Glass LlG 4 Book- /p COFVRIGilT DEPOSIT. RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK RECOLLECTIONS y SAMUEL BRECK PASSAGES FROM HIS NOTE-BOOKS (1771-1862) V^^EDITED BY H. E.' SCUDDER PHILADELPHIA PORTER & COAXES 1877 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by P(Mn'l-,R & COAXES, In the onko of the l.ilirinian of CoiiKiess, at VVasIiinglou ^cy^ I'^Ll ^ Wkstcott & Thomson, Shkrman & Co. Stertoty/'(ts .iii,i lilf^trMyJ'ti X. I'liila.ij. Pritireri,. /'/i,,'iii/a. PREFACE. A /r R. SAMUEL BRI'XK, whose recollections oc- ■*-^ ■*- cupy 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 [)eriod embraced in the his- tory of our country from the beginning of the war for Independence to that of the war for Union. The in- cidents 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 Ilarrisburg 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. O PREFACE. l^reck associated those best known for private worth and public spirit. I lis 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 reminis- cences of the period prccedin^^ 1800. When nearly sixty years old he undertook to arrange his recollec- tions 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 fur- nished 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 PREFACE. 7 fro7n his Note-books, arranged witli a general regard to harmony of subjects, and marked in each case with tlie date of entry in Mr. Brcck's journal. By this means one is able to note the period of certain observations which depend for tlieir interest partly upon being con- temporaneous 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 reputa- tion 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 import- ant 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 Plower, 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. 8 PREFACE. To have talked with an old man who has a clear and intelligent memory is to have enjoyed some of the ad- vantages of age with the bright imagination of youth. Here is transfusion of blood of another sort. The per- sonality 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 reminis- cences and notes as these by Mr. Breck would give us only idle pastime. But every one 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, PREFACE. 9 can scarcely reflect more than his own vacuity, and that when he undertakes to discourse of weighty mat- ters ; 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 literaiy 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. CONTENTS. RECOLLECTIONS. CHAPTER I. PAGE Sweetbrier. — Ancestry. — Earliest Recollections. — The Dark Day. — Benjamin Andrews. — John Andrews. — Tracy's Dinner to D'Estaing. — Bougainville. — Laborde. — John Tracy. — Thomas Brattle.— Beacon Hill.— Boston Boys.— Anticks.— The Whip- ping-Post. — The Breck Mansion. — La Fayette at Town Meet- ing. — Lively Antics on High Buildings. — A Naval Encounter in Boston Harbor. — De Vaudreuil. — Mr. Breck and the French Consul. — A Journey to France for Education. — The Voyage and its Incidents.^A Quick Passage 15 CHAPTER n. First View of FVance. — Nantes. — Boston in France. — La Rochelle. — Rochefort. — Bordeaux. — Toulouse. — Sor^ze. — Holidays at the Castle of De Vaudreuil. — The Course of Study at Soreze. — School Life. — Balloons. — Blanchard. — Mesmer. — Lightning- Rods. — Distinguished Families at Soreze. — La Perouse. — Dom Crozal and Quetain. — Confession and Mass. — Journey to Paris. — Political Excitement in Paris. — Crevecceur. — High Life. — Beaumanoir. — De Valady. — Brissot de Warville. — Journey to Havre. — Fellow-Passengers on Return Voyage. — Arrival at New York 52 11 12 CONTENTS. CHAn'ER III. PAGE New Yi)ik after the Fire. — From New York to Boston. — Fourth of July, 17S7. — Mad-Caps. — Entrance into Business. — Business Morals and Revenue Reform. — Mr. Joseph Marryat and Ciiar- lotte Geyer. — Tristram Dalton. — Journey to Philadelphia. — Captain Phipps. — Society in New York.— The Roads. — Wil- liam Knox. — Two Insane Gentlemen. — Family Servants. — Eccentric Tradesmen. — Mrs. JefTrey. — Wigs. — Whilefield's Great Toe. — The First Mass in Boston. — An Atheist's Temple. — John Quincy Adams and his Early Passion. — La Fayette's Aid to Boston. — Captain Booby. — Frencli and English Disci- pline. — Washington's Visit to Boston. — Hancock's State Pride. — Entertaining Indians. — Lord Whickham. — Governor Sulli- van 89 CHAPTER IV. Second Voyage to Europe. — A Gale in the Irish Sea and a Shelter under the Isle of Man. — Dublin. — An Irish Bull. — A Hungry Traveller. — Liverpool. — By Stage to London. — Drury Lane. — Binneau. — The Chevalier d'Eon. — Frederick Geyer. — A Lord Mayor's Show, — A Parliamentary Debate. — Burke. — Nicholas Ward Boy]ston.~A Ball at Bath.— En Route for Paris.— A Well-preserved Barber. — The Revolution. — De Noailles. — A Debate in the National Assembly. — Mirabeau. — A Glimpse of the Royal Family. — Spongers. —Barlow. — Browne Cutting. — Return Voyage. — A Dinner at Mr. Jeffrey's 137 CHAPTER V. Boston in 1791. — A Sunday Journey.— A Theatre in Boston. — Started in Business. — Dabbling in Stocks. — Unjust Taxation in Boston. — Removal to Philadelphia. — Society in Philadel- phia. — General Washington's Style. — Tradesmen. — Eccentric Characters in Boston. — James Allen.— Mrs. Smith. — Frederick Khone. — The Yellow Fever in Philadelphia. — A Well-prophe- sied Death. — Congress. — Talleyrand. — Volney. — De Noailles. — Walking Stewart. — Baring. — The Binghams and tlieir Style. — Morris. — Cobbett. — Clayton. — General Knox. — Hamilton.... 178 CONTENTS. 13 PASSAGES FROM TIII<: NOTE-BOOKS. CHAPTER I. PUBLIC MEN AND EVENTS. PACE Richard Tetkus 213 Jeux d'Esprit ok Judge Peters 217 The Marquis de Valady 219 The Duke of Orleans 246 Joseph Bonaparte 248 Washington's Farewell Address 252 The Burning of Washington 253 De Witt Clinton 255 John Randolph 256 Daniel Webster 258 Steuben not LL.D 260 Audubon 260 Zerah Colburn 261 Francis Jeffrey 262 CHAPTER H. NOTES OF TRAVEL. A Journey TO Washington 264 Journey to Boston 271 Chance TRAVELLiNG-Ct)Mi'ANioNs 273 Quick Travel 274 The Other Side 275 Praise of Boston 277 CHAPTER HI. PERSONAL AND SOCIETY GOSSIP. Like at Sweetbrikr 280 A LoNG-LivED Famh-v 281 A Diner-Out Waylaid 282 14 CONTENTS. PAGE An Eccentric Englishman 284 Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis 285 Dining in the Country 286 Miss Kean 287 WisTAR Parties 288 A Walking Club 2S8 Captain Marryat 289 Dallas and his Snuff-Box 293 CHAPTER IV. MANNERS AND CHANGES. Coal Fires in Pennsylvania 295 Experience with Servants 295 Labor and Wages 300 Thrifty Blacks 301 Divining Rods 3^3 A Governor's Style 304 Kean's Acting 305 American Literature 306 Mammoth Newspapers 307 Recollections of Samuel Breck. CHAPTER I. Sweetbrier. — Ancestry. — Earliest Recollections. — The Dark Day. — Benjamin Andrews. — John Andrews. — Tracy's Dinner to D'Estaing. — Bougainville. — Laborde. — John Tracy. — Thomas Brattle. — Beacon Hill. — Boston Boys. — Anticks. — The Whipping-Post. — The Breck Mansion. — La Fayette at Town Meeting. — Lively Antics on High Buildings. — A Naval Encounter in Boston Harbor. — De Vaudreuil. — Mr. Breck and the French Consul. — A Journey to France for Education. — The Voyage and its Licidents. — A Quick Passage. I BEGIN, this 17th of January, 1830, precisely at the age of fifty-eight years and six months, the recollec- tions 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 hereto- fore 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, rough- cast, 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 15 1 6 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. 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.* As I write these sheets for my amuse- ment 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 Eng- land, Edward, Robert and Samuel Breck,t landed at * Sweetbrier was occupied by Mr. Breck until 1S3S, when he sold the estate and moved into town, mainly because of the prevalence of fever and ague, induced, he states, by the building of the dam at the city waterworks in 1822. The estate was not far from the historic mansion of Belmont, and is now included in Fairmount Park. The house occupied by Mr. Breck is still standing (1877) and occupied as a restaurant. f In a letter to a kinsman Mr. Breck writes: " In some places that name has been vulgarized and corrupted into Brick. Let me entreat you to avoid that nickname, either for yourself or your family connexions. Breck is an Erse word, signifying * distinguished chief,' and ought not to be debased into vile baked clay. Our English ancestors resided in Cumberland and Westmoreland." It was doubtless some consolation to Mr. Breck, when he found one of his ancestors reported as the Widow Brick, to read of her as " the very flower of Boston." The bookseller John Dunton, in his Life and Errors, gives an account of his sojourn in Boston in 1685-86, and speaks thus of Madam Breck; "The beauty of her person, the sweetness and affability of her temper, the gravity of her carriage, and her exalted piety gave me so just a value for hot that Mr. Green would often say, * Should Iris die ' (the name he gave his wife), 'which Heaven forbid! there is none fit to succeed her but Madam Brick.'" Mr. Drake, in his History of Boston, where we tind this extract from Dunton, says that the spelling Brick is in accordance with the pronunciation of Breck at tliat time. The name of Breck has ANCESTRY AND BIRTir. 1/ Dorchester, near Boston, about the year 1 630. ICdward's son John became eminent in Dorchester, and from him I am Hneally descended as a great-grandson. He died the 1 6th of February, 17 13, aged thirty-two, as appears by the inscription on our family mourning rings dis- tributed 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 i ith 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 luigland to Boston, by the name of Andrews. She was born on the nth 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 excite- ment, 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 en- gagement. been borne by persons of local distinction in various part of the country; amongst others, by Hon. Daniel Breck, a member of Congress from Kentucky l849-5r; by the Rev. Charles Breck, D. D., and by the late Rev. J. Lloyd Breck, D. D., both clergymen of the Protestant Episcopal Church and ne])hews of our author. 1 8 RECOLLECTIOXS OF SAMUEL BRECK. 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* that cracked a beautiful mirror by the concussion of the air in bursting, and gave my father a broad hint to pro- vide for the safety of his family. He had then only two children, Mrs. Lloyd f and myself. He obtained a pass- port from the British general, | 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 mc 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 * Mr. Breck does not state where the family home in Boston was at this time, other than that it was in what was then called New Boston, the present West End — strictly speaking, the district west of Sudbury street. \ Mrs. Lloyd, Mr. Breck's sister Hannah, was the wife of Hon. James Lloyd, a respected merchant of Boston, who twice represented IVLassa- chusetts in the U. S. Senate, 1808-13 and 1822-26. J From references in the letters of John Andrews (referred to at length on a later page, 23) it appears that Mr. Breck removed his family from Boston at the end of May, 1775, just before Governor Gage put into execution stringent rules forbidding the issuing of pass- ports. PROCESSION OF THE POPE AND THE DEVIL, tg that is the inoculation of my sister and myself for the small-pox."^ 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 dis- tinctly 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.f Sentiments of great liberality and toleration, together with an entire absence of colonial or English feeling, have contributed to abolish the custom here- tofore 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 * The reader will recall the frequent references, as in the letters of John and Abigail Adams, to the personal discomfort caused by the pre- cautions taken against small-pox through inoculation before the intro- duction of vaccination. f The celebration of Pope Day in Boston was always accompanied by violence. There were rival popes from the North End and the South End — the Avignon and Rome of Boston— and the followers of each fought to get possession of the opposition pope. General Sum- ner, in his Reminiscences, published in the A^ew England Historic- Genealogical Register (vol. viii., April, 1854), gives an account of Gov- ernor Hancock's measures, tlirough the mollifying influences of a dinner, to put an end to Pope Day in Boston a short time before more tragic hostilities broke out in 1775. 20 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. 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, * who was slain at the battle of Bunker Hill, sent him to a school at Chelsea, near Boston, kept by a clergyman named Pay- son ; t 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 * The four children of General Warren were committed to the care of their maternal grandmother after the death of Mrs. Warren, and the eldest son was educated at the expense of the United States, not of Massachusetts, the resolve being brought in by Samuel Adams, Jan. 31, 1777. Benedict Arnold took great interest in the children, and con- tributed generously to their education. He applied to Congress for provision for the support of the children, and July I, 1 780, Congress resolved to allow the half-pay of a major-general, to begin at the time of Warren's death and continue till the youngest child was of age — a stipend of about $1300 a year, with ^7000 for a first payment, on account of money due under the resolve. f Rev. Samuel Phillips Payson was distinguished at the time as a classical scholar and for his studies in natural philosophy and astron- omy, but no acute observations on the Dark Day seem to have come down from him. He is preserved in the amber of Thornton's Ptilpit of the A7nerican Revolution, and Sam Adams, writing to Elbridge Gerry and James Lovell about the Warren children, speaks of him as " a gentleman whose qualifications for the instructing of youth I need not mention to you;" which reads almost as if those two gentlemen had personal knowledge of Parson Payson's qualifications. THE DARK DAY. 21 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 satisfac- torily explained. Some ascribed it to an extensive conflagration in the backwoods, but I do not remem- ber any heavy smoke or other indication of fire. I know that candles w^ere 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 suc- ceeding night was " palpably obscure." Many acci- dents happened to those who were on the road. Noth- ing could exceed the darkness. No doubt there was a natural cause for it, but whether smoke or vapor, or other atmospherical density, remains undivulged.* * The Dark Day seems to have made an impression upon our fatliers more from spiritual than from physical causes. There were few exact 22 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. It was in the course of this year,* I think, that a most melancholy event terminated the life of my mater- nal 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, records of the facts, and those were gathered and sifted in a paper by Professor Samuel Williams of Harvard, published in the Aleiitoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for 1783. The lime was May 19, 1780, and the darkness came on between the hours of 10 and 11 A. M., continuing into the night; the degree differed in different places, but candles were required at mid-day for the reading of common print in all the district covered by it. " The birds, having sung their evening songs, disappeared and became silent ; the fowls retired to roost ; the cocks were crowing all around, as at break of day; objects could not be distinguished but at a very little distance, and everything bore the appearance and gloom of night." There was no definite information as to the extent of the darkness, but it seems to have been coextensive with New England. The atmosphere was charged with an extraordi- nary quantity of vapor, and in some places where rain fell a light scum, as of the ashes of burned leaves, was observed ; and the most accept- able explanation of the phenomenon was that the smoke from vast fires in the back country floating in the atmosphere at different elevations formed a medium very dense and impenetrable to the rays of the sun. * Mr. Benjamin Andrews was killed, I find by a mourning ring in my mother's possession, on the 9th of January, 1779, aged thirty-eight. He was almost the only native Bostonian who spoke French. — S. B. DEATH OF BENJAMIN ANDREWS. 23 hit him with the wad in the temple and killed him on the spot. My father had dined somewhere in the country that da}% and had not returned when the news of the event came to our house, which was about early candle- light. 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 pro- tector 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.* 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 pur- * Mr, Hichborn is characterized by Loring in his Hundred Boston Orators as one of the most fearless, dauntless patriots. He was a Democrat of the old school, and a warm advocate of Jefferson. He died in Dorchester in 181 7. 24 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. chased 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 reminis- cences 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 inter- ference 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.* 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 im- plicitly believed by Brother Jonathan, even by men of education and the first standing in society. When, there- * The name of John Andrews, which otherwise would have perished with that of a good many excellent associates in business, has been preserved for posterity through the means of a bundle of old letters discovered a few years since, which were written by Andrews to a brother-in-law, William Barrell of Philadelphia. These letters, pub- lished in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, July, 1865, are known to students as the raciest and most vivid account which we have of life in Boston immediately before and during the siege in 1776. When the letters were found they were submitted to Mr. Breck, who was able by his recollection to identify the persons and places of the letters and to furnish explanations and illustrations. At the time when the letters were shown to him he was eighty- eight years old, and thirty-seven years before he had visited the writer, his uncle, then in his eightieth year. TRACY'S DINNER TO D'ESTAING. 25 fore, 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, soiip-viaigi'c 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 inoiinseers ? In a little while they became convinced that they had been deceived as to their personal appearance, but they knew, notwith- standing 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 *) 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 entertain- ment. 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 I'Etombe on the left. L'Etombe was consul of France, resident at Boston. Tracy filled a plate with soup, which went to the * An attempt was afterward made by some persons of the Delia Cruscan school to cover this little napkin of water with the title Lake Cochituate, but successive generations of school-boys have preserved the name Frog-pond against all intruders, and Frog-pond it always will remain. 26 KECOLLECriONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. 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, dis- covered 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 gre- nouille!" then, turning to the gentleman next to him, gave him the frog. He received it, and passed it round the table. Thus the poor crapatid made the tour from hand to hand until it reached the admiral. The com- pany, 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 out- landish 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 ACCIDENT TO M. LABORDE. 2/ Count d'Estaing. The well-known Bougainville * 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 Caesar line-of-battle ship, commanded by the circumnavigator. While I am recording the wound of this French gen- tleman, 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 profes- sional 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 situa- tion 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 * Louis Antoine de Bougainville, after a brilliant career in the French army, entered the navy after the Peace of Paris (1763), and undertook to establish a French colony in one of the Falkland Islands. The plan failed, owing to objections raised by Spain, and Bougainville then carried on a voyage of discovery in the Southern Pacific, the results of which were set forth in his popular and lively Voyage autour du Monde. When France took part in the American war, Bougainville was appointed to the command of a ship of the line, and did very efficient service. 28 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. 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 Perouse. La Perouse left France in 1786, and exquisite Paris, la cornedie, la dance, r amour viaiic, everything, was aban- doned for glory. My young friends embarked, and the next year they were drowned. The year after, La Perouse, 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 dis- covered, but not one solitary survivor was found to relate the story of their disaster.* Meantime, Laborde, the father, was executed by the guillotine during the French Revolution, and his im- mense 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 haz- ards to encounter amid the vortices of the Pacific and * La Perouse's narrative is contained in four quarto volumes, en- titled Voyage de la Perouse atitour dti Monde, publii conformement au decret dti 22 Avril, 1 79 1, et redige par M. L. A. Millet- Mureati, d Paris, De rimprimerie de la Ripublique, an V. (1797). JOHN TRACY AND HIS FRIENDS. 29 from the fiercest cannibals of Polynesia, with the com- mon 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 com- mon 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 mem- bers 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 30 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. given according to promise, each man hinting a claim to it. After enjoying their embarrassment a Httle 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"* 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 re- galed his French guests much better than his frogs. That house had been the head-quarters of General Washington in the autumn of 1775. The war had shut up in Boston almost every kind of luxuiy. 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 gen- tleman, 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 * As one instance of the hazardous game of privateering, it is re- lated that at the end of 1777, Nathaniel and his brother "had lost one and forty ships, and, with regard to himself, he had not a ray of hope but in a single letter of marque of eight guns of which he had received no news. As he was walking one day with his brotlier, discussing with him how they should procure the means of subsistence for their families, they perceived a sail making for the harbor, which fortunately proved a prize worth ;^20,000 sterling." — Quoted in Drake's Old Lavdmarki and Historic Fields of Middlesex, page 309. THOMAS BRATTLE. 3 1 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 separa- ted it from the hot and irritated patriots who so often at the table of the commander-in-chief execrated the roy- alists 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.* 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 re- stored to him ; and I doubt not I have often di unk 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 sur- rounded. In his garden was an aviary and suitable ponds for aquatic fowls. There were to be seen im- prisoned various singing birds, and at large the stately * Mr. Breck had a singularly accurate memory, as tested by contempo- raneous accounts and documents, but it is evident that there is some confusion in his mind or in his narrative respecting the Cambridge houses. The house occupied by Nathaniel Tracy was that which formerly had been Washington's head-quarters. The Brattle house could perhaps be said to be opposite, though it would not now be so described, as it stands an eighth of a mile lower down the street on which was Washing- ton's head-quarters, now owned by Professor Longfellow. I cannot find any tradition, moreover, that either in the one house or the other there was any stock of wine concealed, and it is quite certain that the liquors in the cellar of the Brattle house were quickly discovered and appropriated by the soldiers. 32 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. 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 ex- ample, 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 ob- jects. 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, unfor- tunately, 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 BEACON HILL. 33 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 ! * Quincy, Otis, Lowell, Lloyd, Webster ! what Boeotian ascendency con- trolled 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 second- hand 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 substi- tuting 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 every- body who knew anything of Boston. It received its name from a beacon t that stood on it. Spokes were * The name Tremont street was afterward restored. f The beacon stood, as nearly as can be determined, on the site of the present reservoir. The first one was raised about 1634, and the one described by Mr. Break in 1768. In November, 1789, it was blown down, and in 1 790 a brick monument sixty feet in height was built to the memory of those who fell at Bunker Hill. The monument was taken down and the top of the hill levelled in 181 1. 34 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. 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 skilfully and earnestly used. In what a state of semi-barbarism did the rising generations of those days exist ! From time immemo- rial 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, every- thing of the kind ceased with the termination of our Revolutionary War.* 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 bo}'s, 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 * These broils were not confined to Boston. They have been common in other cities where circumstances called out partisan feeling. In Philadelphia, for instance, they lasted as late as 1820, THE ANTICKS. 35 that period to this these low, silly and unprofitable contests have never taken place, nor do 1 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 gre, inal gre, obtruding themselves everywhere, particularly into the rooms that were occupied by parties of ladies and gentlemen, would demean themselves with great inso- lence. I have seen them at my father's, when his as- sembled 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 com- pany. 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." 36 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. 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 hap- pened 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. Un- doubtedly, these plays were a remnant of the old Mys- teries of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.* Connected with this subject and period may be men- tioned 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 punish- ments, 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.f with three or four * I fear that the connection with the Mysteries would be rather hard to trace, yet this horse-play was most likely of English origin, and flourished only while colonial manners retained distinctions of class. There is a dim likeness to the sports of holidays in England. ■j- The pillory and the stocks were afterward movable machines, THE BRECK MANSION. 37 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 amend- ment 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 every- where 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 op- portunity 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.* In 1780 my father purchased a house for twelve hun- dred guineas in gold. It was greatly out of repair, hav- ing 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 exten- sive gardens in the midst of which it stood. For a city placed where most convenient, perhaps moved politely to the house of the victim. There was a public whipping in Boston as late as 1803. * Two years after this was written I had the satisfaction, as a member of the Senate of Pennsylvania, to take an active share in passing a bill that originated with Mr. C. Holcomb through the legislature, directing all executions to be made in the prison-yard, in which way it continues with us now (1843) and in several other States. — S. B. 38 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. residence it was remarkably fine, being situate at the corner of Winter and Common streets,* 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 dis- posed 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 every one. In these gardens my father gave a grand fete on the birth of the dauphin. Drink was distributed from hogs- heads, 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 p}Tamid of cord-wood fifty feet high was piled up in the middle of the green and fired at night. These re- joicings were more boisterous and hearty than would * Now Winter and Tremont, Common having been supplanted by Tremont. — S. B. The house is described from recollection by Mr, Lucius Manlius Sargent as " an antique wooden house in the midst of a delightful garden, extending down Winter street, and in the rear to what is now Hamilton Place. This house was once occupied by Sir Francis Bernard, probably till the year of his recall (1769). My mother once pointed out to me the chamber she occupied when she made a visit to the Bernards." — Proceedings of the Mass. His. Soc'y, July, 1865. LA FAYETTE AT TOWN-MEETING. 39 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 circum- stance 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 Sam- uel Cooper's church, with a dozen others, called the in- habitants 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 ac- commodated, and sat in silent admiration at the demure manner in which the moderator was chosen and in- 40 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. ducted to the chair and the meeting fully organized. Then the debate opened. One speaker affirmed, an- other denied, a third rejoined, each increasing in vehe- mence until the matter in debate was changed into per- sonal 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 as- sembled 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 characteris- tics 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 after- ward the occasion of mirthful remarks upon the for- bearance, calmness, decorum and parliamentary polite- ness 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 LIVEL Y ANTICS ON HIGH B UILDINGS. 4 1 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 Vane, 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 dinner-time the last man down should treat the others to drink. A little, tight-built, active Irishman was always foremost in getting down stairs, 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 inten- tion. 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,* * The use of this term may perhaps help to explain the apparent 42 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. 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 edi- fice. Along these cords he descended head first, 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 meeting-house 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 de- rives its appellation. That school in my day was kept confusion of the Old North church with its neighbor Christ church, here referred to, which has induced some at the present day to main- tain that Paul Revere's lanterns were hung not from Christ church steeple, but from the low tower of the Old North. VISITS OF FRENCH SHIPS. 43 by Mr. Hunt. He was a severe master, and flogged heartil}'. I went on, however, very well with him, mol- hfying 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 fevor, 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 appoint- ment, 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, con- voying 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 44 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. harbor, it was overtaken by a British fifty-gun ship (the Sagittaire, I think), and an engagement was forced on the Frenchman m 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 cer- tainty of her convoy getting safely into port, the Magi- cienne — 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 French- man struck. Those around me who had glasses per- mitted 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 mean time 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 ADMIRAL DE VAUDREUIL. 45 the departure of these ships. The anxiety of the towns- people too was excessiv^e, 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 Rev- olutionary 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 "Magicieiuie." It was the very vessel just alluded to.* 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 * A diligent examination of files of Boston newspapers for the summer of 1780 has failed to show me any report of this encounter; but that is not surprising, since the newspaper of that day performed the very sensible function of telling people what happened elsewhere than in their own town ; the news of that place they were supposed to learn by observation and gossip ; they read their paper for foreign news. 46 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. his fleet to Boston. On entering the Narrows a ship of the hne, called the Magnifique, missed stays, went ashore and was lost. There she lay for some years, a melan- choly 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 Revolu- tion 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. De Vaudreuil's flag-ship, the Triomphant, was brought into the inner harbor, directly opposite the Long Wharf, and hove down. This was done by means of two brigs that were placed on her starboard. She was a fine- modelled eighty-gun ship, and exhibited her larboard bottom covered with copper, looking from the shore like a green island. I often visited her in a sail-boat, and played around her when in that situation. La Cou- ronne, a ship of the same size, was in port at that time. I saw her five years after in drydock at Toulon. My father's agency for the French had become ex- tremely active, and he felt daily the want of a know- ledge of the French language. This was a matter of regret with every gentleman in the town. The early intercourse with the French was through the medium of Latin, and the celebrated Doctor Cooper was a use- MH. BRECK AND THE FRENCH CONSUL. 4/ ful and general interpreter. Soon after, some French- men slightly acquainted with English were employed. My father had two in his counting-house (Juteau and Nebonne), who proved intelligent and faithful. Not- withstanding this aid, he found it difficult to act with suitable decision and secrecy — a difficulty that was illustrated by the following incident. He was dining one day at M. de I'Etombe's, the French consul, when a courier brought a despatch from the Comte de Grasse, who was lying with his fleet in the Chesapeake, about the time of the capture of Lord Cornwallis's army. My father, who was at table, re- ceived the despatch, and withdrew to another room to open it. L'Etombe, who was mortified at not having been addressed by the admiral, left his company, ap- proached on tiptoe, and, forgetful of every rule of pro- priety, peeped over the shoulder of my father, who was glancing at the letter without being able to make out its contents. L'Etombe saw enough, however, before he was discovered, to understand the nature of the des- patch, which was indeed of great importance to my father on account of the magnitude of the commission it contained. Disappointed and vexed at being neglected, the consul wrote to the admiral, as if to remind him of his resi- dence in Boston, and, stung with envy at the favor shown my father, told De Grasse that in a republic everything like a monopoly should be avoided, and that it was contrary to the genius of our institutions to place too much power or profit in the hands of one individual ; wherefore he advised him to divide the commission 48 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. lately given to Mr. Breck. His advice was favorably received, and a share of the French agency on this occasion was transferred to another. This piece of treachery my father, with his accus- tomed goodness, soon forgave and forgot, but it led him to a determination to have his children taught the French language, and even inspired him with a desire to learn it himself Accordingly, a master was pro- cured, and Governor Hancock, being then at home, associated himself with my father in the attempt. It proved abortive with both ; their age and numerous occupations were a bar to all progress, and the scheme was given up. But his resolution respecting his chil- dren was persevered in, and generally fully accom- plished. Three of us spoke French fluently, and all had some knowledge of the language. For my share, it was settled in the family that I should be sent to a college in France for my education by the first suitable opportunity. Preparations were soon made, and on the 24th of December, 1782, I em- barked in the frigate Iris. M. de Vaudreuil, who com- manded the fleet at Boston, and now despatched this frigate to France, had recommended to my father the College of Soreze in Lower Languedoc, in the neigh- borhood of the admiral's castle and village of Vaudreuil. This recommendation was accompanied by letters from him to the principal, the Very Reverend Dom Despaul, to the Marchioness de Vaudreuil, and to Monsieur Bethman, the Austrian imperial consul at Bordeaux. I was, moreover, placed by that kind nobleman under the care of the Chevalier de Chalvet, a major in Roch- VOYAGE TO FRANCE FOR EDUCATION. 49 ambeau's army, who was returning to France, and who, his home being at Toulouse, only twenty-four miles from the college, undertook to see me safe there. To all this kindness the admiral added special directions to the Marquis de Traverse, who commanded the Iris, to take me into his own cabin. A cot was swung for me, accordingly, in the round- house, occupied by the captain, and thus at eleven years and six months I left my beloved parents and native land. It was the season of strong winds, and when we weighed anchor a powerful north-wester (that tyrant of North America, as De Crevecoeur calls it) set in, and took us in three marine days to soundings on the Banks of Newfoundland. With this and other favor- able winds we sailed immensely fast, perhaps averaging for days together three hundred miles in twenty-four hours. Meantime, I recovered from sea-sickness, and passed my time very well. The discipline then, and indeed until within a few years, was exceedingly lax. The captain had no separate table allowed him in the French navy; the officers all dined together, captain, lieuten- ants, master, surgeons and midshipmen, and they were all " hail fellow, well met !" there. The youngest guard- marine treated the commander with familiarity, using the language of tu et toi in conversation. I shall have occasion hereafter to illustrate this fact by further ex- amples. The war was still raging, and we had several alarms in our short run ; particularly one night, when the drum beat to arms and the ship was cleared for action. Such helter-skelter, such hurry and commo- 4 so RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. tion, I had of course never seen before. It was past bed-time, and many of us had turned in. Hearing the noise, I ran upon deck, jumped upon a gun and saw a sail close by, coming athwart our bows. She passed us, and as our ship was directed not to alter her course for any cause whatever, we gladly let the stranger go. What sort of a battle we should have made I know not. Being ordered below, I can only say that in passing through the great dinner-room on the main deck, into which the water-closets opened, I saw a good many people anxiously waiting at the doors. If it be true that fright operates medicinally, there were then certainly strong symptoms of its effect. The alarm subsided with the disappearance of the strange sail, and in three days after we arrived on the coast of France. It was the morning only of the six- teenth day since we left Boston that we anchored at the mouth of the Loire, opposite to Bel Isle, and here we found a small American schooner that had arrived the day before, having left Marblehead one day before we sailed, and consequently making her passage in the same time that we made ours. There sail at the present day from Boston, New York and Philadelphia to Eng- land and France between forty and fifty fine ships, the departure of which is periodical and punctual. These packets are fast sailers, and frequently perform the voy- age to Liverpool in twenty days. I sometimes tell the young people who boast of this, and consider the speed of these modern ships without example in old times, that nearly half a century ago we could get along faster ; and I prove it by the two foregoing passages, in which A QUICK PASSAGE. $1 a distance of at least two hundred and fifty miles more than to Liverpool was run in less time. As our voyage had been made in a little more than a fortnight, I told Mr. J. Allen, whom I met at Nantes, and who inquired after my father's health, that I could almost say that I shook hands with him last week. The ship in which we made this rapid passage was built in America by the State of Massachusetts, and called the Hancock. She was a thirty -two-gun frigate, constructed on the Merrimack River of common oak, and, being launched in a hurry, was not expected to last long. The English made prize of her, and lost her to the French, who took her in the Chesapeake, and retained the name of Iris, which she had received from the English. Her frame and whole hull, indeed, being nothing but unseasoned timber, put together four or five years before, she could not be worth much ; and it turned out that while her weakness contributed, by the flexibility of her frame, to her swift sailing, it greatly endangered our lives, had we met with adverse gales. On her arrival at L'Orient she was condemned as un- seaworthy. The hazard of a rotten vessel I cared little about then, and was probably glad to get along fast even by the play of the decayed knees and limber joints of a crazy ship ; but my motto now is " Mod- erate haste and sound vehicle." CHAPTER II. First View of France. — Nantes. — Boston in France. — La Rochelle. — Rochefort. — Bordeaux. — Toulouse. — Soreze. — Holidays at the Castle of the Marquis de Vaudreuil. — The Course of Study at Soreze. — School-Life. — Balloons. — Blanchard. — Mesmer. — Lightning-Rods. — Distinguished Families at Soreze — La Perouse. — Dom Crozal and Quetain. — Confession and Mass. — Journey to Paris. — Political E.\cite- ment in Paris. — Crevecoeur. — High Life. — Beaumanoir. — De Valady. — Brissot de Warville. — Journey to Havre.— Fellow-Passengers on Return Voyage. — Arrival at New York. CAPTAIN TRAVERSE left the ship immediately, in order to deliver his despatches personally at Versailles. The frigate, after his departure, ascended the river some leagues toward Pemboeuf, near which village the passengers disembarked. The first aspect of La Belle France was exceedingly repulsive. On landing at that village we passed a gang of ragged boys who were playing pitch-penny, and entered a dark and dirty street. Scarcely had I taken a seat in a miserable inn that stood there, when a com- pound of villainous smells arose from every quarter and everything, which made me sick at the stomach ; nor did I cease vomiting for many hours. Cheese, garlic, noxious odors and pungent steams, new to the smell and horribly disgusting, occasioned a feeling of deep 52 THE CITY OF NANTES. 53 sorrow at having left my dear country, and made me for the first time exceedingly homesick. A boat was hired at this outport to take us thirty miles up the Loire to Nantes. Before we reached that city I grew better, and gradually my home-longings ceased, never to return. The day was fine, and the splendid banks of that celebrated river, smiling with culture, although in winter, and decked with hamlets, villas and castles, soon banished every regret and lightened my heart again, so that when we landed a little before dark on the fine quay of Nantes, amidst the moving crowd, all various and new to me, a strong sensation of astonishment and pleasure wholly dispersed the gloom of the morning. M. de Chalvet led me to the Hotel de I'Empereur, where we were not a little surprised to find our cap- tain, who with the nonchalance customary in public service at that day was taking a little repose, thinking, no doubt, that he might loiter a short time on land after having made such haste on the water. The hotel in which we lodged had been very recently new named, and received its imperial title from the circumstance of the emperor Joseph II., who was then on his travels, having lodged there when he visited Nantes. It was a fine house, and here we stayed four or five days, during which we explored the city, went to the play, to con- certs, and to dinners. It was the custom for persons of any distinction to enter the theatre behind the scenes, even while the play was going on. My protector was indulged with this privilege, and after the curtain dropped he took me to the green-room, where I was 54 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. much caressed by the actresses, who, as well as the ladies of the best society in town, filled my pockets with bon-bons, and in noticing me thus affectionately called me " le petit Bostonian." It was indeed by the name of Bostonian that all Americans were known in France then. The war having broken out in Boston, and the first great battle fought in its neighborhood, gave to that name universal celebrity. I remember a song that was in fashion, the chorus of which was : " Bon, Bon, Bon, C'est a Boston Qu'on entend soufle les canons." Coffee-houses took that name, and a game invented at that time, played with cards, was called " Boston," and is to this day exceedingly fashionable at Paris by that appellation.* An old friend of my father's, the late General Williams, resided at Nantes, and I spent a day with him. His house fronted on the long quay, the pride of the city, which, constructed as it was of hewn stone, left a wide space of the smoothest pavement for the multitude that frequented it in carriages and on foot. Here ran the magnificent Loire, whose waters, now alive with trade, were destined in ten years to be the grave of so many of the then rising generation. It was here that the monster Carrier destroyed the flower of the town ; here his Noyades, midnight drownings, and republican * Madame de Genlis speaks of this game and its origin in her Menioires. The game has by no means become extinct, as witness the Boston parties still given in Philadelphia and elsewhere. LA ROCHELLE. 55 marriages, as the fiend called them, took place. The most delicately-educated women, young and beautiful, were tied naked to naked men, and either sunk in boats in the river or knocked on the head and thrown from the quay. Thousands upon thousands perished by the order of that detested man, who, finding the guillotine too slow for his destructive rage, cast boatloads of victims into the river, night after night, for many months. Thus it was throughout France, in those days of Terror, that the sacred names of Liberty and Republicanism were abused and made hateful by the more than hellish crimes which the rulers of that un- happy country dared to commit under their sanction. Nantes was in 1783 a prosperous town, filled with a happy community, celebrated in history as the resi- dence of Henri IV. when he issued his decree of re- ligious toleration, so impolitically revoked by his bigoted grandson, Louis XIL It is again the seat of an active commerce, and has, by the aid of trade and manufac- tures, recovered in part its former wealth. No town in the kingdom suffered more during the phrenetic rule of Robespierre. After reposing ourselves a few days here, M. de Chalvet hired a carriage to take us to La Rochelle. At this place we made a short stay, and purchased, for thirty louis, a chaise de poste, in which we made the re- mainder of our journey with post-horses. La Rochelle is a pretty town, with several of its streets neatly paved, and affording to the foot-passenger a luxury at that time known in scarcely any city of France. A sepa- rate pavement not only protected him from the horses $6 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. and carriages, but an arcade connected with the houses sheltered him from the rain and sun. This town has about eighteen thousand inhabitants, who are pretty actively occupied in commerce and manufactures. It was long the head-quarters of Protestantism, and re- sisted during a long siege the celebrated Cardinal de Richelieu, who spent thirty millions of livres in this conquest, principally in the construction (in 1628) of the famous dike, the remains of which are still visible at low water. It was a mighty work, of great solidity and seven hundred and forty-seven perches in length. Several very considerable islands can be seen from the harbor, such as Oleron, Re, Aix, etc. Rochefort was the next town at which we stopped for a day or two. It was then a royal naval-station, with suitable arsenals, docks, ropewalks, sailcloth man- ufactories, etc. The river Charente, on which it stands, is exceedingly deep, but narrow. There were fifteen thousand inhabitants in that town. We were now in the wine country, and on reaching the old and once opulent town of Saintes came to a mart of eighteen thousand tuns of wine, drawn from the surrounding country, which is converted into brandy and spirit-of- wine. This town, that counts now only ten thousand inhabitants, was formerly much more populous. It ap- peared to me to contain dark and dirty streets, which gave it an air of unusual gloom. It stands at a short distance from the left bank of the Charente. The re- mains of its past greatness are the ruins of an amphi- theatre and a white marble arch at the bridge of tlie Charente. BORDEAUX. 57 At Bordeaux, where we next arrived, we spent a week. Here it was that my future correspondent and guardian resided. Mr. Bethman, to whom the Marquis de Vaudreuil had given me the warmest letters of re- commendation, was, as I have said before, the consul of the emperor of Germany, and moreover an eminent merchant, connected with the Bethmans of Frankfort. He received me in the most cordial manner, and pre- suming that it would be dull for me in his family, on account of my ignorance of the French language, begged, in a day or two after my arrival, his particu- lar friend, Mr. Barton, to let me reside with him. Mr. Barton was an Irish merchant, living very splendidly on the Quai des Chartrons, with the fine river Garonne and all the trade of that great town passing in front of his house. His family spoke English, and he had chil- dren of my age to entertain me. I never shall forget the pleasant days I spent with that good gentleman. The superb theatre was recently finished, and eclipsed then, as I believe it does now, every edifice of the kind in France. The ballet surprised me most. Never had I conceived it possible to dance as the performers did there. Bordeaux was at that day (1783) in the most flourishing state. Never at any period of its historj' had its opulence and extent exceeded it. New projects for its adornment and convenience were daily suggest- ed ; particularly one, which was to demolish the castle (Chateau Trompette) and make its commanding site a point of convergence for thirteen new streets, that were to be lined with houses of the most beautiful archi- tecture, constructed of the fine yellow, or rather cream- 58 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. colored, freestone, already so advantageously displayed in many modern public and private buildings. This scheme and several others then talked of were strangled in their birth by the blighting effects of the Revolution, in which Bordeaux suffered as much as any city in France.