What Shall We Do With It?

The first blood that was shed in our
Revolutionary struggle, was in Boston,
in March, 1770. The next at Lexington,
in June, 1775.

The interval was filled with acts of
coercion and oppression on the one
side and with complaints and remonstrances
on the other. But the thought
of Independence was entertained by very
few of our people, even for some time
after the affair at Lexington. Loyalty
to the mother country was professed
even by those most clamorous in their
complaints, and sincerely so, too. The
great majority thought that redress of
grievances could be obtained without
severance from Great Britain.

But events hurried the people on, and
that which was scarcely spoken of at
the beginning of the struggle, soon became
its chief object.

Is it not the same with our present
contest with the South? We took up
arms to defend the Constitution, to sustain
our Government, to maintain the
Union; and in the course of performing
that work, it would seem as if Emancipation
was forced upon us, and as if it
was yet to be the prime object in view.

Lo! how much has already been done
toward that end, even though not originally
intended! As our armies advance
into the enemies’ country, thousands of
slaves are practically emancipated by the
flight and desertion of their rebel masters.
The rules and articles of war have been
so altered by Congress as to forbid our
military forces from returning to bondage
any who flee from it. The President
has proposed, and Congress has
entertained, the proposition of aiding
the States in emancipation. Fremont,
who has been regarded as the representative
of the emancipation feeling, has
been restored to active command. And
multitudes of our people, who have
hitherto considered themselves as bound
by the Constitution not to interfere with
the subject, have become open in the
avowal that as slavery has been the
cause of the evil, so it must now be
wiped out forever.

It would seem, therefore, as if it was
inevitable that the question of emancipation
is to be thrust upon us, and we
must be prepared to meet it. It is in
this view, and irrespective of the question
of right and wrong in slavery, that
some considerations present themselves,
which can not be ignored.

The difference of race between the
white and the negro will ever keep them
apart, and forbid their amalgamation.
One or the other must ultimately go

to the wall, and it is worth our while
to see what time is doing with the question:
‘Which must it be in this country?’

Hence it is important to note the progress
of both the races with us.

In the course of seventy years, that
is, from the census of 1790 to that of
1860, the slave population has increased
from 697,897 to 4,002,996. So that our
colored population is now six times as
great as when our Government was
formed.

During the same period the free population
has increased from 3,231,975 to
27,280,070, or nearly nine times as great
as in 1790. Of this increase about
3,000,000 is the result of emigration;
so that the native-born population has
increased to about 24,000,000, or about
eight times as many as in the beginning
of our Government. If due allowance
be made for those born of emigrant parents,1

it would seem that the two races
have about kept pace with each other in
their natural increase.

A more minute examination, however,
will show that the natural increase
of the colored race has been in a greater
ratio than that of the whites, native-born
to the soil.

The following tables will show how
this is, both as to the colored and the
white races.

Increase of Slave Population.

Years.	No. of Slaves.	Increase.	Per ct. of Increase.
1790	697,897
1800	893,041	195,144	28
1810	1,191,364	298,323	32
1820	1,538,064	346,700	29
1830	2,009,031	470,967	29
1840	2,487,855	478,324	24
1850	3,204,313	716,958	29
1860	4,002,996	798,683	25

The average increase in every ten
years during the seventy years has been
about 28 per cent.

Increase Of Whole Population, Including Slaves
And Emigrants.

Years	Population	Increase	Per ct. of Increase.
1790	3,929,872	1,376,080
1800	5,305,952	1,376,080	37
1810	7,239,814	1,933,862	36
1820	9,688,131	2,398,817	33
1830	12,866,920	3,228,789	34
1840	17,063,353	4,196,433	33
1850	23,191,876	6,128,523	36
1860	31,676,217	8,484,341	36

The average increase in every ten
years would be about 35 per cent.

Deducting from this latter table the
slaves, the emigrants, and children born
of emigrants, now included in it, and
the ratio of increase is below 27 per
cent every ten years. So that if anything
should occur to check the tide of
emigration, the blacks in this country
would increase in a faster ratio than
the whites.

We can form some idea as to the danger
of such a check, when we advert to
the fact that the emigration which in
1854 was 427,833, fell off in 1858 to
144,652.

