, in the burst of public

feeling which that terrible deed excited; could merge their protests

against Lincoln in the established unwillingness to say evil of the

dead; could give momentary pause to national and political

considerations, beside the grave of one preëminent citizen; and could

start afresh afterwards, with a new situation, and a new chief figure in

it to contemplate. President Johnson had taken the place of President

Lincoln, and had, at the hands of many of Lincoln's vituperators,

succeeded to an inheritance of the abuse lavished upon him. Neither

caution nor moderation had been learned by some, suitable as were the

circumstances of Lincoln's death for teaching the lesson. Of late,

however, I have observed symptoms of a decided change in this respect:

the policy of President Johnson being recognized as broad, generous,

resolute, and auspicious of the best results. I think this feeling, and

a general sentiment of respect and good-will for the United States,

promise to grow rapidly and powerfully among my countrymen,--who, true

once again to their conservative instincts, will look with a certain

regard upon a nation which can show those elements of solidity and

"respectability," a tremendous past war, and a heavy national debt, with

augmented authority in the central government. John Bull's ill-humor

against the "Yankees" has been in vigorous exercise these four years,

and has assumed fair latitude for growling itself out: it has been

palpably wrong in some of its inferences; for the bubble of Democracy

has _not_ burst, nor the Republic been split up into two or three

federations, nor the abolition of slavery been a mere pretext and

hypocrisy. Englishmen, with their practical turn, and candid frankness

towards those to whom they have done less than right, may be expected in

the future to look upon the States with a degree of confidence and

cordiality long deplorably absent. The events of the war have, in the

long run, compelled even the hostile party to respect the Unionists and

their government: the plague of slavery is fast going, and, with its

disappearance, will relieve Englishmen from either (as they used to do)

reprobating the Americans as abettors of and trucklers to the barbaric

institution, or else (as they have been doing of late) from inventing

half-sincere excuses for that same institution, to subserve partisan

feelings. As matters stand at present in the United States, there

appears to be only one contingency which would again rouse into a fierce

flame the glowing embers of pro-Southern sentiment among Englishmen, and

restore Southerners to the position of angels of light, and Northerners

to that of angels of darkness, in British imaginations. This contingency

is harshness in the treatment and trial of ex-President Davis, and more

especially his execution as a traitor. Southern sympathizers declare

that such a proceeding would be an abominable crime: the steadiest, most

thorough, and most confiding adherents of the North believe, that,

whatever else it might be, it would, at any rate, be most

deplorable,--an ugly blight-spot upon laurels won arduously and

gloriously, and as yet nobly worn.

* * * * *

I have now, in however cursory or limping a mode, gone over the ground I

proposed to cover. The main conclusion of all may be summarized in the

briefest terms thus. A slight majority of the whole British nation

probably sided with the North, and that chiefly on anti-slavery grounds:

a great majority of the more influential classes, certainly, sided with

the South, and that chiefly on general grounds of antagonism to the

United States. For anything I have said which may possibly sound

egotistic or intrusive,--still more for anything erroneous or unfair in

my statements or point of view,--I must commit myself to the candid

construction of my reader, be he American or English, be he on the same

side of the question as myself, or on the opposite one.

W. M. ROSETTI.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote A: I remember meeting at dinner, just about this time, a near

relative of the American ambassador, Mr. Adams. I expressed myself as

anxious, but barely able, to believe that the Northerners would yet gain

the day, and asked whether he candidly supposed they would. His emphatic

"Certainly" surprised me at the time, and remained in my mind as an

almost sublime instance of a true citizen's inability to "despair of the

Republic." It soon turned out to be a deserved rebuke to any who

desponded, along with myself, and finally prophetic. No doubt there were

thousands of Americans who could, even in those dark days, with equal

conviction have pronounced that "Certainly," and whose very certainty

was the one thing needed and able to make the thing certain indeed.]

[Footnote B: As some time may have elapsed, and some change in the state

of facts occurred, before this article appears in print, I add that it

was completed early in October.]

[Footnote C: Probably many of my American readers are aware that Punch,

after doing its little best to make Lincoln ridiculous (which perhaps

history will pronounce no easy job) throughout his administration,

recanted as soon as he had been murdered, and made the _amende

honorable_ in terms as handsome as the case admitted of. It is one more

instance of the mania which some writers have for saying ill-natured and

unfair things, which they themselves must know to be not the real

opinion which they would profess under circumstances when their _amour

propre_ becomes enlisted on the same side as candor.]

[Footnote D: Of course I very often employ the term "English," as

meaning "the natives of all or any parts of the United Kingdom," without

making nice distinctions between English, Scotch, and Irish. Such is the

case here. As a matter of fact, however, I presume that America and the

Federal Government have found and find somewhat more sympathy in

Scotland and Ireland than in England: the Scotch, spite of their

"clannish" tendencies, have a certain democratic bias as well (chiefly,

perhaps, evidenced and fostered by their religious organization); and

the Irish, disaffected as they are towards England having so numerous

and so close ties, through the emigration movement, with the United

States.]

[Footnote E: For American readers any confirmatory testimony as to this

massacre is no doubt superfluous. But, in case these pages should obtain

any English readers, I may perhaps be allowed to say that the fact of

the massacre of the vanquished colored garrison has been attested to me.

_vivâ voce_, by a Confederate, and still Secessionist, army surgeon, who

witnessed it with his own eyes.]

TWO PICTURES.

In sky and wave the white clouds swam,

And the blue hills of Nottingham

Through gaps of leafy green

Across the lake were seen,--

When, in the shadow of the ash

That dreams its dream in Attitash,

In the warm summer weather,

Two maidens sat together.

They sat and watched in idle mood

The gleam and shade of lake and wood,--

The beach the keen light smote,

The white sail of a boat,--

Swan flocks of lilies shoreward lying,

In sweetness, not in music, dying,--

Hardhack and virgin's-bower,

And white-spiked clethra-flower.

With careless ears they heard the plash

And breezy wash of Attitash,

The wood-bird's plaintive cry,

The locust's sharp reply.

And teased the while, with playful hand,

The shaggy dog of Newfoundland,

Whose uncouth frolic spilled

Their baskets berry-filled.

Then one, the beauty of whose eyes

Was evermore a great surprise,

Tossed back her queenly head,

And, lightly laughing, said,--

"No bridegroom's hand be mine to hold

That is not lined with yellow gold;

I tread no cottage-floor;

I own no lover poor.

"My love must come on silken wings,

With bridal lights of diamond rings,--

Not foul with kitchen smirch,

With tallow-dip for torch."

The other, on whose modest head

Was lesser dower of beauty shed,

With look for home-hearths meet,

And voice exceeding sweet,

Answered,--"We will not rivals be;

Take thou the gold, leave love to me;

Mine be the cottage small,

And thine the rich man's hall.

"I know, indeed, that wealth is good;

But lowly roof and simple food,

With love that hath no doubt,

Are more than gold without."

Behind the wild grape's tangled screen,

Beholding them, himself unseen,

A young man, straying near,

The maidens chanced to hear.

He saw the pride of beauty born,

He heard the red lips' words of scorn;

And, like a silver bell,

That sweet voice answering well.

"Why trust," he said, "my foolish eyes?

My ear has pierced the fair disguise;

Who seeks my gold, not me,

My bride shall never be."

The supreme hours unnoted come;

Unfelt the turning tides of doom;

And so the maids laughed on,

Nor dreamed what Fate had done:

Nor knew the step was Destiny's

That rustled in the birchen trees,

As, with his life forecast

Anew, the listener passed.

Erelong by lake and rivulet side

The summer roses paled and died,

And Autumn's fingers shed

The maple's leaves of red.

Through the long gold-hazed afternoon,

Alone, but for the diving loon,

The partridge in the brake,

The black duck on the lake,

Beneath the shadow of the ash

Sat man and maid by Attitash;

And earth and air made room

For human hearts to bloom.

Soft spread the carpets of the sod,

And scarlet-oak and golden-rod

With blushes and with smiles

Lit up the forest aisles.

The mellow light the lake aslant,

The pebbled margin's ripple-chant

Attempered and low-toned,

The tender mystery owned.

And through the dream the lovers dreamed

Sweet sounds stole in and soft lights streamed;

The sunshine seemed to bless,

The air was a caress.

Not she who lightly scoffed was there,

With jewels in her midnight hair,

Her dark, disdainful eyes,

And proud lips worldly-wise;

But she who could for love dispense

With all its gilded accidents,

And trust her heart alone,

Found love and gold her own.

THE FREEDMAN'S STORY.

IN TWO PARTS.

PART I.

The manuscript of the following pages has been handed to me with the

request that I would revise it for publication, or weave its facts into

a story which should show the fitness of the Southern black for the

exercise of the right of suffrage.

It is written in a fair, legible hand; its words are correctly spelled;

its facts are clearly stated, and--in most instances--its sentences are

properly constructed. Therefore it needs no revision. On reading it over

carefully, I also discover that it is in itself a stronger argument for

the manhood of the negro than any which could be adduced by one not

himself a freedman; for it is the argument of facts, and facts are the

most powerful logic. Therefore, if I were to imbed these facts in the

mud of fiction, I should simply oblige the reader to dredge for the

oyster, which in this narrative he has without the trouble of dredging,

fresh and juicy as it came from the hand of Nature,--or rather, from the

hand of one of Nature's noblemen,--and who, until he was thirty years of

age, had never put two letters together.

The narrative is a plain and unpretending account of the life of a man

whose own right arm--to use his own expression--won his rights as a

freeman. It is written with the utmost simplicity, and has about it the

verisimilitude which belongs to truth, and to truth only when told by

one who has been a doer of the deeds and an actor in the scenes which he

describes. It has the further rare merit of being written by one of the

"despised race"; for none but a negro can fully and correctly depict

negro life and character.

General Thomas--a Southern man, and a friend of the Southern negro--was

once in conversation with a gentleman who has attained some reputation

as a delineator of the black man, when a long, lean, "poor white man,"

then a scout in the Union army, approached the latter, and, giving his

shoulder a familiar slap, accosted him with,--

"How are you, ole feller?"