* From a population of one hundred and twelve thousand she was in a i^w years reduced to forty thousand, and her trade proportionally diminished. This made her ultra-royalist in her politics ; and when the Bourbons were restored she gave such strong tes- timonials of attachment to the duchess of Angouleme that the king has given the title of duke of Bordeaux to the presumptive heir to his throne. The Chateau de la Brede, three leagues from the city, belonged to the celebrated Montesquieu, There he was born, and there he lived and died. The present archbishop of this city is the former Bishop Cheverus of Boston, to whom I mean to refer again soon. Montauban, a town of more than twenty thousand inhabitants, lies on the road to Toulouse, and in passing through it I was delighted to find that the fame of my native place had reached the centre of France by ob- serving over the door of a large house in the most public part of the town the words " Cafe de Boston." We travelled rapidly in our cabriolet, and arrived in a few days at Toulouse, which was the home of my guardian and friend, M. de Chalvet. He took me to the house of his sister, a maiden lady, who bestowed * It will be remembered that Bordeaux was the stronghold of the Girondins, and suffered bitterly when that party went down before the fierce onslaught of the Mountain. TOULOUSE. 59 upon me every desirable attention. After a little rest I was shown the town, and conducted to the chateau of the chevalier's elder brother. It was a large brick house, situate in a fine open country, and dignified by the name of castle, as is the custom in France. Any house in the country larger than a villa or cabane ornee is denominated a castle, notwithstanding the absence of everything that formerly constituted a chateau. No castellated towers, drawbridge, walls or ditch are now required. A house a little larger than common passes for a grand or petit seigneur's chateau. M. de Chalvet's brother was very well lodged. His house contained many fine rooms and a billiard-table. It was an establishment befitting the head of a rich family. Toulouse is a city of fifty thousand people, and very ancient. It stands upon the right bank of the Garonne, just where the celebrated Canal of Languedoc termi- nates to the west, having its eastern termination on the Mediterranean near Cette. This city was once orna- mented with an amphitheatre, a capitol and many other superb buildings, which were destroyed by the Visi- goths. Once the seat of learning, it possessed as early as 1229 a university, several academies, and the first literary society ever formed in Europe, called Jeux Floraux. The town-house, called Capitole, is the finest in the kingdom. The mill of Basacle, put in motion by the Garonne, the waters of which turn sixteen millstones without the usual racket of other mills, is very curious. The walks here, as well as in all the cities of France, are superb. It is a place of considerable trade in silk, 6o RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. wool, grain, wine and lumber. It manufactures silk stuffs for furniture, and gauze, printed muslins, etc. Having passed several days here very agreeably, my friend and conductor hired a carriage to take me to the " Royale et Militaire " College of Soreze, situate off the post-road, at the foot of the Black Mountains (a spur of the Pyrenees), and twenty-four miles distant from Toulouse. We left the ancient capital of Langue- doc (so much resembling an American city by the universal use of bricks in the construction of private houses), and came to Castelnaudary, where we slept. It was at this town that the troops of the Cardinal de Richelieu, in the reign of Louis XIII., defeated Gas- ton, Due d'Orleans, and captured the Due de Mont- morency, whose head he caused to be cut off as a warning to the feudal aristocracy of France, which this act of vigor completely humbled. We arrived next morning at the beautiful plain of Revel, in which the little town of Soreze stands. The first thing that meets the traveller's eye in approaching the place is a lofty tower, built by Pepin le Bref about seven hundred years ago. That prince is said to have founded the monastery, now occupied by about twenty-seven Bene- dictine monks, to whom was committed the care of more than four hundred boys. St. Benedict, the founder of this religious order, prescribed as a rule, as far back as the fifth century, that in order to banish idleness his monks should super- intend the instruction of youth — a duty to which they have ever been attentive, more especially since the dis- persion of the Jesuits. At the time I am speaking of LIFE AT SOREZE. 6 1 (1783) that order had the entire management of the twelve royal and military schools of France, among which Soreze, by its size and talented teachers, stood conspicuous. The letter from the Marquis de Vaudreuil of which I was bearer, and those sent on from Bordeaux by Mr, Bethman, together with the personal introduction by the Chevalier de Chalvet, could not fail to procure me, on the part of the principal, a most cordial reception. Cheered as I was by the fine buildings of the college, the lovely landscape that surrounds them, and already accustomed to the manners of the French, I entered upon my studies with a light heart and contented mind. The venerable and learned superior, Dom Despaulx, embraced me with parental affection, and recom- mended me to the protection of the sub-director, Dom Crozal, who acted as my prefect, and never intermitted the kindest treatment of a friend and father during our connection of more than four years. Very able lay- teachers assisted the monks, and taught everything fitted to give a solid education, intermixed with every variety of ornamental or pleasing instruction. Thus, besides the ancient and modern languages and exact sciences, drawing, music, dancing, riding, fencing, mili- tary exercises, etc. were a part of our daily occupation ; so that notwithstanding we were at our lessons during ten hours and a quarter every day, except Sundays, a judicious interchange of the serious with the lighter matter prevented fatigue. About the second year of my residence at Soreze, the Marquis de Vaudreuil arrived at his castle, and as 62 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. a very particular favor I was permitted to accept of an invitation to pass two or three days with the marquis's family, the rules of the college, except on special oc- casions, not allowing a departure from its walls for a night. The Castle de Vaudreuil is a real fortress, with moat, wall, gateway, towers, etc. It was not more than eight miles from the college. Previous to the day ap- pointed for this visit I had been required to study a part assigned to me in a play that was to be enacted at the castle as an item in the programme of amusements getting up in honor of the arrival of the lord of the domain. About a mile from the castle we saw con- spicuously erected the marquis's escutcheon, to denote the commencement of his estate, and as we came in front of the main gateway a very considerable village, from the name of which the admiral took his title, was seen stretching along the foot of the hill on which the castle stood, I was associated in the play with the three daughters of the marquis, all of whom were ex- quisitely pretty and possessed of manners the most fascinating. The eldest, who was afterward married to the eccen- tric Marquis de Valady (of whom more by and by), was not more than seventeen, and a more bewitching girl was seldom seen. Her sisters wanted only the development of her years to equal her in grace and beauty. A young brother, Comte Philip, and another sprig of nobility, his friend, made up the dramatis per- soncE. A stage was erected in a building in the court- yard, and here we rehearsed before the marchioness HOLIDAYS AT DE VAUDREUIL. 63 while she was at her toilet in the pit. There sat that remarkable lady whose subsequent history was so full of adventure. She was endowed with a commanding presence and dignified manners. Scarcely past her middle age, her features assumed almost the loveliness of her daughters as her Abigail powdered her dark hair and decorated it with a toiipillion of pearls or diamonds, and more especially when a delicate tinge of carmine was spread upon her cheek and her temple-veins were pencilled with blue. While the wonder-working art of the dame d'atoitrs was going on we went through our piece. My share was to narrate, interlocutorally, the naval exploits of the good admiral on the American station. How these speeches were composed I cannot recollect, but it is very certain that there must have been a large proportion of fiction in them to have made them at all complimentary ; for the principal achieve- ment of De Vaudreuil after De Grasse's capture was to bring a division of the defeated fleet to Boston. We went through, nevertheless, taut bicn que mal, and in the afternoon mingled with the peasantry of the sur- rounding country, who came in great numbers to huzza and dance in front of the castle. In the evening our theatre was crowded, and we again did our best. This was rare sport for a boy who had been shut up between four walls at hard study for eighteen months ; it was too delightful to last long, and the third day I was led back to prison. Ah ! how long did the sweet image of those young ladies haunt my mind and unfit me for my books ! But time, that cures most wounds, healed all mine. Notwithstanding, I was permitted afterward to 64 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. converse occasionally with them at the college concert, to which they sometimes came on a Sunday evening. Not far from the castle and village of De Vaudreuil is to be seen the great basin of Saint-Feriol, which is a vast reservoir of water, covering more than five hundred acres, from which the Canal of Languedoc is supplied. These objects, joined to fertile fields, high mountains and ample vineyards, create views of picturesque beauty and specimens of art of extensive utility ; all contribut- ing to justify the character and fame which Languedoc has long possessed for the industry of its people and the richness of its soil. Education at the College of Soreze was exceedingly cheap, being for natives of France only seven hundred livres (about one hundred and thirty-seven dollars) a year, including clothing, lodging, board, physician, etc., etc. For those scholars who came from abroad the price was one thousand livres (one hundred and ninety- five dollars). This difference arose out of the necessity of taking foreigners whenever they presented them- selves, which sometimes created an inconvenience that could not occur with natives, because they were made to wait until a vacancy took place. The king paid for about fifty boys, the sons of officers of decayed fortunes. A number of scholars who did not study the dead lan- guages were denominated pas-latins (or non-Latin stu- dents), and were separated into four divisions, each division applying itself for a year to some one of the following objects : history ; geography ; mathematics, including engineering, surveying, fortification for de- fence and attack ; the theory and practice of perspec- COURSE OF STUDY. 6$ tive ; every variety of drawing, from the human figure to topography ; architecture ; natural philosophy ; nat- ural history ; astronomy ; the French, English, German, Italian and Spanish languages. Chemistry was not taught in my day, but mineralogy and geology were included in the mineral kingdom of natural history. To these were added military tactics, fencing, riding, music, dancing, swimming, etc. With such various means for a good education, with- out Greek or Latin, many of the merchants, Creole planters and small land-owners gave to their sons com- petent instruction ; nay, very many of the children of poor officers, as already mentioned, were by the bounty of the king, like Napoleon,* taught here, who, although enrolled with the pas-latins, rose subsequently to posts in the civil and military departments of government of the highest dignity. Very long experience in that seminary has shown that the Latin and non-Latin classes can go on with kindred feeling and perfect harmony in the study of various branches common to them both under one and the same collegiate govern- ment. I prefer, undoubtedly, an education bottomed on a full knowledge of the dead languages; yet it may not be deemed indispensable. Everything was abundant and exceedingly cheap in this fine country. In good seasons it was customary at the vintage to fill a barrel of wine in payment for an * In referring to Napoleon Bonaparte I do not mean to say that he was educated at Sor^ze, but at one of the twelve colleges (Brienne) under the special control of the king, and regulated by one and the same system. — S. B, 5 ()6 KECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. empty cask of like capacity ; and the retail price of a small-bodied red wine was two sols, or a little less than two cents, a bottle. The fine, large marron chestnuts were brought to us, on days of recreation, for a cent a hundred, all hot and roasted ; a hundred English wal- nuts were purchased for the same price ; so that four cents a week — which was the usual sum allowed each scholar for pocket-money — was, trifling as it appears in America, sufficient for the purchase of those luxuries which our table did not supply. My excellent and ever-indulgent father chose to allow me half a dollar a week, and nothing could give the scholars, and even the monks, a greater idea of my father's boundless wealth, as they said, than this munificent pension. With it I had a small carriage built, in which, on days of recreation, when we walked into the country in classes accompanied by a Benedictine, I caused myself to be drawn by half a dozen boys, who made a frolic of it, and partook afterward of my ample purchases of fruit. Our college life was always diversified by the variety of our studies, and sometimes by transient visits of distinguished strangers, itinerant showmen, and once a year by the dreaded arrival of the king's inspector. This last was a severe man, and in the eyes of the scholars a surly tyrant. He generally suggested some unpopular regulation, and appeared to execute his duty in a rough and discourteous way, which contrasted very strongly with the mild and truly parental demeanor of the good monks. When a great man paid the institu- tion a visit these very reverend fathers made every BALLOONING. 6/ effort to please him ; thus, on the arrival of M. de Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse, a general jubilee prevailed, and it was on that occasion, I think, that we raised the first balloon in that section of France. Aerostation was the topic of the day. The two brothers, Messieurs Stephen and John Montgolfier, had exhibited in the fall of 1783, before the Academy of Sciences at Paris, several experiments showing that bags of linen, lined with paper and filled with heated air, would fly upward, and carry with them a great weight. A vast machine was next constructed at Versailles for the entertainment of the court, the height of which was sixty feet and diameter forty-three. It was finely deco- rated with water-color paintings, and had appending a wicker cage in which were placed a sheep, a cock and a duck. These animals, the first that ever took an excur- sion in the air by the agency of man, ascended to the height of fourteen hundred and forty feet, and after sailing about two miles came down uninjured. The method of inflating the balloon was by burning chopped straw and wool under the aperture ; and, encouraged by the suc- cessful voyage of these animals, M. Pilatre de Rozier proposed to make a new aerostatic machine of a larger construction, and offered himself to be the first aerial adventurer. His attempt was prosperous, and frequently repeated afterward, when balloons were filled with inflam- mable air ; but at last he and a Mr. Romane were killed by the machine taking fire at a height of three-quarters of a mile. There is a monument erected to these unfor- tunate men or to the two brothers Roberts somewhere on the road between Paris and Calais, which I recollect 68 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. seeing in 1791. Our college balloon was a globe of some fifteen feet diameter, and after being filled with hot air went off to a great distance. The bravest aerial traveller of those days was the cel- ebrated Blanchard, whom I knew personally, and who ascended in 1792 at Philadelphia.* I was likewise in- timately acquainted with Doctor Jeffries, who crossed the British Channel in a balloon with Blanchard on the 7th of January, 1785. The doctor was a native of Boston, and died in America. Nothing ever under- taken with balloons was so daring as this, nor executed with more skill or amid greater danger. Two or three times the travellers were brought down almost to the water, and rescued from drowning only by throwing out, along with their ballast, their books, provisions, an- chors and clothes. Thus lightened, the machine brought them safe to land. I have heard the account of this trip from Blanchard given with feelings of asperity that were not reciprocated in my hearing by the doctor. The Frenchman was from some cause or other dis- pleased, and being intent upon revenge took a very public manner of insulting his companion. He em- ployed Fielding, the best coachmaker of Philadelphia, to build him a vehicle that was to go without horses. The machinery that moved it was worked by a man standing on the footboard behind, who by the alternate pressure of his feet set the wheels going and expanded * Blanchard's ascent at Pliiladelphia gave him occasion to print an amusing account, which he dedicated to President Washington ; the account is full of grimaces, shrugs and literary posturings. The ascent, however, created a most lively interest in Philadelphia, both among the people and the savants. M. BLANCHARD. 69 the wings of an eagle, that by constantly flapping them seemed to draw the carriage along by its flight. On the panels of this carriage, which was exhibited in all the large towns in the United States, he caused the doctor to be painted in the balloon, with a bottle of brandy to his mouth, intimating by the motto beneath that without the aid of this Dutch courage his fortitude would have wholly forsaken him. Blanchard was a petulant little fellow, not many inches over five feet, and weighing about one hundred and twenty pounds, thus physically well suited for vapor- ish regions. He married after he returned to Europe a woman who eclipsed all others by her bold feats in the air, until one night she made an ascension over Paris for the purpose of playing off fireworks, when the bal- loon suddenly exhibited a universal blaze, and to the dismay of the numerous spectators the poor lady was dashed on the roof of a house, from which she rolled dead into the street. It so happened that I had never been present at the balloon ascension of a human being — and I used some- times to regret it — when one day, about the year 18 16, being at dinner at Sweetbrier, the servants informed me that a balloon was sailing over the lawn. On running out we were very unexpectedly gratified with the sight of a man swinging to and fro in a car attached to a handsome globe, and waving a flag with great spirit and confidence. He did not appear to be more than three hundred feet high, and after a short stay near our house desended in a field at Mantua, about three-quarters of a mile from us. yo RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. During my residence at Soreze we were visited, I think, by Doctor Mesmer himself, or one of his pupils, at the time when animal magnetism was in great repute in France. It was said that many cures had been effected by its means. This magnetism was then called " an universal fluid constituting an absolute plenum in nature, and the medium of all mutual influence between the celestial bodies, and betwixt the earth and animal bodies." " The animal body is subjected to the influ- ences of this fluid by means of the nerves, which are immediately affected by it." This was part of the the- ory. A commission was given by the king to several learned men, at the head of whom was our celebrated countryman, Doctor Franklin. After many experi- ments they reported against it in every respect ; but the members of the French Academy, who likewise exam- ined the subject, made one exception to its utter use- lessness, and in these words : " It constitutes one fact more to be consigned to the history of the errors and illusions of the human mind, and a signal instance of the power of imagination. " Whoever the magnetizer was that visited our college, the credulous peasantry rushed upon him from all quarters ; the lame, the blind, the diseased of every sort who could get abroad threw themselves in his way and entreated him to cure them, as he had done their countrymen wherever he had travelled. These poor people were not so willing to avert the electric fluid from their houses as they were to receive the magnetic fluid into their bodies. The fact was this : Our professor of natural philosophy was desirous to LIGHTNING-RODS. 7 1 erect on the old lofty tower that stood near the church mentioned as having been built by Pepin le Bref a lightning-rod, very properly called at that time a " Franklin ;" but the prejudice and superstition of the people prevented it. " God casts his thunderbolts," said they, " where He lists, and it is presumption in man to endeavor to turn them aside." Nevertheless, these poor people had, from time immemorial, made use of the bell in the tower to drive away the lightning, so that whenever a thunder-cloud approached the bell was rung to keep it off. After much altercation with the curate and his people, the professor caused a tower to be built, resembling in miniature the one that stood by the church, and having charged his electric machine invited the curate to witness the practical effect of the conductor. Having placed a rod to his tower properly pointed, he brought the electric flash to it, and carried it along the rod to a basin of water, where it was ex- tinguished without doing the least injury to the tower. This he repeated several times in order to convince the good curate of the perfect efficacy of the conductor. When he had made some impression upon his mind he removed the lightning-rod, and directed the electric spark to the tower thus unprotected, which it demol- ished in a moment ; and with it fell all the curate's ob- jections, who forthwith aided in the erection of a rod on the old tower. This was done while I was at col- lege. It was a signal triumph of science over deep- rooted ignorance and prejudice. One Sunday, as we were going to church in the after- noon, attended by a monk, we saw a man climbing up 72 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. that very rod. He had got out on the top of the high tower, and was ascending the slender conductor that projected beyond it about twenty feet. His situation was perilous in the extreme, and our good monk, ex- pecting him every instant to fall, stood with his right arm stretched out, in order to give him a blessing when on his way to the other world ; but the fellow, who, we afterward heard, was a sailor, had his frolic out and de- scended uninjured. Among our scholars were several foreigners of very distinguished rank. I found there on my arrival the four Seras from Genoa. Whoever has visited that city of palaces must have seen the palace of Sera. These sons of that ci-devant wealthy family were known apart by the comparative designation of Maximus, Major, Minor and Minimus. The eldest was a brilliant scholar, and left a great reputation for good conduct when he graduated. But his life was short, for he caught cold at a ball soon after his return home, and died. From Italy we had likewise the Prince de Carignan, under the borrowed name of De Baige. This young gentleman had a Sardinian chamberlain to attend him as governor. I lived under the same prefect with him, and upon inti- mate terms. He was about fifteen years old, of a kind and social disposition, and wholly devoid of pride. He has been dead many years, and left a son, the present Prince de Carignan, who is heir to the throne of Sar- dinia, which he came near forfeiting by his participation in the revolutionary commotions of i8i8. The Duke de Cassano in the kingdom of Naples had two sons there, and the Count O'Reilly, governor of Cadiz, sent LA PER USE. 73 two of his sons there Hkewise. The usual number of students was about four hundred and ten. While I was at college the famous La Perouse, to whom I have already briefly alluded, departed from the port of L'Orient on the voyage of discovery that ter- minated so fatally. He had recently visited Boston in the frigate Astraea, and was particularly intimate with my father. I have a rich snuff-box, very beautifully ornamented with gold and precious stones and a bas- relief of exquisite workmanship representing the King of France reviewing his guards. This box was given by him to my father, as the family suppose, and as I think I have heard from that worthy parent myself, when speaking of La Perouse, as he often did, in terms of warm friendship, describing him as kind, well-bred, and fitted by his courteous manners to inspire universal respect and regard. The printed fragment of his voy- age from L'Orient to Port Jackson in Australia, and the recent discovery of the island where he lost his two ships and every soul of their numerous crews, have made his name known to all the world. This is a proper place to mention a very curious pas- sage in the life of my prefect, the reverend monk Dom Crozal, who was preparing to accompany me on a tour through France. That very worthy gentleman was the sub-director of the college, and possessed great author- ity. It happened one afternoon that the class of geog- raphy to which I belonged was left alone in the room without a teacher. More than half an hour passed, and no master came. This was enough to put mischief into the boys' heads, and some one suggested that we might 74 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. have a good deal of fun by turning the front of the map to the wall when poor Dom Dupain, who was as. blind as a bat, should come into school. This reverend Father could see no object that was not brought up to the point of his nose. He was a good-natured man, and the boys frequently made a jest of him with impunity. Some- thing had detained him that day, and before he arrived the large map of Europe was turned wrong side out. At length he came and placed himself in front of the naked back of the map. He held in his hand a short stick and a volume of La Croix's Geography. He whose turn it was went on with a description of Ger- many until he came to Vienna. There the young rogue stopped and declared he could see nothing like Vienna. " Poh, poh, child !" said the monk, putting his stick to the bare canvas, "there it stands on the Danube. Don't you see it?" — "No, my father, I assure you it is not there." The monk persisted in affirming it must be there, and as he spoke he thrust the little rod most vehemently against the map. It was impossible to sup- press our smothered laugh any longer, and the room echoed with a loud burst. Upon this the good Father approached the map so very near that he discovered the trick. Indignant at such conduct, he seized with both hands the two boys nearest to him. These hap- pened to be a tall lad by the name of Quetain and myself I made no resistance, but went upon my knees as ordered by Dom Dupain. Not so Quetain, who was a stout fellow, and refused, alleging that he had nothing to do in the business. It so happened that in the scuffle a piece of iron hoop fell out of the side-pocket of Que- DCM CROZAL AND QUE TAIN. 75 tain, which the exasperated monk supposed he meant to use against him. This he always maintained, and it was one reason for Quetain's subsequent expulsion. Meantime, the well-known public whipper, Dujardin, arrived, and without form or process was directed to chastise me. To this I stoutly objected, bawling out that I had never yet been whipped, and begged the kind Father to pause and discriminate between the guilty and innocent before he inflicted an unjust pun- ishment on me. My expostulation being listened to, Dujardin was turned over to Quetain, who, however, persisted in his resistance, and was sent to prison. This poor fellow was the son of an indigent officer, and was one of the fifty scholars paid for by the king. These royal pensioners were not much in favor with the gov- ernors of the college, probably because they were less profitable to them than the other boys, and very likely, too, because they were poor. Be that as it may, they were on all occasions severely judged, and on the pres- ent one Quetain was expelled. Now, to a royal pen- sioner an expulsion from college closed against him for ever the patronage of the Crown, No post could after- ward be obtained for him under government ; so that when driven from Soreze he might be said to have all his prospects ruined. In this expulsion Dom Crozal had a principal hand. The complaint was referred to him, and connecting, as he no doubt did, this offence with the poor fellow's general conduct, he chose him for an example, and sent him home. The Revolution broke out in a few years after, when Quetain, finding himself precluded from any chance of 76 RECOLLECTIOXS OF SAMUEL BRECK. advancement under the royal government, did what discontented people generally do — became a violent oppositionist and a flaming patriot, a republican by principle in proportion to his interest. I have seen at home, in my own day, many such. His nobility availed him nothing after the loss of fortune and patronage. The Revolution broke down stronger barriers than lay between him and the tiers ehit, or people, for he only belonged to A? petite noblesse. To side with the people, then, under his circumstances, was the best thing he could do. He joined the army accordingly, and rose pretty rapidly. The tempestuous year 1793, the worst in the bloody annals of Robespierre, found him commandant of some frontier-town near Italy. One day a traveller going out of France called upon him to have his pass- port endorsed. The times required extraordinar\' vig- ilance, for thousands were endeavoring to emigrate. Ouctain took the passport, and after looking at it cast a scrutinizing eye on the stranger. His gaze was long and earnest. When satisfied that he knew him he said, " Citizen, this is not your name that I see written here. How dare you attempt to impose upon a public func- tionary of the sovereign people ?" The question was appalling, and made the traveller tremble. " No," con- tinued the commandant, "such an offence in these times is too serious to go unpunished. Your trepidation alone conx-icts }-ou. Counterfeit as you are, answer me one question : do \-ou know me ? did you ever see me be- fore ?" The traveller replied that he did not recollect ever having seen him ; neither did he know his name. CONFESSION AND MASS. 77 " Well, then," said Quetain, " if you do not remember me, I can assure you that I have not forgotten you. I am the scholar who was banished from Soreze, and you are Dom Crozal, who put that disgraceful punishment upon me." The ex-monk started with affright. A dis- guised Benedictine could not expect to escape the guil- lotine under any circumstances ; how^, then, was he to do it when placed in the power of a man whom he had so greatly injured? But Quetain was not destitute of magnanimity. A single word from him would be a sentence of death if he chose to pronounce it. He took, however, another course, and, endorsing the pass- port, facilitated the escape of Dom Crozal, who reached Piedmont, where the Prince de Carignan received and protected him. We had now reached the 8th of March (1787), the day fixed for my departure from Soreze, where I had spent more than four years in contentment; and on taking leave I can truly say my heart was filled with gratitude toward those kind monks, who ever treated me with parental tenderness and the most watchful solicitude for my happiness here and hereafter. If my good maternal grandmother, who belonged to the old colonial and intolerant sect of Presbyterians,* refused to kiss me and reluctantly gave me her blessing when I left home, because I was going to a popish country, what would she have said had she known that I had turned Roman Catholic, went to mass and to confession? * Mr. Breck falls here into a common error of confounding the Presbyterian and Congregational churches. There was no Presbyterian church in Boston at the time of which he writes. 78 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. Yet such had been my practice for nearly two years, but without the monks having used the smallest effort to turn me from the religion of my fathers. They ful- filled their contract in that respect most honorably, and the change was the act of a young man of the greatest piety and application. Studious, orderly, every way exemplary, he was my most intimate friend, and swayed by his advice I addressed myself to the Supe- rior, Dom Despaulx, and asked for a confessor. That considerate ecclesiastic bade me pause and take a week to reflect upon the subject. I did so, and not having changed my opinion, he named a monk to whom I regularly confessed until I left college.* I may add while I am on this subject that my friend, whom I forbear to name, and who was so good and happy a Christian at Soreze, became perverted by the free way of thinking of Voltaire and the philosophers of his school. I met him at Nismes, where he went a few months before my departure, and I was sorry to find him almost an infidel. Preparatory to my final departure from Soreze, it was arranged to send me to Toulouse, in order to bid adieu to my old protector and travelling-companion, the Chevalier de Chalvet, and to get me dressed in the fashion of the day. I accordingly quitted the college uniform, which was blue with a red facing, and in which a miniature likeness of me was drawn, now, I hope, in my possession. I have before me the original journal of * After his return to America, jMr. Breck relinquished such hold as he had on the Roman Catholic Church, and later in life was confirmed in the Protestant Episcopal Church, in which communion he died. ARRIVAL IN PARIS. 79 the journey I took at this time. It is written in French, and commences at Toulouse the loth of March, 1787, about forty-three years ago, and will aid my memory of course in the account I am going to give of that tour. [The journey referred to was from Soreze to Narbonne, on the Gulf of Lyons, thence along the coast as far as Toulon, up the left bank of the Rhone to Lyons, and from there by Macon, Autun, Auxerre and Fontaine- bleau to Paris. The journey was taken in a chaise de post, which he bought for the purpose, and accommo- dated two persons, himself and Dom Crozal, who trav- elled at his expense, according to Mr. Breck, Sr.'s, desire. As the itinerary contains only such brief facts as would be jotted down by the young traveller, it is omitted, but the personal incidents of his stay in Paris and his return to America follow herewith in Mr. Breck's narrative.] We took lodgings in the Faubourg St. Germain, at the Hotel d'York, Rue Jacob, the most fashionable section of the city. The Princess de Carignan had just left a suit of rooms fronting on the street. We were not ambitious to take her place, but looked at them in our round, and then hired three apartments in the rear. Having located ourselves in the most agreeable manner, we began to look about us. It was our intention to stay here one month and visit the raree-shows of town and country. The political excitement at this period (about the middle of April, 1787) was very considerable. The Notables — or not-ables, as they proved to be — were assembled at Versailles, pre- 8o RECOLLECTIO2YS OF SAMUEL BRECK. pared to mend the affairs of state by taxing les tieri etat, or commoners, and exempting the nobih"ty, or themselves ; and here I may boldly say that if the noblesse and clergy had at this early period acted a just and disinterested part, by participating equally in the contributions required by government, the Revolu- tion would not have happened. Thomas Jefferson was our plenipotentiary, but he was travelling in Italy, A young Virginian, Mr. Short,* received us as his secretary, and made us acquainted with a very amiable Frenchman who had resided in the United States and written two volumes entitled Letters from an American Farmer, couched in terms the most kind and flattering. This gentleman's name was Hector Saint-John de Crevecoeur. The fame acquired by these letters was a passport for him to the highest circles, and the romantic descriptions in which he had indulged in painting my country made some of the great lords and ladies desirous of seeing a native American ; among others, a Polish princess requested him to take me to dine with her. This noble lady was related to the king of Poland, and, as the French say " all the roads in the world lead to Paris," she and her family had found their way along one of them during the preceding autumn, and had settled themselves down in considerable state. I listened with some astonishment to the frivolous con- versation at dinner. It was the first peep I had ever taken behind the curtain of high life connected with royal pretensions. At the Marquis de la Fayette's * William Short, afterward a resident of Philadelphia. (See Simp- son's Lives of Eminent PhilaJelphians.) CREVECCEUR. 8 1 table, and at others of the nobihty where I had dined, I saw nothing beyond genteel simphcity ; but here were pages (young gentlemen generally) to wait on the ladies. During dinner there was much talk about jewels and finery, and soon after an exhibition of diamond rings. One cost so much, and was bought at Constantinople ; another here and another there ; so that these sprigs of nobility (for the old lady had two or three married daughters at table) were much amused with their costly toys. After dinner we retired to a kind of arbor at the entrance of a garden, and there the ladies sat down to music. When they withdrew from the dining-room, and whenever they moved, the pages held their long trains. They played very pleasantly on the harp and harpsichord. M. de Crevecoeur took me another day to dine with M. de Beaumanoir, governor of the Hotel des Invalides. He resided in that splendid edifice. His apartments looked toward the river, and there we dined. One object in making me acquainted with the governor was to introduce me to his daughter, a young lady who was to sail on the 15th of May for New York under the care of Saint-John de Crevecoeur, who was appointed consul-general, and whom I intended to accompany as a fellow-passenger. Of this lady I will say more by and by. Saint-John was by nature, by education, by his writings and by his reputation a philanthropist. The milk of human kindness circulated in every vein. Mild, unassuming, prompt to serve, slow to censure, ex- 82 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. tremely intelligent and universally respected and be- loved, his society on shipboard could not but be a treasure.* About this time I became acquainted with the son- in-law of my worthy friend, the Marquis de Vaudreuil. His name was De Valady, and he too was a marquis, an officer in the French Guards, and a wild enthusiast in matters of political freedom. His marriage had been forced upon him for family convenience by his rich father, and although Mile, de Vaudreuil was one of the most beautiful girls I ever saw, he was not of a temper to submit to an arbitrary measure. De Valady refused to consummate the marriage, and never lived with his wife. The church ceremony was the only connubial tie that ever bound them together. He fled to England. Thither the old IMarchioness de Vaudreuil followed him, and brought him back to his regiment. At the com- mencement of the French Revolution he became a flaming republican ; was elected to the Convention ; joined the Brisotin and Girondist parties ; was compelled to fl}' with Petion, Barbarroux, Louvet and others, and after a series of the most extraordinary adventures was seized, identified and executed near Bordeaux. He gave *De Crevecceur was born in Noraiandy in 1731, and being sent early to England, acquired a mastery of the language and familiarity with English customs and life. He came to America in 1754, and settled on a farm upon the Hudson. His affairs became embarrassed, and he returned to France in 1780. Afterward he received an appoint- ment as consul in New York, and returned to America in 1783. Be- sides his Letters from an American Farmer, he published Voyage dans Us Etats Unis (TAmirique, in eight volumes. BRISSOT DE WARVILLE. 83 me some books, and wrote me several letters on my return home.* Saint-John introduced me to Brissot,t who was an officer in some civil capacity in the palace of the Due d'Orleans, where he lodged, and where we called upon him. I afterward saw him at my father's house in Boston. He wrote a book of travels in America, in which he condemned the use of carpets and other com- forts among us as unsuitable to republicans. Neither did he like to see the New England children bow on the road to travellers. He said it looked slavish ; so that republicans, according to him, must deny themselves the courtesies as well as the comforts of life. Such refined nonsense as this filled the Spartan heads of the French reformers. Brissot de Warville in his book complains of our having too nmch manners, while Moore the poet, who visited us shortly after and caricatured our countr}^ in verse, declares we have no manners at all. De Warville says we bow, and that Republicans should doff no hat, Should scorn such courtly tricks ; But Thomas Moore pretends to show That royalists alone can bow — That we're as stiff as sticks. At the monastery, or residence, of the priests of * De Valady's adventures will be found in the latter part of this volume. f Brissot de Warville took the name, it is said, as an Anglican form of Ouarville, his father's home. He was one of the founders of the Moniteur newspaper, and is characterized by Carlyle as "a man of the windmill species, that grinds always, turning toward all winds; not in the steadiest manner." His travels in America were translated by Charles Brockden Brown. 84 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. Saint-Sulpice I found a Mr. Thayer, a Bostonian, who had been a Protestant clergyman, but was now about taking deacon's orders as a Roman Catholic. The Superior of the community received me with very great kindness, and permitted Mr. Thayer to converse a short time with me — an indulgence seldom allowed to candidates for holy orders during the probationary period, at which time they are secluded from the world, and from books except such as are rigidly theological. He was designed for a missionary effort among the sturdy Presbyterians [Congregationalists] of his native town, and, hopeless as the task appeared, he undertook it two years after, and succeeded in laying the foundation of a flourishing Roman Catholic church and diocese, which was for more than twenty years governed by M. de Cheverus, who is now archbishop of Bordeaux and a peer of France. As I had a hand, albeit a very humble one, in executing this work, I shall in its proper place recur to the subject. About the 9th of May we left Paris, and on the evening of the 13th we had the happiness of seeing the Atlantic and of arriving at Havre, my place of embarkation. Dom Crozal, who had been my com- panion during a journey of two months' duration and about eight hundred miles' distance, now left me and passed over to Honfleur on his return to Soreze. All his expenses were defrayed by my father, including those now about to be incurred. I parted from this worthy monk with gratitude for his uniform kindness and suitable protection, which was neither irksome by rigid superintendence nor lax by inattention. The FELLOW-PASSENGERS ON SHIPBOARD. 85 French government had established monthly packets, in imitation of the English, and I was now embarked in one of them, named the Courrier de I'Europe, com- manded by a naval lieutenant named Fournier. We had on board this ship several distinguished passengers. Among the gentlemen was Paul Jones, the celebrated sea-captain. He was admiral in the Russian service, and wore several crosses at his button-holes. His manners were genteel and gentle, and his demeanor polished, although reserved — I might almost say taci- turn. Next to him in importance was Saint-John de Crevecceur, of whom I have already spoken. Then came a Mr. Rucker, a merchant; Mr. Mumford of New London; Mr. Joseph P. Norris of Philadelphia; Mr. Holker; and a French Canadian marquis, whose name I have forgotten. I will say a few words of each. Rucker married Miss Marshall of New York. He had been in trade in Holland, and failed. He was a silent man of good manners. He did not live long. Mumford was a handsome man of cheerful conversa- tion. He became a politician, and was several times elected to Congress, where he made some figure. I believe he is still alive. Joseph P. Norris lives in Phila- delphia, possessed of a large estate, surrounded by a numerous and amiable family, and enjoying the respect and love of all who know him. Holker was the son of the French consul at Philadelphia, and being about my age we became intimate. He was rather a blunt man for a Frenchman, but as kind-hearted a fellow as could be. He had a quarrel with the first lieutenant of the ship during the passage, which induced the captain (a 86 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. low-bred, supercilious man) to order him into confine- ment. This was resented by the other passengers, and he was soon released. Four or five years after, the rich Thomas Russell died at Boston, leaving a beautiful young widow. In due season she was addressed by Holker and by Sir Granville Temple at the same time. Sir Granville was an English baronet, son of the late Sir John Temple, who married a daughter of Mr. Bowdoin, former governor of Massachusetts. Mrs. Russell's fortune was between tAvo and three hundred thousand dollars, and her mind and manners were fascinating. These powerful attractions inflamed the two rivals and brought about a bloodless duel, which ended in the baronet's victory with the lady, whom he married and carried to Naples, where she resided some years and died. The Canadian marquis had a seigniory in Canada, and was a man of some consequence there. He was a great economist, and to save paper wrote a copious account of our voyage on a single half sheet in a handwriting too small to be read without a magnify- ing-glass ; and to save washing (being an extravagant snuff-taker), he hung on the shrouds every night his filthy flag of abomination, which, after being well rubbed next morning, was pocketed for the day's use. Of the ladies I will now say a few words. Mademoi- selle de Beaumanoir was a woman of commanding as- spect, fine person and good features. Her manners were quite Parisian, and much too free for the Ameri- can ladies on board. When I first came on board I chose a very good berth adjoining the one taken by this lady, but after we were all assembled at sea it appeared ZADV PASSENGERS. 8/ that there was no vacant sleeping-room for Mademoi- selle Victoire, tlie chambermaid of Mile. Beaumanoir. What was to be done ? Mile. Victoire was young, pretty and very useful to her mistress. The nearer she could be placed to her the better. Now, suppose Mon- sieur Breck should give up his cabin ? It was close by, and would be so convenient for mistress and maid ; it would be delightful. But where was Monsieur Breck to be stowed ? Oh, Monsieur Breck was very gallant, in good health, and the youngest passenger in the ship ; he would not mind sleeping below. This was all very disagreeable to me, but there was no help for it ; so, to accommodate the fair couple, I went into a dark, dirty hole, where nothing was to be seen without a lantern, and ever}'thing was comfortless, wet, confined and filthy. Mile. Beaumanoir, however, was pleased, and showed her gratitude by many little attentions during all our subse- quent acquaintance. Mile Beaumanoir came to New York and married Monsieur de la Forest, who was then French consul there, and has been since repeatedly employed by Napoleon on foreign embassies, and was by him created a count. He and the countess are, I believe, both alive. Mrs. Rucker married Alexander Macomb, the father of the present commander-in-chief of the United States army. She is still living, and so is her half-sister. Miss Betsey Ramsay, who was a fellow-passenger in this ship with Mrs. Rucker. The Courrier de I'Europe was a fine vessel of six hundred tons, manned by forty sailors, and making her passage in the month of May; yet our timid captain 88 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. took US to the tropic in search of the east or trade wind, instead of steering a straight course for New York across the Banks of Newfoundland. The consequence was a passage of forty-seven days and the loss of some spars off Virginia. We had there a heavy blow, and saw the propriety of the seaman's caution in that lati- tude : " Bermuda past, take care of Cape Hatteras." CHAPTER III. New York after the Fire. — From New York to Boston. — Fourth of July, 1787. — Mad-caps. — Entrance into Business. — Business Morals and Revenue Reform. — Mr. Joseph Manyat and Charlotte Geyer. — Tristram Daiton. — Journey to Philadelphia. — Captain Phipps. — So- ciety in New York. — The Roads. — William Knox. — Two Insane Gentlemen. — Family Servants. — Eccentric Tradesmen. — Mrs. Jef- frey. — Wigs. — Whitfield's Great Toe. — The First Mass in Boston. — An Atheist's Temple. — John Quincy Adams and his Early Passion. — La Fayette's Aid to Boston. — Captain Booby. — French and English Discipline. — Washington's Visit to Boston. — Hancock's State Pride. — Entertaining Indians. — Lord Whickham. — Governor Sullivan. THE city of New York, now so large and well built, was in ruins in the year 1787. It was in the last days of June in that year that we anchored opposite to a filthy wooden shed called the Fly Market, and when our boat reached the shore we had to climb up a wharf that was tumbling to pieces. Some twenty or thirty vessels lay at the other wharves, and those shores that now exhibit a forest of masts and a stir of commerce, surpassed in the whole world by two cities only (Lon- don and Liverpool), were then naked and silent. As a colonial town it was a place of considerable trade, but having been in the hands of the enemy for seven years, and visited during that time by an extensive conflagra- tion,* we found it in a state of dilapidation, and not at *The great fire took place Sept. 21, 1776, while the town was occu- pied by General Howe. All the western part of the town was con- 90 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. all recovered from the effects of the war. In Broad- way, from Wall street to the Battery, the great fire had swept away almost every building, including Trinity church, and the rest of the town was made up of miser- able wooden hovels and strange-looking brick houses, constructed in the Dutch fashion, and often with yel- low bricks brought from Holland. They presented a narrow front to the street, and exhibited their gable-ends. These have all disappeared, and indeed they contrast very disadvantageously with our modern manner of building. In short, the city of New York, which now displays so much elegance, comfort and wealth, and contains about one hundred and eighty thousand inhab- itants, was in 1787 a poor town with about twenty -three thousand people. In those days there were two ways of getting to Bos- ton : one was by a clumsy stage that travelled about forty miles a day, with the same horses the whole day ; so that by rising at three or four o'clock, and prolong- ing the day's ride into night, one made out to reach Bos- ton in six days ; the other route was by packet-sloops up the Sound to Providence, and thence by land to Boston. This was full of uncertainty, sometimes being travelled in three and sometimes in nine days. I my- self have been that length of time (nine days) going from New York to Boston. Now, travellers go by the steam- boat between the two cities in a day and night ! sumed, and the course of the fire was stopped by King's College grounds on Barclay street. No evidence exists to prove that the fire was other than accidental, though at the time some violence was done to the Sons of Liberty, upon the ground that they were incendiaries. MA DC A PS. 91 On my journey to Boston I chose the water-convey- ance, and reached my native town on the second of July, 1787, after an absence of four years and a half I found my dear parents and family well. I spoke English with the accent of a foreigner. My long resi- dence among the French had made their language more familiar than my own. On the Fourth, being a national holiday, there was a great parade on the Com- mon opposite to my father's house, and a vast assem- blage at the beautiful residence of the governor of the State, the celebrated John Hancock. This distinguished man lived in a spacious stone house, built by his uncle, I think, and superbly situated, substantially constructed and fancifully ornamented. My father introduced me to His Excellency and to all the principal people of the town. Five or six hundred militiamen paraded in rifle-frocks and queer dresses in honor of the day ; a public oration was delivered by Harrison Gray Otis, I believe ; and in the evening squibs and fireworks closed the fete. A few weeks after my arrival, and before I had be- come acquainted with the boisterous manners of the young men of those days, Isaac Parker, the present chief justice of Massachusetts, invited me to dine with him. He was then a law-student, and the company was composed of lads under age who were preparing for various pursuits in life. There was more noisy mirth after dinner than comports with good taste ; but it was the fashion of the day to drink hard and then kick up a row. Parker resided at the north end of the town, and being in the neighborhood of Charlestown, 92 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BKECK. it was agreed by the company to adjourn to a drinking- house on Breed's Hill. Thither we went, a good deal tipsy, making a zigzag course over the bridge, and as- cending the hill by a steep and narrow street. I do myself injustice by saying we, for I had not yet cast off my habits of French temperance, and could neither relish nor participate in a debauch. I was sober ; most of our party were otherwise, and by their noise and in- solence in passing a tailor's house raised the choler of the whole shopboard, who swore they would cuff and trim us, and send us home with a stitch in our sides. Down jumped half a dozen slipshod snips, who threw at our heads glass bottles, stones and other missiles, and after a short contest drove us back to Boston somewhat sobered. Near the concert-hall we met an acquaintance named Minot, who prided himself on his spirit in an affray. We told him what had happened, and such was his rage at our defeat that he went off determined to avenge it. Having reached the bridge, he met two men who smelt of cabbage, as the boys said, and very unceremoniously asked them where they were going. " We are going," said they, " to take out writs against a parcel of wild chaps who have insulted us." *' You are?" cried Minot. " I am happy to meet you ;" and while he spoke he laid one fellow over the head with his cane, which brought him to the ground, and drove the other back to Charlestown; after which, proud of his victory, he returned home. And so did- I, without thinking any more about the business. The next morning, however, my father came up to my ENTRANCE INTO BUSINESS. 