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• 1 media/Peale--Belfield Farm.jpeg 2015-06-29T07:28:15-07:00 Letter I: Introduction 95 image_header 2024-02-14T09:35:56-08:00

  LETTER I.
  INTRODUCTION.
   
  WHO would have thought, that, because I received you with hospitality and kindness, you should imagine me capable of writing with propriety and perspicuity? Your gratitude misleads your judgement. The knowledge, which I acquired from your conversation, has amply repaid me for your five weeks entertainment. I gave you nothing more than what common hospitality dictated; but could any other guest have instructed me as you did? You conducted me, on the map, from one European country to another; told me many extraordinary things of our famed mother-country, of which I knew very little; of its internal navigation, agriculture, arts, manufactures, and trade: you guided me through an extensive maze, and I abundantly profited by the journey; the contrast therefore proves the debt of gratitude to be on my side. The treatment you received at my house proceeded from the warmth of my heart, and from the corresponding sensibility of my wife; what you now desire must flow from a very limited power of mind. The task requires recollection, and a variety of talents which I do not possess. It is true I can describe our American modes of farming, our manners, and peculiar customs, with some degree of propriety, because I have ever attentively studied them; but my knowledge extends no farther. And is this local and unadorned information sufficient to answer all your expectations and to satisfy your curiosity? I am surprised that, in the course of your American travels, you should not have found out persons more enlightened and better educated than I am. Your predilection excites my wonder much more than my vanity; my share of the latter being confined merely to the neatness of my rural operations.
           My father left me a few musty books, which his father brought from England with him. But what help can I draw from a library consisting mostly of Scotch divinity, the Navigation of Sir Francis Drake, the History of Queen Elizabeth, and a few miscellaneous volumes? Our minister often comes to see me, though he lives upwards of twenty miles distant. I have shewn him your letter, asked his advice, and solicited his assistance; he tells me that he hath no time to spare, for that, like the rest of us, he must till his farm, and is moreover to study what he is to say on the sabbath. My wife (and I never do any thing without consulting her) laughs, and tells me that you cannot be in earnest. "What!" says she, "James, wouldst thee pretend to send epistles to a great European man, who hath lived abundance of time in that big house called Cambridge; where, they say, that worldly learning is so abundant, that people get it only by breathing the air of the place? Wouldst not thee be ashamed to write unto a man who has never in his life done a single day’s work, no, not even felled a tree? Who hath expended the Lord knows how many years in studying stars, geometry, stones, and flies, and in reading folio books? Who hath travelled, as he told us, to the city of Rome itself! Only think of a London man going to Rome! Where is it that these English folks won’t go? One who hath seen the factory of brimstone at Suvius, and town of Pompey under ground! Wouldst thou pretend to letter it with a person who hath been to Paris, to the Alps, to Petersburgh, and who hath seen so many fine things up and down the old countries; who hath come over the great sea unto us, and hath journeyed from our New Hampshire in the East to our Charles Town in the South; who hath visited all our great cities, knows most of our famous lawyers and cunning folks; who hath conversed with very many king’s men, governors, and counselors, and yet pitches upon thee for his correspondent, as thee calls it? Surely he means to jeer thee! I am sure he does: he cannot be in a real fair earnest. James, thee must read this letter over again, paragraph by paragraph, and warily observe whether thee can’st perceive some words of jesting; something that hath more than one meaning. And now I think on it, husband, I with thee wouldst let me see his letter. Though I am but a woman, as thee mayest say, yet I understand the purport of words in good measure; for, when I was a girl, father sent us to the very best master in the precinct."—She then read it herself very attentively. Our minister was present. We listened to and weighed every syllable. We all unanimously concluded that you must have been in a sober earnest intention, as my wife calls it, and your request appeared to be candid and sincere. Then, again, on recollecting the difference between your sphere of life and mine, a new fit of astonishment seized us all!
           Our minister took the letter from my wife, and read it to himself. He made us observe the two last phrases, and we weighed the contents to the best of our abilities. The conclusion we all drew, made me resolve at last to write.—You say you want nothing of me but what lies within the reach of my experience and knowledge: this I understand very well; the difficulty is, how to collect, digest, and arrange, what I know. Next you assert, that writing letters is nothing more than talking on paper; which, I must confess, appeared to me quite a new thought.—"Well then," observed our minister, "neighbor James, as you can talk well, I am sure you must write tolerably well also; imagine, then, that Mr. F. B. is still here, and simply write down what you would say to him. Suppose the questions he will put to you in his future letters to be asked by him viva voce, as we used to call it at the college; then let your answers be conceived and expressed exactly in the same language as if he was present. This is all that he required from you, and I am sure the task is not difficult. He is your friend. Who would be ashamed to write to such a person? Although he is a man of learning and taste, yet I am sure he will read your letters with pleasure. If they be not elegant, they will smell of the woods, and be a little wild. I know your turn; they will contain some matters which he never knew before. Some people are so fond of novelty, that they will overlook many errors of language for the sake of information. We are all apt to love and admire exotics, though they may be often inferior to what we possess; and that is the reason, I imagine, why so many persons are continually going to visit Italy.—That country is the daily resort of modern travellers."
           James. I should like to know what is there to be seen so goodly and profitable, that so many should wish to visit no other country?
           Minister. I do not very well know. I fancy their object is to trace the vestiges of a once-flourishing people now extinct. There they amuse themselves in viewing the ruins of temples and other buildings which have very little affinity with those of the present age, and must therefore impart a knowledge which appears useless and trifling. I have often wondered that no skillful botanists or learned men should come over here. Methinks there would be much more real satisfaction in observing among us, the humble rudiments and embryos of societies spreading every where, the recent foundation of our towns, and the settlements of so many rural districts. I am sure that the rapidity of their growth would be more pleasing to behold than the ruins of old towers, useless aqueducts, or impending battlements.
           James. What you say, minister, seems very true. Do go on. I always love to hear you talk.
           Minister. Do not you think, neighbor James, that the mind of a good and enlightened Englishman would be more improved in remarking, throughout these provinces, the causes which render so many people happy? In delineating the unnoticed means by which we daily increase the extent of our settlements? How we convert huge forests into pleasing fields, and exhibit, through these thirteen provinces, so singular a display of easy subsistence and political felicity?
           In Italy, all the objects of contemplation, all the reveries of the traveller, must have a reference to ancient generations, and to very distant periods, clouded with the mist of ages.—Here, on the contrary, every thing is modern, peaceful, and benign. Here we have had no war to desolate our fields.* Our religion does not oppress the cultivators. We are strangers to those feudal institutions which have enslaved so many. Here nature opens her broad lap to receive the perpetual accession of new comers, and to supply them with food. I am sure I cannot be called a partial American when I say that the spectacle, afforded by these pleasing scenes, must be more entertaining, and more philosophical, than that which arises from beholding the musty ruins of Rome. Here every thing would inspire the reflecting traveler with the most philanthropic ideas. His imagination, instead of submitting to the painful and useless retrospect of revolutions, desolations, and plagues, would, on the contrary, wisely spring forward to the anticipated fields of future cultivation and improvement, to the future extent of those generations which are to replenish and embellish this boundless continent. There the half-ruined amphitheatres, and the putrid fevers of the Campania, must fill the mind with the most melancholy reflections, whilst he is seeking for the origin and the intention of those structures with which he is surrounded, and for the cause of so great a decay. Here he might contemplate the very beginnings and out-lines of human society, which can be traced no where now but in this part of the world. The rest of the earth, I am told, is in some places too full, in others half depopulated. Misguided religion, tyranny, and absurd laws, everywhere depress and afflict mankind. Here we have, in some measure, regained the ancient dignity of our species; our laws are simple and just; we are a race of cultivators; our cultivation is unrestrained, and therefore every thing is prosperous and flourishing. For my part, I had rather admire the ample barn of one of our opulent farmers, who himself felled the first tree in his plantation, and was the first founder of his settlement, than study the dimensions of the temple of Ceres. I had rather record the progressive steps of this industrious farmer, throughout all the stages of his labours and other operations, than examine how modern Italian convents can be supported without doing any thing but singing and praying.
           However confined the field of speculation might be here, the time of English travellers would not be wholly lost. The new and unexpected aspect of our extensive settlements, of our fine rivers, that great field of action every where visible, that ease, that peace, with which so many people live together, would greatly interest the observer: for, whatever difficulties there might happen in the object of their researches, that hospitality, which prevails from one end of the continent to the other, would in all parts facilitate their excursions. As it is from the surface of the ground, which we till, that we have gathered the wealth we possess, the surface of that ground is therefore the only thing that has hitherto been known. It will require the industry of subsequent ages, the energy of future generations, ere mankind here will have leisure and abilities to penetrate deep, and, in the bowels of this continent, search for the subterranean riches it no doubt contains.—Neighbour James, we want much the assistance of men of leisure and knowledge, we want eminent chemists to inform our iron masters; to teach us how to make and prepare most of the colours we use. Here we have none equal to this task. If any useful discoveries are therefore made among us, they are the effects of chance, or else arise from that restless industry which is the principal characteristic of these colonies.
           James. Oh! could I express myself as you do, my friend, I should not balance a single instant; I should rather be anxious to commence a correspondence which would do me credit.
           Minister. You can write full as well as you need, and would improve very fast. Trust to my prophecy: your letters, at least, will have the merit of coming from the edge of the great wilderness, three hundred miles from the sea, and three thousand miles over that sea: this will be no detriment to them, take my word for it. You intend one of your children for the gown, who knows but Mr. F. B. may give you some assistance when the lad comes to have concerns with the bishop. It is good for American farmers to have friends even in England. What he requires of you is but simple.—What we speak out among ourselves we call conversation, and a letter is only conversation put down in black and white.
           James. You quite persuade me. If he laughs at my awkwardness, surely he will be pleased with my ready compliance. On my part it will be well meant, be the execution what it may. I will write enough, and so let him have the trouble of sifting the good from the bad, the useful from the trifling: let him select what he may want, and reject what may not answer his purpose. After all, it is but treating Mr. F. B. now that he is in London, as I treated him when he was in America under this roof; that is, with the best things I had, given with a good intention, and the best manner I was able. "Very different, James, very different indeed," said my wife; "I like not thy comparison. Our small house and cellar, our orchard and garden, afforded what he wanted: one half of his time Mr. F. B. poor man, lived upon nothing but fruit-pies, or peaches and milk. Now these things were such as God had given us; myself and wench did the rest. We were not the creators of these victuals, we only cooked them as well and as neat as we could. The first thing, James, is to know what sort of materials thee hast within thy own self, and then, whether thee canst dish them up."—"Well, well, wife, thee art wrong for once. If I was filled with worldly vanity, thy rebuke would be timely, but thee knowest that I have but little of that. How shall I know what I am capable of till I try? Hadst thee never employed thyself in thy father’s house to learn and to practise the many branches of house-keeping that thy parents were famous for, thee wouldst have made but a sorry wife for an American farmer; thee never shouldst have been mine. I married thee not for what thee hadst, but for what thee knewest. Doest thee not observe what Mr. F. B. says beside? He tells me, that the art of writing is just like unto every other art of man; that it is acquired by habit and by perseverance." "That is singularly true," said our minister. "He, that shall write a letter every day of the week, will, on Saturday, perceive the sixth flowing from his pen much more readily than the first. I observed, when I first entered into the ministry and began to preach the word, I felt perplexed and dry; my mind was like unto a parched soil, which produced nothing, not even weeds. By the blessing of heaven, and my perseverance in study, I grew richer in thoughts, phrases, and words; I felt copious, and now I can abundantly preach from any text that occurs to my mind. So will it be with you, neighbor James; begin therefore without delay; and Mr. F. B.’s letters may be of great service to you: he will, no doubt, inform you of many things: correspondence consists in reciprocal letters. Leave off your diffidence, and I will do my best to help you whenever I have any leisure." "Well then, I am resolved," I said, "to follow your counsel: my letters shall not be sent, nor will I receive any, without reading them to you and my wife. Women are curious: they love to know their husband’s secrets. It will not be the first thing which I have submitted to your joint opinions. Whenever you come to dine with us, these shall be the last dish on the table." "Nor will they be the most unpalatable," answered the good man. "Nature has given you a tolerable share of sense, and that is one of her best gifts, let me tell you. She has given you besides some perspicuity, which qualifies you to distinguish interesting objects, a warmth of imagination which enables you to think with quickness. You often extract useful reflections from objects which present none to my mind. You have a tender and a well-meaning heart, you love description, and your pencil, assure yourself, is not a bad one for the pencil of a farmer: it seems to be held without any labour. Your mind is what we called, at Yale college, a tabula rasa, where spontaneous and strong impressions are delineated with facility. Ah, neighbor, had you received but half the education of Mr. F. B. you had been a worthy correspondent indeed. But, perhaps, you will be a more entertaining one, dressed in your simple American garb, than if you were clad in all the gowns of Cambridge. You will appear to him something like one of our wild American plants, irregularly luxuriant in its various branches, which an European scholar may probably think ill placed and useless. If our soil is not remarkable as yet for the excellence of its fruits, this exuberance is however a strong proof of fertility, which wants nothing but the progressive knowledge acquired by time to amend and correct. It is easier to retrench than it is to add. I do not mean to flatter you, neighbor James; adulation would ill become my character; you may therefore believe what your pastor says. Were I in Europe I should be tired with perpetually seeing espaliers, plashed hedges, and trees dwarfed into pigmies. Do let Mr. F. B. see on paper a few American wild cherry-trees, such as nature forms them here, in all her unconfined vigour, in all the amplitude of their extended limbs and spreading ramifications,—let him see that we are possessed with strong vegetative embryos. After all, why should not a farmer be allowed to make use of his mental faculties as well as others. Because a man works is he not to think? and, if he thinks usefully, why should not he, in his leisure hours, set down his thoughts? I have composed many a good sermon as I followed my plough. The eyes, not being then engaged on any particular object, leaves the mind free for the introduction of many useful ideas. It is not in the noisy shop of a blacksmith or of a carpenter that these studious moments can be enjoyed. It is as we silently till the ground, and muse along the odoriferous furrows of our low lands, uninterrupted either by stones or stumps. It is there that the salubrious effluvia of the earth animate our spirits, and serve to inspire us. Every other avocation of our farms are severe labours compared to this pleasing occupation. Of all the tasks, which mine imposes upon me, ploughing is the most agreeable, because I can think as I work; my mind is at leisure; my labour flows from instinct as well as that of my horses; there is no kind of difference between us in our different shares of that operation; one of them keeps the furrow; the other avoids it: at the end of my field they turn either to the right or left as they are bid, whilst I thoughtlessly hold and guide the plough, to which they are harnessed. Do therefore, neighbor, begin this correspondence, and persevere. Difficulties will vanish in proportion as you draw near them. You will be surprised at yourself by and by. When you come to look back, you will say as I often said to myself, had I been diffident I had never proceeded thus far. Would you painfully till your stony up-land and neglect the fine rich bottom which lies before your door? Had you never tried, you had never learned how to mend and make your ploughs. It will be no small pleasure to your children to tell hereafter, that their father was not only one of the most industrious farmers in the country, but one of the best writers. When you have once begun, do as when you begin breaking up your summer fallow; you never consider what remains to be done; you view only what you have ploughed. Therefore, neighbor James, take my advice: it will go well with you, I am sure it will."—"And do you really think so, Sir? Your counsel, which I have long followed, weighs much with me. I verily believe that I must write to Mr. F. B. by the first vessel."—"If thee persistest in being such a fool-hardy man," said my wife, "for God’s sake let it be kept a profound secret among us. If it were once known abroad that thee writest to a great and rich man over at London, there would be no end of the talk of the people. Some would vow that thee art going to turn author; others would pretend to foresee some great alterations in the welfare of thy family. Some would say this, some would say that. Who would wish to become the subject of public talk? Weigh this matter well before thee beginnest, James:—consider that a great deal of thy time and of thy reputation is at stake, as I may say. Wert thee to write as well as friend Edmund, whose speeches I often see in our papers, it would be the very self same thing: thee wouldst be equally accused of idleness, and vain notions not befitting thy condition. Our colonel would be often coming here to know what it is that thee canst write so much about. Some would imagine that thee wantest to become either an assembly-man or a magistrate, which God forbid, and that thee art telling the king’s men abundance of things. Instead of being well looked upon, as now, and living in peace with all the world, our neighbours would be making strange surmises: I had rather be as we are, neither better nor worse than the rest of our country folks. Thee knowest what I mean, though I should be sorry to deprive thee of any honest recreation. Therefore, as I have said before, let it be as a great secret as if it was some heinous crime. The minister, I am sure, will not divulge it: as for my part, though I am a woman, yet I know what it is to be a wife.—I would not have thee, James, pass for what the world calleth a writer; no, not for a peck of gold, as the saying is. Thy father, before thee, was a plain-dealing honest man; punctual in all things. He was one of yea and nay, of few words; all he minded was his farm and his work. I wonder from whence thee hast got this love of the pen? Had he spent his time in sending epistles to and fro, he never would have left thee this goodly plantation free from debt. All I say is in good meaning. Great people over sea may write to our town’s folks, because they have nothing else to do. These Englishmen are strange people; because they can live upon what they call bank notes, without working, they think that all the world can do the same. This goodly country never would have been tilled and cleared with these notes. I am sure when Mr. F. B. was here, he saw thee sweat and take abundance of pains. He often told me how the Americans worked a great deal harder than the home Englishmen: for there, he told us, that they have no trees to cut down, no fences to make, no negroes to buy and to clothe. And, now I think on it, when wilt thee send him those trees he bespoke? But, if they have no trees to cut down, they have gold in abundance, they say; for they rake it and scrape it from all parts far and near. I have often heard my grandfather tell how they live there by writing. By writing, they send this cargo unto us, that to the West, and the other to the East, Indies. But, James, thee knowest that it is not by writing that we shall pay the blacksmith, the minister, the weaver, the tailor, and the English shop. But, as thee art an early man, follow thine own inclinations. Thee wantest some rest, I am sure, and why shouldst thee not employ it as it may seem meet unto thee? However, let it be a great secret. How wouldst thee bear to be called, at our country meetings, the man of the pen? If this scheme of thine was once known, travellers, as they go along, would point out to our house, saying, Here liveth the scribbling farmer. Better hear them, as usual, observe, Here liveth the warm substantial family that never begrudgeth a meal of victuals or a mess of oats to any one that steps in. Look how fat and well clad their negroes are."
           Thus, Sir, have I given you an unaffected and candid detail of the conversation which determined me to accept of your invitation. I thought it necessary thus to begin, and to let you into these primary secrets, to the end that you may not hereafter reproach me with any degree of presumption. You’ll plainly see the motives which have induced me to begin, the fears which I have entertained, and the principles on which my diffidence hath been founded. I have now nothing to do but to prosecute my talk. — Remember, you are to give me my subjects, and on no other shall I write, lest you should blame me for an injudicious choice. — However incorrect my style, however inexpert my methods, however trifling my observations may hereafter appear to you, assure yourself they will all be the genuine dictates of my mind, and I hope will prove acceptable on that account. Remember that you have laid the foundation of this correspondence. You well know that I am neither a philosopher, politician, divine, or naturalist, but a simple farmer. I flatter myself, therefore, that you’ll receive my letters as conceived, not according to scientific rules, to which I am a perfect stranger, but agreeable to the spontaneous impressions which each subject may inspire. This is the only line I am able to follow: the line which nature has herself traced for me. This was the covenant which I made with you, and with which you seemed to be well pleased. Had you wanted the style of the learned, the reflections of the patriot, the discussions of the politician, the curious observations of the naturalist, the pleasing garb of the man of taste, surely you would have applied to some of those men of letters with which our cities abound. But since, on the contrary, and for what reason I know not, you wish to correspond with a cultivator of the earth, with a simple citizen, you must receive my letters for better or worse.
   

   

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  * The troubles, that lately convulsed the American colonies, had not broke out when this and some of the following letters were written.

  
   

• 1 media/Nantucket-in-the-State-of-Massachusetts-2010-8003-1200x665.jpg 2020-10-13T09:13:33-07:00 Letter IV: Description of the Island of Nantucket, with the Manners, Customs, Policy, and Trade, of the Inhabitants. 91 image_header 2024-02-28T11:26:37-08:00 NB: This Letter has not yet been emended and is currently in the early stages of being annotated.
  
  LETTER IV.
  DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLAND OF NANTUCKET, WITH THE MANNERS, CUSTOMS, POLICY, AND TRADE, OF THE INHABITANTS.
  
