"Every man's proper mansion-house and home, being the
Theater of his hospitality, the seate of selfe-fruition, the
comfortablest part of his own life, the noblest of his
sonne's inheritance, a kind of private princedome, nay, to
the possessors thereof, an epitome of the whole world, may
well deserve, by these attributes, according to the degree
of the master, to be decently and delightfully
adorned."--SIR HENRY WOTTON.
In the year of grace 1722, Captain John Bonner, _Ætatis suæ_ 60, took it
upon himself to publish a plan of "The _Town_ of BOSTON in New-England.
_Engraven_ and _printed_ by Fra: Dewing and Sold by _Capt. Bonner and
Will'm. Price_, against y'e Town House." From the explanation given
on the margin, it appears that the town then contained "Streets 42,
Lanes 36, Alleys 22, Houses near 3000, 1000 Brick rest Timber, near
12,000 people." The area of the Common shows the Powder-House, the
Watch-House, and the Great Elm, venerable even then in its solitary
grandeur,--the Rope-Walks line the distant road to Cambridge Ferry, and
far to the west of houses and settlements rises the conical peak of
Beacon Hill,--a lonely pasture for the cattle of the thrifty and growing
settlement.
Fifteen years later, a great improvement began to be visible in this
hitherto neglected suburb. The whole southerly slope of the hill had
been purchased in 1735 by a citizen of renown, and soon a fair stone
mansion began to show its elegant proportions on the most eligible spot
near its centre. By this time, as we have it, on the authority of no
less reputable a chronicler than Mr. John Oldmixon, "the Conversation of
the Town of Boston is as polite as in most of the Cities and Towns of
England; many of their merchants having traded into Europe, and those
that stayed at home having the Advantage of Society with travellers"
(including, of course, Mr. Oldmixon himself). "So that a gentleman from
London would almost think himself at home at Boston," (this is in Mr.
Anthony Trollope's own vein,) "when he observes the numbers of people,
their houses, their furniture, their tables, their dress and
conversation, which perhaps is as splendid and showy as that of the most
considerable tradesman in London." _Primus inter pares_, however, stood
the builder of the house on Beacon Hill, and there seems to be little
doubt that Mr. Hancock's doings on his fine estate created a great stir
of admiration, and that the new stone house was thought to be a very
grand and famous affair in the infant metropolis of New England, in the
year 1737.
The precise period which brought Mr. Hancock to undertake the building
of the house in Beacon Street was one in which it might not have been
altogether uninteresting to have lived. The affairs of the mother
country had been carried on for nearly twenty years of comparative
peace, under the dexterous guidance of Sir Robert Walpole,--that
cleverest, if not most scrupulous, minister of the British crown,--while
my Lord Bolingbroke--permitted to return from France, but living under a
qualified attainder, and closely watched by the keen-sighted
minister--was occupying himself in writing his bitter and uncompromising
pamphlets against the government of the House of Hanover. The minister's
son Horace, an elegant, indolent youth, fresh from Cambridge, was
travelling on the Continent in company with a shy and sensitive man of
letters, not much known at the time,--by the name of Gray. This
gentleman gained no small credit, however, some ten or twelve years
afterwards, by the publication of "An Elegy written in a Country
Churchyard,"--a piece which, notwithstanding the remote date of its
appearance, it is possible that some of our readers may have chanced to
come across in the course of their literary researches. Giddiness, loss
of memory, and other alarming symptoms of mental disorder had begun to
attack the great intellect of Dr. Swift, and forced him to lay aside the
pen which for nearly half a century had been alternately the scourge and
the support of the perplexed cabinets of the time. His friend Mr. Pope,
however, was living quite snug and comfortable, on the profits of his
translations, at his pretty villa at Twickenham, and adding to his fame
and means by the publication of his "Correspondence" and his "Universal
Prayer." The learned Rector of Broughton, Dr. Warburton, encouraged by
the advice of friends, had just brought out his first volume of "The
Divine Legation of Moses"; the Bishop of Bristol had carried his great
"Analogy of Religion" through the press the year before; Dr. Watts was
getting old and infirm, but still engaged in his thirty years' visit to
his friend Sir Thomas Abney, Knight and Alderman, of Abney Park, Stoke
Newington. That remarkable young Scotchman, David Hume, was paying his
respects to the sensational philosophy of Locke in a series of essays
which "spread consternation through every region of existing
speculation"; Adam Smith was a promising pupil under Hutcheson,--the
father of Scotch metaphysics,--at the University of Glasgow. General
Fielding's son Henry--but just married--was spending his charming young
wife's portion of fifteen hundred pounds in the careless hospitality of
his Derbyshire house-keeping,--three years' experience of which,
however, reduced him to the necessity of undertaking his first novel for
the booksellers, in the story of "Joseph Andrews." Captain Cook, at the
age of thirteen, was a restless apprentice to a haberdasher near Whitby.
