Recollections of Samuel Breck E-Book

Samuel Breck

• Herausgeber: Jazzybee Verlag
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 379

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Mr. Breck was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1771, five years before the Colonies had declared their independence, and died in Philadelphia in 1862, while the war of the rebellion was in active progress. His father was a wealthy merchant, and he enjoyed a good position throughout life, associating with the most distinguished of his countrymen, and with many of the most important visitors from abroad. His notes of travel in Europe and of life at home abound in curious details, not always accurate, perhaps, but very interesting nevertheless. Perhaps the most valuable part of the book, however, is the insight it gives into social life in New England immediately after the peace. Puritanical restrictions began to sit heavily on the shoulders of the young Americans, nor is it much to be wondered at when we read low Mr. Breck narrowly escaped arrest for the high crime of travelling to see his father, after a long separation, on the Sabbath day. Theatrical entertainments were forbidden Boston as late as 1791, so that the Hub at that date could scarcely have been a very pleasant home to a youth fresh from London and Paris. At that time Philadelphia was the centre of polite society and the residence of President Washington, and thither Mr. Breck and his family removed.

Leseprobe

Recollections of Samuel Breck

With passages from his notebooks (1771 – 1862)

SAMUEL BRECK

Recollections of Samuel Breck, Samuel Breck

Jazzybee Verlag Jürgen Beck

86450 Altenmünster, Loschberg 9

Deutschland

Printed by Bookwire, Voltastraße 1, 60486 Frankfurt/M.

ISBN: 9783849663971

www.jazzybee-verlag.de

[email protected]

CONTENTS:

PREFACE.1

CHAPTER I.4

CHAPTER II.25

CHAPTER III.45

CHAPTER IV.72

CHAPTER V.94

PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS.112

CHAPTER I. Public Men and Events. 112

CHAPTER II. A Journey To Washington.141

CHAPTER III. Life at Sweetbrier.150

CHAPTER IV. Coal-Fires in Pennsylvania.159

PREFACE.

MR. SAMUEL BRECK, whose recollections occupy this volume, died in Philadelphia, August 31, 1862, at the age of ninety-one years and forty-six days. His memory, which was excellent to the last, could thus span the entire period embraced in the history of our country from the beginning of the war for Independence to that of the war for Union. The incidents in his life were varied; his early associations were with the best society in Boston, his native town; his education in France gave him not only a familiarity with foreign life, but an intimate acquaintance with the French exiles and travellers to this country; his public life took him to Harrisburg and Washington, and made him a valued member not only of the government of Philadelphia, but of various charitable, literary and financial institutions; while his social position enabled him to associate with the most educated and refined classes in the city. His own family connection with the Lloyds, the Aspinwalls of New York, the Andrews and others, gave him most agreeable relations, and the reader of this volume will find among the names of families in Boston and Philadelphia with whom Mr. Breck associated those best known for private worth and public spirit.

His life is not recorded in this volume, except as it is implied in the narrative and reflections which his pen set down. He was accustomed from the year 1800 onward to keep a diary of more or less fulness, in which he entered not only his personal experience, but comments on current events, on the books he read, on the persons he met, together with occasional reminiscences of the period preceding 1800. When nearly sixty years old he undertook to arrange his recollections in orderly form for his own amusement, and, writing at intervals, brought the narrative down to the year 1797. From some cause, not recorded in his diary, he stopped his work abruptly. It was, however, largely formed of passages from his diary, and that diary he continued to keep until 1856, though the entries for the final years were very brief.

His recollections and his diaries together have furnished the material for this volume. The larger part of it is occupied with the Recollections, which is printed without change, except in the omission of some portions of his foreign itinerary, and in such slight verbal corrections as he would himself have made if preparing his manuscript for the press. This portion has also been broken up for convenience into chapters.

The remainder of the volume consists of Passages from his Notebooks, arranged with a general regard to harmony of subjects, and marked in each case with the date of entry in Mr. Breck's journal. By this means one is able to note the period of certain observations which depend for their interest partly upon being contemporaneous with the scenes and events described. Throughout the volume the Editor has aimed to supply such notes as would serve to illustrate the text; and for some of those relating to Philadelphia he is indebted to Mr. Townsend Ward of that city.

The book rests its claim to notice not on the reputation or character of Mr. Breck. Those who knew that courteous and honorable gentleman will read it with the more interest, and will testify to his integrity, his obstinate firmness in principle, his sound judgment and his generous nature. Some of these qualities will be discovered by the reader from the book itself; and no one can be familiar with Mr. Breck's private writings and not have a hearty confidence in his truthfulness and candor. Nor does the book profess to add important facts to history, although in two or three cases, as in the account of the naval encounter in Boston Harbor and his report of Judge Peters's explanation of the arrest of Flower, it may be that he has added to our acquaintance with historical facts. The real value of the book will be readily perceived to lie in its power to reconstruct the past for us as a living force.