  THE greatest compliment that can be paid to the best of kings, to the wisest ministers, or the most patriotic rulers, is to think, that the reformation of political abuses, and the happiness of their people, are the primary objects of their attention. But, alas! how disagreeable must the work of reformation be! how dreaded the operation! for we hear of no amendment: on the contrary, the great number of European emigrants yearly coming over here, informs us, that the severity of taxes, the injustice of laws, the tyranny of the rich, and the oppressive avarice of the church, are as intolerable as ever. Will these calamities have no end? Are not the great rulers of the earth afraid of losing, by degrees, their most useful subjects? This country, providentially intended for the general asylum of the world, will flourish by the oppression of other people; they will every day become better acquainted with the happiness we enjoy, and seek for the means of transporting themselves here, in spite of all obstacles and laws. To what purpose then have so many useful books and divine maxims been transmitted to us from preceding ages? — Are they all vain, all useless? Must human nature ever be the sport of the few, and its many wounds remain unhealed? How happy are we here, in having fortunately escaped the miseries which attended our fathers! how thankful ought we to be, that they reared us in a land, where sobriety and industry never fail to meet with the most ample rewards! You have, no doubt, read several histories of this continent; yet there are a thousand facts, a thousand explanations, overlooked. Authors will certainly convey to you a geographic knowledge of this country; they will acquaint you with the areas of the several settlements, the foundations of our towns, the spirit of our different charters, &c. yet they do not sufficiently disclose the genius of the people, their various customs, their modes of agriculture, the innumerable resources which the industrious have of raising themselves to a comfortable and easy situation. Few of these writers have resided here; and those who have had not pervaded every part of the country, nor carefully examined the nature and principles of our association. It would be a task worthy a speculative genius, to enter intimately into the situation and characters of the people from Nova Scotia to West Florida; and surely history cannot possibly present any subject more pleasing to behold. Sensible how unable I am to lead you through so vast a maze, let us look attentively for some small unnoticed corner; but where shall we go in quest of such an one? Numberless settlements, each distinguished by some peculiarities, present themselves on every side; all seem to realize the most sanguine wishes that a good man could form for the happiness of his race. Here they live by fishing on the most plentiful coasts in the world; there they fell trees, by the sides of large rivers, for masts and lumber; here others convert innumerable logs into the best boards; there again others cultivate the land, rear cattle, and clear large fields. Yet I have a spot in my view, where none of these occupations are performed, which will, I hope, reward us for the trouble of inspection; but, though it is barren in its soil, insignificant in its extent, inconvenient in its situation, deprived of materials for building, it seems to have been inhabited merely to prove what mankind can do when happily governed! Here I can point out to you exertions of the most successful industry; instances of native sagacity unassisted by science; the happy fruits of a well-directed perseverance. It is always a refreshing spectacle to me, when, in my review of the various component parts of this immense whole, I observe the labours of its inhabitants singularly rewarded by nature; when I see them emerged out of their first difficulties, living with decency and ease, and conveying to their posterity that plentiful subsistence, which their fathers have so deservedly earned. But, when their posterity arises from the goodness of the climate, and fertility of the soil, I partake of their happiness it is true, yet stay but a little while with them, as they exhibit nothing but what is natural and common. On the contrary, when I meet with barren spots fertilized, grass growing where none grew before; grain gathered from fields which had hitherto produced nothing better than brambles; dwellings raised where no building materials were to be found; wealth acquired by the most uncommon means: there I pause, to dwell on the favourite object of my speculative inquiries. Willingly do I leave the former to enjoy the odoriferous furrow or their rich vallies, with anxiety repairing to the spot, where so many difficulties have been overcome; where extraordinary exertions have produced extraordinary effects, and where every natural obstacle has been removed by a vigorous industry.
           I want not to record the annals of the island of Nantucket; — its inhabitants have no annals, for they are not a race of warriors. My simple wish is, to trace them throughout their progressive steps, from their arrival here to this present hour; to enquire by what means they have raised themselves, from the most humble, the most insignificant, beginnings, to the ease and the wealth they now possess; and to give you some idea of their customs, religion, manners, policy, and mode of living.
           This happy settlement was not founded on intrusion, forcible entries, or blood, as so many others have been; it drew its origin from necessity on the one side, and from good will on the other; and, ever since, all has been a scene of uninterrupted harmony. — Neither political nor religious broils, neither disputes with the natives, nor any other contentions, have in the least agitated or disturbed its detached society. Yet the first founders knew nothing either of Lycurgus or Solon; for this settlement has not been the work of eminent men or powerful legislators, forcing nature by the accumulated labours of art. This singular establishment has been effected by means of that native industry and perseverance, common to all men, when they are protected by a government which demands but little for its protection; when they are permitted to enjoy a system of rational laws founded on perfect freedom. The mildness and humanity of such a government necessarily implies that confidence which is the source of the most arduous undertakings and permanent success. Would you believe that a sandy spot, of about twenty-three thousand acres, affording neither stones nor timber, meadows nor arable, yet can boast of a handsome town consisting of more than 500 houses, should possess above 200 sail of vessels, constantly employ upwards of 2000 seamen, feed more than 15,000 sheep, 500 cows, 200 horses, and has several citizens worth 20,000l. sterling? Yet all these facts are uncontroverted. Who would have imagined that any people should have abandoned a fruitful and extensive continent, filled with the riches which the most ample vegetation affords, replete with good soil, enamelled meadows, rich pastures, every kind of timber, and with all other materials necessary to render life happy and comfortable, to come and inhabit a little sand-bank, to which nature had refused those advantages; to dwell on a spot where there scarcely grew a shrub to announce, by the budding of its leaves, the arrival of the spring, and to warn, by their fall, the proximity of winter? Had this island been contiguous to the shores of some ancient monarchy, it would only have been occupied by a few wretched fishermen, who, oppressed by poverty, would hardly have been able to purchase or build little fishing barks; always dreading the weight of taxes, or the servitude of men of war. Instead of that boldness of speculation for which the inhabitants of this island are so remarkable, they would fearfully have confined themselves within the narrow limits of the most trifling attempts; timid in their excursions, they never could have extricated themselves from their first difficulties. This island, on the contrary, contains 5000 hardy people, who boldly derive their riches from the element that surrounds them, and have been compelled, by the sterility of the soil, to seek abroad for the means of subsistence. You must not imagine, from the recital of these facts, that they enjoyed any exclusive privileges or royal charters, or that they were nursed by particular immunities, in the infancy of their settlement. No; their freedom their skill, their probity, and perseverance, have accomplished every thing, and brought them by degrees to the rank they now hold.
           From this first sketch, I hope that my partiality to this island will be justified. Perhaps you hardly know that such an one exists in the neighbourhood of Cape Cod. What has happened here has and will happen every where else. Give mankind the full rewards of their industry, allow them to enjoy the fruit of their labour under the peaceable shade of their vines and fig-trees, leave their native activity unshackled and free, like a fair stream without dams or other obstacles; the first will fertilize the very sand on which they tread, the other exhibit a navigable river, spreading plenty and cheerfulness wherever the declivity of the ground leads it. If these people are not famous for tracing the fragrant furrow on the plain, they plough the rougher ocean, they gather from its surface, at an immense distance and with Herculean labours, the riches it affords; they go to hunt and catch that huge fish, which, by its strength and velocity, one would imagine ought to be beyond the reach of man. This island has nothing deserving of notice but its inhabitants; here you meet with neither ancient monuments, spacious halls, solemn temples nor elegant dwellings; not a citadel nor any kind of fortification, not even a battery to rend the air with its loud peals on any solemn occasion. As for their rural improvements, they are many, but all of the most simply and useful kind.
           The island of Nantucket, a map of which, drawn by Dr. James Tupper, son of the sheriff of the island, I send you inclosed, lies in latitude 41° 10’. 100 miles N. E. from Cape Cod. 27 N. from Hyanes or Barnstable, a town on the most contiguous part of the great peninsula; 21 miles W. by N. from Cape Pog, on the vineyard; 50 W. by N. from Wood’s Hole, on Elizabeth Island; 80 miles N. from Boston; 120 from Rhode-Island; 800 S. from Bermudas. A table of references to the map is added below. *  Sherborn is the only town on the island, which consists of about 530 houses, that have been framed on the main; they are lathed and plastered within, handsomely painted and boarded without; each has a cellar underneath, built with stones fetched also from the main: they are all of a similar construction and appearance; plain and entirely devoid of exterior or interior ornament. I observed but one which was built of bricks, belonging to Mr. -----, but like the rest it is unadorned. The town stands on a rising sand-bank, on the west side of the harbour, which is very safe from all winds. There are two places of worship, one for the society of Friends, the other for that of Presbyterians; and in the middle of the town, near the marketplace, stands a simple building, which is the county court-house. The town regularly ascends toward the country, and in its vicinage have several small fields and gardens, yearly manured with the dung of their cows and the soil of the streets. There are a good many cherry and peach trees planted in their streets and in many other places; the apple-tree does not thrive well, they have therefore planted but few. The island contains no mountains, yet is very uneven; and the many rising grounds and eminences, with which it is filled, have formed in the several vallies a great variety of swamps, where the Indian grass and the blue bent, peculiar to such soils, grow with tolerable luxuriancy. Some of the swamps abound with peat, which serves the poor instead of fire-wood. There are fourteen ponds on this island, all extremely useful, some lying transversely, almost across it, which greatly help to divide it into partitions for the use of their cattle; others abound with peculiar fish and sea fowls. Their streets are not paved, but this is attended with little inconvenience, as it is never crouded with country carriages; and those they have in the town are seldom made use of but in the time of coming in and before the failing of their fleets. At my first landing I was much surprized at the disagreeable smell which struck me in many parts of the town; it is caused by the whale-oil, and is unavoidable; the neatness peculiar to these people can neither remove or prevent it. There are near the wharfs a great many storehouses, where there staple commodity is deposited, as well as the innumerable materials which are always wanted to repair and fit out so many whalemen. They have three docks, each three hundred feet long, and extremely convenient; at the head of which there are ten feet of water. These docks are built like those in Boston, of logs fetched from the continent, filled with stones, and covered with sand. Between these docks and the town there is room sufficient for the landing of goods and for the passage of their numerous carts; for almost every man here has one: the wharfs, to the north and south of the docks, are built of the same materials, and give a stranger, at his first landing, a high idea of the prosperity of these people; and there is room around these three docks for 300 sail of vessels. When their fleets have been successful, the bustle and hurry of business on this spot, for some days after their arrival would make you imagine, that Sherborn is the capital of a very opulent and large province. On that point of land, which forms the west side of the harbour, stands a very neat light-house; the opposite peninsula, called Coitou, secures it from the most dangerous winds. There are but few gardens and arable fields in the neighbourhood of the town, for nothing can be more sterile and sandy than this part of the island; they have however with unwearied perseverance, by bringing a variety of manure, and by cow-penning, enriched several spots where they raise Indian corn, potatoes, pompions, turnips, &c. On the highest part of this sandy eminence, four windmills grind the grain they raise to import; and contiguous to them their rope-walk is to be seen, where full half of their cordage is manufactured. Between the shores of the harbour, the docks, and the town, there is a most excellent piece of meadow, inclosed and manured with such cost and pains as shew how necessary and precious grass is at Nantucket. Towards the point of Shemah the island is more level and the soil better; and there they have considerable lots well fenced and richly manured, where they diligently raise their yearly crops. There are but very few farms on this island, because there are but very few spots that will admit of cultivation without the assistance of dung and other manure; which is very expensive to fetch from the main. This island was patented, in the year 1671, by twenty-seven proprietors, under the province of New York; which then claimed all the islands from the Neway Sink to Cape Cod. They found it so universally barren, and so unfit for cultivation, that they mutually agreed not to divide it, as each could neither live on, nor improve, that lot which might fall to his share. They then cast their eyes on the sea, and, finding themselves obliged to become fishermen, they looked for a harbour; and, having found one, they determined to build a town in its neighbourhood and to dwell together. For that purpose they surveyed as much ground as would afford to each what is generally called here a home-lot. Forty acres were thought sufficient to answer this double purpose; for, to what end should they covet more land than they could improve, or even inclose? not being possessed of a single tree in the whole extent of their new dominion. This was all the territorial property they allotted; the rest they agreed to hold in common; and, seeing that the scanty grass of the island might feed sheep, they agreed that each proprietor should be entitled to feed on it, if he pleased, 560 sheep. By this agreement, the national flock was to consist of 15,120; that is, the undivided part of the Island was, by such means, ideally divisible into as many parts or shares; to which nevertheless no certain determinate quantity of land was affixed: for they knew not how much the island contained, nor could the most judicious surveyor fix this small quota as to quality and quantity. Farther they agreed, in case the grass should grow better by feeding, that then four sheep should represent a cow, and two cows a horse: such was the method this wise people took to enjoy in common their new settlement; such was the mode of their first establishment, which may be truly and literally called a pastoral one. Several hundred of sheep-pasture titles have since been divided on those different tracks, which are now cultivated; the rest by inheritance and intermarriages have been so subdivided, that it is very common for a girl to have no other portion but her outset and four sheep-pastures, or the privilege of feeding a cow. But, as this privilege is founded on an ideal though real title to some unknown piece of land, which one day or another may be ascertained, these sheep-pasture titles should convey to your imagination something more valuable and of greater credit than the mere advantage arising from the benefit of a cow, which in that case would be no more than a right of commonage. Whereas here, as labour grows cheaper, as misfortunes from their sea- adventures may happen, each person, possessed of a sufficient number of these sheep-pasture titles, may one day realize them on some peculiar spot, such as shall be adjudged, by the council of the proprietors, to be adequate to their value; and this is the reason that these people very unwillingly sell those small rights, and esteem them more than you would imagine. They are the representation of a future freehold, they cherish in the mind of the possessor a latent, though distant, hope, that, by his success in his next whale season, he may be able to pitch on some predilected spot, and there build himself a home, to which he may retire, and spend the latter end of his days in peace. A council of proprietors always exists in this island, who decide their territorial differences; their titles are recorded in the books of the county, which this town represents, as well as every conveyance of lands and other sales.
           This island furnishes the naturalist with few or no objects worthy observation: it appears to be the uneven summit of a sandy submarine mountain, covered here and there with sorrel, grass, a few cedar-bushes, and scrubby oaks; their swamps are much more valuable for the peat they contain than for the trifling pasture of their surface; those declining grounds which lead to the sea-shores abound with beach grass, a light fodder when cut and cured, but very good when fed green. On the east side of the island they have several tracks of salt grasses, which, being carefully fenced, yield a considerable quantity of that wholesome fodder. Among the many ponds, or lakes, with which this island abounds, there are some which have been made by the intrusion of the sea, such as Wiwidiah, the Long, the Narrow, and several others; consequently those are salt and the others fresh. The former answer two considerable purposes; first, by enabling them to fence the island with greater facility; at peculiar high tides a great number of fish enter into them, where they feed and grow large, and, at some known seasons of the year, the inhabitants assemble and cut down the small bars which the waves always throw up. By these easy means the waters of the pond are let out, and, as the fish follow their native element, the inhabitants with proper nets catch as many as they want, in their way out, without any other trouble. Those which are most common are the streaked bass, the blue fish, the tom-cod, the mackarel, the tew-tag, the herring, the flounder, eel, &c. Fishing is one of the greatest diversions the island affords. At the west end lies the harbour of Mardiket, formed by Smith Point on the south-west, by Eel Point on the north, and Tuckanut Island on the north-west; but it is neither so safe, nor has it so good anchoring ground, as that near which the towns stands. Three small creeks run into it, which yield the bitterest eels I have ever tasted. Between the lots of Palpus on the east, Barry’s Vally and Miacomet pond on the south, and the narrow pond on the west, not far from Shèmà Point, they have a considerable track of even ground, being the least sandy and the best on the island. It is divided into seven fields, one of which is planted by that part of the community which are entitled to it. This is called the common plantation, a simple but useful expedient; for, were each holder of this track to fence his property, it would require a prodigious quantity of polls and rails, which you must remember are to be purchased and fetched from the main. Instead of those private subdivisions, each man’s allotment of land is thrown into the general field, which is fenced at the expence of the parties; within it every one does, with his own portion of the ground, whatever he pleases. This apparent community saves a very material expence, a great deal of labour, and perhaps raises a sort of emulation among them, which urges every one to fertilize his share with the greatest care and attention. Thus, every seven years, the whole of this track is under cultivation, and, enriched by manure and ploughing, yields afterwards excellent pasture; to which the town-cows, amounting to 500, are daily led by the town-shepherd; and as regularly driven back in the evening. There each animal easily finds the house to which it belongs, where they are sure to be well rewarded, for the milk they give, by a present of bran, grain, or some farinaceous preparation; their economy being very great in that respect. These are commonly called Tètoukèmah lots. You must not imagine that every person on the island is either a land-holder, or concerned in rural operations; no, the greater part are at sea, busily employed in their different fisheries; others are mere strangers, who come to settle as handicrafts, mechanics, &c. and, even among the natives, few are possessed of determinate shares of land; for, engaged in sea affairs or trade, they are satisfied with possessing a few sheep-pastures, by means of which they may have perhaps one or two cows. Many have but one; for, the great number of children they have has caused such subdivisions of the original proprietorship as is sometimes puzzling to trace; and several of the most fortunate at sea have purchased and realized a great number of these original pasture titles. The best land on the island is at Palpus, remarkable for nothing but a house of entertainment. Quayes is a small but valuable track, long since purchased by Mr. Coffin, where he has erected the best house on the island. By long attention, proximity of the sea, &c. this fertile spot has been well manured and is now the garden of Nantucket. Adjoining to it, on the west side, there is a small stream, on which they have erected a fulling-mill; on the east side is the lot, known by the name of Squam, watered likewise by a small rivulet, on which stands another fulling-mill. Here is a fine loomy soil, producing excellent clover, which is mowed twice a year. These mills prepare all the cloth which is made here: you may easily suppose that, having so large a flock of sheep, they abound in wool; part of this they export, and the rest is spun by their industrious wives, and converted into substantial garments. To the south-east is a great division of the island, fenced by itself, known by the name of Siasconcèt lot. It is a very uneven track of ground, abounding with swamps; here they turn in their fat cattle, or such as they intend to stall-feed for their winter’s provisions. It is on the shores of this part of the island, near Pochick Rip, where they catch their best fish, such as sea bass, tew-tag or black fish, cod, smelt, perch, shadine, pike, &c. They have erected a few fishing-houses on this shore, as well as at Sankate’s Head, and Suffakatchè Beach, where the fishermen dwell in the fishing season. Many red cedar bushes and beach grass grow on the peninsula of Coitou; the soil is light and sandy, and serves as a receptacle for rabbits. It is here that their sheep find shelter in the snowstorms of the winter. At the north end of Nantucket, there is a long point of land, projecting far into the sea, called Sandy Point; nothing grows on it but plain grass; and this is the place whence they often catch porpoises and sharks, by a very ingenious method. On this point they commonly drive their horses in the spring of the year, in order to feed on the grass it bears, which is useless when arrived at maturity. Between that point and the main island they have a valuable salt meadow, called Croskaty, with a pond of the same name, famous for black ducks. Hence we must return to Squam, which abounds in clover and herds-grass; those who possess it follow no maritime occupation, and therefore neglect nothing that can render it fertile and profitable. The rest of the undescribed part of the island is open, and serves as a common pasture for their sheep. To the west of the island is that of Tackanuck, where, in the spring, their young cattle are driven to feet; it has a few oak bushes, and two fresh-water ponds, abounding with teals, brandts, and many other sea fowls, brought to this island by the proximity of their sand-banks and shallows; where thousands are seen feeding at low water. Here they have neither wolves nor foxes; those inhabitants therefore, who live out of town, raise with all security as much poultry as they want; their turkeys are very large and excellent. In summer this climate is extremely pleasant; they are not exposed to the scorching sun of the continent, the heats being tempered by the sea breezes, with which they are perpetually refreshed. In the winter, however, they pay severely for those advantages; it is extremely cold; the north-west wind, the tyrant of this country, after having escaped from our mountains and forests, free from all impediment in its short passage, blows with redoubled force, and renders this island bleak and uncomfortable. On the other hand, the goodness of their houses, the social hospitality of their fire-sides, and their good cheer, make them ample amends for the severity of the season; nor are the snows so deep as on the main. The necessary and unavoidable inactivity of that season, combined with the vegetative rest of nature, force mankind to suspend their toils: often at this season, more than half the inhabitants of the island are at sea, fishing in milder latitudes.
           This island, as has been already hinted, appears to be the summit of some huge sandy mountain, affording some acres of dry land for the habitation of man; other submarine ones lie to the southward of this, at different depths and different distances. This dangerous region is well known to the mariners by the name of Nantucket Shoals: these are the bulwarks which so powerfully defend this island from the impulse of the mighty ocean, and repel the force of its waves; which, but for the accumulated barriers, would ere now have dissolved its foundations, and torn it in pieces. These are the banks which afforded to the first inhabitants of Nantucket their daily subsistence, as it was from these shoals that they drew the origin of that wealth which they now possess; and it was the school where they first learned how to venture farther, as the fish of their coast receded. The shores of this island abound with the soft-shelled, the hard-shelled, and the great, sea-clams, a most nutricious shellfish. Their sands, their shallows, are covered with them; they multiply so fast, that they are a never-failing resource. These, and the great variety of fish they catch, constitute the principal food of the inhabitants. It was likewise that of the aborigines, whom the first settlers found here; the posterity of whom still live together in decent houses along the shores of Miacomet pond, on the south side of the island. They are an industrious, harmless, race, as expert and as fond of a seafaring life as their fellow inhabitants, the whites. Long before their arrival they had been engaged in petty wars against one another; the latter brought them peace, for it was in quest of peace that they abandoned the main. This island was then supposed to be under the jurisdiction of New York, as well as the islands of the Vineyard, Elizabeth’s &c. but have been since adjudged to be a part of the province of Massachuset’s Bay. This change of jurisdiction procured them that peace they wanted, and which their brethren had so long refused them in the days of their religious phrensy: thus have enthusiasm and persecution, both in Europe as well as here, been the cause of the most arduous undertakings, which have been made along these extended sea-shores. This island, having been since incorporated with the neighbouring province, is become one of its counties, known by the name of Nantucket, as well as the island of the island of the Vineyard by that of Duke’s County. They enjoy here the same municipal establishment in common with the rest; and therefore every requisite officer, such as sheriff, justice of the peace, supervisors, assessors, constables, overseers of the poor, &c. Their taxes are proportioned to those of the metropolis; they are levied, as with us, by valuations, agreed on and fixed according to the laws of the province; and by assessments formed by the assessors, who are yearly chosen by the people, and whose office obliges them to take either an oath or an affirmation. Two-thirds of the magistrates they have here are of the society of Friends.
           Before I enter into the farther detail of this people’s government, industry, mode of living, &c. I think it is necessary to give you a short sketch of the political state the natives had been in a few years preceding the arrival of the whites among them. They are hastening toward a total annihilation, and this may be, perhaps, the last compliment that will ever be paid them by any traveller. They were not extirpated by fraud, violence, or injustice, as hath been the case in so many provinces; on the contrary, they have been treated by these people as brethren; the peculiar genius of their sect inspiring them with the same spirit of moderation which was exhibited at Pennsylvania. Before the arrival of the Europeans, they lived on the fish of their shores; and it was from the same resources the first settlers were compelled to draw their first subsistence. It is uncertain whether the original right of the Earl of Sterling, or that of the Duke of York, was founded on a fair purchase of the soil or not; whatever injustice might have been committed in that respect cannot be charged to the account of those Friends, who purchased from others, who, no doubt, founded their right on Indian grants: and, if their numbers are now so decreased, it must not be attributed either to tyranny or violence, but to some of those causes, which have uninterruptedly produced the same effects from one end of the continent to the other, wherever both nations have been mixed. This insignificant spot, like the sea-shores of the great peninsula, was filled with these people; the great plenty of clams, oisters, and other fish, on which they lived, and which they easily caught, had prodigiously increased their numbers. History does not inform us what particular nation the aborigines of Nantucket were of; it is however very probable that they anciently emigrated from the opposite coast, perhaps from the Hyanneès, which is but twenty-seven miles distant. As they then spoke and still speak the Nattick, it is reasonable to suppose that they must have had some affinity with that nation; or else that the Nattick, like the Huron, in the north-western parts of this continent, must have been the most prevailing one in this region. Mr. Elliot, an eminent New England divine, and one of the first founders of that great colony, translated the Bible into this language in the year 1666, which was printed soon after at Cambridge, near Boston; he translated also the catechism, and many other useful books, which are still very common on this island, and are daily made use of by those Indians who are taught to read. The young Europeans learn it with the same facility as their own tongues; and ever after speak it both with ease and fluency. Whether the present Indians are the descendants of the ancient natives of the island, or whether they are the remains of the many different nations which once inhabited the regions of Mashpè and Nobscusset, in the peninsula now known by the name of Cape Cod, no one can positively tell, not even themselves. The last opinion seems to be that of the most sensible people of the island. So prevailing is the disposition of man to quarrel, and to shed blood; so prone is he to divisions and parties; that even the ancient natives of this little spot were separated into two communities, inveterately waging war against each other, like the more powerful tribes of the continent. What do you imagine was the cause of this national quarrel? All the coast of their island equally abounded with the same quantity of fish and clams; in that instance there could be no jealousy, no motives to anger; the country afforded them no game: one would think this ought to have been the country of harmony and peace. But behold the singular destiny of the human kind, ever inferior, in many instances, to the more certain instinct of animals; among which the individuals of the same species are always friends, though reared in different climates: they understand the same language, they shed not each other’s blood, they eat not each other’s flesh. That part of these rude people, who lived on the eastern shores of the island, had from time immemorial tried to destroy those who lived on the west; those latter, inspired with the same evil genius, had not been behind hand in retaliating: thus was a perpetual war subsisting between these people, founded on no other reason but the adventitious place of their nativity and residence. In process of time both parties became so thin and depopulated, that the few who remained, fearing left their race should become totally extinct, fortunately thought of an expedient which prevented their entire annihilation. Some years before the Europeans came, they mutually agreed to settle a partition line, which should divide the island from north to south; the people of the west agreed not to kill those of the east, except they were found transgressing over the western part of the line; those of the last entered into a reciprocal agreement. By these simple means peace was established among them, and this is the only record which seems to entitle them to the denomination of men. This happy settlement put a stop to their sanguinary depredations; none fell afterward but a few rash imprudent individuals; on the contrary, they multiplied greatly. But another misfortune awaited them; when the Europeans came, they caught the small-pox, and their improper treatment of that disorder swept away great numbers: this calamity was succeeded by the use of rum; and these are the two principal causes which so much diminished their numbers, not only here but all over the continent. In some places whole nations have disappeared. Some years ago, three Indian canoes, on their return to Detroit from the falls of Niagara, unluckily got the small-pox from the Europeans with whom they had traded. It broke out near the long point on lake Erie; there they all perished; their canoes, and their goods, were afterwards found by some travellers journeying the same way; their dogs were yet alive. Besides the small-pox, and the use of spirituous liquors, the two greatest curses they have received from us, there is a sort of physical antipathy, which is equally powerful from one end of the continent to the other. Wherever they happen to be mixed, or even to live in the neighbourhood of the Europeans, they became exposed to a variety of accidents and misfortunes to which they always fall victims: such are particular fevers, to which they were strangers before, and sinking into a singular sort of indolence and sloth. This has been invariably the case wherever the same association has taken place; as at Nattick, Mashpe, Soccanoket in the bounds of Falmouth, Nobscusset, Houratonick, Monhauset, and the Vineyard. Even the Mohawks themselves, who were once so populous and such renowned warriors, are now reduced to less than 200 since the European settlements have circumscribed the territories which their ancestors had reserved. Three years before the arrival of the Europeans at Cape Cod, a frightful distemper had swept away a great many along its coasts, which made the landing and intrusion of our forefathers much easier than it otherwise might have been. In the year 1763, above half of the Indians of this island perished by a strange fever, which the Europeans who nursed them never caught; they appear to be a race doomed to recede and disappear before the superior genius of the Europeans. The only ancient custom of these people that is remembered is, that, in their mutual exchanges, forty sun-dried clams, strung on a string, passed for the value of what might be called a copper. They were strangers to the use and value of wampum, so well known to those of the main. The few families now remaining are meek and harmless; their ancient ferocity is gone: they were early christianized by the New-England missionaries, as well as those of the Vineyard, and of several other parts of the Massachusets; and to this day they remain strict observers of the laws and customs of that religion, being carefully taught while young. Their sedentary life has led them to this degree of civilization much more effectually than if they had still remained hunters. They are fond of the sea, and expert mariners. They have learned from the Quakers the art of catching both the cod and whale; in consequence of which, five of them always make part of the complement of men requisite to fit out a whale-boat. Many have removed hither from the Vineyard on which account they are more numerous in Nantucket than any where else.
           It is strange what revolution has happened among them in less than two hundred years! What is become of those numerous tribes which formerly inhabited the extensive shores of the great Bay of Massachuset? even from Numkeag, (Salem,) Saugus, (Lynn,) Shawmut, (Boston,) Pataxet, Napouset, (Milton,) Matapan, (Dorchester,) Winèsimèt, (Chelsea,) Poïasset, Pokànoket, (New Plymouth,) Suecanosset, (Falmouth,) Titicut, (Chatham,) Nobscusset, (Yarmouth,) Naussit, (Eartham,) Hyanneès, (Barnstaple,) &c. and many others who lived on sea-shores of above three hundred miles in length; without mentioning those powerful tribes which once dwelt between the rivers Hudson, Connecticut, Piskàtaqua, and Kènnebèck, the Mèhikaudret, Mohiguine, Pèquods, Narragansets, Nianticks, Massachusets, Wamponougs, Nipnets, Tarrarnteens, &c. —They are gone, and every memorial of them is lost; no vestiges whatever are left of those swarms which once inhabited this country, and replenished both sides of the great peninsula of Cape Cod: not even one of the posterity of the famous Masconomèo is left (the sachem of Cape Ann); not one of the descendants of Massasoit, father of Mètacomèt, (Philip,) and Wamsutta, (Alexander,) he who first conveyed some lands to the Plymouth Company. They have all disappeared either in the wars which the Europeans carried on against them, or else they have mouldered away, gathered in some of their ancient towns, in contempt and oblivion: nothing remains of them all, but one extraordinary monument, and even this they owe to the industry and religious zeal of the Europeans, I mean the Bible, translated into the Nattick tongue. Many of these tribes, giving way to the superior power of the whites, retired to their ancient villages, collecting the scattered remains of nations once populous; and, in their grant of lands, reserved to themselves and posterity certain portions, which lay contiguous to them. There, forgetting their ancient manners, they dwelt in peace; in a few years their territories were surrounded by the improvements of the Europeans; in consequence of which they grew lazy, inactive, unwilling, and unapt, to imitate or to follow any of our trades, and, in a few generations, either totally perished or else came over to the Vineyard, or to this island, to reunite themselves with such societies of their countrymen as would receive them. Such has been the fate of many nations, once warlike and independent; what we see now on the main, or on those islands, may be justly considered as the only remains of those ancient tribes: might I be permitted to pay, perhaps, a very useless compliment to those at least who inhabit the great peninsula of Namset, now Cape Cod, with whose names and ancient situation I am well acquainted. This peninsula was divided into great regions; that on the side of the bay was known by the name of Nobscusset, from one of its towns; the capital was called Nausit (now Eastham); hence the Indians of that region were called Nausit Indians, though they dwelt in the villages of Pamet, Nosset, Pasheèe, Potomaket, Soktoowoket, Nobscusset, (Yarmouth).
           The region on the Atlantic side was called Mashpee, and contained the tribes of Hyannèes, Costowet, Waquoit, Scootin, Saconasset, Mashpee, and Namset. Several of these Indian towns have been since converted into flourishing European settlements, known by different names; for, as the natives were excellent judges of land, which they had fertilized besides with the shells of their fish, &c. the latter could not make a better choice; though in general this great peninsula is but a sandy pine track, a few good spots excepted. It is divided into seven townships, viz. Barnstable, Yarmouth, Harwich, Chatham, Eastham, Pamet, Namset, or Province-town, at the extremity of the Cape, Yet these are very populous, though I am at a loss to conceive on what the inhabitants live, besides clams, oisters, and fish; their piny lands being the most ungrateful soil in the world. The minister of Namset, or Province-town, receives from the government of Massachuset a salary of fifty pounds per annum; and, such is the poverty of the inhabitants of that place, that, unable to pay him any money, each matter of a family is obliged to allow him two hundred horse feet, (sea spin,) with which this primitive priest fertilizes the land of his glebe, which he tills himself: for nothing will grow on these hungry soils without the assistance of this extraordinary manure, fourteen bushels of Indian corn being looked upon as a good crop. But it is time to return from a digression, which I hope you will pardon. Nantucket is a great nursery of seamen, pilots, coasters, and bank-fishermen; as a country belonging to the province of Massachusets, it has yearly the benefit of a court of Common Pleas, and their appeal lies to the supreme court at Boston. I observed before, that the Friends compose two-thirds of the magistracy of this island; thus they are the proprietors of its territory, and the principal rulers of its inhabitants; but, with all this apparatus of law, its coercive powers are seldom wanted or required. Seldom is it that any individual is amerced or punished; their jail conveys no terror; no man has lost his life here judicially since the foundation of this town, which is upwards of a hundred years. Solemn tribunals, public executions, humiliating punishments, are altogether unknown. I saw neither governors, nor any pegeantry of state; neither ostentatious magistrates, nor any individuals clothed with useless dignity: no artificial phantoms subsist here, either civil or religious; no gibbets loaded with guilty citizens offer themselves to your view; no soldiers are appointed to bayonet their compatriots into servile compliance. But how is a society composed of 5000 individuals preserved in the bonds of peace and tranquillity? How are the weak protected from the strong? I will tell you. Idleness and poverty, the causes of so many crimes, are unknown here; each seeks, in the prosecution of his lawful business, that honest gain which supports them; every period of their time is full, either on shore or at sea. A probable expectation of reasonable profits, or of kindly assistance, if they fail of success, renders them strangers to licentious expedients. The simplicity of their manners shortens the catalogue of their wants; the law at a distance is ever ready to exert itself in the protection of those who stand in need of its assistance. The greatest part of them are always at sea, pursuing the whale, or raising the cod from the surface of the banks; some cultivate their little farms with the utmost diligence; some are employed in exercising various trades; others again in providing every necessary resource in order to refit their vessels or repair what misfortunes may happen, looking out for future markets, &c. Such is the rotation of those different scenes of business which fill the measure of their days, of that part of their lives, at least, which is en-livened by health, spirits, and vigour. It is but seldom that vice grows on a barren sand like this, which produces nothing without extreme labour. How could the common follies of society take root in so despicable a soil? they generally thrive on its exuberant juices; here there are none but those which administer to the useful, to the necessary, and to the indispensable, comforts of life. This land must necessarily either produce health, temperance, and a great equality of conditions, or the most abject misery. Could the manners of luxurious countries be imported here, like an epidemical disorder they would destroy every thing; the majority of them could not exist a month, they would be obliged to emigrate. As in all societies, except that of the natives, some difference must necessarily exist between individual and individual, (for there must be some more exalted than the rest either by their riches or their talents,) so in this, there are what you might call the high, the middling, and the low; and this difference will always be more remarkable among people who live by sea-excursions than among those who live by the cultivation of their land. The first run greater hazard, and adventure more; the profits and the misfortunes attending this mode of life must necessarily introduce a greater disparity than among the latter, where the equal division of the land offers no short road to superior riches. The only difference that may arise among them is that of industry, and perhaps of superior goodness of soil: the gradations, I observed here, are founded on nothing more than the good or ill success of their maritime enterprises, and do not proceed from education; that is the same throughout every class; simple, useful, and unadorned, like their dress and their houses. This necessary difference in their fortunes does not however cause those heart-burnings, which in other societies generate crimes. The sea, which surrounds them, is equally open to all, and presents to all an equal title to the chance of good fortune. A collector from Boston is the only king’s officer who appears on these shores to receive the trifling duties which this community owe to those who protect them, and under the shadow of whose wings they navigate to all parts of the world.
  