And although "the age of steam" had certainly not then arrived, it must
yet be allowed--in the words of the Highland vagrant to Cameron of
Lochiel, not long after--that already
"Coming events cast their shadows before,"--
since we find that there lay in his nursery, in the family of Town
Councillor Watt, the Bailie of Greenock, in the spring of the year 1736,
a quiet, delicate, little Scotch baby, complacently sucking the tiny
fist destined in after years to grasp and imprison that fearful vapory
demon whose struggle for escape from his life-long captivity now
furnishes the motive-power for the most mighty undertakings of man
throughout the civilized world. It would surely have been something, we
think,--the opportunity to have seen all these, from Bolingbroke in his
library to James Watt in his cradle.
Turning to affairs somewhat nearer home, perhaps a slight glance at
"y'e conversation and way of living" of the good people of Boston,
during the years that Mr. Hancock was carrying on his building and
getting himself gradually settled in its comforts, may help us to
conceive a better idea of the form and pressure of the age. Well,--Mr.
Peter Faneuil was just then laboring to persuade the town that it might
not be the worst thing they could do to accept the gift of a handsome
new Town-Hall which he was very desirous to build for them,--an opinion
so furiously combated and opposed by the conservatives and practical men
of that day, that Mr. Faneuil succeeded in carrying his revolutionary
measure, at last, in the open town-meeting, by a majority of only seven
votes (a much larger majority, however, it is but fair to observe, than
that which adopted a decent City-Hall for the same municipality only
last year). Whitefield was preaching on the Common, in front of Mr.
Hancock's premises, to audiences of twenty thousand people, "as some
compute," "poor deluded souls," says the unemotional Dr. Douglass,
writing at the period, "whose time is their only Estate; called off to
these exhortations, to the private detriment of their families, and
great Damage to the Public: _thus perhaps every such exhortation of his
was about £1000 damage to Boston_." Governor Belcher, who came home from
England with the same instructions as Governor which he was sent out to
oppose as envoy, had been superseded in his high office by "William
Shirley, Esquire,--esteemed for his gentlemanly deportment." Watchmen
were required "_in a moderate tone_ to cry the time o' night, and give
an Account of the Weather as they walk't their rounds after twelve
o'clock." The men that had been raised in town for the ill-starred
expedition to Carthagena were being drilled on the Common,--and Hancock,
writing to a friend, tells him, "We have the pleasure of Seeing 'em
Disciplin'd every Day from 5 in morning to 8, & from 5 afternoon 'till
night, before our house,--many Gentle'n & others Daily fill y'e
Common,--& wee have not y'e Less Company for it, but a quicker draft
for Wine & Cider." Annually, on the Fifth of November, Guy Fawkes, the
Pope, the Devil, and the Pretender were burned on the Common, amidst
much noise and rioting, often degenerating into the tapping of claret
and solid cracking of crowns between the North End and South End
champions,--who made this always their field-day, _par excellence_,--to
the great worriment of the Town Constables, and the infinite wrath and
disgust of the Select Men. And, finally, we remark, "the goodness of the
pavement in Boston might compare with most in London, for to gallop a
Horse on it is three Shillings and fourpence Forfeit!"