To have talked with an old man who has a clear and intelligent memory is to have enjoyed some of the advantages of age with the bright imagination of youth. Here is transfusion of blood of another sort. The personality of the old man, when discoursing even of trivial matters, becomes a solvent which sets free the particles of history, and enables the younger man to see the past as a contemporary. It is singular by how slight a word one is thus enabled to live over again not his own past, but his father's past. When I read in Mr. Breck's diary how he stood with the crowd before the post-office in Philadelphia and heard the postmaster read from a chamber-window the news of the burning of Washington, I am as free from the influence of steam and the telegraph-wire as were the eager crowd gathered there, and the historic fact comes before me with a far livelier power than when I read it in a formal history. If the good we are to derive from history were based simply upon our acquaintance with the facts which we regard as determining the logic of historic processes, then all personal gossip and such reminiscences and notes as these by Mr. Breck would give us only idle pastime. But everyone instinctively feels that his knowledge of history, like his knowledge of daily affairs, is conditioned upon numberless trivial and fleeting impressions created by the look, the dress, the by-play of the world. An idle-minded man, to be sure, can scarcely reflect more than his own vacuity, and that when he undertakes to discourse of weighty matters; a man of character can scarcely fail to throw some light on life when he speaks of trivial things. Mr. Breck made no pretensions to literary power, but he was a man of catholic taste and general interests. In this book the reader hears his chat and will be helped by it to get that contemporaneous position which is so needful if one would see American life and manners from time to time during the first century of the Republic. H. E. S.

Cambridge, Mass.,

January, 1877.

CHAPTER I.

I BEGIN, this 17th of January, 1830, precisely at the age of fifty-eight years and six months, the recollections of my past life. Residing as I do now in the country, I have much leisure, which I hope to occupy agreeably, and perhaps profitably, by condensing the diaries heretofore kept by me. My residence has been, when at home with my family, where it now is, for more than thirty years, being on an estate belonging to me, situated on the right bank of the Schuylkill, in the township of Blockley, county of Philadelphia, and two miles from the western part of the city. The mansion on this estate I built in 1797. It is a fine stone house, roughcast, fifty-three feet long, thirty-eight broad, and three stories high, having out-buildings of every kind suitable for elegance and comfort. The prospect consists of the river, animated by its great trade carried on in boats of about thirty tons, drawn by horses; of a beautiful sloping lawn, terminating at that river, now nearly four hundred yards wide opposite the portico; of side-screen woods; of gardens, green-house, etc. Sweetbrier is the name of my villa.[1] As I write these sheets for my amusement alone, and care not how minute or garrulous I may be in my narrative, I shall commence with a brief notice of my ancestors.

Three brothers, originally from the north of England, Edward, Robert and Samuel Breck,[2] landed at Dorchester, near Boston, about the year 1630. Edward's son John became eminent in Dorchester, and from him I am lineally descended as a great-grandson. He died the 16th of February 1713, aged thirty-two, as appears by the inscription on our family mourning rings distributed at his death. The son of that gentleman was named after him and became the parent of three sons and many daughters. This second son was named Samuel and was my father. He was born on the 11th of April 1747, o. s., and died on the 7th of May 1809, aged about sixty-two. The progenitors of my mother were very respectable emigrants from England to Boston, by the name of Andrews. She was born on the 11th of November 1747, o. s., and is still living in good health in her eighty-third year.

I was born on the 17th of July 1771, in the then town of Boston. It was at a period of political excitement, and I feel myself identified with the Revolution, having been nursed at Lexington, where the first blood was spilt, and an unconscious spectator of the great battle of Bunker Hill. I say unconscious, because at the date of that battle (17th of June 1775) I was too young to receive a durable impression, or indeed any recollection at all about it. I have been told, however, that the woman who had the care of me stood on an eminence with me in her arms contemplating the engagement.

An event that took place shortly after I remember perfectly. Boston was closely invested by Washington, and in the bombardment a shell fell in our courtyard[3] that cracked a beautiful mirror by the concussion of the air in bursting and gave my father a broad hint to provide for the safety of his family. He had then only two children, Mrs. Lloyd[4] and myself. He obtained a passport from the British general,[5] and, being allowed to traverse the camp of the besiegers, brought his wife and children to Philadelphia, stopping a few days at New York, and travelling from that city in company with the late Vice-President, George Clinton, who, as I have heard my father say, had the kindness to bring me part of the way in his sulky. That gentleman became very distinguished afterward and was uncle to the great De Witt Clinton.