93 chamber with a very grave countenance, holding in his hand a newspaper in which our party was lampooned in verse and strongly censured in prose. Nor was this the worst. " Prepare yourself," said my father, " to pay a heavy fine and spend a few months in prison, for there is a criminal prosecution on foot, which will end in the punishment you all deserve." I soon convinced that excellent parent that I was a non-combatant, which was confirmed by my name being omitted in the suit that was brought against all the others, including Sam Minot, the volunteer. They were summoned to Con- cord, about twenty miles from Boston, and condemned to pay twenty dollars each. Minot, some three or four years afterward, I met at Amsterdam, where he had been engaged unsuccessfully, I think, in commerce. He was the same harum-scarum fellow then as before, and died young. Most of the other boys of that frolic who grew up, distinguished themselves in their various walks in life, and those who survive are now the magis- trates, legislators, fathers and venerable square-toes of the community wherever they reside. In the course of the year 1787, or beginning of 1788, my father, finding me inclined to become a merchant, engaged a place in the counting-house of Mr. John Codman, brother-in-law to the great Thomas Russell. The terms of my admission I always thought excessive. I paid one hundred guineas, and this when money was •extremely valuable, and worth more than double the same amount of this date. On the first day of my going to Mr. Codman I carried to him in gold this entrance- 94 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. fee, and continued with him until August, 1790. The lessons taught in this counting-house in reference to trade were of the most immoral character, chiefly ow- ing to the disturbed and feeble state of the old Con- federation government, and in execution of the revenue laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. So soon as a vessel arrived, one-half the cargo was hoisted into the upper part of the store, and the other half only- entered at the custom-house; and thus we were initiated into the secret of smuggling. To ask one hundred guineas of young gentlemen educated in honorable principles to teach them this low fraud and disreputable course of trade showed the times to be sadly out of joint. Yet persons who until then (and then too, I hope) despised all tricks and deceptions were made principal agents in this vile imposition. The only apology was the universality of the custom. The laws were a dead letter; the States, collectively and indi- vidually, were bankrupt; the public debt at ten or twelve dollars for a hundred ! Each State was pulling against the other, and the fruit of our seven years' war for independence did not then appear to be worth gathering. Disunited from Maine to Georgia, the elements of self-government seemed to be lost, and we were fast sinking into anarchy and confusion. From this alarming situation we were delivered in 1789 by the adoption of the present excellent Consti- tution, which has carried this great nation in the course of forty years from a fearful state of poverty and dis- order to its present high station and unrivalled pros- perity. At the very moment of its organization smug- JOSEPH MARR YA T. 95 gling ceased, and the American importer, intimidated by some extensive seizures and animated by a spirit of patriotism and honor, made correct entries. He has been carefully watched, I grant, and the laws have been rigidly executed ; yet much praise is due to the merch- ant, who by his good-will has aided the efforts of gov- ernment ; so much so that during these forty years, when seven hundred millions of dollars have been col- lected, the defalcation by non-payment of duties has not amounted to the one ten-thousandth part of the sum paid into the treasuiy ; and this fact is officially stated in a document sent to Congress from the Treasury Department. During my stay with Mr. Codman there came ad- dressed to him a ship from Grenada, chartered by Mr. Joseph Marryat, a resident merchant of that island, who came to Boston with this ship for a load of lumber. The manners of Mr. Marryat were pleasing. He was about thirty-five years old, I introduced him to my father's family and to that of Mr. Frederick Geyer. This last gentleman had three very fine daughters. The second, Charlotte, had been educated in England, possessed a well-cultivated mind and fas- cinating manners. Dignified yet cheerful, reserved but not taciturn, she was a woman of most engaging con- versation. Her person was fine, and she moved and danced gracefully. Without the symmetry of a beau- tiful face, her countenance was enlivened by intelligence and sweetness of expression, with fine eyes and the com- plexion of a dark brunette. To this young lady I was warmly attached. Now, it so happened that Marryat 96 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. lost his heart to her almost at first sight, and without any encouragement on her part asked her in marriage of her father. Nobody knew Marryat. He was a stranger, recommended simply as a person in search of a cargo of boards. Geyer would not have lent him a thousand dollars, yet he immediately consented to the match. Charlotte was exceedingly opposed to it, and urged me to interfere to prevent it. This I would have done most willingly, most joyfully. But I was scarcely nineteen (she was about six months younger), and no interference short of marriage could avail ; and to this my father positively objected, inform- ing me that he intended to send me to Europe shortly, and represented the folly, as he called it, of entering on life abroad saddled with a matrimonial engagement. This sort of philosophy I did not relish, although I was obliged to submit. In short, I lost Charlotte, who was importuned into a marriage with my rival. Marryat took her to the West Indies, whence, after a few years' residence, he removed to London, became a successful underwriter at Lloyds', accumulated a vast fortune, and was repeatedly elected to Parliament, where for several years, and until his death, he distinguished himself as a useful member and tolerable speaker. Living at the West End of the town in handsome style, he spent his summers at a villa that cost him thirty thousand pounds sterling, which was described by a lady who visited it as a palace within and a paradise without. He made an excellent husband, and became the father of ten children, one of whom has within a few years dined with me at Sweetbrier, and another, who is post-captain TRISTRAM DALTON. 97 in the British navy, has lately distinguished himself in the Burmese war. These children inherited a large fortune from their father and an uncle, Mr. Samuel Marryat, who was a small lawyer when I knew him in London in 1791, and died lately, leaving them three hundred thousand pounds, amassed by his extraordi- nary attention to his profession. The widowed and amiable Charlotte is still living in affluence, and, as I sincerely hope, in perfect health and happiness. During the year 1787 I made many excursions around the country, and among them one in company with my sister Hannah — now Mrs. Lloyd — to New- buryport, to visit our friend Tristram Dalton.* That gentleman lived in elegance and comfort at a very beautiful country-house four miles from Newburyport during the summer, and in winter occupied his spacious mansion in that town. I do not recollect any establish- ment in our country, then or now, that contained gen- erally so many objects fitted to promote rational happi- ness. From the piazza or front part of his country-house the farms were so numerous and the villages so thickly planted that eighteen steeples were in view. This villa was large, well built, and surrounded by an excellent dairy and other outhouses. His family, consisting wholly of women, was extremely hospitable, and no man in Massachusetts had more dignified or polished * There is a sketch of Mr. Dalton in Samuel L. Knapp's Biograph- ical Sketches of Eminent Lawyers, Statesmen and Men of Letters. Mr. Breck omits to state that Mr. Dalton lost his property mainly through the rascality of a partner, and was himself partly provided for by an office which was bestowed on him by the government. 7 98 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. manners than Mr. Dalton himself. It was among these good people we went to spend a few days, and most happily did we pass them. Respectable ;ind amiable family, how enviable was your situation at that time! And who would have thought that in a few }-ears all this elegance and contentment were to give place to sorrow and poverty? In 1789 the establishments were broken up. Mr. Dalton became a politician; popular favor flattered him, and step by step ambition lured him from his delightful abode. Happening to be a member of the State legislature at the time it was called upon by the new Constitution to choose a Senator to Con- gress, he was unluckily elected. Then came the bustle and expense of a sxiitable outfit. Home, that dear home where so much felicity had been enjoyed, was forsaken — temporarily, as they first supposed, but everlastingly, as it turned out. The whole family removed to New York, where Congress then sat. A large house was taken and a course of fashionable life adopted. Ex- penses increased with dissipation ; a relish for gay and foolish extravagance became habitual ; and Mr. Dalton, who thought himself elected for six years, drew in the classification of Senators that took place in the first Congress the lot which terminated his Senatorial career in two years ; and he was not re-elected. Then was the time for him to have returned home. But caressed by President Washington and fascinated by the gaudy pleasures of a city life, he followed the government to Philadelphia, and afterward (in 1801) to the city of Washington. There he gradually consumed his for- tune, dwindled into a dependent man, died insolvent, JOURNEY TO rr/ILADELPiriA. 99 and left his hidy-Iikc emd amiable widow so poor that she was obHgcd, at more than seventy years of age, to open a boarding-house in the neighborhood of Boston. I was attached by feehngs of respect and warm regard to that estimable family, and very sincerely regretted its downfall. It was on our return from this visit that a thunder- gust came suddenly u[)on us, and obliged us to take shelter at a farm-house. A well-looking countryman ran across the road, and opening his barn-doors invited me to drive in. After wc had secured the horse and gig — or chaise, as it was then called — we crossed over to the dwelling-house and received a hearty welcome. Grateful for his attention, I asked his name, and found him lineally descended from Sir John Holt or Sir Mat- thew Hale, I forget which, but it was one of those great English jurists, who were both, I think, chief justices of the court of King's Bench. Our kind host was named either Holt or Hale, and seemed well acquainted with the fame, rank and virtues of his celebrated ancestor. He owned a pretty good farm, and was intelligent for a man in his station. In the month of August, 1789, 1 made a journey South, as far as Philadelphia, principally to recruit my health. A friend lent me a sulky, which was nothing more than a common arm-chair placed on leather braces, and sus- pended over a couple of wheels. The whole carriage was scarcely heavier than a wheelbarrow. For a shil- ling a day (seventeen cents) I hired a horse and started for Worcester. How different the inns and roads then from the present day ! The western hills were traversed TOO RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECIC. by a road steep and rocky, and the large rivers, now universally bridged, were then passed in boats or at fords. In these respects all the United States north of the Potomac are greatly improved ; to the south of that river all that has not retrograded remains in statu quo. At New Haven, I became tired of the roads, and hear- ing of a packet-sloop in port bound to New York, I left my horse and embarked. I found the city gradually recovering from its Revolutionary wounds. Several fine houses had lately been built, particularly a row by Mr. Macomb erected on Broadway, where they now stand unrivalled in beauty by any block of a more modern date. Captain Phipps of the British navy was a fellow-pas- senger from New Haven. He was brother to Lord Mulgrave, and possessed the manners of an unassuming, well-bred gentleman. He was the descendant of an American whose singular history is as follows : Wil- liam Phips — says his biographer. Cotton Mather — was born Feb. 2, 1650, at a despicable plantation on the river Kennebec. His mother had twenty-six children, of whom twenty-one were boys. He very early discov- ered the energy and enterprise of a superior mind, and to prepare himself for seeking his fortune on the sea he bound himself to a ship-carpenter for four years, and afterward constructed a vessel with which he went to Boston. The great cause of his prosperity in life was his good fortune in finding the wreck of a Spanish plate- ship that had been lost fifty years before on the coast of Hispaniola. The hope of recovering this treasure took strong possession of his mind, and he went to Eng- SOCIETY IN NEW YORK. lOI land to solicit assistance in the undertaking. Charles II. gave him a ship, with everything necessary for the project, but being unsuccessful he returned in great poverty. He then endeavored to procure another ves- sel, but failing, he got a subscription, to which the duke of Albemarle contributed. In 1687, Phips set sail in a ship of two hundred tons, having previously engaged to divide the profits according to the twenty shares of which the subscription consisted. At first all his labors proved fruitless ; but at last, when he seemed almost to despair, he was fortunate enough to bring up so much treasure that he returned to England, Mr. Mather says, with about three hundred thousand pounds, of which he received only sixteen thousand himself The duke's share was ninety thousand. Phips was knighted by the king and sent out governor of Massachusetts. Thus was this poor lad and son of a blacksmith enabled to lay the foundation of a family, one of the members of which was subsequently created Lord Mulgrave. The new Federal Constitution had just been put into operation when I visited New York in 1789. Gen- eral Knox was Secretary of War, and lived in one of Macomb's beautiful houses. He was my father's par- ticular friend, and insisted on my residing in his family. I was introduced to General Washington. That great man had been unanimously elected President of the United States, and was inaugurated on the 4th of the preceding month of March. Mrs. Knox introduced me likewise to Mr. Jay's family, and I made an excursion to the Passaic Falls in company with a daughter of Cicn- eral Saint-Clair and my young fellow-passenger from 102 RECOLLECTIOiXS OF SAMUEL BRECK. France, INIiss Ramsay. We found at the falls only one house, the tax-ern. and now there stands on that spot a prosperous manufocturint; town named Paterson con- taining five thousand inhabitants. Newark, where we breakfasted, was a small village, with some pretty villas scattered about the vicinity ; now it is a city numbering twenty thousand people. I likewise accompanied Mrs. Knox to Elizabethtown on a visit to a very amiable famih' by the name of Richet. We spent two da)-s there. I returned to New York alone, and set sail in the regular ferry-boat in the morning. The distance is fifteen miles, and is traversed now in steamboats in a little more than one hour, )-et we were out in a calm the whole day, \\hen at sundown, thinking I should have to spend the night in our undecked boat, I hired a man who was catching oysters to take me ashore in his canoe. These facts denote great improvement. On my journey to Philadelphia I had the whole stage to myself, and this too in the month of August, when at the present day the roads are so crowded. But then we knew nothing of mineral springs and fashionable watering-places. Such rendezvous for the rich and idle had no existence, and although two lines of stages were kept up, and these in opposition at a two-dollar fare, yet they had ver}^ little custom. In the present year (say 1 829) in August, and indeed all summer, there run between Philadelphia and New York forty-four coaches, connected with steamboats, which carry, going and coming, a daily average of three hundred and fift)^ to four hundred passengers ! In a journey from Boston to Philadelphia in the year 1789 the WILLIAM KNOX. IO3 following rivers were passed in ferry-boats : the Con- necticut at Springfield, Housatonic at Stratford, Hudson at New York, Hackensack and Passaic between Paulus Hook and Newark, Raritan at New Brunswick, Dela- ware at Trenton, and Neshaminy near Bristol — mak- ing eight streams, all of which are now substantially bridged except the Hudson, where steamboats are used that are perhaps superior to bridges. In Philadelphia I spent a few days very agreeably. Governor Mifflin honored me with his notice. The city was scarcely one-third its present size, and did not contain much more than one-fourth of its present number of inhabitants. No pavement extended south of Chestnut street beyond P'ourth. Mr. Joseph P. Norris, with whom I had crossed the ocean two years before, lived in a venerable-looking house standing where the Bank of the United States now is. I dined with him there. He was then cutting up his garden into building-lots. It extended to Fifth street, and on it the City Library in that street was built, and the fine row of brick houses in Chestnut street lately converted into the most splendid shops in America, and which may stand a comparison with any in London or Paris. On my return to New York I became acquainted with William Knox, brother of the general. He was a well-bred gentleman, extremely well educated, but possessed of feelings too sensitive for his future happi- ness on earth. He had been American consul at Dublin, and became deeply enamored o{ a lady there who did not reciprocate his love. It was a wound that neither time nor absence could cure. It preyed upon his I04 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. spirits until it brought him to a mad-house. He lost his reason, and such was the cause assio^ned. This leatls me to relate a circumstance of an affecting nature which in its conclusion was closely associated with poor Knox. In one of my rides into New Hamp- shire, accompanied by my sister, I passed through An- dover, a town where insane people are well nursed and comfortably boarded. Suddenly a man darted through the gateway of a good-looking house and ran up to my carriage. I knew him. He was a Mr. Searle, a mer- chant of Newbuiyport, whom I had frequently seen at Mr. Coilman's. He recollected me inuiiediately, and after some conversation inquired for news. I happened to have a Boston paper of that morning, and gave it to him. He thanked me and retired. We pursued our journey, asking each other what could have brought Mr. Searle there. On our return we heard for the first time the cause. It was a singular one. Searle was connected in maritime commerce with a Mr. Tyler, by the firm of Searle & Tyler. In the prosecution of their business they had been so extravagantly successful that Searle's mind was overset. The first symptoms of a disordered intellect were shown by a purchase which Searle made on his return to Newburyport from Boston of all the property between the two places — a distance of forty miles. His malady soon increased, but I thougljl no more about it. A \car or two after, being in Philadelphia, some members of Congress invited me to accompany them to the Pennsylvania Hospital. On entering the long room down stairs, the first object near the door was a FAMILY SERVANTS. 1 05 man clad in a blanket with one leg chained to a block. I looked on him with pity, and immediately recognized Searle. He knew some of the gentlemen. One he called his Tully, another his Cato, but he addressed me by name. " Samuel Breck," said he, " I have to thank you for the newspaper you lent me at Andover." He had scarcely pronounced my name when I heard it very loudly repeated in a distant part of the room.' On looking round I saw a sick person in bed beckoning to me to go to him. I approached the bed, and to my sorrow and astonishment found William Knox in it. The occurrence was unexpected and melancholy. The poor fellow did not detain me after begging a cent to buy snuff Both these unhappy gentlemen were soon relieved by death, Searle dying first in consequence of a wound in his thigh, and Knox following a month or two after. Before the Revolution it was lawful to hold slaves in Massachusetts, and my father had three in his house when I was a boy — Waterford, a coachman ; Cato, a house-servant ; and Rose, the coachman's wife. Three greater plagues, as my good mother called them, could not easily be found. So she thought, yet other families were not better off When I returned from Europe in 1787 this trio was dispersed. Waterford threw himself into the sea and was drowned, after having lived several years separate from his wife, and Cato had likewise ended his days in the briny deep. His behavior in the family was so uniformly bad that he was sold or given away to some sea-captain, who lost him by the small- pox. The white women were too often loose in their I06 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. morals, and although less disgusting than Waterford and the Irish gardener, who were taken to bed drunk two or three times a week, they were dissipated and in- continent. The successor of Waterford was the most finished villain of his day. He was an Irishman, and had married in Boston, and was the father of a large family. One day, accidentally, a letter fell into my father's hands written by a wife he had left in Ireland. She bitterly complained of his desertion — running away, she said, not only from herself, but from six children that she was obliged to provide for. He was immedi- ately discharged. But no sooner was he gone than bills flowed in from butchers, fruiterers and others to a very considerable amount. It turned out that this rascal (Brown was his name), who had for many months been sent to market with money, kept the cash and ran my father in debt for the supply of his table. When asked for payment he put the claimants off by telling them that Mr. Breck was so much pressed for money that they must wait. Judge of my father's astonishment — I may say con- sternation — at finding himself defamed among a class of people from whom he would take no credit, always paying them, as indeed he did every one else, with the most exact punctuality ! I perfectly remember the afternoon when four or five victuallers came to him with their unpaid bills. " My friends," said he to them in his usual tone of gentleness — " my friends, I owe you nothing; you have been grossly imposed upon. You have no verbal or written order from me to trust Brown ; if he has robbed you, he has injured me, for his false FAMILY SERVANTS. lO/ representations are more painful to me than the loss of money. Yet I must divide the loss with you ; it is too heavy for you to bear alone. Hand me your bills and I will pay one-half their amount." To this they readily assented, and in that way all Brown's unauthorized debts were settled. We had the satisfaction to hear a few months after, that the rogue was caught in some criminal offence and hung at New York. There are some bright spots in this dark picture. Two sisters by the name of Polly and Sukey Hall would have won the highest premium in any country for fidelity, genuine piety, industry and devoted attach- ment to the family. These invaluable women lived in my father's house — the one as housekeeper, the other as seamstress — Sukey twenty-five years, and Polly twenty- two. They both survived my father, who left them a small legacy of two hundred dollars apiece. On my father's removing his residence from Boston to Phila- delphia — the cause of which shall be noted hereafter — he took with him six servants who had lived a long while in the family, but in a few months the two most useful men were spoiled by the free negro population of Philadelphia (that Paradise of the blacks). A most excellent waiter was dismissed in consequence, who went to the West Indies and died; Thomas Thomas, the coachman, became a drunkard after living several years as a public waiter, lost his reason and died in the hospital. My own experience in housekeeping for more than thirty-four years offers a mixed list of very good and very bad; and I am sorry to add that the bad lie in the I08 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. heaviest scale. Yet during this long period, with no very vigilant watchfulness, I have not lost ten dollars' worth of property by the dishonesty of house-servants. The fate of some of these hirelings has been calamitous. One left me to engage in a privateer. Her commission was not regular, and he was hung as a pirate; another, a most excellent cook, got drunk on her way home from town and was frozen to death in the road. I have noted elsewhere many other fatal occurrences that have happened to people of this class who have been in my service, and which I need not repeat here; it is suffi- cient to say that the demeanor of servants at this day (June, 1830) is improved, and, I hope I may with justice add, improving, for there is still ample room for amendment. We had a medley of eccentric tradesmen in Bos- ton in 1788, who were a compound of flat simplicity in manners and acute cleverness in conversation, shrewd, perhaps somewhat cunning ; often witty ; always smart and intelligent. Such was Copley, my tailor ; Billings, of the same trade ; but above all, Balch, the hatter.* His shop was the principal lounge even of the first people in the town. Governor Hancock, when the gout permitted, resorted to this grand rendezvous, and there exchanged jokes with Balch and his company, or, as sometimes happened, discussed grave political subjects, and, tout en badinant, settled leading principles of his administration. Such, as late as 1788, was the unso- * The writers of the day frequently make mention of this man. Sitl- ney Willard, in his Mentoj-ies of Youth and Manhood, gives him a place in his gallery of worthies. MJ^S. JEFFREY. IO9 phisticatcd state of society. But we must not believe that intrigue was banished from this artless association ; on the contrary, every little boon in the governor's gift was bestowed upon him who could work the wires with nimblest fingers. Perhaps, after all, it is impossible to resist the voice of friendship when soliciting for favor, although, it may be, unqualified. Certain it is that Han- cock often yielded from feeling rather than from judg- ment. One flattered, and another chronicled the news of the day, a third bespoke the good-will of the people for his patron, and a fourth supplied little pecuniary wants that not infrequently occurred. These friends were gen- erally provided for, and notwithstanding they were some- times thought to be unsuitable for the posts assigned to them, yet Governor Hancock's well-deserved pop- ularity silenced every croaker. The higher circles were not less singularly consti- tuted. The principal star was Mrs. Jeffrey. She was sister to the celebrated John Wilkes, and the widow of Mr. Hayley, who had been lord mayor of London. No one could more exactly resemble her brother than she did, except in the double squint, which she had not; and as he was the ugliest man in England, the family likeness so strongly stamped on the face of the sister left her without any claim to beauty. Yet her highly-gifted mind and elegant manners much more than balanced that deficiency. Mr. Hayley had been ai merchant, and large sums were due to him in New England. At his death his widow fitted up a fine ship and took passage in it for Boston for the purpose of collecting her late husband's claims. Pleased with the no RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. place, she purchased a beautiful house in Tremont street, formerly the residence of the Vassal refugee family, whose villa on Clapham Common, near London, I re- member seeing in 1791, and who are related to my brother-in-law, James Lloyd. Thus splendidly lodged, she formed her whole establishment in a style suitable to the mansion. The gayest liveries and equipage, the richest furniture, the most hospitable and best-served table, — all these were displayed to the greatest advan- tage by the Widow Hayley. She had certainly passed her grand climacteric, and in her mouth was a single tooth of an ebon color. Her favorite dress was a red cloth riding-habit and black beaver hat. In these she looked very like an old man. Thus attired on some gala-day, she was paying a visit to Mrs. Hancock when Van Berkle, the Dutch envoy, happened to be in Boston. He came, of course, to salute the governor, with whom, however, he was not personally acquainted. On enter- ing the room he saw a venerable head decorated with a hat and plumes, belonging to a person robed in scar- let, and seated in an arm-chair in a conspicuous part of the room ; and knowing that Governor Hancock was too gouty to walk, he very naturally concluded that the person before him was the master of the house. He accordingly approached, and, bowing, said he hoped His Excellency was better — that, being on a visit to Boston, he had ventured to introduce himself for the purpose of testifying in person his high admiration, etc. Before his compliment was finished the lady undeceived him, but in such a manner as put the minister perfectly at his ease. AN UNHAPPY MARRIAGE. Ill This most excellent woman had surrounded herself with a menagerie, so that her courtyard and garden were filled with cockatoos, poll-parrots and monkeys ; yet she felt herself lonely, and set her cap for a hus- band. There was a young Scotsman then in Boston who was agent for a British mercantile house. His name was Jeffrey (uncle to the famous editor of the Edmbiirgh Revieiv), a man well educated and of gen- tlemanly address. To him Mrs. Hay ley gave her hand and fortune. Out of sixty or seventy thousand pounds sterling she did not reserve a shilling for herself, but in a fit of girlish love poured the whole into the pocket of this young stranger, whose age could not have been one-half her own. Of this act of egregious folly she lived long enough to repent. Three or four years, however, passed in apparent peace, and Jeffrey made out to conform to her custom of sleeping winter and summer with the bed-chamber window open, no matter how stormy or how cold ; the snow or the rain, the freezing blast from the north-west, all might blow into the room and on the very bed, for the window was never permitted to be closed. But gradually discon- tent, jealousy and discord arose between them. Un- doubtedly, the great disparity of years was the main cause. At any rate, there was a separation. All those who had the happiness of living on a social footing in her family regretted this sad division. Her style of entertaining united comfort to splendor. She gave fre- quent dinners, at which I was often invited. We were sometimes annoyed by her monkeys and other pets, which, like spoilt children, were brought into the parlor 1 1 2 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. at the fruit-dessert to gather nuts and gorge with raisins and apples. It was the custom at her table to place a well-filled punch-bowl in the centre as soon as the last cloth was removed. Surrounded by the choicest wines, there stood the huge vessel, always brought in with a little parade. On one occasion, when this ample bowl occupied its accustomed place, a mischievous monkey who was skipping about the table seized the wig of an Amsterdam merchant, old Mr. de Neuville, and running to the bowl soused it in. The story of this wig puts me in the mind of two occurrences, not very dissimilar, that took place at no great distance of time from this. Catharine Macaulay, the historian, when past her middle age married a very young man by the name of Graham, and came with him to Boston about the year 1786. They were much noticed. It was the fashion then for men and women to wear long head-dresses, with well-frizzled hair cover- ed with powder, having previously been curled with hot irons and stiffened with pomatum. Decked in this manner, Mrs. Graham, accompanied by her young hus- band, went to dine with a large party at my Aunt Hichborn's country-house in Dorchester. My father and mother were there. Just before dinner, when the company was assembled, and sat in the expectation of its being immediately announced, a period always grave and formal, some one near Mrs. Graham made a remark that caused a sudden surprise, and occasioned her to throw her head back rather violently, when down fell all its counterfeit honors, and exposed her bald pate to the view of the astonished company. Mrs. Graham's head- STORIES OF WIGS. II3 gear was false, and so unskilfully fixed that it tumbled to the floor behind her chair, The affrighted lady raised her hands to catch her wig, exclaiming, " My God ! my God !" She might have added — " Was it for this I took such constant care The bodkin, comb and essence to prepare ? For this these locks in paper durance bound ? For this with heated irons wreathed around ? For this with fillets strained the stranger hair, And shaved my own, these foreign curls to wear?" As it was, her always obsequious husband flew to her assistance, when, retiring to another room, she soon made her toilet for dinner. The other circumstance alluded to was this : A stranger came to Boston and took lodgings at the best boarding-house in town, and somehow or other was introduced to a few of the best families. His acquain- tances were increasing (he had not yet obtained footing in our family) when one evening at supper at Mrs. In- gersoll's, where he boarded, a servant passing suddenly behind his chair hooked the button of his coat into the hind part of a scratch worn by the stranger, and carried it off, leaving a bare poll, and oh, shocking to relate ! a poll without ears ! Both had been dipt close to the head. The caitiff recovered his wig and cleared out. To conclude here at once what I recollect of Mrs. Jeffrey, I will briefly state that she retired to Ports- mouth in New Hampshire, where she lived expensively at an inn, while her young husband kept possession of his fine house in Tremont street. They did not, how- ever, come to an open quarrel, but lived at separate 1 14 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. board and bed, without ceasing to see each other. In- deed, he would not allow any other cause for his wife's removal than a change of air for the benefit of her health, and to keep up appearances he established a relay of horses along the road, on which he galloped down to Portsmouth, a distance of sixty miles, eveiy Saturday. I happened to be travelling in that part of the coun- try in the summer of 1791, in company with a Mr. Waldo and two Englishmen recently arrived. We put up at the hotel where Mrs. Jeffrey lodged. The mo- ment she heard I was in the house she sent her butler to offer me her carriage to show my friends the town, and invited me and my party to dine with her. The carriage we declined, but we waited upon her to dinner, where my John Bull companions behaved with a free- dom and vulgarity sufficiently indicative of the Cock- ney society they had been accustomed to keep at home. In the fall of that year Mrs. Jeffrey embarked for Eng- land. Soon after she went on board in Boston Harbor there came on a head wind and violent storm. Her husband accompanied her to the vessel, that lay at anchor some distance from the shore. Here he ex- pected to take leave of her for ever, but the adverse gale prevented it, and postponed the final separation three days, during which he was compelled to stay by her, as she refused to land. At length he was released, and she went to Bath, where she settled upon a meagre allowance, according to the report of the day, and died there five or six years after. Jeffrey himself remained in America, launched out boldly on the troubled sea WHITEFIELD'S GREAT TOE. II5 of commerce, formed a mercantile connection with Mr. Joseph Russell, and in a few years lost his large fortune, retired dispirited to his country-seat at Milton, and died there long before he was an old man. It was on one of these excursions into New Hamp- shire that, stopping at Newburyport, I was invited to breakfast with Mr. Joseph Marquand. While we were at table a man brought to him a small packet, which was laid aside until our meal was finished. As soon as that was over Marquand opened it, and showed me a piece of black garment which he said was a fragment of the cassock in which the celebrated George White- field was buried ; " And here," continued he, " is his great toe." " Indeed !" said I. " And pray tell me why you caused the corpse of that distinguished man to be mutilated?" " It is," he replied, " done at the request of Lady Huntingdon, whose chaplain Whitefield had once been ; and she has commissioned me to obtain a relic of him. He died, you know, in this town in the year 1770, and lies buried in yon meeting-house, the sexton of which I hired to procure what you see he has just brought to me, and which I shall send to the dowager countess by the first opportunity." * * This story I have not been able to verify in its particulars, but it is a well-known fact, recorded in Mrs. E. Vale Smith's History of New- buryport, that there was at one time a successful making off with some of Whitefield's bones — the bones of the right arm, it is there said. " In September, 1849, the pastor of the First Presbyterian church, Rev. Il6 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. When I was in Paris in 1787 I met there a Roman CathoHc abbe by the name of Thayer. He was a native of Boston, had been a Protestant clergyman, went to France, became a Roman CathoHc, and was now a sub-deacon in the clerical seminary of St. Sulpice at Paris. While at college among the good Benedictine monks, I changed to that mode of worship myself,, and of course was well received by the Superior when 1 visited the Rev. Mr. Thayer.* He made me promise to assist the young deacon whenever he should arrive in Boston for the purpose of opening a Roman Catholic chapel. With this understanding I received the Supe- rior's blessing, and returned to America. It was not long before I had letter upon letter from the abbe an- nouncing the consignment of trunks of books. They came in safe and were carefully housed. This was in 1789, just as the disturbances in France and the West Indies threw a few well-educated Frenchmen into Bos- ton. By and by, Monsieur I'Abbe himself made his appearance, after my zeal for the pope's Church had Jonathan Stcains, received from England a mysterious box which on opening he found to contain the lost members, accompanied by a letter satisfactorily explaining how they came into the writer's possession and vindicating the genuineness of the restoration. In the presence of the session and elders of the church the stray bones were restored to their proper place in the coffin, from which there is little chance of their again escaping." — Page 374. * John Thayer, son of Cornelius Thayer, was converted to Romanism in 1783, received priest's orders at Rome, and began his mission in Boston June lo, 1790. His work in Boston was signalized by a series of controversies in which he was easily involved, and which remain re- corded in scarce tracts. (For a list of them see Finotti's Bihliographia Catholica-Americana.) Thayer died in Limerick in 1815. FIRST MASS IN BOSTON. 11/ cooled off, and I was now again a Protestant. I had the consent of my family to aid the new priest in estab- lishing his chapel, which was done with all manner of solemnity and without the smallest opposition, for per- secution in Boston had wholly ceased. We fitted up a dilapidated and deserted meeting-house in School street that was built in 1716 by some French Huguenots, and it was now converted into a popish church, principally for the use of French Romanists. A subscription put the sacristy or vestry-room in order, erected a pulpit and purchased a few benches. A little additional fur- niture and plate was borrowed. At length everything was prepared to solemnize the first public mass that was ever said in Boston — in a town where thirteen years be- fore the Pope and the Devil were annually promenaded through the streets and finally burned together, leaving it doubtful then which was the greater rascal of the two. I attended the mass and carried round the begging-box as queteur. This was the commencement of the Roman Catholic Church in Boston. Thayer was succeeded by M. Martignon, and he by the celebrated Cheverus, now archbishop of Bordeaux. That pious, prudent and learned prelate governed this infant congregation as priest and bishop for twenty-seven years, and was so attached to his flock, his diocese and his place of resi- dence that he refused to comply with Louis XVIII. 's summons which called him to the diocese of Montauban in Languedoc, and that king had to lay his commands upon him before he would consent to leave the United States. From Montauban he was translated to the archbishopric of Bordeaux, where he now rules with IlS KECOLLECTIOXS OF S,-IML'EL BKECK: great usefulness and popularity. He is a peer of France, of course.* While I am on the subject of churches I uku- mention that a gang of atheists opened a temple in Philadelphia in 1796 or '97, which they dedicated to Reason, so that, throwing off entirely the Christian creed, the}' took Tom Paine and Robespierre's Goddess of Reason and such- like for their idol. This effort was associated with a licentious newspaper called the Temple of Reason. I am happy to say that public opinion soon after put the whole down. In the year in which I am writing (1S30) a pupil of Robert Owen, a female named Fanny Wright, has been lecturing to crowded audiences in one of the Philadelphia theatres upon agrarianism and infidelit\-. She is an itinerant Englishwoman, who meets with sup- port from those only who were confirmed irreligionists before she began her career. Kobody is persecuted in this country, so that palpable infidelity or sublimated social doctrines fall to pieces before the all-powerful disapprobation of public opinion. * De Cheverus was boru Jan. 28, 176S, and w.-is the l.^st priest to be ordained (Dec. 8, 1790) before the breaking out of the Revolution. He fled in disguise from France to England, where he taught and min- istered, and in 1796 went to Boston at the invitation of the Abbe Mar- tignon. He and his associate lived down the prejudices which met them, and gained the respect and admiration of all classes and sects. De Cheverus was honored in public ways, and when he opened a sub- scription for a church, President John Adams was the first to subscribe. He was one of the most prominent promoters of art, science and litera- ture in Boston, and one of the foundei-s of the Boston Athenceum. He was recalled to France in 1S23, to the bishopric of Montauban, from which he was transferred to the archbishopric of Bordeaux ; he also received the c.irdinal's hat in 1S36, and died the same year. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. II9 In the year 1788, to which I now return, we were sometimes visited by Miss Thompson, the daughter and only child of Sir Benjamin Thompson, afterward so well known by the title of Count Rumford. That great philosopher was born in the township of Rumford in Massachusetts or New Hampshire, and rose to great distinction by his military and scientific knowledge, par- ticular!)' in Bavaria, where he was prime minister many years. In this )'ear (1788), on a visit to Newburyport, I first became acquainted with the late President of the United States, John Quincy Adams, and was subsequently brought into considerable intimacy with him when a fellow-member of a select club of twelve. But at the time I knew him at Newburyport he was reading law in the office of the celebrated jurist, Theophilus Par- sons. Mr. Adams intermixed with his law-studies a mod- erate indulgence in bcllcs-lcttrcs composition. Among others, he wrote a satire on the female society of the small town in which he resided. The airs and graces and follies of some of the girls were lashed severely. He lent me this poem, written in his own compact hand, as easy to read as any print. I kept it long enough to read to my Aunt Andrews, a blue-stocking of Bos- ton. It offended her greatly. She is still alive, and is an accomplished lady and good poetess. She did not criticise the versification, but was indignant at the cutting sarcasm that pervaded the entire compo- sition, and which she thought was aimed at the whole of her sex. I know not whether she has ever forgiven this juvenile attack. For a long while she held the I20 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. author in aversion. In his poem the larnioyant girls were told that " The surest female weapon was a tear." Belinda, the heroine, was romantic, " Ever with a senseless novel in her hand." There was an exception * to this widespread vitupera- tion. Her name was Frazier ; she was so e;cquisitely beautiful, so faultless in feature, complexion, expression, that she had but one rival in all New England, and that * This satire and the exception are probably among the matters in Mr. Adams's diary which his son does not think it worth while to include in his record of the Pi"esident's life and writings. It is a little curious that Newbisryport should have kept alive this society warfare. The town enjoyed a celebrity as the home of a good many bright people after the day of Judge Parsons. Miss Hannah Gould enjoyed a reputa- tion as a poet not wholly local, for one of her poems, on " Jack Frost," has found a permanent place in reading-books and anthologies. But in her own society she was known, and indeed feared, for her habit of making rather sharp epigrams on her neighbors. One of her shafts was shot at Caleb Gushing in the shape of the following epitaph : " Lie aside, all ye dead. For in the next bed Reposes the body of Gushing ; He crowded his way Through the world, as they say, And perhaps now he's dead he'll be pushing." To which Mr. Gushing retorted with some gallantry and quite as much truth : " Here lies one whose wit Without wounding could hit; And green be the turf that's above her. Having sent every beau To the regions below. She has gone down herself for a lover." Tliis arrow also probably shot home, since Miss Gould had lived so far single that there was every prospect of her outliving any eligible candidate for her hand. ADAMS'S EARLY PASSIGN. 