The rain having confined us to the house this afternoon, we sat over
our wine after dinner longer than usual. Among the different topics
that were discussed, the most prominent was the state of the political
parties in this country. Mr. Slick, who paid great deference to the
opinions of Mr. Hopewell, was anxious to ascertain from him what
he thought upon the subject, in order to regulate his conduct and
conversation by it hereafter.
“Minister,” said he, “what do you think of the politics of the British?”
“I don’t think about them at all, Sam. I hear so much of such matters at
home, that I am heartily tired of them; our political world is divided
into two classes, the knaves and the dupes. Don’t let us talk of such
exciting, things.”
“But, Minister,” said Mr. Slick, “holdin’ the high and dignified station
I do, as Attache, they will be a-pumpin’ me for everlastinly, will the
great men here, and they think a plaguy sight more of our opinion than
you are aware on; we have tried all them things they are a jawin’ about
here, and they naterally want to know the results. Cooper says not one
Tory called on him when he was to England, but Walter Scott; and that
I take it, was more lest folks should think he was jealous of him, than
any thing else; they jist cut him as dead as a skunk; but among the
Whigs, he was quite an oracle on ballot, univarsal suffrage, and all
other democratic institutions.”
“Well, he was a ninny then, was Cooper, to go and blart it all out to
the world that way; for if no Tory visited him, I should like you to ask
him the next time you see him, how many gentlemen called upon him? Jist
ask him that, and it will stop him from writing such stuff any more.”
“But, Minister, jist tell us now, here you are, as a body might say in
England, now what are you?”
“I am a man, Sam; _Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto_.”
“Well, what’s all that when it’s fried?”
“Why, that when away from home, I am a citizen of the world. I belong to
no party, but take an interest in the whole human family.”
“Well, Minister, if you choose to sing dumb, you can, but I should like
to have you answer me one question now, and if you won’t, why you must
jist do t’other thing, that’s all. Are you a Consarvative?”
“No.”
“Are you a Whig?”
“No.”
“A Radical?”
“God forbid!”
“What in natur’ are you then?”
“A Tory.”
“A Tory! well, I thought that a Tory and a Consarvative, were as the
Indgians say, “all same one brudder.” Where is the difference?”
“You will soon find that out, Sam; go and talk to a Consarvative as
a Tory, and you will find he is a Whig: go and talk to him again as a
Whig, and you will find he is a Tory. They are, for all the world, like
a sturgeon. There is very good beef steaks in a sturgeon, and very good
fish too, and yet it tante either fish or flesh. I don’t like taking
a new name, it looks amazing like taking new principles, or, at all
events, like loosenin’ old ones, and I hante seen the creed of this new
sect yet--I don’t know what its tenets are, nor where to go and look for
‘em. It strikes me they don’t accord with the Tories, and yet arn’t in
tune with the Whigs, but are half a note lower than the one, and half
a note higher than t’other. Now, changes in the body politic are always
necessary more or less, in order to meet the changes of time, and the
changes in the condition of man. When they are necessary, make ‘em, and
ha’ done with ‘em. Make ‘em like men, not when you are forced to do so,
and nobody thanks you, but when you see they are wanted, and are proper;
but don’t alter your name.
“My wardens wanted me to do that; they came to me, and said ‘Minister,’
says they, ‘we don’t want _you_ to change, we don’t ask it; jist let
us call you a Unitarian, and you can remain Episcopalian still. We are
tired of that old fashioned name, it’s generally thought unsuited to
the times, and behind the enlightment of the age; it’s only fit for
benighted Europeans. Change the name, you needn’t change any thing else.
What is a name?’
“‘Every thing,’ says I, ‘every thing, my brethren; one name belongs to a
Christian, and the other don’t; that’s the difference. I’d die before
I surrendered my name; for in surrenderin’ that, I surrender my
principles.’”
“Exactly,” said Mr. Slick, “that’s what Brother Eldad used to say.
‘Sam,’ said he, ‘a man with an _alias_ is the worst character in the
world; for takin’ a new name, shows he is ashamed of his old one; and
havin’ an old one, shows his new one is a cheat.’”