My parents have often told me how hospitably we were received in that city, where, in common with all the colonies, a strong sympathy was entertained for the sufferers in Boston. I, of course, have few recollections of that period. One thing only can I remember, and that is the inoculation of my sister and myself for the small-pox.[6]

We stayed a few months in Philadelphia, and then removed to Taunton in Massachusetts, in order to be ready to enter Boston as soon as the British should evacuate the town. It was here at Taunton that I distinctly recollect seeing the procession of the Pope and the Devil on the 5th of November, the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. Effigies of those two illustrious personages were paraded round the Common, and this was perhaps the last exhibition of the kind in our country.[7] Sentiments of great liberality and toleration, together with an entire absence of colonial or English feeling, have contributed to abolish the custom heretofore annual, and to root out all violent prejudices against the good bishop of Rome and the Church which he governs.

In due time we returned to Boston, and having been nursed, as I said before, at Lexington, I may boast of having been cradled in the midst of the brave men who so nobly commenced and so gloriously terminated our immortal war of Independence. I may add that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, having undertaken to educate the son of General Warren,[8] who was slain at the battle of Bunker Hill, sent him to a school at Chelsea, near Boston, kept by a clergyman named Payson;[9] and as I was placed there about the same time, we were made bedfellows, and so continued for some months.

The winter of 1780 was colder than any that has occurred since. I was then a scholar at Chelsea, and perfectly well remember being driven by my father's coachman, in a sleigh with two horses, on the ice directly across the bay of Boston, starting from the north part of the town, and keeping for many miles on the ice, which we left to traverse farms, without being stopped by the stone fences, which were all covered with snow. It was the summer that succeeded this cold weather, I think, that the famous Dark Day happened in New England. I was at the same school. It began about eleven o'clock in the morning, when I was standing by the master reading my lesson. The light grew dim, and in a very short time faded into utter darkness. The school was dismissed, and we went below stairs. The cause was wholly inexplicable at the time, nor do I find that it has ever been satisfactorily explained. Some ascribed it to an extensive conflagration in the backwoods, but I do not remember any heavy smoke or other indication of fire. I know that candles were lit, and the affrighted neighbors groped their way to our house for spiritual consolation and joined in prayer with our reverend principal, and that after we had dined by candlelight-probably about three o'clock-it cleared up and became bright enough to go abroad. The day having been one of terror, and now more than two-thirds spent, we were not called to school in the afternoon, but were permitted to go into the fields to gather fruit and birds' eggs. Yet the succeeding night was "palpably obscure." Many accidents happened to those who were on the road. Nothing could exceed the darkness. No doubt there was a natural cause for it, but whether smoke or vapor, or other atmospherical density, remains undivulged. [10]

It was in the course of this year,[11] I think, that a most melancholy event terminated the life of my maternal uncle, Benjamin Andrews, Esq. That gentleman was well educated, active, useful, beloved; in short, a very distinguished citizen. Mr. Benjamin Hichborn, his friend, and a lawyer subsequently of eminence, was with my uncle assisting him to prepare for a journey that was to commence the next day. While Mr. Andrews was writing, Hichborn was trying a pair of pistols and putting them in order for the journey. He had snapped them against the chimney-back, he said, and, supposing them to be unloaded, was in the act of handing one of them to my uncle when it went off,  hit him with the wad in the temple and killed him on the spot. My father had dined somewhere in the country that day and had not returned when the news of the event came to our house, which was about early candlelight. I went to the deceased's house, and witnessed the confusion and deep regret that pervaded it. My aunt was a fine-looking, well-bred woman, fond of dress and fashionable dissipation. She had five or six children and an indulgent husband. Suddenly she saw herself a widow overwhelmed with consternation and dismay. This affair has always appeared mysterious and made a great noise at the time; and, very strange as it may seem, Hichborn proposed as a remedy and atonement the only measure that could be adduced as a motive for the commission of murder. "I have been guilty," said he, "of this unintentional manslaughter; Mr. Andrews was my friend; by my instrumentality his children are left fatherless. I will be a parent and protector to them; the best amends I can make is to marry the widow." He did marry her, and during a long life he was to her and her children a kind and generous friend, father and husband.[12]

Mr. Andrews left one brother, John Andrews; and whilst I am on the subject of that worthy family, I will anticipate and say a word of this other maternal uncle. For more than a dozen years Mr. John Andrews was a selectman of Boston. In the evening of life he purchased a villa at Jamaica Plains, and retired there with an ample fortune. I saw him last when in his eightieth year, in 1822. He was full of anecdote and reminiscences of the Revolutionary War. He stayed in Boston during its blockade by General Washington and entertained that great man at dinner the first day after its evacuation by the British. His timely interference at that period prevented the destruction of the trees in the Mall; and subsequently his personal exertions saved part of the Common (a spot without a rival in America) from being sold and cut up into lots. He died shortly after.[13]

Before the Revolution the colonists had little or no communication with France, so that Frenchmen were known to them only through the prejudiced medium of England. Every vulgar story told by John Bull about Frenchmen living on salad and frogs was implicitly believed by Brother Jonathan, even by men of education and the first standing in society. When, therefore, the first French squadron arrived at Boston, the whole town, most of whom had never seen a Frenchman, ran to the wharves to catch a peep at the gaunt, half-starved, soup-maigre crews. How much were my good townsmen astonished when they beheld plump, portly officers and strong, vigorous sailors! They could scarcely credit the thing, apparent as it was. Did these hearty-looking people belong to the lantern-jawed, spindle-shank race of mounseers? In a little while they became convinced that they had been deceived as to their personal appearance, but they knew, notwithstanding their good looks, that they were no better than frog-eaters, because they had been discovered hunting them in the noted Frog-pond (now Quincy Lake[14] ) at the bottom of the Common.

