About seventy-five years ago, there was at Charleston, in South
Carolina, a family consisting of several members. It belonged to the
middle class--that is to say, contained barristers, bankers,
merchants, solicitors, and so on--all of them animated, at least so
far as appears, by a high sense of honour and integrity. But noble
sentiments are no certain guarantee against poverty. One of the
members of the family in question became embarrassed, borrowed L.1000
of one of his relatives, but was soon after seized with paralysis,
and, having kept his bed five years, died, leaving behind him a widow
with several children. He could bequeath them no property, instead of
which they received as their inheritance high principles, and a strong
affection for the memory of their father. The widow also was, in this
respect, perfectly in harmony with her sons. By dint, therefore, of
prudence, industry, and economy, they amassed among them the sum of
L.400, which they rigidly appropriated to the repayment of a part of
their father's debt. The old man had, indeed, called them together
around his death-bed, and told them that, instead of a fortune, he
left them a duty to perform; and that if it could not be accomplished
in one generation, it must be handed down from father to son, until
the descendants of the B----s had paid every farthing to the
descendants of the S----s.
While matters stood in this predicament, the creditor part of the
family removed to England, and the debtors remained at Charleston,
struggling with difficulties and embarrassments, which not only
disabled them from paying the paternal debt, but kept them perpetually
in honourable poverty. Of course, the wish to pay in such minds
survived the ability. It would have been to them an enjoyment of a
high order to hunt out their relatives in England, and place in their
hands the owing L.600. This pleasure, which they were destined never
to taste, often formed the subject of conversation around their
fireside; and the children, as they grew up, were initiated into the
mystery of the L.600.
But that generation passed away, and another succeeded to the
liability; not that there existed any liability in law, for though a
deed had been executed, it had lapsed in the course of time, so that
there was really no obligation but that which was the strongest of
all--an uneradicable sense of right. Often and often did the B----s of
Charleston meet and consult together on this famous debt, which every
one wished, but no one could afford, to pay. The sons were married,
and had children whom it was incumbent on them to support; the
daughters had married, too, but their husbands possibly did not
acquire with their wives the chivalrous sense of duty which possessed
the breast of every member, male and female, of the B. family, and
inspired them with a wish to do justice when fortune permitted.
It would be infinitely agreeable to collect and peruse the letters and
records of consultations which passed or took place between the
members of this family on the subject of the L.600. These documents
would form the materials of one of the most delightful romances in the
world--the romance of honour, which never dies in some families, but
is transmitted from generation to generation like a treasure above all
price. When this brief notice is read in Charleston, it may possibly
lead to the collection of these materials, which, with the proper
names of all the persons engaged, should, we think, be laid before the
world as a pleasing record of hereditary nobility of sentiment.
After the lapse of many years, a widow and her three nephews found
themselves in possession of the necessary means for paying the family
debt. Three-quarters of a century had elapsed. The children and the
children's children of the original borrower had passed away; but the
honour of the B. family had been transmitted intact to the fourth
generation, and a search was immediately commenced to discover the
creditors in England. This, however, as may well be supposed, was no
easy task. The members of the S. family had multiplied and separated,
married and intermarried, become poor and wealthy, distinguished and
obscure by turns, changed their topographical as well as their social
position, and disappeared entirely from the spot they had occupied on
their first arrival from America.
But honour is indefatigable, and by degrees a letter reached a person
in Kensington, who happened to possess some knowledge of a lady of the
S. family, married to a solicitor practising with great success and
distinction in London. When the letter came to hand, she at first
doubted whether it might not be a sort of grave hoax, intended to
excite expectation for the pleasure of witnessing its disappointment.
However, the English solicitor, accustomed to the incidents of life,
thought there would at least be no harm in replying to the letter from
Charleston, and discovering in this way the real state of the affair.
Some delay necessarily occurred, especially as the B. family in
America were old world sort of people, accustomed to transact business
slowly and methodically, and with due attention to the minutest
points. But at length a reply came, in which the writer observed, that
if a deed of release were drawn up, signed by all the parties
concerned in England, and transmitted to America, the L.600 should
immediately be forwarded for distribution among the members of the S.
family. Some demur now arose. Some of the persons concerned growing
prudent as the chances of recovering the money appeared to multiply,
thought it would be wrong to send the deed of release before the money
had been received. But the solicitor had not learned, in the practice
of his profession, to form so low an estimate of human nature. He
considered confidence in this case to be synonymous with prudence, and
at anyrate resolved to take upon himself the entire responsibility of
complying with the wishes of the Americans. He accordingly drew up the
necessary document, got it signed by as many as participated in his
views, and sent it across the Atlantic, without the slightest doubt or
hesitation. There had been something in the rough, blunt honesty of Mr
B----'s letter that inspired in the man of law the utmost reliance on
his faith, though during the interval which elapsed between the
transmission of the deed and the reception of an answer from the
States, several of his friends exhibited a disposition to make
themselves merry at the expense of his chivalry. But when we consider
all the particulars of the case, we can hardly fail to perceive that
he ran no risk whatever; for even if the debt had not legally lapsed,
the people who had retained it in their memory through three
generations--who had from father to son practised strict economy in
order to relieve themselves from the burden--who had, with much
difficulty and some expense, sought out the heirs of their creditor in
a distant country, could scarcely be suspected of any inclination to
finish off with a fraud at last.
Still, if there was honour on one side, there was enlarged confidence
on the other; and in the course of a few months, the American mail
brought to London the famous L.600 due since before the War of
Independence. The business now was to divide and distribute it. Of
course, each of the creditors was loud in expressions of admiration of
the honour of the B. family, whose representative, while forwarding
the money, asked with much simplicity to have a few old English
newspapers sent out to him by way of acknowledgment. For his own part,
however, he experienced a strong desire to behold some of the persons
to whom he had thus paid a debt of the last century; and he gave a
warm and pressing invitation to any of them, to come out and stay as
long as they thought proper at his house in Charleston. Had the
invitation been accepted, we cannot doubt that Brother Jonathan would
have acted as hospitably in the character of host as he behaved
honourably in that of debtor. It would have been a pleasure, we might
indeed say a distinction, to live under the same roof with such a man,
whose very name carries us back to the primitive times of the colony,
when Charleston was a city of the British Empire, and English laws,
manners, habits, and feelings regulated the proceedings and relations
of its inhabitants. It is to be hoped, therefore, that the London
solicitor will some day drop in quietly upon his friend in Charleston,
to smoke a cigar, and discuss old times with him. He will in that case
probably fancy himself chatting with a contemporary of Rip Van Winkle.
Doubtless there are thousands of such men in the States, where
frequently everything that is estimable in the English character is
cultivated with assiduity.
How the property was distributed among the S. family in England, we
need not say. Each surviving individual had his or her share. The
solicitor was only connected with them by marriage; but with good old
English ideas of uprightness and integrity, he was fully able to
appreciate the Charleston lawyer's sentiments. He would have done
exactly the same himself under similar circumstances; and therefore,
had the sum been tens of thousands instead of hundreds, it could not
be said to have fallen into bad hands. Whether the transaction above
noticed has led or not to a continued correspondence between the
families, we are unable to say; but we think the creditors in England
would naturally have felt a pleasure in exchanging intelligence from
time to time with their worthy debtors in Charleston. These things,
however, are private, and therefore we do not intend to trench upon
them.