121 was Miss Ellery of Newport. I knew Miss Frazier well, and can testify to the mildness of her blue eyes, the plumpness of her cherry lips and her carmine cheeks, but above all the fascinating charm of her eyes — " Les yeux noir, ce sont de jolis yeux ; Mais les plus beaux ce sont les bleu." Les yeux noir disent aimez-moi ; mais les yeux bleu disent aimez-moi, et je vous aimerai. The language of mutual love was not, however, understood by Miss Frazier and Mr. Adams. He was exceedingly in love with her, but she did not respond to his passion. His was a passion of unusual violence. Six-and-thirty years after, Mr. Adams and I sat together at dinner when my venerable neighbor. Judge Peters, entertained La Fay- ette. I spoke of our early acquaintance at Newbury- port. He said, when I adverted to Miss Frazier, that " it was a consuming flame kindled by her. Love such as I felt for that lady," continued he, " is a distressing malady : it made me restless, sick, unhappy ; indeed, I may say wretched. It was a long while before I was cured, or able to transfer my love to another object, which I did very sincerely when I married my present wife, who has fulfilled by her kindness and affection all my expectations and wishes in reference to connubial happiness." When I was in Congress (the i8th Congress, sessions 1 823-1825) I saw Mr. and Mrs. Adams frequently, and gave him my vote in the House of Representatives when his election came before that body. On that eventful occasion I alone, of all the Pennsylvanian delegation, voted for him, ever^' one of my colleagues voting for 122 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. General Andrew Jackson. Mr. Adams told me that although he knew my vote could not be operative, on account of our voting by States, yet he felt more anxious about it than about any other. " I thought of James Vila's,"* said he, "where we held our club; our early * Jemmy Vila was at one time host of the celebrated Bunch of Grapes tavern, but afterward removed to Concert Hall in 1789, and it was there tliat a club met of which Mr. Adams and Mr. Breck were members. Another member was the late Josiah Quincy, who makes some playful reference to it in a letter which he wrote to Mr. Breck in 1858, when the writer was in his eighty-seventh year and his correspondent in his eighty-eighth. " I am indebted for your letter," writes Mr. Quincy. " I approve of every word of it, and am delighted except with the last epithet, vene7-able. What is venerable? I am sick of the term, it is so often desecrated. Why, I have seen it applied to young fellows not more than sixty or seventy years old ! I pray that Neslorssuch as you and I should be above such juvenilities. You ask if I remember Vila's ? Who that ever knew can ever forget that prince of good eat- ing? I see him now, short, rosy-gilled, with white apron and napkin, with ineffable grace and good humor laying upon the table beefsteaks — ah ! such steaks as are not seen in these degenerate days, since cookery is done by ovens and steam-boilers — but smoking and rising proudly on the plate by the heat and depth of their own gravy; — not burnt, not swimming in an oleaginous mixture, but with the juice of the main body; not overdone, but red with the vital principle of the animal. Alas! when shall you and I see such steaks again? I fear never. Although we mutually rejoice in these reminiscences, I think we never enjoyed them together; when you were luxuriating with John Quincy Adams during the years preceding 1790, I was hammering on Greek and Latin at Harvard; but I remember and delight in the remembrarce of all your enumerated friends and many more. You were at least two years in advance of me, and that makes an awful difference in early life. But who that once knew can ever forget the amiable and intelligent Fra- zier, the ever-jocund and witty Crafts, the noble Thomas Handasyd Perkins, the staid and solid James, his brother John Wells, the good and faithful, and Thomas C. Amory, everybody's friend and favorite ?" LA FAYETTE'S AID TO BOSTON. 1 23 friendship occurred to mc." I replied that my vote was given both to satisfy my judgment and gratify my feel- ings. He made a good President, and conducted the affairs of the nation well for four years. Things in 1787 were in a declining condition in every part of the United States, and poor Boston, the popu- lation of which was reduced to eighteen thousand, lost this year by fire several hundred houses in the south part of the town. La Fayette, accidentally hearing of this calamity in Paris, wrote to my father to draw on him for three hundred pounds sterling, and distribute the amount among those who stood in need of aid. In the fall of the year 1789 a French squadron came to Boston. It consisted of two ships of the line and several frigates. The Patriot (seventy-four) was com- manded by Monsieur de Ponderez, who was the admi- ral, and the Leopard (seventy-four) by M. de la Galli- soniere, and one of the frigates had for captain my old friend the Marquis de Traverse, with whom I went to France in 1782. For two preceding years French squadrons had come to Boston in August and Septem- ber, in order to be out of the reach of the hurricanes of the West Indies. On one occasion the captains of two frigates obtained leave to visit New York and Phila- delphia. During their absence there came an unex- pected order for the squadron to depart. It had been gone about a week when the travellers returned. I was sitting alone in the parlor, just before candlelight, when a sen^ant told me there were two strangers in the kitchen who wished to sec me. On going to meet them I heard them speak French, and found that they were our friends 124 RECOLLECTIONS OE SAMUEL BRECK. the forsaken captains. They had just arrived, and were so chagrined at the awkward position in which they found themselves that they had sneaked in the back way to consult my father. But he was abroad. I en- deavored to console them by telling them that frequent opportunities offered for France. One of them, Cap- tain Booby (spelled in French Boubec), was very much laughed at on account of his name, as associated with the loss of his ship. The Patriot, commanded by M. de Ponderez, was a fine vessel, and somewhat distinguished for having taken Louis XVI. on a short excursion to sea when that king visited the great works at Cherbourg. Ponderez always connected this event with the loyal sentiments which he so strongly felt and expressed for his sovereign. News came daily of the progress of the Revolution and consequent humiliation of the court. He shed tears when I translated those passages that were affron- tive to the king or queen. This amiable man eventually lost his health and life by the constant anxiety produced by the subversion of the old despotism. De Ponderez loved the king with chivalric ardor, and held in venera- tion the monarchy and its institutions. He died of grief the year after, as I heard, at Martinique. La Gallisoniere's ship, the Leopard, was one of the finest models in the world. She sat on the water like a swan. She rode majestically at anchor about a mile below the Castle, at the same time that a British frigate named the Penelope lay in the inner harbor, under the command of Samuel Lindsey, Esq. Her officers, with whom I was well acquainted, were not on sociable terms FRENCH DISCIPLINE. 1 25 with the Frenchmen, and none of them would go on board their ships. They would sail round them and applaud their finished naval architecture, particularly that of the Leopard, but the)^ kept aloof from the offi- cers. The British captain's son, Samuel Hood Lindsey, was a midshipman on board the Penelope. He was rather younger than I. An intimacy, however, grew up between us, and I prevailed upon him to let me introduce him to La Gallisoniere. Having fixed a day, we went together on board the Leopard. The captain, who was a very kind-hearted man, received us with his usual courtesy. We walked up and down the starboard quarter-deck, all along which were seated common sailors, some in groups playing cards, others reading or sleeping. This looked strange enough to an officer of the British navy, accustomed to consider the quarter- deck as a kind of sanctum sanctonim consecrated to the special use of the captain and officers. If this easy dis- cipline astonished him, how much wider did he open his eyes when a sailor who belonged to a party who were chasing each other round the mainmast dodged his pursuer by jumping behind La Gallisoniere, whom he seized by both arms ! The captain stopped, and turning round to the sailor, said very good-naturedly, " Qu'est que c'est done, mon enfant ?" To which the tar replied very familiarly, " Ce gaillard la veut m'atha- fer, et je me cache derriere vous pour I'empecher." (" What's the matter, my child ?" — " That fellow wants to catch me, and I hide behind you to prevent it.") This scene was not new to me, because I had been much accustomed to French men of war, but to Lindsey it 126 RECOLLECriONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. seemed past belief. And when we had left the ship the young middy, in adverting to it, exclaimed, " Damn them ! it is no wonder we beat them." This officer was the son of a martinet, and under the most rigid discipline on board his father's ship. The contrast was indeed striking. In the war that took place with France a few years after, the midshipman rose rapidly, and in the vessels he commanded showed himself a true chip of the old block. To such a pitch of exasperation did his tyranny drive his men that when cruising off the Tagus in the Tiger (ninety-gun ship), which he commanded, a sailor, having asked leave to speak to him on the quarter-deck, plunged a knife into his bosom. It did not, however, kill him. He died off the Cape of Good Hope, I think, a few years after. The senior Captain Lindsey was a native of Boston, patronized, I think, by Lord Hood. He was a good officer and most exact disciplinarian, the terror of his crew. Two or three years after I knew him he retired from the service of the king of England, brought his family to Boston, and settled there. His wife, an amiable woman, soon after died. At her death the eccentricities of the captain assumed the appearance of mental derangement. He retired to a small box in the neighborhood of Milton, where he lived entirely by himself, rode out armed, and tapped his cider-cask by firing a ball into the head. As he was seldom to be seen at home, he fixed a parcel of hooks in his kitchen for the butchers to hang their meat on, giving a standing order to put daily a joint upon one of the hooks. It so happened on one occasion, when he was detained in WASHINGTON'S VISIT TO BOSTON. 12/ Boston about a fortnight by sickness, that he found on his return home fifteen or sixteen pieces of meat hang- ing around the walls of his kitchen. His daughter married Mr. Thomas C. Amory, an old and intimate friend of mine. Several of his younger sons became Americans, and I hope good republicans. At the time when Admiral de Ponderez was lying with his fleet in the harbor of Boston, the great Wash- ington, who was President of the United States, arrived in the town. He like a kind father was visiting the vast country he had been called upon to govern. His reception was most cordial. A broad arch was pur- posely erected, with appropriate mottoes, across Marl- borough street, opposite to the old State House, under which he passed in great state, and entering the State House showed himself from the balcony to the thou- sands who stood below. I placed myself on this occa- sion in the front window of a handsome brick church situated almost opposite. That church * had a fine stee- ple, and was a fresh, substantial-looking edifice, and be- longed to the successors of the first congregation that was formed in Boston in the year 1628 or '30. But the rage of speculation levelled it to the ground, and put in its place a lofty row of warehouses and shops. From that church I saw everything,! heard the fine anthems composed * The First Church had been removed from State street in 1640. It was again removed in 1S08, giving place to what is now known as Joy's Building, and rebuilt in Chauncy street. A third change was made when the brick church in Chauncy street was taken down, and a stone church built at the corner of Marlborough and Berkeley streets in 1868. \ The spot was well chosen, if we may judge from the interesting 128 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. for the occasion, and gazed upon the majestic person and beneficent features of our immortal and unique Presi- dent — beloved, admired by everybody. The proces- sion moved from the State House to the house selected for his residence. It was a handsome brick building at the corner of Tremont and Court streets.* A beauti- ful company of light infantry, commanded by Harrison Gray Otis, served as a guard of honor and escort. Governor Hancock had prepared a great dinner at his house, to which he invited the French admiral, the officers of his fleet and the principal citizens. A notion had got into Hancock's head that the governor of a reminiscences of another old gentleman who was present on the occa- sion — Gen. W. H. Summer: " I was a boy then of between nine and ten years of age, and a pupil at Master Lane's West Boston writing- school. Master Lane's boys were placed in front of Mr. Jonathan Mason's hardware store, near the bend in Washington street (then Cornhill) opposite Williams' Court. I well remember the laugh which our salute created when, as the general passed us, we rolled in our hands our quills with the longest feathers we could get. From our position at the angle of the street we had a fair view of the procession as it approached and after it passed us. A select choir of singers, led by Rhea, the chorister of Brattle street church, was placed on the trium- phal arch under which the procession was to pass, and which extended from the old State House to the stores of Joseph Pierce and others at the opposite side of Cornhill. The aixh was decorated with flags, flowers and evergreens, so that the musicians were not seen until they rose up and sang the loud pcean, commencing as Washington first came in sight at the angle where we stood, swelling in heavy chorus until he passed from our sight under the triumphal arch and took his station upon it." — " Some Recollections of Washington's Visit to Boston," in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, for April, i860. * The house, at that time of two stories only, was a boarding-house kept by Joseph Ingersoll. It is now Pierce's grocery store, and bears a tablet on its face inscribed "Occupied by Washington in 1789." HANCOCK'S STATE PRIDE. 1 29 State was a kind of sovereign in his own territory, and that it would be derogatory to his station to pay the first visit to any one, even to the President of the United States ; and acting always by this rule, he sent an invi- tation to General Washington to dine with him, but ex- cused himself from calling on him, alleging that sickness detained him at home, thus covering by a lame apology the resolution which he dared not openly exercise toward the President, but which his Democratic friends, who always surrounded him, advised him never to abandon so long as he valued State rights and State dignity ; forgetting the absurdity of exalting the chief of a part above the chief of the whole. Washington, who had received some hint of this in- tended etiquette, was not very likely to submit to it ; therefore, when he arrived at his residence he dismissed Captain Otis's company, and instead of going to dine with the governor, sent his aid-de-camp, Major William Jackson, with a message declining the invitation, and intimating that if Hancock's health permitted him to receive company, it would admit of his visiting him.* * Hancock's fiasco has been frequently related, and always with sub- stantially the same interpretaticjn. The assumption of superior dig- nity began indeed when the governor failed to meet the President on his entrance to town, which angered Washington and rendered his bearing less gracious than usual. He would not be induced to ascend the balcony at the old State House prepared for him until assured that the governor was not there. The correspondence that afterward passed between the two dignitaries is amusing when read by the light of the facts. Sunday, 26lh October, half-past twelve o'clock, the governor, brought to his senses, writes : " The Governor's best respects to the President. If at home and at leisure, the Governor will do hini>elf the honor to pay his respects in half an hour. This would have been 9 130 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. My father dined at the governor's that day, and about sunset brought home Admiral de Ponderez and several officers, who spent the evening with us. The dinner- party went off heavily, as every one was disappointed at not meeting with the President. Meantime, the French ships of war in the harbor were illuminated with variega- ted lamps, and bonfires blazed in every direction. The ladies wore bandeaux, cestuses and ribbons stamped and worked in with the name of Washington, some in gold and silver, and others with pearls. The utmost joy and enthusiastic affection pervaded all classes. Ev- ery honor and attention was lavishly bestowed on the distinguished guest. About ten o'clock in the evening I accompanied the admiral to the wharf, where he took boat for his ship. As we passed the residence of the President, De Pon- derez expressed his surprise at the absence of all sort of parade or noise. " What !" said he, " not even a sentinel ? In Europe," he added, " a brigadier-general would have a guard; and here this great man, the chief of a nation, dispenses with all military show, so much insisted on with us !" The next day was Sunday, and immediately after morning service Mr. Joseph Russell, an intimate acquain- done much sooner had his heaUh in any degree permitted. He now hazards everything, as it respects his health, for the desirable purpose." To which the President, at one o'clock, replies : " The President of the United States presents his best respects to the Governor, and has the honor to inform him that he shall be at home till two o'clock. The President need not express the pleasure it will give him to see the Gov- ernor ; but at the same time he most earnestly begs that the Governor will not hazard his health on the occasion." THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR. I3I tance of the governor's, called at our house and told my father that His Excellency had swallowed the bitter pill, and was then on his way to visit the President ; to which step he had been urged by a report that people generally condemned his false pride. Associated with this subject is the conduct of John Langdon, then gov- ernor of New Hampshire, the State which the President was to visit next. It contrasts strongly with that of Hancock. The former, instead of waiting for the first visit, left his capitol with an escort of horse and rode to the line that divides his State from Massachusetts, and there received the President, whom he accompanied to Portsmouth, which was at that time the seat of govern- ment. Hancock, who was a distant relation of ours, possess- ed winning manners and fascinating conversation ; yet with a hospitable heart and all the suavity of polished breeding, he was so much swayed by State importance that he forfeited occasionally his claim to those amiable qualities. An example has just been given in the case of Washington ; and a few months later the same thing occurred with the French ambassador, Comte de Mou- stier, who when visiting Boston was not noticed by the governor, because the minister would not pay him the first visit It may be that the governor was right here, but it was an idle piece of etiquette, which disgusted De Moustier with Boston — so much so that he dined nowhere, I think, except at my father's. It is but fair to add that this Frenchman was a coxcomb, full of preju- dice, and very apt to assume airs and sport opinions very offensive to my countrymen. When at New York, 132 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. where he resided, and which was then the seat of gov- ernment of the United States, he used to send his din- ner and wine to the houses at which he was invited, even to Alexander Hamilton's. I dined with him once en famille at New York, and his whole discourse was a strain of abuse of America. But to return to Hancock. I remember another oc- casion on which he showed an unkind feeling toward the general government, from an idea that it withheld from him that deference which his post of governor of a sovereign State entitled him to. He attached mighty importance to the station of chief magistrate of an in- dependent State, forgetting that a portion of that lofty character was relinquished when Massachusetts became a 'component part of the Federal Union. His solicitude upon this subject brings to my mind four verses to the tune of " Yankee Doodle " often sung by the British officers during the Revolution : " Madam Hancock dreamt a dream; She dreamt she wanted something; She dreamt she wanted a Yankee king, To crown him with a pumpkin." This official heartburning led him to neglect all those who had anything to do with the Federal government. Thus it was that a party of Indian chiefs and their squaws who were sent to Boston to see the town were totally unnoticed by him. I happened to meet with those children of the woods on a journey from New York to Boston, and spent some time in the same tavern on the road. They ENTERTAINING INDIANS. 1 33 travelled in two carriages under the care of Captain Prior of the army. A Mr. d'Hauteville, a Creole French planter, was with me, and we agreed to show some attention to these strangers when arrived at Boston. Accordingly, we went to see them, and made arrangements to give them a dinner at our lodgings. Expecting that the governor would entertain them, we waited several days. He, however, took no notice of them, and on the appointed day they came to us. Mrs. Eaton's house, where we lodged, was spacious, and the courtyard was large and retired, and well suited to accommodate the crowd of spectators by which our red guests were followed. We had eight or nine savages in full dress and daubed with paint. Mrs. Eaton's table- linen received abundant marks of their toilet-pots. The queen had but one eye, and, besides being of a certain age, she used her cosmetics but too successfully to in- crease her ugliness. This royal dame sat on my right hand, and whenever a health was drunk. Her Majesty turned most condescendingly to me, and after a familiar nod sipped through her painted lips about half the wine in her glass, and with an amiability truly savage poured the other half into my glass, signifying that it was her wish I should swallow it. Who could refuse so fair a lady? With what stomach I had I gulped it down. The principal chief was named Trois-fcsse, which for modesty's sake I translate " Three Sides ;" I called him by that name. His French appellation had been given him by the Canadians or voyageurs of Lake Superior, near the waters of which this band resided. Calaniuiig coro ho are the Indian words for " I drink your good 134 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. health," and they were often repeated that day. After the cloth was removed I asked the chief for a toast. Jle rose with solemnity and addressed me as follows: " ]5rother, I divide my toast into three parts. First, I drink reverence to the Great Spirit, our Father in heaven ; secondly, to our Great Father on earth, the President of the United States ; and thirdly, to our travelling father and friend. Captain Prior." All this was delivered with suitable emphasis and great gravity in the Indian language, and translated by the interpreter of the government, who dined with us. They stayed about three hours, and conducted themselves very well, retiring loaded with cigars and reasonably sober for Indians. In the .same hou.se where this feast was given there came to lodge in 1789 or thereabout — perhaps a year later — Lord Whickham,* eldest son of the marquis of Lansdowne. The father of this young nobleman, better known among us by the title of Lord Shelburne, having made peace with us in 1783, wished his heir to become acquainted with a country to which Great Britain had been compelled to give independence. I met him two or three times at parties in Philadelphia, and heard of him when he lodged at Mrs. Eaton's at Boston. The day after he arrived at that lady's house, when he was introduced at the breakfast-table by the name of Lord Whickham, his fellow-lodgers never having .seen a nobleman, and being wholly unused to titles, took it * More stylishly spelled Wycombe by the gentleman himself, though the pronunciation by his lordship's valet may have agreed better with the name in our text. LORD WHICKHAM. 135 for granted that " Lord " was his Christian name, so that he was addressed as Mr. Whickham, except when a rough Salem-man by the name of Barton happened to speak to him, and then he blunderingly called him Mr. Whackhim. In Philadelphia I dined with him at ]\Ir. Bingham's, and spent an evening with hini at Mr. William Smith's, member of Congress from South Carolina, who gave a ball in compliment to him. At this ball a great belle. Miss Sophia Chew, teased him so much to dance with her that he at length very reluctantly consented. The poor man, high born as he was, had never learned to dance; yes, distinguished as was his birth, he did not know a single step. No performance, of course, could be more awkward, and he seemed in agony the whole time. But Miss Chew, privileged as all pretty women are, had determined to dance with a lord ; so she said, and so persisted until, bon gre, vial gre, the stranger was obliged to submit. He was a tall, thin, gawky man of twenty-three or twenty-four years of age, men- tally well endowed, though eccentric. On his return to England he sat in the House of Peers a few years as marquis of Lansdowne, and died about 1805. Lord Henry Petty, his brother, and present marquis of Lans- downe, succeeded him. Among the Bostonians who were intimate at my father's was James Sullivan, afterward governor of Massachusetts. That distinguished gentleman grew up to manhood uneducated. He was the son of a farmer in the district of Maine, and had the good-for- tune (for so it turned out) to break his leg when felling 136 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. a tree. While he was confined in consequence of this accident he occupied himself in reading, and gradually acquired a taste for study, which led to the subsequent cultivation of his mind and eminent standing at the bar. He married an accomplished lady from Portsmouth, who had previously been married to a gentleman from whom she obtained a divorce. By Mr. Sullivan she had many children. Mrs. Sullivan was possessed of a dignified person and urbane and even elegant manners. CHAPTER IV. Second Voyage to Europe. — A Gale in the Irish Sea and a Shelter un- der the Isle of Man. — Dublin. — An Irish Bull. — A Hungry Traveller. — Liverpool. — By Stage to London. — Drury Lane. — Binneau. — The Chevalier d'Eon. — Frederick Geyer. — A Lord Mayor's Show. — A Parliamentary Debate. — Burke. — Nicholas Ward Boylston. — A Ball at Bath. — En Route for Paris.— A Well-preserved Barber. — The Revolution. — De Noailles. — A Debate in the National Assembly. — Mirabeau. — A Glimpse of the Royal Family. — Spongers. — Barlow. — Browne Cutting. — Return Voyage. — A Dinner at Mr. Jeffrey's. ON a Sunday about the i6th of August, 1790, 1 met in the Pubhc Walk at Boston, Mr. John Higginson, who commanded one of his father's merchant-ships. In the course of conversation I inquired when he intended to sail, and where he was going. He said he should be ready for the sea by the 20th, and that he was bound to Dublin. " Now, Breck," said he, " I have a snug state- room in my brig Sukey; the season is fine; you have nothing to do here ; get yourself ready for a trip with me, and take another look at the old cotntry." The pro- posal was quite unexpected. I had no thought of visiting Europe. " Your invitation," I said, " is very tempting, and if my father does not object to it I will be ready to accompany you." On consulting my father I found him disposed to gratify my wish, and we immediately commenced our preparations. I say our, because that excellent parent, having a large claim on Daniel Par- is? 138 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. ker, who resided in London, put his papers in order and gave me full power to settle it. He provided me likewise very amply with bills of credit and money in gold ; so that on the day appointed I was on board the Sukey, sailing down the harbor to Nantasket Roads in company with several friends, who spent a jovial day with us and bade us an affectionate adieu in the evening. But we were wind-bound two days before we got to sea. Our passage was unmarked by a single occurrence of the smallest consequence until we came in sight of Cape Clear, the southernmost part of Ireland, on the i8th of September. It was a fine afternoon, about four o'clock, when we approached the land and when two fishing- smacks boarded us. With them we exchanged some tobacco and rum for fresh cod. On asking " What news ?" they informed us that England was arming against Spain, in consequence of a dispute about some American territory on the Pacific Ocean, called Nootka, and, pointing to a sloop of war then steering toward land, told us that she was a cruiser sent out to impress men. This intelligence alarmed two Irish steerage pas- sengers who were in our vessel, and liable to be forced into the king's service. The critical season of the year (being the autumnal equinox) saved us from a visit; for, being late in the afternoon, the cruiser kept on her course and went into the Cove. The next day, contrary to our expectations, was clear and serene. A gentle breeze, perfectly fair, had favored us all night, and was so delightfully mild that it lulled the whole crew of a fishing-boat to sleep. We came very near sending them to the bottom. Aroused, how- GALE IN THE IRISH SEA. 1 39 ever, just as we were upon them, they screamed out so lustily that our helmsman scraped by them. They hailed from the " auld Head of Kingsale," and in truth the old head was directly opposite. With this favora- ble wind we coasted along the southern shore of Ireland, passing by Cork Harbor, Youghal Bay and the mouth of the river Barrow, on which stands the town of Water- ford. Toward evening we came in sight of the Saltees, which we weathered during the night, and steered northerly for Dublin, our port of destination. At day- light on the 20th the beautiful storm-breeding weather of the preceding day disappeared, and was succeeded by dark and angry clouds, a swelling and strongly-agitated sea, howling winds — all ominous of a gathering storm. It was, in truth, the commencement of a furious equi- noctial gale. Our position was extremely dangerous, confined to a narrow sea bounded on all sides by lofty hills and bestrewn with shoals, sandbanks, and sunken rocks. We had, however, the whole day before us, but it became necessary to make every effort to reach Dub- lin before dark. Captain Higginson, aware of our per- ilous situation, spread his sail and pushed his heavily- laden vessel through the bobbing waves of St. George's Channel. But our brig Avas a cbnnp, and made but small way through the short though lofty billows. A man was stationed at the masthead, with orders to keep a sharp lookout for breakers that are occasioned by a series of sandbanks extending along the eastern coast of Ireland from Dublin Harbor to Wexford Haven. One among them, called in our charts the Kish, and represented there as covered by one foot of water only. I40 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. gave us great uneasiness, as it was laid down ten or twelve miles from land, so that nothing could save us in stormy weather should we happen to run upon it. We were fast approaching it, yet Higginson was unwill- ing to tack before twelve o'clock, on account of the irregularity in the nautical division of the day, which a note of that manoeuvre in the logbook would produce. So we sailed on until about eleven, when we saw a brig standing to the southward, which we spoke. She was a trader from Bordeaux to Dublin. Arrived that morn- ing just at the entrance of her destined port, she had been compelled to bear away and relinquish the attempt to enter. Taught by this example, our captain consent- ed to steer east. We tacked about then, and made stretches across the Channel of eight hours each. The night passed in anxiety, the wind increasing. On the 23d the gale became furious and blew to rags our fore- sail, so that we had to beat about the whole day under bare poles. About an hour before dark a thick mist that hung round us cleared away and showed us a bluff of rugged high land to leeward. This we supposed to be Holyhead, and to avoid getting landlocked and los- ing the vessel and our lives on the coast of Cornwall, it became necessary to make sail. Fortunately, we had bent a few days before the gale a new foretopsail of Boston-manufactured duck, and on the strength of this we wholly depended. The storm did not abate, and a desperate effort was made to weather the high land. The sail was spread, and the brig moved slowly over the rough sea. Higginson and I were in the cabin anxiously inspecting the charts. Opposite to Holyhead IN A TIGHT PLACE. I4I we found many sunken rocks laid down, and expecting every moment to feel the vessel strike some of them, we prepared ourselves for the worst. I placed my gold and letters of credit about my person and arranged my dress for swimming. We had approached the land so near that, in the sea-phrase, " we could chuck a biscuit on shore." The mate was stationed in the shrouds looking out for the Skerry lighthouse, which ought to open to view as we doubled Holyhead; but nothing of the kind appeared, notwithstanding the great service our Boston foretopsail was doing us, for we were squeezing round the high and frowning point, and in good time wholly weathered it and got into an open sea to leeward, where we moved with less anxiety, keeping the brig's head near- ly north. In this manner we continued until four o'clock in the morning, when the watch called out, " Land close ahead !" The ship's course was instantly changed, but being perfectly bewildered, we knew not which way to steer. It was extremely dark, and meeting with land in a northerly direction, we thought we might avoid it by putting our prow south-east. So we continued until daylight. The gale had not abated at the dawn, and we began anew to consider of our safety, even by stranding our vessel. With this intention we surveyed the long line of coast by which we were embayed, using the spy- glass to search for a flat shore. Imagining that we saw one about eight miles off, at the very bottom of the bay, we fixed the cables to the anchors and steered for it, determined to anchor and let the vessel drive ashore if she would, rather than spend another night in the midst of these inland seas. 142 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. Scarcely had we shaped our course in conformity with this resokition, when three or four vessels then in sight put themselves in our wakx, and, taking us for their pilot, seemed willing to follow us. They were Dutchmen, and apparently as bewildered as ourselves. While sailing thus at haphazard, and wondering at the seeming confidence placed in us by these strangers, we perceived a small sloop come round the high land that we doubled amid so much uneasiness the preceding night. We watched him attentively, and saw him sail along shore with great boldness. Concluding that it was a coaster well acquainted with the bay, we prepared to profit by his knowledge. Higginson waited until he got nearly opposite to us, and then told me that it was his intention to follow him, with the hope that he would show us the way to a safe port. He accordingly ordered the helmsman to take the coasting-sloop for his guide. No sooner had we done this than the strange vessels that were following us changed their course in like manner; so there we were, a string of ships in close pursuit of an unknown vessel, by whose compass we all steered without the smallest knowledge of the place she was bound to. During five hours we kept within a quarter of a mile of our file-leader, taking the precau- tion to heave the lead when we approached the shore, as we frequently did within the length of a cable, for our little pilot darted along with so much assurance, notwithstanding the violence of the wind — which, how- ever, had somewhat abated — that Higginson resolved not to deviate a point from his course. Scarcely had we come to this resolution when we saw him approach RAMSAY BAY, ISLE OF MAN. 1 43 a point of land so very near that I trembled when the captain bade the steersman keep precisely in the same track. The lead, which was anxiously watched, indi- cated, however, a sufficient depth of water. It was a cape of no great breadth, and we soon sailed round it. On a sudden there opened to our view a spacious bay filled with ships at anchor. A small town lay at the foot of a lofty hill cultivated to the very summit. The transition from a boisterous sea to a calm anchorage was delightful, and to us a most joyful deliverance. We sailed into the midst of the fleet, consisting of twenty-seven square-rigged vessels, and dropped an- chor. " Where are we ?" was the question Higginson and I put to each other. Neither of us had the small- est idea of the place's name. It was now about twelve o'clock, and as we had not had a regular meal for three days, we chose to take a comfortable dinner before we went in search of information. As soon as we had dined the boat was hoisted out, and I took the mate with me to a Liverpool collier that was moored near us, and asked the name of the bay and town. The crew told us that we were in Ramsay Bay in the Isle of Man. With this information I returned to our cap- tain, who was greatly surprised to find himself at least one hundred miles farther north than he supposed. On looking at our charts we discovered that the town in front was Ramsay, and that the land we had weathered in the dark of the preceding night was Calf Island, in- stead of Holyhead, and the land that turned us out of our course in the morning was the coast of Scotland. We spent the afternoon in the quiet contemplation of 144 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. the beautiful landscape around us and the perfectly- sheltered harbor, now unusually full of shipping that had, like ourselves, sought protection from the storm. Being all of us temporary visitors, we availed our- selves the next morning of fair weather and a light breeze to endeavor to get out of the bay, and if possible by the southern cape, so as to avoid the very near approach to land that we made on entering it. But the wind op- posed our efforts, and had nearly determined us to drop anchor again when the same little fellow that piloted us in, loosened his sails and prepared to depart, he having run into port only to avoid the storm. Confident of his skill, we again followed, and ran along with him down the north of the island, passing Peele Castle.* We spent the night in the Irish Channel, and at daylight on the 26th saw Ireland's Eye, and soon after Howth Head, opposite to which we were boarded by a pilot who had just put his companion into the Bordeaux trader that we spoke four days before. That vessel, he told us, had been very roughly treated, having lost her quarter-deck railing and spare spars, and been driven on shore near Whitehaven. With our pilot we entered the river Liffey, or rather the harbor of Dublin, and anchored about four miles from the city. In the afternoon Higginson and I landed a few roods from the brig on a vast dike composed of earth and faced with stone. It is a mighty breakwater * If Mr. Bieck read Wordsworth fifteen or twenty years after this voyage, he must have lighted with great interest on " Elegiac Stanzas, suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm, painted by Sir George Beaumont." AN IRISH BULL. 145 three or four miles long, and forms the southern barrier of the harbor, which, after all the labor of this stupen- dous work, is shallow and unsuitable for large ships. Having walked the whole length of this pier, we entered the suburbs of the Irish metropolis, and with some dif- culty found our way to the house of Mr. Wilson, the American consul, to whom our brig was consigned; but he was from home. By the kindness of some of his family we were directed to a fashionable lodging-house, kept by a Mrs. Harris in Capel street. Although I had spent several years in France, I found much novelty in this quarter of Europe, particularly among the vehement, light-hearted and hospitable Irish. I had, however, seen a good many strange samples of this nation in sponging abbes in France and blundering servants at home ; but being now in the Emerald Isle itself, I looked atten- tively at what was passing there. Just after we had taken possession of our rooms, and while making our toilet, Higginson, who was under the hands of a Dublin hairdresser, sent forth a horse laugh that announced some discovery. I opened his door to see what it was, when he cried out, " A bull ! a bull ! To be sure we are in dear Ireland for certain." He then told me that on asking the hairdresser what news, he replied that the lord chancellor had just received a present of a coach from England of a construction so magnificent that it cost three thousand guineas. " Poh ! poll !" exclaimed my friend : " it is impossible." " Ex- cuse me, sir," rejoined the frissciir, " it is very possible and very true ; and you will think so yourself when I assure you that the very irons of it are gold ! " This 10 146 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. was the first and only bull we heard in Ireland, a country whose people, by their vivacity accumulating thoughts faster than words, may be permitted to speak twice when they blunder. They never had occasion for this indulgence from us, for we did not catch them in a mistake after this. , With regard to the coach with gold irons, it is certain that a carriage of unparalleled splen- dor had just arrived, which was the ^ubject of much talk, and had been exhibited for money at Longacre's in London, and was now advertised to be seen gratis at the lord chancellor's stable. During a week that I spent in Dublin I visited many of the remarkable things usually shown to strangers, such as the College, Castle, Parliament-house, Ex- change, Custom-house, Rotunda, the markets, etc., and on Sunday attended divine service at St. Patrick's church, of which Swift was formerly dean. Dublin is a splendid city, containing between two and three hun- dred thousand inhabitants. The new Custom-house, just then finished at an expense of five hundred thou- sand pounds, is an edifice of extraordinary magnificence. Dame street, Leinster Green or Square, and various other parts of this noble city appeared very beautiful. Lord Westmoreland was lord lieutenant. I had a letter to Captain Fitzgerald, one of his aides, but not meaning to stay long in town I did not deliver it. On visiting Trinity College chapel I perceived in a gallery through which the guide took us a large picture turned to the wall. On asking the reason, I was told that it was a full-length portrait of the celebrated Grattan. This patriot and orator, to whom Parliament gave — in 1782, CROSSING TO LIVERPOOL. I47 I think — a gratuity of fifty thousand pounds, was now out of favor, and his portrait thrust aside by the govern- ment of the college. We were not allowed to see it. I was feasted with true Irish hospitality by Mr. Wilson, Mr. Forbes, etc., and spent my time merrily enough. The custom of hard drinking, so prevalent among the gentry of Ireland, was well kept up by the merchants too. Claret and other French wines were consumed most copiously. I played my part pretty well for a young man, and without once losing my balance. I know not whether that foolish and injurious habit still exists there. In America at this day (August, 1830) I am happy to say it is banished from good company. The upper class in the United States is commendably temperate. The time arriving for me to embark for England, I went on board a Liverpool packet, and paid a guinea for a berth in the cabin. The vessel was a brig, and tolerably spacious. I found several passengers, male and female, on deck. It was the first day of October that we embarked, just after breakfast, and by the usual dinner-time we were v/ell out at sea. Admonished by a hungry stomach of the arrival of four o'clock, I anxiously waited to be called to table. Yet no sum- mons came ; neither did I see any preparations except a few plates used by the passengers for a lunch from their private stores. I inquired of the steward when dinner would be ready. " Dinner, sir ?" said he. " The ship furnishes nothing ; every passenger provides him- self with provisions." "So ho!" thought I, "this is an appalling piece of news for a hungry young fellow to 148 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BR EC A'. learn in the middle of the Irish Sea, and on a voyage that frequently lasts four days. But something must be done." I was tormented with too keen an appetite to stand still, so I went in search of the captain. From him I received no consolation. His own stores, he said, were exactly suited to his own wants, and he had not a mouthful to spare. " Worse and worse," said I to myself; " by this strange regulation I shall be left to starve with my pockets full of money and almost within hail of plentiful Ireland." While grumbling to myself, and now and then muttering my complaints aloud, I was accosted by a young gentleman, who told me that he had heard from the captain that I was without pro- visions in consequence of not knowing the custom of the ship, and that he had hastened immediately to offer me a share of his basket. Upon my begging him to permit me to club the expense with him, he said that he had much more than he and his companion could consume, and requested me to follow him to the table and partake of his plentiful store. I complied with many thanks. This friendly youth was a student at Cambridge named Wright, who during the vacation had been on an excursion to Ireland. He was a man of fortune, and, like many of his countrymen, not a little eccentric. Either for a bet or to gratify an odd humor he had taken with him as travelling companion the college barber. This, however, I did not discover until we were about to separate some days after at Liverpool. Meantime, I was introduced to him, and we all messed together. We had a pleasant passage, and reached Liverpool AD VENTURE AT A STA GE- OFFICE. 1 49 on the morning of the second day. I intended to stay only three days, and having sent my heavy baggage by a slow conveyance to London, I took a seat in the mail- coach to start at ten o'clock on Saturday night, and to travel two hundred and two miles in thirty hours to the British capital. At dinner that day I exchanged my gold with Mr. Wright for three ten-pound notes of the Bank of England, preferring paper to coin. These notes had endorsements on them precisely alike. I put them in my pocket, and spent the evening at the theatre. A little before ten I took leave of Mr. Wright, thanking him for his friendly attentions, and promising to let him know of my arrival in London and place of residence there ; and then passing through the market, which was full of people, being Saturday evening, I went to the stage-office close by, and gave the clerk in attend- ance one of my three ten-pound notes to pay my fare, which came to between three and four guineas. He took the note and gave me the change in gold and silver. The stage drove to the door with several pas- sengers, and I was going to take my seat when the clerk told me that I had not given him the bank-bill. I insisted upon it that I had, and drawing forth two ten-pound notes, showed him that these were a part of three that I had when I came into the office, and the other was in his possession. But my man was a true John Bull in make and in manners, being a rubicund, round-bellied fellow, with a scarlet broadcloth waistcoat. He stormed mightily, affirming that I had not given the note to him, and swearing that I should not stir a step until I paid him. With this he closed the door and 150 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECIC summoned his daughter. Meantime, the guard of the mail blew his trumpet ; several market-people, hearing the noise, had already pressed into the room, and my situation became very embarrassing. The man's daugh- ter arrived, and hearing her father's story, asked him if he was sure he had searched his pockets well. " Be sure, girl, I have," said he, " and you may look your- self if you will." Upon saying this, he turned his huge stomach to the young woman, who, casting her eye toward his pocket, exclaimed, " Why, father, there is the note sticking to the cloth !" And, sure enough, there it was. The man in attempting to put the note into his jacket pocket had left it adhering to the woollen cloth, from which the subsequent motion of his hand in searching for it did not remove it. Then came apologies the most humble. I forgave him, and en- tered the coach just as the driver's patience was ex- hausted. At daylight on Monday we reached London. After reposing a few hours at the stage-inn, I visited Mr. Thomas Amory, a native of Boston. That gentleman received me in the most cordial manner, and never ceased his attentions during my stay in England. He was a wealthy merchant settled in London. Accom- panied by him, I hired apartments in Norfolk street, a broad though short street running from the Strand to the Thames. It is pretty nearly in the centre of this great city, retired, comparatively silent, in the neighbor- hood of the theatres, Parliament-house and St. James's Park. The whole nation was in black for the recent death of the duke of Cumberland, brother or uncle to DRURY LANE THEATRE. I5I the king. I was soon equipt in the sable uniform by- paying double tailoring on a suit of clothes, for this is a little perquisite of the snip fraternity on the death of any individual entitled to the compliment of a general mourning. In the evening I went to Drury Lane Theatre, and was astonished at the difference of behavior in the au- dience between the English and French. In the play- houses of the latter every one is uncovered and silent ; in the former there is much rudeness, noise and selfish- ness. The company of performers, however, was good — indeed, excellent. Here was Mrs. Jordan, afterward the chere amie of the duke of Clarence (now King Wil- liam IV.), to whom she brought a family of seven chil- dren, who took the name of Fitz Clarence. Next was that beautiful and accomplished actress, Miss Farren, now the countess of Derby, with whom were associated Richard Palmer, King, Incledon, Dignum, Suett, Banis- ter, Jr., etc., and occasionally Mrs. Siddons. To these I ought to add an admirable actor named Parsons, The company at Covent Garden was not so able. Mrs. Sid- dons I saw in Isabella, a favorite character, but I was too far back to hear. It was, nevertheless, in the old small house in which Garrick performed. Her voice did not seem to fill the hall — at any rate, not sufficiently to electrify me by a single passage in the play. Her figure was beautiful. I could admire nothing more. We had no national representative at the British court — none whatever ; nor at Paris either, nor in Hol- land; so that our countrymen had to get along as well as they could, and with such protection as they were 152 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. able to find. But in England, Americans feel always at home ; identified as they are with the natives in lan- guage, customs and manners, their country is to us as our own. As to London, a short residence makes one familiar with its din, which indeed does not extend be- yond the main streets. I was as quiet at the bottom of Northumberland street, to which I had moved, as if I had lodged in a village. Mr. Duncan Ingraham, a native of Concord in Massachusetts, and uncle to my ci-devant flame, Miss Charlotte Geyer, lodged in my neighborhood, and was about paying a visit to Holland. He invited me to accompany him, and I consented. Mr. Binneau,a French emigrant from Bordeaux, whose acquaintance I made at The Hague, called on me at my lodgings in Northumberland street as soon as he reached London. He found me in a very pleasant apartment, consisting of a parlor, dressing-room and bed-chamber. I was better lodged than in Norfolk street, and nearer the fashionable part of the town. These furnished rooms cost me only one guinea a week. I breakfasted at home, and when not invited abroad dined at the Oxford Coffee-house, close by in the Strand. Binneau and I visited several of the curiosities and manufactures of the town and vicinity, and rambled arm in arm much together. One day, on leaving my room, he told me he Avas engaged to dine in company with an individual who was the lion — or rather lioness — not only of Lon- don, but of all Europe. I allude to the Chevalier d'Eon, a long-lived and successful impostor. Binneau was not a little proud of being introduced to so distin- CHEVALIER UEON. I 53 guished a person, and spoke of the party with delight afterward. In order to understand something about this D'Eon, I transcribe the account given of him in the year 1791 by the celebrated Anna Seward : " This is the period of inconceivable characters as well as of unexpected and prodigious events. The modern Thalestris is now in Lichfield. Mademoiselle le Chevalier d'Eon exhibit- ing for two shillings admittance her skill in the art of attack and defence with the single rapier ! Melancholy reverse of human destiny ! What a humiliation for the aide-de-camp of Marshal Broglie ! for the ambassador during five years from the court of France to that of Russia ! for the envoy to ours, and the principal planner and negotiator of the Peace of 1782 ! In the German war she lived five years in camps and tented fields, amidst the pride, the pomp and circumstance of high trust and glorious contest. In the American war she was in five battles — four against General Elliot — and received six wounds, and all this before her sex was discovered ! I learned from herself," continues Miss Seward, " that a destiny so astonishing was not origin- ally the result of voluntary choice. Her parents bred her as a boy to avoid losing an estate entailed on the heir male. She seems to have a noble, independent, as well as intrepid mind, and the muscular strength and activity of her large frame at sixty-nine are wonderful. She fences in the French uniform, and then appears an athletic, venerable, graceful man. In the female garb, as might be expected, she is awkwardly though not vulgarly masculine. In three days she was to have 154 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. sailed for France by the order of the late unfortunate monarch, to have resumed the male dress and to have taken military command as general, when the massacre at the Tuileries and imprisonment of the king lament- ably frustrated that design and probably dropped an eternal curtain over her career of glory." Such was Miss Seward's account of that mysterious person of doubtful gender when she saw D'Eon at Lichfield, her place of residence. The chevalier was showing herself off then as a woman. But at his death, which happened not long after, the warrior-lady was found to be of the masculine sex. Binneau saw her likewise as a petticoated old man, deceiving him and everybody else. A queer fancy skilfully executed ! I was very agreeably surprised one morning at my lodg- ings in Northumberland street by a visit from Frederick William Geyer, an old friend and fellow-townsman. He had just finished the tour of England, Scotland and Ire- land. I gave him a hearty welcome, and contrived to keep him with me by converting my dressing-room into a bed-chamber. We lived together many months. He was a young man of fine appearance and easy manners, and we agreed most perfectly in everything. In giving me an account of his tour he mentioned a circumstance strongly illustrative of the hospitality of the Irish. Frederick had taken to Dublin a letter of introduction to a gentleman whose name I forget. It was delivered, and he was very kindly received. He spent a week in that city, during which time the greatest attention was paid to him by that individual, and at his departure, learn- ing that his guest intended to go to Scotland by Port TIVO GRAND PROCESSIONS. 