The gentleman turned about, and forgetting, in his joy at meeting an old

friend, the presence of this most dignified of our military men,

responded to the salutation of the scout in an equally familiar and

boisterous manner. General Thomas "smiled wickedly," and quietly

remarked,--

"You seem to know each other."

"Know _him_!" exclaimed the scout. "Why, Gin'ral, I ha'n't seed him fur

fourteen year; but I sh'u'd know him, ef his face war as black as it war

one night when we went ter a nigger shindy tergether!"

The gentleman colored up to the roots of his hair, and stammered out,--

"That was in my boy days, General, when I was sowing my wild oats."

"Don't apologize, Sir," answered the General, "don't apologize; for I

see that to your youthful habit of going to negro shindies we owe your

truthful pictures of negro life."

And the General was right. Every man and woman who has essayed to depict

the slave character has miserably failed, unless inoculated with the

genuine spirit of the negro; and even those who have succeeded best have

done only moderately well, because they have not had the negro nature.

It is reserved to some black Shakspeare or Dickens to lay open the

wonderful humor, pathos, poetry, and power which slumber in the negro's

soul, and which now and then flash out like the fire from a

thunder-cloud.

I do not mean to say that this black prophet has come in this

narrative. He has not. This man is a doer, not a writer; though he gives

us--particularly in the second part--touches of Nature, and little bits

of description, which are perfectly inimitable. The prophet is still to

come; and he _will_ come. God never gives great events without great

historians; and for all the patience and valor and heroic fortitude and

self-sacrifice and long-suffering of the black man in this war, there

will come a singer--and a black singer--who shall set his deeds to a

music that will thrill the nations.

But I am holding the reader at the threshold.

The author of this narrative--of every line in it--is William Parker. He

was an escaped slave, and the principal actor in the Christiana

riot,--an occurrence which cost the Government of the United States

fifty thousand dollars, embittered the relations of two "Sovereign

States," aroused the North to the danger of the Fugitive-Slave Law, and,

more than any other event, except the raid of John Brown, helped to

precipitate the two sections into the mighty conflict which has just

been decided on the battle-field.

Surely the man who aided towards such results must be a man, even if his

complexion be that of the ace of spades; and what he says in relation to

the events in which he was an actor, even if it have no romantic

interest,--which, however, it has to an eminent degree,--must be an

important contribution to the history of the time.

With these few remarks, I submit the evidence which he gives of the

manhood of his race to that impartial grand-jury, the American people.

E. K.

EARLY PLANTATION LIFE.

I was born opposite to Queen Anne, in Anne Arundel County, in the State

of Maryland, on a plantation called Rowdown. My master was Major William

Brogdon, one of the wealthy men of that region. He had two

sons,--William, a doctor, and David, who held some office at Annapolis,

and for some years was a member of the Legislature.

My old master died when I was very young; so I know little about him,

except from statements received from my fellow-slaves, or casual remarks

made in my hearing from time to time by white persons. From those I

conclude that he was in no way peculiar, but should be classed with

those slaveholders who are not remarkable either for the severity or the

indulgence they extend to their people.

My mother, who was named Louisa Simms, died when I was very young; and

to my grandmother I am indebted for the very little kindness I received

in my early childhood; and this kindness could only be shown me at long

intervals, and in a hurried way, as I shall presently show.

Like every Southern plantation of respectable extent and pretensions,

our place had what is called the "Quarter," or place where the slaves of

both sexes are lodged and fed. With us the Quarter was composed of a

number of low buildings, with an additional building for single people

and such of the children as were either orphans or had parents sold away

or otherwise disposed of. This building was a hundred feet long by

thirty wide, and had a large fireplace at either end, and small rooms

arranged along the sides. In these rooms the children were huddled from

day to day, the smaller and weaker subject to the whims and caprices of

the larger and stronger. The largest children would always seize upon

the warmest and best places, and say to us who were smaller, "Stand

back, little chap, out of my way"; and we had to stand back or get a

thrashing.

When my grandmother, who was cook at the "great house," came to look

after me, she always brought me a morsel privately; and at such times I

was entirely free from annoyance by the older ones. But as she could

visit me only once in twenty-four hours, my juvenile days enjoyed but

little rest from my domineering superiors in years and strength.

When my grandmother would inquire of the others how her "little boy" was

getting on, they would tell her that I was doing well, and kindly invite

me to the fire to warm myself. I was afraid to complain to her of their

treatment, as, for so doing, they would have beaten me, after she had

gone to the "great house" again. I was thus compelled to submit to their

misrepresentation, as well as to their abuse and indifference, until I

grew older, when, by fighting first with one and then with another, I

became "too many" for them, and could have a seat at the fire as well as

the best. This experience of my boyhood has since been repeated in my

manhood. My rights at the fireplace were won by my child-fists; my

rights as a freeman were, under God, secured by my own right arm.

Old master had seventy slaves, mostly field-hands. My mother was a

field-hand. He finally died; but after that everything went on as usual

for about six years, at the end of which time the brothers, David and

William, divided the land and the slaves. Then, with many others,

including my brother and uncle, it fell to my lot to go with Master

David, who built a house on the southeast part of the farm and called it

Nearo.

Over the hands at Nearo an overseer name Robert Brown was placed; but as

he was liked by neither master nor slaves, he was soon discharged. The

following circumstance led to his dismissal sooner, perhaps, than it

would otherwise have happened.

While master was at Annapolis, my mistress, who was hard to please, fell

out with one of the house-servants, and sent for Mr. Brown to come and

whip her. When he came, the girl refused to be whipped, which angered

Brown, and he beat her so badly that she was nearly killed before she

gave up. When Master David came home, and saw the girl's condition, he

became very angry, and turned Brown away at once.

Master David owned a colored man named Bob Wallace. He was a trusty man;

and as he understood farming thoroughly, he was installed foreman in

place of Brown. Everything went on very well for a while under Wallace,

and the slaves were as contented as it is possible for slaves to be.

Neither of our young masters would allow his hands to be beaten or

abused, as many slaveholders would; but every year they sold one or more

of them,--sometimes as many as six or seven at a time. One morning word

was brought to the Quarter that we should not work that day, but group

to the "great house." As we were about obeying the summons, a number of

strange white men rode up to the mansion. They were Negro-traders.

Taking alarm, I ran away to the woods with a boy of about my own age,

name Levi Storax; and there we remained until the selections for the

sale were made, and the traders drove away. It was a serious time while

they remained. Men, women, and children, all were crying, and general

confusion prevailed. For years they had associated together in their

rude way,--the old counseling the young, recounting their experience,

and sympathizing in their trials; and now, without a word of warning,

and for no fault of their own, parents and children, husbands and wives,

brothers and sisters, were separated to meet no more on earth. A slave

sale of this sort is always as solemn as a funeral, and partakes of its

nature in one important particular,--the meeting no more in the flesh.

Levi and I climbed a pine-tree, when we got to the woods, and had this

conversation together.

"Le," I said to him, "our turn will come next; let us run away, and not

be sold like the rest."

"If we can only get clear this time," replied Le, "may-be they won't

sell us. I will go to Master William, and ask him not to do it."

"What will you get by going to Master William?" I asked him. "If we see

him, and ask him not to sell us, he will do as he pleases. For my part,

I think the best thing is to run away to the Free States."

"But," replied Levi, "see how many start for the Free States, and are

brought back, and sold away down South. We could not be safe this side

of Canada, and we should freeze to death before we got there."

So ended our conversation. I must have been about ten or eleven years

old then; yet, young as I was, I had heard of Canada as the land far

away in the North, where the runaway was safe from pursuit; but, to my

imagination, it was a vast and cheerless waste of ice and snow. So the

reader can readily conceive of the effect of Levi's remarks. They were a

damper upon our flight for the time being.

When night came, Levi wanted to go home and see if they had sold his

mother; but I did not care about going back, as I had no mother to sell.

How desolate I was! No home, no protector, no mother, no attachments. As

we turned our faces toward the Quarter,--where we might at any moment be

sold to satisfy a debt or replenish a failing purse,--I felt myself to

be what I really was, a poor, friendless slave-boy. Levi was equally

sad. His mother was not sold, but she could afford him no protection.

To the question, "Where had we been?" we answered, "Walking around."

Then followed inquiries and replies as to who were sold, who remained,

and what transpired at the sale.

Said Levi,--

"Mother, were you sold?"

"No, child; but a good many were sold; among them, your Uncles Anthony

and Dennis."

I said,--

"Aunt Ruthy, did they sell Uncle Sammy?"

"No, child."

"Where, then, is Uncle Sammy?"

I thought, if I could be with Uncle Sammy, may-be I would be safe. My

Aunt Rachel, and her two children, Jacob and Priscilla, were among the

sold, who altogether comprised a large number of the servants.

The apologist for slavery at the North, and the owner of his fellow-man

at the South, have steadily denied that the separation of families,

except for punishment, was perpetrated by Southern masters; but my

experience of slavery was, that separation by sale was a part of the

system. Not only was it resorted to by severe masters, but, as in my own

case, by those generally regarded as mild. No punishment was so much

dreaded by the refractory slave as selling. The atrocities known to be

committed on plantations in the Far South, tidings of which reached the

slave's ears in various ways, his utter helplessness upon the best farms

and under the most humane masters and overseers, in Maryland and other

Northern Slave States, together with the impression that the journey was

of great extent, and comfortless even to a slave, all combined to make a

voyage down the river or down South an era in the life of the poor slave

to which he looked forward with the most intense and bitter apprehension

and anxiety.

This slave sale was the first I had ever seen. The next did not occur

until I was thirteen years old; but every year, during the interval, one

or more poor souls were disposed of privately.

Levi, my comrade, was one of those sold in this interval. Well may the

good John Wesley speak of slavery as the sum of all villanies; for no

resort is too despicable, no subterfuge too vile, for its supporters. Is

a slave intractable, the most wicked punishment is not too severe; is he

timid, obedient, attached to his birthplace and kindred, no lie is so

base that it may not be used to entrap him into a change of place or of

owners. Levi was made the victim of a stratagem so peculiarly Southern,

and so thoroughly the outgrowth of an institution which holds the bodies

and souls of men as of no more account, for all moral purposes, than the

unreasoning brutes, that I cannot refrain from relating it. He was a

likely lad, and, to all appearance, fully in the confidence of his

master. Prompt and obedient, he seemed to some of us to enjoy high favor

at the "great house." One morning he was told to take a letter to Mr.