Such were the curious and simple, but, withal, rather cozy and jolly old
years in which the Hancock House was planned and built and first
occupied. Always a really fine residence, it is now the sole relic of
the family mansions of the _old_ Town of Boston, as in many respects it
has long been the most noted and interesting of them all. One hundred
and twenty-seven years have passed away since its erection, and old
Captain Bonner's map now requires a pretty close study to enable our
modern eyes to recognize any clue to its present locality. It stands, in
fact, a solitary monumental pillar in the stream of time,--a link to
connect the present with the eventful past; and the prospect of its
expected removal--though not, we trust, of its demolition--may render
the present a fitting opportunity to call up some few of the quaint old
reminiscences with which it is connected.
We have now before us, as we write, the original Contract or Indenture
for the freestone work of the venerable structure. It is a document
certainly not without a curious interest to those of us who have passed
and repassed so often in our daily walks the gray old relic of New
England's antiquity, to the very inception of which this faded paper
reverts. It is an agreement made between Mr. Thomas Hancock and one
"Thomas Johnson of Middleton in the County of Hartford and Colony of
Connecticut In New-England, Stone-Cutter." By this instrument the
Connecticut brown-stone man of that day binds himself to "Supply and
Furnish the said Thomas Hancock with as much Connecticut Stone as Shall
be Sufficient to Beatify and build Four Corners, One Large Front Door,
Nine Front Windows and a Facie for the Front and back Part Over the
Lower Story Windows of a certain Stone House which the Said Thomas
Hancock is about to Erect on a Certain Piece of Land Situate near Beacon
Hill in Boston aforesaid; as also So much of said Connecticut Stone as
shall be Sufficient to make a water Table round the Said House, which
Said Stone the Said Johnson Covenants and Agrees shall be well Cut,
fitted and polished, workmanlike and According to the Rules of Art every
way Agreeable, & to the Liking and Satisfaction of Mr. Hancock." The
stone is to be delivered to Mr. Hancock's order at Boston, all "In Good
Order and Condition, not Touched with the Salt Water, and at the proper
Cost, Charge and Risque of the s'd Johnson." The consideration paid to
Johnson is fixed at "the Sum of three hundred Pounds _in Goods_ as the
Said Stone Cutter's work is Carryed on." The latter stipulation as to
the payment would be curious enough at the present day, though it
appears to have been not uncommon at the time this contract was
executed. The perusal of Mr. Thomas Hancock's letter-book, however, now
also lying before us, will not leave one in any need of this additional
proof of the old Boston merchant's keen eye always to a business profit.
The Indenture is written in a clear, round, mercantile hand,--evidently
Mr. Hancock's own, but his _best_, by comparison with the
letter-book,--the leading words of the principal paragraphs being
garnished with masterly flourishes, and the top of the paper "indented"
by cutting with a knife so as to fit or "tally," after the fashion of
those days, with the corresponding copy delivered to Johnson. It has
been indorsed and filed away with evident care, and is consequently now
in a state of absolute and perfect preservation. With the exception,
however, of that little matter of the _store-pay_, and of the wording of
the date of its execution, which is given as the "Tenth Year of the
Reign of our Sovereign Lord George the Second, by the Grace of God of
Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c.,"
the document differs but little in its phraseology--so conservative is
the letter of the law of real estate--from those in use for precisely
such contracts in the year 1863.