With this last notion in his head, Mr. Nathaniel Tracy, who lived in a beautiful villa at Cambridge, made a great feast for the admiral and his officers. Everything was furnished that could be had in the country to ornament and give variety to the entertainment. My father was one of the guests, and told me often after that two large tureens of soup were placed at the ends of the table. The admiral sat on the right of Tracy, and Monsieur de l'Etombe on the left. L'Etombe was consul of France, resident at Boston. Tracy filled a plate with soup, which went to the admiral, and the next was handed to the consul. As soon as L'Etombe put his spoon into his plate he fished up a large frog, just as green and perfect as if he had hopped from the pond into the tureen. Not knowing at first what it was, he seized it by one of its hind legs, and, holding it up in view of the whole company, discovered that it was a full-grown frog. As soon as he had thoroughly inspected it, and made himself sure of the matter, he exclaimed, "Ah! mon Dieu! un grenouille!" then, turning to the gentleman next to him, gave him the frog. He received it and passed it round the table. Thus the poor crapaud made the tour from hand to hand until it reached the admiral. The company, convulsed with laughter, examined the soup-plates as the servants brought them, and in each was to be found a frog. The uproar was universal. Meantime Tracy kept his ladle going, wondering what his outlandish guests meant by such extravagant merriment. "What's the matter?" asked he, and, raising his head, surveyed the frogs dangling by a leg in all directions. "Why don't they eat them?" he exclaimed. "If they knew the confounded trouble I had to catch them in order to treat them to a dish of their own country, they would find that with me, at least, it was no joking matter." Thus was poor Tracy deceived by vulgar prejudice and common report. He meant to regale his distinguished guests with refined hospitality and had caused all the swamps of Cambridge to be searched in order to furnish them with a generous supply of what he believed to be in France a standing national dish. This entertainment was given in 1778 to the celebrated Count d'Estaing. The well-known Bougainville[15] was in Boston at that time, but could not have been present at Mr. Tracy's dinner, because he was confined by a wound (the loss of his arm) received from the Isis British ship, that had a short time before attacked the Cæsar line-of-battle ship, commanded by the circumnavigator.

While I am recording the wound of this French gentleman, I am reminded by it of a shocking accident that happened to an accomplished young French officer who visited Boston in De Vaudreuil's squadron in the year 1782. He was the son of Laborde, the court banker, and a very promising youth, respected for his professional skill and beloved for his gentle manners and correct morals. One day, when in the country on a shooting-party, he stood carelessly leaning upon his gun, with the muzzle against his armpit. In that situation something accidentally touched the trigger, and the gun went off, making a dreadful wound through the shoulder. During his confinement I went to visit him, and happening to be there when the surgeon came to dress his wound, Laborde called me to look at it. The upper part of the arm was frightfully shattered, and the sight so affected me that I fainted. I was then eleven years old. Poor Laborde recovered, but a few years after he and his brother were engulfed, with a whole boat's crew, in a whirlpool near Nootka Sound, when on a voyage round the world with La Pérouse. La Pérouse left France in 1786, and exquisite Paris, la comédie, la dance, l'amour même, everything, was abandoned for glory. My young friends embarked, and the next year they were drowned. The year after, La Pérouse, his two ships (La Boussole and L'Astrolabe) and both their crews disappeared. Forty-three years after, the island in the Pacific on which they were wrecked was visited, and fragments of the vessels discovered, but not one solitary survivor was found to relate the story of their disaster.[16]

Meantime, Laborde, the father, was executed by the guillotine during the French Revolution, and his immense fortune destroyed. When the sons sailed, all the world, for a wonder, happened to be at peace, so that every avenue by war to what is commonly called glory was closed, and the best renown that could be acquired was that which attaches to a voyage of discovery. The revolutionary troubles that desolated their country about the time the Labordes perished would have been as fatal to them, had they remained at home, as the rapids in which they were wrecked. Indeed, they and their companions had at their departure infinitely fewer hazards to encounter amid the vortices of the Pacific and from the fiercest cannibals of Polynesia, with the common chances of a voyage of circumnavigation, than they would have found under the bloody rule of Robespierre.