“No,” said Mr. Hopewell, “I don’t like that word Consarvative. Them
folks may be good kind of people, and I guess they be, seein’ that the
Tories support ‘em, which is the best thing I see about them; but I
don’t like changin’ a name.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Mr. Slick, “p’raps their old name was so
infarnal dry rotted, they wanted to change it for a sound new one. You
recollect when that super-superior villain, Expected Thorne, brought
an action of defamation agin’ me, to Slickville, for takin’ away his
character, about stealing the watch to Nova Scotia; well, I jist pleaded
my own case, and I ups and sais, ‘Gentlemen of the Jury,’ sais I,
“Expected’s character, every soul knows, is about the wust in all
Slickville. If I have taken it away, I have done him a great sarvice,
for he has a smart chance of gettin’ a better one; and if he don’t find
a swap to his mind, why no character is better nor a bad one.’
“Well, the old judge and the whole court larfed right out like any
thin’; and the jury, without stirrin’ from the box, returned a vardict
for the defendant. P’raps now, that mought be the case with the Tories.”
“The difference,” said Mr. Hopewell, is jist this:--your friend, Mr.
Expected Thorne, had a name he had ought to have been ashamed of, and
the Tories one that the whole nation had very great reason to be
proud of. There is some little difference, you must admit. My English
politics, (mind you, I say English, for they hare no reference to
America,) are Tory, and I don’t want to go to Sir Robert Peel, or Lord
John Russell either.”
“As for Johnny Russell,” said Mr. Slick, “he is a clever little chap
that; he--”
“Don’t call him Johnny Russell,” said Mr. Hopewell, “or a little chap,
or such flippant names, I don’t like to hear you talk that way. It
neither becomes you as a Christian nor a gentleman. St. Luke and St.
Paul, when addressing people of rank, use the word ‘[Greek text]’
which, as nearly as possible, answers to the title of ‘your Excellency.’
Honour, we are told, should be given to those to whom honour is due;
and if we had no such authority on the subject, the omission of titles,
where they are usual and legal, is, to say the least of it, a vulgar
familiarity, ill becoming an Attache of our embassy. But as I was
saying, I do not require to go to either of those statesmen to be
instructed in my politics. I take mine where I take my religion, from
the Bible. ‘Fear God, honour the King, and meddle not with those that
are given to change.’”
“Oh, Minister,” said Mr. Slick, “you mis’t a figur at our glorious
Revolution, you had ought to have held on to the British; they would
have made a bishop of you, and shoved you into the House of Lords, black
apron, lawn sleeves, shovel hat and all, as sure as rates. ‘The right
reverend, the Lord Bishop of Slickville:’ wouldn’t it look well on
the back of a letter, eh? or your signature to one sent to me, signed
‘Joshua Slickville.’ It sounds better, that, than ‘Old Minister,’ don’t
it?”
“Oh, if you go for to talk that way, Sam, I am done; but I will shew you
that the Tories are the men to govern this great nation. A Tory I may
say ‘_noscitur a sociis_.’”
“What in natur is that, when it’s biled and the skin took off?” asked
Mr. Slick.
“Why is it possible you don’t know that? Have you forgotten that common
schoolboy phrase?”
“Guess I do know; but it don’t tally jist altogether nohow, as it were.
Known as a Socialist, isn’t it?”
“If, Sir,” said Mr. Hopewell, with much earnestness, “if instead of
ornamenting your conversation with cant terms, and miserable slang,
picked up from the lowest refuse of our population, both east and west,
you had cultivated your mind, and enriched it with quotations from
classical writers, you would have been more like an Attache, and less
like a peddling clockmaker than you are.”
“Minister,” said Mr. Slick, “I was only in jeest, but you are in
airnest. What you have said is too true for a joke, and I feel it. I was
only a sparrin’; but you took off the gloves, and felt my short ribs in
a way that has given me a stitch in the side. It tante fair to kick that
way afore you are spurred. You’ve hurt me considerable.”
“Sam, I am old, narvous, and irritable. I was wrong to speak unkindly
to you, very wrong indeed, and I am sorry for it; but don’t teaze me no
more, that’s a good lad; for I feel worse than you do about it. I beg
your pardon, I--”
“Well,” said Mr. Slick, “to get back to what we was a sayin’, for you do
talk like a book, that’s a fact; ‘_noscitur a sociis_,’ says you.”
“Ay, ‘Birds of a feather flock together,’ as the old maxim goes. Now,
Sam, who supported the Whigs?”