To finish the picture which these figures
present to us, let us carry the mind
forward a decade or two. At the average
rate of increase of the blacks, namely,
28 per cent, we shall have, of the
slave population alone, and excluding
the free blacks, 5,060,585 in 1870, and
6,577,584 in 1880. And by that time
they will be increasing at the rate of
150,000 to 200,000 a year.

Carl Schurz, in his speech at the Cooper
Institute, in New-York, put to his
audience a pertinent inquiry: ‘You ask
me, What shall we do with our negroes,
who are now 4,000,000? And I ask
you, What will you do with them when
they will be 8,000,000—or rather, what
will they do with you?

Surely, surely the question involves
the greatest problem of the age.

If our fathers had met the question
seventy years ago, we should not now
behold the spectacle of 6,000,000 of our
people in rebellion, and an army of 400,000
men arrayed against the integrity
of the Union. And we may well profit
by the example so far as to ask ourselves
the question, What will be the condition
of our country and of our posterity, fifty
years hence, if we, too, shirk the question
as painful and difficult of solution?

Whether ultimate and universal emancipation
will be one of the necessary
modes of dealing with it, time must
show. In the mean time there is a
question immediately pressing upon us.
Day by day our armies are advancing
among them, and every news of a contest
that comes, brings us accounts of
the swarms of ‘contrabands’ who are
flocking to us for protection. At one
place alone, Port Royal, S.C., the Government
Agent reports that there are at
least fifteen thousand slaves deserted by
their masters, and thus practically emancipated.
Untaught and unwonted to
take care of themselves—our armies
consuming the fruits of the earth and
finding no employment for these ‘National
Freedmen’—the danger is great
that want, and temptation, and the absence
of the government to which they
have been accustomed, may yet drive
them to become lawless hordes, preying
on all.

The same state of things must of necessity
exist wherever the slave-owner
flies from the approach of our armies;
and we have now presented to us the
alternative of either allowing their state
to be worse by reason of their emancipation,
or better, according as the wise
and the humane among us may deal
with the subject.

Some measures, we learn, have already
been initiated for the emergency.
‘The Educational Commission’ of Boston,
at the head of which is Governor
Andrews; ‘The Freedman’s Relief Association,’
in New-York, with Judge
Edmonds as its President; and a similar
society in Philadelphia, of which Stephen
Colwell is Chairman, are societies
of large-hearted men and women, banded
together, as they express it, to ‘teach
the freedmen of the colored race civilization
and Christianity; to imbue them
with notions of order, industry, economy
and self-reliance, and to elevate
them in the scale of humanity, by inspiring
them with self-respect.’

The task is certainly a high and holy
one, and eminently necessary. How
far it will be sustained by the Government
or the people, or how far the purpose
can be carried out with a race who
have been intentionally kept in profound
ignorance, is part of the great
problem that we are to solve. But not
all of it, by any means. There is much
more for enlightened patriotism and
wise humanity yet to do, before the
task shall be accomplished and the
work begun by the Revolution shall be
finished; and to prevent a conflict of
races, which can end only in the extermination
of one or the other.

The 16,000,000 of natives who were
once masters of this whole continent
are now dwindled into a few insignificant
tribes, ‘away among the mountains.’
Is such to be the fate of the
negro also? Or has the spirit of God’s
charity so far progressed among us that,
unlike our fathers, we can redeem rather
than destroy, can emancipate rather than
enslave?

Be the answer to those questions
what it may, there are other considerations,
immediately affecting ourselves as
a nation and a race.

Slavery would seem to retard our advancement
in both respects.

During the ten years from 1850 to
1860, the total population of our country
increased about 37 per cent.

In 1790, there were seventeen States
in the Union, and of those seventeen,
eight are now slave States, and the following
table of those States will show
how the increase of slavery retards the
advance of the whites:

	Free Whites.		Ratio of Increase.	Slaves.		Ratio of Increase.
	1850.	1860.		1850.	1860.
Delaware	71,169	110,548	56	2,290	1,805	*
Georgia	521,572	615,336	18	381,682	467,461	23
Kentucky	761,417	933,707	22	210,981	225,902	7
Maryland	417,943	646,183	55	90,368	85,382	*
N. Carolina	552,028	679,965	23	288,548	328,377	14
S. Carolina	274,567	308,186	9	384,984	407,185	7
Tennessee	756,753	859,528	14	239,460	287,112	20
Virginia	894,800	1097,373	23	472,628	495,826	5

* Decrease.