The Nathaniel Tracy of whom I have just spoken had a brother John, who resided at Newburyport. The two had been successful in privateering, but, as is common with men who acquire fortunes in that way, their days of wealth were few; they became poor. Nat died soon after the Revolutionary War closed, and John swam upon corks a little longer, just keeping his head above water. He used to advise those who complained of time hanging heavy and passing slowly to put forth notes of hand, payable at bank in sixty days. "Then," said he, "if you have as little money to discharge them with as I have, you'll find the time pass along quick enough to pay-day." This gentleman was a member of the General Court and was very desirous to be elected treasurer of the Commonwealth, an officer chosen by the legislature. He applied to several members for their support, and among others to my father, who sat then and for seven years in succession on the Boston seat in the House of Representatives. Tracy was a good-natured fellow and pleasant companion, but by no means fitted for the station he solicited; yet his friends, screened as they were by a ballot vote, did not wish bluntly to deny him. No doubt many gave him hopes of their support. The election took place, and Tracy had one vote only. In great astonishment and mortification, he called his supposed friends around him, and inquiring of each how he voted, received for answer that for all he knew the single vote had been given according to promise, each man hinting a claim to it. After enjoying their embarrassment a little while, he said to them, "Ye are a pack of traitors, and not one of you have anything to do with the vote in my favor, for I put it in myself."[17]

When Nathaniel Tracy gave the entertainment to the French officers at Cambridge there was a rich stock of wine concealed in the cellar of the house opposite to his, which, had he known the secret, would have regaled his French guests much better than his frogs. That house had been the headquarters of General Washington in the autumn of 1775. The war had shut up in Boston almost every kind of luxury. No wine was to be had for the general's table, the absence of which was daily deplored. The house he occupied had been the residence of Thomas Brattle before our civil commotions began. That excellent and amiable gentleman, so well-known on the return of peace for his hospitality and refined epicurism, had emigrated and all his property was then under sequestration. Before he left his residence in Cambridge he placed in a vault all his large and valuable stock of old madeira, and caused a wall of masonry to be built up, so as to conceal the precious deposit in the most perfect manner. This vault lay directly under the general's dining-room, and wholly escaped the depredations of the military and others during the war. A floor of boards only separated it from the hot and irritated patriots who so often at the table of the commander-in-chief execrated the royalists in toasts of bad rum and water, and who, had they discovered the prize that lay at their feet, would have doubly relished it as coming from the vault of a Tory refugee.[18] There it lay, however, improving by age, until the year 1784 or '85, when Mr. Brattle, who was a very good and inoffensive man, had his property restored to him; and I doubt not I have often drunk from that rich store at the many delightful parties which I have attended at his house. The vault, as I heard, was found by its owner untouched on his return.

This Mr. Brattle was rather eccentric in the treatment of the feathered tribe, by which he was always surrounded. In his garden was an aviary and suitable ponds for aquatic fowls. There were to be seen imprisoned various singing birds, and at large the stately swan, with all kinds of domestic poultry; some of these were playthings, and others were prepared with great art and no little cruelty for the table. His geese, for example, were at a proper period transferred to the garret, their feet nailed to the floor and their stomachs stuffed with food. This may be a little, and only a little, less rigorous treatment than that in use in the South of France, where these poor creatures are deprived of sight and suspended in baskets, in order that their livers may be enlarged and their carcasses fattened; which, experience shows, will take place when the geese are deprived of exercise and the view of surrounding objects. I think Mr. Brattle, kind-hearted as he was, did not deny his agency in these acts of savageness; at any rate, the circumstance was often mentioned, and his fine geese greatly relished by the gastronomes who fed at his excellent table.

What native of Boston, born in those days, does not regret the prostration of the famous Beacon Hill? It was a beautiful spot and gave to the town on its first settlement the classic name of Tremont, that hill being one of three that stood in conspicuous elevation on the peninsula. The other two, as some say, were Copp's and Fort Hills, while others think that the cluster along old Tremont Street were the heights referred to in naming the town. It is certain that for a short time it bore that beautiful name, and was changed, unfortunately, to gratify and compliment a clergyman who came from Boston in Lincolnshire, England. I call Tremont street old, because the same absence of good taste has again shown itself in relation to the three hills, by changing the name of the best part of that street into what, think ye?-into something still more worthy of the Emporium of Literature, as my native place is called by its modest inhabitants? Not at all: the substitute is plain Common Street![19] Quincy, Otis, Lowell, Lloyd, Webster! what Boeotian ascendency controlled at that moment your usual good taste? Could you not remember that our earliest founders were scholars, who, struck with the physical beauty of the site on which they built, adorned their town with a name of equal beauty, which was relinquished only to please their spiritual father? But may we not lament that the new, original and full-toned Tremont should ever have been dismissed to make room for the secondhand and flat-sounding Boston? In giving up the name of their town, however, our good fathers bestowed it upon the street that runs along the base of the trio; and it was left for their sons of the nineteenth century to level Beacon, one of the three hills, and strike out for ever the remembrance of the other two by substituting a most vulgar for a most melodious name to the greater part, if not all, of Tremont street.