"Thomas Hancock, of Boston in the County of Suffolk and Province of the
Massachusetts Bay in New England, Merchant," as he is named and
described in the paper before us, was the founder of the fortunes of the
family, and a man of the most considerable note and importance in his
day. He was the son of the Reverend Mr. John Hancock, of Lexington, in
which town he was born on the 13th of July, 1703. He was sent to Boston
early in life to learn the business of a stationer,--with which calling
those of bookseller and bookbinder were then combined,--and served his
time accordingly with the leading provincial bibliopole of the day, "the
enterprising Bookseller Henchman," who died in 1761. Quick, active,
thrifty, young Hancock soon made his way in the world,--his famous
bookstore in Ann Street was known as the "Stationers' Arms" as early as
1729; the industrious apprentice in due course married his master's fair
daughter Lydia; and so our Thomas Hancock went on his way to credit and
fortune, and last and best of all to house-building after his own mind,
"the comfortablest part of his own life," with strides quite as easy and
certain as did his contemporary, the Worshipful Francis Goodchild, Esq.,
of London,--whose career was, at that very time, so impressing itself
upon the notice of that eminent hand, Mr. William Hogarth, of Leicester
Fields in the Parish of St. Martin's, as to lead him to depict its
events in the remarkable series of prints, "Industry and Idleness," in
which they are now handed down for the admiration of posterity. And what
the great painter tells us of his hero is equally true of ours,--that,
"by taking good courses, and pursuing those points for which he was put
apprentice, he became a valuable man, and an ornament to his country."
The pursuits connected with book-making were not, however, without their
trials and troubles, even at that early day. From some of Hancock's
letters for the year 1736, we find that one Cox was a sad thorn in his
side, a grievous lion in his daily path. His chief correspondent among
the booksellers in London at this period was Mr. Thomas Longman,--the
founder of the renowned house of Longmans of our own time,--and to him
Hancock often pours out his trials and grievances in the quaint and
pointed style of the business letters of "The Spectator's" own day.
Under date of April 10, 1736, for instance, he writes,--"I cannot Think
of Doing much more in the Book way at present, unless Cox Recalls his
Agent, which I am Certain He never will if you give up this point," (_i.
e._ of making larger consignments to Hancock on his own account,) "as I
can Improve my Money In other Goods from Great Brittan to so much better
Advantage." Yet, he continues, "I am unwilling Quite to Quit The Book
branch of Trade, and you Can't but be Senceable that it was my Regard to
you has Occasioned it's being forced from me in this way."
About the month of May, 1738, Cox appears to have become wellnigh
intolerable. On the 24th of that month our bookseller writes to
Longman,--"Cox has Sent some more Books here this Spring, & I Cannot
Learn that he's Called his man home Yet. I am a Great Sufferer by him,
as well as you, having above £250 Sterling in Books by me, before what
Came from you now." Sometimes, however, Cox makes a slight mistake, and
then our bookseller again takes heart of courage. Thus, under date of
October 29, 1739, he again writes to Longman,--"Cox's man Caine in
Hall's ship about a month Agoe, brought Eight Trunks and a Box or two of
Books, has opened his Shop, but makes no Great Figure & is but little
taken Notice off, _which is a a Good Symtom of a bad Sortment_,--his
Return here was Surprising to me; truly I did not Expect it. At present
I don't know how to Govern myself as to the Book Trade, _but am willing
to do the Needful to Discountenance him_, and will write you again in
little Time." But, alas! by the 10th of December following, Cox had
rallied bravely, and, accordingly, Hancock again writes in despair,--"I
know not how to Conduct my Affairs as to the Book Trade. Cox's Shop is
opened, & he has a pretty Good Collection of Books. He brought with him
8 Trunks, & 4 Came in y'e next Ship. His Coming is A Great Damage to
me, having many Books by me unsold for Years past, & most all which I
had of you this Year. I am Ready Sometimes to Give up that part of my
Business, & I think I should have done it ere now, were I not in hopes
of Serving you in that Branch of Trade. _Could you propose any Scheem to
discountenance our Common Enemy I will Gladly Joyn you_. I fear he will
have more Goods in the Next Ship. I have Nothing to Add at this time
only that I am with Great Esteem Your Assur'd Fr'd &c. T. H."
