This little city was to me one of the most attractive spots I visited
south of the Potomac. I came upon it at my first visit after a severe
roughing, and found a fine climate and old friends, whose warm welcome
could not have come in better time. I found here also the best conducted
and best appointed hotel in the Southern country, and society congenial
and amiable: all these combined go a good way to prejudice a man in
favour of a place which in itself may have little to recommend it.
Mobile, however, has claims which are rapidly increasing its population
and its trade; indeed the ratio of advance in both is equal to that of
any other place in the States; in proof of which, I find by a report
just issued of the returns of the foreign trade, exclusive of the
coasting business, which is considerable, that the increase has been
gradual and steady, and in five years stands thus:
In the year 1830, the total value of the importations to the port of
Mobile was 1,044,135 dollars: the value of the exports for the same year
was 1,994,365 dollars. In 1834, the value of the imports is stated at
3,088,811 dollars: the exports for the same year at 6,270,197 dollars.
For the current year, I am credibly assured that an addition of
one-third to these last amounts will not much overrate the enormous
increase to which, should peace continue, each year must add for many
seasons to come, since the influx of planters to Alabama is clearing the
cane-brake with a rapidity unprecedented even in this country: the
Indian reserves are all coming into cultivation as fast as they are
vacated; and, in fact, Alabama at this day may be said to present a
spectacle of successful energy and industry not to be surpassed. A
railroad is now in progress, the prospectus for which was in circulation
during my visit, which is to connect North and South Alabama, commencing
in the valley of Tennessee, and running to some navigable point of the
harbour of Mobile. A glance at a map of the States will at once render
obvious the immense importance such a line of communication will be of
to this city, concentrating on this point the trade, not only of North
Alabama and the Tennessee valley, but some of the most fertile portions
of Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi.
By this railway the great obstacle in the way of the trade of the
Tennessee valley, the muscle shoals, will be avoided, whilst, at a fair
calculation, it is expected that the increase of cotton received into
Mobile will amount to one hundred thousand bales: besides a vast
quantity of pork, beef, bacon, flour, lard, whisky, &c. that now seeks a
market at New Orleans, through those great natural channels, the
Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers: to the navigation of the
first-named river the shoals have hitherto been a serious drawback,
detaining laden craft of all kinds for weeks, and even months, until,
late in winter or early in spring, a rise in the river enabled them to
float over into the highway of the Western world, the Mississippi.
The grounds on which the vast and seemingly extravagant increase of the
cotton crop of this State of Alabama may be justified, are to be found,
not only in the great fertility of the virgin soil yearly brought under
cultivation, but in the unprecedented increase of population. This very
year, it is calculated, not less than twenty-five thousand slaves have
been brought into this country from the older States on the Atlantic;
this amount will, in all probability, be exceeded by the increase of
next season, as there are many millions of acres of the most fertile
land in the Union yet in the hands of Government for sale, lately
conceded in exchange by the Indians of the Creek and Cherokee tribes.
The great cause of emigration from the Atlantic States is to be looked
for in the temptation offered the planter by a soil of vastly superior
fertility. In South Carolina and in most parts of Georgia, it will
appear that a good average crop will give one bale or bag of cotton,
weighing 310 lbs. for each working-hand employed on the plantation; now,
in Alabama, four or five bales, each weighing 430 lbs. is a fair average
for an able-bodied slave engaged in the cultivation; and I have
conversed with many planters, holding places upon the bottom-lands of
the river, who assured me their crop was yearly ten bales of cotton for
each full-grown hand.
When it is considered that this season the value of cotton has been
ranging from sixpence-halfpenny to ninepence per pound, the enormous
receipts of some of these persons, who make from four hundred to three
thousand bales of 430 lbs. weight each, may be imagined.
These are the men who have been my companions on all my late steamboat
trips, for this is the season that affords them _relache_ and brings
them together; and in this city especially, as at Natchez, it is by this
singular class I am surrounded: they are not difficult to comprehend,
and a slight sketch of their condition and habits may not be
uninteresting, as they form the great mass now inhabiting this mighty
region, and it is from them a probable future population of one hundred
million of souls must receive language, habits, and laws.
We generally associate with the Southern planter ideas of indolence,
inertness of disposition, and a love of luxury and idle expense:
nothing, however, can be less characteristic of these frontier tamers of
the swamp and of the forest: they are hardy, indefatigable, and
enterprising to a degree; despising and contemning luxury and
refinement, courting labour, and even making a pride of the privations
which they, without any necessity, continue to endure with their
families. They are prudent without being at all mean or penurious, and
are fond of money without having a tittle of avarice. This may at first
sight appear stated from a love of paradox, yet nothing can be more
strictly and simply true; this is, in fact, a singular race, and they
seem especially endowed by Providence to forward the great work in which
they are engaged--to clear the wilderness and lay bare the wealth of
this rich country with herculean force and restless perseverance,
spurred by a spirit of acquisition no extent of possession can satiate.