1 55 Patrick, he presented him with letters for the towns on his route. But what was Frederick's surprise when, on taking leave of this kind Irishman, he was told that he had no knowledge of the person who wrote the intro- ductory letter presented to him, which was intended, he did not doubt, for a merchant of his name ! " But I knew," continued he, " that I had more leisure and better means of entertaining you than he had, so I did not choose to undeceive you." Soon after my return from Holland I was very favor- ably placed to see two grand processions. The first was on the 9th of November, the day of the Lord Mayor's Show, when I received an invitation to dine with a gentleman who lived near Guildhall. From his drawing-room windows I saw the pageant. The second was when King George IV. went in ceremony to open Parliament. On this occasion my friend Binneau, who was an ultra-royalist, accompanied me. We went to the Park early, and placed ourselves close to the gate that opened into the courtyard of St. James's Palace. There were assembled in the Park at most a thousand people when the procession entered it. Some of the great officers of the Crown preceded the king in coaches drawn by six horses. His Majesty rode in a splendid state carriage with eight cream-colored Hanoverian horses. Binneau and I both bowed. Not another hat was moved. The king seemed to remark this, for he turned toward us and saluted us, as it were, personally. The procession moved on amid profound silence. No huzzas, no particular marks of affection, or even respect, were noticed by us. My French companion was cha- 156 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. grined at this cold behavior. " In France,", said he, " when our king in the good old days of royalty showed himself to the people, every hat was tossed in the air and every voice was raised to greet him." The king, whom I had seen before with his family at the theatre, was a fine-looking man, about fifty years old and in excellent health. Several noblemen sat in the carriage with him, and the speech he delivered that day elicited a good deal of eloquence from Pitt, Fox, Burke, Sheridan and others on the dispute with the Spaniards about Nootka Sound. I went with Geyer and a party of Americans to hear that parliamentary debate. We took some sandwiches in our pockets, and going to the House of Commons as early as one o'clock p. M., we obtained a pretty good place in the gallery, for which we each paid five shillings. Here we waited until four, when the mace appeared, followed by the Speaker. The house filled slowly until five, .when Burke rose and made some desultory remarks about Somerset House, then newly built in the Strand. He was urging the passage of a bill providing for the repair of this edifice, which, although just finished, was con- structed so slightly in the flooring as to be unsafe, and to " crack horribly," as he affirmed, when exposed to any great weight. Mr. Burke was a fat man, dressed in a drab-colored suit, and notwithstanding what he said was very commonplace, he was listened to atten- tively. The newspapers the next day reported his " horrible crack." Just behind me sat the famous Wood- fall, learning every word of the debates as it were by heart, and with his unique talent carrying them in his IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 1 5/ memory to his office after the adjournment, and then very correctly writing them down for his press. Shortly after Burke took his seat, a division was call- ed for on some question about malt, which, by the rules of the House, required the gallery to be cleared. We Were, in consequence, all turned into a small room ad- joining, where, huddled together, we remained a quarter of an hour. The crowd was excessive, and in the rush that was made for the galleiy when the door was opened, I stepped aside and lost my place, hating then, as ever since, to fight my way to sight-seeing in company with a confused multitude. With this disinclination to elbow mobs, whether genteel or vulgar, I withdrew from the contest, and being left nearly alone in the room, I in- quired the way out. The doorkeeper told me that the usual entrance was shut, but seeing that I could not squeeze into the gallery, and taking pity on me, he said he would permit me to go out through the hall in which the House of Commons was assembled. I accordingly descended a carpeted stairway, at the foot of which were seated on the steps three or four members of Parliament, who moved to let me pass. Here I found myself on the floor of the celebrated chapel of St. Stephen's during the session of the Commons. Turning to the right, I came to a large folding door in front of the Speaker's chair — the very door through which Cromwell drove the Rump Parliament — and out of it I passed down to the street. Among my London friends was Ward Nicholas Boylston, a gentleman of great respectability and a native of Boston. He was particularly attentive to me. 158 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECIC When a boy he was intimate at my maternal grand- father's, and fond of my mother, who was about his age. During our Revolutionary troubles he travelled through Asia Minor, and visited, with his Bible in his hand, Palestine, Syria and Egypt, and verified, greatly to his satisfaction, the truth of the sacred volume, both as to the physical formation of the country and the man- ners of its inhabitants. Of the particulars of this jour- ney he would often speak, and I recollect several inter- views that had their chief charm in conversations on those Eastern countries. I remember being at break- fast with him one day when a messenger came from Sir Joseph Banks to inform him that he had concluded to take an Egyptian statue, consigned to the care of Mr. Boylston, at the price of three thousand pounds sterling. This statue was very ancient, but had lost its nose. The empress Catharine II. of Russia had an agent in London ready to pay that sum if Sir Joseph should decline to do it. That gentleman purchased it, no doubt, for the British Museum.* Mr. Boylston had an uncle residing in London who was likewise a native of Boston. He fled to the mother- country at the commencement of the war for Independ- * Ward Nicholas Boylston was born Hallowell, but changed his name by desire of his maternal uncle, Nicholas Boylston. He went abroad for his health in 1773, and, engaging in business in England after his Eastern travels, did not return to America until 1800. One of his first acts on his return was to confirm a bequest of ;^I500 made by his uncle in 1772 to Harvard College, and since lapsed, amounting in 1800 to ^23,200, giving the money for the endowment of the chair of rhetoric and oratory, to which John Quincy Adams was called. He added valuable gifts to the college and medical school. A MISER'S TRICK. 1 59 ence. Already rich when he left America, he had by- commerce and economy greatly increased his wealth in England, and gave his nephew reason to believe that he would make him his heir. Thomas Boylston, the uncle, was a bachelor and a miser. To save house-hire he had nestled in the corner of the upper story of a lofty sugar-factory, five or six floors high. There he slept and made his scanty meals. Here his nephew visited him, and sometimes superintended the extensive operations of the sugar-refinery and other concerns be- longing to his uncle. On one of these occasions the old man took to his bed very sick, as he said. My friend, sacrificing every comfort, imprisoned himself in the dreary cockloft and nursed him assiduously. The hypocrite, who only feigned sickness, left a will formally executed on a table in the garret, in order to invite his nephew to peruse it. Ward saw this paper and read it. He discovered that not one penny was left to him. Disgusted at this breach of promise, and at a loss to account for it, he chose upon reflection to remain silent and continue his attentions. The old sinner, perceiving that his malignant design had been accomplished, was not slow to leave his bed and show himself in health again. No sooner had this taken place than Ward re- proached him for his duplicity, and left him for ever. This separation occurred a short time before my ac- quaintance with Mr. Boylston, who told me of it, and communicated the following fact at the same time : Thomas, finding the consumption of farthing candles too expensive in his dark residence, requested the next- door neighbor to permit him to open a window toward l6o RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. his property. The neighbor, who despised the covetous sugar-baker, and moreover was not of a very obhging disposition, refused. Boylston, the uncle, whose factory was close by the river Thames, set about contriving some mode of revenge, for, notwithstanding his parsi- mony was great, it yielded to his love of vengeance. Cost what it would, he determined to injure his unac- commodating neighbor. The. strip of ground between his neighbor's dwelling-house and the river was for sale. Boylston bought it, and immediately commenced building a brick wall on it. The wall rose higher and higher until it wholly intercepted the view of the water from every part of his disobliging neighbor's house. In vain did the poor man offer every accommodation to the incensed Boylston. He would not listen to any com- promise. " Open," said the affrighted citizen, " twenty windows, and let me see the river." — " No, no," replied the sugar-baker; "I'll live in darkness myself most will- ingly, now that I have eclipsed your own fair prospect;" and thus did he ruin, at great cost to himself, the poor Londoner's estate. This vindictive man subsequently lost his fortune by having invested forty thousand pounds in the capital of a commercial house, upon which he was to receive a certain dividend without being considered as a partner. Boylston was legally declared one of the partners, and besides losing his forty thousand pounds, he was stript of the residue of his vast estate to pay the creditors of the bankrupt house.* As to my friend, Ward Nicholas, he lived to * John Adams said of Thomas Boylston, who was a kinsman, " Tom IS a firel)rand, Tom is a perfect viper, a Jew, a devil; but is orthodo.x in A BALL AT BATH. l6l a good old age in the neighborhood of Boston, and be- sides being a benefactor to his native city and the col- lege at Cambridge, he left a fortune of more than one hundred thousand dollars. In January, 1791, I went to Bath and Bristol, and spent eight or ten days between the two places. I met at the New Rooms a British officer who had been en- tertained often at my father's, and appeared desirous to return the civilities by his attention to me. He intro- duced me to the master of ceremonies, Mr. Tyson. Here my republican notions of equality were wholly out of place. The manager introduced me to a young Irish lady, with whom I stood up to dance pretty near the head couple, but we found ourselves crowded down toward the bottom. " How is this ?" said I to my little Hibernian partner. " Oh, it's all right," replied the sub- missive and fair plebeian ; " the lady at the top is a duke's daughter ; those next to her are the nieces of the archbishop of York ; and after them come cousins and half-cousins of peers and M. P.'s." All this seemed so much a matter of course that I conformed to it easily enough ; and indeed, upon the safe principle of doing at Rome as the Romans do, it was but making a virtue of necessity, for two of the printed rules are as follows : " Let two rows of seats at the upper end of the room be reserved for peeresses and ladies of precedence ;" politics, however." He was amon^r the citizens of Boston who were detained by Governor Gage in consequence of the imprisonment of Jones and Hicks in the jail at Concord, and was released by exchange August, 1775. He fell off, and went to England. He is said to have died of a broken heart in London in 1798. 11 i62 K/:coi.r/-:crjo\s of s.i.t/i ■/■:/. a'A'/:ca'. " 1 .c{ A iiMSiMi.iMr liiiu- 1)1- .ilIo\vi-il hftwwn llu- luimit'ts aiul roiintiy il.iiucs lor l.ulirs oi' rank and piwcik'iu-o Id t.ikr lluu (iKui-s at thr luMil o[' ihc c ount i y tlaturs." " Alia !" thiuu'jil I, " il' \\r c\ rr taU h an\' of llu'sc splits v[ iiol)ilil\ m Amoiira, wi'll toarli llu-m bolter in;il\- ncrs." A junioi l)n>llui- oltlu- iH-UhialoiI Major Andre was pointed out to \\\c in a cotillon. 1 U- had laid)' \)ccn mado a haronrl in consoinunrr oi' his hfolln-r's I'xnution. IK- was t^ril'ix'd l"i\o hunilrcd a Nwif ov a I)an>ni1i\'. 1 lo took tlu> latter, knowiiu' that the titlo would pnuiuo him a wile with a thousand a \ear. On the ^1 ot l'el)iuai\- I kit London ioi Paris, ami adi>pted a nioile ot' eon\t'yaiu\> that was newl\' i-stah- Ushed anil proniiseil to sa\i- tunihle. It was a line o[' coaches established between the two cities that took passeni^i'is foi" five i^iiim-as apiece, and fouiul them ii\ e\ei\thin;; on tlu' load. In oiu- o[ thesi- cariiai;es 1 took m\- seat, anil bn-aklasliiu;. -ot alou;-. badl\- enough w ith i->nc insiik- companiiMi. the \ uli;ar w ili- (^t I\1imuK>/..v ov some other scientilic bi^xer, who was on the top ot" the coach, bound with his jirecious lib to lanteduu \ [o exhibit his pugilism. The fare at this city was suflici- cntl)' plain, so much so as to ii\iluce nu- to pn)\iile tin- iu)'sclt' at PoNer. Althonur passa>;e to l'"iauce was made in less thai\ thiee hours. At (.'alais thinjvs weie in stioui; contrast with those in i'aiidand a lew alleiations lor the bettei, .\\u\ man\- otheiwise. 1 went to Maurice's llolel, where the com- mon sittiiu; riutm was tilled with a tu>upe ot' dancers ^oinu; o\er to periorm at the opera in 1 .ondon. W'e had /'.'.V KOr/'K /VK /'.lA'/S. 163 to sta)' a (Ia\- foi- \\\c ililijM-ncc, wliii li i;a\c iiu- an oppoi- limitx' of walkiiu; round llu- laniparls and lookin;; ni at I)cssfin;;'s fstaMislunrnl, so rrlrhiatcd since llu- da\s of SU'iiu-'s Si-iitiiiicittnl 'Jo/iniry. To lliis ;;rrat inn is attaclu-il a ihcatic, which \vc- attended in the e\-enini.';, having pit-\ ioiisI\' ic-eei\i-d a \isil at oni' lod;;in;;s lioin a fat monk, w !io eanu-, as in Ihi- linu' of Stei ue, to solicit charity. Oil the niorniiii; ol (he cjtli we weie ronsed .it fonr oVdock and stowed awa)' in the eentie division ol an enonnons dihtuauc- chawn h)' six horses. i\[ a very luockr.ite i)aee we airi\ed at I?onk)<';ni' in time for a kite breakfast. W'c continued onr jonrne\' throusdi Mon- tnaiil to Ahhevil!e, wliere wc- arri\c(I !oiu; after dark and took supper. \V<- K-ft AhheviUe at ten o'clock at ni^'ht witli three postilions and ten horst's -r.ils of things, to he sine ; u ilh these we wcie to conipier thi; nnpa\('d roads thai I,i\' in onr way to Amiens. ( )ur company in iht- centre was riihiced to .1 k'niuhman anil a Tuik. The nitdit was coM, and tlie Mu ssnlm.m invi- tei"s claim is .-iet fortli aiul iusiitiod in his jxiniphlet emitleil Eacts attii Obsenations fMstifying thf Claims of Jokn Uroxcne Or/Zm^-, citizen of Mc" UnUixi States, agtiinst tkf i 'iiiUj StaUs, in a LeUtr ad- ifresseii fc fAe Secreton- 0/ Sfafe, /'Ai/atM/Aia, DcctmPsr, 1795. His proceeding seems to have been to borrow money from his friends, juy out small sums to sailors and others, and then represent himself to have been at enormous expense, especially in the way of paying bribes and secret-service monev. RETURN TO AMERICA. 1 75 Cutting's conduct made evident to Smith and me in London, where both of us took notice of it ; but the government deserved to lose the money for not keeping itself represented at the British court. On the 1 2th of March, 1791, 1 bade adieu to London, and came to Gravesend in a postchaise and four in com- pany with Captain James Scott, who commanded the ship Neptune, in which I was to return home. That vessel was at anchor in the Thames, and after dining at Gravesend we went on board and fell down the river. Adverse winds detained us in the Downs opposite to Deal fourteen days, during which more than a hundred sail of merchantmen had collected. Several times the whole fleet was induced by a flattering change of wind to get under weigh, when the sight of so many ships, many of them large Indiamen, unfurling their sails and heaving the anchor simultaneously, was uncommonly fine. Yet were they baffled, and after striving in vain to double the South Foreland obliged to return to their moorings. At length a propitious breeze put us to sea, and carried us pretty well along the southern shore of England, when it ceased. I took advantage of the calm to board a French fishing-boat occupied in taking mackerel with a seine, and this in the open sea out of sight of land. I gave them a dollar for six dozen fine fresh mackerel that would have been worth six times as much in the London market. This was about the first of April, and earlier by a month than they are to be found on the coast of the United States, and where they are not at all esteemed or thought fit for the table until the month of June. It seems that in the natural history 176 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. of this fish they are led across the Atlantic by instinct and without eyesight, so that when they begin their annual course at the Floridas and travel north, they have a film over the eye which prevents them from seeking sufficient nourishment, and keeps them poor. Thus, when caught off the Capes of the Delaware in May and brought to the Philadelphia market they are not con- sidered a delicacy, but in June this film falls off and restores them to sight, about which time they reach Boston Bay. There they can see to find their food, and there they become fat and delicious, so that the very extensive mackerel-fishery of that bay and the coasts farther north has obtained a great name and is propor- tionally flourishing. Our voyage was tedious, owing to head winds and the dull sailing of our ship, heavily laden with a cargo valued at eighty thousand pounds sterling — so tedious, indeed, that we met near the Banks of Newfoundland a ship on her way to England that left Bristol at the same time that we sailed from London ; she had been to New York, discharged and reloaded, and was thir- teen days out on her return voyage. She warned us to look out for icebergs, many of which we saw the next day. At length, on the 25th of May, we entered the harbor of Boston, after a passage of seventy-five days. It happened to be election day, and Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey gave a great dinner. The party had just left the table and walked out. On the wharf I met one of them, Robert Hallowell, father of Admiral Hallowell, the friend of Nelson. He told me that my father, mother and family were on a tour of pleasure to Phila- A DINNER AT MR. JEFFREY'S. I// dclphia, and invited me to accompany him back to Mr. Jeffrey's. On our way we met the justly-celebrated Fisher Ames, who inquired with great eagerness for French news. At Mr. Jeffrey's I met with all the as- sociates of our family, and once more trod the soil of my dear native town, 12 CHAPTER V. Boston in 1791. — A. Sunday Journey. — A Theatre in Boston. — Started in Business. — Dahbling in Stocks. — Unjust Taxation in Boston. — Removal to Philadelpliia. — Society in Philadelphia. — General Wash- ington's Style. — Tradesmen. — Eccentric Characters in Boston. — James Allen. — Mrs. Smith. — Frederick Khone. — The Yellow Fever in Philadelphia. — A Well-prophesied Death. — Congress. — Talley- rand. — Volney. — De Noailles. — Walking Stewart. — Baring. — The Binghams and their Style. — Morris. — Cobbett. — Clayton. — General Knox. — Hamilton. BOSTON was very nearly stationary. She had not yet felt the impetus which the French Revolu- tion was destined to give to her trade, in common with that of the whole Union, and enable her to remodel the town and conxert her wooden houses into incom- bustible palaces and treble her population. She had not yet recovered from the effects of the long civil war. Her inhabitants, numbering only eighteen thousand, were unemployed — so much so that several gentlemen who associated for the purpose of building three ships had solely in view the occupation of the carpenters and tradespeople. When these ships were finished they were sold at twenty-five per cent, under their cost, and the sub- scribers to the benevolent association, of which my father was one, bore the loss. The town under these circumstances contained of course a good many loose characters, who pre)-ed upon the community. A fellow 17S A SUNDAY JOURNEY. 1 79 was seized one night in the act of robbing and attempt- ing murder on the Common, not far from our house. He was carried to prison, and turned out to be a rogue who had that very day taken a pair of silver buckles from the shoes of my little brother Charles, whom he had found playing near the Mall. The thief was ex- ecuted. About the same time a servant-maid in our family was afflicted with the toothache and unable to sleep. Her bed was in the nursery with the children, and while seated on it at midnight in great agony, with her eyes directed toward an entry that communicated with my sisters' room, she saw the woolly head of a negro wlio was creeping on all fours out of their bed- chamber. She gave a sudden shriek that woke my eldest sister, who saw the villain get out of the window close by her. It was in hot weather, and the garden steps were found standing under this open window, placed there by the black man. In the course of a few days I received letters from my father, informing me of his intention to be at Wor- cester on the next Sunday evening, and inviting me to meet him there. I accordingly set off on the morning of that day in a sulky, and dined about twenty-five miles from Boston. At dinner the landlady or some of the family told me that if I attempted to travel in that sec- tion of the country, the deacons or wardens of the puri- tanical meeting-houses would arrest me. Desirous of avoiding any interruption in my journey, and anxious to embrace my parents that evening, I thought best to take some precautions against an arrest, and determined to try what could be done under the assumed character l8o RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. of a Frenchman. Having a letter to deliver at the tavern nearest to the meeting-house, and to which I knew I should be sent in case of arrest, I affected not to understand English when I gave in the letter. The house of worship stood upon a hill, at the foot of which I saw the congregation descending. In the very front came the deacon on horseback, with a long staff in his hand and his wife on a pillion behind. He ordered me to stop, and with a magisterial air inquired why I trav- elled on the Lord's Day. I answered him in French, upon which he raised his voice to a pitch of authorita- tive anger and repeated his question. I replied by a string of French words and a shrug of the shoulders, significative of my ignorance of his question ; when, finding himself perplexed, he motioned to me to go about my business. I regretted this silly piece of de- ception as soon as I had practised it, and determined to tell the truth in plain English if anybody else should interfere with me. And so I did when an elderly gen- tleman, whom I overtook at the top of the hill, going my way, ordered me to stop. Learning from me the cause of my journey and the length of time since I had seen my parents, he told me that he knew my father very well, and should be able to ascertain whether I deceived him or not, and concluded by informing me that he was General Ward, and bade me proceed on to Worcester. I bowed reverentially to this distinguished character when I took my leave, and soon after passed a very pretty house on my left, standing some distance from the road and surrounded by white painted fences in good repair. This was the residence of the general TRAVELLING TLIEN AND NOW. l8l — he who was the first commander-in-chief of the American army, even anterior to Washington. At Worcester I met my excellent father and family. Their reception of me was, as usual, extremely affec- tionate. They were just preparing to depart. A coach- and-four with two postilions and an outrider in hand- some livery stood at the door, and in ten minutes after my arrival we were all on the road toward Boston, intending to sleep at a tavern twelve miles east of Worcester. Gentlemen of fortune travelled then in bet- ter style than they do now. They did not get along so fast, but they went more securely, more agreeably and more comfortably. Steamboats have ruined the inns, and in annihilating space have nearly broken up all private genteel travelling. Everything now (1830) is done in vast crowds. Caravans move in mobs, and he who goes abroad now-a-days must submit to the hugger-mugger assemblage of a steamboat on the water and a procession of ten or twelve coaches on the land. Our fathers were not in such haste, nor so fond of kick- ing up a dust. We have acquired much more speed, but lost the old-fashioned security and comfort. From the hint I gave the party the postilions galloped past the house of General Ward, and brought us to our night's lodging without further interruption. My good parents had been treated in Philadelphia with unbound- ed hospitality. That city was now the seat of the Fed- eral government, and was the pleasantest place of resi- dence in the United States. My sister Anna remained there in the family of General Knox, who was Secretary of the War Department, and whose gay wife and 1 82 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. daughter were suited by their dispositions and station in the fashionable world to introduce her into the best society in America. The severe, gloomy, puritanical spirit that had gov- erned New England since the days of our Pilgrim fore- fathers was gradually giving way in the principal towns, particularly in Boston, and the younger part of the community made a successful effort to get the law against theatrical exhibitions repealed. An Englishman named Powell had been reciting and singing at Concert Hall for some months with deserved applause. He was an actor of considerable talents, and became subsequently the manager of the first regular theatre. But before funds could be procured for the erection of a permanent edifice a wooden shed of the rudest construction was built in a dirty alley called Board Alley, I think,* and running from Trinity church in Summer street to Milk street. Here, amidst mud and livery-stables, a parcel of young men met (no women attended) to see farces and pantomimes performed. I went there often, and generally laughed most heartily. The Jiouse on one occasion, I remember, was greatly amused. The play was a melodrama, and required the introduction of several wild animals, who were hunted with great spirit by the bipeds. Guns were cracking away in all direc- tions, and the scene was full of animation. The beasts * Board Alley is the present Hawley street. The building used by Powell is elsewhere called a stable fitted for the purpose. Plays were illegal, and Governor Hancock called the attention of the legislature to this infraction of the laws. Sheriff Allen arrested one of the performers on the stage, which led to a row and an end to the evening's perform- ance. The law, however, was repealed in a few months. STARTED IN BUSINESS. 1 83 of the forest were personated by lads of the town, hired for the occasion. Among these was a negro boy be- longing to Doctor Jarvis, whose part was that of a black bear. Cuffy, equipt in the shaggy costume of Bruin, danced and hugged to admiration in a contest with a hunter, and might have remained master of the field had not another sportsman come to the hunter's aid. See- ing how equivocal the battle stood, this newcomer took good aim at the bear's hind quarters and discharged his piece. Bruin made a spring to the side scene and fell. There he lay kicking amid a thunder of applause, and we all agreed that he died very well and very naturally. He was hauled out of sight, and the next morning we learned that he was extremely ill, having been severely wounded by the wad on the preceding evening. These gaucheries occurred often, and were not to be wondered at among a people in an incipient stage of playhouse amusement. Soon after my arrival from London in 179 1, although I was but twenty years old, my father gave me in cash ten thousand dollars, and told me to commence mer- chant with that sum as capital, advising me to be cautious, and to be satisfied if at the end of a year my profits amounted to no more than the interest of the money. Upon this I rebuilt a decayed store on Long Wharf, No. 37, with wooden materials, the whole wharf having on it about seventy stores, all of wood, and re- ceived almost immediately after the consignment of a ship and cargo from London, sent to me by my friend Ward Nicholas Boylston. This and a good deal of other business occupied me profitably enough ; but as 1 84 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. a type of the times, which was greatly given to specu- lation, I may mention a transaction of mine this year. On returning home one day about one o'clock, I saw several persons of my acquaintance going with eager- ness into Coleman's tavern in State street. I went in with them, and on entering the long room up stairs I perceived, by the presence of an auctioneer, that there was to be a vendue. In a few moments he stepped upon a chair and announced to the company that he himself had nothing to sell, but wished others to sell to him ; in short, his object was to buy United States six per cent, stock, and he forthwith proposed to take bids payable and deliverable in sixty days. Several con- tracts were made at various prices, and all above par, when I, who had not a dollar of stock, offered to con- tract to deliver ten thousand dollars at twenty-seven shillings and sixpence on the pound. The auctioneer closed with me. The market-price was only twenty- two shillings and sixpence, so that with cash I could easily be ready in sixty days and pocket the difference. When I saw my father at dinner he expressed his dis- approbation of the transaction in his usual mild lan- guage. If there was no trick, he said, the gain must be certain, but the business was irregular. It would create a gambling propensity, and he advised me not to repeat it. Before many days I was called upon by John Har- bach, a broker, who told me that the purchase of the stock was made by his order for account of New York speculators (Livingstone, Duer, etc.), who had author- HARRISON GRAY OTIS. 1 85 ized these contracts with a design of monopolizing all the floating sixes in market, so as to get their own price for them when a certain instalment should become due to the newly-established Bank of the United States, which was payable in that kind of stock. " But," con- tinued Harbach, " the project is too mighty for them ; they cannot accomplish it, and I wish to make a com- promise with you." I readily consented, and he paid me something over two thousand dollars, the whole of which was clear gain. My father's advice, nevertheless, was exceedingly judicious, and I seldom deviated from it while a merchant, but when withdrawn from com- merce I have successfully dabbled in stocks. Harrison Gray Otis, now mayor of the city of Boston, and who was in early life, as at this day, a very distin- guished man both by his accomplished manners and cultivated mind, was toiling at his profession with little hopes of becoming rich. He had some urgent business in England about 1792, and engaged the Mr. Cutting of whom I have already spoken to go and settle it. But neither of them could raise the wind, and Otis asked me to lend him a thousand dollars for thirty days. I did so, and with the money John Browne Cut- ting was equipt and despatched for London. When Otis repaid me the money I perfectly well remember his telling me that the utmost extent of his desires as to riches was to be worth ten thousand dollars. He then had nothing, and that sum appeared so immense as to bound his wishes and expectations. In a few years an enlarged prospect opened before him, and he acquired, as I have heard, two or three hundred thou- 1 86 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. sand dollars, and now perhaps his annual expenditure is ten thousand. There came out in Boston in the summer of 1792 a system of taxation the most iniquitous imaginable, which by its injustice drove from the town several of its richest inhabitants. It was bottomed principally on guesswork, and as the Yankees are no less privileged to guess than the Irish to speak twice, they made good use of their immunity on this occasion. After rating an inhabitant for watch where there were no watchmen, for lighting streets where there were no lamps, for mu nicipal regulations in general where there was almost an entire absence of police, they put down under the head of " Faculty " just what they pleased, guessing this man to be worth so much, and that other so much, thus laying a heavy and ruinous tax upon him who lived liberally and spent his income amongst his fellow- townsmen in acts of hospitality to them and to strangers ; while the rich miser, who kept his money out of circu- lation, was deemed poor, and scarcely taxed at all. In this way they put down the item Faailty in my father's* tax-bill at eleven hundred and twenty-five hard dollars for one year. The same thing happened to all the gen- tlemen who lived expensively. No redress could be had, and my father and mother, who had recently visited Philadelphia, concluded to remove to that city, where taxation was equal and where nothing but real estate was assessed. That city was, moreover, the seat of the Federal Government, and possessed the most refined society in the Union. Its climate is more mod- erate than that of Boston, and my parents had been REMOVAL TO PHILADELPHIA. 1 8/ entertained there with universal kindness and hospi- tahty. Orders were therefore given to purchase the house then numbered 321 High street* It was of modern construction, with lofty ceilings ; a front of thirty feet ; a deep lot with coach-house and stables in the rear, and a carriage-way into Filbert street. For this property my father paid eleven thousand dollars, and as soon as the purchase was made he transplanted his family for ever from his native town to the beautiful city of Philadelphia. This event was forced upon him, but neither he nor my mother ever regretted the re- moval, notwithstanding he lost fifty thousand dollars on the sale of his house and gardens, which he sold to my uncle Andrews for eight thousand five hundred dollars, who resold them for about sixty thousand. The whole of our taxes in Philadelphia were fifty-five dollars, being just about the amount of the Boston collector's com- missions on my father's taxes in that town. They left Boston in September, 1792, and I followed them in December. The city was all alive, and a round of entertainments was kept up by the following families : Robert Morris, William Bingham, John Ross, Henry * In the Philadelphia Directory of 1793 and 1794 the name of Mr. Brack, Sr., appears as " gentleman, No. 321 High street." In that of 1795, which is arranged by streets, No. 321 is described as west of Eighth street, and Mr. Breck is styled " a merchant." A note in Mr. Samuel Breck's handwriting upon one of Birch's plates, giving a view of " High street from Ninth street," is as follows : " The middle house with green blinds on the left belonged to S. Breck, my father, M'ho re- sided there many years. It was large, modern and convenient, and I sold it for my mother in 1810 for sixteen thousand five hundred dol- lars. The house adjoining belonged to our family, and was sold for nine thousand dollars." 1 88 RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. Hill, Thomas Moore, Walter Stewart, Governor Thomas Mifflin, Ex-Gov. John Penn, Samuel Powel, Benjamin Chew, Phineas Bond, Thomas Ketland, Pierce Butler, Langton Smith, General Knox, Samuel Breck, Alex- ander Hamilton, etc. Besides these. General Wash- ington, who was President of the United States, and John Adams, \/ho was Vice-President, saw a great deal of company. Philadelphia contained then about fifty- thousand inhabitants, and a much larger society of elegant and fashionable and stylish people, than at the present day (January, 1 842), with its two hundred and seventy thousand souls in city and county. There was more attention paid then to the dress of servants and general appearance of equipages. Dinners were got up in elegance and good taste. Besides Bingham and Mor- ris and the President, who had French cooks, as well as most of the foreign ministers, there was a most admi- rable artist by the name of Marinot, who supplied the tables of private gentlemen when they entertained, with all that the most refined gourmands could desire. General Washington had a stud of twelve or fourteen horses, and occasionally rode out to take the air with six horses to his coach, and always two footmen behind his carriage.* He knew how to maintain the dignity ■* The coach, said by some to have been given him by Louis XVI., and by others to have been Governor Penn's, was " cream-colored, globular in shape, and capacious within ; ornamented in the French style, with cupids supporting festoons, and wreaths of flowers, emble- matically arranged along the panel-work ; the figures and flowers beau- tifully covered with fine glass, very white and dazzling to the eye of youth and simplicity in such matters." — Watson^ s Atmals of PhiladeU phia, I. 582. PRESIDENTIAL DIGNITY. 1 89 of his station. None of his successors, except the elder Adams, has placed a proper value on a certain degree of display that seems suitable for the chief magistrate of a great nation. I do not mean pageantry, but the decent exterior of a well-bred gentleman. The good sense of my fellow-citizens prevents their being dazzled by a showy equipage, yet they are willing to see their Presi- dent so accompanied as to be distinguishable from the common herd. That levelling philosopher, Jeffer- son, was the first President who broke down all decorum and put himself when abroad upon a footing with the plainest farmer of Virginia. I say " when abroad," be- cause in his family he lived luxuriously, and was fas- tidious in the choice of his company. But when he wanted to catch the applause of the vulgar — with whom, however, he was too proud to associate — he would ride out without a servant and hitch his pacing nag to the railing of the Presidential palace. Madison and Monroe followed this slovenly example, and became careless about the appearance of the grounds around the White House, suffering the posts that supported the chains to lie broken on the ground from year to year, which a servant could have mended for' a few cents, and in the true slave-holding planter style gathered up the sum- mer grass in the lot that surrounds that beautiful man- sion into stacks immediately under the drawing-room windows. This house was, and is always, splendidly furnished at public expense, and immense sums have been spent upon the building and grounds, but it is like throwing pearls before swine to ornament a dwelling for people who want taste to keep it in order. IQO RECOLLECTIONS OF SAMUEL BRECK. The tradesmen in 1792 were more expeditious in their work than in 1831. I had an instance of it when on a transient visit to Philadelphia about that time. A gentle- man invited me to a party that required a new suit of clothes. I went to a tailor who lived opposite to my lodgings at eight o'clock in the morning, and told him I wanted a full suit for four o'clock that afternoon. He said he was unwell and had just been bled, but that I should have it. I was accordingly measured, and in eight hours the clothes were ready. As I am now at the period of my narrative (1792) when I left Boston and transferred my residence to Philadelphia, I may say a few words of some of the eccentric characters left there. To begin with James Allen. He was well connected, brother to the sheriff of Suffolk, and a poet of considerable merit, who wrote harmoniously, particularly when inspired by the West India Muses, sugar, rum and lemon-juice ; they did more than all the fountains of Helicon, which he seldom courted. Some of his poems, repeated to me by him- self from manuscript and from memory, were exceed- ingly pleasing. I heard them generally over a glass of wine, and could not have criticised them severely had I been competent so to do. Mr. Allen affected the ap- pearance of a ragged and slovenly Grub-street poet* He wore ruffles, and they hung in tatters about his knuckles. His conversation was polished, fluent and very amusing. Once a week a Pistareen Club met at *Mr. Allen figures in Mr. Kettell's Specimens of American Poetry, where he is characterized as indolent, careless of fame, and one who " led the noiseless, easy life of a bachelor." JAMES ALLEN. I9I his house, at which no individual could spend more than twenty cents. The members consisted of the first people of the town, and a more witty, smart and intel- lectually refined association could nowhere be met in the Union, The small stone house near Beacon Hill where they assembled was long celebrated for the conviviality and rich humor of those who frequented it. James was a merry fellow and fond of fun, especially when half-seas over. One summer afternoon, when pretty well primed, he was passing along the fence of the old workhouse, and saw a man in a stooping attitude peeping into the yard through a knot-hole. The day was warm ; the man's trousers adhered tightly to him just under his roundabout ; the temptation to give a slap was more than James could resist. He swung his hand in the air and left the print of his fingers on the man's posterior. Quick as thought, the fellow, who had a case-bottle of rum under his jacket, turned round and broke it over James's head. The wound was dreadful, and our poet, leaving the field as soon as possible, hastened to the house of the celebrated Doctor Charles Jarvis, who told Mr. Allen that his joke had ended in a fractured skull. And so it turned out. The balmy rum mitigated the evil, no doubt, but it was a long time before he recov- ered. Another original was Mrs. Smith, wife of Abiel Smith. Mr. Smith, who had come by his wife rather strangely, was a rich man, well educated, being a grad- uate of Cambridge in 1764, and left to that college for a professorship of the French and Spanish languages ten thousand dollars of United States six per cent, stock 192 KKCO ELECTIONS OF SAMifF.L BRECK. and twenty thousand dollars of three per cent. There had been a decree of tradinj^ smartness in Mrs. .Smith that made her a vahiahic |)artncr to Abiel when he was in business as a storekeeper, I think, in some country town. There he married her, supposin<^f her to be a widow. After living with her six or seven years, her first husband, who was believed to be dead, made his appearance and claimed his rib. But she was indis- posed to leave Mr. Smith, who was an amiable man, and with whom she lived very happily; so a sum of money was offered to the claimant, and a deed of relin- (luishment and conveyance signed by him for the con- sideration of one thousand dollars. Not l', and sec- ond in command when the Comte de Grasse blockaded Cornwallis at Yorktown, and succeeded to the chief command when that admiral was defeated on the 12th of April, 1782, by Lord Rodney. The Marquis de Vaudreuil brought those French ships that escaped capture to refit at Boston, and took a zealous part in our struggle for independence. Young Valady no doubt heard frequently from his father, through the Marquis de Vaudreuil's correspond- ence, of the efforts and successes of the Americans, of the cause for which they fought, and of their enthusiasm and courage in defence of their rights. These topics, * The name is eoninionly sjielleil hy liistoiical writers Valadi ; the form used by Mr. Breck is sanctioned by the autograph of the marquis. PUBLIC MEN AND EVENTS. 221 moreover, were become fashionable in France, and, added to the native philanthropy and ardent love of justice and liberty which had early inflamed the mind of young Valady since he became acquainted with the history of the ancient republics, carried his passion for freedom even in his boyish days to an extraordinary height. Shortly after the peace of 1783 the Marquis de Vaudreuil returned to France, where he concluded with Valady's father a contract of marriage between the young marquis and Mademoiselle de Vaudreuil, the eldest daughter of the admiral. De Valady was not yet nineteen years old, and the affianced lady scarcely fifteen. The match had been made, as was usual among the higher classes in France, without consulting the younger parties. They had never seen each other, and when Valady was in- formed of the engagement, his mind, replete with high notions of independence, could not easily be brought to listen to the degradation of parting with the privilege of selecting for himself on so important an occasion. The contract was made, his father had passed his word, and, already disgusted with his son's novel sentiments of independence, he plainly told him that he must sub- mit or leave his house. He chose to obey, and had not the engagement been entered into on the part of the parents in a way so derogatory to the common rights of the betrothed — a mark of slavery which the proud spirit of Valady could never forget — it is probable that his heart would have leaned of its own accord toward his future bride. She possessed attractions of the most exalted kind. I knew her personally when she was the admiration of the whole province of Lan- 222 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOR'S. guedoc, in which her father's castle was situated. She was of a commanding form, exquisitely fine counte- nance, in which the gentle nature of her soul was pic- tured in tints of roseate health ; her mind elegantly- accomplished, — uniting, in short, everything that the most fastidious suitor could hope to meet with. Yet such was the repulsive effect of arbitrary command on a mind enamored of freedom that De Valady, after leading this beautiful woman to the altar, never consummated his marriage — never could be subdued by her charms or won by her gentle and bewitching sighs. He left her abruptly, and joined his regiment in the Gardes Frangaises, stationed at Paris. Here he became acquainted with Saint John de Crevecoeur, Brissot de Warville, and many of the Encyclopedists, who were destined to shine shortly as the champions of French liberty. The turn for political speculations Avhich took possession of these apostles of reformation totally un- fitted De Valady for his military duties, and imagining that he could better see in England the practice and theory of the sublime doctrines that so warmly occu- pied his heart, he left Paris without leave from his com- mander and almost without funds. His father and the De Vaudreuil family passed some months before they knew what had become of him, when at length they were in- formed that he had been seen in London ; and as his conduct had been exceedingly irregular, to say the least, in quitting his regiment as he did, they hastened to take measures to screen him from punishment and to press him to return to his military duty. But no PUBLIC MEN AND EVENTS. 