“Why, let me see; a few of the lords, a few of the gentry, the
repealers, the manufacturin’ folks, the independents, the baptists, the
dissentin’ Scotch, the socialists, the radicals, the discontented, and
most of the lower orders, and so on.”
“Well, who supported the Tories?”
“Why, the majority of the lords, the great body of landed gentry, the
univarsities, the whole of the Church of England, the whole of the
methodists, amost the principal part of the kirk, the great marchants,
capitalists, bankers, lawyers, army and navy officers, and soon.”
“Now don’t take your politics from me, Sam, for I am no politician; but
as an American citizen, judge for yourself, which of those two parties
is most likely to be right, or which would you like to belong to.”
“Well, I must say,” replied he, “I _do_ think that the larnin’, piety,
property, and respectability, is on the Tory side; and where all them
things is united, right most commonly is found a-joggin’ along in
company.”
“Well now, Sam, you know we are a calculatin’ people, a commercial
people, a practical people. Europe laughs at us for it. Perhaps if
they attended better to their own financial affairs, they would be in a
better situation to laugh. But still we must look to facts and results.
How did the Tories, when they went out of office, leave the kingdom?--At
peace?”
“Yes, with all the world.”
“How did the Whigs leave it?”
“With three wars on hand, and one in the vat a-brewin’ with America.
Every great interest injured, some ruined, and all alarmed at the
impendin’ danger--of national bankruptcy.”
“Well, now for dollars and cents. How did the Tories leave the
treasury?”
“With a surplus revenue of millions.”
“How did the Whigs?”
“With a deficiency that made the nation scratch their head, and stare
agin.”
“I could go through the details with you, as far as my imperfect
information extends, or more imperfect memory would let me; but it
is all the same, and always will be, here, in France, with us, in the
colonies, and everywhere else. Whenever property, talent, and virtue are
all on one side, and only ignorant numbers, with a mere sprinkling of
property and talent to agitate ‘em and make use of ‘em, or misinformed
or mistaken virtue to sanction ‘em on the other side, no honest man can
take long to deliberate which side he will choose.
“As to those conservatives, I don’t know what to say, Sam; I should like
to put you right if I could. But I’ll tell you what puzzles me. I ask
myself what is a Tory? I find he is a man who goes the whole figur’ for
the support of the monarchy, in its three orders, of king, lords, and
commons, as by law established; that he is for the connexion of Church
and State and so on; and that as the wealthiest man in England, he
offers to prove his sincerity, by paying the greatest part of the taxes
to uphold these things. Well, then I ask what is Consarvitism? I am told
that it means, what it imports, a conservation of things as they are.
Where, then, is the difference? _If there is no difference, it is a mere
juggle to change the name: if there is a difference, the word is worse
than a juggle, for it don’t import any_.”
“Tell you what,” said Mr. Slick, “I heerd an old critter to Halifax once
describe ‘em beautiful. He said he could tell a man’s politicks by his
shirt. ‘A Tory, Sir,’ said he, for he was a pompious old boy was old
Blue-Nose; ‘a Tory, Sir,’ said he, ‘is a gentleman every inch of him,
stock, lock, and barrel; and he puts a clean frill shirt on every day.
A Whig, Sir,’ says he, ‘is a gentleman every other inch of him, and
he puts an onfrilled one on every other day. A Radical, Sir, ain’t no
gentleman at all, and he only puts one on of a Sunday. But a Chartist,
Sir, is a loafer; he never puts one on till the old one won’t hold
together no longer, and drops off in, pieces.’”
“Pooh!” said Mr. Hopewell, “now don’t talk nonsense; but as I was
a-goin’ to say, I am a plain man, and a straightforward man, Sam; what I
say, I mean; and what I mean, I say. Private and public life are subject
to the same rules; and truth and manliness are two qualities that
will carry you through this world much better than policy, or tact,
or expediency, or any other word that ever was devised to conceal, or
mystify a deviation from the straight line. They have a sartificate of
character, these consarvitives, in having the support of the Tories; but
that don’t quite satisfy me. It may, perhaps, mean no more than this,
arter all--they are the best sarvants we have; but not as good as we
want. However, I shall know more about it soon; and when I do, I will
give you my opinion candidly. One thing, however, is certain, a change
in the institutions of a country I could accede to, approve, and
support, if necessary and good; but I never can approve of either an
individual or a party--‘_changing a name_.’”