From these facts, it would seem that,
in the two States in which slavery has
decreased, the increase of the whites
has been 55 and 56 per cent, exceeding
the average ratio of increase in the
whole nation. While in all the other
States, where slavery has increased,
none of them have come up to the average
national ratio of increase, and in
one of them, (South-Carolina,) the increase
is not one quarter the national
average.

In respect to South-Carolina, it is a
remarkable fact that while she has now
nearly four tunes as many slaves as she
had in 1790, her whole population
(slaves and all) is not three times what
it then was, and her free population is
only a little more than twice its number
in 1790. In other words, while in
seventy years her slave population has
increased four-fold, her free population
has only a little more than doubled.2

These facts teach their own lesson;
but they compel all who value the
Union and the peace of the nation, to
ask how far they have had to do with
the troubles of nullification and secession,
which for thirty years have been
plaguing us, and have now culminated
in a terrible rebellion!

A Philosophic Bankrupt.

The great financial storm that swept
over our country and Europe, in the
‘fall of 1857,’ overwhelming so many
large and apparently staunch vessels,
did not disdain to capsize and send to
the bottom many smaller craft; my own
among the number. She was not as
heavily freighted (to continue for a moment
the nautical metaphor) as some
that sunk around her; but as she bore
my all, it looked at first pretty much like
a life-and-death business, especially the
latter. For a time, all was horror and
confusion; but as the wreck cleared
away, I soon discovered that there
would, at any rate, remain to me the
consolation that others would not lose
through my misfortunes; that the calamity,
if such it were, would affect no
one but myself. My own experience,
and my observation of those around me,
has led me, naturally enough, to ponder
a good deal on the subject of reverses in
life, and as no page of genuine experience
can be considered wholly valueless, it
may do no harm to record my own.
Though many have undergone reverses,
few, with the exception of ministers,
ever seem to have written about them,
a class of men who, whatever their other
troubles, in these days of bronchitis and
fastidious parishes, have usually been
exempt from trials of this peculiar character.

Bishop Butler, in one of his sermons
on Human Nature, alludes to a sect in
philosophy, representing, I suppose, the
‘selfish system,’ one of whose ideas is
that men are naturally pleased on hearing
of the misfortunes of others. La
Rochefoucauld expresses the same sentiment
as his own. Couched in plain language,

this appears to be a gloomy and
heartless doctrine; but probably nothing
more is meant than a refinement of the
common adage, ‘Misery loves company,’

and that very good and benevolent persons,
if themselves overtaken by misfortune,
can not but feel some alleviation
for their sorrows, in reflecting that others
have trials equally great and that they
are but partakers of a common though
bitter lot. If there be really any consolation
in reflections of this kind, history
furnishes us many striking examples,
and, as far as great changes in worldly
condition are concerned, the prince and
the plebeian, the emperor and the exile,
have often found themselves for a time
on the same level.

The wheel of fortune, in its revolutions,
generally produces changes of two
descriptions, either exalting the lowly or
pulling down the great. In rarer instances,
not satisfied with giving the individual
a single turn, it grants him the
benefit of a more varied experience. It
carries the country-boy to wealth and
power, and then transports him back to
his native fields, whose pure air is not
less wholesome, after all, than the heated
atmosphere of the ball-room or caucus-chamber;
or it may roll the wave of revolution
over a kingdom, banishing the
prince to wander an exile, perhaps a
schoolmaster, in distant lands, to contend
with poverty or duns, and then, on its
receding tide, landing him once more
safely on his throne. Frequent revolutions
have, however, taught princes wisdom
in this respect. Most of them now
seem to be well provided for in foreign
countries, beyond the reach of contingencies
in their own, and if time is given
them to escape with their lives, it is generally
found that they have ‘laid up
treasure’ where at any rate the thieves
of the new dynasty can not ‘break
through and steal.’ A very recent instance
is afforded us by his majesty
Faustin I., who, notwithstanding his
confidence in the affection of his subjects,
seems to have preferred taking the
Bank of England as collateral security.