  
  
  *References to the Map of Nantucket
  1 Point Coitou.
  2 Brand-Point, on which stands the light-house.
  3 Eel-Point.
  4 Smith-Point.
  5 Bitter Eels Creek.
  6 Siasconcet-Track
  7 Sandy-Point.
  8 The town, docks, and wharfs.
  9 Shoal-water Lagoon, which supplies the inhabitants with oisters.
  10 The Track of Crosskaty.
  11 Squam.
  12 Long Pond.
  13 The Washing-Pond.
  14 Miacomet-Pond
  15 The Bar, nine feet water.
  16 Tètoukèmah Lots.
  17 The Narrow Pond.
  18 Quays, a valuable track of land.
  19 Sheep-Pasture.
  20 The track called Palpus.
  21 The fishing-houses of Siasconcet.
  22 Sussacacher Pond.
  23 Crosskaty Pond, full of black ducks.
  24 East Pond, famous for brants.
  25 The North Pond.
  26 Tuckanuck Island.
  27 South Side Beach.
  28 Matacut Harbour.
  Kapan high Sand Cliffs.
  30 The Cliffs.
  31 New Town Meadow.
  32 Tominè Head, a high ground.
  
   
• 1 media/West--The Treaty of Penn with the Indians.jpg 2017-10-27T13:22:20-07:00 Letter XII: Distresses of a Frontier-Man 58 image_header 2024-02-28T11:32:28-08:00 NB: This Letter has not yet been emended and is currently in the early stages of being annotated.
  
  LETTER XII.
  DISTRESSES OF A FRONTIER MAN.
  