Most men labour that they may, at some contemplated period, repose on
the fruits of their industry; adventurers in unhealthy regions,
generally, seek to amass wealth that they may escape from their
_penible_ abodes, and recompense themselves by after enjoyment for the
perils and privations they have endured. Not so the planters of this
south-western region; were their natures moulded after this ordinary
fashion, these States, it is true, might long continue mines of wealth,
to be wrought by a succession of adventurers; but never would they
become what Providence has evidently designed they shall be,--great
countries, powerful governments, and the home of millions of freemen yet
unborn.
These men seek wealth from the soil to return it back to the soil, with
the addition of the sweat of their brows tracking every newly-broken
furrow. Their pride does not consist in fine houses, fine raiment,
costly services of plate, or refined cookery: they live in humble
dwellings of wood, wear the coarsest habits, and live on the plainest
fare. It is their pride to have planted an additional acre of
cane-brake, to have won a few feet from the river, or cleared a thousand
trees from the forest; to have added a couple of slaves to their family,
or a horse of high blood to their stable.
It is for these things that they labour from year to year. Unconscious
agents in the hands of the Almighty, it is to advance the great cause of
civilization, whose pioneers they are, that they endure toil for their
lives, without the prospect of reaping any one personal advantage which
might not have been attained in the first ten years of their labour.
It is not through ignorance either that they continue in these simple
and rude habits of life. Most of these planters visit the Northern
States periodically, as well as New Orleans; their wealth, and the
necessity the merchant feels to conciliate their good-will, makes them
the ready guests at tables where every luxury and refinement abounds:
but they view these without evincing the least desire to imitate them,
prefer generally the most ordinary liquids to the finest-flavoured
wines, and, as guests, are much easier to please than to catch; for not
only do they appear indifferent to these luxuries, but they seek to
avoid them, contemn their use, and return to their log-houses and the
cane-brake to seek in labour for enjoyment.
There must, however, be a great charm in the unrestrained freedom of
this sort of life; since I have frequently met women, who were bred in
the North, well educated, and accustomed for years to all the _agremens_
of good society, who yet assured me that they were happiest when living
in the solitude of their plantation, and only felt dull whilst wandering
about the country or recruiting at some public watering-place.
The great drawback to these frontiers, and one which will, I fear, exist
for some time, unless the citizens of the towns take the law into their
own hands, and execute it in a summary manner, is to be found in the
presence of certain idle ruffians who exist here. The only matter of
surprise to me is, that there are so few of the description, and that in
such a country crime is so rare, where the facility afforded for escape
is great, and where the laws view with such reverence the liberty of the
subject.
One or two anecdotes of recent occurrence will, however, do more to put
the reader in possession of the true state of the case than a volume of
unsupported reasoning.
During the last night I acted in Mobile, whilst on the stage, I heard a
slight noise in the upper boxes; a rush was made to a particular point;
then a moment's scuffle, and all was silent. The ladies in the
dress-boxes had not moved, and very little sensation was communicated to
the crowded pit: the whole thing, in fact, was over in as short a time
as I have occupied in the telling of it.
After the play I accompanied a party of ladies to the house of Mr.
M----e to sup, and here, for the first time, learned, through an inquiry
casually made, that during that slight scuffle a citizen had been killed
by the blow of a knife, given by an intemperate ruffian named M'Crew,
who had quietly descended the stairs afterwards, accompanied by his
brother. These men were from the country, were known disturbers of the
peace, and rarely made their appearance without bloodshed following.
The next morning I inquired as to the result, when it appeared the
homicide was adjudged manslaughter in a chance-medley; and the ruffian,
who had voluntarily appeared before the magistrate, was admitted to
bail. Now here was a case where Lynch law might have been most
beneficially employed: the citizens should have caught both these
ruffians, and hung them at their gates _in terrorem_.
I may add here, that, within a month of this time, these fiends
atrociously murdered the child of a planter, out of revenge for some
real or fancied affront; and, finding the exploit likely to prove
serious, fled to Texas.[2]
My next illustration is of a kind so little in keeping with the year
1835, that it would be a better story if dated from the debateable land,
anno Dom. 1535. The hero of the fight I am about to narrate is as fine a
specimen of an old Irishman as ever I met with, and I have seen him
frequently: his name is Robert Singleton, and his residence is Baldwin
county, in this State.
It appears that Mr. Singleton had lent to a Mr. English four or five
negroes, whom at a certain time he claimed, according to agreement, and
took back to his own place: hence arose a dispute as to the right of
possession; which dispute the sons of Mr. English decided upon settling
in a right border fashion.