The first French Revolution probably
affords as striking examples of change
in worldly condition as any other period,
and among those whom it affected for
the time, few were more remarkable than
two persons whom it sent to our own
shores, Talleyrand and Chateaubriand.
During the residence of the former in
Philadelphia, he appears at one time to
have been in the most abject poverty.
We read of his pawning a watch and
smaller articles, to provide himself and
his companion with food; any care for
their wardrobes, beyond the faded garments
they were then wearing, being
apparently out of the question. If one
who then met the needy foreigner walking
the wide streets of that respectable
city, had predicted that in a few years
this shabby Frenchman would be looked
up to as the leader of the diplomacy of
Europe, he might with perfect justice
have been regarded as a fit subject for
one of that city’s excellent asylums.
But a few years did witness this change,
and saw him powerful and the possessor
of millions; unfortunately for the
Abbé’s reputation, much of the latter
being the wages of corruption.3

Chateaubriand speaks feelingly of the
sufferings he and his companion underwent
in London, about the same period.
Lodged in a dismal garret, they were at
one time obliged to economize their food
almost as closely as the inhabitants of a
beleaguered town. He speaks of walking
the streets for hours together, utterly
uncertain what to do, passing stately
houses and groups of blooming English
children, and then returning late at
night to his attic, where his companion,
‘trembling with cold,’ would rise from
his ill-clad bed to open the door for him.
He strikingly contrasts his position then
with his approach to London twenty
years later, as ambassador from France,

driving in coach-and-four through towns
whose authorities came out to welcome
him in the usual pompous manner, and,
while in London, giving magnificent balls
in one of the stately houses, and perhaps
numbering among his guests some of the
blooming children he had once passed,
now expanded into full-blown and gorgeous
flowers of aristocracy. These
are, of course, uncommon instances; but
they teach that the most brilliant present
may have had the darkest past; that
there is always ground for hope, and
that the caprices of fortune, if we take
no higher view of them, are mysterious
enough.

The man who has been overtaken by
reverses, need not look far abroad to see
that a system of compensation is pretty
generally dealt out in this life. Set him
adrift in the world, with scarcely a dollar;
let him walk, almost a beggar,
through the same streets he once trod,
a man of wealth, and it would be idle to
assert that he will not be almost overwhelmed
by the force of bitter recollections.
In proportion as other days were
happy, will these be miserable. As
Dante has truly said, the memory of former
joys, so far from affording relief to
the wretched, serves only to embitter
the present, as they feel that these joys
have forever passed away. But unless
his lot be one of unusual calamity, as
time blunts the keenest edge of sorrow,
he must be devoid of both philosophy
and religion, if he does not feel that life
with a mere competence still has many
joys. It is unquestionably true that
one’s style of living has not much to do
with the sum of his happiness, though
this is said with no disposition to undervalue
even the luxuries of life. So far
from the finest houses in a city having
the greatest air of comfort about them,
I think rather the reverse is the case.
No dwellings have a snugger look than
many of the plain, two-story houses in
all our cities; no children merrier than
those that play around their doors; no
manlier fathers than those that struggle
bravely for their support. One would
suppose that Stafford House, with its
wealth of pictures and furniture, and its
beautiful views over Hyde Park, must
contain much to add to the pleasure of
its possessors; but probably the sum of
happiness enjoyed by this noble family
has been very little increased by these
things. I believe that palaces are more
envied by ‘outsiders’ than enjoyed by
their owners. In proportion to the
number of each, probably far more of
those dreadful tragedies that cast ineffaceable
gloom over whole families,
have occurred in these splendid houses
than in plainer ones. Our Fifth Avenue,
with all its grandeur, is one of the gloomiest
looking streets in the world, as
strangers generally remark. But as all
preaching is vain against many a besetting
sin, so will all the talking in the
world do little to convince men that
happiness does not lie in externals. One
generation does not learn much from its
predecessors in this respect; it seems to
have been intended that each should acquire
its own experience. The task of
talking beforehand is therefore an unprofitable
one; but it is a satisfaction to
feel that when much that is thought indispensable
has been taken from us,
there still remains that which can afford
us happiness.