Henry Hall, an acquaintance of the family; and it being a part of his

usual employment to bring and carry such missives, off he started, in

blind confidence, to learn at the end of his journey that he had parted

with parents, friends, and all, to find in Mr. Hall a new master. Thus,

in a moment, his dearest ties were severed.

I met him about two months afterwards at the Cross-Road Meeting-House,

on West River; and, after mutual recognition, I said to him,--

"Levi, why don't you come home?"

"I am at home," said he; "I was sold by Master William to Mr. Henry

Hall."

He then told me about the deception practised upon him. I thought that a

suitable opportunity to remind him of our conversation when up the

pine-tree, years before, and said,--

"You told me, that, if you could escape the big sale, Master William

would not sell you. Now you see how it was: the big sale was over, and

yet you were sold to a worse master than you had before. I told you this

would be so. The next time I hear from you, you will be sold again.

Master Mack will be selling me one of these days, no doubt; but if he

does, he will have to do it running."

Here ended our conversation and our association, as it was not in our

power to meet afterward.

The neighbors generally called Master David, Mack, which was one of his

Christian names; and the slaves called him Master Mack; so the reader

will understand, that, whenever that name occurs, Master David is meant.

After the sale of Levi, I became greatly attached to Alexander Brown,

another slave. Though not permitted to learn to read and write, and kept

in profound ignorance of everything, save what belonged strictly to our

plantation duties, we were not without crude perceptions of the dignity

and independence belonging to freedom; and often, when out of hearing of

the white people, or certain ones among our fellow-servants, Alexander

and I would talk the subject over in our simple way.

Master Mack had a very likely young house-servant named Ann. She was

between sixteen and eighteen years old; every one praised her

intelligence and industry; but these commendable characteristics did not

save her. She was sold next after Levi. Master told the foreman, Bob

Wallace, to go to Annapolis, and take Ann with him. When Wallace told me

he was going, I had a presentiment that the purpose was to sell the

girl, and I told him so; but, man as he was, he had no fear about it.

Wallace and Ann started for the city on horseback, and journeyed along

pleasantly until they reached the town and were near the market-place,

when a man came up to them, took Ann off the horse without ceremony, and

put her into jail. Wallace, not suspecting the manoeuvre, attacked the

man, and came well-nigh getting into difficulty. When Wallace returned,

he said to Master Mack, "Why did you not tell me that Ann was sold, and

not have me fighting for her? They might have put me in jail." But his

master did not appear to hear him.

Poor Uncle Henry followed Ann. His wife lived in Annapolis, and belonged

to a Mr. George McNear, residing there. Uncle Henry went one Saturday

night to see her, when Master William put him into jail for sale; and

that was the last we saw or heard of him.

Alex Brown's mother followed next. After the poor woman was gone, I said

to Alex,--

"Now that your mother has been sold, it is time that you and I studied

out a plan to run away and be free."

But so thoroughly had his humanity been crushed by the foul spirit of

Slavery, so apathetic had he--though in the vigor of youth--become from

long oppression, that he would not agree to my suggestion.

"No," he said, "'t is no use for you and I to run away. It is too far to

the Free States. We could not get there. They would take us up and sell

us; so we had better not go. Master Mack can't sell any more of his

hands; there are no more than can carry on his farm."

"Very well," said I, "trust to that, and you will see what will come of

it."

After that I said no more to him, but determined to be free. My brother

Charles was of like mind; but we kept our thoughts to ourselves. How old

I was then I do not know; but from what the neighbors told me, I must

have been about seventeen. Slaveholders are particular to keep the

pedigree and age of favorite horses and dogs, but are quite indifferent

about the age of their servants, until they want to purchase. Then they

are careful to select young persons, though not one in twenty can tell

year, month, or day. Speaking of births,--it is the time of

"corn-planting," "corn-husking," "Christmas," "New Year," "Easter," "the

Fourth of July," or some similar indefinite date. My own time of birth

was no more exact; so that to this day I am uncertain how old I am.

About the time of the conversation last narrated, Jefferson Dorsey, a

planter near by, had a butchering. One of Dorsey's men met me, and said

that they wanted more help, and that Master Mack said I might go and

lend a hand. Thinking that he spoke truth, I did not ask permission, but

went, and stayed until noon. I soon learned, however, that the man had

deceived me.

Master Mack, when told by some of the people where I was, sent my

brother John after me, with the threat of a whipping. On reaching home,

the women also told me that master would almost kill me. This excited me

greatly, and I replied,--

"Master Mack is 'most done whipping me."

When I went in to see him, I saw plainly enough that his face foretold a

storm.

"Boy," said he, "yoke up the oxen, and haul a load of wood."

I went at once, and did the task; but, to my dismay, there he stood at

the stable. I had to drive near to him; and as he evidently intended to

catch me, I was all vigilance.

"When you unload that wood, come to me, Sir," he said.

I made no reply, but unloaded the wood, left the oxen standing, and

stole away to Dorsey's, where I staid until the next day. Then I

prevailed upon Samuel Dorsey to go home with me. Master Mack told me to

go to my work, and he would forgive me; but the next time he would pay

me for "the new and the old." To work I went; but I determined not to be

paid for "the new and the old."

This all occurred in the month of May. Everything went on well until

June, when the long-sought-for opportunity presented itself. I had been

making preparations to leave ever since Master Mack had threatened me;

yet I did not like to go without first having a difficulty with him.

Much as I disliked my condition, I was ignorant enough to think that

something besides the fact that I was a slave was necessary to exonerate

me from blame in running away. A cross word, a blow, a good fright,

anything, would do, it mattered not whence nor how it came. I told my

brother Charles, who shared my confidence, to be ready; for the time was

at hand when we should leave Old Maryland forever. I was only waiting

for the first crooked word from my master.

A few days afterwards all hands were ordered to the fields to work; but

I stayed behind, lurking about the house. I was tired of working without

pay. Master Mack saw me, and wanted to know why I did not go out. I

answered, that it was raining, that I was tired, and did not want to

work. He then picked up a stick used for an ox-gad, and said, if I did

not go to work, he would whip me as sure as there was a God in heaven.

Then he struck at me; but I caught the stick, and we grappled, and

handled each other roughly for a time, when he called for assistance. He

was badly hurt. I let go my hold, bade him good-bye, and ran for the

woods. As I went by the field, I beckoned to my brother, who left work,

and joined me at a rapid pace.

I was now at the beginning of a new and important era in my life.

Although upon the threshold of manhood, I had, until the relation with

my master was sundered, only dim perceptions of the responsibilities of

a more independent position. I longed to cast off the chains of

servitude, because they chafed my free spirit, and because I had a

notion that my position was founded in injustice; but it has only been

since a struggle of many years, and, indeed, since I settled upon

British soil, that I have realized fully the grandeur of my position as

a free man.

One fact, when I was a slave, often filled me with indignation. There

were many poor white lads of about my own age, belonging to families

scattered around, who were as poor in personal effects as we were; and

yet, though our companions, (when we chose to tolerate them,) they did

not have to be controlled by a master, to go and come at his command, to

be sold for his debts, or whenever he wanted extra pocket-money. The

preachers of a slave-trading gospel frequently told us, in their

sermons, that we should be "good boys," and not break into master's

hen-roost, nor steal his bacon; but they never told this to these poor

white people, although they knew very well that they encouraged the

slaves to steal, trafficked in stolen goods, and stole themselves.

Why this difference? I felt I was the equal of these poor whites, and

naturally I concluded that we were greatly wronged, and that all this

talk about obedience, duty, humility, and honesty was, in the phrase of

my companions, "all gammon."

But I was now on the high-road to liberty. I had broken the bonds that

held me so firmly; and now, instead of fears of recapture, that before

had haunted my imagination whenever I thought of running away, I felt as

light as a feather, and seemed to be helped onward by an irresistible

force.

Some time before this, I had been able, through the instrumentality of a

friend, to procure a pass, for which I paid five dollars,--all the money

I had saved in a long time; but as my brother determined to go with me,

and as we could not both use it safely, I destroyed it.

On the day I ceased working for master, after gaining the woods, we

lurked about and discussed our plans until after dark. Then we stole

back to the Quarter, made up our bundles, bade some of our friends

farewell, and at about nine o'clock of the night set out for Baltimore.

How shall I describe my first experience of free life? Nothing can be

greater than the contrast it affords to a plantation experience, under

the suspicious and vigilant eye of a mercenary overseer or a watchful

master. Day and night are not more unlike. The mandates of Slavery are

like leaden sounds, sinking with dead weight into the very soul, only to

deaden and destroy. The impulse of freedom lends wings to the feet,

buoys up the spirit within, and the fugitive catches glorious glimpses

of light through rifts and seams in the accumulated ignorance of his

years of oppression. How briskly we travelled on that eventful night and

the next day!

We reached Baltimore on the following evening, between seven and eight

o'clock. When we neared the city, the patrols were out, and the

difficulty was to pass them unseen or unsuspected. I learned of a

brick-yard at the entrance to the city; and thither we went at once,

took brick-dust and threw it upon our clothes, hats, and boots, and then

walked on. Whenever we met a passer-by, we would brush off some of the

dust, and say aloud, "Boss gave us such big tasks, we would leave him.

We ought to have been in a long time before." By this ruse we reached

quiet quarters without arrest or suspicion.

We remained in Baltimore a week, and then set out for Pennsylvania.

We started with the brightest visions of future independence; but soon

they were suddenly dimmed by one of those unpleasant incidents which

annoy the fugitive at every step of his onward journey.

The first place at which we stopped to rest was a village on the old

York road, called New Market. There nothing occurred to cause us alarm;

so, after taking some refreshments, we proceeded towards York; but when

near Logansville, we were interrupted by three white men, one of whom, a

very large man, cried,--

"Hallo!"

I answered,--

"Hallo to you!"

"Which way are you travelling?" he asked.

We replied,--

"To Little York."

"Why are you travelling so late?"