We may remark, that, if Longman were not by this time brought to be
fully _Senceable_ of the sacrifices which had been made here for his
interest, it was assuredly through no fault of his Boston customer. In a
letter dated April 30, 1736, Hancock had felt emboldened to inform
him,--
"I have Occasion for Tillotson's Works, Rapine's History of
England, Chamber's Dictionary & Burkitt on N. Testament for
my own use, and as the Burthen of y'e two Last years Sale
of Books & Returns for them has mostly Laine on my Self, &
as I have rec'd no Commitions, Some Debts yet outstanding,
and many books by me now on Sold, which shall be glad to
Sell for what I allowed you & now have paid for,--I say if
you'l please make a Present to me of y'e above named, or
any part of 'em They will be very Acceptable to me. My Last
to you was of y'e 10th & 14th Instent, which hope you have
Rec'd ere This & I am
"Your obliged Humb. Serv.
"T. H."
Once only, in the whole correspondence, are we able to find that this
interloping caitiff of Cox's was fairly circumvented. With what an
inward glow of satisfaction must our Boston bookseller have found
himself sufficiently master of the situation to be able to write to
Longman (under date of May 10th, 1739),--
"Pr. this Conveyance Messr's. Joseph Paine & Son of London
have Orders from this place to buy £50. Sterling worth of
Books; I have Engaged Mr. Cushing, who writes to Paine to
Order him to buy them of you, & that you would Use them
well, which I Desire you to Doe; it will be ready money & I
was Loth you should miss of it, (this is the Case,--_Cox's
man_ had Engaged to Send for them & let the Gentleman have
'em at the Sterling Cost,) but the Gentleman being my
friend, I interposed, & So Strongly Sollicited on your
behalf that I fix't it right at last & you may Certainly
depend on the Comition, tho' it may be needful you See Mr.
Paine as Soon as this Comes to hand. Pray procure me such a
Bible as you think may suit me & Send when Oppertunity
offers.
"I am S'r. &c. &c. T. H."
Longman's next trunk brings a copy of Chambers's Dictionary, then just
published, as a present to Mr. Hancock, and we might almost fancy it an
acknowledgment of this letter about the _Comition_ in more ways than
one. We ought in justice to observe, however, that in those days, in the
absence of any generally recognized and accepted standard of authority,
gentlemen of the best condition in life appear to have felt at liberty
to spell pretty much as they pleased, in New England. So far, at least,
as Mr. Hancock's credit for orthography is concerned, it must be
allowed, from his repeatedly spelling the same word in two or three
different ways on the same page, that he probably gave the matter very
little thought at any time,--taking as small pains as did Mr. Pepys, and
really caring as little as Sir Thomas Browne for "the [Greek:
batrachomyomachia] and hot skirmish betwixt S and T in Lucian, or how
grammarians hack and slash for the genitive case of Jupiter."[1] That
such spelling would hardly be admissible on India Wharf to-day, we
freely admit,--nay, would even rush, were it necessary, to
maintain,--but we must still claim for our favorite, that a century and
a quarter agone he seems to have spelt about as well, on the whole, as
the generality of his neighbors.
There is one most extraordinary _escapade_ of his, however, in this line
of performance, which we do not know how we _can_ undertake wholly to
defend. To Mr. John Rowe, a little doubtful about New-England Bills of
Exchange, he writes,--"As to the £100 Draft of Mr. Faneuil's above
mentioned, I doubt not but any merchant in London will take that
Gentleman's Bill, when accepted, as Soon as a Bank Note,--he being the
_Topinest_ merchant in this Country, & I Gave 20 per Cent Extra'y for
it." If there be really a proper superlative of the adjective _topping_,
our letter-writer, it must be confessed, has made a wide miss here of
the mark he aimed at. "Priscian's a little scratch'd here,"--rather too
much, indeed, even for 1739.