  I WISH for a change of place; the hour is come at last that I must fly from my house and abandon my farm! But, what course shall I steer, inclosed as I am? The climate, best adapted to my present situation and humour, would be the polar regions, where six months day and six months night divide the dull year: nay, a simple Aurora Borealis would suffice me, and greatly refresh my eyes, fatigued now by so many disagreeable objects. The severity of those climates, that great gloom, where melancholy dwells, would be perfectly analagous to the turn of my mind. Oh! could I remove my plantation to the shores of the Oby, willingly would I dwell in the hut of a Samoyede; with cheerfulness would I go and bury myself in the cavern of a Laplander. Could I but carry my family along with me, I would winter at Pello or Tobolsky, in order to enjoy the peace and innocence of that country. But, let me arrive under the pole, or reach the antipodes, I never can leave behind me the remembrance of the dreadful scenes to which I have been witness; therefore never can I be happy! Happy! why would I mention that sweet, that enchanting, word? Once happiness was our portion; now it is gone from us, and I am afraid not to be enjoyed again by the present generation. Which ever way I look, nothing but the most frightful precipices present themselves to my view, in which hundreds of my friends and acquaintances have already perished: of all animals, that live on the surface of this planet, what is man when no longer connected with society; or when he finds himself surrounded by a convulsed and a half-dissolved one? He cannot live in solitude, he must belong to some community, bound by some ties, however imperfect. Men mutually support and add to the boldness and confidence of each other; the weakness of each is strengthened by the force of the whole. I had never, before these calamitous times, formed any such ideas; I lived on, laboured, and prospered, without having ever studied on what the security of my life and the foundation of my prosperity were established. I perceived them just as they left me. Never was a situation so singularly terrible as mine, in every possible respect; as a member of an extensive society, as a citizen of an inferior division of the same society, as a husband, as a father, as a man who exquisitely feels for the miseries of others as well as for his own! But, alas! so much is every thing now subverted among us, that the very word misery, with which we were hardly acquainted before, no longer conveys the same ideas; or rather, tired with feeling for the miseries of others, every one feels now for himself alone. When I consider myself as connected in all these characters, as bound by so many cords, all uniting in my heart, I am seised with a fever of the mind, I am transported beyond that degree of calmness which is necessary to delineate our thoughts. I feel as if my reason wanted to leave me, as if it would burst its poor weak tenement: again I try to compose myself, I grow cool, and, preconceiving the dreadful loss, I endeavour to retain the useful guest.
           You know the position of our settlement; I need not therefore describe it. To the west it is inclosed by a chain of mountains, reaching to ----; to the east, the country is as yet but thinly inhabited; we are almost insulated, and the houses are at a considerable distance from each other. From the mountains we have but too much reason to expect our dreadful enemy; the wilderness is a harbour where it is impossible to find them. It is a door through which they can enter our country whenever they please; and, as they seem determined to destroy the whole chain of frontiers, our fate cannot be far distant: from Lake Champlain, almost all has been conflagrated one after another. What renders these incursions still more terrible is, that they most commonly take place in the dead of the night. We never go to our fields but we are with an involuntary fear, which lessens our strength and weakens our labour. No other subject of conversation intervenes between the different accounts, which spread through the country, of successive acts of devastation; and these, told in chimney-corners, swell themselves, in our affrighted imaginations, into the most terrific ideas! We never sit down, either to dinner or supper, but the least noise immediately spreads a general alarm, and prevents us from enjoying the comfort of our meals. The very appetite, proceeding from labour and peace of mind, is gone: we eat just enough to keep us alive: our sleep is disturbed by the most frightful dreams: sometimes I start awake, as if the great hour of danger was come; at other times the howling of our dogs seems to announce the arrival of our enemy: we leap out of bed and run to arms: my poor wife, with panting bosom and silent tears, takes leave of me, as if we were to see each other no more; she snatches the youngest children from their beds, who, suddenly awakened, increase, by their innocent questions, the horror of the dreadful moment. She tries to hide them in the cellar, as if our cellar was inaccessible to the fire. I place all my servants at the windows and myself at the door, where I have determined to perish. Fear industriously increases every sound; we all listen; each communicates to the other his ideas and conjectures. We remain thus sometimes for whole hours, our hearts and our minds racked by the most anxious suspense: what a dreadful situation, a thousand times worse than that of a soldier engaged in the midst of the most severe conflict! Sometimes, feeling the spontaneous courage of a man, I seem to wish for the decisive minute; the next instant a message from my wife, sent by one of the children, puzzling me beside with their little questions, unmans me: away goes my courage, and I descend again into the deepest despondency. At last, finding that it was a false alarm, we return once more to our beds; but what good can the kind sleep of nature do to us when interrupted by such scenes! Securely placed as you are, you can have no idea of our agitations but by hear-say: no relation can be equal to what we suffer and to what we feel. Every morning my youngest children are sure to have frightful dreams to relate: in vain I exert my authority to keep them silent; it is not in my power; and these images of their disturbed imagination, instead of being frivolously looked upon as in the days of our happiness, are, on the contrary, considered as warnings and sure prognostics of our future fate. I am not a superstitious man, but, since our misfortunes, I am grown more timid, and less disposed to treat the doctrine of omens with contempt.
           Though these evils have been gradual, yet they do not become habitual like other incidental evils. The nearer I view the end of this catastrophe, the more I shudder. But why should I trouble you with such unconnected accounts? Men, secure and out of danger, are soon fatigued with mournful details. Can you enter with me into fellowship with all these afflictive sensations? Have you a tear ready to shed over the approaching ruin of a once opulent and substantial family? Read this, I pray, with the eyes of sympathy; with a tender sorrow pity the lot of those whom you once called your friends; who were once surrounded with plenty, ease, and perfect security; but who now expect every night to be their last, and who are as wretched as criminals under an impending sentence of the law!
           As a member of a large society, which extends to many parts of the world, my connection with it is too distant to be as strong as that which binds me to the inferior division, in the midst of which I live. I am told that the great nation, of which we are a part, is just, wise, and free, beyond any other on earth, within its own insular boundaries, but not always so to its distant conquests. I shall not repeat all I have heard, because I cannot believe half of it. As a citizen of a smaller society, I find that any kind of opposition to its now-prevailing sentiments immediately begets hatred. How easily do men pass from loving to hating and cursing one another! I am a lover of peace, what must I do? I am divided between the respect I feel for the ancient connection and the fear of innovations, with the consequence of which I am not well acquainted, as they are embraced by my own countrymen. I am conscious that I was happy before this unfortunate revolution. I feel that I am no longer so; therefore I regret the change. This is the only mode of reasoning adapted to persons in my situation. If I attach myself to the mother-country, which is 3000 miles from me, I become what is called an enemy to my own region; if I follow the rest of my countrymen I become opposed to our ancient masters: both extremes appear equally dangerous to a person of so little weight and consequence as I am, whose energy and example are of no avail. As to the argument, on which the dispute is founded, I know little about it. Much has been said and written on both sides, but who has a judgement capacious and clear enough to decide? The great moving principles which actuate both parties are much hidden from vulgar eyes like mine: nothing but the plausible and the probable are offered to our contemplation. The innocent class are always the victims of the few: they are, in all countries and at all times, the inferior agents, on which the popular phantom is erected; they clamour, and must toil, and bleed, and are always sure of meeting with oppression and rebuke. It is for the sake of the great leaders, on both sides, that so much blood must be spilt; that of the people is counted as nothing. Great events are not achieved for us, though it is by us that they are principally accomplished; by the arms, the sweat, the lives, of the people. Books tell me so much that they inform me of nothing. Sophistry, the bane of freemen, launches forth in all her deceiving attire! After all, most men reason from passions; and shall such an ignorant individual as I am decide, and say this side is right, that side is wrong? Sentiment and feeling are the only guides I know. Alas, how should I unravel an argument in which reason herself has given way to brutality and bloodshed! What then must I do? I ask the wisest lawyers, the ablest casuists, the warmest patriots, for I mean honestly. Great Source of wisdom! Inspire me with light sufficient to guide my benighted steps out of this intricate maze! Shall I discard all my ancient principles, shall I renounce that name, that nation, which I held once so respectable? I feel the powerful attraction. The sentiments they inspired grew with my earliest knowledge, and were grafted upon the first rudiments of my education. On the other hand, shall I arm myself against that country where I first drew breath, against the play-mates of my youth, my bosom-friends, my acquaintance? — the idea makes me shudder! Must I be called a patricide, a traitor, a villain; lose the esteem of all those whom I love to preserve my own; be shunned like a rattlesnake, or be pointed at like a bear? I have neither heroism nor magnanimity enough to make so great a sacrifice. Here I am tied, I am fastened, by numerous strings, nor do I repine at the pressure they cause. Ignorant as I am, I can pervade the utmost extent of the calamities which have already overtaken our poor afflicted country. I can see the great and accumulated ruin yet extending itself as far as the theatre of war has reached: I hear the groans of thousands of families now ruined and desolated by our aggressors. I cannot count the multitude of orphans this war has made, nor ascertain the immensity of blood we have
  lost. Some have asked whether it was a crime to resist, to repel, some parts of this evil. Others have asserted, that a resistance so general makes pardon unattainable and repentance useless, and dividing the crime among so many renders it imperceptible. What one party calls meritorious, the other denominates flagitious. These opinions vary, contract, or expand, like the events of the war on which they are founded. What can an insignificant man do in the midst of these jarring contradictory parties, equally hostile to persons situated as I am? And, after all, who will be the real guilty?—Those most certainly who fail of success. Our fate, the fate of thousands, is then necessarily involved in the dark wheel of fortune. Why then so many useless reasonings? We are the sport of fate. Farewel, education, principles, love of our country, farewell; all are become useless to the generality of us. He, who governs himself according to what he calls his principles, may be punished, either by one party or the other, for those very principles. He who proceeds without principle, as chance timidity, or self-preservation, directs, will not perhaps fare better, but he will be less blamed. What are we in the great scale of events, we poor defenceless frontier-inhabitants? What is it to the gazing world whether we breathe or whether we die? whatever virtue, whatever merit and disinterestedness, we may exhibit in our secluded retreats, of what avail? We are like the pismires destroyed by the plough, whose destruction prevents not the future crop. Self-preservation, therefore, the rule of nature, seems to be the bed rule of conduct. What good can we do by vain resistance, by useless efforts? The cool, the distant, spectator, placed in safety, may arraign me for ingratitude, may bring forth the principles of Solon or Montesquieu; he may look on me as wilfully guilty; he may call me by the most opprobrious names. Secure from personal danger, his warm imagination, undisturbed by the least agitation of the heart, will expatiate freely on this grand question, and will consider this extended field but as exhibiting the double scene of attack and defence. To him the object becomes abstracted; the intermediate glares, the perspective distance, and a variety of opinions unimpaired by affections, present to his mind but one set of ideas. Here he proclaims the high guilt of the one, and there the right of the other: but let him come and reside with us one single month; let him pass with us through all the successive hours of necessary toil, terror, and affright; let him watch with us, his musket in his hand, through tedious, sleepless, nights, his imagination furrowed by the keen chissel of every passion; let his wife and his children become exposed to the most dreadful hazards of death; let the existence of his property depend on a single spark, blown by the breath of an enemy; let him tremble with us in our fields, shudder at the rustling of every leaf; let his heart, the seat of the most affecting passions, be powerfully wrung by hearing the melancholy end of his relations and friends; let him trace on the map the progress of these desolations; let his alarmed imagination predict to him the night, the dreadful night, when it may be his turn to perish as so many have perished before! observe then, whether the man will not get the better of the citizen, whether his political maxims will not vanish! Yes, he will cease to glow so warmly with the glory of the metropolis; all his wishes will be turned toward the preservation of his family. Oh! were he situated where I am; were his house perpetually filled, as mine is, with miserable victims just escaped from the flames and the scalping-knife, telling of barbarities and murders, that make human nature tremble! his situation would suspend every political reflection, and expel every abstract idea. My heart is full, and involuntarily takes hold of any notion whence it can receive ideal ease or relief. I am informed that the king has the most numerous, as well as the fairest, progeny of children, of any potentate now in the world: he may be a great king, but he must feel as we common mortals in the good wishes he forms for their lives and prosperity. His mind, no doubt, often springs forward on the wings of anticipation, and contemplates us as happily settled in the world. If a poor frontier-inhabitant may be allowed to suppose this great personage, the first in our system, to be exposed, but for one hour, to the exquisite pangs we so often feel, would not the preservation of so numerous a family engross all his thoughts; would not the ideas of dominion, and other felicities attendant on royalty, all vanish in the hour of danger? The regal character, however sacred, would be superseded by the stronger, because more natural, one of man and father. Oh! did he but know circumstances of this horrid war, I am sure he would put a stop to that long destruction of parents and children. I am sure that, while he turned his ears to state-policy, he would attentively listen also to the dictates of Nature, that great parent; for, as a good king, he, no doubt, wishes to create, to spare, and to protect, as she does. Must I then, in order to be called a faithful subject, coolly and philosophically say, it is necessary, for the good of Britain, that my childrens brains should be dashed against the walls of the house in which they were reared; that my wife should be stabbed and scalped before my face; that I should be either murdered or captivated; or that, for greater expedition, we should all be locked up and burnt to ashes as the family of the B----n was? Must I with meekness wait for that last pitch of desolation, and receive, with perfect resignation, so hard a fate from ruffians, acting at such a distance from the eyes of any superior; monsters, left to the wild impulses of the wildest nature? Could the lions of Africa be transported here and let loose, they would, no doubt, kill us in order to prey upon our carcasses; but their appetites would not require so many victims. Shall I wait to be punished with death, or else to be stripped of all food and raiment, reduced to despair without redress and without hope? Shall those, who may escape, see every thing they hold dear destroyed and gone? Shall those few survivors, lurking in some obscure corner, deplore in vain the fate of their families, mourn over parents, either captivated, butchered, or burnt; roam among our wilds, and wait for death at the foot of some tree, without a murmur, or without a sigh, for the good of the cause? No, it is impossible! so astonishing a sacrifice is not to be expected from human nature; it must belong to beings of an inferior or superior order, actuated by less or by more refined principles. Even those great personages who are so far elevated above the common ranks of men, those, I mean, who wield and direct so many thunders; those who have let loose against us these demons of war; could they be transported here, and metamorphosed into simple planters as we are, they would, from being the arbiters of human destiny, sink into miserable victims; they would feel and exclaim as we do, and be as much at a loss what line of conduct to prosecute. Do you well comprehend the difficulties of our situation? If we stay, we are sure to perish at one time or another; no vigilance on our part can save us: if we retire, we know not where to go; every house is filled with refugees as wretched as ourselves: and, if we remove, we become beggars. The property of farmers is not like that of merchants; and absolute poverty is worse than death. If we take up arms, to defend ourselves; we are dominated rebels; should we not be rebels against nature, could we be shamefully passive? Shall we then, like martyrs, glory in an allegiance, now become useless, and voluntarily expose ourselves to a species of desolation, which, though it ruin us entirely, yet enriches not our ancient masters? By this inflexible and sullen attachment, we shall be despised by our countrymen, and destroyed by our ancient friends; whatever we may say, whatever merit we may claim, will not shelter us from those indiscriminate blows, given by hired banditti, animated by all those passions which urge men to shed the blood of others; how bitter the thought! On the contrary, blows, received by the hands of those from whom we expected protection, extinguish ancient respect and urge us to self-defence—perhaps to revenge; this is the path which Nature herself points out as well to the civilized as to the uncivilized. The Creator of hearts has himself stamped on them those propensities at their first formation; and must we then daily receive this treatment from a power once so loved? The fox flies or deceives the hounds that pursue him; the bear, when overtaken, boldly resists and attacks them; the hen, the very timid hen, fights for the preservation of her chicken, nor does she decline to attack, and to meet on the wing, even the swift kite. Shall man then, provided both with instinct and reason, unmoved, unconcerned, and passive, see his subsistence consumed, and his progeny either ravished from him or murdered? Shall fictitious reason extinguish the unerring impulse of instinct? No; my former respect, my former attachment, vanishes with my safety; that respect and attachment were purchased by protection, and it has ceased. Could not the great nation we belong to have accomplished her designs by means of her numerous armies, by means of those fleets which cover the ocean? Must those who are masters of two-thirds of the trade of the world; who have in their hands the power which almighty gold can give; who possess a species of wealth that increases with their desires; must, they establish their conquest with our insignificant innocent blood!
           Must I then bid farewel to Britain, to that renowned country? Must I renounce a name so ancient and so venerable? Alas! she herself, that once-indulgent parent, forces me to take up arms against her. She herself first inspired the most unhappy citizens of our remote districts with the thoughts of shedding the blood of those whom they used to call by the name of friends and brethren. That great nation, which now convulses the world; which hardly knows the extent of her Indian kingdoms; which looks toward the universal monarchy of trade, of industry, of riches, of power: why must she strew our poor frontiers with the carcasses of her friends, with the wrecks of our insignificant villages, in which there is no gold? When, oppressed by painful recollection, I revolve all these scattered ideas in my mind; when I contemplate my situation, and the thousand streams of evil with which I am surrounded; when I descend into the particular tendency even of the remedy I have proposed, I am convulsed — convulsed sometimes to that degree as to be tempted to exclaim — Why has the Master of the world permitted so much indiscriminate evil throughout every part of this poor planet, at all times, and among all kinds of people? It ought surely to be the punishment of the wicked only. I bring that cup to my lips, of which I must soon taste, and shudder at its bitterness. What then is life, I ask myself, is it a gracious gift? No, it is too bitter; a gift means something valuable conferred, but life appears to be a mere accident, and of the worst kind: we are born to be victims of diseases and passions, of mischances and death: better not to be than to be miserable. — Thus impiously I roam, I fly from one erratic thought to another, and my mind, irritated by these acrimonious reflections, is ready sometimes to lead me to dangerous extremes of violence. When I recollect that I am a father and a husband, the return of these endearing ideas strikes deep into my heart. Alas! they once made it glow with pleasure and with every ravishing exultation; but now they fill it with sorrow. At other times, my wife industriously rouses me out of these dreadful meditations, and soothes me by all the reasoning she is mistress of; but her endeavours only serve to make me more miserable, by reflecting that she must share with me all these calamities, the bare apprehensions of which, I am afraid, will subvert her reason. Nor can I, with patience, think that a beloved wife, my faithful helpmate throughout all my rural schemes, the principal hand which as assisted me in rearing the prosperous fabric of ease and independence I lately possessed, as well as my children, those tenants of my heart, should daily and nightly be exposed to such a cruel fate. Self-preservation is above all political precepts and rules, and even superior to the dearest opinions of our minds; a reasonable accommodation of ourselves, to the various exigencies of the times in which we live, is the most irresistible precept. To this great evil I must seek some sort of remedy adapted to remove or to palliate it. Situated as I am, what steps should I take that will neither injure nor insult any of the parties, and at the same time save my family from that certain destruction which awaits it if I remain here much longer? Could I insure them bread, safety, and subsistence; not the bread of idleness, but that earned by proper labour as heretofore; could this be accomplished by the sacrifice of my life, I would willingly give it up. I attest before heaven, that it is only for these I would wish to live and toil; for these whom I have brought into this miserable existence. I resemble, methinks, one of the stones of a ruined arch, still retaining that pristine form which anciently fitted the place I occupied, but the centre is tumbled down; I can be nothing until I am replaced, either in the former circle, or in some stronger one. I see one on a smaller scale, and at a considerable distance, but it is within my power to reach it; and, since I have ceased to consider myself as a member of the ancient state, now convulsed, I willingly descend into an inferior one. I will revert into a state approaching nearer to that of nature, unencumbered either with voluminous laws or contradictory codes, often galling the very necks of those whom they protect, and, at the same time, sufficiently remote from the brutality of unconnected savage nature. Do you, my friend, perceive the path I have found out? It is that which leads to the tenants of the great—village of —, where, far removed from the accursed neighbourhood of Europeans, its inhabitants live with more ease, decency, and peace, than you imagine; who, though governed by no laws, yet find, in uncontaminated simple manners, all that laws can afford. Their system is sufficiently complete to answer all the primary wants of man, and to constitute him a social being, such as he ought to be in the great forest of nature. There it is that I have resolved at any rate to transport myself and family: an eccentric thought, as you may say, thus to cut asunder all former connections, and to form new ones with a people whom nature has stamped with such different characteristics! But, as the happiness of my family is the only object of my wishes, I care very little where we are, or where we go, provided that we are safe and all united together. Our new calamities, being shared equally by all, will become lighter; our mutual affection for each other will, in this great transmutation, become the strongest link of our new society, will afford us every joy we can receive on a foreign soil, and preserve us in unity, as the gravity and coherency of matter prevent the world from dissolution. Blame me not; it would be cruel in you; it would beside be entirely useless; for, when you receive this, we shall be on the wing. When we think all hopes are gone, must we, like poor pusillanimous wretches, despair and die? No. I perceive before me a few resources, though through many dangers, which I will explain to you hereafter. It is not, believe me, a disappointed ambition which leads me to take this step; it is the bitterness of my situation, it is the impossibility of knowing what better measure to adopt. My education fitted me for nothing more than the most simple occupation of life: I am but a feller of trees, a cultivator of lands, the most honourable title an American can have. I have no exploits, no discoveries, no inventions, to boast of; I have cleared about 370 acres of land, some for the plough, some for the scythe; and this has occupied many years of my life. I have never possessed, or wish to possess, any thing more than what could be earned or produced by the united industry of my family. I wanted nothing more than to live at home independent and tranquil, and to teach my children how to provide the means of a future ample subsistence, founded on labour, like that of their father. This is the career of life I have pursued, and that which I had marked out for them, and for which they seemed to be so well calculated by their inclinations and by their constitutions. But, now these pleasing expectations are gone, we must abandon the accumulated industry of nineteen years, we must fly we hardly know whither, through the most impervious paths, and become members of a new and strange community. O virtue! Is this all the reward thou hast to confer on thy votaries? Either thou art only a chimera, or thou art a timid useless being; soon affrighted, when ambition, thy great adversary, dictates, when are re-echoes the dreadful sounds, and poor helpless individuals are mowed down by its cruel reapers like useless grass. I have at all times generously relieved what few distressed people I have met with; I have encouraged the industrious; my house has always been opened to travellers; I have not lost a month in illness since I have been a man; I have caused upwards of a hundred and twenty families to remove hither. Many of them I have led by the hand in the days of their first trial; distant as I am from any places of worship or school of education, I have been the pastor of my family, and the teacher of many of my neighbours. I have taught them, as well as I could, the gratitude they owe to God, the Father of harvests; and their duties to man: I have been an useful subject; ever obedient to the laws, ever vigilant to see them respected and observed. My wife hath faithfully followed the same line within her province; no woman was ever a better economist, or spun or wove better linen; yet we must perish, perish like wild beasts, included within a ring of fire!
           Yes, I will cheerfully embrace that resource, it is a holy inspiration: by night and by day it presents itself to my mind: I have carefully revolved the scheme; I have considered, in all its future effects and tendencies, the new mode of living we must pursue, without salt, without spices, without linen, and with little other clothing; the art of hunting we must acquire, the new manners we must adopt, the new language we must speak; the dangers attending the education of my children we must endure. These changes may appear more terrific at a distance, perhaps, than when grown familiar by practice: what is it to us, whether we eat well made pastry, or pounded àlagrichés; well-roasted beef, or smoked venison; cabbages, or squashes? Whether we wear neat homespun, or good beaver: whether we sleep on featherbeds, or on bear-skins? The difference is not worth attending to. The difficulty of the language, the fear of some great intoxication among the Indians; finally, the apprehension left my younger children should be caught by that singular charm, so dangerous at their tender years, are the only considerations that startle me. By what power does it come to pass, that children, who have been adopted when young among these people, can never be prevailed on to re-adopt European manners? Many an anxious parent have I seen last war, who, at the return of the peace, went to the Indian villages where they knew their children had been carried in captivity; when, to their inexpressible sorrow, they found them so perfectly Indianifed, that many knew them no longer; and those, whose more advanced ages permitted them to recollect their fathers and mothers, absolutely refused to follow them, and ran to their adoptive parents for protection against the effusions of love their unhappy real parents lavished on them. Incredible as this may appear, I have heard it asserted in a thousand instances, among persons of credit. In the village of—, where I purpose to go, there lived, about fifteen years ago, an Englishman and a Swede, whose history would appear moving had I time to relate it. They were grown to the age of men when they were taken; they happily escaped the great punishment of war-captives, and were obliged to marry the Squaws who had saved their lives by adoption. By the force of habit, they become at last thoroughly naturalised to this wild course of life. While I was there, their friends sent them a considerable sum of money to ransom themselves with. The Indians, their old masters, gave them their choice, and, without requiring any confederation, told them, that they had been long as free as themselves. They chose to remain; and the reasons they gave me would greatly surprise you: the most perfect freedom, the ease of living, the absence of those cares and corroding solicitudes which so often prevail with us; the peculiar goodness of the soil they cultivated, for they did not trust altogether to hunting; all these, and many more motives, which I have forgot, made them prefer that life, of which we entertain such dreadful opinions. It cannot be, therefore, so bad as we generally conceive it to be; there must be in their social bond something singularly captivating, and far superior to any thing to be boasted of among us; for thousands of Europeans are Indians, and we have no examples of even one of those Aborigines having from choice become Europeans! There must be something more congenial to our native dispositions than the fictitious society in which we live; or else why should children, and even grown persons, become in a short time so invincibly attached to it? There must be something very bewitching in their manners, something very indelible, and marked by the very hands of nature. For, take a young Indian lad, give him the bed: education you possibly can, load him with your bounty, with presents, nay with riches; yet he will secretly long for his native woods, which you would imagine he must have long since forgot; and, on the first opportunity he can possibly find, you will see him voluntarily leave behind all you have given him, and return with inexpressible joy to lie on the mats of his fathers. Mr. —, some years ago, received from a good old Indian, who died in his house, a young lad of nine years of age, his grandson. He kindly educated him with his children, and bestowed on him the same care and attention in respect to the memory of his venerable grandfather, who was a worthy man. He intended to give him a genteel trade; but in the spring season, when all the family went to the woods to make their maple sugar, he suddenly disappeared; and it was not until seventeen months after that his benefactor heard he had reached the village of Bald-Eagle, where he still dwelt. Let us say what we will of them, of their inferior organs, of their want of bread, &c. they are as stout and well-made as the Europeans. Without temples, without priests, without kings, and without laws, they are in many instances superior to us; and the proofs of what I advance are, that they live without care, deep without inquietude, take life as it comes, bearing all its asperities with unparalleled patience, and die without any kind of apprehension for what they have done or for what they expect to meet with hereafter. What system of philosophy can give us so many necessary qualifications for happiness? They most certainly are much more closely connected with nature than we are; they are her immediate children; the inhabitants of the woods are her undented offspring; those of the plains are her degenerated breed, far, very far, removed from her primitive laws, from her original design. It is therefore resolved on. I will either die in the attempt or succeed; better perish all together in one fatal hour than to suffer what we daily endure. I do not expect to enjoy, in the village of —, an uninterrupted happiness; it cannot be our lot let us live where we will; I am not founding my future prosperity on golden dreams. Place mankind where you will, they must always have adverse circumstances to struggle with; from nature, accidents, constitution; from seasons; from that great combination of mischances which perpetually leads us to diseases, to poverty, &c. Who knows but I may meet, in this new situation, some accident, whence may spring up new sources of unexpected prosperity? Who can be presumptuous enough to predict all the good? Who can foresee all the evils which strew the paths of our lives? But, after all, I cannot but recollect what sacrifice I am going to make, what amputation I am going to suffer, what transition I am going to experience. Pardon my repetitions, my wild, my trifling, reflections, they proceed from the agitations of my mind and the fulness of my heart; the action of thus retracing them seems to lighten the burthen, and to exhilarate my spirits; this is, besides, the lad letter you will receive from me; I would fain tell you all, though I hardly know how. Oh! in the hours, in the moments of my greatest anguish, could I intuitively represent to you that variety of thought which crouds on my mind, you would have reason to be surprized, and to doubt of their possibility. Shall we ever meet again? If we should, where will it be? On the wild shores of —. If it be my doom to end my days there, I will greatly improve them; and perhaps make room for a few more families, who will choose to retire from the fury of a storm, the agitated billows of which will yet roar for many years on our extended shores. Perhaps I may repossess my house, if it be not burnt down; but how will my improvements look? why, half-defaced, bearing the strong marks of abandonment, and of the ravages of war. However, at present I give every thing over for lost; I will bid a long farewel to what I leave behind. If ever I repossess it, I shall receive it as a gift, as a reward for my conduct and fortitude. Do not imagine, however, that I am a stoic; by no means: I must, on the contrary, confess to you, that I feel the keenest regret at abandoning a house which I have in some measure reared with my own hands. Yes, perhaps I may never revisit those fields which I have cleared, those trees which I have planted, those meadows which, in my youth, were a hideous wilderness, now converted by my industry into rich pastures and pleasant lawns. If in Europe it is praise-worthy to be attached to paternal inheritances, how much more natural, how much more powerful, must the tie be with us, who, if I may be permitted the expression, are the founders, the creators, of our own farms. When I see my table surrounded with my blooming offspring, all united in the bonds of the strongest affection, it kindles in my paternal heart a variety of tumultuous sentiments, which none but a father and a husband in my situation can feel or describe. Perhaps I may see my wife, my children, often distressed, involuntarily recalling to their minds the ease and abundance which they enjoyed under the paternal roof. Perhaps I may see them want that bread which I now leave behind; overtaken by diseases and penury, rendered more bitter by the recollection of former days of opulence and plenty. Perhaps I may be assailed on every side by unforeseen accidents, which I shall not be able to prevent or to alleviate. Can I contemplate such images without the most unutterable emotions? My fate is determined; but I have not determined it, you may assure yourself, without having undergone the most painful conflicts of a variety of passions; — interest, love of ease, disappointed views, and pleasing expectations frustrated; — I shuddered at the review! Would to God I was master of the stoical tranquillity of that magnanimous sect; oh! that I were possessed of those sublime lessons which Apollonius of Chalcis gave to the emperor Antoninus! I could then with much more propriety guide the helm of my little bark, which is soon to be freighted with all that I possess most dear on earth, through this stormy passage to a safe harbour; and, when there, become, to my fellow-passengers, a surer guide, a brighter example, a pattern more worthy of imitation, throughout all the new scenes they must pass and the new career they must traverse. I have observed, notwithstanding, the means hitherto made use of to arm the principal nations against our frontiers: Yet they have not, they will not take up the hatchet against a people who have done them no harm. The passions, necessary to urge these people to war, cannot be roused, they cannot feel the flings of vengeance, the third of which alone can impel them to shed blood: far superior in their motives of action to the Europeans, who, for sixpence per day, may be engaged to shed that of any people on earth. They know nothing of the nature of our disputes, they have no ideas of such revolutions as this; a civil division of a village, or tribe, are events which have never been recorded in their traditions: many of them know very well that they have too long been the dupes and the victims of both parties; foolishly arming for our sakes, sometimes against each other, sometimes against our white enemies. They consider us as born on the same land, and, though they have no reasons to love us, yet they seem carefully to avoid entering into this quarrel, from whatever motives. I am speaking of those nations with which I am best acquainted, a few hundreds of the worst kind, mixed with whites worse than themselves, are now hired, by Great-Britain, to perpetrate those dreadful incursions. In my youth I traded with the —, under the conduct of my uncle, and always traded justly and equitably; some of them remember it to this day. Happily their village is far removed from the dangerous neighbourhood of the whites. I sent a man, last spring, to it, who understands the woods extremely well, and who speaks their language: he is just returned, after several weeks absence, and has brought me, as I had flattered myself, a string of thirty purple wampum, as a token that their honest chief will spare us half of his wig-wham until we have time to erect one. He has sent me word that they have land in plenty, of which they are not so covetous as the whites; that we may plant for ourselves, and that, in the mean time, he will procure us some corn and meat; that fish is plenty in the waters of —, and that the village, to which he had laid open my proposals, have no objection to our becoming dwellers with them. I have not yet communicated these glad tidings to my wife, nor do I know how to do it. I tremble lest she should refuse to follow me; left the sudden idea of this removal, rushing on her mind, might be too powerful. I flatter myself I shall be able to accomplish it, and to prevail on her; I fear nothing but the effects of her strong attachment to her relations. I would willingly let you know how I purpose to remove my family to so great a distance, but it would become unintelligible to you, because you are not acquainted with the geographical situation of this part of the country. Suffice it for you to know, that, with about twenty-three miles land-carriage, I am enabled to perform the rest by water; and, when once afloat, I care not whether it be two or three hundred miles. I propose to send all our provisions, furniture, and clothes, to my wife’s father, who approves of the scheme, and to reserve nothing but a few necessary articles of covering, trusting to the furs of the chace for our future apparel. Were we imprudently to incumber ourselves too much with baggage, we should never reach to the waters of — , which is the most dangerous, as well as the most difficult, part of our journey, and yet but a trifle in point of distance. I intend to say to my negroes, — In the name of God, be free, my honest lads; I thank you for your past services; go, from henceforth, and work for yourselves; look on me as your old friend and fellow labourer; be sober, frugal, and industrious, and you need not fear earning a comfortable subsistence. —  Lest my countrymen should think that I am gone to join the incendiaries of our frontiers, I intend to write a letter to Mr — , to inform him of our retreat, and of the reasons that have urged me to it. The man, whom I sent to — village, is to accompany us also, and a very useful companion he will be on every account.
           You may therefore, by means of anticipation, behold me under the wigwham; I am so well acquainted with the principal manners of these people that I entertain not the least apprehension from them. I rely more securely on their strong hospitality than on the witnessed compacts of many Europeans. As soon as possible after my arrival, I design to build myself a wigwham, after the same manner and size with the rest, in order to avoid being thought singular or giving occasion for any railleries; though these people are seldom guilty of such European follies. I shall erect it hard by the lands which they propose to allot me, and will endeavour that my wife, my children, and myself, may be adopted soon after our arrival.
  Thus, becoming truly inhabitants of their village, we shall immediately occupy that rank, within the pale of their society, which will afford us all the amends we can possibly expect for the loss we have met with by the convulsions of our own. According to their customs we shall likewise receive names from them, by which we shall always be known. My youngest children shall learn to swim, and to shoot with the bow, that they may acquire such talents as will necessarily raise them into some degree of esteem among the Indian lads of their own age; the rest of us must hunt with the hunters. I have been for several years an expert marksman; but I dread lest the imperceptible charm of Indian education may seise my younger children, and give them such a propensity to that mode of life as may preclude their returning to the manners and customs of their parents. I have but one remedy to prevent this great evil; and that is, to employ them in the labour of the fields as much as I can; I have even resolved to make their daily subsistence depend altogether on it. As long as we keep ourselves busy in tilling the earth, there is no fear of any of us becoming wild; it is the chase and the food it procures that have this strange effect. Excuse a simile; — those hogs which range in the woods, and to whom grain is given once a week, preserve their former degree of tameness, but if, on the contrary, they are reduced to live on ground-nuts, and on what they can get, they soon become wild and fierce. For my part, I can plough, sow, and hunt, as occasion may require; but my wife, deprived of wool and flax, will have no room for industry; what is she then to do? like the other squaws, she must cook for us the nasaump, the ninchickè, and such other preparations of corn as are customary among these people. She must learn to bake squashes and pompions under the allies; to slice and smoke the meat of our own killing, in order to preserve it; she must cheerfully adopt the manners and customs of her neighbours, in their dress, deportment, conduct, and internal economy, in all respects. Surely, if we can have fortitude enough to quit all we have, to remove so far, and to associate with people so different from us, these necessary compliances are but subordinate parts of the scheme. The change of garments, when those they carry with them are worne out, will not be the least of my wife’s and daughter’s concerns: though I am in hopes that self-love will invent some sort of reparation. Perhaps you would not believe that there are in the woods looking-glasses and paint of every colour; and that the inhabitants take as much pains to adorn their faces and their bodies, to fix their bracelets of silver, and plait their hair, as our forefathers, the Picts, used to do in the time of the Romans. Not that I would wish to see either my wife or daughter adopt those savage customs; we can live in great peace and harmony with them without descending to every article; the interruption of trade hath, I hope, suspended this mode of dress. My wife understands inoculation perfectly well; she inoculated all our children one after another, and has successfully performed that operation on several scores of people, who, scattered here and there through our woods, were too far removed from all medical assistance. If we can persuade but one family to submit to it, and it succeeds, we shall then be as happy as our situation will admit of; it will raise her into some degree of consideration: for, whoever is useful, in any society, will always be respected. If we are so fortunate as to carry one family through a disorder, which is the plague among these people, I trust to the force of example, we shall then become truly necessary, valued, and beloved: we, indeed, owe every kind office to a society of men who so readily offer to admit us into their social partnership, and to extend to my family the shelter of their village, the strength of their adoption, and even the dignity of their names. God grant us a prosperous beginning, we may then hope to be of more service to them than even missionaries who have been sent to preach to them a gospel they cannot understand.
           As to religion, our mode of worship will not suffer much by this removal from a cultivated country into the bosom of the woods; for it cannot be much simpler than that which we have followed here these many years: and I will, with as much care as I can, redouble my attention, and, twice a week, retrace to them the great outlines of their duty to God and to man. I will read and expound to them some part of the decalogue; which is the method I have pursued ever since I married.
           Half a dozen of acres on the shores of —, the soil of which I know well, will yield us a great abundance of all we want; I will make it a point to give the overplus to such Indians as shall be most unfortunate in their huntings; I will persuade them, if I can, to till a little more land than they do, and not to trust so much to the produce of the chase. To encourage them still farther, I will give a quirn to every six families; I have built many for our poor back settlers, it being often the want of mills which prevents them from raising grain. As I am a carpenter, I can build my own plough and can be of great service to many of them; my example alone may rouse the industry of some, and serve to direct others in their labours. The difficulties of the language will soon be removed; in my evening conversations, I will endeavour to make them regulate the trade of their village in such a manner as that those pests of the continent, those Indian traders, may not come within a certain distance; and there they shall be obliged to transact their business before the old people. I am in hopes that the constant respect which is paid to the elders, and shame, may prevent the young hunters from infringing this regulation. The son of — will soon be made acquainted with our schemes, and I trust that the power of love, and the strong attachment he professes for my daughter, may bring him along with us: he will make an excellent hunter; young and vigorous, he will equal in dexterity the stoutest man in the village. Had it not been for this fortunate circumstance, there would have been the greatest danger; for, however I respect the simple, the inoffensive, society of these people in their villages, the strongest prejudices would make me abhor any alliance with them in blood: disagreeable, no doubt, to nature’s intentions, which have strongly divided us by so many indelible characters. In the days of our sickness, we shall have recourse to their medical knowledge, which is well calculated for the simple diseases to which they are subject. Thus shall we metamorphose ourselves, from neat, decent, opulent, planters, surrounded with every conveniency which our external labour and internal industry could give, into a still simpler people, divested of every thing beside hope, food, and the raiment of the woods: abandoning the large framed house, to dwell under the wigwham; and the feather-bed, to lie on the mat or bear’s skin. There shall we sleep undisturbed by frightful dreams and apprehensions; rest and peace of mind will make us the most ample amends for what we shall leave behind. These blessings cannot be purchased too dear; too long have we been deprived of them! I would cheerfully go even to the Mississippi to find that repose to which we have been so long strangers. My heart, sometimes, seems tired with beating, it wants rest like any eye-lids, which feel oppressed with so many watchings.
           These are the component parts of my scheme, the success of each of which appears feasible; whence I flatter myself with the probable success of the whole. Still the danger of Indian education returns to my mind, and alarms me much; then again I contrast it with the education of the times; both appear to be equally pregnant with evils. Reason points out the necessity of choosing the least dangerous, which I must consider as the only good within my reach; I persuade myself that industry and labour will be a sovereign preservative against the dangers of the former; but I consider, at the same time, that the share of labour and industry which is intended to procure but a simple subsistence, with hardly any superfluity, cannot have the same restrictive effects on our minds as when we tilled the earth on a more extensive scale. The surplus could be then realized into solid wealth, and, at the same time that his realization rewarded our past labours, it engrossed and fixed the attention of the labourer, and cherished in his mind the hope of future riches. In order to supply this great deficiency of industrious motives, and to hold out to them a real object to prevent the fatal consequences of this sort of apathy, I will keep an exact account of all that shall be gathered, and give each of them a regular credit for the amount of it to be paid them, in real property at the return of peace. Thus, though seemingly toiling for bare subsistence on a foreign land, they shall entertain the pleasing prospect of seeing the sum of their labours one day realised, either in legacies or gifts, equal, if not superior, to it. The yearly expence of the clothes, which they would not have received at home, and of which they will then be deprived, shall likewise be added to their credit; thus I flatter myself that they will more cheerfully wear the blanket, the matchcoat, and the mockassins. Whatever success they may meet with in hunting or fishing shall be only considered as recreation and pastime; I shall thereby prevent them from eliminating their skill in the chase as an important and necessary accomplishment. I mean to say to them “You shall hunt and fish merely to shew your new companions that you are not inferior to them in point of sagacity and dexterity.” Were I to send them to such schools as the interior parts of our settlements afford at present, what can they learn there? How could I support them there? What must become of me? Am I to proceed on my voyage and leave them? That I never could submit to! Instead of the perpetual discordant noise of disputes, so common among us, instead of those scolding scenes, frequent in every house, they will observe nothing but silence at home and abroad: a singular appearance of peace and concord are the first characteristics which strike you in the villages of these people. Nothing can be more pleasing, nothing surprises an European so much, as the silence and harmony which prevail among them, and in each family; except when disturbed by that accursed spirit given them by the wood-rangers in exchange for their furs. If my children learn nothing of geometrical rules, the use of the compass, or of the Latin tongue, they will learn and practice sobriety, for rum can no longer be sent to these people; they will learn that modesty and diffidence for which the young Indians are so remarkable; they will consider labour as the most essential qualification, hunting as the second. They will prepare themselves in the prosecution of our small rural schemes, carried on for the benefit of our little community, to extend them farther, when each shall receive his inheritance. Their tender minds will cease to be agitated by perpetual alarms; to be make cowards by continual terrors; if they acquire, in the village of_____, such an awkwardness of deportment and appearance as would render them ridiculous in our gay capitals, they will imbibe, I hope, a confirmed taste for that simplicity, which so well becomes the cultivators of the land. If I cannot teach them any of those professions which sometimes embellish and support our society, I will shew them how to hew wood, how to construct their own ploughs, and, with a few tools, how to supply themselves with every necessary implement both in the house and in the field. If they are hereafter obliged to confess that they belong to no one particular church, I shall have the consolation of teaching them that great, that primary, worship, which is the foundation of all others. If they do not fear God according to the tenets of any one seminary, they shall learn to worship him upon the broad scale of nature. The Supreme Being does not reside in peculiar churches or communities; he is equally the great Maniton of the woods and of the plains; and, even in the gloom, the obscurity, of those very woods, his justice may be as well understood and felt as in the most sumptuous temples. Each worship with us hath, you know its peculiar political tendency; there it has none, but to inspire gratitude and truth: their tender minds shall receive no other idea of the Supreme Being than that of the Father of all men, who requires nothing more of us than what tends to make each other happy. We shall say with them; Soungwanèha, èsa caurounkyawga nughwonshauza neattèwek nèsalanga. –Our father, be thy will done in earth as it is in great heaven.
           Perhaps my imagination gilds too strongly this distant prospect; yet it appears founded on so few and simple principles, that there is not the same probability of adverse incidents as in more complex schemes. These vague rambling contemplations, which I here faithfully retrace, carry me sometimes to a great distance; I am lost in the anticipation of the various circumstances attending this proposed metamorphosis! Many unforeseen accidents may doubtless arise. Alas! it is easier for me, in all the glow of paternal anxiety, reclined on my bed, to form the theory of my future conduct, than to reduce my schemes into practice. But, when once secluded from the great society, to which we now belong, we shall unite closer together, and there will be less room for jealousies or contentions. As I intend my children neither for the law nor the church, but for the cultivation of the land, I wish them no literary accomplishments; I pray heaven that they may be one day nothing more than expert scholars in husbandry: this is the science which made our continent to flourish more rapidly than any other. Were they to grow up where I am now situated, even admitting that we were in safety, two of them are verging toward that period of their lives when they must necessarily take up the musket, and learn, in that new school, all the vices which are so common in armies. Great God! close my eyes for ever rather than I should live to see this calamity! May they rather become inhabitants of the woods.
           Thus then, in the village of_____, in the bosom of that peace it has enjoyed ever since I have known it, connected with mild, hospitable, people, strangers to our political disputes, and having none among themselves; on the shores of a fine river, surrounded with woods, abounding with game; our little society, united in perfect harmony with the new-adoptive one in which we shall be incorporated, shall rest, I hope, from all fatigues, from all apprehensions, from our perfect terrors, and from our long watchings. Not a word of politics shall cloud our simple conversation; tired either with the chase or the labours of the field, we shall sleep on our mats without any distressing want, having learnt to retrench ever superfluous one: we shall have but two prayers to make to the Supreme Being; that he may shed his fertilizing dew on our little crops, and that he will be pleased to restore peace to our unhappy country. These shall be the only subject of our nightly prayers and of our daily ejaculations: and, if the labour, the industry, the frugality, the union, of men, can be an agreeable offering to him, we shall not fail to receive his paternal blessings. There I shall contemplate Nature in her most wild and ample extent; I shall carefully study a species of society of which I have, at present, but very imperfect ideas; I will endeavor to occupy, with propriety, that place which will enable me to enjoy the few and sufficient benefits it confers. The solitary and unconnected mode of life I have lived in my youth must fit me for this trial; I am not the first who has attempted it: Europeans did not, it is true, carry to the wilderness numerous families; they went there as mere speculators; I, as a man seeking a refuge from the desolation of war. They went there to study the manners of the aborigines; I, to conform to them, whatever they are; some went as visitors, as travellers; I, as a sojourner, as a fellow hunter and labourer, go determined industriously to work up among them such a system of happiness as may be adequate to my future situation, and may be a sufficient compensation for all my fatigues and for the misfortunes I have bourne; I have always found it at home, I may hope likewise to find it under the humble room of my wigwham.
           Supreme Being! if, among the immense variety of planets, inhabited by thy creative power, thy paternal and omnipotent care deigns to extend to all the individuals they contain; if it be not beneath thy infinite dignity to cast thy eyes on us wretched mortals; if my future felicity is not contrary to the necessary effects of those secret causes which thou hast appointed; receive the supplications of a man, to whom, in thy kindness, thou hast given a wife and an offspring: view us all with benignity; sanctify this strong conflict of regrets, wishes, and other natural passions; guide our steps through these unknown paths, and bless our future mode of life. If it is good and well-meant, it must proceed from thee; thou knowest, O Lord, our enterprise contains neither fraud, nor malice, nor revenge. Bestow on me that energy of conduct, now become so necessary, that it may be in my power to carry the young family thou hast given me, through this great trial, with safety and in thy peace. Inspire me with such intentions and such rules of conduct as may be most acceptable to thee. Preserve, O God, preserve, companion of my bosom, the best gift thou hast given me: endue her with courage and strength sufficient to accomplish this perilous journey. Bless the children of our love, those portions of our hearts: I implore thy divine assistance; speak to their tender minds, and inspire them with the love of that virtue which alone can serve as the basis of their conduct in this world and of their happiness with thee. Restore peace and concord to our poor afflicted country; assuage the fierce storm which has so long ravaged it! Permit, I beseech thee, O Father of nature, that our ancient virtues and our industry may not be totally lost: and that, as a reward for the great toils we have made on this new land, we may be restored to our ancient tranquillity, and enabled to fill it with successive generations, that will constantly thank thee for the ample subsistence thou hast given them!
           The unreserved manner in which I have written must give you a convincing proof of that friendship and esteem, of which I am sure you never yet doubted. As members of the same society, as mutually bound by the ties of affection and old acquaintance, you certainly cannot avoid feeling for my distresses; you cannot avoid mourning with me over that load of physical and moral evil with which we are all oppressed. My own share of it I often overlook when I minutely contemplate all that hath befallen our native country!
   