"We are not later than you are," I answered.

"Your business must be of consequence," he said.

"It is. We want to go to York to attend to it; and if you have any

business, please attend to it, and don't be meddling with ours on the

public highway. We have no business with you, and I am sure you have

none with us."

"See here!" said he; "you are the fellows that this advertisement calls

for," at the same time taking the paper out of his pocket, and reading

it to us.

Sure enough, there we were, described exactly. He came closely to us,

and said,--

"You must go back."

I replied,--

"If I must, I must, and you must take me."

"Oh, you need not make any big talk about it," he answered; "for I have

taken back many a runaway, and I can take you. What's that you have in

your hand?"

"A stick."

He put his hand into his pocket, as if to draw a pistol, and said,--

"Come! give up your weapons."

I said again,--

"'Tis only a stick."

He then reached for it, when I stepped back and struck him a heavy blow

on the arm. It fell as if broken; I think it was. Then he turned and

ran, and I after him. As he ran, he would look back over his shoulder,

see me coming, and then run faster, and halloo with all his might. I

could not catch him, and it seemed, that, the longer he ran, the faster

he went. The other two took to their heels at the first alarm,--thus

illustrating the valor of the chivalry!

At last I gave up the chase. The whole neighborhood by that time was

aroused, and we thought best to retrace our steps to the place whence we

started. Then we took a roundabout course until we reached the railroad,

along which we travelled. For a long distance there was unusual stir and

commotion. Every house was lighted up; and we heard people talking and

horses galloping this way and that way, with other evidences of unusual

excitement. This was between one and two o'clock in the morning. We

walked on a long distance before we lost the sounds; but about four

o'clock the same morning, entered York, where we remained during the

day.

Once in York, we thought we should be safe, but were mistaken. A similar

mistake is often made by fugitives. Not accustomed to travelling, and

unacquainted with the facilities for communication, they think that a

few hours' walk is a long journey, and foolishly suppose, that, if they

have few opportunities of knowledge, their masters can have none at all

at such great distances. But our ideas of security were materially

lessened when we met with a friend during the day, who advised us to

proceed farther, as we were not out of imminent danger.

According to this advice we started that night for Columbia. Going along

in the dark, we heard persons following. We went very near to the fence,

that they might pass without observing us. There were two, apparently in

earnest conversation. The one who spoke so as to be distinctly heard we

discovered to be Master Mack's brother-in-law. He remarked to his

companion that they must hurry and get to the bridge before we crossed.

He knew that we had not gone over yet. We were then near enough to have

killed them, concealed as we were by the darkness; but we permitted

them to pass unmolested, and went on to Wrightsville that night.

The next morning we arrived at Columbia before it was light, and

fortunately without crossing the bridge, for we were taken over in a

boat. At Wrightsville we met a woman with whom we were before

acquainted, and our meeting was very gratifying. We there inclined to

halt for a time.

I was not used to living in town, and preferred a home in the country;

so to the country we decided to go. After resting for four days, we

started towards Lancaster to try to procure work. I got a place about

five miles from Lancaster, and then set to work in earnest.

While a slave, I was, as it were, groping in the dark, no ray of light

penetrating the intense gloom surrounding me. My scanty garments felt

too tight for me, my very respiration seemed to be restrained by some

supernatural power. Now, free as I supposed, I felt like a bird on a

pleasant May morning. Instead of the darkness of slavery, my eyes were

almost blinded by the light of freedom.

Those were memorable days, and yet much of this was boyish fancy. After

a few years of life in a Free State, the enthusiasm of the lad

materially sobered down, and I found, by bitter experience, that to

preserve my stolen liberty I must pay, unremittingly, an almost

sleepless vigilance; yet to this day I have never looked back

regretfully to Old Maryland, nor yearned for her flesh-pots.

I have said I engaged to work; I hired my services for three months for

the round sum of three dollars per month. I thought this an immense sum.

Fast work was no trouble to me; for when the work was done, the money

was mine. That was a great consideration. I could go out on Saturdays

and Sundays, and home when I pleased, without being whipped. I thought

of my fellow-servants left behind, bound in the chains of slavery,--and

I was free! I thought, that, if I had the power, they should soon be as

free as I was; and I formed a resolution that I would assist in

liberating every one within my reach at the risk of my life, and that I

would devise some plan for their entire liberation.

My brother went about fifteen miles farther on, and also got employment.

I "put in" three months with my employer, "lifted" my wages, and then

went to visit my brother. He lived in Bart Township, near Smyrna; and

after my visit was over, I engaged to work for a Dr. Dengy, living

nearby. I remained with him thirteen months. I never have been better

treated than by the Doctor; I liked him and the family, and they seemed

to think well of me.

While living with Dr. Dengy, I had, for the first time, the great

privilege of seeing that true friend of the slave, William Lloyd

Garrison, who came into the neighborhood, accompanied by Frederick

Douglass. They were holding anti-slavery meetings. I shall never forget

the impression that Garrison's glowing words made upon me. I had

formerly known Mr. Douglass as a slave in Maryland; I was therefore not

prepared for the progress he then showed,--neither for his free-spoken

and manly language against slavery. I listened with the intense

satisfaction that only a refugee could feel, when hearing, embodied in

earnest, well-chosen, and strong speech, his own crude ideas of freedom,

and his own hearty censure of the man-stealer. I believed, I knew, every

word he said was true. It was the whole truth,--nothing kept back,--no

trifling with human rights, no trading in the blood of the slave

extenuated, nothing against the slaveholder said in malice. I have never

listened to words from the lips of mortal man which were more acceptable

to me; and although privileged since then to hear many able and good men

speak on slavery, no doctrine has seemed to me so pure, so unworldly, as

his. I may here say, and without offence, I trust, that, since that

time, I have had a long experience of Garrisonian Abolitionists, and

have always found them men and women with hearts in their bodies. They

are, indeed and in truth, the poor slave's friend. To shelter him, to

feed and clothe him, to help him on to freedom, I have ever found them

ready; and I should be wanting in gratitude, if I neglected this

opportunity--the only one I may ever have--to say thus much of them, and

to declare for myself and for the many colored men in this free country

whom I know they have aided in their journey to freedom, our humble

confidence in them. Yes, the good spirit with which he is imbued

constrained William Lloyd Garrison to plead for the dumb; and for his

earnest pleadings all these years, I say, God bless him! By agitation,

by example, by suffering, men and women of like spirit have been led to

adopt his views, as the great necessity, and to carry them out into

actions. They, too, have my heartfelt gratitude. They, like Gideon's

band, though few, will yet rout the enemy Slavery, make him flee his own

camp, and eventually fall upon his own sword.[F]

One day, while living at Dr. Dengy's, I was working in the barn-yard,

when a man came to the fence, and, looking at me intently, went away.

The Doctor's son, observing him, said,--

"Parker, that man, from his movements, must be a slaveholder or

kidnapper. This is the second time he has been looking at you. If not a

kidnapper, why does he look so steadily at you and not tell his errand?"

I said,--

"The man must be a fool! If he should come back and not say anything to

me, I shall say something to him."

We then looked down the road and saw him coming again. He rode up to the

same place and halted. I then went to the fence, and, looking him

steadily in the eye, said,--

"Am I your slave?"

He made no reply, but turned his horse and rode off, at full speed,

towards the valley. We did not see him again; but that same evening word

was brought that kidnappers were in the valley, and if we were not

careful, they would "hook" some of us. This caused a great excitement

among the colored people of the neighborhood.

A short while prior to this, a number of us had formed an organization

for mutual protection against slaveholders and kidnappers, and had

resolved to prevent any of our brethren being taken back into slavery,

at the risk of our own lives. We collected together that evening, and

went down to the valley; but the kidnappers had gone. We watched them

for several nights in succession, without result; for so much alarmed

were the tavern-keepers by our demonstration, that they refused to let

them stop over night with them. Kidnapping was so common, while I lived

with the Doctor, that we were kept in constant fear. We would hear of

slaveholders or kidnappers every two or three weeks; sometimes a party

of white men would break into a house and take a man away, no one knew

where; and, again, a whole family would be carried off. There was no

power to protect them, nor prevent it. So completely roused were my

feelings, that I vowed to let no slaveholder take back a fugitive, if I

could but get my eye on him.

One day word was sent to me that slaveholders had taken William Dorsey,

and had put him into Lancaster jail to await a trial. Dorsey had a wife

and three or four children; but what was it to the slaveholder, if the

wife and children should starve? We consulted together, as to what

course to take to deliver him; but no plan that was proposed could be

worked. At last we separated, determining to get him away some way or

other on the day of trial. His case caused great excitement. We attended

the trial, and eagerly watched all the movements from an outside

position, and had a man to tell us how proceedings were going on within.

He finally came out and said that the case would go against Dorsey. We

then formed in a column at the court-house door, and when the

slaveholders and Dorsey came out, we walked close to them,--behind and

around them,--trying to separate them from him. Before we had gone far

towards the jail, a slaveholder drew a pistol on Williams Hopkins, one

of our party. Hopkins defied him to shoot; but he did not. Then the

slaveholder drew the pistol on me, saying, he would blow my black brains

out, if I did not go away. I doubled my fists to knock him down, but

some person behind caught my hand; this started a fracas, and we got

Dorsey loose; but he was so confused that he stood stock still, until

they tied him again. A general fight followed. Bricks, stones, and

sticks fell in showers. We fought across the road and back again, and I

thought our brains would be knocked out; when the whites, who were too

numerous for us, commenced making arrests. They got me fast several

times, but I succeeded in getting away. One of our men was arrested, and

afterwards stood trial; but they did not convict him. Dorsey was put

into jail, but was afterwards bought and liberated by friends.

My friends now said that I had got myself into a bad difficulty, and

that my arrest would follow. In this they were mistaken. I never was

disturbed because of it, nor was the house at which I lodged ever

searched, although the neighbors were repeatedly annoyed in that way. I

distinctly remember that this was the second time that resistance had

been made to their wicked deeds. Whether the kidnappers were clothed

with legal authority or not, I did not care to inquire, as I never had

faith in nor respect for the Fugitive-Slave Law.