That the reader may not suspect Mr. Hancock of monopolizing all the
cacography of his time, we give _verbatim_ the following letter from
Christopher Kilby,[2] a letter among many of the same sort found with
Mr. Hancock's papers.
"_London, 15 February 1727._
"HONEST FR'D. This not only advises you of my arrival but
acknowledges the rec't of your favour. By your desire I
waited upon Mr. Cox, & have told him and every body else,
where it was necessary, as much as you desired, & account it
part of my Felicity that I have so worthy a friend as Mr.
Hancock. When you arrive here you'l find things vastly
beyond your imagination,--I shall give you no other
Character of England than this, that it is beyond
expression, greater and finer than any thing I could ever
form an Idea of. I wish you may arrive before I leave it,
that you may with me, gaze and Wonder at a place that wee
can neither of us give a good Discripsion of. Pray present
my Services to Mr. Wood, Mr. Cunnington, and if Mr.
Leverett be not so engaged at the Annual meeting in Choosing
Hogg Constables &c. that to mention it to him might be an
interruption in so important affairs, my Service to him
also,--but rather than he shou'd loose any part of his
Pleasure while you take up his Time in doing it, I begg
you'l wait till a more leisure opportunity, when you may
assure him that I am at his Service in anything but being
Bread Weigher, Hogg Constable or any of those honourable
posts of pleasure & profit. I have nothing more to add but
Service to all friends, & assurance of my being
"Your sincere friend & very
"humble Servant,
"CHRIS'R. KILBY."
There is a letter in another book--Mr. Hancock's letter-book from 1740
to 1744--in which poetical justice to the arch-disturber of his peace is
feelingly recorded. Cox[3] comes to grief at last,--surely, though late.
Observe with what placid resignation Hancock regards his rival's mishap.
The letter is to Longman, and bears date April 21st, 1742.
"----Thomas Cox has sent Orders to a Gentle'n here to
Receive from his man all his Effects,--the Shop is
Accordingly Shutt up, & I am told his man is absconded & has
Carried of all the money, I hear to the value of £500
Sterling; of Consequence a very bad Acco'tt must be
rendered to his Master & no doubt 't will put a final Stop
to his unjust proceedings & Trade to New-Eng'd. _I pray
God it may have this long wished for Effect_, the Good
fruits of which, I hope you & we shall soon partake of."
The correspondence with Longman is kept up with great activity through
the whole of the first third of the volume before us. Gradually,
however, Hancock had been growing into a larger way of business, and his
Bills of Exchange for £500 and £600, drawn generally by Mr. Peter
Faneuil,[4] begin to be of more frequent occurrence,--bills which he
writes his London correspondents "are Certainly very Good, & will meet
with Due Honour." We read here and there of ventures to _Medara_ and to
_Surranam_, and of certain consignments of "Geese and Hogges to y'e
New Found Land." "Be so Good," he says, in a letter of May 17th, 1740,
to a friend then staying in London, "as to Interist me in y'e half of
8 or 10 Ticketts when any Lottery's going on, you think may doe, and am
oblidged to you for mentioning your Kind intention herein. Please God
y'e Young Eagle, Philip Dumerisque Com'r comes well home, and I
believe I shall make no bad voyage." It is easy to see that the snug
little business of the "Stationers' Arms" is soon to be given up, for
what Drake[5] describes as "the more extensive field of mercantile
enterprise."[6] By this time, too, the signs of the French War began to
loom alarmingly upon the horizon of the little colony, and Hancock rose
with the occasion to the character of a man of large and grave affairs.
Cox's man, and his Trunks and Sortments of Books, appear, after this, to
have but little of his attention. There was need of raising troops, and
of fitting out vessels; and when the famous expedition against Louisburg
was determined on, Hancock had a large share in the matter of providing
its munitions and equipment. His correspondence with Sir William
Pepperell in these great affairs still lies preserved in good order in
boxes in the attic of the old mansion.
