Nature and Human Nature Part 56

In compiling this Journal, Squire, my object has been less to give you the details of my cruise, than to furnish you with my remarks on men and things in general. Climate, locality, and occupation form or vary character, but man is the same sort of critter everywhere. To know him thoroughly, he must be studied in his various aspects. When I learned drawing, I had an India-rubber figure, with springs in it, and I used to put it into all sorts of att.i.tudes. Sometimes it had its arms up, and sometimes down, now a-kimbo, and then in a boxing posture. I stuck out its legs or made it stand bolt upright, and put its head every way I could think of, and so on. It taught me to draw, and showed me the effect of light and shade. So in sketching human character, feelings, prejudices, and motives of action, I have considered man at one time as a politician, a preacher, or a trader, and at another as a countryman or a citizen, as ignorant or wise, and so on. In this way I soon learned to take his gauge as you do a cask of spirits, and prove his strength or weakness by the bead I could raise on him.

If I know anything of these matters, and you seem to consait I do, why I won't act "Peter Funk"1 to myself, but this I will say, "Human natur is my weakness." Now I think it best to send you only such portions of my Journal as will interest you, for a mere diary of a cruise is a mere nothing. So I skip over my sojourn at Canzeau, and a trip the doctor and I took to Prince Edward's Island, as containing nothing but a sort of s.h.i.+p's log, and will proceed to tell you about our sayings and doings at that celebrated place Louisburg, in Cape Breton, which was twice besieged and taken, first by our colony-forefathers from Boston, and then by General Wolfe, the Quebec hero, and of which nothing now remains but its name, which you will find in history, and its harbour, which you will find in the map. The French thought building a fortress was colonization, and the English that blowing it up was the right way to settle the country. The world is wiser now.

1 At petty auctions in the States, a person is employed to bid up articles, in order to raise their price. Such a person is called a Peter Funk, probably from that name having frequently been given when things were bought in. In short, it is now used as a "puffer."--BARTLETT.

As we approached the place the Doctor said, "You see, Mr Slick, the entrance to Louisburg is pointed out to voyagers coming from the eastward, by the ruins of an old French lighthouse, and the lantern of a new one, on the rocky wall of the north sh.o.r.e, a few minutes after approaching which the mariner shoots from a fretful sea into the smooth and capacious port. The ancient ruins display even yet the most attractive object to the eye. The outline of these neglected mounds, you observe, is boldly marked against the sky, and induces a visit to the spot where the fortress once stood. Louisburg is everywhere covered with a mantle of turf, and without the a.s.sistance of a native it is not easy to discover even the foundations of the public buildings. Two or three casemates still remain, appearing like the mouths of huge ovens, surmounted by a great ma.s.s of earth and stone.

These caverns, originally the safeguards of powder and other combustible munitions of war, now serve to shelter the flocks of sheep that graze upon the gra.s.s that conceals them. The floors are rendered nearly impa.s.sable by the ordure of these animals, but the vaulted ceilings are adorned by dependent stalact.i.tes, like icicles in shape, but not in purity of colour, being of a material somewhat similar to oyster sh.e.l.ls. The ma.s.s of stone^1 and brick that composed the buildings, and which is now swept so completely from its site, has been distributed along the sh.o.r.es of America, as far as Halifax and Boston, having been successively carried away for the erections in those places and the intermediate coast, which contains many a chimney bearing the memorials of Louisburg. The remains of the different batteries on the island and round the harbour are still shown by the inhabitants, as well as of the wharves, stockade, and sunken s.h.i.+ps of war. On gaining the walls above the town, they are found to consist of a range of earthen fortifications with projecting angles, and extending as already mentioned from the harbour to the sea, interrupted at intervals by large pits, said to have been produced by the efforts of the captors to blow up the walls. From these heights, the glacis slopes away to the edge of the bog outside, forming a beautiful level walk, though now only enjoyed by the sheep, being, like the walls, carpeted by short turf. At the termination of this line of fortification on the sea-sh.o.r.e, is a huge and uncouth black rock, which appears to have been formerly quarried for building stone, large quant.i.ties ready hewn being still scattered round it, and gathered in ma.s.ses as if prepared for that use.