The whites of that region were generally such negro-haters, that it was

a matter of no moment to them where fugitives were carried,--whether to

Lancaster, Harrisburg, or elsewhere.

The insolent and overbearing conduct of the Southerners, when on such

errands to Pennsylvania, forced me to my course of action. They did not

hesitate to break open doors, and to enter, without ceremony, the houses

of colored men; and when refused admission, or when a manly and

determined spirit was shown, they would present pistols, and strike and

knock down men and women indiscriminately.

I was sitting one evening in a friend's house, conversing about these

marauding parties, when I remarked to him that a stop should be put to

such "didos," and declared, that, the next time a slaveholder came to a

house where I was, I would refuse to admit him. His wife replied, "It

will make a fuss." I told her, "It is time a fuss was made." She

insisted that it would cause trouble, and it was best to let them alone

and have peace. Then I told her we must have trouble before we could

have peace, "The first slaveholder that draws a pistol on me I shall

knock down."

We were interrupted, just at this stage of the conversation, by some one

rapping at the door.

"Who's there?" I asked.

"It's me! Who do you think? Open the door!" was the response, in a gruff

tone.

"What do you want?" I asked.

Without replying, the man opened the door and came in, followed by two

others.

The first one said,--

"Have you any niggers here?"

"What have we to do with your niggers?" said I.

After bandying a few words, he drew his pistol upon me. Before he could

bring the weapon to bear, I seized a pair of heavy tongs, and struck him

a violent blow across the face and neck, which knocked him down. He lay

for a few minutes senseless, but afterwards rose, and walked out of the

house without a word, followed by his comrades, who also said nothing to

us, but merely asked their leader, as they went out, if he was hurt.

The part of Lancaster County in which I lived was near Chester County.

Not far away, in the latter county, lived Moses Whitson, a well-known

Abolitionist, and a member of the Society of Friends. Mr. Whitson had a

colored girl living in his family, who was pounced upon by the

slaveholders, awhile after the Dorsey arrest. About daylight three men

went to Mr. Whitson's house and told him that the girl he had living

with him was their property, and that they intended to have her. Friend

Whitson asked the girl if she knew any of the men, and if any of them

was her master. She said, "No!" One of the slaveholders said he could

prove that she was his property; and then they forcibly tied her, put

her into a carriage, and started for Maryland.

While the kidnappers were contending with Moses Whitson for the girl,

Benjamin Whipper, a colored man, who now lives in this country, sounded

the alarm, that "the kidnappers were at Whitson's, and were taking away

his girl." The news soon reached me, and with six or seven others, I

followed them. We proceeded with all speed to a place called the

Gap-Hill, where we overtook them, and took the girl away. Then we beat

the kidnappers, and let them go. We learned afterwards that they were

all wounded badly, and that two of them died in Lancaster, and the other

did not get home for some time. Only one of our men was hurt, and he had

only a slight injury in the hand.

Dr. Duffield and Squire Henderson, two respectable citizens of the town,

were looking on during this entire engagement; and after we had stopped

firing, they went up to the slaveholders, and the following conversation

took place:--

_Squire Henderson._ What's the matter?

_Slaveholder._ You may ask, what's the matter! Is this the way you allow

your niggers to do?

_Squire._ Why did you not shoot them?

_Slaveholder._ We did shoot at them, but it did not take effect.

_Squire._ There's no use shooting at our niggers, for their heads are

like iron pots; the balls will glance off. What were you doing?

_Slaveholder._ Taking our property, when the niggers jumped on us and

nearly killed some of the men.

_Squire._ Men coming after such property ought to be killed.

_Slaveholder._ Do you know where we can find a doctor?

_Squire._ Yes; there are plenty of doctors South.

Being much disabled, and becoming enraged, they abruptly left, and

journeyed on until they reached McKenzie's tavern, where their wounds

were dressed and their wants attended to. So strongly was McKenzie in

sympathy with these demons, that he declared he would never employ

another nigger, and actually discharged a faithful colored woman who had

lived a long time in his employ. Dr. Lemmon, a physician on the road to

Lancaster, refused to attend the slaveholders; so that by the time they

got to the city, from being so long without surgical aid, their limbs

were past setting, and two of them died, as before stated, while the

other survived but a short time after reaching Maryland.

A large reward was offered by the Maryland authorities for the

perpetrators of the flogging, but without effect.

McKenzie, the tavern-keeper referred to, boasted after this that he

would entertain all slaveholders who came along, and help them recapture

their slaves. We were equally determined he should not, if we could

prevent it.

The following affliction was eventually the means, under Providence, by

which he was led to adopt other views, and become a practical

Abolitionist.

A band of five men stood off, one dark night, and saw with evident

satisfaction the curling flames ascend above his barn, from girder to

roof, and lap and lash their angry tongues in wild license, until every

vestige of the building was consumed.

After that mysterious occurrence, the poor fugitive had no better friend

than the publican McKenzie.

Shortly after the incidents just related, I was married to Eliza Ann

Elizabeth Howard, a fugitive, whose experience of slavery had been much

more bitter than my own. We commenced house-keeping, renting a room from

Enoch Johnson for one month. We did not like our landlord, and when the

time was up left, and rented a house of Isaac Walker for one year. After

the year was out, we left Walker's and went to Smyrna, and there I

rented a house from Samuel D. Moore for another year. After the year was

out we left Smyrna also, and went to Joseph Moore's to live. We lived on

his place about five years. While we were living there, several

kidnappers came into the neighborhood. On one occasion, they took a

colored man and started for Maryland. Seven of us set out in pursuit,

and, soon getting on their track, followed them to a tavern on the

Westchester road, in Chester County. Learning that they were to remain

for the night, I went to the door and asked for admittance. The landlord

demanded to know if we were white or colored. I told him colored. He

then told us to be gone, or he would blow out our brains. We walked

aside a little distance, and consulted about what we should do. Our men

seemed to dread the undertaking; but I told them we could overcome them,

and that I would go in. One of them said he would follow at the risk of

his life. The other five said we should all get killed,--that we were

men with families,--that our wives and children needed our

assistance,--and that they did not think we would be doing our families

justice by risking our lives for one man. We two then went back to the

tavern, and, after rapping, were told again by the landlord to clear

out, after he found that we were colored. I pretended that we wanted

something to drink. He put his head out of the window, and threatened

again to shoot us; when my comrade raised his gun and would have shot

him down, had I not caught his arm and persuaded him not to fire. I told

the landlord that we wanted to come in and intended to come in. Then I

went to the yard, got a piece of scantling, took it to the door, and, by

battering with it a short time, opened it. As soon as the door flew

open, a kidnapper shot at us, and the ball lodged in my ankle, bringing

me to the ground. But I soon rose, and my comrade then firing on them,

they took to their heels. As they ran away, I heard one say, "We have

killed one of them."

My companion and I then rushed into the house. We unbound the man, took

him out, and started for home; but had hardly crossed the door-sill

before people from the neighboring houses began to fire on us. At this

juncture, our other five came up, and we all returned the compliment.

Firing on both sides was kept up for ten or fifteen minutes, when the

whites called for quarter, and offered to withdraw, if we would stop

firing. On this assurance we started off with the man, and reached home

safely.

The next day my ankle was very painful. With a knife I extracted the

ball, but kept the wound secret; as long before we had learned that for

our own security it was best not to let such things be generally known.

About ten o'clock of a Sabbath night, awhile after the event last

narrated, we were aroused by the cry of "Kidnappers! kidnappers!" and

immediately some one halloed under my window,--

"William! William!"

I put my head out and demanded his errand. He said,--

"Come here!"

I answered,--

"You must be a fool to think I am going to you at this time of the

night, without knowing who you are and what you want."

He would not satisfy me, so I took my gun, and went out to him. I was

then informed that kidnappers had been at Allen Williams's; that they

had taken Henry Williams, and gone towards Maryland. I called one of our

party, who dressed and proceeded to arouse our men. Two of us then

started for the Nine Points, in Lancaster County, and left instructions

for the other men to meet us in the valley. They did so, and we hurried

on to our destination. We had not gone far before we heard some one

calling, "Kidnappers! kidnappers!" Going back some distance, we found

the cry came from a man who had fallen into a lime quarry. He was in a

bad situation, and unable to get out without assistance, and, hearing us

pass, concluded we were kidnappers and raised the cry. We were delayed

for a time in helping him out, and it provoked me very much, as it was

important we should be in haste.

We started again for the Nine Points, but, arriving there, learned to

our dismay, that the kidnappers had passed an hour before. The chase was

given up, but with saddened feelings. A fellow-being had been dragged

into hopeless bondage, and we, his comrades, held our liberty as

insecurely as he had done but a few short hours before! We asked

ourselves the question, "Whose turn will come next?" I was delegated to

find out, if possible, who had betrayed him, which I accordingly did.

Lynch law is a code familiar to the colored people of the Slave States.

It is of so diabolical a character as to be without justification,

except when enforced by men of pure motives, and then only in extreme

cases, as when the unpunished party has it in his power to barter away

the lives and liberties of those whose confidence he possesses, and who

would, by bringing him before a legal tribunal, expose themselves to the

same risks that they are liable to from him. The frequent attacks from

slaveholders and their tools, the peculiarity of our position, many

being escaped slaves, and the secrecy attending these kidnapping

exploits, all combined to make an appeal to the Lynch Code in our case

excusable, if not altogether justifiable. Ourselves, our wives, our

little ones, were insecure, and all we had was liable to seizure. We

felt that something must be done, for some one must be in our midst with

whom the slaveholders had communication. I inquired around, quietly, and

soon learned that Allen Williams, the very man in whose house the

fugitive was, had betrayed him. This information I communicated to our

men. They met at my house and talked the matter over, and, after most

solemnly weighing all the facts and evidence, we resolved that he should

die, and we set about executing our purpose that evening. The difficulty

was, how to punish him. Some were for shooting him, but this was not

feasible. I proposed another plan, which was agreed to.