Accompanied by three of their white neighbours, and three of their
father's slaves, the two Englishes repaired to the plantation of Mr.
Singleton. He was absent; but they surrounded the house, and, after a
resistance on the part of the slaves, which cost one of them his life,
the number claimed were made prisoners, and marched off for the country
of their captors.
Meantime, a lad who had escaped from the house on the first attack,
found, and communicated the surprisal and the result to his master, Mr.
Singleton, who, accompanied by his eldest son, without a moment's
hesitation put spurs to horse, and took the line of country likely to
cut off the retreat of the enemy.
Early on the next morning, July 4th, the Singletons came upon a bridge
they knew the Englishes must cross; and, not discovering new tracks,
decided to halt here: they had not waited half an hour, when the other
party came in sight.
A parley was called. Singleton, senior, declared himself and son
resolute to maintain the bridge against all comers, unless his slaves
were restored.
The elder brother, W. English, begged the Singletons not to fire, as
they would surrender the negroes: at the same time, the party alighted;
but as Singleton turned his head to desire his son to stand fast, he
received a shot in the left shoulder; and, on a second, saw his son fall
dead across his feet. Clapping his gun to his shoulder, he shot David
English through the brain; a barrel was at the same moment levelled
against him by Wm. English, but snapped: again he called on Singleton
not to shoot; but he this time called in vain. Taking up his son's
loaded piece, he shot his adversary whilst in the act of stooping to
lift his dead brother's rifle.
One more shot was discharged from the English party, and Singleton
received a second ball in his side. The assailants then fled, leaving
the resolute old planter master of the field, with his eldest son, a
young man of the best habits, dead at his feet.
His wounds did not prevent his collecting his negroes after the flight
of his enemies; he then walked back half a mile to where he had left his
horse, mounted, and rode home, although upwards of fifty years of age.
Mortification was for some time apprehended; but he at last recovered
perfectly, and was, when I left Mobile, in robust health.
The detail of this affair, as it stands in the journal, is concluded by
a regular list with the names of killed and wounded; but not one word of
comment. It is now in my possession, and the account may be relied upon
as authentic in every particular.
The streets of Mobile are covered over with a kind of shell that abounds
in the neighbourhood: this binds with the fine sand, and makes the
cleanest, best road possible, and is besides, I believe, very durable.
Since the swampy ways have been replaced by good roads of this material,
the health of the city has never been attacked by fever, which was
frequent before. The cholera is unknown here, although its ravages in
the south-western country were, and in fact are, terrible.
The market is abundantly supplied with provisions, fish, and game of
every variety. Here is one of the best-ordered hotels in the States, and
altogether as many inducements to the visitor or settler as any place I
saw. The summer I had no means of proving; but from all hands learn that
the heat, although continuous, is by no means excessive; whilst, within
five miles, on the heights of Springhill, the nights are, at the hottest
season, absolutely cold.
A ball, given in honour of the birth-day of Washington, by the volunteer
corps of the city, afforded me an admirable occasion of seeing the
people, since the committee was kind enough to send me a ticket.
Here, to the number of six hundred, was assembled all of the democracy
of Mobile having a claim to the term respectable, properly applied to
habit and character, not to calling or wealth. I have seldom seen a
better dressed, and never a better conducted assembly, whilst nothing
could be more perfectly democratic.
Here you might see the merchant's lady, whose French ball-dress cost one
hundred and fifty dollars, dancing in the same set with the _modiste_
who made it up; whilst the merchant changed hands with the wife of his
master-drayman, and the wealthy planter's daughter footed to her
brother's _schneider_, himself tricked out in some nondescript uniform
of his own making. Yet were all perfectly well conducted, and equally
happy: nor is it found that any ill consequence or undue familiarity
continues after these public occasions restore each to his, or her, own
sphere, or pursuit.
The supper was laid out most tastefully upon the galleries surrounding
the inner court of the hotel, enclosed for the occasion with canvass,
and the pillars wreathed with shrubs and flowers. At the upper end was
an ugly, ill-dressed picture, which, I was informed, represented
Liberty; a proof how the imagination can deify its own object of
veneration, for a less inviting gentlewoman it would be difficult to
conceive.
On the 7th of March I returned to New Orleans, _via_ Portersville; and,
on halting at the house midway the forest, was advised by my countryman
the landlord to dine, by all means, if I was hungry; for he had "an
illegant turkey, a wild one, and a Tennessee ham, with a lump of roast
beef, rare and tinder." I followed his counsel, and made a most
excellent meal on the wild turkey, a bird of which I should never tire.
I set it down as the foremost of all winged things yet appropriated to
the use of the kitchen.
I arrived at New Orleans, and again passed three weeks amidst attentions
that never wearied, and the most flattering professional success. I will
here, as I have before done, drop my Journal, and put my Impressions
together in a less desultory form.