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• 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 2022-09-06T09:13:21-07:00 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!
   

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  * 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.