223 entreaties could draw him from his " dear England, the only spot in Europe where liberty dwelt." * The Marchioness de Vaudreuil, who still lives an emigrant in England and a victim to the fatal effects of the Revolution of France, undertook in the year 1786 to visit London herself on purpose to bring home her truant son. His extreme youth, she thought, might plead his excuse for his dereliction both of military and of conjugal duty. It was impossible, she said to her husband and family, that a well-born Frenchman, with- out grievance, want or care, could seriously desert his fortune and his wife, and, happen what would, she would * Qxrlyle calls De Valady " Valadi the Pythagorean," and in South- ey's Letters from England, by Don Manuel Alvarez Espriella, there is an amusing account of De Valady's connection with the Platonist Taylor: "Early in the French Revolution the Marquis de Valady came over to England to visit a Mr. Thomas Taylor, a Platonic philoso- pher professing polytheism. The marquis called at his house, dressed in white like an aspirant ; fell at his feet to worship the divine restorer of the Platonic philosopher; rose up to put a bank-note of twenty pounds in his hand as an offering, and insisted upon being permitted to live in the house with him, that he might enjoy every possible oppor- tunity of profiting by his lessons. In vain did the philosopher represent the want of room in his house, his method of living, the inconvenience to himself and his pupil. Nothing would satisfy the marquis. If there was no other room, he would have a bed put up in the study where they wei-e conversing. Away he went to order it, and was immediately domesticated. After some little time it was discovered that he was disposed to worship the wife instead of the husband, and here ended the platonism. They parted, however, in friendship. De Valady had left France to escape from a young wife, because, he said, she had no soul ; he went back to take a part in the Revolution. Taylor saw him in the diligence as he was setting off; he was in complete regimentals, with a fierce cocked hat, and his last words were, ' I came here Diogenes, and I return Alexander.' " — Letter LXIV. 224 PASSAGES FHOM THE .YOTE-BOOA'S. undertake the journey on purpose to restore him to his country'. She did so, and, arriving in London, found the young enthusiast in a proper mood to Hsten to her pro- posals. He had spent every shiUing of his money, and was then subsisting on the proceeds of a small librar)^ that he had bought soon after his arrival. Libert)' and its delights would soon have deserted him even in Eng- land without a plentiful purse. This he knew, and con- sented to accompany his mother-in-law to France. The interest of his family obtained his pardon of the Minister of War, and he again joined his regiment at Paris, but with his wife, incomparably beautiful, virtuous and mild as she was, he would never associate. This was in 1787, and shortly after I became inti- mately acquainted with him at Paris. The Notables w^ere then assembling, and his eagerness for a political reform increased daily. L^ndoubtedly, the deranged state of the finances, and unequal pressure of the taxes upon the different orders of the body politic, caused a very great degree of dissatisfaction throughout the na- tion, and seemed, even at that early period, to portend some violent change. Had the clerg\' and high nobility possessed the disinterested patriotism of De Valady, and have yielded to the wishes of many of the well- thinking men of their orders, the subsequent horrors of the Revolution might have been averted. It was their wish to raise two or three hundred million of livres a year, in addition to the revenue, by submitting their orders to the payment of many taxes then exclusively borne by the Third Estate. This simple sacrifice on their part — which was indeed no more than an act of PUBLIC MEX AXD EVEXl'S. 22$ justice — would have furnished ample means to the o-o\-- ernment and ha\e saved the country. The avarice, however, of the higher clergy and nobilit)' was superior to their patriotism, and caused their ruin. De X'alad)' strove with all his might to effect some such object ; but seeing no prospect of amelioration in the unhappy state of the bulk of the nation, and possessed of a spirit of genuine philanthropy, he founci his residence amongst these distressed slaves, as he called them, too irksome to endure, and resolved once more to abandon France and seek for the pure enjoyment of liberty among the republicans of America ; for this purpose he passed over to England, and in 17S7 he writes to me thus from London : " I am here on my wa)' to America, where I mean to delve the earth for a subsistence, rather than be beholden to any of my proud connexions. They form the clan of oppressors, and being the enemies of liberty I hold them in enmity myself" These tnftiiitS, as the marquis called them, were watchful of his mo\ements, and learning his intention to sail for America, despatched letters of credit for him to Boston and elsewhere. I received one myself from his respectable father-in-law. Admiral de Vaucireuil, re- questing that all his wants might be supplied. His en- thusiastic love of liberty made him unreasonably harsh toward all those who opposed his ardor, and, w^hat is no uncommon thing among the high-toned champions of freedom at the present time, he claimed an exclusive right to his own opinions, whilst he refused to tolerate those in opposition to them. Just as he was about 226 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. sailing, and after having engaged his passage, he heard of the commotions that a spirit of hberty had raised in Holland, and immediately disembarking his effects, he returned to Paris with a view of joining the Dutch patriots. It is remarkable that even at that early period he voluntarily abolished his own title of nobility, and his letter to me is signed " Godefroi Yzarn Valady (but no marquis any more)." Upon this occasion his father and all his relations except one, despairing of his return to the habits and conversation which they thought be- came his birth and his post as an officer of the Gardes Frangaises, withdrew from him all pecuniar}^ support ; and, harassed as he was with his high and vehement notions of liberty, he now found his purse empty and knew not where to replenish it. These conjoined vexations destroyed his health and prevented his de- parture for Holland. At this time, M. de Castlenau, one of his relations, took pity on him and invited him to pass a few months with him at Geneva, where he resided as minister from the French court. From this place De Valady intrigued with the Dutch patriots whom the duke of Brunswick had compelled to seek shelter in France, and entered into a solemn engagement to take up arms in their cause as soon as circumstances should permit them to unfurl the standard of liberty again. " So long," he writes me at this period — " so long as the breath of freedom agitates this part of the world, you need not look for me in America. I will not in- dulge myself with a sight of that promised land, until I have deserved the delightful tranquillity enjoyed there PUBLIC MEN AND EVENTS. 22/ — a tranquillity that must one day reign in eveiy part of the world, though not, however, without the previous destruction of that fatal and wretched order of beings called kings, whose characters and actions are a com- pound of caprice, vanity, ambition and avarice. I am young yet, and I must aid in conquering a lasting peace, which can only be had by establishing the laws of free- dom ; and this conquest will be the more delightful as it will give happiness to many future generations. O Liberty ! ' Millions of unborn souls in time may see Their dooms reversed, and owe their joys to thee.' " If France in February, 1788, the date of the above letter, contained among her high nobility men inspired with such republican sentiments as these, can we be surprised at the volcanic fire that soon after burst from the Third Estate ? De Valady saw in the course of this and the succeeding year a field open itself suffi- ciently large for the wildest of his speculations. This Third Estate had already attained the supremacy, con- stituted itself a National Assembly, and raised a fer- ment throughout the nation. The ten regiments of guards, to one of which he was still attached, joined the popular party — a defection that weakened and dis- couraged the court in the proportion that it emboldened and assisted the agitators of the day, and in which, no doubt, the marquis was eminently instrumental* Every- * Carlyle, supplying Broglie with a term, speaks of the Gardes Fran- (jaises as " debauched by Vaiadi the Pythagorean ;" but in his narrative generally the marquis occupies a subordinate position in the ranks of the celebrated twenty-two. 228 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE- BOOKS. thing and everybody was in commotion. The period so ardently desired had at length arrived that was to regenerate the world, and, in the language of these self- styled philosophers and friends of the people, wipe away every political and moral vice, and in their stead implant the immutable doctrines of perfectibility. The well-meaning in times of disorder are usually sacrificed to the designing. Of this truth De Valady and his friends were soon convinced by woeful experi- ence. Blood began to flow, party rage increased, power changed hands, the most violent always rising to the head of the government, till at length the good king Louis was brought to the scaffold. De Valady was systematically opposed to royalty, and he was a mem- ber of the National Convention that condemned that worthy prince. I believe, I hope, he did not vote for decapitation. He belonged to the Girondist party, and it is known that they were in favor of an appeal to the people.* Scarcely had the martyred king been destroyed when the club of the Cordeliers, headed by Robespierre, Marat and other monsters, conspired against the Giron- dists, who held the supreme command. With a body of two or three thousand men organized for the pur- * " On the trial of the king nothing could be more noble than Va- ladi's opinion. He voted that Louis should be kept in honorable con- finement till the termination of the war; that he should be sent out of the republic with a large pension; and that a fortune should be be- stowed by the nation upon Madame Elizabeth suitable to the high expectancies of a daughter of France." — Biographical Anecdotes of the Founders of the French Kepublic, London, 1797 ; article " Valadi," p. 161. PUBLIC MEN AND EVENTS. 229 pose, they determined to supplant the real repubhcans, of whom De Valady was now one of the most conspic- uous. Threatened daily from the gallery and in the streets, the marquis and his friends had long since armed themselves with daggers and pistols, which they con- stantly took with them to the hall of the Convention, and at night slept from home in concealed places. The Mountain, or ultra-Revolutionists — thus designated by the opposite party — drove Roland, the chief of the Girondists, from his office of Minister of Interior Re- lations, compelled a declaration of war against Austria, obliged Dumouriez to retire from the command of the army, and set about maturing their plan for bringing the head of De Valady and twenty-two of his associates to the block. A list of their names was handed into the Conven- tion by the municipality of Paris, secretly governed by Robespierre, accompanied by a petition on the 2d of June, 1793, asking for their arrest and trial. The galleries were filled early in the morning of this memorable day by the vilest of the populace, placed there by the fac- tious deputies, and instructed to interrupt every attempt at defence on the part of the accused. The Girondists, consisting of De Valady, Brissot, Lanjuinais, Vergni- aud, Louvet, Barbaroux and others, were not unmind- ful of their danger. The denounced members had dined together the day before for the last time. Many schemes were proposed at this dinner to evade the pending blow, but, relying upon their own good intentions and the virtue of the Parisians, they separated without having concerted any general plan of defence. On the morning 230 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. of the 2d they were at their posts. Suddenly tlie hall was surrounded by a numerous band of armed militiamen, who escorted the bearers of the petition. The galleries applauded, the crowd without clamored, the sovereign people would be obeyed. Barbaroux, one of the accused, and a man of great personal cour- age, spurned at their threats and fought his way to the tribunal, but in a moment twenty hands tore him from it. Lanjuinais, another of the denounced, sprang for- ward to occupy his place, when Legendre with brutal ferocity beat him to the ground. He arose undaunted, however, and obliged the Assembly to listen to him. With a firm yet serene voice he exclaimed that " the ancients, when they prepared a sacrifice, crowned their victim with flowers and garlands ; and you, more cruel, you assault with disgraceful blows ; you outrage the victim that makes no effort to escape your knife." These eloquent words produced a momentary silence. The Convention hesitated. Not so the crowd without ; their threats, their force increased, till at length their clamors induced some of the deputies to propose that the whole legislative body should march out and reason with the sovereign people. It was so decreed. The president at the head leaves the hall, arrives in front of a triple row of bayonets and reads with a timid voice the resolve that has just passed. " Return," cries the commanding general, Henriot — " return to thy post. Darest thou give orders to the insurgent people? The people will that the traitors should be given up ; give them or go back." Then turning to his troops, " Cannoneers," he exclaims, " to PUBLIC MEN AND EVENTS. 23 1 your guns ! citizens, to arms !" Cannon charged with grape are pointed against the Convention ; muskets are levelled at many of the deputies. They fly ; they seek a passage by two other outlets, and twice they are repulsed. Marat appears at the head of a hundred ruf- fians ready to perpetrate any massacre at his signal. " I order you," he calls out to the members — " I or- der you in the name of the people to go in, to delib- erate and obey." The Convention returns to its hall. Couthon rises and with insulting irony exclaims, " Well, my colleagues, you have now convinced yourselves that the Convention is perfectly free. The honor of the people is only declared against faithless mandatories, but as for us, we are still environed with all their respect, with all their affection. What wait we for? Let us obey at once the calls of our consciences and their wishes. I propose that Lanjuinais, Barbaroux, Brissot, De Valady " (here follow upward of twenty names of the most eminent Girondists) " be put in arrest at their respective homes." Couthon's proposition was decreed. During this extraordinary scene De Valady sustained with republican energy the cause of himself and friends. He retired in obedience to the decree, and in despair at perceiving that all his sublimated notions of government were idle or impracticable, he resolved on flight. The royalists had yielded to the constituents, the constitu- ents to the republicans, and the republicans to the anarchists. The persecutions of each faction acted upon the other, and the death or exile of the vanquished party was the never-failing catastrophe of the revolu- tionary tragedies of those unhappy times. 232 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. He passed through the gates of Paris in disguise, and bent his course toward Normandy. At Caen he met with Salles, Guadet, Barbaroux, Petion, Buzot, Louvet, the only surviving members of the proscribed, Brissot and all the others having been tried and executed. Baron Wimpfen, the defender of Thionville, had the command in these districts, and had assembled an army of seventeen or eighteen thousand men, all well disposed toward the fugitiv^es, who set about arranging some concerted plan of operations. It was settled in consequence that the deputies should disperse into neighboring departments and organize a force suffi- ciently strong to overthrow the new and sanguinaiy rulers at Paris. They departed accordingly, but the Jacobins had already anticipated them by extending the affiliations of their celebrated club into cit}'-, town and hamlet. The agents of this diabolical association had scattered univ^ersal corruption amongst the populace ; millions upon millions of assignats were squandered at this important crisis, and the minds of the peasantry, inflamed already with the high hopes of their new- bom liberty, were easily seduced by the prodigality and promises of their new rulers. De Valady and his friends found all ears shut against them, and were glad to escape back to Caen, where the force under General Wimpfen had repelled as yet the efforts of the Jacobins. The town-house was appropria- ted for their residence, and the municipalit}- treated them with kindness and respect. Louvet, who had joined them again here, has published an account * of his ad- * Me moires, Paris, 1S23. PUBLIC MEN AND EVENTS. 233 ventures after this period, and as De V'alady kept him company, I can follow my friend more circumstantially than heretofore. During their stay in this city they were frequently visited by the celebrated heroine Char- lotte Corday. Of her projects they knew nothing, but she inspired them all with the warmest interest. Lou- vet describes her as a young woman, stout, well-made, with an open air and modest behavior. She always came attended by a servant, and conversed with the deputies in the public galler)'. Iler true motive, he thinks, was to become acquainted with himself and friends, whom she considered as the founders of the Republic, for which she was going to devote herself. In her face, which was at once that of a fine and pretty woman, and in her whole carriage, there was a mixture of gentleness and dignity which indicated her heavenly mind. She never mentioned her design to any one of the seven deputies whom she visited. She called on them the day previous to her departure for Paris, when the dignified firmness of her mien and the fire of her eye, tempered by modesty, attracted the attention of all. What a pity that a woman with so much beauty and such a soul should have sacrificed herself for the mon- ster Marat, who was doomed to die in a few days a vic- tim to a disease that his infamous debaucheries had made incurable ! More than a dozen deputies were now assembled at Caen, in which place their dangers increased daily. The Jacobins were everywhere triumphant, and dared at last to agitate this hitherto secure asylum. The administrator of the department ordered the decree 234 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. of outlawry to be posted against the very walls of the house they occupied. The people sold themselves for assignats ; the clubs became noisy; more than two hun- dred thousand scaffolds were erected in devoted France; and everything announced to the deputies the necessity of their departure. Three battalions of Bretons, who had been against the Vendeans, and were still faithful to the proscribed, remained at Caen. They were to set off for Brest and its neighborhood the day after the publication of this fatal decree. De Valady, with Petion and the others, procured suitable arms and dresses and joined these volunteers. The representatives of the people, the for- mer illustrious mayor of Paris and men of high birth and polished education now entered upon a soldier's life, on foot and in the ranks. With their new comrades they marched, sang, ate brown bread, drank cider and exhibited that insoitciance in distress which belongs to a Frenchman's heart alone. In this manner they trav- ersed the country for several days, when defection be- gan to show itself amongst the battalions, and obliged De Valady and his friends to quit them and to seek re- fuge under new disguises in the vicinity of Dol. Here he remained a month, while Petion, Barbaroux and all the others bent their course in detached parties to- Avard the sea-coast. A few weeks before they designed to embark for Philadelphia. It was then in their power, since Honfleur, close by Caen, offered them the means ; but now they were watched and hunted by those who then protected them. Toward the latter end of September, De Valady was PUBLIC MEN AND EVENTS. 235 obliged to remove from his hiding-place, and in com- pany with an unhappy friend, not a deputy, though pursued by the reigning tyrants, resolved to get to Bordeaux, if possible, by water. They had one hun- dred miles to travel to reach the sea. Time pressed, the inquisitors were many. A description of his per- son, and also the persons of his proscribed companions, was in the hands of every municipal and every naval officer. It required no small presence of mind to evade the searching eye and prying questions of the jealous watchmen scattered over his route, and many were his adventures and hairbreadth escapes before he and his friend reached the retreat of Petion, to which he had been directed by a confidential messenger sent to him for that purpose. On his arrival he had the happiness of meeting not only Petion, but Barbaroux, Louvet and seven or eight others, whom Petion had assembled to embark with him in a vessel owned by two worthy merchants who had consented to give them a passage to Bordeaux. The very next night the ship's boat was to receive them on board at a retired beach four miles from Brest. At twelve o'clock they repaired to the strand. No boat was in waiting for them. They listened two hours for the cheering sound of oars ; all was silence. If daylight found them on the shore, they were lost, and their par- ty was too numerous to expect safety in retreat. The owners of the vessel were with them. They proposed to hire a fishing-smack to take them. A man consented to go, but the tide was low. In two hours more, how- ever, they were embarked in his boat. When the sun 236 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. rose they were traversing the capacious harbor of Brest, and their vessel was not in si^ht. In this state of ex- treme anxiety, afraid to land, yet in danger of perishing at sea, they resolved to penetrate to the ocean, where it was possible their ship might be waiting. Toward noon they doubled the last point of land and saw a vessel lying off and on. They approached ; it was the one they sought. They ascended her sides, and in a moment were in her little cabin. The captain, who was a faithful Scot, explained the cause of his delay per- fectly to their satisfaction. He left port in the night with a convoy, and as his vessel sailed fast he had con- trived to let it pass ahead, so that he might take in his passengers in safety, for which purpose he had returned. The convoy sailed later than was expected, and pre- vented his sending his boat to the beach. The fugi- tives took leave of their friends the merchants, who reconmiended them warmly to the captain, and all sails were spread to overtake the convoy. Meantime, the grand fleet of twenty-two sail of the line and fifteen frigates hove in sight. They had left Brest two days before, and darkened the horizon. It was necessary to pass through this formidable arma- ment, and it seemed impossible that some of the depu- ties should not be recognized by its officers if they saw fit to visit their vessel. They were aware of their dan- ger, and were prepared with a remedy. Do Valady and the rest lay at full length on the cabin floor with their pistols cocked, determined to perish b)- their own hands rather than be taken alive. It was enjoined on each captain in the public service to keep a sharp look- PUBLIC MEN AND EVENTS. 237 out for them. The honest Scot was on deck witli his trumpet in his hand, ready to deny their being on board. Four hundred hvres distributed among the crew ensured their discretion. They arrived in the midst of the fleet, and not a question was asked. The next day they perceived the frigate with which the vessel left Brest bearing down upon them. As soon as she came within hail they received through a speaking-trumjjct the alarming interrogation, " Whence come you ? " " From Brest," answered the captain. This produced the ominous remark, " You are a long way astern ; " to which the captain replied, " We have made as much haste as we could." " Your vessel is a very bad sailor, then," was retorted, not very civilly. In answer to this nothing was said. At length the thundering question came, " Have you any passengers aboard ? " The hear- ty Scot made the air ring with a bold " No ! " On this the frigate's boat was hoisted out. It was now a critical moment for the persecuted De Valady and his colleagues. They threw overboard such papers as could involve their friends on shore, cocked their pis- tols, placed them in their mouths and waited the event. The boat's arrival required not these melancholy prep- arations ; it came merely to fetch a hawser for the frigate to take their vessel in tow till it should come up .with the merchant fleet ; and it was not one of the least whimsical adventures of this voyage, remarks Louvet, to see themselves thus protected by a vessel which was particularly prepared for their destruction. In another day they sailed up the Garonne, passed the guard-ships in a boat and landed at Bee d'Ambery. 238 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. They took leave of the good Scotsman, for whom they made up a purse of four hundred dollars, which they begged him to accept. This sum they clubbed among themselves, and after it was paid the richest of them had not forty dollars left. But they were in the loyal department of Gironde, and could not want for anything, as they fondly imagined. Alas, De Valady ! the arts of thy persecutors had again preceded thee. Bordeaux, with the whole department, acknowledged the sway of the Convention. The arms and the intrigues of the Mar- atists were everywhere triumphant. Strangers had be- come objects of suspicion, and the guillotine was in activity in every town. The Girondist party, as partic- ularly obnoxious to the ruling members, were sought for with eagerness, and the fugitives were in danger at every step they took. This spot, then, which they en- countered so many dangers to reach, was still more unsafe than that they had left. But there was no time to deliberate, and in their haste to find a retreat they were in danger of losing themselves by the indiscretion of one of their party. Guadet, who was an inhabitant of this part of the country, had a relation living in the neighborhood, but his house was shut and no one was at home. With the impetuosity of a Gascon, he flew to the inn of the village, and was guilty of the unaccountable folly of naming himself He was the representative from this very district, and his name was known to every one. The information spread in every direction. Meantime, the key of the house was procured, and into it all the deputies retired. Two days were spent in constant PUBLIC MEN AND EVENTS. 239 anxiety, at the end of which the approach of an armed force was announced, which obhged them to retreat. Scarcely were they seated in a small boat that they found on the Garonne, which flowed about a mile from the house, when in the dead of night more than four hundred men attacked it with artillery. These brave Revolutionists carried the deserted citadel by storm, and so proud were they of the victory that their commander transmitted a pompous account of it to the Convention, in which he said that " such was the activity of the Sansculottes who had surrounded the house that, after penetrating into it, they had found — the beds of the proscribed still warm !" Whilst these furious patriots were searching, and no doubt plundering, the house, De Valady and his com- panions had passed the Dordogne and reached the road leading to St. Emilion ; but being soon traced by the party who had driven them from their last abode, and actually pursued by fifty horsemen, they turned from the great road and fled to some stone-quarries which they found unoccupied by workmen, as it was Sun- day. Here they lay concealed until nightfall, when a peasant in whom they had ventured to confide, and sent out among the farmers to obtain provisions and shelter, returned to inform them that no person would receive them. " Not a person," he said, " has the courage to open his doors." And this was their Gironde, the de- partment that had hitherto supported their principles, and whose representatives were so unanimously of their sentiments that Brissot and his party thence derived the name of Girondins ! 240 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. What was to be done ? It was unsafe to proceed any- longer in company. Dc Valady's friend was still with him, and these two, together with Barbaroux and Lou- vet, separated from Petion, Buzot and the rest. This expedient, temporary and hopeless, only protracted the vengeance of the Mountain, whose triumphs and influ- ence were rapidly increasing. Their hearts were full at parting ; they embraced and bade each other farewell. Barbaroux, who was skilled in mineralogy, proposed to pass himself off as a professor of that science, while De Valady and his friend were merchants travelling' with him to engage the working of any mines that he might discover. This fiction was soon given up, for even in those days of confusion and distress, when all ranks seemed levelled to an equality, it was too absurd for belief that merchants would be traversing the coun- try for minerals on foot and in the middle of the night. They rambled they knew not where for four hours. Guadet was no longer with them, and, totally unac- quainted with the country, they soon lost their way. About twelve at night they came to a village. The cure's house was before them. Barbaroux ventured to knock at the door. In a few moments the cure opened it himself " We are travellers," said they, " and have lost our way." " Confess," replied the worthy man, " that you are good people suffering persecution, and as such accept the accommodations of my house for twenty-four hours. Would I could welcome more frequently and for a longer time some of the innocent victims of unjust pursuit !" De Valady and his companions were astonished and PUBLIC MEN AND EVENTS. 24 1 affected by this recepti(3n. It demanded entire confi- dence, and it obtained it. The good man shed tears of joy as he rushed into their arms. lie introduced these dangerous guests into his house, and permitted them to remain there five days, at the expiration of which De Valady received tlie farewell of his friend. This gentleman had accompanied him from Normandy, and thinking now that he could reach tlu^ house of a relation who lived near Perigueux, aiul who would, as he thought, give a secure shelter to De Valady and himself, he departed. The next day he was arrested and sacrificed. It began to be whispered shortly that strangers were concealed in the cure's house. Their host warned them of their danger, and lamented the necessity that obliged him to part from them. Me sought the whole day for a new lodging. Nothing offered better than a hayloft belonging to a farmer whose house was the abode of no less than sixteen people. Two of these, however, the cure could trust. They alone were present when in the silence of night our friends changed the comfort- able beds of the parsonage for the disagreeable heat of a mow composed of new hay and in a state of fermen- tation. In this hay each man made himself a hole, where he remained buried the whole day. The loft was full to suffocation ; one single window admitted air, and the weather was unusually sultry for the season. They had been a day in this close confinement when their two confidants were sent suddenly at a distance, without being able, as was afterward learned, to inform them of their absence. Two more days passed in ex- 16 242 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. treme anxiety. For forty-eight hours poor De Valady and his companions had been deprived of all nourish- ment. The coarse fare and poor wine which they had occasionally picked up were now no longer served to them. The extreme lassitude, dreadful headache, fre- quent faintings, burning thirst and general agony ex- perienced in this long interval of fasting are indescriba- ble. Their courage failed them. Rarbaroux and Louvet confessed that they had not fortitude to bear with life, and were resolved that that hour should be the last, whilst De Valady, poor De Valady ! acknowledged to them that he dared not die. Without consolation, without a prospect of relief, Barbaroux and Louvet grasped their pistols and look- ing at each other expressed by a languid smile and in profound silence the horrid meaning of this act. Their hands were pressed together with convulsive fury. The moment of despondence was come ; the signal of death was on the point of being given, when De Valady, at- tentive to the motions, cried, " Barbaroux, you have yet a mother! — Louvet, think on your incomparable wife!" Like a talisman these words conv^erted their rage into tenderness ; their weapons dropped from their hands ; their enfeebled bodies bent toward each other ; they mingled their tears together. They were suddenly roused by the sound of heavy thunder. It was past ten at night, and all the people of the farmhouse were presumed to be asleep. The lightning still flashed, the thunder was retiring, when voices were heard speaking in whispers below. Soon after a man came up the ladder. It was one of their PUBLIC MEN AND EVENTS. 243 confidants. They asked him for food. " Talk not of food," said he roughly, " but come down at once." His altered tone persuaded them that they were betrayed, De Valady's mortal anxiety at the idea of death preyed afresh upon his broken spirits as he heard Barbaroux whisper to Louvet "that they should not take him alive." These two unhappy men had again recourse to their pistols. Unable to follow their example, yet imagining the fatal hour arrived, he faintly said to them, " Alas, then, we must die !" and taking them by the hand he added, " O my friends ! are you going to leave me ?" At no moment in their wanderings, says Louvet, did death seem so near as on this dreadful night. The man repeated his orders for them to descend. " Citizen," said Louvet, " we are far from desiring to involve you in any trouble, yet do not think to draw us into a snare. We certainly shall not go down until the cure or some of his family appear, or you frankly tell us what you want." The people in the farmhouse had heard them in the hayloft, and had hinted their suspicions. The cure, ever on the watch, was anxious for their removal, yet he hesitated. The men to whom the barn belonged became uneasy. Their lives and their all were at stake. Timid and vexed at the delay and danger, they had taken upon themselves to dis- lodge the fugitives. A kinsman of the cure's was sent for, and arrived before the fugitives would trust them- selves below. The storm continued ; the thunder had ceased, but the rain fell in torrents and the wind blew cold from the south. After suffocating with heat for three extremely warm days, they were driven from the 244 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. hayloft at the very moment it became desirable. Their friends placed them in a small wood, and there left them benumbed and wet. A little before day the cure came to them himself, and offered them for one night, at all hazards, the shelter of his house. This they had the courage to refuse, as it would endanger him, but he assured them that his cockloft would conceal them until the next night, and that in case of alarm a rope should be con- trived for their escape. They hastened to this retreat before dawn, and while there received a message from Guadet, who had knocked at the doors of many houses supposed to be inhabited by friends, and had found them all shut against him, except only one, and this was in- habited by a woman. Madame Bouquet was his sister- in-law. Generous, compassionate and intrepid, as all those about her were cowardly, selfish and inhuman, threatened by most of her connexions, and suspected by the municipality, she dared to receive her wander- ing brother, to construct a safe retreat for him thirty feet underground, and to invite to its shelter all his proscribed friends. Sure agents were sent to hunt out Petion and his party, as well as De Valady and his friends. They were conducted under cover of the night at different times to this subterranean abode. For more than a month she secreted them, fed them, nursed them, and paid for these humane services the forfeit of her life. She was dragged to the guillotine with her hus- band, poor Guadet and his aged father. Lodged in this dismal hole all day, these unhappy exiles ventured above ground only at ni'ght. As provis- PUBLIC MEN AND EVENTS. 245 ions were scarce, they never breakfasted. A dish of soup made with pulse formed the whole of their dinner. At supper they fared somewhat better, and now and then feasted upon a morsel of beef or a dish of poultry from the yard, Madame Bouquet often depriving her- self of food that more might be left for her guests. Scarcely had a few weeks' rest been enjoyed by them when the clamor of her relations and intimations of the magistrates reached the ears even of the deputies, and made them resolve to leave this sanctuary, if it were only to save their noble benefactress. They left her in the deepest affliction. She wept, she bemoaned the cruel necessity which forced her to forego the happiness of serving them. At one o'clock in the morning De Valady set out with Guadet, Louvet and another. He left them at a short distance from the house to turn off toward an estate belonging to a relation, and where he meant to try to gain admittance. " What a look," says Louvet, " did he give us when we quitted him ! Never shall I lose the sad remembrance of it ; he had death in his eye." * * Of the other Girondists of this party, Louvet made his way to Paris, joined his wife and escaped with her to Switzerland. Guadet and Salles were both taken, and died by the guillotine in Bordeaux. Bar- baroux, with Petion and Buzot, eluded capture until the summer of 1794. " One July morning," says Carlyle, " changing their hiding-place, as they have often to do, about a league from St. fimilion they observe a great crowd of country people ; doubtless, Jacobins come to take them. Barbaroux draws a pistol, shoots himself dead. Alas ! and it was not Jacobins ; it was harmless villagers going to a village wake. Two days afterward Buzot and Petion were found in a cornfield, their bodies half eaten by dogs." — The French Revolution, Part III., Book IV., chapter 246 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. Whether he was received by his relation or not, I am uninformed. For some five or six weeks he must have concealed himself in that neighborhood, since about the end of that time he determined on taking the road to Paris, with a view, no doubt, of concealing himself within the walls of that vast city. When arrived near Perigueux under a well-contrived disguise, he became suspected, was arrested, interrogated, examined, identi- fied, conducted to Roux Fagillac, and from the prison of that town to the scaffold. The Duke of Orleans. September 4, 1830. — The news came to-day of the dethronement of Charles X. of France, who, counselled by his short-sighted minister, Polignac, attempted to muzzle the press and violate the elective franchise of the country. The duke of Orleans, with whom I was personally acquainted in Philadelphia in 1796-97, is lieutenant-general of the kingdom, and our old friend La Fayette commander of the National Guards. September 20. — The duke of Orleans was proclaimed king of France on the 8th of August. I well remem- ber several particulars of my acquaintance with him when he was in Philadelphia in the year 1796. He came to Philadelphia in the ship America, Ewing mas- ter, and on landing was invited by D. Coningham, Esq., now alive, to lodge at his house in Front street. Mr. Coningham, surviving partner of the house of Coning- ham & Nesbit, was consignee and owner of the ship. Here he stayed some weeks. Not long after his arrival in Philadelphia, he was joined by his two brothers, the PUBLIC MEN AND E VENTS. 247 dukes of Montpensier and Beaujolais. These young princes had been confined by the authorities of France in the Chateau d'lf, situated on an island in the Medi- terranean, opposite to Marseilles, and obtained leave to come to America. For want of a better conveyance, they took their passage in a brig that had on board upward of a hundred of our countrymen just released from slavery at Algiers. They bore their exile here with philosophy, appearing, like their elder brother, cheerful and resigned. I met them very often in society, and particularly all three one day in walking toward the Delaware, and joined their company. Mr. d'Orleans (for so he was always called, never having taken an assumed name or travelled incognito) told me that he had just heard that his good friend Captain Ewing of the ship America was at the wharf on his return from Hamburg, and that he wished to take him by the hand and introduce his two brothers to him. We went to Ross's wharf, where the America had that moment hauled in. Captain Ewing came on shore, and was re- ceived by Mr. d' Orleans with the warmest cordiality and introduced to his brothers. There was a display of such kind feeling on the part of the princes, and such a total absence of all pride or notion of superiority, that I was greatly affected at the sight. The three brothers afterward travelled on horseback to Pittsburg. I saw them pass along Market street, equipt as Western traders then rode, having a blanket over the saddle and their saddle-bags under them. On their return, Mr. d'Orleans hired very humble lodgings in Fourth street near Prune, where I visited him. He 248 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. did me the favor to trace the route he had just taken on a map that hung in his room, and told me that they managed very well along the road, taking care of them- selves at the taverns, and leaving their horses to be groomed by the only servant they had with them. " We could have done very well without any servant," he said, " and took one entirely for the sake of the horses." These distinguished exiles afterward descended the Mississippi, and went to the Havana, and from thence to Cadiz, and subsequently, having made their peace with the brother of Louis XVI., the present king, Louis Philippe, each married a princess of the reigning Bour- bons at Naples. Joseph Bonaparte. April 20, 1 8 16. — Yesterday, as we were going to Belmont, my neighbor, Farmer Bones, informed me that the ex-king of Spain, Joseph Bonaparte, had hired Landsdowne House * for one year — that he had been in his company in the morning, and found him a very plain, agreeable man. April 21. — Farmer Bones, who keeps the key of Landsdowne House, had another opportunity of seeing Joseph to-day, and ventured even to ask him into his house to take a drink of cider. Joseph went in, took a chair, and after drinking praised it much, inquiring where Bones bought it. Bones, who is a good-natured, free-spoken man, told him that in America farmers made their own cider, and if it was good, so much the better ; if bad, it must be swallowed by them. Just like the * Belonging to the Bingham family. PUBLIC MEN AND EVENTS 249 government made by the Americans : if honestly ad- ministered, they were contented and happy ; if other- wise, they must wait patiently and endure it until the constitutional time of changing its officers. This was interpreted to Joseph, and seemed to amuse him. September i, 1817. — I met Miss Julia Rush, daughter of the late Dr. Rush, at the Woodlands. She is beauti- ful, young, modest and intelligent. She dined at Joseph Bonaparte's not long since, or rather took a second din- ner, for the ex-king's hours are breakfast at eleven o'clock and dinner at eight o'clock. He did not expect com- pany, yet the repast was excellent. Joseph in his con- versation was communicative, and often severe on his brother Napoleon. He said that when he was king of Spain he would direct his marshals and generals to do one thing, but that they immediately set about doing another ; and when he complained, they would show the emperor's order for what they had just done, so that Joseph's plans were frustrated by the conflicting author- ity of his brother. He told her, or the company, that Napoleon's intention was to annex the greater part of Spain to France, and leave to him only a small kingdom in the south. Miss Rush tells me that he speaks with fluency, that his manners are urbane and polished, and that he is a very good-looking man. He is making many improvements at his place called Mount Breeze, near Bordentown. To the numerous French emigrants who apply to him for aid he is said to be liberal, and as an instance of his kindness as a master, one of his servants brought him the other day fifty thousand pounds sterling in diamonds which he had concealed 2 so PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. about his person for two years. This circumstance he mentioned himself, and added that all his servants had faithfully restored whatever had been entrusted to them. June 27, 1829. — My brother George came to me this morning by appointment, and accompanied me in the steamboat to Bordentown. The ex-king of Naples and Spain, Joseph Bonaparte, had fixed his residence near here. His domain begins on the eastern skirt of the village, and extends a mile or two with a good wooden fence, forming an enclosure of pleasing variety and laid out with taste in rides, walks, shrubbery, lake and build- ings. These last are imposing by their size and num- ber, consisting of a large dwelling-house for himself, several other houses for his suite and servants, and on the bank of the river an observatory or outlook-tower of great elevation and solid structure. The pleasure- grounds immediately around the house are laid out in the English style, and with variety of design suitable to the undulations of the ground. The proprietor, who takes the name of Count Survilliers, was absent on a journey to New York ; and had I not seen a new edifice just finishing, I should have judged, from the dirty and neglected state of the walks and grounds, that he had become tired of the place and was about to abandon it Three or four men and boys were, however, scraping the weeds aside and putting things slowly to rights. The count has expended, it is reported, four hundred thousand dollars on this estate. I wish he would add a few more to that sum, for the purpose of restoring a meadow of eight or nine acres that stood immediately in front of the mansion-house, but which he has covered PUBLIC MEN AND EVENTS. 25 I with muddy water for the purpose of having a lake in sight of his parlor windows. September 17, 1838. — I met at my door this morning Mr. Lejambre, formerly a confidential valet of Joseph Bonaparte, and now a thriving upholsterer in Chestnut street. He held in his hand a letter from the ex-king of Spain, informing him of his intention to embark for this country at Liverpool on the 20th of last month in . the New York packet-ship Pennsylvania. He will be seventy-one years old on the 7th of January next, hav- ing been born on that day in 1768. I think he should now come to an anchor and fix himself permanently for the rest of his life. Lejambre has orders to fit up his villa at Bordentown with the utmost despatch, as the count may be expected daily. Perhaps his sudden departure from England may be connected with poli- tics, for Louis Philippe has insisted on the Swiss can- tons causing young Louis Napoleon, son of Louis Bonaparte, to leave that country, in consequence of his intrigues and foolish attempts upon the throne of France. An abortive trial was made at Strasbourg, where he was caught, and owed his life to the clem- ency of the king, who sent him to New York, instead of shooting him. But the young Napoleon left his place of exile and returned to Europe, where the Quixotic prince, as he is called, continues his wind- mill tilts, and may have involved his uncle Joseph in his romantic efforts to unhorse the king of France. October 18, 1838. — I met Joseph Bonaparte in the street yesterday. His appearance is that of a very plain country gentleman. I thought one of the nine 252 r.lSS.lGES FROM THE NOTEBOOKS. servants he brought from England might have brushed his hat, which looked rather shabby. Mr. D. W. Cone entertained him at an evening party, but he was taciturn and grave. It is said that he comes to America to see the sun, being tired of living under the lugubrious and lurid sky of England, in the midst of fogs and rain, and sometimes snow, as Sir Walter Scott said of the climate of Great Britain. Washington's Farewell Address. December 21, 1822. — I dined and spent the evening with Judge Peters, where I stayed till nine o'clock, highly entertained with the brilliant wit of the father and ever-varied and never-tiring colloquy of Miss Peters and her friend Miss Delancy. The judge, among other things, mentioned to me that Mrs. Hamilton, the widow of the late Alexander Hamilton, had found among hi.s papers a copy, in the general's handwriting, of General Washington's Farewell Address, and she took it for granted her husband was the author of it. A surmise of this kind had some time ago reached the judge's ears, upon which he wrote to John Jay, who replied to him in a letter which he offered to show to me that the circumstances were as follows : General Washington when about to retire from the Presidency wrote a vale- dictory to his fellow-citizens couched in the felicitous language of which he was master. But, as it might be considered a state paper, he submitted it to Chief-Jus- tice Jay and to Alexander Hamilton. They made a few alterations, which they interlined, the whole of which did not amount to Iwentv lines. Unwilling, PUBLIC MEN AND EVENTS. 253 however, to return the manuscript in that form, it was written over in a fair hand by Hamilton and sent to the press.* This, it is supposed, is the copy which his wife now possesses. The BuiiNiNG of Washington. August 25, 1 8 14. — In town in the morning-. The most disastrous news arrived to-day from Washington, mentioning that an army under Lord Hill had debarked in the Patuxent River and were marching to that city. August 26. — At home in the morning. In the after- noon, being extremely anxious to hear what was forth- coming from the southward, I went to I lamilton Village, where I saw Mr. C. Ross, w ho told me that Philadelphia was in the greatest agitation, antl had aj^pointed a com- mittee of safety, of which he was a member ; that a battle had been fought at Bladensburg, and that the British, having vanquished, penetrated to Washington. August 27. — The news from the South occupies every one. I was in town to-day; saw the drafts marching through a heavy rain to a place of rendezvous. Iwery one was inquiring for Governor Snyder, who seems to have wholly abandoned this part of the State. At half- past twelve o'clock I went with an immense crowd to the post-office to hear the news from the South. The postmaster read it to us from a chamber window. It imported that the navy -yard had been burnt (valued at * The queslion of Hamilton's slinre in tiie composition of the Fare- well Address was impartially and luminously treated by the late Horace Binney, Esq., in his anonymous An inquiry into the Formation of Wash- ington s Eareivcl! Address, riiiladclphia, I'arry & McMillan, 1859. 254 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. from six to eight millions of dollars, including the new frigate Essex, sloop-of-war Argus, some old frigates, a vast quantity of timber, from five to eight hundred large guns and many manufactories of cordage, etc.) by our people ; that the President's house, Capitol and other public buildings had been destroyed ; and all this by a handful of men, say six thousand ! August 28. — I rode to an encampment of about two hundred men lying near the turnpike, to offer them a present of straw to sleep upon, as the poor fellows were out all last night without any, and in the midst of a heavy rain. The news this morning is that the enemy are going back to their ships. The disgrace of this expedition will for ever attach to the nation. The cul- pable neglect of the government is such as to stain our national character with the deepest dye of infamy. No American can hold his head up after this in Europe or at home, when he reflects that a motley group of Erench, Spanish, Portuguese and English, amounting only to four thousand, has successfully dared to march forty miles from their ships and ruin our best navy-yard, invade our capital, and march in safety, nay unmolested, back to their vessels. O Democracy ! to what have you brought us ! O Madison, Armstrong, and your conceited, ignorant and improvident cabinet ! how guilty are you toward this dishonored, unhappy nation ! And Snyder, thou governor by appellation ! why hast thou never visited the great head of the State, the city of Philadelphia, during thy six years' administration ? and why dost thou not now come down here to see, thou soi-disaut commander-in-chief the disorganized state PUBLIC MEN AND EVENTS. 