It is easy to recall instances in which
it seemed as if adversity was really required
to bring out the noblest qualities
in man, and enable him to set an example
calculated to console and stimulate
those who are treading the sometimes
difficult path of duty. Portions of the
diary of Scott, written during the last
and most troubled years of his life, have
for many a deeper interest than the most
brilliant pages of his novels. In these
days of ‘compromise,’ which seems to
be too often the cant term for an eternal
adieu to all previous obligations, no matter
how just, and no matter what good
fortune the future may have in reserve
for the debtor, it is refreshing to read
this record of perfect integrity and long-continued
sacrifice. Though carried, in
his case, to a point beyond the strictest
requirements of honor, inasmuch as it
involved the ruin of his health, the example

is noble and strengthening. It
may be said, on the other hand, that
Scott was the possessor of a ‘magic
wand,’ and did right in attempting what
to other men would be impossible. Carlyle,
if I remember his article, attributes
Scott’s conduct partly to worldly pride,
and thinks he should have owned at
once that he had made a great mistake,
involving others in his ruin, and should
have abandoned the tremendous struggle
still to bear up under such a weight.
This is a singular view of the matter,
and one that a man of Scott’s sense of
honor never would have felt satisfied in
taking. The lives of Scott and Charlotte
Bronté are worth more than their novels,
after all.

One of the minor evils of loss of fortune
has, I think, been exaggerated, and
that is the idea that persons are frequently
slighted, sometimes even cut,
by their fashionable acquaintances; and
connected with this is the other idea,
that what some sneeringly call ‘fashionable
society,’ is generally more heartless
than any other. For the honor of human
nature, I am glad to believe that
the first is not the case, nor does the
second exactly stand to reason. In
every city, there is a class of persons,
moneyed or not as the case may be, who,
living only for selfish enjoyment, pay
court to those that can yield it to them,
and are sometimes rude enough to
slight those who can not. Whether the
companionship of such persons is very
desirable, or their loss much to be deplored,
each man must decide for himself.
Persons who, when rich themselves,
have been overbearing to others,
are perhaps those who notice most difference
when misfortunes overtake them.
What is called fashionable society, generally
comprises a good deal of the education
and refinement of a city; with a
portion of what is hollow and worthless,
it includes much that is substantial and
true. Certainly, the finer and more
delicate feelings of our nature, and those
which lead us to sympathize with the
unfortunate, are partly the result of education,
and we should naturally expect
to find these in the higher rather than
in the humbler walks of life. There is
a vast deal of genuine charity in humble
life, and the poor of every city derive a
large part of their support from those
but moderately blessed with worldly
goods themselves; but many a well-meaning
man will unintentionally make
a remark that wounds your feelings and
makes you uncomfortable for hours
afterwards, while a person whose perceptions
and sympathies have been more
nicely trained would spare you the infliction.
A certain fortune is indispensable
to those who wish to keep with the
party-going world, and those who have
not this competence can not indulge
much in this more expensive mode of
life; but that they are forgotten is not
because persons wish to neglect them,
but because men naturally forget those
they are not often in the habit of meeting.
Might not the aged, even if
wealthy, say they are forgotten, excepting
by their immediate connection?
They are forgotten because, in the rush
and turmoil of life, every thing is soon
forgotten. The dead, who were beloved
and honored while living, are soon comparatively
forgotten beyond their families
and familiar circle. This is not exactly
owing to the heartlessness of men,
but rather to the fact that their minds
are occupied with the persons and
things they see every day around them,
and this is probably as much the case
with the poor as with the rich; but it
seems to have become a sort of custom
to speak of the heartlessness of society.
It is rather owing to the imperfection of
our constitution. Loss of fortune renders
us more sensitive, and we are apt
to fancy slights where none were intended;
but we may be pretty certain that
the better men and women of society do
not make money the index of their treatment
of others.

Persons sometimes speak lightly and
hastily of reverses sustained by others
as mere trifles, compared with loss of
friends. I hold that these persons are
wrong, and believe that to many, and
those not particularly selfish and narrow-minded