   
• 1 media/Whaling.jpeg 2022-04-02T07:29:59-07:00 Letter VI: Description of the Island of Martha's Vineyard; and of the Whale-Fishery 51 image_header 2024-02-28T11:25:25-08:00 NB: This Letter has not yet been emended and is currently in the early stages of being annotated.
  
  LETTER VI.
  DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLAND OF MARTHA’S VINEYARD; AND OF THE WHALE-FISHERY.
  
  THIS island is twenty miles in length, and from seven to eight miles in breadth, as you may see by the annexed map.* It lies nine miles from the continent, and, with the Elizabeth Islands, forms one of the counties of Masssachuset’s Bay, known by the name of Duke’s County. Those latter, which are six in number, are about nine miles distant from the Vineyard, and are all famous for excellent dairies. A good ferry is established between Edgar Town and Falmouth on the main, the distance being nine miles. Martha’s Vineyard is divided into three townships, viz. Edgar, Chilmark, and Tisbury; the number of inhabitants is computed at about 4000, 300 of which are Indians. Edgar is the bed sea-port, and the shire-town, and, as its soil is light and sandy, many of its inhabitants follow the example of the people of Nantucket. The town of Chilmark has no good harbour, but the land is excellent and no way inferior to any on the continent: it contains excellent pastures, convenient brooks for mills, stone for fencing, &c. The town of Tisbury is remarkable for the excellence of its timber, and has a harbour where the water is deep enough for ships of the line. The flock of the island is 20000 sheep, 2000 neat cattle, besides horses and goats; they have also some deer, and abundance of sea-fowls. This has been from the beginning, and is to this day, the principal seminary of the Indians; they live on that part of the island which is called Chapoquidick, and were very early christianised by the respectable family of the Mahews, the first proprietors of it. The first settler of that name conveyed by will to a favourite daughter a certain part of it, on which there grew many wild vines; thence it was called Martha’s Vineyard, after her name, which, in process of time, extended to the whole island. The posterity of the ancient aborigines remain here, to this day, on lands which their forefathers reserved for themselves, and which are religiously kept from any incroachments. The New-England people are remarkable for the honesty with which they have fulfilled, all over that province, those ancient covenants which in many others have been disregarded, to the scandal of those governments. The Indians there appeared, by the decency of their manners, their industry, and neatness, to be wholly Europeans, and no way inferior to many of the inhabitants. Like them they are sober, laborious, and religious, which are the principal characteristics of the four New-England provinces. They often go, like the young men of the Vineyard, to Nantucket, and hire themselves for whalemen or fishermen; and indeed their skill and dexterity in all sea affairs is nothing inferior to that of the whites. The latter are divided into two classes; the first occupy the land, which they till with admirable care and knowledge; the second, who are possessed of none, apply themselves to the sea, the general resource of mankind in this part of the world. This island therefore, like Nantucket, is become a great nursery, which supplies with pilots and seamen the numerous coasters with which this extended part of America abounds. Go where you will, from Nova Scotia to the Mississippi, you will find almost every where some natives of these two islands employed in seafaring occupations. Their climate is so favourable to population, that marriage is the object of every man’s earliest wish; and it is a blessing so easily obtained, that great numbers are obliged to quit their native land and go to some other countries in quest of subsistence. The inhabitants are all Presbyterians, which is the established religion of Massachusets; and here let me remember, with gratitude, the hospitable treatment I received from B. Norton, Esq. the colonel of the island, as well as from Dr. Mahew, the lineal descendant of the first proprietor. Here are to be found the most expert pilots, either for the great bay, their sound, Nantucket shoals, or the different ports in their neighbourhood. In stormy weather they are always at sea, looking out for vessels, which they board with singular dexterity, and hardly ever fail to bring safe to their intended harbour. Gay-Head, the western point of this island, abounds with a variety of ochres of different colours, with which the inhabitants paint their houses.
           The vessels most proper for whale fishing are brigs of about 150 tons burthen, particularly when they are intended for distant latitudes; they always man them with thirteen hands, in order that they may row two whale-boats; the crews of which must necessary consist of six, four at the oars, one standing on the bows with the harpoon, and the other at the helm. It is also necessary that there should be two of these boats, that, if one should be destroyed in attacking the whale, the other, which is never engaged at the same time, may be ready to save the hands. Five of the thirteen are always Indians; the last of the complement remains on-board to steer the vessel during the action. They have no wages; each draws a certain established share in partnership with the proprietor of the vessel; by which economy they are all proportionably concerned in the success of the enterprise, and all equally alert and vigilant. None of these whale-men ever exceed the age of forty: they look on those who are past that period not to be possessed of all that vigour and agility which so adventurous a business requires. Indeed if you attentively consider the immense disproportion between the object assailed and the assailants; if you think on the diminutive size and weakness of their frail vehicle; if you recollect the treachery of the element on which this scene is transacted; the sudden and unforeseen accidents of winds, &c. you will readily acknowledge, that it must require the most consummate exertion of all the strength, agility, and judgement, of which the bodies and the minds of men are capable, to undertake these adventurous encounters.
           As soon as they arrive in those latitudes where they expect to meet with whales, a man is sent up to the mast-head; if he sees one, he immediately cries out AWAITE PAWANA, here is a whale; they all remain still and silent until he repeats PAWANA, a whale, when in less than six minutes the two boats are launched, filled with every implement necessary for the attack. They row toward the whale with astonishing velocity; and, as the Indians early became their fellow-labourers in this new warfare, you can easily conceive how the Nattick expressions became familiar on-board the whale-boats. Formerly it often happened that whale-vessels were manned with none but Indians and the matter; recollect also that the Nantucket people understand the Nattick, and and that there are always five of these people on-board. There are various ways of approaching the whale, according to their peculiar species; and this previous knowledge is of the utmost consequence. When these boats are arrived at a reasonable distance, one of them rests on its oars and stands off, as a witness of the approaching engagement; near the bows of the other the harpooner stands up, and on him principally depends the success of the enterprise. He wears a jacket closely buttoned, and round his head a handkerchief tightly bound: in his hands he holds the dreadful weapon, made of the bed steel, marked sometimes with the name of their town, and sometimes with that of their vessel; to the shaft of which the end of a cord of due strength, coiled up with the utmost care in the middle of the boat, is firmly tied; the other end is fastened to the bottom of the boat. Thus prepared, they row in profound silence, leaving the whole conduct of the enterprise to the harpooner and to the steersman, attentively following their directions. When the former judges himself to be near enough to the whale, that is, at the distance of about fifteen feet, he bids them stop: perhaps she has a calf, whose safety attracts all the attention of the dam, which is a favourable circumstance; perhaps she is of a dangerous species, and it is safest to retire, though their ardour will seldom permit them; perhaps she is asleep, in that case he balances high the harpoon, trying in this important moment to collect all the energy of which he is capable. He launches it forth — she is struck: from her first movement they judge of her temper as well as of their future success. Sometimes, in the immediate impulse of rage, she will attack the boat, and demolish it with one stroke of her tail: in an instant the frail vehicle disappears, and the assailants are immersed in the dreadful element. Were the whale armed with the jaws of the shark, and as voracious, they never would return home to amuse their listening wives with the interesting tale of the adventure. At other times she will dive and disappear from human fight; and every thing must then give way to her velocity, or else all is lost. Sometimes she will swim away as if untouched, and draw the cord with such swiftness that it will set the edge of the boat on fire by the friction. If she rises before she has run out the whole length, she is looked upon as a sure prey. The blood she has lost in her flight weakens her so much, that, if she sinks again, it is but for a short time; the boat follows her course with an almost equal speed. She soon re-appears; tired at last with convulsing the element, which she tinges with her blood, she dies, and floats on the surface. At other times it may happen that she is not dangerously wounded, though she carries the harpoon fast in her body; when she will alternately dive and rise, and swim on with unabated vigour. She then soon reaches beyond the length of the cord, and carries the boat along with amazing velocity: this sudden impediment sometimes will retard her speed, at other times it only serves to rouse her anger and to accelerate her progress. The harpooner, with the axe in his hands, stands ready. When he observes that the bows of the boat are greatly pulled down by the diving whale, and that it begins to sink deep and to take much water, he brings the axe almost in contact with the cord; he pauses, still flattering himself that she will relax; but the moment grows critical, unavoidable danger approaches: sometimes men, more intent on gain than on the preservation of their lives, will run great risks; and it is wonderful how far these people have carried their daring courage at this awful moment! But it is vain to hope, their lives must be saved, the cord is cut, the boat rises again. If, after thus getting loose, she re-appears, they will attack and wound her a second time. She soon dies, and, when dead, she is towed along-side of their vessel, where she is fastened.
           The next operation is to cut, with axes and spades, every part of her body which yields oil; the kettles are set a boiling, they fill their barrels as fast as it is made; but, as this operation is much slower than that of cutting-up, they fill the hold of their ship with those fragments, lest a storm should arise and oblige them to abandon their prize. It is astonishing what a quantity of oil some of these fish will yield, and what profit it affords to those who are fortunate enough to overtake them! The river St. Laurence whale, which is the only one I am well acquainted with, is seventy-five feet long, sixteen deep, twelve in the length of its bone, which commonly weighs 3000 lb. twenty in the breadth of their tails, and produces 180 barrels of oil: I once saw 16 boiled out of the tongue only. After having once vanquished this leviathan, there are two enemies to be dreaded beside the wind; the first of which is the shark: that fierce voracious fish, to which nature has given such dreadful offensive weapons, often comes along-side, and, in spite of the people’s endeavours, will share with them in their prey; at night particularly. They are very mischievious, but the second enemy is much more terrible and irresistible; it is the killer, sometimes called the thrasher, a species of whales about thirty feet long. They are possessed of such a degree of agility and fierceness as often to attack the largest spermaceti whales, and not seldom to rob the fishermen of their prey; nor are there any means of defense against so potent an adversary. When all their barrels are full, (for every thing is done at sea,) or when their limited time is expired and their stores almost expended, they return home, freighted with their valuable cargo; unless they have put it on-board a vessel for the European market. Such are, as briefly as I can relate them, the different branches of the economy practised by these bold navigators, and the method with which they go such distances from their island to catch this huge game.
           The following are the names and principal characteristics of the various species of whales known to these people;
           The river St. Laurence whale just described.
           The disko, or Greenland ditto.
           The right whale, or seven feet bone, common the coasts of this country, about sixty feet long.
           The spermaceti-whale, found all over the world, and of all sizes; the longed are sixty feet, and yield about 100 barrels of oil.
           The hump-backs, on the coast of Newfoundland, from forty to seventy feet in length.
           The fin-back, an American whale, never killed, as being too swift.
           The sulphur-bottom, river St. Laurence, ninety feet long; they are but seldom killed, as being extremely swift.
           The grampus, thirty feet long, never killed on the same account.
           The killer or thrasher, about thirty feet, they often kill the other whales with which they are at perpetual war.
           The black-fish whale, twenty feet, yields from 8 to 10 barrels.
           The porpoise, weighing about 160 lb.
           In 1769 they fitted out 125 whalemen; the first 50 that returned brought with them 11000 barrels of oil. In 1770 they fitted out 135 vessels for the fisheries, at thirteen hands each; 4 West-Indiamen, twelve hands; 25 wood vessels, four hands; 18 coasters, five hands; 5 London traders, eleven hands. All these amount to 2158 hands, employed in 197 vessels. Trace their progressive steps between the possession of a few whale-boats and that of such a fleet!
           The moral conduct, prejudices, and customs, of a people, who live two-thirds of their time at sea, must naturally be very different from those of their neighbours, who live by cultivating the earth. That long abstemiousness to which the former are exposed, the breathing of saline air, the frequent repetitions of danger, the boldness acquired in surmounting them, the very impulse of the winds, to which they are exposed; all these, one would imagine, must lead them, when on shore, to no small desire of inebriation, and a more eager pursuit of those pleasures, of which they have been so long deprived, and which they must soon forego. There are many appetites that may be gratified on shore, even by the poorest man, but which must remain unsatisfied at sea. Yet, notwithstanding the powerful effects of all these causes, I observe here, at the return of their fleets, no material irregularities; no tumultuous drinking assemblies: whereas, in our continental towns, the thoughtless seaman indulges himself in the coarsest pleasures; and, vainly thinking that a week of debauchery can compensate for months of abstinence, foolishly lavishes, in a few days of intoxication, the fruits of half a year’s labour. On the contrary, all was peace here, and a general decency prevailed throughout; the reason, I believe, is, that almost every body here is married, for they get wives very young; and the pleasure of returning to their families absorbs every other desire. The motives, that lead them to the sea, are very different from those of most other sea-faring men; it is neither idleness nor profligacy that sends them to that element; it is a settled plan of life, a well-founded hope of earning a livelihood; it is because their soil is bad that they are early initiated to this profession, and, were they to stay at home, what could they do? The sea therefore becomes to them a kind of patrimony; they go to whaling with as much pleasure and tranquil indifference, with as strong an expectation of success, as a landman undertakes to clear a piece of swamp. The first is obliged to advance his time and labour to procure oil on the furnace of the sea; the second advances the same to procure himself grass from grounds that produced nothing before but hassocks and bogs. Among those who do not use the sea, I observed the same calm appearance as among the inhabitants on the continent; here I found, without gloom, a decorum and reserve, so natural to them, that I thought myself in Philadelphia. At my landing I was cordially received by those to whom I was recommended, treated with unaffected hospitality by such others with whom I became acquainted; and I can tell you, that it is impossible for any traveller to dwell here one month without knowing the heads of the principal families. Wherever I went I found simplicity of diction and manners, rather more primitive and rigid than I expected; and I soon perceived that it proceeded from their secluded situation, which has prevented them from mixing with others. It is therefore easy to conceive how they have retained every degree of peculiarity for which this sect was formerly distinguished. Never was a bee-hive more faithfully employed in gathering wax, bee-bread, and honey, from all the neighbouring fields, than are the members of this society; every one in the town follows some particular occupation with great diligence, but without that servility of labour which I am informed prevails in Europe. The mechanic seemed to be descended from as good parentage, was as well dressed and fed, and held in as much estimation, as those who employed him; they were once nearly related; their different degrees of prosperity is what has caused the various shades of their community. But this accidental difference has introduced, as yet, neither arrogance nor pride on the one part, nor meanness and servility on the other. All their houses are neat, convenient, and comfortable; some of them are filled with two families; for, when the husbands are at sea, the wives require less house-room. They all abound with the most substantial furniture, more valuable from its usefulness than from any ornamental appearance. Wherever I went, I found good cheer, a welcome reception; and after the second visit I felt myself as much at my ease as if I had been an old acquaintance of the family. They had as great plenty of every thing as if their island had been part of the golden quarter of Virginia, (a valuable track of land on Cape Charles): I could hardly persuade myself that I had quitted the adjacent continent, where every thing abounds, and that I was on a barren sand-bank, fertilized with whale-oil only. As their rural improvements are but trifling, and only of the useful kind, and as the best of them are at a considerable distance from the town, I amused myself for several days in conversing with the most intelligent of the inhabitants of both sexes, and making myself acquainted with the various branches of their industry, the different objects of their trade, the nature of that sagacity, which, deprived as they are of every necessary material, produce, &c. yet enables them to flourish, to live well, and sometimes to make considerable fortunes. The whole is an enigma to be solved only by coming to the spot and observing the national genius which the original founders brought with them, as well as their unwearied patience and perseverance. They have all, from the highest to the lowest, a singular keenness of judgement, unassisted by any academical light; they all possess a large share of good sense, improved upon the experience of their fathers; and this is the surest and best guide to lead us through the path of life, because it approaches nearest to the infallibility of instinct. Shining talents and University knowledge would be entirely useless here, nay, would be dangerous; it would pervert their plain judgement, it would lead them out of that useful path which is so well adapted to their situation: it would make them more adventurous, more presumptuous, much less cautious, and therefore less successful. It is pleasing to hear some of them tracing a father’s progress and their own through the different vicissitudes of good and adverse fortune. I have often, by their fire-sides, travelled with them the whole length of their career, from their earliest steps, from their first commercial adventure, from the possession of a single whale-boat, up to that of a dozen large vessels! This does not imply, however, that every one, who began with a whale-boat, has ascended to a like pitch of fortune; by no means; the same casualty, the same combination of good and evil which attends human affairs in every other part of the globe, prevails here: great prosperity is not the lot of every man, but there are many and various gradations; if they all do not attain riches, they all attain an easy subsistence. After all, is it not better to be possessed of a single whale-boat, or a few sheep-pastures; to live free and independent under the mildest government, in a healthy climate, in a land of charity and benevolence; than to be wretched, as so many are in Europe, possessing nothing but their industry; tossed from one rough wave to another; engaged either in the most servile labours for the smallest pittance, or fettered with the links of the most irksome dependence, even without the hopes of rising?
           The majority of those inferior hands which are employed in this fishery, many of the mechanics, such as coopers, smiths, caulkers, carpenters, &c. who do not belong to the society of Friends, are Presbyterians, and originally came from the main. Those who are possessed of the greatest fortunes at present be- long to the former; but they all began as simple whalemen: it is even looked upon as honourable and necessary for the son of the wealthiest man to serve an apprenticeship to the same bold, adventurous, business which has enriched his father; they go several voyages, and these early excursions never fail to harden their constitutions, and introduce them to the knowledge of their future means of subsistence.
   
   

  ---

  *References to the Map of Martha’s Vineyard.
  
  1 Starbuck Point.
  2 Beniah Norton’s house, the colonel of the island.
  3 The house of James Athearn, Esq.
  4 Dr. Mahew’s house.
  5 Iron-mine; the ore of which is carried to the forges at Taunton.
  6 Lagoon, famous for catching bass under the ice.
  7 The belt mowing grounds in the island, yielding four tons of black grass per acre.
  8 Excellent planting ground.
  9 A mine of good pipe-clay.
   
• 1 media/Stearns--George Washington and Slaves.jpg 2017-09-21T10:18:08-07:00 Letter IX: Description of Charles-Town 45 image_header 2024-02-28T11:28:09-08:00 LETTER IX.
  DESCRIPTION OF CHARLES-TOWN; THOUGHTS ON SLAVERY; ON PHYSICAL EVIL; A MELANCHOLY SCENE.
   