255 of thy militia? Thou goader of this war! thou Demo- cratic feeble disorganizer ! say what hath thy imbecihty, thy guilty incompetency, to answer for ? Is Philadelphia safe, I ask, even against four thousand men ? I shall be answered by thee, " I know not," and perhaps, thou phlegmatic chief, thou wilt add, " I care not." De Witt Clinton. February 17, 1828. — The newspapers announce the death of the governor of New York, De Witt Clinton. This gentleman is a public loss. He was a man of very enlarged views and a statesman of the boldest character, undertaking projects on public account that seemed to common minds infinitely beyond the means of the country ; yet by his genius, enterprise and industry have they been accomplished. Thus, among other great works, the grand Erie and Northern canals will carry his name to posterity as a public benefactor. I knew Mr. Clinton personally. He was not strikingly prepossessing in his appearance, nor yet repulsive. Rather above the middle size, he was of a lusty shape, and I believe about sixty years of age. In 1824 he was spoken of as a candidate for the Presi- dency. The other candidates were General Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Mr. Crawford, Mr. Clay, and Mr. Calhoun. I was in Congress that year, and dined with General Jackson at a large party of thirty-five persons. Amongst the guests were Adams, Clay and Calhoun, who were all placed on each side the general. Mr. Crawford's health did not admit of his being present. The dinner was lively and pleasant. The next day I 256 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. dined with Mr. Archer of Virginia, and met at his table Mr. Van Buren of New York, a member of the Senate. He was of the party the preceding day, and I said jocosely to him, " If De Witt Clinton had been seated yesterday alongside of his competitors, Mr. Crawford by a gunpowder plot in the cellar might have blown up all his opponents and had the coast clear to himself" " He might have cleared the coast without having De Witt Clinton there," said Van Buren, " for he has blown himself up long ago." Van Buren was then the polit- ical enemy of Clinton, and, confiding in the Senator's general knowledge of the parties in his own State, aris- ing principally from his great talent for intrigue, I looked upon Clinton as an unpopular man. What, then, was my astonishment to see him elected governor of New York that same year by a majority of fifteen thousand ! and how was that astonishment increased by learning last fall that Van Buren and Clinton had coalesced against Adams, and were quite cordial friends ! — that is to say, as much so as political plotters can be. John Randolph. May 22, 1833. — That notorious and eccentric man, John Randolph, is in Philadelphia. His hatred of the President knows no bounds — that President who sent him to Russia and connived at his drawing twenty- two thousand dollars from the public treasury for a ten days' embassy. Such indulgence on one part and such rapacity on the other are without example, and in many governments would have cost the actors their heads ; but in our good-natured republic these PUBLIC MEN AmWD EVENTS. 257 things are soon forgotten and forgiven. This trouble- some caitiff, who has endeavored to vilify every honest man and embarrass every administration from the days of Washington to those of Jackson, has been elected to Congress lately — by a greatly-diminished majority, how- ever — and is about embarking for Europe, with the hope of recovering his health. His namesake, who lately insulted the President, he caresses, and offers him the use of his house, carriages, etc. ; and still further to torment the President, he is intriguing to get Virginia to vote for the rechartering of the Bank of the United States. On his arrival at Philadelphia he was put into a hack (for he cannot walk) and driven to the Bank of the United States. Mr. Biddle, the president, was re- quested to take a seat in the carriage, and the coachman directed to walk his horses along the streets, during which time he conversed with that gentleman on his new project — no doubt with the urgency and zeal of a new convert animated by spite. A man who can rob the public as John Randolph has done must be a miser as well as a knave ; so we find him, as report goes, begging Mr. Biddle to stop at a shop to get the sticks of an umbrella covered with silk. " Do not mention that I am Randolph of Roanoke, for if you do I shall be charged double price." The carriage stopped, and the shopman was called to the door. " How much," asked Randolph with his squeaking, doubtful-gender voice, " will you cover this umbrella for ?" " Three dollars, sir." " It is too much ; I must go somewhere else ;" and he directed the carriage to be driven across the street to another shop. " What do you ask for re- 2S8 PASSAGES rROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. pairing this umbrella?" said he. "Three dollars and a quarter." " But the man opposite will do it for three dollars." " Very well, I will charge no more ; when shall I send it ? and the owner's name, if you please." " Randolph, Randolph," cried Johnny. Upon which Mr. Biddle added in his usual playful manner, "A name when spoken makes the earth grow pale ;" to which Randolph good-humoredly added, " Yet he who bears it may not live to point a moral or adorn a tale." He is a mere shadow, and is lifted about like a helpless child. I wish the man may find his lost health in Eu- rope, and find it necessary for its preservation to remain there. But he threatens to take his seat in Congress next winter, which he may well do, for he says him- self that he has as many lives as a tom-cat ; and this may be believed when it is known that he has been apparently on the verge of the grave these thirty-five years. Daniel Webster. March 24, 1827. — At Mrs. Cadwalader's this evening I met the celebrated statesman and orator, Daniel Web- ster. He is on his way to Boston from Washington. We had some conversation together. I found him in low spirits, principally, I presume from the tenure of his remarks, on account of some dismal political fore- bodings that haunt his mind respecting the next Presi- dential election. I asked him how Mr. Adams stood the Georgia squabble and British colonial dispute, and added that the Eighteenth Congress, in which I sat with Mr, Webster, was pacific, calm and courteous PUBLIC MEN AND EVENTS. 259 compared with the last. " Yes," said he, " and yet all those Congressional bickerings are nothing ; the Georgia and British commercial disputes will lead to no bad consequences ; but what disturbs me most is to find Mr. Adams's fi-iends in this city deserting him. Sir," continued he, " if General Jackson is elected, the government of our country will be overthrown ; the judiciary will be destroyed ; Mr. Justice Johnson will be made chief-justice in the room of Mr. Marshall, who must soon retire, and then in half an hour Mr. Justice Washington and Mr. Justice Story will resign. A ma- jority will be left with Mr. Johnson, and every consti- tutional decision heretofore made will be reversed. The party is a profligate one," added Mr. Webster, " and un- less they place their candidate in the chair of govern- ment, will become bankrupt, including even Jackson himself I know," said he, " more than fifty members of Congress who have expended and pledged all they are worth in setting up presses and employing other means to forward Jackson's election." I must own that I do not agree with Mr. Webster in all these sad prognostics. When the Federalists lost their power in 1801, it was then as loudly proclaimed, and our fears as greatly awakened with respect to the consequences, as they can be now; yet our successful rivals stepped into our shoes only to tread in the same paths that we had followed. Our navy has been cher- ished, public faith kept inviolate, the laws judiciously enacted and wisely administered ; and such will again be the case. It will be a change of men, and not of measures. Public opinion is omnipotent, and the nation \ 260 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. is too enlightened to adopt any opinions hostile to its welfare. . Steuben not LL.D. July 29, 1827. — Judge Peters, who has been made a doctor of laws lately, told me that when La Fayette was in America during the Revolutionary War, some university in New England created him doctor of laws. Old Baron Steuben did not like this. He thought it derogatory to the military character to be dubbed a doctor. Shortly afterward the baron, at the head of a troop of dragoons, was obliged to pass through the town in which the university was that had elected La Fayette. He halted his troop at the entrance of the town, and addressed it thus : " You shall spur de horse vel and ride troo the town like de debbil, for if dey catch you dey make one doctor of you." Audubon. November 16, 1839. — At the Academy of Natural Sciences to-day Dr. Morton introduced me to the justly- celebrated Audubon, so well known by his great work on ornithology. He is a man of fifty, with the coun- tenance of a bird, having a projecting forehead, a sunken black eye, a parrot nose, and long protruding chin, com- bined with an expression bold and eagle-like. I asked him to bring to Philadelphia for public exhibition his original drawings. He observed that, having failed of success in showing them in New York, where he lost fifty-five dollars, he had not courage to encounter the expense of another display before the public. " If I had," he continued, " an extraordinary fat hog PUBLIC MEN AND EVENTS. 26 1 to show, and should place him in a large room on an elevated pedestal, with a comfortable bed of straw, I could draw thousands from far and nea?; but paintings, however beautiful or well done, will not attract enough people to cover the expense. In London I should be sure of constant visitors to my gallery, but not here." He spoke like a disappointed man, and did not seem to think that the great success of the panorama here, which I brought to his notice, was suited to change his opinion. Zerah Colburn. March 8, i8ii. — I saw to-day the greatest prodigy that this or any other country perhaps ever produced — namely, the surprising calculator who has made so much noise in New England this winter. This child, now about seven years old, was born in Vermont, and is called Zerah Colburn.* When I approached the table at which he stood beside his father, he was impatient for his dinner, and seemed wearied with the company about him. Nevertheless, he answered the questions sent to him as rapidly as if the figures had been placed before him. One gentleman told him that he was twenty-four years old, and asked how many hours he had lived. He answered off-hand, " You have lived so many days and so many hours." The gentleman, who held the cal- culation in his hand, found the reply correct. Another put a question requiring a fractional quotient ; this he * The narrative of this phenomenon, A Memoir of Zerah Colhnrn, ivritten by /lii/ise/f, is one of the most melanclioly hooks imaginable. The process by which a singular gift was wasted and a life made mis- erable by a father's folly is most unconsciously disclosed in it. 262 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. gave directly. Many other questions were propounded. At length, getting tired, he was going off when a gen- tleman called upon him for the amount of 1925 multi- plied by 99. He replied instantly and with impatience,* 190,575. In fine, the child is the greatest phenomenon I ever beheld, and Philadelphia, that never saw the like before, is occupied exceedingly in endeavoring to analyze the system, if any, by which he accomplishes his suc- cessful calculations. Francis Jeffrey. jfidy 6, 1 8 14. — There is an anecdote in circulation respecting Jeffrey, the editor of the Edinburgh Rcviczv, which if true does not do much credit to our President. It is stated that when Jeffrey visited America last fall he was invited to Washington by Mr. Secretary Monroe, and that the President, who was in Virginia, came up to Washington on purpose to meet him. When he was introduced, the President and his minister entered upon politics with the Scotchman with all the formality and seriousness usual when addressing /an authorized diplo- matist. Mr. Jeffrey, who has made himself of some con- sequence in Great Britain by writing in opposition to his government, was looked up to as an influential and im- portant man upon this occasion. The President pre- sumed that, like many of the apostate British in America, he would join him in invectives against the English, but Jeffrey, with a confidence peculiar to him, interrupted the President at the threshold of his discourse, and * An impatience which is justified certainly when one considers how much easier the sum was than if 97 had been the multiplier. PUBLIC MEN AND EVENTS. 263 exclaimed, "Gentlemen, stop. Before you go any- farther be it known to you that I am a loyal Briton — that although I have sometimes disapproved of the measures of my government, yet in all that relates to their disputes with you I do assure you I consider it wholly and fully justifiable." The chief of the Amer- ican nation, being thus put to rights by the forward reviewer, turned to his minister, who after a short pause undertook with his master to argue before this foreign coxcomb the merits of their case, to unbosom himself in the most entire manner, and even, it is added, to shed tears of entreaty that he would condescend to be their advocate. The young puppy, who took delight in repeating and acting over this scene, turned a deaf ear to them, and gave them, instead of consolation or hope, the most undisguised expressions of scorn. This truly undig- nified interview comports with a few others I have been informed of, and is a shame upon the chief and the party that put him in office. CHAPTER II. NOTES OF TRAVEL. A Journey to Washington. September 27, 1809. — About ten o'clock I set off, agreeably to appointment, with my brother George in his tandem, accompanied by a groom, to Wash- ington. We dined at Chester, which is the shire-town of the county of Delaware in Pennsylvania. This vil- lage seems rather to thrive than otherwise. We met a party of Quaker gentlemen at dinner who had been riding through the country, one of whom was a man nearly eighty-two years old, erect, heart}' ind cheerful. In the afternoon we passed through a pretty country, offering views of the river Delaware and some marks of good farming. We crossed the Brandywine on a bridge just building, suspended on iron chains upon the principle of the one lately constructed over the Falls of Schuylkill, and traversed Wilmington with- out stopping ; yet we could perceive that this capital of the State of Delaware is in a flourishing condition, and may contain about two thousand souls. To the southward of the n ain street we saw a handsome drawbridge upon piles over the Christiana Creek. We supped at Newport, a small village falling to decay. It 264 NOTES OF TRAVEL. 265 once contained five taverns and seven stores, which are now reduced to two of each kind. The inhabitants hope something from a turnpike-road now progress- ing, to intersect the Lancaster turnpike above Down- in gtown. September 28. — We breakfasted at Newport, and set off immediately after through a country but indiffer- ently farmed, although the exteriors of some of the fields offer well-plashed hedges of the American thorn. These are getting into vogue, particularly in the county of Chester in Pennsylvania. I saw them with great delight, and shall set about making one as soon as I return home. Twelve miles from Newport we entered the State of Maryland, and stopped at Elktown, a place likewise at a stand. It is built at the head of Elk River, that empties into the Chesapeake Bay, and was in the Revolutionary War a scene of fighting and of trade. From this place to Charlestown the road lies through a wild tract of woodland kept for the supply of an iron- furnace, and offers a very uninteresting view for ten miles. We dined at Charlestown, which is a village wholly falling to ruins. The site on which its seven or eight straggling houses stand is nevertheless eligi- ble for a town, and the expanded waters of the great bay below give the finest views that we have yet seen. About dark we passed the Susquehanna at Havre-de-Grace, where we found an excellent inn for the night. September 29. — The ride this morning to the Bush was extremely pleasant through fields of corn and meadow-land, better cultivated than any we passed the 266 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. preceding day, and the road fine. We crossed Gun- powder Creek about seven miles fi-om the Bush, and dined at the Red Lion, thirteen miles from Baltimore, to which city the road runs principally through a wood, and announces nothing less than the approach to a large capital. This neglected husbandry continues to the very entrance of the town, where the contrast be- comes at once extremely striking ; for Baltimore offers every mark of prosperity — new churches and banking- houses, handsome private buildings, hackney and pri- vate carriages, handsome, well-stocked stores, and a numerous and busy population. We alighted at the Indian Queen in Market street, kept by John Gadsby in a style exceeding anything that I recollect to have seen in Europe or America. This inn is so capacious that it accommodates two hundred lodgers, and has two splendid billiard-rooms, large stables and many other appendages. The numerous bed-chambers have all bells, and the servants are more attentive than in any public or private house I ever knew. The table is usually laid for thirty-six people. Another house, equally well conducted, though of less magnitude, is supported in Baltimore, besides several smaller inns. The population is forty-six thousand. Septcjnbcr 30. — My brother introduced me this morn- ing to a Mr. John Hall, a young attorney, who politely piloted us to those places that were worthy of our notice. We first visited a public fountain in the heart of the town which has been expensively arranged by the corpora- tion. The waters fall on a marble pavement laid at the bottom of a spacious brick well about ten feet deep. NOTES OF TRAVEL. 26/ This is descended by a handsome flight of stone stairs. A small distance from the fountain stands a new mill erected by the corporation, and worked by a stream neatly banked in with stone facing. This mill, which cost the city only twelve thousand dollars, rents, as Mr. Hall informed us, for seven thousand dollars. Not far from it stand the jail and penitentiary, two new and handsome buildings. From these we walked to a hill on which is erecting a truly magnificent church intend- ed for a Roman Catholic cathedral. It has yet but one story completed, of hewn stone, in the form of a cross, which, however, gives some idea of the splendor of the whole when it is finished. Our next object, and to me the most interesting, was a seminary of learning under the direction of the Abbe Dubourg. This gentleman at the beginning of the French Revolution found himself driven from France, and an exile here with three or four monks and priests of his own nation. He associated himself with them for the purpose of instruction, and purchased the ground on which their school now stands, together with a large tract around it, for about four thousand three hundred dollars. The immense growth of Balti- more, which has more than doubled since that period (1793), has brought this property into the town and given a noble fortune to its proprietors. They have built a chapel, with twelve niches for the twelve apos- tles over the great door, which is extremely pretty. Mr. Hall introduced me to M. Dubourg, who politely requested one of the fraternity to see that I was shown about the college. The rules are much the same as those of the old royal and military schools of France, 268 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. modified, however, to suit the customs of our country. The number of ordained priests is thirteen, and many others who are candidates for the sacerdotal office reside within this seminary; among them is my old friend Captain Cooper,* who formerly commanded an India ship out of Philadelphia. I was permitted to visit him, and his squalid countenance, dishevelled hair, sunken eye, all denoted a deranged intellect. He is newly converted from a merry gentleman of the world to a gloomy disciple of the Roman Catholic Church. Surrounded by theological folios, he began a conversa- tion upon the faculties of the human mind and its apti- tude to truth, alleging that its expansion was in the ratio of the magnitude of its object : having, then, eter- nity for its contemplation, it must be, in the sublime study of philosophy, immeasurably great. His be- havior was complacent and humble ; he received us with great cordiality, and politely followed us down stairs to the outer door. He has, I understand, en- dowed this seminary with his fortune, which is con- siderable. October i. — We left Baltimore this morning for Wash- ington, and, dining on the road at fourteen miles only from our breakfasting stage, lay by till three o'clock, to avoid travelling in the heat, which was now more intense than in August. We passed the house of a * This gentleman was somewhat celebrated for the possession of a fine person and a set of remarkably fine teeth. He was unhappy in a love-affair, took off his boots, and walked in his stocking feet in front of the house of the cruel fair one — whether to mortify himself or her is not clearly known. This performance was insufficient, at any rate, to open a way into her heart, so he broke out his teeth and took orders. NOTES OF TRAVEL. 269 planter by the name of Snowden, with whom I had been acquainted in Philadelphia, and meeting with one of his slaves, of which he has two hundred, I learnt that his master was at home, and determined to call upon him. He was, however, absent, but his mother and brother received us with great politeness, urging us to stop all night. This proprietor of two hundred laborers had the chairs in his best room in the most ragged condition, and the rest of the furniture equally' slovenly ; yet we were entertained with excellent ma- deira, brandy and peaches. He had given a barbecue to two hundred people the day before as an election feast — a vile and anti-republican custom still prevalent in this and the States to the southward. The road and country from Baltimore to the neighborhood of Bla- densburg, where we lodged, is almost without excep- tion lined with woods, and when the eye is relieved by the sight of a few fields it is to witness the most detest- able husbandry. We saw tobacco growing and flower- ing this afternoon for the first time. October 2. — About nine o'clock we came in sight of the two wings of the Capitol in Washington, and en- tering the Pennsylvania Avenue drove past the Presi- dent's House to the Union Tavern in Georgetown. We were astonished at the false reports raised about this district. Instead of decay and languor, we saw activity and prosperity. The public buildings are magnificent, and the private dwellings vastly more numerous than was expected, built all of brick and erected with taste. Georgetown particularly is thriving very rapidly. Mr, Jackson and his family (a new minister plenipo. lately 270 PASSAGES FROM THE MOTE-BOOKS. arrived from England), Mr. Erskine (the recalled min- ister), and Mr. Wood, the British consul of Baltimore, were all lodged in this Union Inn. In the afternoon we took a hack, of which there are one hundred and thirty licensed in Georgetown and Washington, and rode to the Capitol. The approach to this stupendous palace is through the Pennsylvania Avenue, that extends from the President's House a mile, planted with four rows of Lombardy poplars and excellently gravelled. We first visited the north wing, where the Senate room is now finishing ; we could only see the entrance on account of the scaffolding ; this is formed by eight pillars of black Pennsylvania marble, crowned with Italian sculptured capitals of the whitest Italian marble. The other parts of this north wing are elegantly planned and elegantly finished. The south wing contains the Representatives' room, which has been pronounced by many foreigners as inferior in taste, beauty and solidity to no hall in Europe. It will be a long while before it is finished. The main body of the Capitol is not yet begun, but the plan an- nounces something superior even to the wings. From this edifice we drove to the marine barracks, the navy -yard, etc., both which buildings and appurte- nances are arranged with elegance and convenience. The entrance to the navy-yard is through a spacious gateway of hewn stone, and immediately in front stands a monument of Sicilian marble executed in Italy, con- sisting of various emblematic figures, and raised by the officers who served on the expedition against Tripoli, to commemorate the feats of those who perished in the NOTES OF TRAVEL. 2/1 attack upon that town. It is extremely beautiful. We left the navy-yard just about sunset, and rode round to Mr. Brent's, mayor of Washington, with whose family we took tea, and afterward accompanied them to an olio concert given at a small theatre lately built. The per- formances were but indifferent. October 3. — I was received at the Presidential Mansion in the most affable manner by Mrs. Madison, whom I had had the honor of knowing in Philadelphia. She very politely permitted me to see the interior of the house, which is furnished in the most splendid manner. The taste of this lady has shown itself in the decoration of the grounds in front. Mr. Jackson, the new British am- bassador, paid his first visit to the President whilst I was there ; he was received in another room. Journey to Boston. July 21, 1 8 10. — This day I hired a hackney-coach and four horses of Robert Clarke, who owned them, and who called at Sweetbrier to take up Mrs. Breck, my daughter, her maid and myself on a journey to Boston. We left home at nine o'clock, and stopped at Spring Hill, where we dined. My mother, with her old house- keeper, Polly Hall, joined us, and we reached Trenton that night. July 22. — We breakfasted at Follet's, dined at Bruns- wick, and slept at Elizabeth Town. Jjily 23. — We accidentally met with Mr. Sam Ogden and wife. He was extremely ill. Dined and put up at Mechanic Hall, New York, where our old friend. Dr. Eustis, the present Secretaiy of War, politely divided 272 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. his parlor with us. I took Mrs. Breck round New- York, which I found surprisingly increased since 1797. The City Hall now building is truly magnificent, and the whole place prosperous and beautiful. July 24. — We left New York at noon ; slept at Rye. yuly 25. — Dined remarkably well at Stamford ; supped and slept at Stratford. jfuly 26. — Dined eight miles beyond New Haven ; slept at Berlin. July 27. — Breakfasted at Hartford ; passed the new bridge over Connecticut River ; slept at Clarke's, on a new turnpike near Ashford. July 28. — Dined at Thompson's, and slept at Mer- rian. July 29. — Dined at Dedham. Called upon my uncle Andrews * at Brookline, and arrived at Mrs. Lloyd's in Boston before sundown, without accident, and after one of the pleasantest rides imaginable. The roads are turn- piked all the way, and of seven ferries that a traveller was obliged formerly to pass, there remains now but that at Paulus Hook, which can never be bridged. The roads are not only extremely improved, but the dis- tances are shortened thirty-six miles between Philadel- phia and Boston. A stage runs from Hartford to Bos- ton every day on the new road, 102^ miles, from 4 o'clock A. M. to 8 P. M. yi(/y 30. — Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd received us most cor- dially. I reconnoitred the town, which I found sur- prisingly improved, particularly about Broad street and * John Andrews, whose letters, published in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, have already been noticed. NOTES OF TRAVEL. 273 India Wharf, which displays the handsomest show of warehouses I ever beheld. We dined at Mr. Lloyd's, and rode out after dinner, I had not been in Boston since 1797, so that many new things presented them- selves. August 1 5 . — Came to S weetbrier, and found every- thing and eveiybody well, after an absence of twenty- six days, on a delightful journey of six hundred miles going and returning, over excellent roads, and meeting with exceeding good inns, and not one accident except- ing the lameness of one horse. The expense of this journey was about five hundred dollars. Chance Travelling-Companions, yune 15, 1816. — Very early this morning we left our inn on the road to Baltimore (returning from a trip to Washington). About eight o'clock I met a gentleman, who begged me to stop at a planter's house by the name of Snowden, and to permit his mother to go to Balti- more in my carriage. As I was alone, I consented to receive the old lady, and accordingly turned into her gate. While she was getting ready I conversed with her son and daughter, and learned that the old lady and her sister had turned Quakers and liberated their slaves, the one to the number of sixty. The son still held ninety-six, who were kept busy planting tobacco. This Mr. Snowden plants this year six hundred thou- sand plants. An acre of good ground grows five thou- sand plants, which gives one hogshead of tobacco of one thousand pounds weight, worth about one hundred and seventy-six dollars. When we were about getting 274 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. into the carriage I found the good lady expected me to take her sister in along with her, and as she weighed about as much as herself, which could not be less than two hundred pounds, and would not be separated from her, I was obliged to drive off without either, with very- little thanks for my good-will, which lost me about half an hour of pretty precious time. Quick Travel. May A^, 1833. — As an instance of the rapid manner in which travellers get along, I may instance Mrs. Lloyd's trip to Richmond in Virginia. She left Phil- adelphia at six o'clock a.m.; went by the Newcastle railroad to the Chesapeake ; crossed the bay to the point within twelve miles of Baltimore where the Nor- folk steamer took her on board ; went down the bay, and met the Richmond boat opposite Norfolk ; went up James River, and arrived in the evening of the second day from Philadelphia at the city of Rich- mond, thus traversing without fatigue a distance of five hundred miles in a little more than thirty-six hours ! Undoubtedly, a traveller will be able to go from Baltimore to New York by the light of a summer's sun when the locomotives shall be placed on the Am- boy railroad. An invitation to a three-o'clock dinner in New York or Philadelphia may now be complied with by the individual who takes his breakfast in either of these cities ; and with the loco, when established, he may start from one city in the morning and return again in the evening from a visit to the other. It is the total NOTES OF TRAVEL. 2/5 absence of fatigue and certainty of excellent entertain- ment that makes all this delightful. The Other Side. July 22, 1835. — This morning at nine o'clock I took passage in a railroad car (from Boston) for Providence. Five or six other cars were attached to the loco, and uglier boxes I do not wish to travel in. They were huge carriages made to stow away some thirty human beings, who sit cheek by jowl as best they can. Two poor fellows, who were not much in the habit of making their toilet, squeezed me into a corner, while the hot sun drew from their garments a villainous compound of smells made up of salt fish, tar and molasses. By and by, just twelve — only twelve — bouncing factory-girls were introduced, who were going on a party of pleasure to Newport. " Make room for the ladies !" bawled out the superintendent. "Come, gentlemen, jump up on the top ; plenty of room there." " I'm afraid of the bridge knocking my brains out," said a passenger. Some made one excuse and some another. For my part, I flatly told him that since I had belonged to the corps of Silver Grays I had lost my gallantry, and did not intend to move. The whole twelve were, however, introduced, and soon made themselves at home, sucking lemons and eating green apples. There is certainly a growing neglect of manners and insubordination to the laws, a democratic familiarity and a tendency to level all dis- tinctions. The rich and the poor, the educated and the ignorant, the polite and the vulgar, all herd together in this modern improvement in travelling. The conse- 2/6 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. quence is a complete amalgamation. Master and ser- vant sleep heads and points on the cabin floor of the steamer, feed at the same table, sit in each other's laps, as it were, in the cars ; and all this for the sake of doing very uncomfortably in two days what would be done delightfully in eight or ten. Shall we be much longer kept by this toilsome fashion of hurrying, hurrying, from starting (those who can afford it) on a journey with our own horses, and moving slowly, surely and profit- ably through the country, with the power of enjoying its beauty and be the means of creating good inns. Un- doubtedly, a line of post-horses and post-chaises would long ago have been established along our great roads had not steam monopolized everything. Steam, so useful in many respects, interferes with the comfort of travelling, destroys every salutary distinction in society, and overturns by its whirligig power the once rational, gentlemanly and safe mode of getting along on a jour- ney. Talk of ladies on board a steamboat or in a rail- road car ! There are none. I never feel like a gentle- man there, and I cannot perceive a semblance of gentil- ity in any one who makes part of the travelling mob. When I see women who in their drawing-rooms or elsewhere I have been accustomed to respect and treat with every suitable deference — when I see them, I say, elbowing their way through a crowd of dirty emigrants or low-bred, homespun fellows in petticoats or breeches in our country, in order to reach a table spread for a hundred or more, I lose sight of their pretensions to gen- tility and view them as belonging to the plebeian herd. To restore herself to her caste, let a lady move in select NOTES OF TRAVEL. 277 company at five miles an hour, and take her meals in comfort at a good inn, where she may dine decently. December II, 1839. — The modern fashion in all things is " to go ahead," push on, keep moving, and the faster the better — never mind comfort or security or plea- sure. Dash away, and annihilate space by springing at a single jump, as it were, from town to town, whether you have pressing business or not. " How do you mean to travel ?" asks Neighbor John. " By railroad, to be sure, which is the only way of trav- elling now ; and if one could stop when one wanted, and if one were not locked up in a box with fifty or sixty tobacco-chewers ; and the engine and fire did not burn holes in one's clothes ; and the springs and hinges didn't make such a racket ; and the smell of the smoke, of the oil and of the chimney did not poison one ; and if one could see the countiy, and were not in danger of being blown sky high or knocked off the rails, — it would be the perfection of travelling." After all, the old-fashioned way of five or six miles an hour, with one's own horses and carriage, with liberty to dine de- cently in a decent inn and be master of one's move- ments, with the delight of seeing the country and get- ting along rationally, is the mode to which I cling, and which will be adopted again by the generations of after times.* Praise of Boston. yuly 16, 1835. — I spent an hour or two with my kinsman, James Andrevv^s, and his large and amiable * Mr. Breck nevertheless would hardly have regarded the fashion- able coaching club of this day as answering to his prophecy. 2/8 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. family. His wife is a lineal descendant of the first Governor Winthrop, whose portrait I saw there, copied from a Vandyke (as reported, but I think doubtful), and dressed in the costume of the Elizabethan age. An island in the harbor, not more than a mile from Boston, was given to Winthrop, and has descended to this lady, who now owns it. North of this island stands another, which is being built upon, and contains a fine spacious sugar-house, a superb hotel and several dwelling-houses, and is fast rising to a town by the name of East Boston. Maverick, the first proprietor of this soil, has given name to the omnibuses that ply between the town and it. Toward Chelsea a new suburb of Boston is rising. All this is very well, and shows the thrift of the place. But it must all be praised over and over again with every one you meet. Should anything be criti- cised, it is vindicated with warmth, and comparisons with other cities, when they are thought worthy of notice, are disparaging, or introduced as a foil to the superior grandeur of Boston, which stands pre-eminent and eclipses all her sister cities. Poor Philadelphia, I must think if influenced by what I hear at New York, Boston and from travellers on the intermediate roads, is some obscure village, scarcely fitted to be brought forward in the eternal clack everywhere heard about " improvement," " crescents," " Tremont House," etc. But these little local vanities exist everywhere. To be sure, the grand display which America already makes in canal, railroad and steamboat travelling may well justify us in all our bragging and harping upon it. I am now three hundred and forty miles from my house, NOTES OF TRAVEL. 279 yet by the common line of conveyance I may leave Boston at nine o'clock, the sun four hours high, and dine at home at my usual hour, half-past two, the next day ! ! ! This, I own, surprises me more than all the improvements in brick and mortar.* * The change in modes of travelling introduced by the railway must have caused more honest astonishment than the mere improvement upon the imperfect system in operation in 1835. To-day Mr. Breck might have breakfasted in Boston and supped in Philadelphia. CHAPTER III. PERSONAL AND SOCIETY GOSSIP. Life at Sweetbrier. January 22, 1808. — In the afternoon I rode over to the Grange. Mrs. R and her daughter live a soh'- tary hfe in that sequestered spot, and, destitute of ser- vants as they have been through the winter, their time is irksome and gloomy in the extreme. The old lady, possessed as she is of many excellent qualities, cannot forget the ease and elegance of her better days, and supposes herself singled out by Fortune as a mark for all its adverse shafts. And amidst the increasing vicis- situdes of life, particularly in these present times, is it nothing to have passed through fifty-five years without encountering any heavy calamity? Is it nothing to find one's self possessed of a home, of health, of affec- tionate children and many friends at a moment when kings are stript of their dominions, bleed on the scaffold, and their families and adherents are reduced to beggary, escaping from the cold protection of one prince to re- ceive the charity of his neighbor ? Are not these and a thousand evils incident to life, but which have never reached her bosom, sources from which comfort and gratitude should be drawn ? and should they not silence 2S0 PERSONAL AND SOCIETY GOSSIP. 28 1 the sighs which are heaved for a few privations, of no essential help to the happiness of a reflecting mind ? For my own share, I confess that I draw from this comparison a fund of contentment which my situation abstractedly would not seem susceptible of; and in fact, what is my position ? Reared by the most indulgent of parents, surrounded by every comfort and luxury which America could afford, moving in a vortex of gay and fashionable company, I found myself at twenty-six years of age sequestered from them all and confined to a sober, solitary country life ; my fortune, once com- petent and easy, reduced to the standard of a decent subsistence ; bereft of the means of receiving my friends, and childless until now : placed alone with Mrs. Breck to exercise our philosophy and learn to laugh at that world which we could not enjoy. Thus have I spent the last ten years, and I can with truth declare that amidst the clouds which have often darkened my her- mitage, they have been filled with that measure of hap- piness which it is proper for us to taste. A LoNG-LivED Family. July 3, 1 8 17. — On the 4th of June, 181 5, Mr. Samuel Howard and Mr. Edward Cruft, two of my kins- men, dined with me, and in course of conversation we mentioned the ages of my paternal relations now living. If I recollect right, my father's sisters are now of the following ages : Mrs. Nichols, ninety-four ; Mrs. Harris, eighty-five ; Mrs. Cruft, seventy-five ; and his two brothers now living, William Breck, seventy-eight, Daniel Breck, seventy. I may add that my mother 282 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. will be seventy in November next, and her only living brother, John Andrews, is now about seventy-six.* A DiNER-OuT Waylaid. April 2g, 1828. — Last evening was one of the finest that could be, and having made our house ready for a general fete, our guests assembled between eight and nine o'clock. Most of the genteel strangers in town were invited, among them Mr. and Mrs. Cornwall from Quebec, and Mr. and Mrs. Ouseley, Mrs. Amory and her daughter, Mrs. Apthorp and daughter, Mr. Sullivan and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. D , and Mr. and Mrs. Up- ham. Cornwall and Ouseley are Englishmen — the latter attached to the British legation, the former an officer in the customs at Quebec ; all the rest of the strangers are from Boston, and not one of them came except Mr. D . This gentleman came out in Mr. Thomas M. Willing's carriage, and threw for a few moments a damp on the spirits of the company. It seems that when within a quarter of a mile of my gate the carriage was stopped by six men, who with pistols and dirks robbed them of their watches and money. Mr. Willing resisted, but after being dragged out of the carriage and overpowered, he surrendered all they chose to take. When the high- waymen had obtained their booty they directed Willing to jump into the carriage and drive on. Mr. D , who * Mr. Brack's father died at the age of sixty-two, his mother in her eighty-third year; Mrs. Criift died at eighty-five, William Break at eiglity, and Daniel Breck at ninety-seven; Mr. John Andrews died in his eighty-first year, and Mr. lireck himself, as before noted, in his ninety-second. Mrs. Breck's mother died at the age of eighty-four, and she herself lived to the same age. PERSONAL AND SOCIETY GOSSIP. 283 had a diamond pin that cost five hundred dollars, and of which he was ver)^ proud, contrived in the scuffle to throw it under his feet while the thieves were seizing his watch, which he had smuggled from his fob to the back cushion. These two gentlemen, penniless and un-watched, came to Sweetbrier about ten o'clock in a state of great perturbation, particularly D ; he related his story with quivering lips and pallid face. His adventure was repeated to every one, while I sat down to write, at his request, a circumstantial account of it to the mayor of the city, and urge him, for the honor of the police, to take immediate steps for the recovery of the property of Mr. Willing and the distin- guished stranger his companion. Thus things stood for a few moments, when dancing and cards were resumed and every thought of the business was soon forgotten. There were misgivings among some of the company respecting the reality of the robbery. It was believed by them to be a joke (or Jwax, as the new-fangled term is) got up to tease D ; and the event proved that they were right ; for to-day I have a letter from the mayor in answer to mine, of which the following is a copy : " Mayor's Office, Philadelphia, April 29, 1828. Dear Sir : Your letter of last evening was handed me by Mr. D . I very much regret that the out- rage therein detailed should have taken place — more particularly so as the comfort and pleasure of your guests have been interrupted and serious consequences might have resulted therefrom. I instituted immediate means to ferret out the matter, but became at once con- 284 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. vinced that it was a most unjustifiable and disgraceful hoax. The gentlemen's watches were returned to them, having been left at their respective lodgings this morning. " I am, etc., "Joseph Watson, Mayory I felt sorry for this boyish frolic, which no doubt was carried on by some of the young men of our party, and it would not be difficult to name them ; but this I shall refrain from doing, because I think they have been un- mindful of the respect due to Mrs. D , and perhaps to my family, in the affront put upon her husband and my guest, and are deserving of the harsh epithets be- stowed by me on their conduct in my letter to Mr. D , in which I tell him that there is but one voice in the community, of sorrow for the offence and contempt for the offenders. An Eccentric Englishman. December 3, 1829. — On the 19th of last month there arrived at Miss Lynn's boarding-house, where I was spending a night, one of those eccentric characters in which Old England abounds. His name is Smith, and he is the son of a British member of Parliament, He travels with his wife and two small children, eight ser- vants, eight dogs, an English carriage and I know not how many horses. Miss Lynn told us at breakfast that she inquired of one of the female servants whether Mrs. Smith took tea or coffee for her breakfast. " Indeed, ma'am, I don't know ; I wait upon the little girl." A few moments after she met another Abigail, " Pray, PERSONAL AND SOCIETY GOSSIP. 285 can you tell me," asked Miss Lynn, " whether Mrs. Smith breakfasts on tea or coffee ?" " No, ma'am, I cannot, for I wait on the httle boy." " How, then, am I to know ?" " I'll try to find out," said the maid, "for I will ask the nurse, and she will send you Mrs. Smith's own woman." Miss Lynn waited for the lady's lady, who told her that Mrs. Smith took tea for her break- fast, but none of the eight servants attended personally upon their master and mistress; all the eatables and drinkables were taken to them by Miss Lynn's own servants. These eight idlers were English, and had accompanied Mr. Smith from England last spring. They travelled with him, apparently doing nothing but stand in the way and swell the expense. This gentleman spent two months in field-sports at Bristol, as many more at Niagara, and is on his way to Wash- ington and the Southern and Western States. Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis. April 12, 1832. — I found Mrs. Lloyd preparing for the reception of our niece, husband and child from New York. They will be accompanied by Miss Aspinwall. Some of our Eastern cousins of great respectability (Mr. and Mrs. Shaw) came to Mrs. Lloyd's while I was there, but not knowing who they were until after their depar- ture, I had not the pleasure to see them. They were accompanied by Mrs. Otis, a daughter-in-law of Harri- son Gray Otis of Boston, and daughter of a Mr. Board- man. This lady, a widow and mother of five children, and already of a certain age, has been displaying and 286 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. flirting during the winter in Philadelphia and Washing- ton, giving the tone and assuming the lead. At Mrs. Lloyd's she found fault with the rooms ; they were too small ; she must have spacious parlors ; her friends in Boston told her she must go home and build, and when she does, broad and lofty rooms will gratify her vanity. This lady-traveller inherited about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars from her father, and is, for the rest, a light-hearted woman, not destitute of wit and smartness, and has been much attended to by the fash- ionable circles of our city. She is a little of a virago too. It is said that in Boston she frequently visited on foot in the evening, always trusting to an Irish servant for protection on her return home, and of course de- clining the escort of those beaux who offered their ser- vices. Some of these were miffed at the refusal, and one evening waylaid her and her Irish squire, in order to frighten them. She, seeing a man approach saucily, turned to the servant. " John," said she, " knock that man down ;" upon which John knocked him down. This rough hint left her ever after unmolested. Dining in the Country. yjily 3, 1832. — I dined to-day with Miss Ross. She expected company, but no one came except myself The trouble of preparing a good dinner in the country, and the vexation of sitting down to it at a table without guests, are rarely considered by our city friends. I have several times got up a dinner of twelve to fourteen or eighteen covers, and not half the company, and some- PERSONAL AND SOCIETY GOSSIP. 287 times not a single person, came : a shower or dust or heat is the apology. My neighbor, Mrs. Lehman, who is eccentric, expected a party to dinner, and when the hour had passed at which her guests were to come, see- ing they did not arrive, she despatched a servant three miles to town with a written notice that the dinner was cooked, but would not be dished and served until her company came to partake of it. This notice found her city friends at their own tables, and put them all in active preparation to comply honestly with their engage- ments. In a couple of hours they reached Mrs. Leh- man's gate, where they were received with a hearty laugh, and finished the day in a right merry humor. Miss Kean. December 26, 1832. — Duncan told us a story of Miss Kean to-day. That distinguished woman is in the habit of filling up her box when she goes to the theatre by sending cards of invitation to her friends, who, how- ever, are expected to pay for the seats. She had once or twice invited Bernard Carter, who went without pay- ing, supposing the box to belong to Miss Kean. But Sally, who liked his company, but did not like to lose her money, enclosed him a ticket and requested him to come to the play and bring the representative of His Catholic Majesty with him. Carter, unable to under- stand the note, as there was no representative of Spain residing in Philadelphia, went to the house of Joseph R. Ingersoll, who resided in the neighborhood, to find out what it meant, when that gentleman told him that it was a Spanish dollar he was to take with him. 288 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. WiSTAR Parties. January ii, 1835. — The late Doctor Caspar Wistar, who was my father's family physician, and a professor in the university of pre-eminent distinction, exercised his hospitality by having once a week reunions or soi- rees (as the modern term is for evening-parties) at his house, at which all strangers suited for genteel com- pany were invited. At the death of the doctor similar parties continued to be given by several of his friends and admirers under the name of " Wistar Parties," until at length it became a generic term for evening associ- ations of gentlemen. My friend Mr. Meredith sent me a card for last evening, beautifully engraved and styled " Wistar Party," in the centre of which was a portrait of the doctor, and a pretty good likeness. He was an amiable man, fond of belles-lettres literature, and well versed in the sciences, particularly botany, and ranked at the very head of operative surgeons, of which branch he stood nearly first in the United States. So com- pletely was his mind abstracted from everything else when engaged in a difficult surgical operation that no- thing for a moment could divert his attention or any way disturb him. I remember his speaking of an am- putation he performed upon a boy twelve years old. I asked him if the boy screamed much. " I am told so," said he, " but I did not hear him." A Walking Club. October 13, 1837. — I was elected a member of a walk- ing club the other day, consisting of George Rundle, Thomas H. White, Jacob S. Wain, Condy Raguet, John PERSONAL AND SOCIETY GOSSIP. 289 M. McPherson, John C. Smith, Jacob R. Smith, Colin Campbell, John R. Coates, Francis R. Wharton, Thomas J. Wharton, Fishbourn Wharton, Samuel Breck. Most of these are old codgers, who, to use the French phrase, se projiicnent cii voiiure — that is to say, take their walks in a carriage. The whole feat required by the rules of the club is no great thing, being a walk of two miles or so, twice a year, to some tavern, where, after a good dinner, the return to town is made on foot. Even this small affair is evaded by nearly one-half the members, who take carriages out and home. Captain Marryat. September 30, 1837. — We have had here this week the celebrated novelist Captain Frederick Marryat of the British navy. I introduced his father to Charlotte his mother.