1 See Haliburton's "History of Nova Scotia."

"The prospect from the brow of the dilapidated ramparts is one of the most impressive that the place affords. Looking to the south-west over the former city, the eye wanders upon the interminable ocean, its blue rolling waves occupying three-fourths of the scene, and beyond them, on the verge of the horizon, a dense bank of fog sweeps along with the prevailing S.W. wind, precluding all hopes of discerning any vista beyond that curtain. Turning landwards towards the south-west, over the s.p.a.cious bog that lies at the foot of the walls, the sight is met by a range of low wood in the direction of Gabarus, and can penetrate no further. The harbour is the only prospect to the northward, and immediately in its rear the land rises so as to prevent anymore distant view, and even the harbour appears dwindled to a miniature of itself, being seen in the same picture with the mighty ocean that nearly surrounds the beholder. The character of the whole scene is melancholy, presenting the memorials of former life and population, contrasted with its present apparent isolation from the natives of the earth. The impression is not weakened by the sight of the few miserable huts scattered along the sh.o.r.es of the port, and the little fis.h.i.+ng vessels, scarcely perceptible in the mountain-swell of the ocean; they serve but to recall painfully the images of elegant edifices that once graced the foreground, and of proud flags that waved upon the face of that heaving deep.

"It is not easy to give a reason for the continued desolation of Louisburg. A harbour opening directly upon the sea, whence egress is un.o.bstructed and expeditious, and return equally convenient at all seasons; excellent fis.h.i.+ng grounds at the very entrance; s.p.a.ce on sh.o.r.e for all the operations of curing the fish; every advantage for trade and the fisheries is offered in vain. The place would appear to be shunned by tacit consent. The shallops come from Arichet and St Peter's Bay to fish at its very mouth, but no one sets up his establishment there. The merchants resort to every station in its vicinity, to Main-a-Dieu, the Bras d'Or, St Anne, Inganish, nay, even Cape North, places holding out no advantage to compare with those of Louisburg, yet no one ventures there. The fatality that hangs over places of fallen celebrity seems to press heavily on this once valued spot."

"Ma.s.sa Doctor," said Sorrow, when he heard this description, "peers to me, dem English did gib de French goss widout sweetenin', most particular jess dat are a nateral fac. By golly, but dey was strange folks boff on 'em. Ki dey must been gwine stracted, sure as you born, when dey was decomposed (angry) wid each other, to come all de way out here to fight. Lordy gracious, peers to me crossin' de sea might a cooled them, sposin' dar hair was rumpled."

"You are right, Sorrow," said I; "and, Doctor, n.i.g.g.e.rs and women often come to a right conclusion, though they cannot give the right reasons for it, don't they?"

"Oh, oh, Mr Slick," said he, "pray don't cla.s.s ladies and n.i.g.g.e.rs together. Oh, I thought you had more gallantry about you than that."

"Exactly," sais I, "there is where the shoe pinches. You are a so far and no further emanc.i.p.ationist. You will break up the social system of the south, deprive the planter of his slave, and set the n.i.g.g.e.r free; but you will not admit him to your family circle, a.s.sociate with him, or permit him to intermarry with your daughter. Ah, Doctor, you can emanc.i.p.ate him, but you can't emanc.i.p.ate yourself. You are willing to give him the liberty of a dog; he may sleep in your stable, exercise himself in the coachyard, and may stand or run behind your carriage, but he must not enter the house, for he is offensive, nor eat at your table, for the way he devours his food is wolfish; you unchain him, and that is all. But before the collar was unfastened he was well and regularly fed, now he has to forage for it; and if he can't pay for his grub, he can and will steal it. Abolition has done great things for him. He was once a life-labourer on a plantation in the south, he is now a prisoner for life in a penitentiary in the north, or an idle vagrant, and a shameless, houseless beggar. The fruit of cant is indeed bitter. The Yankees emanc.i.p.ated their n.i.g.g.e.rs because it didn't pay to keep slaves. They now want the southern planters to liberate theirs for conscience sake. But here we are on the beach; let us land."