This Beacon Hill was a famous spot, known to everybody who knew anything of Boston. It received its name from a beacon[20] that stood on it. Spokes were fixed in a large mast, on the top of which was placed a barrel of pitch or tar, always ready to be fired on the approach of the enemy. Around this pole I have fought many battles, as a South End boy, against the boys of the North End of the town; and bloody ones too, with slings and stones very skillfully and earnestly used. In what a state of semi-barbarism did the rising generations of those days exist! From time immemorial these hostilities were carried on by the juvenile part of the community. The schoolmasters whipt, parents scolded-nothing could check it. Was it a remnant of the pugilistic propensities of our British ancestors? or was it an untamed feeling arising from our sequestered and colonial situation? Whatever was the cause, everything of the kind ceased with the termination of our Revolutionary War.[21] Perhaps when that period arrived our intercourse with foreign countries and absence of bigotry, religious intolerance and most other illiberal notions had dispelled the angry prejudices which one way or the other attached themselves before to every locality and every class of the community. With what slow degrees the light of toleration, without which there is no good fellowship among men or boys, gains upon nations, has been exemplified in the tardy repeal of the Test acts in England. That light, so snail-paced in monarchical countries, broke in upon us in full splendor in a moment, as it were, and scattered the fogs of superstition, ignorance and inhumanity. From that period to this these low, silly and unprofitable contests have never taken place, nor do I know in our large cities of any remains of local hatred; all is mutual desire to promote the general welfare in each and every section.

I forget on what holiday it was that the Anticks, another exploded remnant of colonial manners, used to perambulate the town. They have ceased to do it now, but I remember them as late as 1782. They were a set of the lowest blackguards, who, disguised in filthy clothes and ofttimes with masked faces, went from house to house in large companies, and, bon gré, mal gré, obtruding themselves everywhere, particularly into the rooms that were occupied by parties of ladies and gentlemen, would demean themselves with great insolence. I have seen them at my father's, when his assembled friends were at cards, take possession of a table, seat themselves on rich furniture and proceed to handle the cards, to the great annoyance of the company. The only way to get rid of them was to give them money and listen patiently to a foolish dialogue between two or more of them. One of them would cry out, "Ladies and gentlemen sitting by the fire, put your hands in your pockets and give us our desire." When this was done and they had received some money, a kind of acting took place. One fellow was knocked down, and lay sprawling on the carpet, while another bellowed out,

"See, there he lies,

But ere he dies

A doctor must be had."

He calls for a doctor, who soon appears, and enacts the part so well that the wounded man revives. In this way they would continue for half an hour; and it happened not unfrequently that the house would be filled by another gang when these had departed. There was no refusing admittance. Custom had licensed these vagabonds to enter even by force any place they chose. What should we say to such intruders now? Our manners would not brook such usage a moment. Undoubtedly, these plays were a remnant of the old Mysteries of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.[22]

Connected with this subject and period may be mentioned the inhuman and revolting custom of punishing criminals in the open street. The large whipping-post, painted red, stood conspicuously and permanently in the most public street in town. It was placed in State Street, directly under the windows of a great writing-school which I frequented, and from them the scholars were indulged in the spectacle of all kinds of punishments, suited to harden their hearts and brutalize their feelings. Here women were taken from a huge cage, in which they were dragged on wheels from prison, and tied to the post with bare backs, on which thirty or forty lashes were bestowed amid the screams of the culprits and the uproar of the mob. A little farther in the street was to be seen the pillory,[23] with three or four fellows fastened by the head and hands, and standing for an hour in that helpless posture, exposed to gross and cruel insult from the multitude, who pelted them incessantly with rotten eggs and every repulsive kind of garbage that could be collected. These things I have often witnessed, but they have given way to better systems, better manners and better feelings. One amendment is still wanting, however, throughout the nation; it is to execute criminals capitally in the prison-yards, instead of the disgusting exhibition which is now everywhere made in such cases on some open common. These occurrences, I am happy to say, are very rare; but that very circumstance draws together a vast crowd, particularly of women, who ought to be denied an opportunity of gratifying such improper curiosity. The procedure will in time be corrected. "The march of time" demands it even now and must ere long be obeyed.[24]

In 1780 my father purchased a house for twelve hundred guineas in gold. It was greatly out of repair, having been occupied, as I have often heard, by Lord Percy, who succeeded to the dukedom of Northumberland, and was in Boston during the siege under Gage. My father put it in excellent repair and adorned the extensive gardens in the midst of which it stood. For a city residence it was remarkably fine, being situate at the corner of Winter and Common Streets,[25] with an acre of ground around the house divided into a flower and kitchen garden. This property was sold to my uncle Andrews, when we removed in 1792 to Philadelphia, for eight thousand dollars. A few years after he disposed of it for about sixty thousand. The house has since been pulled down and the whole ground built upon. The gardens when in our possession were kept in very neat order, and being exposed to view through a palisade of great beauty were the admiration of everyone.