* They were married in about a month after the introduction. With Captain Marryat I have exchanged visits, and have written to him, offering my civilities in any way. October 16. — I accompanied Captain Marryat round the town and neighborhood. He said Girard College promised to be as fine an edifice as he ever saw, and appeared delighted with the waterworks, which are in- deed worthy of all praise. He appears to me a frank, plain-spoken man, with some few erroneous (not many) notions, so commonly adopted by Englishmen. In his conversation there is nothing brilliant — not the slight- est indication of the fecundity of fancy so copiously set forth in his works. There is in him no ambition * See ante, p. 95. 290 PASSAGES FJWM THE NOTE-BOOKS. to shine. He observes with a quick eye everything around him, and speaks his thoughts upon what he sees with an off-hand, seaman-hke positiveness. I asked him which of his novels he preferred. He said he had no better opinion of one than of another. " Well," said I, " my favorite is jfaphct in Search of his Father, and the one I like least is Snarleyow, or, The Dog Fiend ; and my reason is that I do not like a dog for a hero." " Oh," said he, " that arose out of a bet. When at table one day with some friends, one of them remarked that the principal person of a romance ought to be handsome, young, accomplished, etc. * Not at all,' said I ; ' you may make the hero out of anything — out of that puppy in the room.' " This astonished them, and he was offered a bet that he could not do it He accepted it, and wrote the above-named novel. February 14, 1838. — Mr. Vaughan, the librarian of the Philosophical Society, and now in his eighty-third year, did me the favor to invite me to meet Captain Marryat at his chambers. He was desirous of show- ing that English officer the library and other matters belonging to that institution and now under his care. I did not get there until an hour after the time ap- pointed, because Mr. Vaughan told me, when inviting me, that he baited his hook differently for different fish, and having heard that Marryat was fond of wine, he intended to give him a bottle. I found assembled Clement C. Biddle, Condy Raguct and Henry C. Carey. When I entered Captain Marryat was holding forth with the confidence of a man accustomed to act the cock of the party. I had already made his acquaint- PERSOxYAL AND SOCIETY GOSSIP. 29 1 ance. Mr. Carey cut in rather too frequently, and talked more than his share. This I was sorry for, because I wished to hear the sailor-captain, who, let me say en passant, plied the bottle like a true son of Neptune, though not to intoxication. After telling us some stories which Raguet hinted to him came from Munchausen, he was asked by Mr. Vaughan to write his name in his album. While he was doing so I told him that I had lately found a letter from his father to me. " Oh," said he, " my father wrote a kind of shorthand that enabled him to put upon a couple of cards as much as would fill three folio pages when written out ; and as he was a member of Parliament for many years, he made the Times newspaper by taking notes in shorthand during the secret sessions that were held on the trial of Queen Caroline, and giving them to that journal to be reported to the public." " But," said I, " was not that a breach of trust, a be- traying of the secrets of Parliament ?" " What the devil did he care for that ?" cried the captain. " Very well," said Mr. Biddle, " this is a fine doctrine for a British Tory ! but what would you say if one of us republicans should do as your father did ?" This poser was laughed off, and the conversation changed to the relative temperance of the English and Americans, when this John Bull captain pronounced us a drunken people. " And as to religion," said he, " you fear man more than God ; you go to church because public opinion makes it necessaiy, but as all of you are think- 292 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. ing of nothing but dollars and cents during week-days, you must have your heads full of Mammon on Sundays at church." " But," said I, " will not this apply more to your countrymen than to ours, for the plain reason of the greater difficulty of getting a livelihood in England (excepting for the higher classes) than among us, where of course less anxiety exists in proportion to the supe- rior facility we possess of providing for ourselves and families ?" " That makes no odds," said he. " The English are a moral people — perhaps more so than religious — and you here possess our virtues in a degree, and our vices aggravated by the disadvantage of your climate." Our amiable and venerable host, being rather deaf, took part very little in the conversation ; and while Marryat was putting at least a bottle of Mr. Vaughan's excellent sherry under his jacket, drinking on when the others had ceased, he paid no attention to him until at length we began to move, when Mr. Vaughan, taking a candle, led the way to a side room in which are deposited a fine collection of minerals and a most curious cabinet of Mexican antiquities, presented to the society by Mr. Poinsett, who was American minister to that republic several years. " Why, what are you going to do ?" asked Manyat with impatience. " Why," said Vaughan, " I wish you to look at the things in this room ;" and as he spoke he opened the door. I alone went in with the captain, and I own I was disgusted at the rudeness of this rough sailor. PERSONAL AND SOCIETY GOSSIP. 293 When Mr. Vaughan told him what the cases contained, " I see, I see," cried he ; " what will you give me to arrange them for you ?" " Sir," said the good and respectable old gentleman, " the sight of these rare antiquities may gratify you if you will look at them by daylight." " No doubt, no doubt," said he, turning on his heel and walking out of the room. "Very curious, I suppose, when you take them out of their paper covers ; but we must go now." And here, at the top of the stairs, Mr. Raguet and I left him. On our way home we concluded that it was not worth while to court the friendship or waste time in showing attention to stran- gers from Europe, who, even when endowed with the faculty of observation, are, in their passage through the United States, almost to a man, if English, a parcel of offensive smellfunguses, too prejudiced to see clearly, too supercilious to acknowledge the good they see, and too disgustingly insolent in telling us of what they do not like. Captain Marryat informed us that his opinion of us should be registered in his book about us.* Dallas and his Snuff-Box. August 19, 1838. — George M. Dallas, a hot-headed politician who sacrificed consistency and country to party, as was shown in his dastardly conduct on the United States Bank question, is now minister to St. Petersburg. Before he sailed his cronies gave him a * Captain Mariyat certainly kept his word, and the reader curious in such matters will find his reflections upon the museums of Philadelphia on p. 29 of vol. I. of A Diary in America, with Remarks on its In- stitutions. 294 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. dinner. During the repast a barrister named Brewster proposed to the company to present their guest with a gold snuff-box. There seemed some hesitation about it, which amounted to a refusal. Upon this Brewster drew from his waistcoat pocket a gold box and ad- dressed the company thus : " I hold in my hand, gen- tlemen, the token of friendship designed for Mr. Dallas. Here it is of pure gold, with a suitable inscription, and here is the bill of cost, amounting to seventy-five cents a piece for this company ; and let me see which of you dare be mean enough to slink from this contribution!" This Brewster is a rough, plain-spoken man, possessed of more Democratic brass than polished education ; for, although a lawyer in pretty extensive business, his plead- ings are in the language neither of good society nor of good grammar. CHAPTER IV. MANNERS AND CHANGES. Coal-Fires in Pennsylvania. December ^, 1807. — This morning I rode to Philadel- phia and purchased a newly-invented iron grate calcu- lated for coal, in which I mean to use that fuel if it an- swers my expectations. Wood is enormously dear, and my farm does not afford me any. December 26. — By my experiment on coal fuel I find that one fireplace will burn from three to three and a half bushels per week in hard weather, and about two and a half in moderate weather. This averages three bushels for twenty-five weeks, the period of burning fires in parlors. Three times twenty-five gives seventy- five bushels for a single hearth, which at forty-five cents is thirty-three dollars and seventy-five cents — more than equal to six cords of oak wood at five dollars and fifty cents, and is by consequence no economy ; but at thirty-three cents per bushel, which is the usual summer price, it will do very well. Experience with Servants. December 22, 1807. — I wrote a note to Mr. Vaughan, who has heretofore been in the habit of dining on Christ- mas Day with Mrs. Ross, requesting him not to go this year, as that lady could not receive him for want of ser- 296 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. vants. This is a crying evil, which most families feel very sensibly at present. The vast quantity of unculti- vated lands, the general prosperity and unexampled increase of our cities, unite to scatter the menial citizens and to make it extremely difficult to be suited with de- cent servants. I have in the course of ten or twelve years' housekeeping had a strange variety, amongst which I have heard of one being hung, of one that hung himself, of one that died drunk in the road, and of an- other that swallowed poison in a fit of intoxication. Those that form my present household have lived with me from one to three years, and are pretty tolerable. April 23, 1 8 10. — A little girl named Kitty Brown was brought to Mrs. Breck to attend our little daughter Lucy. In conversing upon terms the mother gave an instance of the extreme pride of the common people of this country. Her husband is a drunken fellow, and her dwelling the veriest hovel in the country ; yet she rose with anger to declare that she did not mean to force her child upon us, although she afterward con- fessed little Kitty had but one shift, one petticoat, and no shoes or stockings. This proud dame was taking away her child from good quarters, three shillings a week, and not yet eleven years old ! So badly off are we for servants, however, that I became the solicitor. August I, 1817. — Being a long time dissatisfied with some of my servants, I went on board the ship John from Amsterdam, lately arrived with four hundred pas- sengers, to see if I could find one for Mrs. Ross and two for myself I saw the remains of a very fine cargo, consisting of healthy, good-looking men, women and MANNERS AND CHANGES. 297 children, and I purchased one German Swiss for Mrs. Ross and two French Swiss for myself My two ser- vants came from Lausanne in Switzerland, and, having descended the Rhine in April, are at length landed in this happy, free and fine country. I gave for the woman seventy-six dollars, which is her passage-money, with a promise of twenty dollars at the end of three years if she serves me faithfully ; clothing and maintenance of course. The boy had paid twenty-six guilders to- ward his passage-money, which I have agreed to give him at the end of three years ; in addition to which I paid fifty-three dollars and sixty cents for his passage, and for two years he is to have six weeks' schooling each year. Whether they will be worth anything is a lottery, for the choice of strangers in this way is truly a leap in the dark. August 23. — I visited three of the passenger-ships again this morning, and brought away from one of them the girl I engaged a few days ago for Mrs. Ross, with whom I left her. Some tears were shed between her and her young friends at parting. Since I am upon the subject of these poor emigrants, I will mention a story related to me to-day, for the truth of which I will not vouch until I hear it confirmed at the office where it is said to have taken place. I was told that a gentleman of fortune went on board one of these ships to purchase the time of a girl. He was shown one, and afterward her father was pointed out to him. On conversing with the old man the pur- chaser was strongly pressed to take him along with the girl, which the gentleman agreed to do. " Well, now," 298 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. said the old man, " here is my old wife ; take her like- wise." There was something attractive in their coun- tenances, and he consented to buy both the old people. They went together to the register's office, and when they gave in their names the gentleman was astonished to find them spelt and pronounced like his own. Some inquiries followed, and it ended in a discovery that the old redemptioners were the father and mother of the rich purchaser. They recollected that a son of theirs about six years old was taken to America by a gentle- man of fortune, but they never dreamed of seeing him in so high a station of life ; nay, they had nearly for- gotten him. They, however, recollected the mark of a cucumber on one of his shoulders, and the story goes that the newly-found son was stripped in the office and the mark exhibited to the delighted parents. August 16, 1820. — Mrs. Breck discharged a servant- girl to-day for fibbing and mischief-making. She has been nearly three years in my family, and has contrived, artfully enough, to quarrel with and occasion the dis- missal of four or five of her fellow-servants. But what makes me take any notice of this woman is that she, like many others who have served in my house these last twenty-five years, came to us almost naked, and must have seen hard times without profiting by the lessons of adversity ; for no sooner was she entitled to receive a few dollars than she squandered them in finery instead of buying necessaries. In this manner she has gone on until this day, bedecking herself in merino shawls, chip bonnets, etc., without laying up fifteen dollars, although she has received from one MANNERS AND CHANGES. 299 dollar and a half to one dollar and a quarter wages per week. Mrs. Breck informs me that when she took up about eleven dollars which were due to her in June last, she told her that she was bare of necessary cloth- ing ; yet with this modicum for her all, she went to town and bought some satin to trim her bonnet in the style of that of a young lady who was on a visit to me ; a gilt clasp that must have cost three dollars, a parasol that came to perhaps four more, a set of tortoise-shell combs, and some other trash ; so that she brought home of real necessaries nothing but one poor shift ! If this girl gets out of a place or becomes sick, she will not have enough to support herself one month. This is a faithful picture of the wasteful and disgraceful ex- travagance of nine-tenths of the servants, male and female, for the last thirty years. April 19, 1822. — In these United States nothing would be wanting to make life perfectly happy (humanly speaking) had we good servants. But so easy is a live- lihood obtained that fickleness, drunkenness, and not infrequently insolence, mark the character of our do- mestics. In my family, consisting of nine or ten persons, the greatest abundance is provided ; commonly seventy pounds of fresh butcher's meat, poultry and fish a week, and when I have company nearly twice as much ; the best and kindest treatment is given to the servants ; they are seldom visited by Mrs. Breck, and then always in a spirit of courtesy ; their wages are the highest going, and uniformly paid to them when asked for ; yet dur- ing the last twelve months we have had seven different cooks and five different waiters. One leaves me because 300 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. there is not enough to do, another because there is too much ; a third quarrels with a fourth ; a fifth gets drunk and absents herself for a week ; in short, they are the most provoking compounds of folly, turpitude, ingrati- tude and idleness that can possibly be conceived by any one who has not lived in America. With the wages which they receive they can, if prudent and constant, lay up money enough in two or three years to buy a handsome tract of new land. I pay, for instance, to my cook one dollar and fifty cents, and chambermaid one dollar and twenty-five cents per week ; to my gardener eleven dollars per month ; to the waiter ten dollars ; to the farm-sei-vant ten dollars, etc. etc. Now, if they remain steady (with meat three times a day) for three or four years, they can lay by enough to purchase two or three hundred acres of new land, for their clothing does not (or at least ought not) cost them above twenty dollars per annum, so cheap are cottons of our own manufac- ture and of the manufacture of Great Britain. It must be noted that flour is only about seven dollars per barrel of one hundred and ninety-six pounds, and has been, for the last two years, down to four and four dollars and fifty cents, so that the foregoing wages, compared with the price of these articles of first necessity, are very high. Labor and Wages, January 20, 1808. — I called at the house of a mason who lived in this neighborhood last year to hire himself and his two boys to assist in filling my ice-house. This man I found unemployed, sitting idle and in full dress, MANNERS AND CHANGES. 3OI yet he would not consent to work for me these short days for less than a dollar per day for himself and hands, to be found also in board, whiskey and lodging — a strong proof of the extravagance of our laboring classes. I turned from him in disgust. November 2, 18 14. — I have, in conjunction with three or four gentlemen of the township, assumed the trouble of collecting and distributing a small charity appropria- ted by the donors to the support or relief of the wives and connexions of the militia of Blockley, now in camp. The other day I was called to assist a woman, the wife of a soldier, who had lately been brought to bed. She was represented to me as totally destitute and quite an object for alms. I visited her, and instead of this ex- treme distress found her in every respect comfortable, with all the necessary provisions for herself and nurse, the latter of whom handed me a glass of wine. This is a picture of the poor of this country. If they do not get sugar, coffee, tea and many other luxuries, they think themselves reduced to the utmost distress. So in wages : the earnings of house-servants are paid at such high rates that the women clothe themselves as expen- sively as their mistresses, and when the enormous rise in all articles of first necessity compels housekeepers to reduce their wages, these thoughtless, vain and improv- ident creatures cry out that their clothing augments in price with everything else, and refuse to hire at dimin- ished wages. Thrifty Blacks. December 1 1, 1807. — Walking along the wharves with my father, we saw a very fine ship of about 250 tons 302 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS burden under weigh for sea : on inquiring the owner's name, we were informed that she belonged to a black merchant, and that she was navigated by a black cap- tain, officers and crew. The merchant is called Captain Cuffy. It was a novel sight, and greatly excited our surprise. September 22, 1822. — When in town the other day I met with rather a singular circumstance, considering the abject state in which the blacks are held in these United States. A negro man named Forten accosted me in the street by offering his hand to me, which (knowing his respectability) I accepted, when he told me that at my late election to Congress he had taken fifteen white men to vote for me. " In my sail-loft," said he (for he is a sailmaker), " I have thirty persons at work, and among them are twenty-two journeymen, fifteen of whom are white, the rest colored. All the white men went to the polls and voted for you." It is very uncommon in America to see colored men, as they are called, conducting business upon a large scale, and, notwithstanding the laws of Pennsylvania do not forbid it, no blacks vote at elections, at least in the eastern part of the State. By our constitution this degraded and, I am sorry to say in the region of Pennsylvania, dissipated race are allowed to give their suffrages at all elections, provided they pay the legal taxes ; yet, owing to custom, prejudice or design, they never presume to approach the hustings. Neither are they taxed nor summoned upon juries or at militia musters. MANNERS AND CHANGES. 303 DiVINING-RoDS. September 15, 1820. — I took the boat at nine o'clock to pay a visit to Mr. Caspar Morris, who Hves on the opposite bank of the river, and as my spring has lost much of its force, I intended to ask Mr. Morris whether he knew how to recover it. Before I had an opportu- nity of making the inquiry he invited me to look at his spring and see how he was managing to recruit the lost waters. As he led the way to the milk-house, he told me that he had applied to Mr. Alexander Wilson, a Quaker preacher, who had the gift of finding waters with a divining-rod, and that that gentleman had been with him and most successfully exercised his faculty, which consists in taking a twig of plum, pear or peach tree, or even willow, and holding it to the ground. When water is near the surface the twig is strongly attracted toward it, and bends with force sufficient to break itself or blister the hands of the person holding it. If the water happen to be in front, the rod bends that way : if in the rear, it strikes against the body of the holder and indicates the course of the subterranean stream. By the aid of this divining-rod Mr. Wilson pointed out to Mr. Morris the sources of the current and the spot where he should dig. I witnessed the correctness of Mr. Wilson's opinion, and saw an abundant supply three feet from the surface. Mr. Wilson cannot account for the action of the rod when in his hands, whilst it re- mains perfectly immovable in the hands of every ungifted person. Dr. Franklin used to say that one individual in about ten thousand had an extraordinary supply of electric fluid in his system ; and as the water-diviners 304 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. hold the rod to their breasts, it is perhaps by the agen- cy of this electric matter that the water attracts the rod, A Governor's* Style. December g, 1833 (at Harrisburg). — Called at the governor's house; knocked two or three times, but no servant came ; at last the door was attended — by whom? By General McKean, the Secretary of the Commonwealth and Senator elect to the United States Senate ! Is not this waiving ceremony and showing the simplicity of republican manners ? The general intro- duced me to the governor's room. I was received very cordially, for I had voted for his friend McKean. My business with the governor was to learn from him whether he had collected any facts in regard to edu- cation and proxies, two items in his message which were referred to two committees of which I was chair- man. I was surprised to learn from him that in regard to the first he had never thought of any system of general education, although so often the theme of his public messages ; and with regard to the latter, a pro- vision so important in all our charters, he appeared to be ignorant of the existing laws upon the subject. Our governors are overpaid, considering the mean way in which they live, and I have to blame myself for having added five hundred dollars a year to their salary ; for I moved in Senate in 1820, when all the salaries of the public officers were reduced, and the governor's came from the House of Representatives at three thousand * George Wolf, governor for two terms. MANNERS AND CHANGES. 305 five hundred dollars, — I moved, I say, to make it four thousand dollars. It was with the expectation that it would be expended in acts of hospitality, whereas, Heister, Shultze and Wolf have saved the greater part of it, limiting their entertainments to a drumming up of the two Houses by their secretaries one evening in a session, when the whole town and legislature are crowded into two small rooms, where some oysters and cakes are handed to those who can catch them. Governor Findlay entertained at dinner and like a gentleman, inviting his company by cards instead of the yea-and-nay list of both Houses, which are now used for that purpose by the clerks. " Will you go to the governor's to-night ?" asks the clerk, with the list of members and a pencil in his hand. " No," says one, who is marked down on the nay column. " Will you go, sir ?" he asks another, who, answering in the affirm- ative, is marked accordingly. Surely, four thousand dollars a year might afford a servant at the door. . . . The manners of our people are truly republican and wholly without pretension. The members of Assembly are sociable, kmd, good-natured, and generally well- disposed. Our chief clerk in the Senate, Mr. Buehler, is a gentleman in his appearance and demeanor, and is at once the principal innkeeper of the house where I lodge and son-in-law to the governor. This is the right sort of democracy, uniting the higher with the lower stations in society, and' raising the latter by the same respectable conduct that he sustains in the former. 306 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. Kean's Acting. May 2, 1 82 1. — Jean, Lucy and myself went to see Kean in Richard. I thought often, during the per- formance, of Mr. Lloyd's criticism of that actor in Othello. Such vaunting and extravagance I have sel- dom seen. He outraged Nature, and performed very like one of her worst journeymen. He did not appear to me to understand or feel that malignity of soul, that vindictive and authoritative malevolence of disposition, which history says Nature gave to Richard, and which his high station enabled him to display. Kean's acting was in general a course of wild and hurried gesticula- tion ; nothing calm and deliberate — half a sentence in- telligibly pronounced, the other half uttered with a volubility and nimbleness of tongue too rapid for the most attentive listener to follow. In short, we all con- cluded in our box that British taste must be wholly depraved if it seriously upholds such an actor. But there is a fashion in everything; and Mr. Kean, who has an admirer in Mrs. Garrick (a lady, if we can be- lieve report, who proclaims him the best imitator of her husband), and who has been so flatteringly received in Boston, must possess some genius and some powers. I can only say that we did not see them, although very many of the critics among the groundlings applauded vehemently. American Literature. February g, 1828. — It is delightful to contemplate the great progress of American literature. How rapid its march now, and encouraging the prospect of its future MANNERS AND CHANGES. 30/ growth ! I remember forty years ago, when all our books were imported, and we possessed absolutely no native literature. A meagre magazine was published monthly in Boston, adorned principally with conun- drums, acrostics, enigmas, etc., which were a source of puzzle and industry to all the young fellows and girls of the town. In the other cities of the Union nothing of a higher character was attempted for six or eight years after the close of the Revolutionary War. Then appeared Dobson's edition of the British EncyclopcBdia. The best engravers were employed, but what a vast difference from the works of our present artists ! At this day we have three or four quarterly reviews, two of them [North American and American Quarterly) equal in talent and editorship to the English or Scotch reviews. Besides these there issue from our press, monthly, weekly, etc., numerous literary, scientific, medical, mechanical and religious journals. Of these last it is said there are thirty-four, all well supported and edited. The daily and other newspapers are num- berless, perhaps seven or eight hundred ! We are now indeed a reading community. Mammoth Newspapers. yajiuary 14, 1841. — The size of the newspapers print- ed in the principal cities is generally large, but two or three are extravagantly so. I bought one the other day printed in New York, the price of which was twelve and a half cents, that measures one way five feet five inches, and the other way four feet two inches. It is said to contain as much matter as a close-printed octavo, 308 PASSAGES FROM THE NOTE-BOOKS. and is decorated with several handsome pictures and a piece of music. It is called Brother jfoiiathan. It has a competitor of the same size called The World, and to-day we have announced to us the appearance of an- other, called TJie Universal Yankee Nation. This mam- moth sheet comes out at Boston. The Philadelphia editor of a morning paper says that " It is not so large as the whole of the New England States, including the Aroostook country, but then it would serve as a parasol for Rhode Island," INDEX Adams, John, on Thomas Boylston, 160. Adams, John Quincy, a student at New- buryport, 119; excepts Miss Frazier from his satire, 120 ; speaks of her, 121 ; is pleased with S. B.'s vote, 122. Aerostation, 67. Allen, James, poet and brother to a sheriff, 190; a joker paid with his own jests, 191. Ames, Fisher, 177. Amory, Thomas, of Boston and London, 150. Andrews, Benjamin, pccidentally shot by his future widow's future husband, 22. Andrews, John, S. B.'s uncle, 18, 23 ; letters to William Barrell, published by the Mass. Hist. Soc'y, 24; buys the Breck mansion, 38; visited by S. B., 272 ; his age, 282. Andrews, progenitors of S. B.'s mother, 17- Anticks in Boston, 35. Arnold, Benedict, interested in the educa- tion of Warren's children, 20; mis- trusted by Judge Peters and Colonel Pickering, 215. .Atlantic passages, 51. Audubon the naturalist, 260. Balch the hatter, loS. Balloons in France in 1783, 67. Baltimore, 266; the public fountain, 266; the Roman Catholic cathedral, 1:67; the seminary for priests, 267. Barbaroux, of the Gironde, 229; fights his way to the tribunal, 230 ; at Caen, 232; joins the Breton volunteers, 234 ; at Brest, ready to sail for Bor- deaux, 23s ; tries to pass himself off as a savaut, 240 : on the point of putting an end to his miseries, 242 ; puts a sudden and mistaken end both to his misery and his happiness, 245. Baring, Alexander, and the Binghams, 201. Barlow, Joel, in Paris, 171; his experi- ence, 172. Beacon Hill in Boston, 33. Beaujolais, the duke of, in America, 247. Beaumanoir, Mile, de, a fellow-passenger with S. B., S6. Belmont, near Sweetbrier, i6. Bethman, Mr., 48, 57. Biddle, N., president of the Bank of the U. S., takes a drive with John Ran- dolph, 257. Bingham, William, and his style, 201. Binneau, a French emigre, 152. Binney, Horace, on Washington's Fare- well Address, 253. Blacks, their thriftiness, 301 ; and general reputation, 302. Blanchard the aeronaut, 68. Bonaparte, Joseph, hires Landsdowne House, 248; has a chat over cider with Farmer Bones, 248; entertains Miss Rush, 249 ; has a word to say ' about Napoleon, 249 ; his estate at Bordentown, 250 ; his return to America in 1838, 251. Booby, Captain, 123. Bordeaux, and its theatre, 57 ; corrupted by the Maratists, 238. Boston, siege of, 18; its condition in 1791, 178 ; praise of, 277. " Boston," a game at cards, 54. Bougainville, Louis Antoiiie de, 27. Bouquet, Madame, befriends the hunted Girondins and goes to the scaffold herself, 244, 245. , 309 3IO INDEX. Boylston, Thomas, a miserly and tricky uncle, 159; and disobliging and vin- dictive neighbor, 160. Boylston, Ward Nicholas, 157 ; travels in the East, 158 ; takes care of his miserly uncle, 159 ; consigns mer- chandise to S. B., 183. Brattle, Thomas, his stock of wine, and his epicurism, 30. Brack, Charles, 17. Break, George, accompanies S. B. on a journey to Washington, 264. Breck, Daniel, 17. Brack, Edward, 16. Breck, J. Lloyd, 17. Breck, Robert, 16. Breck, Samuel, Sr., 16; removes his family from Boston during the siege, 18 ; buys a house in Boston, 37 ; takes La Fayette to town meeting, 39; dines at M. de I'Etombe's, and receives a despatch which his host surreptitiously reads, 47 ; attempts the study of French, 48 ; removes to Philadelphia, 186. Breck, Samuel, his birth, 17 ; a spectator at battle of Bunker Hill, 17; makes a journey with his parents to Philadel- phia, 18 ; tarries in Taunton, where he sees Pope Day celebrated, 19 ; goes to school to Parson Payson in Chel- sea, 20; is in the dark with other people in May, 1780, 21; studies under Master Hunt, 43 ; watches a naval battle in Boston harbor, 44 ; embarks for France, 48 ; lands at Pembceuf, 52 ; proceeds to Nantes, 53 ; enjoys hospitalities there, 54 ; visits La Rochelle, 55 ; and Roche- fort, 56 ; spends a week at Bordeaux, 57; to Montauban, where he is cared for by the Chalvets ; to Toulouse, 59 ; and thence to Soreze, 60 ; where he settles himself at work, 61 ; makes a visit to the Castle de Vaudreuil, 62; takes part there in a play, 63; has a munificent allowance of pocket- money , 66 ; has a chance to be punish- ed in place of another boy, 74 ; pre- pares to leave Soreze, 77 ; is confirm- ed and receives mass, 78 ; visits Tou- louse to bid adieu to De Chalvet, 78 ; takes a journey with Dom Crozal to Paris, 79 ; takes lodgings in Paris, 79 ; has a peep at royalty, 80: dines with M. de Beaumanoir, 81 ; visits Brissot de Warville, 83 ; and Saint Sulpice, 84 ; leaves Paris for Havre, 84 ; em- barks for New York, 85 ; gives up his cabin out of politeness, 87 ; arrives at New York, 89 ; sets out for Boston, 91 ; gets into a scrape with other Boston blades, 92 ; enters the count- ing-house of Mr. Codman, 93 ; is pre- vented from interfering in a love- affair, 96; makes an excursion to Newburyport with his sister, 97; is caught in a thimderstorm and enter- tained by a descendant of some dig- nitary, 99; makes a journey to the Soiuh, 99: stays in New York, 100; visits General Knox and Passaic Falls, loi ; goes to Philadelphia, loi ; returns to New York, 102 ; visits Mrs. Jeffrey in Portsmouth, and is ashamed of his companions, 114 ; breakfasts with Mr. j\Larquand, and sees a lilde of Whitefield, 115; makes the ac- quaintance of John Quincy Adams, iig ; is invited tosail to Europe, 137 ; embarks with his friend Higginson, 138 ; is overtaken by a gale in the Irish Sea, 139 ; runs into Ramsay Bay, Isle of Man, 143; arrives at Dublin, 144; spends a week in sight seeing, 146; crosses St. George's Channel and narrowly misses an empty stom- ach, 147; has an altercation with the coaching clerk, 149 ; reaches London, and is kindly received by Mr. Thomas Amorj', 150; visits Drury Lane, 151 ; and Covent Garden, 151 ; makes friends with Mr. Binneau, 152; and renews acquaintance with Mr. Geyer, 154; sees the Lord Mayor's Show, 155; and the opening of Parliament by George IV., 156; makes his way out by a celebrated door, 157 ; goes to Bath and Bristol, 161 ; and to Paris, 162; visits the National Assembly, INDEX. 311 167; sees the royal family at their devotions, 169 ; returns to London, 172 ; sails for America, 175 ; makes a journey on Sunday at his risk, 179; goes into business, 183; speculates, 184; removes to Philadelphia, 190; encounters the yellow fever, 193 ; joins a club which is swindled, 207 ; visits Judge Peters, 214; recalls the duke of Orleans, 246 ; meets Joseph Bonaparte, 251 ; hears of burning of Washington, 253; dines with General Jackson, 255; meets Daniel Webster, 258 ; and Audubon, 260 ; visits Zerah Colburn, 261 ; makes a journey to Washington, 264; and to Boston, 271 ; is contented with his life, 2S1 ; gives a party, 2R2 ; is a solitary dinner- party himself, 2S6; is elected to a walking club, 2S8 ; entertains Cap- tain JMarryat, 289 ; hunts for ser- vants, 296; has dealings with trades- people, 300; calls on the governor, and is received without ceremony, 304 ; goes to see Kean, 306. Breck family, ancestry of the, 16. Brick, a corruption of Breck, 16. Brissot de Warville, 83 ; an acquaintance of De Valady's, 222 ; executed, 232. Bull, an Irish, 145. Bunker Hill, battle of, as seen by S. B., 17. Burke in the House of Commons, 156. Buying one's father and mother, 297. Buzot, Girondin, 232 ; separates from De Valady and other comrades, 240 ; hia end, 245. Caen, meeting-place of the Girondins, 232, 233. Campbell, Colin, 289. Carey, Henry C, 290, _9i. Carignan, Prince de, 72. Carlyle, Thomas, quoted, 223, 227, 245. Carrier and his monstrous crimes, 54, 55. Chalvet, M. de, 48 ; takes charge of S. B. on his journey to France, 48; and entertairLs him at Toulouse, 59. Charlestown, Maryland, 765. Chastellux, Marquis de, on General Knox, 209. Checkley, Rev. Mr., 42. Chevalier d' Eon, 153. Cheverus, bishop in Boston, and after- ward in Bordeaux, 117. Chew, Miss Sophia, dances with a lord, 135- Clayton, an adventurer, 207. Clinton, De Witt, death of, 255 ; explodes himself, 256. Clinton, George, takes S. B. to drive in his sulky, 18. Coal-fires in Pennsylvania, 295. Coates, John R., 289. Cobbett, William, 204 ; his conflict with Dr. Rush, 205. Codman, John, a merchant with whom S. B. was connected, 93. Colburn, Zerah, the mathematical prod- igy, 261. "Colony in Schuylkill, the," 217. Common, Boston, 38. Cooper, Dr. Samuel, 39, 46. Cooper, Captain, turned priest, 268. Corday, Charlotte, 233. Couthon in the Convention, 231. Covent Garden theatre, 151. Crevecoeur, Hector Saint-John de, 80 ; takes S. B. into society, 81 ; his character, 81 ; introduces S. B. to Biissot, 83; makes a passage with S. B., 85 ; an acquaintance of De Va- lady's, 222. Crozal, Dom, and his adventure with Quetain, 73; accompanies S. B. on a journey, 79 ; bids him adieu at Havre, 84. Cure, the benevolent, who befriended De Valady and his companions, 240. Gushing, Caleb, and Hannah Gould, 120. Cutting, John Browne, a refined swin- dler, 173; correspondent of H. G. Otis, 185. Dallas, George M., and how he came by his snuff-box, 293. Dalton, Tristram, 97; his political ca- reer, 98. Dark Day, the, 21. Despaulx, Dom, superior of the Bene- dictines at Soreze, 61, 78. 312 De Vaiidretiil, 27, 45 ; recommcRds a French education for S. B., 48; re- ceived at his castle, 62 ; his family, 62, 63; his connection with De Val- ady, 82,220; in the National Assem- bly, 167; his provision for his erratic son-in-law, 225. De Vaudreuil, the Marchioness, goes to London to bring back her reluctant son-in law, 223. Dinner-parties in the country, and their disadvantages, 286, 295, Discipline in the English and in the French navy, 125. Divining-rods, 303. Drake's (S. A.) O/d Landmarks and Historic Fields of Middlesex quoted, 3°- Drake's(S. G.) History 0/ Boston<\\!aX.^A, 16. Drinking-customs, in Ireland, 147. Drury Lane theatre, 151. Dublin visited by S. B. , 144. Duhourg, Abbe, at the seminary in Bal- timore, 267. Dufour, Dom, 170. Dupain, Dom, and the trick played on him, 74. Ears, the lack of, concealed by a wig, "3- Elktown, Maryland, 265. Eustis, Dr., Secretary of War, polite to S. B., 271. Ewing, Captain, and the French dnkes, 247. Faculty a subject for taxation, 186. Family, a long-lived, 281. Ferries between Boston and Philadelphia in 1789, 303. " Franklin," a term applied to lightning- rods, 71. Frazier, Miss, who did not marry J. Q. Adams, 120. French navy, lack of discipline in, 49, 125- French Revolution, the, 165. French ships in Boston harbor, 43. F'rogs served i la Fran^ais, 25. Gadsby, John, host of the Indian Queen, 266. Gallisonlere, La, captain in the French navy, 125. Gardes Fran^aises, 222. George IV. bows to S. B., 155. Georgetown, 269. Geyer, Frederick, gives his daughter to a stranger, 96. Geyer, Frederick William, an old ac- quaintance whom S. B. meets in London, 154. Girard, Stephen, during the yellow fever, 194. Girondists, the, 22S ; in danger, 229; ordered under arrest in the persons of their chief members, 231 ; in ren- dezvous at Caen ; overborne by the intrigues of the Mountain at Bor- deaux, 238; entirely cowed, 239. Gould, Miss Hannah, and her fencing with Caleb Gushing, 120. Governor's style, a, 304. Grattan with his face to the wall, 146. Guadet, Girondin, 232; betrays himself at Bordeaux, 238; leaves his com- rades, 240, finds shelter for them at his sister-in-law's, 244 ; dies by the guillotine, 245. Hairdresser, a, with a good memory, 164. Hall, John, an attorney of Baltimore, 266. Hall, Polly and Stikey, 107 ; Polly travels with S. B.,271. Hamilton, Alexander, before the Supreme Court, 210; reputed aathor of Wash- ington's Farewell Address, 252. Hancock, John, makes an effort at the French language, 48 ; his house, 91 ; his jokes with Balch, 108; his amia- bility, 109; his external likeness to the widow Hayley, no; raises a point of etiquette with Washington, 128; and with De Moustier, 131; his conceit, 132 ; endeavors to ptrt down plays, 182. Hayley, the widow, and her eccentricities, 109; is mistaken for Governor Han- INDEX. 313 cock, no ; marries Jeffrey, in ; lives in Portsmouth, 113 ; rewnis to Eng- land and dies, 114. Henriot sends back the president of the Convention, 230. Hichborn, Benjamin, accidentally shoots his future wife's husband, 22. HigginsoD, John, a Boston captain who takes S. B. with him to England 137; finds an Irish bull with ease 145- Holker, Mr., a fellow-passenger of S. B. 85. House of Commons visited by S. B. 156. Hunt, Master, of the Boston Latin School 43- Indian Queen, a Baltimore inn, 266. Indians, a party of, entertained by S. B., J33- Inoculation for small-pox, 19. Irish gymnastics in King's Chapel, 41. Jeffrey, Francis, in an interview with President Madison, 262. Jeffrey, who married Mrs. Hayley, in; separates from her, 114; dies at Milton, 115 ; his timely dinner-party, 176. Johnson, Mr., who built the first house in Boston, 40. Jones, John Paul, a fellow-passenger with S. B., 85. Jordan, Mrs., Drury Lane, 151. Kean, Miss, turns an honest penny at the theatre, 287. Kean the actor, 306. King's Chapel burying-ground, 40. Knox, General, Secretary of War, loi ; his popularity in society, 208. Knox, William, and his insanity, 103. Kohne, Frederick, 192. Kuhn, Dr., and Miss Peggy Markoe, 202. Labor and wages, 300. Laborde, 27. La Fayette at town-meeting in Boston, 39; aids the poor when Boston is burned, 123 ; in the National Assem- bly, 167 ; made a doctor of laws, 260. Langdon, John, governor of New Hampshire, 131. Lanjuinais of the Gironde, 229 ; speaks brave words, 230. La Perouse, the circumnavigator, 28, 73. La Rochelle, 55 ; besieged by Richelieu, 56. Latin School in Boston, 42. Legendre knocks Lanjuinais down, 230. L'Etombe, consul of France, entertained by Nathaniel Tracy, 25 ; gives a din- ner to Mr. Breck and peeps at his letter, 47. Lightning-rods and the superstition of peasants, 71. Lindsey, Captain Samuel, 124 ; patronized by Lord Hood, 126; settles in Boston ; retires to Milton and discovers short cuts in housekeeping, 126. Literature in America, 306. Lloyd, James, brother-in-law to S. B., en- tertains him, 272. Lloyd, Mrs. Hannah, sister of S. B., 18 ; takes an excursion with her brother, 97: Lord Mayor's Show in London, 155. Louvet of the Gironde, 229 ; at Caen, 232; his memoirs, 232; describes Charlotte Corday, 233; is at Brest preparing to embark for Bordeaux, 235 ; travels secretly with De Valady, Barbaroux and another, 240 ; on the pomt of putting an end to his miseries, 242 : his final escape, 245. Lynn's, Miss, boarding-house, 284. Macaulay, Mrs. Catharine, and her Maccarty, Abbe, a hanger-on in Paris, 170. Mackerel and their season, 175. McPherson, John R., 289. Madison, President, makes an uncom- fortable display before Francis Jef- frey, 262. 314 INDEX. Manners in travelling, 275. Magicienne and Sagittaire, naval encoun- ter between, in Boston harbor, 44. Marie Antoinette at church, 169. Marquand, Joseph, meddles with White- field, 115. Marryat, Frederick, 289 ; sees Philadel- phia with S. B., 289 ; his account of his novels, 290; dines at Mr. Vau- ghan's, 290; behaves like an ill-bred Englishman, 292. Marrj-at, Joseph, comes from Grenada, 95 ; falls in love with Charlotte Geyer, 95 ; carries his point and marries her, 96 ; and dies, 96. Maurey, Abbe, before the National Assembly, 167. Mesmer and animal magnetism, 70. Mifflin, Governor, 103. I\Iinot, Sam, makes bad matters worse, 92 ; retains his cliaracter at Amster- dam, 93. Mirabeau addressing; the National Assembly, 167. Monroe, James, with Madison and Jef- frey, 262. !\IontaubaM,58. Montgolfier, Stephen and John, the aeronauts, 67. Montpensier, the duke of, in America, 247. Morris, Caspar, 303. Morris, Robert, and his services, 203. Ivroustier, Comte de, and his airs, 131. Nantes, 53, 54. National Assembly of France, the, 166. Newport, Delaware, 264. Newspapers, mammoth, 307. New York as it was in 1787, 89 ; routes to Boston, 90; visited by S. B., 100; visited again, 271. Noailles, Vicomte de, 165; sprains his ankle when executing a pas, 166 ; and dies as a hero, 166 ; living in Phila- delphia during the yellow fever, 193; his ready application to business, 199. Norris, Joseph P., a fellow-passenger with S. B., 85 ; a resident of Philadelphia, 103. North church and its steeple, 41. Old South meeting-house, Boston, 42. Orleans, the duke of, proclaimed king of France, 246; his first arrival in Phila- delphia, 246 ; his manners, 247 ; his travels, 248. Otis, Harrison Gray, delivers an oration, 91 ; commands a company of light infantry, 128 ; his moderate ambition, 185. Otis, Mrs. Harrison Gray, and her inde- pendence, 285. Parker, Isaac, before he was chief-jus- tice, gi. Parsons, Theophilus, and his students, 119. Passaic Falls, loi. Payson, Samuel Phillips, a teacher in Chelsea, 20. Peters, Richard, 213; his correspondence with Timothy Pickering in the Flower affair, 214 ; his reminiscences of the Revolutionary war, 216; his jeux d'esprit, 217; his account of Washington's Farewell Address, 252 ; tells a story of La Fayette and Steuben, 260. Petion, Girondin, 232 ; joins the Breton volunteers, 234; meets De Valady and others at Brest en route for Bor- deaux, 235 ; leaves his comrades, 240 ; is brought to the rendezvous at Madame Bouquet's, 244; his un- timely end, 245. Philadelphia, journey to, 102 ; as it w.-is in 1789, 103; society in, 187; the seat of Congress, 196. Phips, Sir William, his adventures, 100. Pickering, Col. Timothy, and Judge Peters in the Flower affair, 214. Pillory and stocks in Boston, 37. Ponderez, M. de, 124 ; his surprise at republican simplicity, 130. Pope and the Devil, the, 19. Powell and his entertainments, 182. 315 QuETAiN, a pupil at Soreze, expelled, and afterward commandant in the Revo- lutionary array, 74. Quincy, Josiah, letter from, to S. B., 122. Raguet, Condy, 288; dines with Cap- tain Marryat, 290; and gives his opinion of him, 293. Railways, and the changes they have in- troduced, 274. Randolph, John, of Roanoke, 256; his petty economies, 257 ; gets his um- brella mended, 257. Revolutionary war, short supplies in, 216. Revenue reform in 1789, 94. Rucker, Mr., a fellow-passenger with S. B., 85. Rumford, Count, 119. Rundle, George, 2S8. Rush, INIiss Julia, her account of Joseph Bonaparte, 249. Saint Feriol, 64. Salles, of the Girondin, proscribed, 232 ; his end, 245. Searle and his insanity, 104. Servants in the Breck family, 105; in S. B.'s family, 107. Servants, the troublesome experience with, 295; bought on their arrival in America, 296 ; their extravagant habits, 298. Seward, Anna, quoted in description of the Chevalier d'Eon, 153. Short, William, secretary of legation at Paris, 80. Siddons, Mrs., at Covent Garden, 151. fiaves in Massachusett.s, 105. Smith, Abiel, and his wife, 191. Smith, Jacob R., 289. Smith, John C, 289. Smith, Thomas, exposes Browne Cutting, 174. Smith, Mr., and his mode of travelling in America, 284. Snowden, Mr., a Southern planter, 269; offers his mother and aunt to S. B. as travelling companions, 273. .^nyder. Governor, of Pennsylvania, in great demand, 253 ; soundly berated by S. B., 254. Soreze recommended as a school for S. B., 48; its history and situation, 60; the character of the teaching, 61 ; cheapness of education there, 64 ; its relations to the government, 65; its environs, 66 ; members of the college in Paris during the Revolution, 170. Southey, Robert, his Espriella. Letteri quoted, 223. "State in Schuylkill, The," 217. Sterne's Sentimental Journey, 163. Steuben, Baron, is afraid of being made a doctor of laws, 260. Stewart, Walking, 200. Street, names of, in Boston, changed, 32. Sullivan, James, 135; has the good for- tune to break his leg, 135; and to marry Mrs. Sullivan, 136. Sumner, W. H., his Keminiscences quoted, 19, 128. Sunday travelling, 179. Survilliers, Count, pseudonym of Joseph Bonaparte, 250. Sweetbrier, the residence of S. B., 15, 16 ; life at, 280. Talleyrand-Pbrigord, 197 ; listening to Hamilton, 210. Taylor, Thomas, the Platonist, and his over-zealous disciple De Valady, 223. Taxation in Boston in 1791, 1S6. Temple, Sir Granville, and Mrs. Russell, 86. Thayer, Abbe, a convert to Roman Cath- olicism, 84; comes to Boston, 116; opens a chapel, 117. Theatres in London and Paris, 151 ; in Boston, 182. Thompson, Sir Benjamin, 119. Toulouse, 59. Town-meeting in Boston, 39. Tracy, John, brother to Nathaniel, 29. Tracy, Nathaniel, gives a dinner to the officers of the French squadron, 25. Travel from New York to Boston, 90 ; by sulky, 99 ; from New York to Phila- delphia, 102; in France by diligence, 163 ; in New England on Sunday, 179; by coach, 180; from Philadel- 3i6 INDEX. phia to Washington, 264 ; from Phila- delphia to Boston, 271 ; improvements in, 274. Traverse, Marquis de, 49, 52, 53 ; revisits Boston, 123. Valady, Marquis de, 62 ; narrative of his part in the French Revolution, 219 ; his early enthusiasm and marriage, 221; his flight to London, 222; is brought back by his mother-in-law, 224 ; starts for America, 225 ; but changes his mind and intends to go to Holland, 226 ; changes again and goes to Geneva, 226 ; a member of the National Convention, 228; or- dered under arrest, 231 ; flees from Paris to Caen, 232 ; joins the Breton volunteers, 234 ; hides near Del, and tries in vain to escape to America, 234 ; escapes to Brest, 235 ; sails for Bordeaux with companions, 236 ; is ready to shoot himself rather than have others shoot him, 236, 237 ; reaches Bordeaux, 238 ; flees into the country to escape the sans culottes, 239 ; is sheltered by a cure, 240 ; re- moves to a barn near by, 241 ; dares not die himself, and persuades the not unwilling Louvet and Barbaroux to spare themselves, 242 ; removes from the barn to a wood, 243 ; is sheltered by Madame Bouquet, 244 ; captured and executed, 246. Van Berkle calls on Governor Hancock, no. Van Buren, Martin, his relations to Clinton, 256. Vane's, Sir Henry, house in Boston, 41. Vaughan, Mr., librarian of the Philo- sophical Society, gives a dinner to Captain Marryat, 290, 295. Vergniaud of the Gironde, 229. Vila, Jemmy, host of the Bunch of Grapes, 122. Volney, the French traveller and writer, 198 ; his high-strung republicanism, 199. Walking-club, a, 288. Wain, Jacob S., 288. Ward, Artemas, 180. Warren, General Joseph, the children of, educated at public expense, 20. Washington, General, his headquarters in Cambridge, 30; visits Boston, 127 ; outgenerals Hancock, 119 ; his presi- dential style, 188; his Farewell Address, 252. Washington's Farewell Address, who wrote it? 252. Washington, the burning of, 253 ; visited by S. B.,269; the Capitol, 270 ; the President's house, 271. Webster, Daniel, 258 ; his gloomy prog- nostications, 259. Wharton, Fishbourne, 289. Wharton, Francis R., 289. Wharton, Thomas, 289. " Whickham," Lord, 134; is obliged to dance as badly as he can with Miss Chew, 135. Whipping-post in Boston, the, 36. White, Thomas H., 288. Whitefield as a relic, 115. Wigs and their inconvenience, 112. Willing, Thomas M., waylaid on his way to S. B.'s house, 282. Wilmington, Delaware, 264. Wilson, Alexander, a Quaker preacher and diviner of water, 303. Wimpfen, Baron, defender of Thionville, 232. Winthrop, Governor, portrait of, 278. Wislar, Doctor Caspar, and Wistar par- ties, 288. Wolf, George, governor of Pennsylvania, 304- Woodfall learning the debates which he was to report, 156. Wright, Fanny, 118. Yellow fever in Philadelphia, the, 193- Yzarn, Godefroi, marquis of Valady, 220.