  CHARLES-TOWN is in the north what Lima is in the south; both are capitals of the richest provinces of their respective hemispheres; you may therefore conjecture, that both cities must exhibit the appearances necessarily resulting from riches. Peru abounding in gold, Lima is filled with inhabitants, who enjoy all those gradations of pleasure, refinement, and luxury, which proceed from wealth. Carolina produces commodities, more valuable perhaps than gold, because they are gained by greater industry; it exhibits also on our northern stage a display of riches and luxury, inferior indeed to the former, but far superior to what are to be seen in our northern towns. Its situation is admirable; being built at the confluence of two large rivers, which receive, in their course, a great number of inferior streams; all navigable, in the spring, for flat boats. Here the produce of this extensive territory concentres; here, therefore, is the seat of the most valuable exportation; their wharfs, their docks, their magazines, are extremely convenient to facilitate this great commercial business. The inhabitants are the gayest in America; it is called the center of our beau monde, and is always filled with the richest planters in the province, who resort hither in quest of health and pleasure. Here is always to be seen a great number of valetudinarians from the West-Indies, seeking for the renovation of health, exhausted by the debilitating nature of their sun, air, and modes of living. Many of these West-Indians have I seen, at thirty, loaded with the infirmities of old age; for, nothing is more common, in those countries of wealth, than for persons to lose the abilities of enjoying the comforts of life at a time when we northern men just begin to taste the fruits of our labour and prudence. The round of pleasure, and the expenses of those citizens’ tables, are much superior to what you would imagine: indeed the growth of this town and province have been astonishingly rapid. It is pity that the narrowness of the neck, on which it stands, prevents it from increasing, and which is the reason why houses are so dear. The heat of the climate, which is sometimes very great in the interior parts of the country, is always temperate in Charles-Town, though, sometimes, when they have no sea breezes, the sun is too powerful. The climate renders excesses of all kinds very dangerous, particularly those of the table; and yet, insensible or fearless of danger, they live on, and enjoy a short and a merry life: the rays of their sun seem to urge them irresistibly to dissipation and pleasure: on the contrary, the women, from being abstemious, reach to a longer period of life, and seldom die without having had several husbands. An European at his first arrival must be greatly surprised when he sees the elegance of their houses, their sumptuous furniture, as well as the magnificence of their tables; can he imagine himself in a country, the establishment of which is so recent?
           The three principal classes of inhabitants are lawyers, planters, and merchants; this is the province which has afforded to the first the richest spoils, for nothing can exceed their wealth, their power, and their influence. They have reached the ne-plus-ultra of worldly felicity; no plantation is secured, no title is good, no will is valid, but what they dictate, regulate, and approve. The whole mass of provincial property is become tributary to this society; which, far above priests and bishops, disdain to be satisfied with the poor Mosaical portion of the tenth. I appeal to the many inhabitants, who, while contending perhaps for their right to a few hundred acres, have lost by the mazes of the law their whole patrimony. These men are more properly law-givers than interpreters of the law, and have united here, as well as in most other provinces, the skill and dexterity of the scribe with the power and ambition of the prince: who can tell where this may lead in a future day? The nature of our laws, and the spirit of freedom which often tends to make us litigious, must necessarily throw the greatest part of the property of the colonies into the hands of these gentlemen. In another century, the law will possess in the north what now the church possesses in Peru and Mexico.
           While all is joy, festivity, and happiness, in Charles-Town, would you imagine that scenes of misery overspread in the country? Their ears, by habit, are become deaf, their hearts are hardened; they neither see, hear, nor feel for, the woes of their poor slaves, from whose painful labours all their wealth proceeds. Here the horrors of slavery, the hardship of incessant toils, are unseen; and no one thinks with compassion of those showers of sweat and of tears which from the bodies of Africans daily drop, and moisten the ground they till. The cracks of the whip, urging these miserable beings to excessive labour, are far too distant from the gay capital to be heard. The chosen race eat, drink, and live happy, while the unfortunate one grubs up the ground, raises indigo, or husks the rice: exposed to a sun full as scorching as their native one, without the support of good food, without the cordials of any cheering liquor. This great contrast has often afforded me subjects of the most afflicting meditations. On the one side, behold a people enjoying all that life affords most bewitching and pleasurable, without labour, without fatigue, hardly subjected to the trouble of wishing. With gold, dug from Peruvian mountains, they order vessels to the coasts of Guinea; by virtue of that gold, wars, murders, and devastations, are committed in some harmless, peaceable, African neighbourhood, where dwelt innocent people, who even knew not but that all men were black. The daughter torn from her weeping mother, the child from the wretched parents, the wife from the loving husband; whole families swept away, and brought, through storms and tempests, to this rich metropolis! There, arranged like horses at a fair, they are branded like cattle, and then driven to toil, to starve, and to languish, for a few years, on the different plantations of these citizens. And for whom must they work? For persons they know not, and who have no other power over them than that of violence; no other right than what this accursed metal has given them! Strange order of things! O Nature, where art thou? — Are not these blacks thy children as well as we? On the other side, nothing is to be seen but the most diffusive misery and wretchedness, unrelieved even in thought or wish! Day after day they drudge on without any prospect of ever reaping for themselves; they are obliged to devote their lives, their limbs, their will, and every vital exertion, to swell the wealth of masters, who look not upon them with half the kindness and affection with which they consider their dogs and horses. Kindness and affection are not the portion of those who till the earth, who carry burdens, who convert the logs into useful boards. This reward, simple and natural as one would conceive it, would border on humanity; and planters must have none of it!
           If negroes are permitted to become fathers, this fatal indulgence only tends to increase their misery: the poor companions of their scanty pleasures are likewise the companions of their labours; and when, at some critical seasons, they could wish to see them relieved, with tears in their eyes they behold them perhaps doubly oppressed, obliged to bear the burden of nature — a fatal present! — as well as that of unabated tasks. How many have I seen cursing the irresistible propensity, and regretting that, by having tasted of those harmless joys, they had become the authors of double misery to their wives. Like their masters, they are not permitted to partake of those ineffable sensations with which nature inspires the hearts of fathers and mothers; they must repel them all, and become callous and passive. This unnatural state often occasions the most acute, the most pungent, of their afflictions; they have no time, like us, tenderly to rear their helpless offspring, to nurse them on their knees, to enjoy the delight of being parents. Their paternal fondness is embittered by considering, that, if their children live, they must live to be slaves like themselves; no time is allowed them to exercise their pious office, the mothers must fasten them on their backs, and, with this double load, follow, their husbands in the fields, where they too often hear no other found than that of the voice or whip of the task-master, and the cries of their infants broiling in the sun. These unfortunate creatures cry and weep, like their parents, without a possibility of relief; the very instinct of the brute, so laudable, so irresistible, runs counter here to their master’s interest; and, to that god, all the laws of nature must give way. Thus planters get rich; so raw, so inexperienced, am I in this mode of life, that, were I to be possessed of a plantation, and my slaves treated as in general they are here, never could I rest in peace; my sleep would be perpetually disturbed by a retrospect of the frauds committed in Africa in order to entrap them; frauds, surpassing in enormity every thing which a common mind can possibly conceive. I should be thinking of the barbarous treatment they meet with on ship-board; of their anguish, of the despair necessarily inspired by their situation; when torn from their friends and relations; when delivered into the hands of a people, differently coloured, whom they cannot understand; carried in a strange machine over an ever-agitated element, which they had never seen before; and finally delivered over to the severities of the whippers and the excessive labours of the field. Can it be possible that the force of custom should ever make me deaf to all these reflections, and as insensible to the injustice of that trade, and to their miseries, as the rich inhabitants of this town seem to be? What then is man? This being who boasts so much of the excellence and dignity of his nature, among that variety of inscrutable mysteries, of unsolvable problems, with which he is surrounded? The reason why man has been thus created is not the least astonishing. It is said, I know, that they are much happier here than in the West-Indies; because, land being cheaper upon this continent than in those islands, the fields allowed them to raise their subsistence from are in general more extensive. The only possible chance of any alleviation depends on the humour of the planters, who, bred in the midst of slaves, learn from the example of their parents to despise them; and seldom conceive, either from religion or philosophy, any ideas that tend to make their fate less calamitous; except some strong native tenderness of heart, some rays of philanthropy, overcome the obduracy contracted by habit.
           I have not resided here long enough to become insensible of pain for the objects which I every day behold. In the choice of my friends and acquaintance, I always endeavour to find out those whose dispositions are somewhat congenial with my own. We have slaves likewise in our northern provinces; I hope the time draws near when they will be all emancipated: but how different their lot, how different their situation, in every possible respect! They enjoy as much liberty as their masters, they are as well clad and as well fed; in health and sickness they are tenderly taken care of; they live under the same roof, and are, truly speaking, a part of our families. Many of them are taught to read and write, and are well instructed in the principles of religion; they are the companions of our labours, and treated as such; they enjoy many perquisites, many established holidays, and are not obliged to work more than white people. They marry where inclination leads them; visit their wives every week; are as decently clad as the common people; they are indulged in educating, cherishing, and chastising, their children, who are taught subordination to them as to their lawful parents: in short, they participate in many of the benefits of our society, without being obliged to bear any of its burthens. They are fat, healthy, and hearty, and far from repining at their fate; they think themselves happier than many of the lower class of whites: they share with their masters the wheat and meat provision they help to raise; many of those, whom the good Quakers have emancipated, have received that great benefit with tears of regret, and have never quitted, though free, their former matters and benefactors.
           But is it really true, as I have heard it averted here, that those blacks are incapable of feeling the spurs of emulation and the cheerful sound of encouragement? By no means; there are a thousand proofs existing of their gratitude and fidelity: those hearts, in which such noble dispositions can grow, are then like ours, they are susceptible of every generous sentiment, of every useful motive of action; they are capable of receiving lights, of imbibing ideas, that would greatly alleviate the weight of their miseries. But what methods have in general been made use of to obtain so desirable an end? None; the day, in which they arrive and are sold, is the first of their labours; labours, which from that hour admit of no respite; for, though indulged by law with relaxation on Sundays, they are obliged to employ that time, which is intended for rest, to till their little plantations. What can be expected from wretches in such circumstances? Forced from their native country, cruelly treated when on-board, and not less so on the plantations to which they are driven; is there any thing in this treatment but what must kindle all the passions, sow the seeds of inveterate resentment, and nourish a wish of perpetual revenge? They are left to the irresistible effects of those strong and natural propensities; the blows they receive, are they conducive to extinguish them or to win their affections? They are neither soothed by the hopes that their slavery will ever terminate but with their lives, nor yet encouraged by the goodness of their food or the mildness of their treatment. The very hopes held out to mankind by religion, that consolatory system, so useful to the miserable, are never presented to them; neither moral nor physical means are made use of to soften their chains; they are left in their original and untutored state; that very state, wherein the natural propensities of revenge and warm passions are so soon kindled. Cheered by no one single motive that can impel the will or excite their efforts, nothing but terrors and punishments are presented to them; death is denounced if they run away; horrid delaceration if they speak with their native freedom; perpetually awed by the terrible cracks of whips, or by the fear of capital punishments, while even those punishments often fail of their purpose!
           A clergyman settled a few years ago at George-Town; and, feeling as I do now, warmly recommended to the planters, from the pulpit, a relaxation of severity; he introduced the benignity of Christianity, and pathetically made use of the admirable precepts of that system to melt the hearts of his congregation into a greater degree of companion toward their slaves than had been hitherto customary. “Sir, (said one of his “hearers,) we pay you a genteel salary to read to us the prayers “of the liturgy, and to explain to us such parts of the Gospel as “the rule of the church directs; but we do not want you to teach “us what we are to do with our blacks.” The clergyman found it prudent to with-hold any farther admonition. Whence this astonishing right, or rather this barbarous custom? for, most certainly, we have no kind of right beyond that of force. We are told, it is true, that slavery cannot be so repugnant to human nature as we at first imagine, because it has been practised in all ages and in all nations: the Lacedemonians themselves, those great assertors of liberty, conquered the Helotes with the design of making them their slaves. The Romans, whom we consider as our masters in civil and military policy, lived in the exercise of the most horrid oppression: they conquered to plunder and to enslave. What a hideous aspect the face of the earth must then have exhibited! Provinces, towns, districts, often depopulated: their inhabitants driven to Rome, the greatest market in the world, and there sold by thousands! The Roman dominions were tilled by the hands of unfortunate people, who had once been, like their victors, free, rich, and possessed of every benefit society can confer, until they became subject to the cruel right of war and to lawless force. Is there then no superintending power who conducts the moral operations of the world as well as the physical? The same sublime hand, which guides the planets round the sun with so much exactness, which preserves the arrangement of the whole with such exalted wisdom and paternal care, and prevents the vast system from falling into confusion, doth it abandon mankind to all the errors, the follies, and the miseries, which their most frantic rage, and their most dangerous vices and passions can produce?
           The history of the earth! doth it present any thing but crimes of the most heinous nature, committed from one end of the world to the other? We observe avarice, rapine, and murder, equally prevailing in all parts. History perpetually tells us of millions of people abandoned to the caprice of the maddest princes, and of whole nations devoted to the blind fury of tyrants; countries destroyed; nations alternately buried in ruins by other nations; some parts of the world, beautifully cultivated, returned again into their pristine state; the fruits of ages of industry, the toil of thousands, in a short time destroyed by few! If one corner breathes in peace for a few years, it is, in turn, subjected, torn, and levelled. One would almost believe the principles of action in man, considered as the first agent of this planet, to be poisoned in their most essential parts. We certainly are not that class of beings which we vainly think ourselves to be. Man, an animal of prey, seems to have rapine and the love of bloodshed implanted in his heart; nay, to hold it the most honourable occupation in society. We never speak of a hero of mathematics, a hero of knowledge or humanity: no! this illustrious appellation is reserved for the most successful butchers of the world. If Nature has given us a fruitful soil to inhabit, she has refused us such inclinations and propensities as would afford us the full enjoyment of it: extensive as the surface of this planet is, not one half of it is yet cultivated, not half replenished: she created man, and placed him either in the woods or plains, and provided him with passions which must for ever oppose his happiness. Everything is submitted to the power of the strongest. Men, like the elements, are always at war: the weakest yield to the most potent; force, subtilty, and malice, always triumph over unguarded honesty and simplicity. Benignity, moderation, and justice, are virtues adapted only to the humble paths of life. We love to talk of virtue, and to admire its beauty, while in the shade of solitude and retirement; but, when we step forth into active life, if it happen to be in competition with any passion or desire, do we observe it to prevail? Hence so many religious impostors have triumphed over the credulity of mankind, and have rendered their frauds the creeds of succeeding generations, during the course of many ages, until, worn away by time, they have been replaced by new ones. Hence the most unjust war, if supported by the greatest force, always succeeds: hence the most just ones, when supported only by their justice, as often fail. Such is the ascendancy of power, the supreme arbiter of all the revolutions which we observe in this planet: so irresistible is power, that it often thwarts the tendency of the most forcible causes, and prevents their subsequent salutary effects, though ordained for the good of man by the Governor of the universe. Such is the perverseness of human nature! who can describe it in all its latitude?
           In the moments of our philanthropy we often talk of an indulgent Nature, a kind Parent, who, for the benefit of mankind, has taken singular pains to vary the genera of plants, fruits, grain, and the different productions of the earth, and has spread peculiar blessings in each climate. This is undoubtedly an object of contemplation which calls forth our warmed gratitude; for, so singularly benevolent have those paternal intentions been, that, where barrenness of soil or severity of climate prevail, there she has implanted, in the heart of man, sentiments which over-balance every misery, and supply the place of every want. She has given to the inhabitants of these regions an attachment to their savage rocks and wild shores, unknown to those who inhabit the fertile fields of the temperate zone. Yet, if we attentively view this globe, will it not appear rather a place of punishment than of delight? And, what misfortune! that those punishments should fall on the innocent, and its few delights be enjoyed by the most unworthy. Famine, diseases, elementary convulsions, human feuds, dissentions, &c. are the produce of every climate; each climate produces, besides, vices and miseries peculiar to its latitude. View the frigid sterility of the north, whose famished inhabitants, hardly acquainted with the sun, live and fare worse than the bears they hunt; and to which they are superior only in the faculty of speaking. View the arctic and antarctic regions, those huge voids, where nothing lives; regions of eternal snow; where Winter in all his horrors has established his throne, and arrested every creative power of nature. Will you call the miserable stragglers in these countries by the name of men? Now contrast this frigid power of the north and south with that of the sun; examine the parched lands of the torrid zone, replete with sulphureous exhalations; view those countries of Asia subject to pestilential infections which lay nature waste; view this globe often convulsed both from within and without; pouring forth, from several mouths, rivers of boiling matter, which are imperceptibly leaving immense subterranean graves, wherein millions will one day perish!
  Look at the poisonous soil of the equator, at those putrid slimy tracks, teeming with horrid monsters, the enemies of the human race; look next at the sandy continent, scorched perhaps by the fatal approach of some ancient comet, now the abode of desolation. Examine the rains, the convulsive storms of those climates, where mattes of sulphur, bitumen, and electrical fire, combining their dreadful powers, are incessantly hovering and bursting over a globe threatened with dissolution. On this little shell, how very few are the spots where man can live and flourish! even tinder those mild climates, which seem to breathe peace and happiness, the poison of slavery, the fury of despotism, and the rage of superstition, are all combined against man. There only the few live and rule, while the many starve and utter ineffectual complaints: there, human nature appears more debased, perhaps, than in the less-favoured climates. The fertile plains of Asia, the rich low lands of Egypt and of Diarbeck, the fruitful fields bordering on the Tigris and the Euphrates, the extensive country of the East-Indies in all its separate districts; all these must, to the geographical eye, seem as if intended for terrestrial paradises: but, though surrounded with the spontaneous riches of nature, though her kindest favours seem to be shed on those beautiful regions with the most profuse hand, yet there, in general, we find the most wretched people in the world. Almost every where, liberty, so natural to mankind, is refused, or rather enjoyed but by their tyrants; the word slave is the appellation of every rank, who adore, as a divinity, a being worse than themselves; subject to every caprice, and to every lawless rage which unrestrained power can give. Tears are shed, perpetual groans are heard, where only the accents of peace, alacrity, and gratitude, should resound. There the very delirium of tyranny tramples on the best gifts of nature, and sports with the fate, the happiness, the lives, of millions: there the extreme fertility of the ground always indicates the extreme misery of the inhabitants.
           Every where one part of the human species is taught the art of shedding the blood of the other: of setting fire to their dwellings; of levelling the works of their industry: half of the existence of nations regularly employed in destroying other nations. What little political felicity is to be met with here and there has cost oceans of blood to purchase; as if good was never to be the portion of unhappy man. Republics, kingdoms, monarchies, founded either on fraud or successful violence, increase by pursuing the steps of the same policy, until they are destroyed, in their turn, either by the influence of their own crimes or by more successful but equally criminal enemies.
           If, from this general review of human nature, we descend to the examination of what is called civilized society; there the combination of every natural and artificial want makes us pay very dear for what little share of political felicity we enjoy. It is a strange heterogeneous assemblage of vices and virtues, and of a variety of other principles, for ever at war, for ever jarring, for ever producing some dangerous, some distressing, extreme. Where do you conceive, then, that nature intended we should be happy? Would you prefer the state of men in the woods to that of men in a more improved situation? Evil preponderates in both; in the first they often eat each other for want of food, and in the other they often starve each other for want of room. For my part, I think the vices and miseries to be found in the latter exceed those of the former, in which real evil is more scarce, more supportable, and less enormous. Yet we wish to see the earth peopled, to accomplish the happiness of kingdoms, which is said to consist in numbers. Gracious God! to what end is the introduction of so many beings into a mode of existence, in which they must grope amidst as many errors, commit as many crimes, and meet with as many diseases, wants, and sufferings!
           The following scene will, I hope, account for these melancholy reflections, and apologize for the gloomy thoughts with which I have filled this letter: my mind is, and always has been, oppressed since I became a witness to it. I was not long since invited to dine with a planter who lived three miles from, where he then resided. In order to avoid the heat of the sun, I resolved to go on foot, sheltered in a small path, leading through a pleasant wood. I was leisurely travelling along, attentively examining some peculiar plants which I had collected, when all at once I felt the air strongly agitated, though the day was perfectly calm and sultry. I immediately cast my eyes toward the cleared ground, from which I was but a small distance, in order to see whether it was not occasioned by a sudden shower; when at that instant a sound, resembling a deep rough voice, uttered, as I thought, a few inarticulate monosyllables. Alarmed and surprized, I precipitately looked all round, when I perceived, at about six rods distance, something resembling a cage, suspended to the limbs of a tree, all the branches of which appeared covered with large birds of prey, fluttering about, and anxiously endeavouring to perch on the cage. Actuated by an involuntary motion of my hands, more than by any design of my mind, I fired at them; they all flew to a short distance, with a most hideous noise: when, horrid to think and painful to repeat, I perceived a negro, suspended in the cage, and left there to expire! I shudder when I recollect that the birds had already picked out his eyes; his cheek bones were bare; his arms had been attacked in several places, and his body seemed covered with a multitude of wounds. From the edges of the hollow sockets, and from the lacerations with which he was disfigured, the blood slowly dropped, and tinged the ground beneath. No sooner were the birds flown, than swarms of insects covered the whole body of this unfortunate wretch, eager to feed on his mangled flesh and to drink his blood. I found myself suddenly arrested by the power of affright and terror; my nerves were convulsed; I trembled, I flood motionless, involuntarily contemplating the fate of this negro in all its dismal latitude. The living spectre, though deprived of his eyes, could still distinctly hear, and, in his uncouth dialed, begged me to give him some water to allay his thirst. Humanity herself would have recoiled back with horror; she would have balanced whether to lessen such reliefless distress, or mercifully with one blow to end this dreadful scene of agonizing torture. Had I had a ball in my gun, I certainly should have dispatched him; but, finding myself unable to perform so kind an office, I fought, though trembling, to relieve him as well as I could. A shell ready fixed to a pole, which had been used by some negroes, preferred itself to me; I filled it with water, and with trembling hands I guided it to the quivering lips of the wretched sufferer. Urged by the irresistible power of thirst, he endeavoured to meet it, as he instinctively guessed its approach by the noise it made in passing through the bars of the cage. “Tankè you, whitè man, tankè you, putè somè “poison and givè me.” How long have you been hanging there? I asked him. “Two days, and me no die; the birds, the birds; aaah “me!” Oppressed with the reflections which this shocking spectacle afforded me, I muttered strength enough to walk away, and soon reached the house at which I intended to dine. There I heard that the reason for this slave’s being thus punished was on account of his having killed the overseer of the plantation. They told me that the laws of self-preservation rendered such executions necessary; and supported the doctrine of slavery with the arguments generally made use of to justify the practice; with the repetition of which I shall not trouble you at present.
                                                                                     
  Adieu.
   
   
   
• 1 media/03-Chandler-Overmantel-Ruggles-Overmantel.jpg 2020-09-26T07:35:44-07:00 Letter II: On the Situation, Feelings, and Pleasures, of an American Farmer 36 image_header 2024-02-15T11:36:38-08:00
  NB: This Letter has not yet been emended and is in the early stages of being annotated.
  
  LETTER II.
  ON THE SITUATION, FEELINGS, AND PLEASURES,
  OF AN AMERICAN FARMER.
  