In these gardens my father gave a grand fête on the birth of the dauphin. Drink was distributed from hogsheads, and the whole town was made welcome to the plentiful tables within doors.

Another celebration of a distinguished character I well remember there and on the neighboring Common. It was in honor of the victory over Cornwallis in 1782, when his army surrendered at Yorktown. A huge pyramid of cordwood fifty feet high was piled up in the middle of the green and fired at night. These rejoicings were more boisterous and hearty than would be relished at the present day. The formal dinners, dress-balls, long processions and noiseless illuminations by which La Fayette's visit to us in 1824 was celebrated show more refinement, but less vivid gladness.

Speaking of La Fayette, I am reminded of a circumstance that occurred not long after this, which I note here now, although I mean to speak hereafter more at large of "the marquis," as he was then universally called. That young nobleman, whose early career was so useful to us and so honorable to himself, came to Boston in 1783, and was everywhere very deservedly caressed. With our family he was then and ever after on terms of the greatest intimacy. Anxious to show him all that related to our institutions and manners, my father invited him one day to go to Faneuil Hall to hear the discussion of some municipal law then in agitation. "You will see," said he, "the quiet proceedings of our townsmen, and learn by a personal examination how erroneous is the general opinion abroad that a large community cannot be governed by a pure democracy. Here we have in Boston," continued he, "about eighteen thousand inhabitants, and all our town business is done in a general assembly of the people." The marquis, glad of the opportunity, consented to attend my father. By and by the great bell of the celebrated Doctor Samuel Cooper's church, with a dozen others, called the inhabitants together. I forget what the business was, but it inspired universal interest and drew to the hall an overflowing house. The marquis was of course well accommodated, and sat in silent admiration at the demure manner, in which the moderator was chosen and inducted to the chair and the meeting fully organized. Then the debate opened. One speaker affirmed, another denied, a third rejoined, each increasing in vehemence until the matter in debate was changed into personal sarcasm. Gibe followed gibe, commotion ensued, the popular mass rolled to and fro, disorder reached its height[???] and the elders of the town were glad to break up the stormy meeting and postpone the discussion. My father led the marquis out in the midst of the angry multitude. When fairly disengaged from the crowd he said to the illustrious stranger, "This is not the sample which I wished to show you of our mode of deliberating. Never do I recollect to have seen such fiery spirits assembled in this hall, and I must beg you not to judge of us by what you have seen to-day; for good sense, moderation and perfect order are the usual characteristics of my fellow-townsmen here and elsewhere." "No doubt, no doubt," said the marquis, laughing, "but it is well enough to know that there are exceptions to the general rule," or words to that effect, meaning to make a joke of the matter, which was indeed very often afterward the occasion of mirthful remarks upon the forbearance, calmness, decorum and parliamentary politeness ever to be found in deliberative assemblies of pure democracy.

Mr. Johnson, who first settled in Boston, and built the first house there, placed his dwelling on Tremont Street, and was buried by his own directions in the spot now forming the Chapel burying-ground. Being a man of singular piety and sincerity, and much beloved by the people, they wished to be buried near him, and this was the origin of that burying-place. Not far from where his house stood is a house (1816) which was built by the celebrated Sir Henry Van and is the oldest house in Boston. We have a family vault in that burying-ground. I remember hearing from a kinsman the following story of an Irish laborer who assisted in building the stone chapel: The workmen had agreed among themselves, when roofing the church, that on the signal being made to leave off work at dinnertime the last man down should treat the others to drink. A. little, tight-built, active Irishman was always foremost in getting downstairs, and daily boasted that they never had caught him, and never should. Upon this a scheme was laid to make him treat. His business was to carry up slates for the roof; and one day, when he was at the far end of the building, the bell was rung a few minutes earlier than usual. The workmen, who were all in the secret, rushed to the tower and then to the stairs, when Patrick looked round and instantly guessed their intention. But determined not to be last, he squatted down on a loose piece of slate and fearlessly slid off the roof into the burying-place, where he happened to light, with the slate under him, in a sitting position between two gravestones, and wholly uninjured. He sprang upon his feet and ran to the church-door, where he met the conspirators at the foot of the stairs and triumphantly claimed his treat as usual.

About the period when this took place there came a man from England who entertained the Bostonians with an extraordinary feat at the North Episcopal church,[26] which my mother told me she saw performed. The man caused one or more ropes to be carried from the top of the high steeple of that church to the ground and drawn tight at a base some distance from the edifice. Along these cords he descended headfirst, and came safely to a pile of feather beds placed there to receive him.