Accordingly, we went to his house and asked if a man named Carter, who

lived with him, was at home, as rumor said that he had betrayed Henry

Williams. He denied it, and said that Carter had fought for Henry with

him, but the slaveholders being too strong for them, they had to give

him up. He kept beyond reach, and the men apologized for intruding upon

him, while I stepped up to the door and asked for a glass of water. He

gave it to me, and to the others. When he was giving water to one of the

party, I caught him by the throat, to prevent his giving the alarm, and

drew him over my head and shoulders. Then the rest beat him until we

thought we heard some one coming, which caused us to flee. If we had not

been interrupted, death would have been his fate. At that time I was

attending a threshing-machine for George Whitson and Joseph Scarlot.

It must have been a month after the Williams affray, that I was sitting

at home one evening, talking with Pinckney and Samuel Thompson about how

I was getting on with my work, when I thought I heard some one call my

name. I went out, but all was quiet. When I went in, Pinckney and

Thompson laughed at me, and said that I had become so "scary" that I

could not stay in the house. But I was not satisfied. I was sure some

one had called me. I said so, and that I would go to Marsh Chamberlain's

to see if anything was wrong. They concluded to go also, and we started.

Arriving near the house, I told Pinckney and Thompson to stop outside,

and I would go in, and if anything was wrong, would call them. When I

reached the house, I saw a chair broken to pieces, and knew that

something had happened, I said,--

"Hallo, Marsh!"

"Who is that?" said he.

And his wife said,--

"Parker, is that you?"

"Yes," I said.

"Oh, Parker, come here!" she called.

I called Pinckney and Thompson, and we went in. Marsh met us, and said

that kidnappers had been there, had taken John Williams, and gone with

him towards Buck Hill. They had then been gone about fifteen minutes.

Off we started on a rapid run to save him. We ran to a stable, got out

two horses, and Pinckney and I rode on. Thompson soon got the rest of

our party together and followed. We were going at a pretty good gait,

when Pinckney's horse stumbled and fell, fastening his rider's leg; but

I did not halt. Pinckney got his horse up and caught up with me.

"You would not care," said he, "if a man were to get killed! You would

not help him!"

"Not in such a case as this," I replied.

We rode on to the Maryland line, but could not overtake them. We were

obliged to return, as it was near daybreak. The next day a friend of

ours went to Maryland to see what had been done with Williams. He went

to Dr. Savington's, and the Doctor told him that the fugitive could not

live,--the kidnappers had broken his skull, and otherwise beaten him

very badly; his ankle, too, was out of place. In consequence of his

maimed condition, his mistress refused to pay the men anything for

bringing him home. That was the last we ever heard of poor John

Williams; but we learned afterwards why we failed to release him on the

night he was taken. The kidnappers heard us coming, and went into the

woods out of the way, until we had passed them.

Awhile before this occurrence, there lived in a town not far away from

Christiana a colored man who was in the habit of decoying fugitives

fresh from bondage to his house on various pretexts, and, by assuming to

be their friend, got from them the name of their master, his residence,

and other needed particulars. He would then communicate with the master

about his slave, tell him at what time the man would be at his house,

and when he came at the appointed hour, the poor refugee would fall into

the merciless clutches of his owner. Many persons, mostly young people,

had disappeared mysteriously from the country, from whom nothing could

be heard. At last the betrayer's connection with these transactions was

clearly traced; and it was decided to force him to quit the nefarious

business.

He was too wary to allow himself to be easily taken, and a resort was

had to stratagem. I, with others, thought he deserved to be shot openly

in his daughter's house, and was willing to take the consequences.

At last this man's outrages became so notorious that six of our most

reliable men resolved to shoot him, if they had to burn him out to do

it. After I had sworn the men in the usual form, we went to his barn,

took two bundles of wheat-straw, and, fastening them under the eaves

with wisps, applied a lighted match to each. We then took our stations a

few rods off, with rifles ready and in good condition,--mine was a

smooth-bore, with a heavy charge.

The house burned beautifully; and half an hour after it ignited the

walls fell in, but no betrayer showed himself. Instead of leaving the

house by the rear door, as we had expected, just before the roof fell

in, he broke out the front way, rushed to his next neighbor's, and left

his place without an effort to save it. We had built the fire in the

rear, and looked for him there; but he ran in the opposite direction,

not only as if his life was in danger, but as if the spirit of his evil

deeds was after him.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote F: This sentence was written before the beginning of our civil

war. Viewed in the light of subsequent events, it is somewhat

remarkable.--E. K.]

THE ORIGIN OF THE GYPSIES.

For more than four hundred years the Gypsies have been one of the

riddles of European history. Much deep study and learned research have

found plentiful employment in the endeavor to point out the land of

their origin; and the views taken have consequently been many and

various. It appears to the writer that all the well-known views on this

subject are far from the truth; and he desires to assert for the Gypsies

an origin quite different, as he believes, from any ever yet suggested:

at least, what he believes to be the real origin of this singular race

is not even hinted at in the more celebrated treatises. Conscious of the

diffidence with which any one should approach a matter which so many

learned men have labored over, he advances the plea of the proverb, that

they who study the stars will stumble at stones,--a plea, that much

learning and genius may fail, where less would not be at fault.

It has been maintained that the Gypsies are Egyptians, and even that

they are the followers of Pharaoh, perhaps not yet gotten home from that

Red Sea journey. Otherwise that they are the descendants of the vagabond

votaries of Isis, who were in Rome just what the Gypsies are in modern

Europe. It has been argued that they were Grecian heretics; that they

were persecuted Jews; that they were Tartars; that they were Moors; and

that they were Hindoos, Grellman accepted (as it suited his theory) the

assertion that they entered Germany from Turkey, though he rejected,

without examination, the assertion, made on equally good authority, that

they entered it from Spain, from Italy, from Denmark, and from Sweden.

We find, by comparison of accounts, that they appeared within the space

of a few years at every point of a circle of which Germany was the

centre, and everywhere they were regarded as foreigners,--even in Egypt.

Later times have concluded that the Gypsies are Hindoos, and it is

generally acknowledged that Grellman and Borrow have proved this. The

evidences adduced are, that the Gypsy tongue is strikingly like some

Hindoo dialects and the parent Sanscrit,--that the races are similar in

complexion, shape, disposition, and habits,--distinguished by the same

vagrant nature, the same love of idleness, music, dancing, and thievery.

In this course of argument, that founded, upon the language is of course

the really strong one.

Without denying any of these evidences,--assenting, indeed, to every one

of them,--I yet assert that the Gypsies are not of Asiatic origin, and

not, as the sturdy Dutchmen call them, the "heathens,"--unless we refer

to the original use of that word, and call all heathens that dwell on

the heath. I assert that they are Europeans, and one of the results of

the religious wars of the fifteenth century. Bohemia is the land of

their origin; and when we consider that one of the most enlightened

nations of Europe has called them Bohemians for four hundred years, it

is remarkable that that name has been so little considered in attempts

to penetrate this mystery. John Ziska or Tschischka, the greatest of the

Hussite leaders, in the brave struggle of that sect against the Roman

Church, is the man who may be looked upon as the father of the race.

Though a clumsy attempt to pronounce Tschischka by a foreign tongue

might well result in something farther from it than Gypsy, there is,

perhaps, nothing in that resemblance. The word _gypsy_, which is only

the English name for this remarkable people, is, no doubt, a consequence

of the ancient error that called them Egyptians; but it is odd to see

English writers using the resemblance between those words as an argument

in favor of that origin, and thus endeavoring to perpetuate error by

the results of error.

Ziska became prominent as a leader in the year 1418, and in that year

was authorized to raise forces. Probably he had been busy in that way

even earlier; and so, from the first, secrecy and deception would have

been necessary in the organization of his innumerable small bodies, so

suddenly made one great body when he extorted the royal authority. He

carried on hostilities with great success until his death in 1424. By

this event, the Hussites were divided into three bodies, one of which

was called the Orphans, or orphan children of Ziska. These dwelt in

their camps in the open country, and were under a vow never again to

sleep beneath a roof. They also refused obedience to any sovereign.

Driven out of Bohemia in the disasters to which the death of Ziska led

the way, and still more effectually driven out in the expatriation of

all non-Catholics, the whole sect became fugitives and wanderers; and it

is easy to see what kind of wanderers the "Orphans" particularly would

be, with their wagon-camps and their oath against houses.

It is a remarkable coincidence, (if it shall prove to be no more,) that

the Gypsies, a race of wanderers, peculiar by reason of the very

characteristic that would have resulted from the Hussite oath, made

their first appearance in Europe at this very period,--between 1418 and

1427,--and in those very countries in which the Orphans ought first to

have been seen. But the earliest circumstantial notice of a company of

Gypsies relates to the one that visited Paris in 1427. Pasquier gave a

particular account of them, and remarks, that, though they had a very

bad name, and though he was with them a great deal, he "never lost a

coin."

These were called Bohemians, and the French have adhered to that name

ever since. Doubtless the French of that day, who conversed with these

people, and looked at them with very wide-open eyes, had as good reason

for calling them Bohemians as they had for calling other men Spaniards,

Italians, or Russians. Bohemia then formed too important a part of

Europe for Frenchmen to confound men of that country with Hindoos just

from Asia. The Bohemians were not strangers in France. Nearly a hundred

years before, a king of Bohemia, with a large retinue, was present on

the French side at the battle of Crécy, and Ziska himself fought at

Agincourt. But writers on the Gypsies treat very slightingly the fact,

that the French called the first party that visited Paris, as mentioned

above, Bohemians, and merely say that they use that name for the

Gypsies, "because they first heard of them from Bohemia."

Various circumstances point to the probability that the Gypsies were, at

their first appearance in different countries, fugitives from religious

intolerance. They always called themselves pilgrims, which Egyptians or

Hindoos would scarcely have done, but which would be quite natural in

that age to Europeans desirous of concealing their real character and of

commending themselves to strangers in whom their difference of faith

made them expect to find enemies. They called themselves Christians

also, and declared ostentatiously their conformity to the Roman Catholic

rites; but they carefully kept away from the churches. This assumption

of a character which they knew would protect them is in keeping with the

whole craft of their lives.