  AS you are the first enlightened European I had ever the pleasure of being acquainted with, you will not be surprised that I should, according to your earned desire and my promise, appear anxious of preserving your friendship and correspondence. By your accounts, I observe a material difference subsists between your husbandry, modes, and customs, and ours. Every thing is local. Could we enjoy the advantages of the English farmer, we should be much happier, indeed; but this wish, like many others, implies a contradiction; and, could the English farmer have some of those privileges we possess, they would be the first of their class in the world. Good and evil, I see, are to be found in all societies, and it is in vain to seek for any spot where those ingredients are not mixed. I therefore rest satisfied, and thank God that my lot is to be an American farmer, instead of a Russian boor or a Hungarian peasant. I thank you kindly for the idea, however dreadful, which you have given me of their lot and condition. Your observations have confirmed me in the justness of my ideas, and I am happier now than I thought myself before. It is strange that misery, when viewed in others, should become to us a sort of real good; though I am far from rejoicing to hear that there are in the world men so thoroughly wretched. They are no doubt as harmless, industrious, and willing to work, as we are. Hard is their fate to be thus condemned to slavery worse than that of our negroes. Yet, when young, I entertained some thoughts of selling my farm. I thought it afforded but a dull repetition of the same labours and pleasures. I thought the former tedious and heavy: the latter few and insipid. But when I came to consider myself as divested of my farm, I then found the world so wide, and every place so full, that I began to fear lest there would be no room for me. My farm, my house, my barn, presented, to my imagination, objects from which I adduced quite new ideas: they were more forcible than before. Why should not I find myself happy, said I, where my father was before? He left me no good books it is true; he gave me no other education than the art of reading and writing: but he left me a good farm and his experience: he left me free from debts, and no kind of difficulties to struggle with.—I married; and this perfectly reconciled me to my situation. My wife rendered my house all at once cheerful and pleasing: it no longer appeared gloomy and solitary as before. When I went to work in my fields, I worked with more alacrity and sprightliness. I felt that I did not work for myself alone, and this encouraged me much. My wife would often come with her knitting in her hand, and sit under the shady tree, praising the straightness of my furrows and the docility of my horses. This swelled my heart and made every thing light and pleasant, and I regretted that I had not married before. I felt myself happy in my new situation, and where is that station which can confer a more substantial system of felicity than that of an American farmer, possessing freedom of action, freedom of thoughts, ruled by a mode of government which requires but little from us? I owe nothing but a pepper-corn to my country, a small tribute to my king, with loyalty and due respect. I know no other landlord than the Lord of all land, to whom I owe the most sincere gratitude. My father left me three hundred and seventy-one acres of land, forty-seven of which are good timothy meadow, an excellent orchard, a good house, and a substantial barn. It is my duty to think how happy I am that he lived to build and to pay for all these improvements. What are the labours which I have to undergo? What are my fatigues when compared to his, who had every thing to do, from the first tree he felled to the finishing of his house? Every year I kill from 1500 to 2000 weight of pork, 1200 of beef, half a dozen of good wethers[DP1]  in harvest; of fowls my wife has always a great stock: what can I wish more? My negroes are tolerably faithful and healthy. By a long series of industry and honest dealings, my father left behind him the name of a good man. I have but to tread his paths to be happy and a good man like him. I know enough of the law to regulate my little concerns with propriety, nor do I dread its power. These are the grand outlines of my situation; but as I can feel much more than I am able to express, I hardly know how to proceed. When my first son was born, the whole train of my ideas was suddenly altered. Never was there a charm that acted so quickly and powerfully. I ceased to ramble in imagination through the wide world. My excursions, since, have not exceeded the bounds of my farm; and all my principal pleasures are now centered within its scanty limits: but, at the same time, there is not an operation belonging to it in which I do not find some food for useful reflections. This is the reason, I suppose, that, when you were here, you used, in your refined style, to denominate me the farmer of feelings. How rude must those feelings be in him who daily holds the ax or the plough! How much more refined, on the contrary, those of the European, whose mind is improved by education, example, books, and by every acquired advantage! Those feelings, however, I will delineate as well as I can, agreeably to your earnest request. When I contemplate my wife, by my fire-side, while she either spins, knits, darns, or suckles our child, I cannot describe the various emotions of love, of gratitude, of conscious pride, which thrill in my heart, and often overflow in involuntary tears. I feel the necessity, the sweet pleasure, of acting my part, the part of a husband and father, with an attention and propriety which may entitle me to my good fortune. It is true these pleasing images vanish with the smoke of my pipe, but, though they disappear from my mind, the impression they have made on my heart is indelible. When I play with the infant, my warm imagination runs forward, and eagerly anticipates his future temper and constitution. I would willingly open the book of fate, and know in which page his destiny is delineated. Alas! where is the father, who, in those moments of paternal extacy[DP2] , can delineate one half of the thoughts which dilate his heart? I am sure I cannot. Then again I fear for the health of those who are become so dear to me; and, in their sicknesses, I severely pay for the joys I experienced while they were well. Whenever I go abroad it is always involuntary. I never return home without feeling some pleasing emotion, which I often suppress as useless and foolish. The instant I enter on my own land, the bright idea of property, of exclusive right, of independence, exalt my mind. Precious soil, I say to myself, by what singular custom of law is it that thou wast made to constitute the riches of the freeholder? What should we American farmers be without the distinct possession of that soil? It feeds, it clothes, us: from it we draw even a great exuberancy, our best meat, our richest drink; the very honey of our bees comes from this privileged spot. No wonder we should thus cherish its possession: no wonder that so many Europeans, who have never been able to say that such portion of land was theirs, cross the Atlantic to realize that happiness! This formerly rude soil has been converted by my father into a pleasant farm, and, in return, it has established all our rights. On it is founded our rank, our freedom, our power, as citizens; our importance, as inhabitants of such a district. These images, I must confess, I always behold with pleasure, and extend them as far as my imagination can reach; for this is what may be called the true and the only philosophy of an American farmer. Pray do not laugh in thus seeing an artless countryman tracing himself through the simple modifications of his life. Remember that you have required it, therefore, with candour, though with diffidence, I endeavour to follow the thread of my feelings, but I cannot tell you all. Often, when I plough my low ground, I place my little boy on a chair which screws to the beam of the plow. Its motion and that of the horses please him: he is perfectly happy, and begins to chat. As I lean over the handle, various are the thoughts which croud[DP3]  into my mind. I am now doing for him, I say, what my father formerly did for me: may God enable him to live that he may perform the same operations for the same purposes when I am worn out and old! I relieve his mother of some trouble while I have him with; the odoriferous furrow exhilarates his spirits, and seems to do the child a great deal of good, for he looks more blooming since I have adopted that practice. Can more pleasure, more dignity, be added to that primary occupation? The father, thus ploughing with his child, and to feed his family, is inferior only to the emperor of China ploughing as an example to his kingdom. In the evening, when I return home through my low grounds, I am astonished at the myriads of insects which I perceive dancing in the beams of the setting sun. I was before scarcely acquainted with their existence; they are so small that it is difficult to distinguish them: they are carefully improving this short evening space, not daring to expose themselves to the blaze of our meridian sun. I never see an egg brought on my table but I feel penetrated with the wonderful change it would have undergone but for my gluttony. It might have been a gentle useful hen leading her chicken with a care and vigilance which speaks shame to many women. A cock, perhaps, arrayed with the most majestic plumes, tender to its mate, bold, courageous, endowed with an astonishing instinct, with thoughts, with memory, and every distinguishing characteristic of the reason of man! I never see my trees drop their leaves and their fruit in the autumn, and bud again in the spring, without wonder. The sagacity of those animals, which have long been the tenants of my farm, astonish me: some of them seem to surpass even men in memory and sagacity. I could tell you singular instances of that kind. What then is this instinct which we so debase, and of which we are taught to entertain so diminutive an idea? My bees, above any other tenants of my farm, attract my attention and respect. I am astonished to see that nothing exists but what has its enemy; one species pursues and lives upon the other. Unfortunately our kingbirds are the destroyers of those industrious insects; but, on the other hand, these birds preserve our fields from the depredation of crows which they pursue on the wing with great vigilance and astonishing dexterity. Thus divided by two interested motives, I have long resisted the desire I had to kill them, until last year, when I thought they increased too much, and my indulgence had been carried to far. It was at the time of swarming, when they all came and fixed themselves on the neighbouring trees, whence they caught those that returned loaded from the fields. This made me resolve to kill as many as I could, and was just ready to fire, when a bunch of bees, as big as my fist, issued from one of the hives, rushed on one of these birds, and probably stung him, for he instantly screamed, and flew, not as before in an irregular manner, but in a direct line. He was followed by the same bold phalanx, at a considerable distance, which unfortunately becoming too sure of victory, quitted their military array and disbanded themselves. By this inconsiderate step they lost all that aggregate of force which had made the bird fly off. Perceiving their disorder, he immediately returned, and snapped as many as he wanted; nay, he had even the impudence to alight on the very twig from which the beast had driven him. I killed him, and immediately open his craw, from which I took 171 bees. I laid them all on a blanket, in the sun, and to my great surprise, 54 returned to life, licked themselves clean, and joyfully went back to the hive; where they probably informed their companions of such an adventure and escape, as I believe had never happened before to American bees? I draw a great fund of pleasure from the quails which inhabit my farm: they abundantly repay me, by their various notes and peculiar tameness, for the inviolable hospitality I constantly shew[DP4]  them, in the winter. Instead of perfidiously taking advantage of their great and affecting distress, when nature offers nothing but a barren universal bed of snow, when irresistible necessity forces them to my barn doors, I permit them to feed unmolested; and it is not the least agreeable spectacle which that dreary season presents, when I see those beautiful birds, tamed by hunger, intermingling with all my cattle and sheep, seeking, in security, for the poor scanty grain, which, but for them, would be useless and lost. Often in the angles of the fences, where the motion of the wind prevents the snow from settling, I carry them both chaff and grain; the one to feed them, the other to prevent their tender feet from freezing fast to the earth, as I have frequently observed them to do. I do not know an instance in which the singular barbarity of man is so strongly delineated, as in the catching and murthering[DP5]  those harmless birds at that cruel season of the year. Mr. ****, one of the most famous and extraordinary farmers that has ever done honour to the province of Connecticut, by his timely and humane assistance in a hard winter, saved this species from being entirely destroyed. They perished all over the country; none of their delightful whistlings were heard the next spring, but upon this gentleman’s farm; and to his humanity we owe the continuation of their music. When the severities of that season have dispirited all my cattle, no farmer ever attends them with more pleasure than I do: it is one of those duties which is sweetened with the most rational satisfaction. I amuse myself in beholding their different tempers, actions, and the various effects of their instinct, now powerfully impelled by the force of hunger. I trace their various inclinations, and the different effects of their passions, which are exactly the same as among men. The law is to us precisely what I am in my barn yard, a bridle and check to prevent the strong and greedy from oppressing the timid and weak. Conscious of superiority, they always drive to encroach on their neighbours. Unsatisfied with their portion, they eagerly swallow it in order to have an opportunity of taking what is given to others, except they are prevented. Some I chide; others, unmindful of my admonitions, receive some blows. Could victuals thus be given to men, without the assistance of any language, I am sure they would not behave better to one another, nor more philosophically, than my cattle do. The same spirit prevails in the stable; but there I have to do with more generous animals; there my well-known voice has immediate influence; and soon restores peace and tranquillity[DP6] . Thus, by superior knowledge, I govern all my cattle as wise men are obliged to govern fools and the ignorant. A variety of other thoughts croud[DP7]  on my mind at that peculiar instant, but they all vanish by the time I return home. If, in a cold night, I swiftly travel in my sledge, carried along at the rate of twelve miles an hour, many are the reflections excited by surrounding circumstances. I ask myself what sort of an agent is that which we call frost? Our minister compares it to needles, the points of which enter our pores. What is become of the heat of the summer? In what part of the world is it that the N. W. keeps these grand magazines of nitre? When I see, in the morning, a river over which I can travel, that, in the evening before, was liquid, I am astonished indeed! What is become of those millions of insects which played in our summer fields and in our evening meadows? They were so puny and so delicate, the period of their existence was so short, that one cannot help wondering how they could learn, in that short space, the sublime art to hide themselves and their offspring in so perfect a manner as to baffle the rigour of the season, and preserve that precious embryo of life, that small portion of ethereal heat, which, if once destroyed, would destroy the species! Whence that irresistible propensity to sleep, so common in all those who are severely attacked by the frost! Dreary as this season appears, yet it has, like all others, its miracles. It presents to man a variety of problems which he can never resolve. Among the rest, we have here a set of small birds which never appear until the snow falls. Contrary to all others, they dwell and appear to delight in that element.
           It is my bees, however, which afford me the most pleasing and extensive themes. Let me look at them when I will, their government, their industry, their quarrels, their passions, always present me with something new; for which reason, when weary with labour, my common place of rest is under my locust trees, close by my bee-house. By their movements I can predict the weather, and can tell the day of their swarming; but the most difficult point is, when on the wing, to know whether they want to go to the woods or not. If they have previously pitched in some hollow trees, it is not the allurements of salt and water, of fennel, hickory leaves, &c. nor the finest box, that can induce them to stay. They will prefer those rude, rough, habitations, to the best polished mahogany hive. When that is the case with mine, I seldom thwart their inclinations. It is in freedom that they work. Were I to confine them, they would dwindle away and quit their labour. In such excursions we only part for a while. I am generally sure to find them again the following fall. This elopement of theirs only adds to my recreations. I know how to deceive even their superlative instinct. Nor do I fear losing them, though eighteen miles from my house, and lodged in the most lofty trees in the most impervious of our forests. I once took you along with me in one of these rambles, and yet you insist on my repeating the detail of our operations. It brings back into my mind many of the useful and entertaining reflections with which you so happily beguiled our tedious hours.
           After I have done sowing, by way of recreation, I prepare for a week’s jaunt in the woods, not to hunt either the deer or the bears, as my neighbours do, but to catch the more harmless bees. I cannot boast that this chace[DP8]  is so noble or so famous among men, but I find it less fatiguing, and full as profitable; and the last consideration is the only one that moves me. I take with me my dog, as a companion, for he is useless as to this game. My gun, for no man you know ought to enter the woods without one, my blanket, some provisions, some wax, vermilion, honey, and a small pocket-compass. With these implements I proceed to such woods as are at a considerable distance from any settlements. I carefully examine whether they abound with large trees; if so, I make a small fire, on some flat stones, in a convenient place. On the fire I put some wax: close by this fire, on another stone, I drop honey in distinct drops, which I surround with small quantities of vermilion, laid on the stone; and then I retire carefully to watch whether any bees appear. If there are any in that neighbourhood, I rest assured that the smell of the burnt wax will unavoidably attract them. They will soon find out the honey, for they are fond of preying on that which is not their own; and, in their approach, they will necessarily tinge themselves with some particles of vermilion, which will adhere long to their bodies. I next fix my compass, to find out their course, which they keep invariably strait[DP9] , when they are returning home  loaded. By the assistance of my watch, I observe how long those are returning which are marked with vermilion. Thus, possessed of the course, and, in some measure, of the distance, which I can easily guess at, I follow the first, and seldom fail of coming to the tree where those republics are lodged. I then mark it; and thus, with patience, I have found out sometimes eleven swarms in a season; and it is inconceivable what a quantity of honey these trees will sometimes afford. It certainly depends on the size of the hollow, as the bees never rest nor swarm till it is all replenished; for, like men, it is only the want of room that induces them to quit the maternal hive. Next I proceed to some of the nearest settlements, where I procure proper assistance to cut down the trees, get all my prey secured, and then return home with my prize. The first bees I ever procured were thus found in the woods by mere accident; for at that time, I had no kind of skill in this method of tracing them. The body of the tree being perfectly sound, they had lodged themselves in the hollow of one of its principal limbs, which I carefully sawed off, and, with a good deal of labour and industry, brought it home, where I fixed it up in the same position in which I found it growing. This was in April. I had five swarms that year, and they have been ever since very prosperous. This business generally takes up a week of my time every fall, and to me it is a week of solitary ease and relaxation.
           The seed is by that time committed to the ground. There is nothing very material to do at home, and this additional quantity of honey enables me to be more generous to my home bees, and my wife to make a due quantity of mead. The reason, Sir, that you found mine better than that of others, is, that she puts two gallons of brandy in each barrel, which ripens it, and takes off that sweet, luscious, taste, which it is apt to retain a long time. If we find any where in the woods, no matter on whose land, what is called a bee-tree, we must mark it. In the fall of the year, when we propose to cut it down, our duty is to inform the proprietor of the land, who is entitled to half the contents. If this is not complied with, we are exposed to an action of trespass, as well as he who should go and cut down a bee-tree which he had neither found out nor marked.
           We have twice a year the pleasure of catching pigeons, whose numbers are sometimes so astonishing as to obscure the sun in their flight. Where is it that they hatch? for such multitudes must require an immense quantity of food. I fancy they breed toward the plains of Ohio, and those about lake Michigan, which abound in wild oats; though I have never killed any that had that grain in their craws. In one of them, last year, I found some undigested rice. Now the nearest rice fields, from where I live, must be least 560 miles; and either their digestion must be suspended while they are flying, or else they must fly with the celerity of the wind. We catch them with a net extended on the ground, to which they are allured by what we call tame wild pigeons[DP10] , made blind, and fastened to a long string. His short flights, and his repeated calls, never fail to bring them down. The greatest number I ever caught was fourteen dozen, though much larger quantities have often been trapped. I have frequently seen them at the market so cheap, that, for a penny, you might have as many as you could carry away; and yet, from the extreme cheapness, you must not conclude that they are but any ordinary food; on the contrary, I think they are excellent. Every farmer has a tame wild pigeon in a cage, at his door, all the year round, in order to be ready whenever the season comes for catching them.
           The pleasure I receive from the warblings of the birds in the spring is superior to my poor description, as the continual succession of their tuneful notes is for ever [DP11] new to me. I generally rise from bed about that indistinct interval, which, properly speaking, is neither night nor day; for this is the moment of the most universal vocal choir. Who can listen, unmoved to the sweet love-tales of our robins, told from tree to tree? or to the shrill catbirds? The sublime accents of the thrush, from on high, always retard my steps, that I may listen to the delicious music. The variegated appearances of the dew-drops, as they hang to the different objects, must present, even to a clownish imagination, the most voluptuous ideas. The astonishing art which all birds display in the construction of their nests ill-provided as we may suppose them with proper tools, their neatness, their convenience, always make me ashamed of the slovenliness of our houses. Their love to their dame, their incessant careful attention, and the peculiar songs they address to her while she tediously incubates their eggs, remind me of my duty, could I ever forget it. Their affection, to their helpless little ones, is a lively precept; and, in short, the whole economy, of what we proudly call the brute creation, is admirable in every circumstance and vain man, though adorned with the additional gift of reason, might learn, from the perfection of instinct, how to regulate the follies, and how to temper the errors, which this second gift often makes him commit. This is a subject on which I have often bestowed the most ferocious thoughts. I have often blushed within myself, and been greatly astonished, when I have compared the unerring path they all follow, all just, all proper, all wise, up to the necessary degree of perfection, with the coarse, the imperfect, systems of men, not merely as governors and kings, but as masters, as husbands, as fathers, as citizens. But this is a sanctuary in which an ignorant farmer must not presume to enter. If ever man was permitted to receive and enjoy some blessings that might alleviate the many sorrows to which he is exposed, it is certainly in the country, when he attentively consider those ravishing scenes with which he is every where surrounded. This is the only time of the year in which I am avaricious of every moment: I therefore lose none that can add to this simple and inoffensive happiness. I roam early throughout all my fields. Not the least operation do I perform which is not accompanied with the most pleasing observations. Were I to extend them as far as I have carried them, I should become tedious. You would think me guilty of affection, and perhaps I should represent many things as pleasurable, from which you might not perhaps receive the least agreeable emotions. But, believe me, what I write is all true and real.
           Some time ago, as I sat smoking a contemplative pipe in my piazza, I saw, with amazement, a remarkable instance of selfishness displayed in a very small bird, which I had hitherto respected for its inoffensiveness. Three nests were placed almost contiguous to each other in my piazza. That of a swallow was affixed in the corner next to the house, that of a phebe[DP12]  in the other; a wren possessed a little box, which I had made on purpose, and hung between. Be not surprised at their tameness. All my family had long been taught to respect them as well as myself. The wren had shewn before signs of dislike to the box which I had given it, but I knew not on what account. At last it resolved, small as it was, to drive the swallow from its own habitation, and, to my very great surprise, it succeeded. Impudence often gets the better of modesty, and this exploit was no sooner performed than it removed every material to its own box with the most admirable dexterity. The signs of triumph appeared very visible; it fluttered its wings with uncommon velocity; an universal joy was perceivable in all its movements. Where did this little bird learn that spirit of injustice? It was not endowed with what we term reason! Here then is a proof that both those gifts border very near on one another, for we see the perfection of the one mixing with the errors of the other! The peaceable swallow, like the passive Quaker, meekly sat at a small distance, and never offered the least resistance. But, no sooner was the plunder carried away, than the injured bird went to work with unabated ardour, and, in a few days, the depredations were repaired. To prevent, however, a repetition of the same violence, I removed the wren’s box to another part of the house.
           In the middle of my parlour I have, you may remember, a curious republic of industrious hornets. Their nest hangs to the ceiling by the same twig on which it was so admirably built and contrived in the woods. Its removal did not displease them, for they find, in my house, plenty of food; and I have left a hole open, in one of the panes of the window, which answers all their purposes. By this kind usage they are become quite harmless. They live on the flies, which are very troublesome to us throughout summer. They are constantly busy in catching them, even on the eyelids of my children. It is surprising how quickly they smear them with a sort of glue, lest they might escape; and when thus prepared, they carry them to their nests as food for their young ones. These globular nests are most ingeniously divided into many stories, all provided with cells and proper communications. The materials, with which this fabric is built, they procure from the cottony furze, with which our oak-rails are covered. This substance, tempered with glue, produces a sort of pasteboard, which is very strong, and resists all the inclemencies of the weather. By their assistance I am but little troubled with flies. All my family are so accustomed to their strong buzzing, that no one takes any notice of them; and, though they are fierce and vindictive, yet kindness and hospitality have made them useful and harmless.
           We have a great variety of wasps. Most of them build their nests in mud, which they fix against the shingles of our roofs, as nigh the pitch as they can. These aggregates represent nothing, at first view, but coarse and irregular lumps, but, if you break them, you will observe that the inside of them contains a great number of oblong cells, in which they deposit their eggs, and in which they bury themselves in the fall of the year. Thus immured, they securely pass through the severity of that season, and, on the return of the sun, are enabled to perforate their cells, and to open themselves a passage from these recesses into the sunshine. The yellow wasps, which build under ground, in our meadows, are much more to be dreaded; for, when the mower unwittingly[DP13]  passes his scythe over their holes, they immediately sally forth with a fury and velocity superior even to the strength of man. They make the boldest fly, and the only remedy is to lie down and cover our heads with hay, for it is only at the head they aim their blows; nor is there any possibility of finishing that part of the work, until, by means of fire and brimstone, they are all silenced. But, though I have been obliged to execute this dreadful sentence, I have often thought it is a great pity, for the sake of a little hay, to lay waste so ingenious a subterranean town, furnished with every conveniency, and built with a most surprising mechanism.
           I never should have done, were I to recount the many objects which involuntarily strike my imagination in the midst of my work, and spontaneously afforded me the most pleasing relief. These may appear insignificant trifles to a person who has travelled through Europe and America, and is acquainted with books and many sciences. But such simple objects of contemplation suffice me, who have no time to bestow on more extensive observations. Happily these require no study: they are obvious: they gild the moments I dedicate to them, and enliven the severe labours which I perform. At home my happiness springs from very different objects. The gradual unfolding of my children’s reason, the study of their dawning tempers, attract all my paternal attention. I have to contrive little punishments for their little faults, small encouragements for their good actions, and a variety of other expedients dictated by various occasions. But these are themes unworthy your perusal, and which ought not to be carried beyond the walls of my house, being domestic mysteries, adapted only to the locality of the small sanctuary wherein my family resides. Sometimes I delight in inventing and executing machines, which simplify my wife’s labour. I have been tolerably successful that way. And these, Sir, are the narrow circles within which I constantly revolve; and what can I wish for beyond them? I bless God for all the good he has given me. I envy no man’s prosperity, and with no other portion of happiness than that I may live to teach the same philosophy to my children, and give each of them a farm, shew them how to cultivate it, and be, like their father, good substantial independent American farmers.--An appellation which will be the most fortunate one a man of my class can possess, so long as our civil government continues to shed blessings on our husbandry. Adieu.
• 1 2022-02-11T15:13:09-08:00 Letter V: Customary Education and Employment of the Inhabitants of Nantucket 19 Letter V: Customary Education and Employment of the Inhabitants of Nantucket plain 2024-02-14T12:01:04-08:00 NB: This Letter has not yet been emended and is currently in the early stages of being annotated.
  
  LETTER V.
  CUSTOMARY EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT
  OF THE INHABITANTS OF NANTUCKET.
  
  THE easiest way of becoming acquainted with the modes of thinking, the rules of conduct, and the prevailing manners of any people, is to examine what sort of education they give their children; how they treat them at home, and what they are taught in their places of public worship. At home their tender minds must be early struck with the gravity, the serious though cheerful deportment, of their parents; they are inured to a principle of subordination, arising neither from sudden passions nor inconsiderate pleasure; they are gently holden by an uniform silk cord, which unites softness and strength. A perfect equanimity prevails in most of their families, and bad example hardly ever sows in their hearts the seeds of future and similar faults. They are corrected with tenderness, nursed with the most affectionate care, clad with that decent plainness, from which they observe their parents never to depart: in short, by the force of example, which is superior even to the strongest instinct of nature, more than by precepts, they learn to follow the steps of their parents, to despite ostentatiousness as being sinful. They acquire a taste for that neatness for which their fathers are so conspicuous; they learn to be prudent and saving; the very tone of voice, with which they are always addressed, establishes in them that softness of diction, which ever after becomes habitual. Frugal, sober, orderly, parents, attached to their business, constantly following some useful occupation, never guilty of riot, dissipation, or other irregularities, cannot fail of training up children to the same uniformity of life and manners. If they are left with fortunes, they are taught how to save them, and how to enjoy them with moderation and decency; if they have none, they know how to venture, how to work, and toil, as their fathers have done before them. If they fail of success, there are always in this island (and wherever this society prevails) established resources, founded on the most benevolent principles. At their meetings they are taught the few, the simple, tenets of their sect; tenets, as fit to render men sober, industrious, just, and merciful, as those delivered in the most magnificent churches and cathedrals: they are instructed in the most essential duties of Christianity, so as not to offend true Divinity by the commission of evil deeds; to dread his wrath, and the punishments he has denounced; they are taught at the same time to have a proper confidence in his mercy, while they deprecate his justice. As every feet, from their different modes of worship, and their different interpretations of some parts of the Scriptures, necessarily have various opinions and prejudices, which contribute something in forming their characteristics in society, so those of the Friends are well known: obedience to the laws, even to non-resistance, justice, good-will to all, benevolence at home, sobriety, meekness, neatness, love of order, fondness and appetite for commerce. They are as remarkable here for those virtues as at Philadelphia, which is their American cradle, and the boast of that society. At school they learn to read, and write a good hand, until they are twelve years old; they are then in general put apprentices to the cooper’s trade, which is the second essential branch of business followed here; at fourteen they are sent to sea, where in their leisure hours their companions teach them the art of navigation, which they have an opportunity of practicing on the spot. They learn the great and useful art of working a ship in all the different situations which the sea and wind so often require; and surely there cannot be a better or a more useful school of that kind in the world. They then go gradually through every station of rowers, steersmen, and harpooners; thus they learn to attack, to pursue, to overtake, to cut, to dress, their huge game: and, after having performed several such voyages, and perfected themselves in this business, they are fit either for the counting-house or the chase.
           The first proprietors of this island, or rather the first founders of this town, began their career of industry with a single whale-boat, with which they went to fish for cod; the small distance from their shores, at which they caught it, enabled them soon to increase their business, and those early successes first led them to conceive that they might likewise catch the whales, which hitherto sported undisturbed on their banks.
  After many trials, and several miscarriages, they succeeded; thus they proceeded, step by step; the profits of one successful enterprize helped them to purchase and prepare better materials for a more extensive one: as these were attended with little costs, their profits grew greater. The south sides of the island, from east to west, were divided into four equal parts, and each part was assigned to a company of six, which, though thus separated, still carried on their business in common. In the middle of this distance they erected a mast, provided with a sufficient number of rounds, and near it they built a temporary hut, where five of the associates lived, whilst the sixth from his high station carefully looked toward the sea, in order to observe the spouting of the whales. As soon as any were discovered, the centinel descended, the whale-boat was launched, and the company went forth in quest of their game. It may appear strange to you, that so slender a vessel as an American whale-boat, containing six diminutive beings, should dare to pursue and to attack, in its native element, the largest and strongest fish that nature has created. Yet, by the exertions of an admirable dexterity, improved by a long practice, in which these people are become superior to any other whale-men, by knowing the temper of the whale after her first movement, and by many other useful observations, they seldom failed to harpoon it, and to bring the huge leviathan on the shores. Thus they went on, until the profits they made enabled them to purchase larger vessels, and to pursue them farther, when the whales quitted their coasts; those, who failed in their enterprizes, returned to the cod-fisheries, which had been their first school, and their first resource; they even began to visit the banks of Cape Breton, the isle of Sable, and all the other fishing-places, with which this coast of America abounds. By degrees they went a whaling to Newfoundland, to the Gulph of St. Laurence, to the Straits of Belle Isle, the coast of Labrador, Davis’s Straits, even to Cape Desolation, in 70° of latitude; where the Danes carry on some fisheries in spite of the perpetual severities of that inhospitable climate. In process of time they visited the western islands, the latitude of 34°, famous for that fish, the Brazils, the coast of Guinea. Would you believe that they have already gone to the Falkland Islands, and that I have heard several of them talk of going to the South Sea! Their confidence is so great, and their knowledge of this branch of business so superior to that of any other people, that they have acquired a monopoly of this commodity. Such were their feeble beginnings, such the infancy and the progress of their maritime schemes; such is now the degree of boldness and activity to which they are arrived in their manhood. After their examples several companies have been formed in many of our capitals, where every necessary article of provisions, implements, and timber, are to be found. But the industry, exerted by the people of Nantucket, hath hithero enabled them to rival all their competitors; consequently this is the greatest mart for oil, whale-bone, and sperma-ceti, on the continent. It does not follow however that they are always successful; this would be an extraordinary field indeed, where the crops should never fail; many voyages do not repay the original cost of fitting out: they bear such misfortunes like true merchants, and, as they never venture their all like gamesters, they try their fortunes again; the latter hope to win by chance alone, the former by industry, well-judged speculation, and some hazard. I was there when Mr.-----had missed one of his vessels; she had been given over for lost by every body, but happily arrived, before I came away, after an absence of thirteen months. She had met with a variety of disappointments on the station she was ordered to, and, rather than return empty, the people steered for the coast of Guinea, where they fortunately fell in with several whales, and brought home upward of 600 barrels of oil, beside bone. Those returns are sometimes disposed of in the towns of the continent, where they are exchanged for such commodities as are wanted; but they are most commonly sent to England, where they always sell for cash. When this is intended, a vessel larger than the rest is fitted out to be filled with oil on the spot where it is found and made, and thence she sails immediately for London. This expedient saves time, freight, and expence; and from that capital they bring back whatever they want. They employ also several vessels in transporting lumber to the West-Indian Islands, from whence they procure in return the various productions of the country, which they afterwards exchange wherever they can hear of an advantageous market. Being extremely acute, they well know how to improve all the advantages which the combination of so many branches of business constantly affords; the spirit of commerce, which is the simple art of a reciprocal supply of wants, is well understood here by every body. They possess, like the generality of the Americans, a large share of native penetration, activity, and good sense, which leads them to a variety of other secondary schemes too tedious to mention: they are well acquainted with the cheapest method of procuring lumber from Kennebeck River, Penobscot, & pitch and tar, from North Carolina; flour and biscuit, from Philadelphia; beef and pork, from Connecticut. They know how to exchange their cod-fish, and West-Indian produce, for those articles which they are continually either bringing to their island, or sending off to other places where they are wanted. By means of all these commercial negotiations, they have greatly cheapened the fitting out of their whaling fleets, and therefore much improved their fisheries. They are indebted for all these advantages, not only to their national genius but to the poverty of their soil; and, as a proof of what I have so often advanced, look at the Vineyard, (their neighbouring island,) which is inhabited by a set of people as keen and as sagacious as themselves. Their soil being in general extremely fertile, they have fewer navigators; though they are equally well situated for the fishing-business. As, in my way back to Falmouth on the Main, I visited this sister island, permit me to give you, as concisely as I can, a short but true description of it; I am not so limited in the principal object of this journey as to wish to confine myself to the single spot of Nantucket.
   
• 1 2022-09-06T09:13:21-07:00 Letter VIII: Peculiar Customs at Nantucket 16 Letter VIII: Peculiar Customs at Nantucket plain 2024-02-15T11:26:30-08:00 NB: This Letter has not yet been emended and is currently in the early stages of being annotated.
  
  LETTER VIII.
  PECULIAR CUSTOMS AT NANTUCKET.
  