But great as were these performances, they yield in boldness to one which took place in 1789, when I was in Boston. A cooper's apprentice, rather clumsily built, made a bet of a pistareen (twenty cents) that he would ascend to the vane of the Old South meetinghouse by the lightning-rod and turn the weathercock. This he executed in mid-day before all those who were passing in the street. The Old South was much abused by the British during the siege, and the Old North, which had been recently repaired, was actually pulled down by them and used for fuel. I mention this last fact with feelings of augmented indignation, because it was the hallowed temple of the Reverend Mr. Checkley, in which I was baptized.

There was another church in School Street, of which I intend to speak somewhat at large in the sequel, as I had an agency in reopening it after it had been shut up many years; meantime, the name of this street brings to mind the celebrated Latin School from which it derives its appellation. That school in my day was kept by Mr. Hunt. He was a severe master and flogged heartily. I went on, however, very well with him, mollifying his stern temper by occasional presents in money, which my indulgent father sent to him by me. Thus my short career at his school (seventeen or eighteen months) passed without any corporal correction. I was even sometimes selected for the honorable office of sawing and piling his wood, which to most boys is a vastly more delightful occupation than chopping logic, working themes or dividing sums; in short, a translation from intellectual labor to any bodily toil was looked upon as a special favor, and, dunces as we were, we preferred it greatly to a translation from Latin into English.

The Revolutionary War brought many French ships of the line and others into Boston, sometimes to refit, and sometimes to escape the enemy. It became necessary, therefore, to have a permanent agent to collect supplies. The French king honored my father with that appointment, which he held until the peace, greatly to the satisfaction of the several commanders with whom he held intercourse. He sold their prize-goods, negotiated their bills of exchange and furnished the ships of war with all they wanted. He entered upon this business about the year 1779. It was in the summer of the following year, I think, that two or three French frigates were lying at anchor in the harbor, when there appeared off the lighthouse another frigate of that nation, convoying two ships with spars and naval stores, sent round from Newport for the use of the squadron in Boston. Before this convoy could reach the lower harbor, it was overtaken by a British fifty-gun ship (the Sagittaire, I think), and an engagement was forced on the Frenchman in order to save his store-ships. Making, therefore, a signal for them to take shelter in the harbor, he prepared for battle. This he did with considerable confidence, although his ship mounted only thirty-two guns, because he saw his countrymen at anchor a few miles off with an overwhelming force, and very naturally counted upon their immediate aid.

With the hope, then, of speedy succor, and the certainty of her convoy getting safely into port, the Magicienne-for so the frigate was called-calmly awaited the attack of the British cruiser. It was a fine morning; both ships were close in with the lighthouse; the whole town was in motion and all the heights were crowded with people. I ran with the rest and reached the top of Beacon Hill. The cannonading had commenced, and was kept up with spirit for an hour, when the Frenchman struck. Those around me who had glasses permitted me to look through them occasionally. It appeared to us spectators that when the boats had passed between the ships each vessel was occupied in throwing over the dead and refitting the rigging. All this consumed some hours. In the meantime the crews of the frigates moored in Boston harbor were bustling on shore to get a supply of bread and other matters that might easily have been dispensed with for half a day; but until they were regularly and fully equipped for a cruise they would not stir. I perfectly remember the commotion that prevailed among my father's clerks, agents, bakers and victuallers, all striving to expedite the departure of these ships. The anxiety of the townspeople too was excessive, and severe remarks were made in every quarter on the sluggish behavior of our new allies.

At length, about five o'clock in the afternoon, when the Englishman and his prize were out of sight, our friends weighed anchor and commenced the chase, which lasted until they reached Halifax, at which port the captor and captured ship had arrived the day before. The Frenchmen returned to Boston in about ten days, leaving on the minds of the people of that town no very flattering opinion of their vigilance or courage. I do not find any account of this naval action in either Gordon, Stedman or Marshall's histories of the Revolutionary War, and yet it was an event witnessed by thousands, and of a character sufficiently important for historical record. Twelve years after this engagement I made a journey from London to Holland. While sitting in the boat at Harwich that took me on board the packet, I passed near a frigate that was undergoing repairs, on the stern of which I saw written " Magicienne. " It was the very vessel just alluded to.[27]

The battle of the 12th of April 1782, in which the French fleet was defeated by Rodney, obliged De Vaudreuil to keep out of the way of the English until the September equinox approached, when he brought his fleet to Boston. On entering the Narrows a ship of the line, called the Magnifique, missed stays, went ashore and was lost. There she lay for some years, a melancholy ruin. She was a noble ship. Congress, which had a line-of-battle ship on the stocks at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, gave it to the French king. It was the only ship of that class finished during the Revolution by our government, although not the only one set up. The keel, sternpost and a few ribs of a seventy-four were put together at the foot of Copp's Hill at the north end of Boston, but there the work stopped. The ship given to the French was called the America. She was built of common oak, had been long on the stocks, and I think I heard it said that she never went to sea after her arrival at Brest.