After taking a survey of the scene from the sight of the old town, we sat down on one of the eastern mounds, and the doctor continued his account of the place. "It took the French twenty-fire years to erect Louisburg," he said, "and though not completed according to the original design, it cost not less than thirty millions of livres. It was environed, two miles and a half in circ.u.mference, with a stone wall from thirty to thirty-six feet high, and a ditch eighty feet wide. There was, as you will see, six bastions and eight batteries, with embrasures for 148 cannon. On the island at the entrance of the harbour, which we just pa.s.sed, was a battery of thirty twenty-eight pounders, and at the bottom of the port another mounting thirty-eight heavy guns. In 1745, a plan for taking it was conceived by a colonial-lawyer, a Governor of Ma.s.sachusetts, and executed by a body of New England volunteers, led on by a country trader. History can hardly furnish such another instance of courage and conduct in an undisciplined body, laying siege to a regular constructed fortress like this. Commodore Warren, when first applied to for a.s.sistance, declined to afford it, as well because he had no orders as that he thought the enterprise a rash one. He was however at last instructed from home to co-operate with the Yankee troops, and arrived in season to witness the progress of the siege, and receive the whole of the honour which was so exclusively due to the Provincials. This act of insolence and injustice on the part of the British was never forgotten by your countrymen, but the memory of favours is short-lived, and a similar distribution of rewards has lately surprised and annoyed the Canadians. The colonist who raised the militia and saved Canada, as you have justly remarked elsewhere, was knighted, while he who did no more than his duty as an officer in the army, was compensated for two or three little affairs in which the soldiers were engaged by a coronet and a pension."

"Exactly," sais I, "what's sauce for the goose ought to be sauce for the gander; but it seems English geese are all swans."

"Well, in 1758, it was again taken by the English, who attacked it with an immense and overpowering armament, consisting of 151 sail, and 14,000 men. Profiting by the experience of the Provincials, they soon reduced the place, which it is astonis.h.i.+ng could have made any resistance at all against such an overwhelming force. Still, this attack was mostly an English one; and though it dwindles into utter insignificance when compared with the previous capture by the colonists, occasioned a great outbreak of national pride. The French colours were carried in pompous parade, escorted by detachments of horse and foot-guards, with kettle-drums and trumpets, from the palace of Kensington to St Paul's Cathedral, where they were deposited as trophies, under a discharge of cannon, and other noisy expressions of triumph and exultation. Indeed, the public rejoicings for the conquest of Louisburg were diffused through every part of the British dominions; and addresses of congratulation were presented to the king by a great number of flouris.h.i.+ng towns and corporations."

"Twenty-five years afterwards the colonists, who were denied the credit of their gallant enterprise, made good their claim to it by conquering those who boasted that they were the conquerors themselves."

"I am glad to hear you say so, Doctor," said I, "for I concur in it all. The English are liberal, but half the time they ain't just.

Spendin' money in colonies is one thing, but givin' them fair play is another. The army complains that all commendation and promotion is reserved for the staff. Provincials complain of similar injustice, but there is this wide difference, the one has the 'Times' for its advocate, the other is unheard or unheeded. An honest statesman will not refuse to do justice--a w.i.l.l.y poilitician will concede with grace what he knows he must soon yield to compulsion. The old Tory was a man after all, every inch of him."

"Now," sais the doctor, "that remark reminds me of what I have long intended to ask you if I got a chance. How is it, Mr Slick, that you, who are a republican, whenever you speak of England are so conservative? It always seemed to me as if it warn't quite natural. If I didn't know you, I should say your books were written by a colonist who had used your name for a medium for giving his own ideas."

"Well," sais I, "Doctor, I am glad you asked me, for I have thought myself it wasn't unlikely some folks would fall into that mistake.

I'll tell you how this comes, though I wouldn't take the trouble to enlighten others, for it kinder amuses me to see a fellow find a mare's nest with a tee-hee's egg in it. First, I believe that a republic is the only form of government suited to us, or practicable in North America. A limited monarchy could not exist in the States, for royalty and aristocracy never had an original root there. A military or despotic one could be introduced, because a standing army can do anything, but it couldn't last long. Liberty is too deeply seated, and too highly prized, to be suppressed for any length of time.