Another notable fact is, that they showed everywhere passes of

safe-conducts from the Emperor Sigismund. Ziska's followers could not

have got authentic passes, but they could forge them easily; and Hindoo

stragglers, on their first appearance in Europe, would hardly have known

the value of such pieces of paper. In all the original Gypsy parties

there were dukes and counts, and these men called themselves Lords of

Little Egypt; and from this fact seems originally to have arisen the

notion that they were Egyptians. But this seems less like an assertion

of their origin than like a piece of Scriptural phraseology. The

Hussites used in that way a Biblical imagery, like the Puritans of a

later age. Like the Puritans, they called their opponents Moabites,

Amalekites, and so on. With the Puritans, Egypt was always "the house of

bondage," and that name was the common designation of any place of

persecution.

Grellman refers to the name Polgar as Indian, and as common with the

Gypsies; but he does not notice that the men in all the original Gypsy

parties bore such sufficiently Christian appellations as Michael,

Andrew, John, and Peter. _Rommany_ is the Gypsy name for a Gypsy, and

this is referred to the Sanscrit _Rama_, man, by one author, and by

others to the Coptic _Rom_. Either is possible, but sufficiently remote.

By the kind of deception referred to above, which made the Gypsies call

themselves Catholics when in Catholic countries, it is probable that

they may sometimes have gone so far as to say that they were

Romans,--that is, adherents of Rome,--and habit may have fastened the

name. This derivation is as good as either of the others.

But the language of the Gypsies has been most relied upon to prove their

derivation from Hindostan, both by Grellman and Borrow. Remarkable

similarities have been shown to exist between the Hindoo dialects and

the Gypsy tongue. But the argument of language is better for Bohemian

than for Hindoo origin. The Bohemians were Cechs, a branch of the great

Slavic race of undoubted Asiatic origin; and the Cech language descended

from the Sanscrit almost as directly as the Hindoo dialects did. Here is

a good reason why the Hindoo dialects and the Gypsy tongue--if the

Gypsies were Bohemians--should closely resemble one another. They were

from the same parent stem. The learned Büsching said, "The Gypsy

language is a mixture of corrupt words from the Wallachian, Slavonian,

Hungarian, and other nations." These are the cognate languages of the

Slavic race, all descended from the same source, and that also the

source of the Cech. The first list of Gypsy words ever made was cited to

prove an Egyptian origin, and they were Slavic. That was, perhaps, the

best list ever made, as later ones show the results of the use of the

languages of the various lands in which the Gypsies wander.

The complexion, habits, and character of the Gypsies resemble those of

the Cechs as nearly as they do those of the Hindoos. The Cechs are an

eminently gay and musical race. As regards complexion, it is found that

the Gypsies in the Austrian army, who have been compelled to relinquish

their wild life and dwell in houses, are as white as Europeans

generally.

Assuming that Grellman has disproved all the other suggested origins in

favor of the Hindoo theory, and considering the question as simply

between India and Bohemia, it appears to me that the argument is

altogether in favor of the derivation of the Gypsies from the latter

country.

PASSAGES FROM HAWTHORNE'S NOTE-BOOKS.

II.

_Maine, July 5, 1837_.--Here I am, settled since night before last with

B----, and living very singularly. He leads a bachelor's life in his

paternal mansion, only a small part of which is occupied by a family who

serve him. He provides his own breakfast and supper, and occasionally

his dinner; though this is oftener, I believe, taken at the hotel or an

eating-house, or with some of his relatives. I am his guest, and my

presence makes no alteration in his way of life. Our fare, thus far, has

consisted of bread, butter, and cheese, crackers, herrings, boiled eggs,

coffee, milk, and claret wine. He has another inmate, in the person of a

queer little Frenchman, who has his breakfast, tea, and lodging here,

and finds his dinner elsewhere. Monsieur S---- does not appear to be

more than twenty-one years old,--a diminutive figure, with eyes askew,

and otherwise of an ungainly physiognomy; he is ill-dressed also, in a

coarse blue coat, thin cotton pantaloons, and unbrushed boots;

altogether with as little of French coxcombry as can well be imagined,

though with something of the monkey-aspect inseparable from a little

Frenchman. He is, nevertheless, an intelligent and well-informed man,

apparently of extensive reading in his own language;--a philosopher,

B---- tells me, and an infidel. His insignificant personal appearance

stands in the way of his success, and prevents him from receiving the

respect which is really due to his talents and acquirements; wherefore

he is bitterly dissatisfied with the country and its inhabitants, and

often expresses his feelings to B---- (who has gained his confidence to

a certain degree) in very strong terms.

Thus here are three characters, each with something out of the common

way, living together somewhat like monks. B----, our host, combines more

high and admirable qualities, of that sort which make up a gentleman,

than any other that I have met with. Polished, yet natural, frank, open,

and straightforward, yet with a delicate feeling for the sensitiveness

of his companions; of excellent temper and warm heart; well acquainted

with the world, with a keen faculty of observation, which he has had

many opportunities of exercising, and never varying from a code of honor

and principle which is really nice and rigid in its way. There is a sort

or philosophy developing itself in him which will not impossibly cause

him to settle down in this or some other equally singular course of

life. He seems almost to have made up his mind never to be married,

which I wonder at; for he has strong affections, and is fond both of

women and children.

The little Frenchman impresses me very strongly, too,--so lonely as he

is here, struggling against the world, with bitter feelings in his

breast, and yet talking with the vivacity and gayety of his nation;

making this his home from darkness to daylight, and enjoying here what

little domestic comfort and confidence there is for him; and then going

about all the livelong day, teaching French to blockheads who sneer at

him, and returning at about ten o'clock in the evening (for I was wrong

in saying he supped here,--he eats no supper) to his solitary room and

bed. Before retiring, he goes to B----'s bedside, and, if he finds him

awake, stands talking French, expressing his dislike of the

Americans,--_"Je hais, je hais les Yankees!"_--thus giving vent to the

stifled bitterness of the whole day. In the morning I hear him getting

up early, at sunrise or before, humming to himself, scuffling about his

chamber with his thick boots, and at last taking his departure for a

solitary ramble till breakfast. Then he comes in, cheerful and vivacious

enough, eats pretty heartily, and is off again, singing French

_chansons_ as he goes down the gravel-walk. The poor fellow has nobody

to sympathize with him but B----, and thus a singular connection is

established between two utterly different characters.

Then here is myself, who am likewise a queer character in my way, and

have come to spend a week or two with my friend of half a lifetime,--the

longest space, probably, that we are ever destined to spend together;

for Fate seems preparing changes for both of us. My circumstances, at

least, cannot long continue as they are and have been; and B----, too,

stands between high prosperity and utter ruin.

I think I should soon become strongly attached to our way of life, so

independent and untroubled by the forms and restrictions of society. The

house is very pleasantly situated,--half a mile distant from where the

town begins to be thickly settled, and on a swell of land, with the road

running at a distance of fifty yards, and a grassy tract and a

gravel-walk between. Beyond the road rolls the Kennebec, here two or

three hundred yards wide. Putting my head out of the window, I can see

it flowing steadily along straightway between wooded banks; but arriving

nearly opposite the house, there is a large and level sand island in the

middle of the stream; and just below the island the current is further

interrupted by the works of the mill-dam, which is perhaps

half-finished, yet still in so rude a state that it looks as much like

the ruins of a dam destroyed by the spring freshets as like the

foundations of a dam yet to be. Irishmen and Canadians toil at work on

it, and the echoes of their hammering and of the voices come across the

river and up to this window. Then there is a sound of the wind among the

trees round the house; and when that is silent, the calm, full, distant

voice of the river becomes audible. Looking downward thither, I see the

rush of the current, and mark the different eddies, with here and there

white specks or streaks of foam; and often a log comes floating on,

glistening in the sun, as it rolls over among the eddies, having

voyaged, for aught I know, hundreds of miles from the wild, upper

sources of the river, passing down, down, between lines of forest, and

sometimes a rough clearing, till here it floats along by cultivated

banks, and will soon pass by the village. Sometimes a long raft of

boards comes along, requiring the nicest skill in navigating it through

the narrow passage left by the mill-dam. Chaises and wagons occasionally

go along the road, the riders all giving a passing glance at the dam, or

perhaps alighting to examine it more fully, and at last departing with

ominous shakes of the head as to the result of the enterprise. My

position is so far retired from the river and mill-dam, that, though the

latter is really rather a scene, yet a sort of quiet seems to be

diffused over the whole. Two or three times a day this quiet is broken

by the sudden thunder from a quarry, where the workmen are blasting

rocks for the dam; and a peal of thunder sounds strange in such a green,

sunny, and quiet landscape, with the blue sky brightening the river.

I have not seen much of the people. There have been, however, several

incidents which amused me, though scarcely worth telling. A passionate

tavern-keeper, quick as a flash of gunpowder, a nervous man, and showing

in his demeanor, it seems, a consciousness of his infirmity of temper. I

was a witness of a scuffle of his with a drunken guest. The

tavern-keeper, after they were separated, raved like a madman, and in a

tone of voice having a drolly pathetic or lamentable sound mingled with

its rage, as if he were lifting up his voice to weep. Then he jumped

into a chaise which was standing by, whipped up the horse, and drove off

rapidly, as if to give his fury vent in that way.

On the morning of the Fourth of July, two printer's apprentice-lads,

nearly grown, dressed in jackets and very tight pantaloons of check,

tight as their skins, so that they looked like harlequins or

circus-clowns, yet appeared to think themselves in perfect propriety,

with a very calm and quiet assurance of the admiration of the town. A

common fellow, a carpenter, who, on the strength of political

partisanship, asked B----'s assistance in cutting out great letters from

play-bills in order to print "Martin Van Buren Forever" on a flag; but

B---- refused. B---- seems to be considerably of a favorite with the

lower orders, especially with the Irishman and French Canadians,--the

latter accosting him in the street, and asking his assistance as an

interpreter in making their bargains for work.