  THE manners of the Friends are entirely founded on that simplicity which is their boast, and their most distinguished characteristic; and those manners have acquired the authority of laws. Here they are strongly attached to plainness of dress as well as to that of language; insomuch that, though some part of it may be ungrammatical, yet, should any person, who was born and brought up here, attempt to speak more correctly, he would be looked upon as a fop or an innovator. On the other hand, should a stranger come here and adopt their idiom in all its purity, (as they deem it,) this accomplishment would immediately procure him the most cordial reception; and they would cherish him like an ancient member of their society. So many impositions have they suffered on this account, that they begin now indeed to grow more cautious. They are so tenacious of their ancient habits of industry and frugality, that, if any of them were to be seen with a long coat, made of English cloth, on any other than the first-day (Sunday,) he would be greatly ridiculed and censured; he would be looked upon as a careless spendthrift, whom it would be unsafe to trust and in vain to relieve. A few years ago two single-horse chairs were imported from Boston, to the great offence of these prudent citizens; nothing appeared to them more culpable than the use of such gaudy painted vehicles, in contempt of the more useful and more simple single-horse carts of their fathers. This piece of extravagant and unknown luxury almost caused a schism, and set every tongue a-going; some predicted the approaching ruin of those families that had imported them; others feared the dangers of example: never, since the foundation of the town, had there happened any thing which so much alarmed this primitive community. One of the possessors of these profane chairs, filled with repentance, wisely sent it back to the continent; the other, more obstinate and perverse, in defiance of all remonstrances, persisted in the use of his chair until by degrees they became more reconciled to it; though I observed that the wealthiest and the most respectable people still go to meeting or to their farms in a single-horse cart, with a decent awning fixed over it: indeed, if you consider their sandy soil, and the badness of their roads, these appear to be the belt-contrived vehicles for this island.
           Idleness is the most heinous sin that can be committed in Nantucket: an idle man would soon be pointed out as an object of compassion; for idleness is considered as another word for want and hunger. This principle is so thoroughly well understood, and is become so universal, so prevailing, a prejudice, that, literally speaking, they are never idle. Even if they go to the market-place, which is (if I may be allowed the expression) the coffee-house of the town, either to transact business, or to converse with their friends, they always have a piece of cedar in their hands, and, while they are talking, they will, as it were instinctively, employ themselves in converting it into something useful, either in making bungs or spoyls for their oil-casks, or other useful articles, I must confess that I have never seen more ingenuity in the use of the knife: thus the most idle moments of their lives become usefully employed. In the many hours of leisure, which their long cruises afford them, they cut and carve a variety of boxes and pretty toys, in wood, adapted to different uses; which they bring home, as testimonies of remembrance, to their wives and sweethearts. They have shewn me a variety of little bowls and other implements, executed cooper-wise, with the greatest neatness and elegance. You will be pleased to remember they are all brought up to the trade of coopers be their future intentions or fortunes what they may: therefore almost every man in this island has always two knives in his pocket, one much larger than the other; and, though they hold every thing that is called fashion in the utmost contempt, yet they are as difficult to please, and as extravagant in the choice and price of their knives, as any young buck in Bolton would be about his hat, buckles, or coat. As soon as a knife is injured, or superseded by a more convenient one, it is carefully laid up in some corner of their desk. I once saw upwards of fifty thus preserved at Mr.-----’s, one of the worthiest men on this island; and, among the whole, there was not one that perfectly resembled another. As the sea-excursions are often very long, their wives, in their absence, are necessarily obliged to transact business, to settle accounts, and, in short, to rule and provide for their families. These circumstances being often repeated give women the abilities as well as a taste for that kind of superintendency, to which, by their prudence and good management, they seem to be, in general, very equal. This employment ripens their judgement, and justly entitles them to a rank superior to that of other wives; and this is the principle reason why those of Nantucket as well as those of Montreal* are so fond of society, so affable, and so conversant with the affairs of the world. The men at their return, weary with the fatigues of the sea, full of confidence and love, cheerfully give their consent to every transaction that has happened during their absence, and all is joy and peace. “Wife, thee hast done well” is the general approbation they receive for their application and industry. What would the men do without the agency of these faithful mates? The absence of so many of them, at particular seasons, leaves the town quite desolate; and this mournful situation disposes the women to go to each other’s house much oftener than when their husbands are at home: hence the custom of incessant visiting has infected every one, and even those whose husbands do not go abroad. The house is always cleaned before they set out, and with peculiar alacrity they pursue their intended visit, which consists of a social chat, a dish of tea, and a hearty supper. When the good man of the house returns from his labour, he peaceably goes after his wife and brings her home; mean while the young fellows, equally vigilant, easily find out which is the most convenient house, and there they assemble with the girls of the neighbourhood. Instead of cards, musical instruments, or songs, they relate stories of their whaling voyages, their various sea-adventures, and talk of the different coasts and people they have visited. “The island of Catharine in the Brazils, says one, is a “very droll island; it is inhabited by none but men; women are “not permitted to come in sight of it; not a woman is there on the “whole island. Who among us is not glad it is not so here? The “Nantucket girls and boys beat the world!” At this innocent sally the titter goes round, they whisper to one another their spontaneous reflexions: puddings, pies, and custards, never fail to be produced on such occasions; for I believe there never were any people, in their circumstances, who lived so well, even to superabundance. As inebriation is unknown, and music, singing, and dancing, are holden in equal detestation, they never could fill all the vacant hours of their lives without the repast of the table. Thus these young people sit and talk, and divert themselves as well as they can; if any one has lately returned from a cruize, he is generally the speaker of the night; they often all laugh and talk together; but they are happy, and would not exchange their pleasures for those of the most brilliant assemblies in Europe. This lasts until the father and mother return; when all retire to their respective homes, the men reconducting the partners of their affections.
           Thus they spend many of the youthful evenings of their lives; no wonder, therefore, that they marry so early. But no sooner have they undergone this ceremony than they cease to appear so cheerful and gay; the new rank they hold in the society impresses them with more serious ideas than were entertained before. The title of master of a family necessarily requires more solid behaviour and deportment; the new wife follows in the trammels of custom, which are as powerful as the tyranny of fashion; she gradually advises, and directs; the new husband soon goes to sea, he leaves her to learn and exercise the new government in which she is entered. Those who stay at home are full as passive in general, at least with regard to the inferior departments of the family. But you must not imagine from this account that the Nantucket wives are turbulent, of high temper, and difficult to be ruled; on the contrary, the wives of Sherburn, in so doing, comply only with the prevailing custom of the island: the husbands, equally submissive to the ancient and respectable manners of their country, submit, without ever suspecting that there can be any impropriety. Were they to behave otherwise, they would be afraid of subverting the principles of their society by altering its ancient rules: thus both parties are perfectly satisfied, and all is peace and concord. The richest person now in the island owes all his present prosperity and success to the ingenuity of his wife: this is a known fact which is well recorded; for, while he was performing his first cruises, she traded with pins and needles, and kept a school. Afterward she purchased more considerable articles, which she sold with so much judgement, that she laid the foundation of a system of business that she has ever since prosecuted with equal dexterity and success. She wrote to London, formed connections, and, in short, became the only ostensible instrument of that house, both at home and abroad. Who is he in this country, and who is a citizen of Nantucket or Boston, who does not know Aunt Kesiah? I must tell you that she is the wife of Mr. C-----n, a very respectable man, who, well pleased with all her schemes, trusts to her judgement, and relies on her sagacity, with so entire a confidence, as to be altogether passive to the concerns of his family. They have the best country-seat on the island, at Quayes, where they live with hospitality, and in perfect union: He seems to be altogether the contemplative man.
           To this dexterity, in managing the husband’s business whilst he is absent, the Nantucket wives unite a great deal of industry. They spin, or cause to be spun, in their houses, abundance of wool and flax; and would be for ever disgraced and looked upon as idlers if all the family were not clad in good, neat, and sufficient, homespun cloth. First Days are the only seasons when it is lawful for both sexes to exhibit some garments of English manufacture; even these are of the most moderate price, and of the gravest colours: there is no kind of difference in their dress, they are all clad alike, and resemble in that respect the members of one family.
           A singular custom prevails here among the women, at which I was greatly surprized; and am really at a loss how to account for the original cause that has introduced in this primitive society so remarkable a fashion, or rather so extraordinary a want. They have adopted, these many years, the Asiatic custom of taking a dose of opium every morning; and, so deeply rooted is it, that they would be at a loss how to live without this indulgence; they would rather be deprived of any necessary than forego their favourite luxury. This is much more prevailing among the women than the men, few of the latter having caught the contagion; though the sheriff, whom I may call the first person in the island, who is an eminent physician beside, and whom I had the pleasure of being well acquainted with, has for many years submitted to this custom. He takes three grains of it every day after breakfast without the effects of which, he often told me, he was not able to transact any business. It is hard to conceive how a people, always happy and healthy, in consequence of the exercise and labour they undergo, never oppressed with the vapours of idleness, yet should want the fictitious effects of opium to preserve that cheerfulness, to which their temperance, their climate, their happy situation, so justly entitle them. But where is the society perfectly free from error or folly? the least imperfect is undoubtedly that where the greatest good preponderates; and, agreeable to this rule, I can truly say, that I never was acquainted with a less vicious or more harmless one.
           The majority of the present inhabitants are the descendants of the twenty-seven first proprietors, who patenteed the island; of the rest, many others have since come over amongst them, chiefly from the Massachusets: here are neither
  Scotch, Irish, nor French, as is the cafe in most other settlements; they are an unmixed English breed. The consequence of this extended connexion is, that they are all in some degree related to each other: you must not be surprized, therefore, when I tell you, that they always call each other cousin, uncle, or aunt; which are become such common appellations, that no other are made use of in their daily intercourse: you would be deemed stiff and affected were you to refuse conforming yourself to this ancient custom, which truly depicts the image of a large family. The many who reside here, that have not the least claim of relationship with any one in the town, yet by the power of custom make use of no other address in their conversation. Were you here yourself but a few days, you would be obliged to adopt the same phraseology, which is far from being disagreeable, as it implies a general acquaintance, and friendship, which connects them all in unity and peace.
           Their taste for fishing has been so prevailing, that it has engrossed all their attention, and even prevented them from introducing some higher degree of perfection in their agriculture. There are many useful improvements which might have meliorated their soil; there are many trees which if transplanted here would have thriven extremely well, and would have served to shelter as well as decorate the favourite spots they have so carefully manured. The red cedar, the locust*, the button-wood, I am persuaded would have grown here rapidly and to a great size, with many others; but their thoughts are turned altogether toward the sea. The Indian corn begins to yield them considerable crops, and the wheat sown on its flocks is become a very profitable grain; rye will grow with little care; they might raise, if they would, an immense quantity of buck-wheat.
           Such an island, inhabited as I have described, is not the place where gay travellers should resort, in order to enjoy that variety of pleasures the more splendid towns of this continent afford. Not that they are wholly deprived of what we might call recreations and innocent pastimes; but opulence, instead of luxuries and extravagancies, produces nothing more here than an increase of business, an additional degree of hospitality, greater neatness in the preparation of dishes, and better wines. They often walk and converse with each other, as I have observed before; and, upon extraordinary occasions, will take a ride to Palpus, where there is a house of entertainment; but these rural amusements are conducted upon the same plan of moderation as those in town. They are so simple as hardly to be described; the pleasure of going and returning together, of chatting and walking about, of throwing the bar, heaving stones, &c. are the only entertainments they are acquainted with. This is all they practise, and all they seem to desire. The house at Palpus is the general resort of those who possess the luxury of a horse and chaise, as well as those who still retain, as the majority do, a predeliction for their primitive vehicle. By resorting to that place they enjoy a change of air, they taste the pleasures of exercise; perhaps an exhilarating bowl, not at all improper in this climate, affords the chief indulgence known to these people on the days of their greatest festivity. The mounting a horse must afford a most pleasing exercise to those men who are so much at sea. I was once invited to that house, and had the satisfaction of conducting thither one of the many beauties of that island, (for it abounds with handsome women,) dressed in all the bewitching attire of the most charming simplicity: like the rest of the company, she was cheerful without loud laughs, and smiling without affectation. They all appeared gay without levity. I had never before in my life seen so much unaffected mirth mixed with so much modesty. The pleasures of the day were enjoyed with the greatest liveliness and the most innocent freedom; no disgusting pruderies, no coquetish airs tarnished this enlivening assembly: they behaved according to their native dispositions, the only rules of decorum with which they were acquainted. What would an European visitor have done here without a fiddle, without a dance, without cards? He would have called it an insipid assembly, and ranked this among the dullest days he had ever spent. This rural excursion had a very great affinity to those practised in our province, with this difference only, that we have no objection to the sportive dance, though conducted by the rough accents of some self-taught African fidler. We returned as happy as we went; and the brightness of the moon kindly lenghtened a day which had past, like other agreeable ones, with singular rapidity.
           In order to view the island in its longest direction from the town, I took a ride to the easternmost parts of it, remarkable only for the Pochick Rip, where their best fish are caught. I past by the Tetoukèmah lots, which are the fields of the community; the fences were made of cedar posts and rails, and looked perfectly straight and neat; the various crops they enclosed were flourishing: thence I descended into Barrey’s Valley, where the blue and the spear grass looked more abundant than I had seen on any other part of the island; thence to Gib’s Pond; and arrived at last at Siàsconcèt. Several dwellings had been erected on this wild shore, for the purpose of sheltering the fishermen in the season of fishing; I found them all empty, except that particular one to which I had been directed. It was like the others, built on the highest part of the shore, in the face of the great ocean; the soil appeared to be composed of no other stratum but sand, covered with a thinly-scattered herbage. What rendered this house still more worthy of notice, in my eyes, was, that it had been built on the ruins of one of the ancient huts, erected by the first settlers for observing the appearance of the whales. Here lived a single family without a neighbour; I had never before seen a spot better calculated to cherish contemplative ideas; perfectly unconnected with the great world, and far removed from its perturbations. The ever-raging ocean was all that presented itself to the view of this family; it irresistibly attracted my whole attention; my eyes were involuntarily directed to the horizontal line of that watery surface, which is ever in motion, and ever threatening destruction to these shores. My ears were stunned with the roar of its waves, rolling one over the other, as if impelled by a superior force to overwhelm the spot on which I flood. My nostrils involuntarily inhaled the saline vapours which arose from the dispersed particles of the foaming billows, or from the weeds scattered on the shores. My mind suggested a thousand vague reflections, pleasing in the hour of their spontaneous birth, but now half forgotten, and all indistinct. And who is the landman that can behold, without affright, so singular an element, which, by its impetuosity, seems to be the destroyer of this poor planet, yet, at particular times, accumulates the scattered fragments, and produces islands and continents fit for men to dwell on! Who can observe the regular vicissitudes of its waters without astonishment? Now, swelling themselves in order to penetrate through every river and opening, and thereby facilitate navigation; at other times, retiring from the shores, to permit man to collect that variety of shell-fish which is the support of the poor! Who can see the storms of wind, blowing sometimes with an impetuosity sufficiently strong even to move the earth, without feeling himself affected beyond the sphere of common ideas? Can this wind, which but a few days ago refreshed our American fields and cooled us in the shade, be the same element which now and then so powerfully convulses the waters of the sea, dismasts vessels, causes so many shipwrecks, and such extensive desolations? How diminutive does a man appear to himself when filled with these thoughts, and standing, as I did, on the verge of the ocean! This family lived entirely by fishing, for the plough has not dared yet to disturb the parched surface of the neighbouring plain; and to what purpose could this operation be performed? Where is it that mankind will not find safety, peace, and abundance, with freedom and civil happiness? Nothing was wanting here to make this a most philosophic retreat, but a few ancient trees, to shelter contemplation in its beloved solitude. There I saw a numerous family of children of various ages, — the blessings of an early marriage; they were ruddy as the cherry, healthy as the fish they lived on, hardy as the pine-knots: the eldest were, already able to encounter the boisterous waves, and shuddered not at their approach; early initiating themselves in the mysteries of that sea-faring career, for which they were all intended: the younger, timid as yet, on the edge of a less- agitated pool, were teaching themselves with nut-shells and pieces of wood, in imitation of boats, how to navigate, in a future day, the larger vessels of their father through a rougher and deeper ocean. I staid two days there on purpose to become acquainted with the different branches of their economy and their manner of living in this singular retreat. The clams, the oisters, of the shores, with the addition of Indian dumplings,* constituted their daily and most substantial food. Larger fish were often caught on the neighbouring rip; these afforded them their greatest dainties: they had likewise plenty of smoked bacon. The noise of the wheels announced the industry of the mother and daughters; one of them had been bred a weaver; and, having a loom in the house, found means of clothing the whole family; they were perfectly at ease, and seemed to want for nothing. I found very few books among these people, who have very little time for reading; the Bible and a few school tracts, both in the Nattick and English languages, constituted their most numerous libraries. I saw indeed several copies of Hudibras and Josephus; but no one knows who first imported them. It is something extraordinary to see this people, professedly so grave, and strangers to every branch of literature, reading with pleasure the former work, which should seem to require some degree of taste and antecedent historical knowledge. They all read it much, and can, by memory, repeat many passages; which, yet, I could not discover that they understood the beauties of. Is it not a little singular to see these books in the hands of fishermen, who are perfect strangers almost to any other? Josephus’s history is indeed intelligible, and much fitter for their modes of education and taste, as it describes the history of a people, from whom we have received the prophecies which we believe, and the religious laws which we follow.
           Learned travellers, returned from feeing the paintings and antiquities of Rome and Italy, still filled with the admiration and reverence they inspire, would hardly be persuaded that so contemptible a spot, which contains nothing remarkable but the genius and the industry of its inhabitants, could ever be an object worthy attention. But I, having never seen the beauties which Europe contains, cheerfully satisfy myself with attentively examining what my native country exhibits: if we have neither ancient amphitheatres, gilded palaces, nor elevated spires, we enjoy in our woods a substantial happiness which the wonders of art cannot communicate. None among us suffer oppression either from government or religion; there are very few poor except the idle, and, fortunately, the force of example and the most ample encouragement soon create a new principle of activity, which had been extinguished, perhaps, in their native country, for want of those opportunities which so often compel honest Europeans to seek shelter among us. The means of procuring subsistence in Europe are limited; the army may be full, the navy may abound with seamen, the land perhaps wants no additional labourers, the manufacturer is overcharged with supernumerary hands; — what then must become of the unemployed? Here, on the contrary, human industry has acquired a boundless field to exert itself in; — a field which will not be fully cultivated in many ages!
   

  ---

  * Most of the merchants and young men of Montreal spend the greatest part of their time in trading with the Indians, at an amazing distance from Canada; and it often happens that they are three years together absent from home.
   

  * A species of what we call here the two-thorn acacia: it yields the most valuable timber we have, and its shade is very beneficial to the growth and goodness of the grass.
   

  * Indian dumplings are a peculiar preparation of Indian meal boiled in large lumps.
   
• 1 media/Catesby Snake 2.jpeg media/Catesby Snake 2.jpeg 2022-09-06T09:24:10-07:00 Letter X: On Snakes; And on the Humming-Bird 11 Letter X: On Snakes; And on the Humming-Bird image_header 2024-02-15T11:23:17-08:00 NB: This Letter has not yet been emended and is currently in the early stages of being annotated.
  
  LETTER X.
  ON SNAKES; AND ON THE HUMMING-BIRD.
  
  WHY would you prescribe this task? you know that what we take up ourselves seems always lighter than what is imposed on us by others. You insist on my saying something about our snakes; and, in relating what I know concerning them, were it not for two singularities, the one of which I saw, and the other I received from an eye-witness, I should have but very little to observe. The southern provinces are the countries where nature has formed the greatest variety of alligators, snakes, serpents; and scorpions, from the smallest size, up to the pine barren, the largest species known here. We have but two, whose stings are mortal, which deserve to be mentioned; as for the black one, it is remarkable for nothing but its industry, agility, beauty, and the art of inticing birds by the power of its eyes. I admire it much, and never kill it, though its formidable length and appearance often get the better of the philosophy of some people, particularly Europeans. The most dangerous one is the pilot or copperhead; for the poison of which no remedy has yet been discovered. It bears the first name because it always precedes the rattle-snake; that is, quits its state of torpidity in the spring a week before the other. It bears the second name on account of its head being adorned with many copper-coloured spots. It lurks in rocks near the water, and is extremely active and dangerous. Let man beware of it. I have heard only of one person who was stung by a copperhead in this country. The poor wretch instantly swelled in a most dreadful manner; a multitude of spots of different hues alternately appeared and vanished on different parts of his body; his eyes were filled with madness and rage; he cast them on all present with the most vindictive looks; he thrust out his tongue as the snakes do; he hissed through his teeth with inconceivable strength, and became an object of terror to all by-standers. To the lividness of a corpse he united the desperate force of a maniac. They hardly were able to fasten him, so as to guard themselves from his attacks; when, in the space of two hours, death relieved the poor wretch from his struggles, and the spectators from their apprehensions. The poison of the rattle-snake is not mortal in so short a space, and hence there is more time to procure relief: we are acquainted with several antidotes with which almost every family is provided. They are extremely inactive, and, if not touched, are perfectly inoffensive. I once saw, as I was travelling, a great cliff which was full of them: I handled several, and they appeared to be dead: they were all entwined together, and thus they remain until the return of the sun. I found them out by following the track of some wild hogs which had fed on them, and even the Indians often regale on them. When they find them asleep, they put a small forked stick over their necks, which they keep immovably fixed on the ground, giving the snake a piece of leather to bite; and this they pull back several times with great force, until they observe their two poisonous fangs torn out. Then they cut off the head, skin the body, and cook it as we do eels, and their flesh is extremely sweet and white. I once saw a tamed one, as gentle as you can possibly conceive a reptile to be: it took to the water and swam whenever it pleased; and, when the boys to whom it belonged called it back, their summons was readily obeyed. It had been deprived of its fangs by the preceding method; they often stroked it with a soft brush, and this friction seemed to cause the most pleasing sensations, for it would turn on its back to enjoy it, as a cat does before the fire. One of this species was a cause, some years ago, of a most deplorable accident, which I shall relate to you, as I had it from the widow and mother of the victims. A Dutch farmer of the Minisink went to mowing, with his negroes, in this boots, a precaution used to prevent being stung. Inadvertently he trod on a snake, which immediately flew at his legs, and, as it drew back in order to renew its blow, one of his negroes cut it in two with his scythe. They prosecuted their work and returned home: at night the farmer pulled off his boots and went to bed, and was soon after attacked with a strange sickness at his stomach; he swelled, and, before a physician could be sent for, died. The sudden death of this man did not cause much inquiry. The neighbourhood wondered, as is usual in such cases, and without any farther examination the corpse was buried. A few days after, the son put on his father’s boots, and went to the meadow: at night he pulled them off, went to bed, and was attacked with the same symptoms, about the same time, and died in the morning. A little before he expired the doctor came, but was not able to assign what could be the cause of so singular a disorder; however, rather than appear wholly at a loss before the country people, he pronounced both father and son to have been bewitched. Some weeks after, the widow sold all the movables for the benefit of the younger children, and the farm was leased. One of the neighbours, who bought the boots, presently put them on, and was attacked in the same manner as the other two had been; but this man’s wife, being alarmed by what had happened in the former family, dispatched one of her negroes for an eminent physician, who, fortunately having heard something of the dreadful affair, guessed at the cause, applied oil, &c. and recovered the man. The boots, which had been so fatal, were then carefully examined; and he found that the two fangs of the snake had been left in the leather, after being wrenched out of their sockets by the strength with which the snake had drawn back its head. The bladders, which contained the poison, and several of the small nerves, were still fresh, and adhered to the boot. The unfortunate father and son had been poisoned by pulling off these boots, in which action they imperceptibly scratched their legs with the points of the fangs, through the hollow of which some of this astonishing poison was conveyed. You have, no doubt, heard of their rattles, if you have not seen them. The only observation I wish to make is, that the rattling is loud and distinct when they are angry; and, on the contrary, when pleased, it sounds like a distant trepidation, in which nothing distinct is heard. In the thick settlements they are now become very scarce; for, wherever they are met with, open war is declared against them, so that, in a few years, there will be none left but on our mountains. The black snake, on the contrary, always diverts me, because it excites no idea of danger. Their swiftness is astonishing; they will sometimes equal that of a horse; at other times they will climb up trees in quest of our tree toads, or glide on the ground at full length. On some occasions, they present themselves half in the reptile state, half erect. Their eyes and their heads, in the erect posture, appear to great advantage: the former display a fire which I have often admired, and it is by these they are enabled to fascinate birds and squirrels. When they have fixed their eyes on an animal, they become immovable, only turning their head sometimes to the right and sometimes to the left, but still with their fight invariably directed to the object. The distracted victim, instead of flying its enemy, seems to be arrested by some invincible power; it screems; now approaches, and then recedes; and, after skipping about the unaccountable agitation, finally rushes into the jaws of the snake, and is swallowed, as soon as it is covered with a slime or glue to make it slide easily down the throat of the devourer.
           One anecdote I must relate, the circumstances of which are as true as they are singular. One of my constant walks, when I am at leisure, is in my lowlands, where I have the pleasure of seeing my cattle, horses, and colts. Exuberant grass replenishes all my fields, the best representative of our wealth; in the middle of that track I have cut a ditch, eight feet wide, the banks of which nature adorns every spring with the wild salendine, and other flowering weeds, which on these luxuriant grounds shoot up to a great height. Over this ditch I have erected a bridge, capable of bearing a loaded waggon; on each side, I carefully sow every year some grains of hemp, which rise to the height of fifteen feet, so strong, and so full of limbs, as to resemble young trees; I once ascended one of them four feet above the ground. These produce natural arbours, rendered often still more compact by the assistance of an annual creeping plant, which we call a vine, that never fails to entwine itself among their branches, and always produces a very desirable shade. From this simple grove I have amused myself a hundred times in observing the great number of hummingbirds with which our country abounds: the wild blossoms every where attract the attention of these birds, which, like bees, subsist by suction. From this retreat I distinctly watch them in all their various attitudes; but their flight is so rapid that you cannot distinguish the motion of their wings. On this little bird Nature has profusely lavished her most splendid colours; the most perfect azure, the most beautiful gold, the most dazzling red, are for ever in contrast, and help to embellish the plumes of his majestic head. The richest pallet of the most luxuriant painter could never invent any thing to be compared to the variegated tints with which this insect-bird is arrayed. Its bill is as long and as sharp as a coarse sewing-needle; like the bee, nature has taught it to find out the calix of flowers and blossoms, those mellifluous particles that serve it for sufficient food; and yet it seems to leave them untouched, undeprived of any thing that our eyes can possibly distinguish. When it feeds, it appears as if immovable, though continually on the wing; and, sometimes, from what motives I know not, it will tear and lacerate flowers into a hundred pieces; for, strange to tell, they are the most irascible of the feathered tribe. — Where do passions find room in so diminutive a body? — They often fight with the fury of lions, until one of the combatants falls a sacrifice and dies. When fatigued, it has often perched within a few feet of me, and, on such favourable opportunities, I have surveyed it with the most minute attention. Its little eyes appear like diamonds, reflecting light on every side: most elegantly finished in all parts, it is a miniature-work of our great Parent; who seems to have formed it the smallest, and, at the same time, the most beautiful, of the winged species.
           As I was one day sitting solitary and pensive in my primitive arbour, my attention was engaged by a strange sort of rustling noise at some paces distance. I looked all around without distinguishing any thing, until I climbed one of my great hemp-stalks; when, to my astonishment, I beheld two snakes of considerable length, the one pursuing the other, with great celerity, through a hemp-stubble field. The aggressor was of a black kind, six feet long; the fugitive was a water-snake, nearly of equal dimensions. They soon met, and, in the fury of their first encounter, they appeared in an instant firmly twisted together; and, whilst their united tails beat the ground, they mutually tried with open jaws to lacerate each other. What a fell aspect did they present! Their hands were compressed to a very small size, heads were compressed to a very small size, their eyes flashed fire; and, after this conflict had lasted about five minutes, the second found means to disengage itself from the first, and hurried toward the ditch. Its antagonist instantly assumed a new posture; and half creeping and half erect, with a majestic mein, overtook and attacked the other again, which placed itself in the same attitude and prepared to resist. The scene was uncommon and beautiful; for, thus opposed, they fought with their jaws, biting each other with the utmost rage; but, notwithstanding this appearance of mutual courage and fury, the water-snake still seemed delirious of retreating toward the ditch, its natural element. This was no sooner perceived by the keen-eyed black one, than, twisting its tail twice round a stalk of hemp, or seizing its adversary by the throat, not by means of its jaws, but by twisting its own neck twice round that of the water-snake, pulled it back from the ditch. To prevent a defeat, the latter took hold likewise of a stalk on the bank, and, by the acquisition of that point of resistance, became a match for its fierce antagonist. Strange was this to behold; two great snakes strongly adhering to the ground, mutually fastened, by means of the writhings, which lashed them to each other, and, stretched at their full length, they pulled, but pulled in vain; and, in the moments of greatest exertion, that part of their bodies which was entwined seemed extremely small, while the rest appeared inflated and, now and then, convulsed with strong undulations rapidly following each other. Their eyes seemed on fire and ready to start out of their heads; at one time the conflict seemed decided; the water-snake bent itself into two great folds, and, by that operation, rendered the other more than commonly outstretched; the next minute, the new struggles of the black one gained an unexpected superiority; it acquired two great folds likewise, which necessarily extended the body of its adversary in proportion as it had contracted its own. These efforts were alternate; victory seemed doubtful; inclining sometimes to the one side and sometimes to the other; until, at last, the stalk, to which the black snake fastened, suddenly gave way, and, in consequence of this accident, they both plunged into the ditch. The water did not extinguished their vindictive rage; for, by their agitations, I could trace, though not distinguish, their mutual attacks. They soon re-appeared on the surface twisted together as in their first onset; but the black snake seemed to retain its wonted superiority, for its head was exactly fixed above that of the other, which it incessantly pressed down under the water until it was stifled and sunk. The victor no sooner perceived its enemy incapable of farther resistance, than, abandoning it to the current, it returned on sure and disappeared.