Meanwhile, as he rose in the world, he had been laying out his grounds,
and building and furnishing his house; his first letter from which is
addressed to his "Dear Friend," Christopher Kilby, then in London, and
is dated, rather grandly, "At my house in Beacon Street, Boston y'e
22'd Mar. 1739-40." Let us look back, then, a little over the yellow,
time-stained record of the letter-book before us, and see what were the
experiences of a gentleman, in building and planting in Beacon Street,
so long before our grandfathers were born.
Under date of the 5th of July, 1736, Hancock writes to his friend and
constant correspondent in London, "Mr. Francis Wilks Esq'r,"[7]
inclosing a letter to one James Glin at Stepney, with orders for some
trees, concerning which he tells Wilks, "I am advised to have 'em
bought,--but if you Can find any man Will Serve us Better I Leave it to
your Pleasure." He must have thought it a great pity, from the sequel of
this affair, that Mr. Wilks's Pleasure did not happen to lie in another
direction. "I am Recommended by Mr. Tho's. Hubbard of This Town," runs
the letter inclosed to Glin, "to you for A number of Fruit Trees,--be
pleased to waite on Mr. Wilks for the Inv'o of them & Let me have
y'e best Fruit, & pack't in y'e best manner, & All numbered, with
an Acco't of y'e Same. I pray you be very Carefull That y'e Trees
be Took up in y'e Right Season, and if these Answer my Expectations I
shall want more, & 't will Ly in my way to Recommend Some Friends to
you. I Intreat the Fruit may be the best of their Kind, the Trees
handsome Stock, well Pack't, All N'o'd & Tally'd, & particular Inv'o
of 'em. I am S'r. &c. &c. T. H."
This careful order was evidently duly executed by the nurseryman, and at
first all appears to have gone smoothly enough, since, on the 20th of
December following, (1736,) we find another letter to Glin, as
follows:--
"SIR,--My Trees and Seeds pr. Cap't. Bennett Came Safe to
hand and I Like them very well. I Return you my hearty
Thanks for the Plumb Tree & Tulip Roots you were pleased to
make a Present off, which are very Acceptable to me. I have
Sent my friend Mr. Wilks a mem'o to procure for me 2 or 3
Doz. Yew Trees Some Hollys & Jessamin Vines & if you have
any Particular Curious Things not of a high price will
Beautifie a flower Garden, Send a Sample with the price or a
Catalogue of 'em; pray Send me a Catalogue also of what
Fruit you have that are Dwarf Trees and Espaliers. I shall
want Some next Fall for a Garden I am Going to lay out next
Spring. My Gardens all Lye on the South Side of a hill, with
the most Beautifull Assent to the Top & it's Allowed on all
hands the Kingdom of England don't afford So Fine a Prospect
as I have both of Land and water. Neither do I intend to
Spare any Cost or Pains in making my Gardens Beautifull or
Profitable. If you have any Knowlidge of S'r John James he
has been on the Spott & is perfectly acquainted with its
Situation & I believe has as high an Opinion of it as myself
& will give it as Great a Carrictor. Let me know also what
you'l Take for 100 Small Yew Trees in the Rough, which I'd
Frame up here to my own Fancy. If I can Do you any Service
here I shall be Glad & be Assured I'll not forgett your
Favour,--which being y'e needful Concludes,
"S'r.
"Your most Ob'edt. Servant,
"THO'S. HANCOCK."
But neither Esquire Hancock nor Mr. Glin at Stepney could control the
force of Nature, or persuade the delicate fruit-trees of Old England to
blossom and flourish here, even on the south side of Beacon Hill. The
maxim, "_L'homme propose, et le bon Dieu dispose_," was found to be as
inevitable in 1736 as it is in our later day and generation. It is true
that no ancestral Downing was then at hand, with wise counsels of
arboriculture, nor had any accidental progenitor of Sir Henry Stuart of
Allanton as yet taught the Edinboro' public of the Pretender's time the
grand secrets of transplanting and induration. Esquire Hancock,
therefore, was left to work out by himself his own woful, but natural
disappointment. On the 24th of June, 1737, he writes to the unfortunate
nurseryman in a strain of severe, and, as he doubtless thought, of most
righteous indignation.