"Now, I like a republic, but I hate a democracy. The wit of man never could have devised anything more beautiful, better balanced, and more skilfully checked, than our const.i.tution is, or rather was; but every change we make is for the worse. I am therefore a conservative at home. On the other hand, the English const.i.tution is equally well suited to the British. It is admirably adapted to the genius, traditions, tastes, and feelings of the people. They are not fitted for a republic. They tried it once, and it failed; and if they were to try it again it would not succeed. Every change they make is also for the worse. In talking therefore as I do, I only act and talk consistently, when I say I am a conservative abroad also.

"Conservatism, both in the States and in Great Britain, when rightly understood, has a fixed principle of action, which is to conserve the const.i.tution of the country, and not subvert it. Now, liberalism everywhere is distinguished by having no principle. In England it longs for office, and sacrifices everything to it. It does nothing but pander. It says religion is a matter of taste, leave it to itself and it will take care of itself; now that maxim was forced on us by necessity, for at the Revolution we scarcely had an Episcopal church, it was so small as hardly to deserve the name. But in England it is an unconst.i.tutional, irrational, and monstrous maxim. Still it suits the views of Romanists (although they hold no such doctrine themselves), for it is likely to hand over the church revenues in Ireland to them.

It also suits Dissenters, for it will relieve them of church rates; and it meets the wishes of the republican party, because they know no church and no bishop will soon lead to no monarch. Again, it says, enlarge the franchise, so as to give an increase of voters; that doctrine suits all those sections also, for it weakens both monarchy and aristocracy. Then again, it advocates free-trade, for that weakens the landed interest, and knocks from under n.o.bility one of its best pillars. To lower the influence of the church pleases all political Come-outers, some for one, and some for another reason. Their views are not identical, but it is for their interest to unite. One advocates it because it destroys Protestantism as a principle of the const.i.tution, another because the materials of this fortress, like those of Louisburg, may be useful for erecting others, and among them conventicles.

"Then there is no truth in liberalism. When Irish emanc.i.p.ation was discussed, it was said, Pa.s.s that and you will hear no more grievances, it will tend to consolidate the church and pacify the people. It was no sooner granted, than ten bishop.r.i.c.ks were suppressed, and monster meetings paraded through and terrified the land. One cardinal came in place of ten Protestant prelates, and so on. So liberalism said Pa.s.s the Reform Bill, and all England will be satisfied; well, though it has not worked well for the kingdom, it has done wonders for the radical party, and now another and more extensive one is promised. The British Lion has been fed with living raw meat, and now roars for more victims. It ain't easy to onseat liberals, I tell you, for they know how to pander. If you promise power to those who have none, you must have the ma.s.ses with you. I could point you out some fellows that are sure to win the dead^1 heads, the dough2 boys, the numerous body that is on the fence,3 and political come-outers.4 There is at this time a postponed Reform Bill. The proposer actually cried when it was deferred to another session. It nearly broke his heart. He couldn't bear that the public should have it to say, 'They had seen the elephant.'"

1 Dead heads may perhaps be best explained by subst.i.tuting the words "the unproductive cla.s.s of operatives," such as spend their time in ale-houses; demagogues, the men who, with free tickets, travel in steam-boats, frequent theatres, tavern-keepers, &c.

2 Pliable politicians, men who are accessible to personal influences or considerations.

3 A man is said to be on a fence who is ready to join the strongest party because he who sits on a fence is in a position to jump down, with equal facility, on either side of it.

4 "Political come-outers" are the loose fish of all parties.

Dissenters from their own side.--See Bartlett's definitions.

"Seeing the elephant," said the doctor, "was he so large a man as that?"

"Lord bless you," sais I, "no, he is a man that thinks he pulls the wires, like one of Punch's small figures, but the wires pull him and set him in motion. It is a cant term we have, and signifies 'going out for wool and coming back shorn.' Yes, he actually shed tears, like a cook peelin' onions. He reminded me of a poor fellow at Slickville, who had a family of twelve small children. His wife took a day, and died one fine morning, leaving another youngster to complete the baker's dozen, and next week that dear little innocent died too. He took on dreadfully about it. He boo-hooed right out, which is more than the politicioner did over his chloroformed bill.

"'Why,' sais I, 'Jeddediah, you ought to be more of a man than to take on that way. With no means to support your family of poor helpless little children, with no wife to look after them, and no airthly way to pay a woman to dry-nurse and starve the unfortunate baby, it's a mercy it did die, and was taken out of this wicked world.'