I meant to have dined at the hotel with B---- to-day; but having

returned to the house, leaving him to do some business in the village, I

found myself unwilling to move when the dinner-hour approached, and

therefore dined very well on bread, cheese, and eggs. Nothing of much

interest takes place. We live very comfortably in our bachelor

establishment on a cold shoulder of mutton, with ham and smoked beef and

boiled eggs; and as to drinkables, we had both claret and brown sherry

on the dinner-table to-day. Last evening we had a long literary and

philosophical conversation with Monsieur S----. He is rather remarkably

well-informed for a man of his age, and seems to have very just notions

on ethics, etc., though damnably perverted as to religion. It is strange

to hear philosophy of any sort from such a boyish figure. "We

philosophers," he is fond of saying, to distinguish himself and his

brethren from the Christians. One of his oddities is, that, while

steadfastly maintaining an opinion that he is a very small and slow

eater, and the we, in common with other Yankees, eat immensely and fast,

he actually eats both faster and longer than we do, and devours, as

B---- avers, more victuals than both of us together.

* * * * *

_Saturday, July 8th._--Yesterday afternoon, a stroll with B---- up a

large brook, he fishing for trout, and I looking on. The brook runs

through a valley, on one side bordered by a high and precipitous bank;

on the other there is an interval, and then the bank rises upward and

upward into a high hill with gorges and ravines separating one summit

from another, and here and there are bare places, where the rain-streams

have washed away the grass. The brook is bestrewn with stones, some

bare, some partially moss-grown, and sometimes so huge as--once at

least--to occupy almost the whole breadth of the current. Amongst these

the stream brawls, only that this word does not express its good-natured

voice, and "murmur" is too quite. It sings along, sometimes smooth, with

the pebbles visible beneath, sometimes rushing dark and swift, eddying

and whitening past some rock, or underneath the hither or the farther

bank; and at these places B----cast his line, and sometimes drew out a

trout, small, not more than five or six inches long. The farther we went

up the brook, the wilder it grew. The opposite bank was covered with

pines and hemlocks, ascending high upwards, black and solemn. One knew

that there must be almost a precipice behind, yet we could not see it.

At the foot you could spy, a little way within the darksome shade, the

roots and branches of the trees; but soon all sight was obstructed

amidst the trunks. On the hither side, at first the bank was bare, then

fringed with alder-bushes, bending and dipping into the stream, which,

farther on brawled through the midst of a forest of maple, beech, and

other trees, its course growing wilder and wilder as we proceeded. For a

considerable distance there was a causeway, built long ago of logs, to

drag lumber upon; it was now decayed and rotten, a red decay, sometimes

sunken down in the midst, here and there a knotty trunk stretching

across, apparently sound. The sun being now low towards the west, a

pleasant gloom and brightness were diffused through the forest, spots of

brightness scattered upon the branches, or thrown down in gold upon the

last year's leaves among the trees. At last we came to where a dam had

been built across the brook many years ago, and was now gone to ruin,

so as to make the spot look more solitary and wilder than if man had

never left vestiges of his toil there. It was a framework of logs with a

covering of plank sufficient to obstruct the onward flow of the brook;

but it found its way past the side, and came foaming and struggling

along among scattered rocks. Above the dam there was a broad and deep

pool, one side of which was bordered by a precipitous wall of rocks, as

smooth as if hewn out and squared, and piled one upon another, above

which rose the forest. On the other side there was still a gently

shelving bank, and the shore was covered with tall trees, among which I

particularly remarked a stately pine, wholly devoid of bark, rising

white in aged and majestic ruin, thrusting out its barkless arms. It

must have stood there in death many years, its own ghost. Above the dam

the brook flowed through the forest, a glistening and babbling

water-path, illuminated by the sun, which sent its rays almost straight

along its course. It was as lovely and wild and peaceful as it could

possibly have been a hundred years ago; and the traces of labors of men

long departed added a deeper peace to it. I bathed in the pool, and then

pursued my way down beside the brook, growing dark with a pleasant

gloom, as the sun sank and the water became more shadowy. B---- says

that there was formerly a tradition, that the Indians used to go up this

brook, and return, after a brief absence, with large masses of lead,

which they sold at the trading stations in Augusta; whence there has

always been an idea that there is a lead mine hereabouts. Great

toadstools were under the trees, and some small ones as yellow and

almost the size of a half-broiled yolk of an egg. Strawberries were

scattered along the brookside.

Dined at the hotel or Mansion-House to-day. Men were playing checkers in

the parlor. The Marshal of Maine, a corpulent, jolly fellow, famed for

humor. A passenger left by the stage hiring an express onward. A bottle

of champagne was quaffed at the bar.

* * * * *

_July 9th._--Went with B---- to pay a visit to the shanties of the Irish

and Canadians. He says that they sell and exchange these small houses

among themselves continually. They may be built in three or four days,

and are valued at four or five dollars. When the turf that is piled

against the walls of some of them becomes covered with grass, it makes

quite a picturesque object. It was almost dusk--just candle-lighting

time--when we visited them. A young Frenchwoman, with a baby in her

arms, came to the door of one of them, smiling, and looking pretty and

happy. Her husband, a dark, black-haired, lively little fellow, caressed

the child, laughing and singing to it; and there was a red-bearded

Irishman, who likewise fondled the little brat. Then we could hear them

within the hut, gabbling merrily, and could see them moving about

briskly in the candlelight, through the window and open door. An old

Irishwoman sat in the door of another hut, under the influence of an

extra dose of rum,--she being an old lady of somewhat dissipated habits.

She called to B----, and began to talk to him about her resolution not

to give up her house: for it is his design to get her out of it. She is

a true virago, and though somewhat restrained by respect for him, she

evinced a sturdy design to remain here through the winter, or at least

for a considerable time longer. He persisting, she took her stand in the

doorway of the hut, and stretched out her fist in a very Amazonian

attitude, "Nobody," quoth she, "shall drive me out of this house, till

my praties are out of the ground." Then would she wheedle and laugh and

blarney, beginning in a rage, and ending as if she had been in jest.

Meanwhile her husband stood by very quiet, occasionally trying to still

her; but it is to be presumed, that, after our departure, they came to

blows, it being a custom with the Irish husbands and wives to settle

their disputes with blows; and it is said the woman often proves the

better man. The different families also have battles, and occasionally

the Irish fight with the Canadians. The latter, however, are much the

more peaceable, never quarrelling among themselves, and seldom with

their neighbors. They are frugal, and often go back to Canada with

considerable sums of money. B---- has gained much influence both with

the Irish and the French,--with the latter, by dint of speaking to them

in their own language. He is the umpire in their disputes, and their

adviser, and they look up to him as a protector and patron-friend. I

have been struck to see with what careful integrity and wisdom he

manages matters among them, hitherto having known him only as a free and

gay young man. He appears perfectly to understand their general

character, of which he gives no very flattering description. In these

huts, less than twenty feet square, he tells me that upwards of twenty

people have sometimes been lodged.

A description of a young lady who had formerly been insane, and now felt

the approach of a new fit of madness. She had been out to ride, had

exerted herself much, and had been very vivacious. On her return, she

sat down in a thoughtful and despondent attitude, looking very sad, but

one of the loveliest objects that ever were seen. The family spoke to

her, but she made no answer, nor took the least notice; but still sat

like a statue in her chair,--a statue of melancholy and beauty. At last

they led her away to her chamber.

We went to meeting this forenoon. I saw nothing remarkable, unless a

little girl in the next pew to us, three or four years old, who fell

asleep, with her head in the lap of her maid, and looked very pretty: a

picture of sleeping innocence.

* * * * *

_July 11th, Tuesday._--A drive with B---- to Hallowell, yesterday, where

we dined, and afterwards to Gardiner. The most curious object in this

latter place was the elegant new mansion of ----. It stands on the site

of his former dwelling, which was destroyed by fire. The new building

was estimated to cost about thirty thousand dollars; but twice as much

has already been expended, and a great deal more will be required to

complete it. It is certainly a splendid structure; the material, granite

from the vicinity. At the angles it has small, circular towers; the

portal is lofty and imposing. Relatively to the general style of

domestic architecture in our country, it well deserves the name of

castle or palace. Its situation, too, is fine, far retired from the

public road, and attainable by a winding carriage-drive; standing amid

fertile fields, and with large trees in the vicinity. There is also a

beautiful view from the mansion adown the Kennebec.

Beneath some of the large trees we saw the remains of circular seats,

whereupon the family used to sit before the former house was burned

down. There was no one now in the vicinity of the place, save a man and

a yoke of oxen; and what he was about, I did not ascertain. Mr. ---- at

present resides in a small dwelling, little more than a cottage, beside

the main road, not far from the gateway which gives access to his

palace.

At Gardiner, on the wharf, I witnessed the starting of the steamboat New

England for Boston. There was quite a collection of people, looking on

or taking leave of passengers,--the steam puffing,--stages arriving,

full-freighted with ladies and gentlemen. A man was one moment too late;

but running along the gunwale of a mud-scow, and jumping into a skiff,

he was put on board by a black fellow. The dark cabin, wherein,

descending from the sunshiny deck, it was difficult to discern the

furniture, looking-glasses, and mahogany wainscoting. I met two old

college acquaintances,--O----, who was going to Boston, and B----, with

whom we afterwards drank a glass of wine at the hotel.

B----, Mons. S----, and myself continue to live in the same style as

heretofore. We appear mutually to be very well pleased with each other.

Mons. S---- displays many comical qualities, and manages to insure us

several hearty laughs every morning and evening,--those being the

seasons when we meet. I am going to take lessons from him in the

pronunciation of French. Of female society I see nothing. The only

petticoat that comes within our premises appertains to Nancy, the

pretty, dark-eyed maid-servant of the man who lives in the other part of

the house.

On the road from Hallowell to Augusta we saw little booths, in two

places, erected on the roadside, where boys offered beer, apples, etc.,

for sale. We passed an Irishwoman with a child in her arms, and a heavy

bundle, and afterwards an Irishman with a light bundle, sitting by the

highway. They were husband and wife; and B---- says that an Irishman and

his wife, on their journeys, do not usually walk side by side, but that

the man gives the woman the heaviest burden to carry, and walks on

lightly ahead!

A thought comes into my mind: Which sort of house excites the most

contemptuous feelings in the beholder,--such a house as Mr. ----'s, all

circumstances considered, or the board-built and turf-buttressed hovels

of these wild Irish, scattered about as if they had sprung up like

mushrooms, in the dells and gorges, and along the banks of the river?

Mushrooms, by the way, spring up where the roots of an old tree are

hidden under the ground.

* * * * *