"SIR,--I Rec'd. your Letter & your Baskett of flowers per.
Capt. Morris, & have Desired Francis Wilks Esq'r to pay
you £26 for them _Though they are Every one Dead_. The Trees
I Rec'd Last Year are above half Dead too,--the Hollys all
Dead but one, & worse than all is, the Garden Seeds and
Flower Seeds which you Sold Mr. Wilks for me Charged at £6.
8's. 2'd. Sterling were not worth one farthing. Not one
of all the Seeds Came up Except the Asparrow Grass, So that
my Garden is Lost to me for this Year. I Tryed the Seeds
both in Town and Country & all proved alike bad. I Spared
Mr. Hubbard part of them _and they All Serv'd him the
Same_." (Rather an unlucky blow this for poor Glin, as Mr.
Hubbard had been his first sponsor and perhaps his only
friend in New England.) "I think Sir, you have not done well
by me in this thing, for me to send a 1000 Leagues and Lay
out my money & be so used & Disapointed is very hard to
Bare, & so I doubt not but you will Consider the matter &
Send me over Some more of the Same Sort of Seeds that are
Good & Charge me nothing for them,--if you don't I shall
think you have imposed upon me very much, & 't will
Discourage me from ever Sending again for Trees or Seeds
from you. I Conclude,
"Your Humble Serv't.
"T. H.
"P. S. _The Tulip Roots you were pleased to make a present
off to me are all Dead as well._"
The last paragraph is truly delicious,--a real Parthian arrow, of the
keenest, most penetrating kind. The ill-used gentleman is determined
that poor Glin shall find no crumb of credit left,--not in the matter of
the purchased wares alone, but even for the very presents that he had
had the effrontery to send him.
After learning the opinion entertained by Mr. Hancock of his estate, its
situation, prospect, and capacities, and understanding his intentions in
regard to its improvement, as expressed in his first letter to Glin,--it
may naturally be expected that we shall come upon some further allusions
to the works he had thus taken in hand, in the antiquated volume before
us. In this respect, as we turn over its remaining pages, we shall find
that we are not to be disappointed. His letters on the subject,
addressed to persons on the other side of the water, and particularly to
the trusty Wilks, are, in fact, for the space of the next three or four
years, most refreshingly abundant. Some of these are so minute,
characteristic, and interesting, that we shall need no apology for
transcribing them, most literally, here. On June 24th, 1737, he had
written to Wilks,--
"This waites on you per M'r Francis Pelthro who has Taken
this Voyage to Lond'o. in order to be Cutt for y'e Stone
by D'r. Cheselden;[8] he Is my Friend & a Very honest
Gentleman. In case he needs your advise in any of his
affairs & _Calls on you for it_, I beg y'e fav'r of you
to do him what Service falls in your way, which Shall Take
as done to my Self, and as he's a Stranger, Should he have
occasion for Ten Guineas please to Let him have it & Charge
to my Acco't. I suppose he's sofficeint with him--Except
Some Extrordinary accidant happen.
"I beg your particular Care about my Glass, that it be the
best, and Every Square Cutt Exactly to the Size, & not to
worp or wind in the Least, & Pack't up So that it may take
no Damage on the passage,--it's for my Own Use & would have
it Extrordinary. I am S'r
"Your most oblid'gd obed. Sev't.
"T. H."
By one of those stupid accidents,--not, as we are sorry to record,
altogether unknown to the business of house-building in our own
day,--the memorandum previously sent for the glass turned out to be
entirely incorrect. In less than a fortnight after, Mr. Hancock
accordingly hastens to countermand his order, as follows:--
"_Boston, N.E. July 5'th. 1737._