"'I know it and feel it, Mr Sam,' said he, lookin' up in a way that n.o.body but him could look, 'but--'

"'But what?' sais I.

"'Why,' says he, 'but it don't do to say so, you know.'

"Jist then some of the neighbours came in, when he burst out wuss than before, and groaned like a thousand sinners at a camp-meetin'.

"Most likely the radical father of the strangled Reform Bill comforted himself with the same reflection, only he thought it wouldn't do to say so. Crocodiles can cry when they are hungry, but when they do it's time to vamose the poke-loken,1 that's a fact. Yes, yes, they understand these things to England as well as we do, you may depend.

They warn't born yesterday. But I won't follow it out. Liberalism is playing the devil both with us and the British. Change is going on with railroad haste in America, but in England, though it travels not so fast, it never stops, and like a steam-packet that has no freight, it daily increases its rate of speed as it advances towards the end of the voyage. Now you have my explanation, Doctor, why I am a conservative on principle, both at home and abroad."

1 Poke-loken, a marshy place, or stagnant pool, connected with a river.

"Well," said the doctor," that is true enough as far as England is concerned, but still I don't quite understand how it is, as a republican, you are so much of a conservative at home, for your reasons appear to me to be more applicable to Britain than to the United States."

"Why," sais I, "my good friend, liberalism is the same thing in both countries, though its work and tactics may be different. It is destructive but not creative. It tampers with the checks and balances of our const.i.tution. It flatters the people by removing the restraints they so wisely placed on themselves to curb their own impetuosity. It has shaken the stability of the judiciary by making the experiment of electing the judges. It has abolished equity, in name, but infused it so strongly in the administration of the law, that the distinctive boundaries are destroyed, and the will of the court is now subst.i.tuted for both. In proportion as the independence of these high officers is diminished, their integrity may be doubted. Elected, and subsequently sustained by a faction, they become its tools, and decide upon party and not legal grounds. In like manner, wherever the franchise was limited, the limit is attempted to be removed. We are, in fact, fast merging into a mere pure democracy,1 for the first blow on the point of the wedge that secures the franchise, weakens it so that it is sure to come out at last. Our liberals know this as well your British Gerrymanderers do."

1 De Tocqueville, who has written incomparably the best work that has ever appeared on the United States, makes the following judicious remarks on this subject: "Where a nation modifies the elective qualification, it may easily be foreseen, that sooner or later that qualification will be abolished. There is no more invariable rule in the history of society. The further electoral rights are extended, the more is felt the need of extending them; for after each concession, the strength of the democracy increases, and its demands increase with its strength. The ambition of those who are below the appointed rate is irritated, in exact proportion of the number of those who are above it. The exception at last becomes the rule, concession follows concession, and no step can be made, short of universal suffrage."

"Genymanderers,"1 he said, "who in the world are they? I never heard of them before."

1 This term came into use in the year 1811, in Ma.s.sachusetts, where, for several years previous, the federal and democratic parties stood nearly equal. In that year, the democratic party, having a majority in the Legislature, determined so to district the State anew, that those sections which gave a large number of federal votes might be brought into one district. The result was, that the democratic party carried everything before them at the following election, and filled every office in the State, although it appeared by the votes returned, that nearly two-thirds of the votes were Federalists. Elridge Gerry, a distinguished politician at that period, was the inventor of that plan, which was called Gerrymandering, after him.--Glossary of Americanisms.

"Why," sais I, "skilful politicians, who so arrange the electoral districts of a State, that in an election one party may obtain an advantage over its opponent, even though the latter may possess a majority of the votes in the State; the truth is, it would be a long story to go through, but we are corrupted by our liberals with our own money, that's a fact. Would you believe it now, that so long ago as six years, and that is a great while in our history seein' we are growing at such a rate, there were sixty thousand offices in the gift of the general government, and patronage to the extent of more than forty million of dollars, besides official pickings and parquisites, which are nearly as much more in the aggregate? Since then it has grown with our growth. Or would you believe that a larger sum is a.s.sessed in the city of New York, than would cover the expenses of the general government at Was.h.i.+ngton? Constructive mileage may be considered as the principle of the party, and literally runs through everything."

"What strange terms you have, Mr Slick," said he; "do pray tell me what that is."