people either, loss of fortune
may prove a greater and more
lasting sorrow than loss of dear friends;
nay, that a great reverse, such as a plunge
from prosperity into utter poverty, (and
many such instances can be cited,)
is perhaps the heaviest trial that can be
imposed on man. Let any one call up
the instances he has known of the tenderest
ties being severed, and except in
those rare cases we sometimes meet with
of persons pining away and following
the beloved object to the grave, do we
not see the overwhelming grief gradually
subsiding into a gentler sorrow, and, as
was intended by a merciful providence,
other objects closing in, and though not
entirely filling up the void, still furnishing
other sources of happiness? This
happens with the best and tenderest
beings on earth. The departed one is
not forgotten, nor have the survivors
ceased to mourn him; but their feelings
now cling more affectionately than before
to the remaining members of the
circle. This is not so in the case of a
reverse such as I have imagined, and
many of us have seen. Where, as in the
failure of some great bank or ‘Life and
Trust Company,’ reckoned perfectly impregnable,
the fortune of delicate ladies,
always accustomed to luxury, has been
swept away; where there are no relatives
able or willing to render much
assistance, and daughters have to seek
employment that will give themselves
and an aged mother a bare competence,
with all my disposition to bear things
bravely and philosophically, I contend
that human nature can hardly be visited
with a heavier trial. For men, it is comparatively
easy; but there are instances,
in every large city, of ladies, once
wealthy, now reduced to a sort of genteel
beggary, that a man would shrink
from, but that women can not very well
avoid. Fancy the bitterness of such a
life; the constant memory of happier
days contrasted with the present condition,
which has no prospect of improvement;
the keenness of present sorrow
rendered more acute by education and
refinement; the necessity not merely of
economy, for most of us can bear a large
portion of this pretty cheerfully; but
the difficulty, with close economy, of
supplying the decent comforts of life,
and tell me, as some who have never
been visited by any trial of this kind
would tell me, if it is selfish and sordid
to compare this lasting sorrow with that
great ordinance of death and separation
which all must share alike? Alas!
these are objects not generally reached
by charitable societies; but not less deserving,
and subjected to trials no less
hard than those whose lot has always
been one of poverty.

Having admitted that, under some
circumstances, the loss of property may
occasion grief so deep and lasting as to
make it worthy of comparison even with
loss of dear friends, I would say, on the
other hand, that instances often occur
where no comparison can be made between
the two evils. We hear sometimes
of dreadful calamities at sea,
where entire families are swept away;
where, as on the ‘Austria,’ the only alternative
is the mode of death, whether it
shall be on the burning ship or beneath
the cold, dark billow. What experience
can be more awful, in the life of any
man, than that which compelled this
father to throw child after child into the
sea, not with any hope of rescue, but
merely to prolong for a few moments a
life that could no longer be endured on
the burning deck? Different, but scarcely
less painful, the burial of hope in a
father’s breast, as in the death of the
sons of Hallam. Industry may repair
the wrecks of fortune; but the hopes
and affections that have centered here
must be laid aside forever.

Are there many of us, after all, who
would care for a career of unbroken
prosperity? Men of talent and worth
have been crushed and hurried to their
graves by the iron hand of poverty; but
for one such, there have probably been
ten who have passed through life with
energies and talents never fully called
forth; because easy circumstances have
never demanded any great exertion from
them. This leaves out a class larger

probably in our country than in any
other, of children of fortune, who have
plunged headlong into ruin, finding an
early and dishonored death, who, had
they been compelled to work, would at
least have acquitted themselves decently
in life. Some of the most dreadful
death-scenes on record are those of men
who have had few earthly trials to bear,
men of wealth, who have wrought their
own ruin, and half of whose lives have
been passed in efforts to work the ruin
of the young and innocent of the other
sex. If Chatterton and Otway are sad
instances of genius subdued and crushed
by adversity, Beckford and many
others show where the too lavish gifts
of fortune have perverted talent and
rendered its possessor far worse than a
merely useless member of society.

The world-wide Burns Celebration
probably caused many humble men to
think of the number of great minds who
have been compelled to undergo this
ordeal of poverty. How perfectly, in
some instances, does the man’s soul and
intellect seem to have been separated
from the man himself. It does seem a
marvel that seventy years ago this man
should have been in want and harassed
by fears for the family he was to leave
behind him, when now so many hundred
thousand men seem ready to worship
him. How many envy fame! and
how proud men are, for generations
afterward, who can trace back their descent
to one who, while on earth, may
have suffered all the annoyances and
discomforts of penury! The poet
seemed to know that he would be more
highly esteemed after he had left the
world than while he was in it; but did
this thought really afford him much
consolation, or would he have been
willing, if possible, to sacrifice a more
prosperous present for a great posthumous
fame? How many great men
have languished long years in dungeons,
as some languish in them even
now. How many have borne years of
bodily infirmity. How many have died
just as they seemed about to realize the
fruit of years of preparation and exertion.
These reflections tend to make
us contented with a comparatively humble
lot, as all great trials tend to lessen
our undue attachment to life.

Finally, it occurs to me that very few
men have lost fortunes, without spending
too much time in unavailing regrets
that they should have lost them just in
the manner they did. If they had only
avoided this or that particular investment,
all would have been well. This
is nonsense. Undoubtedly, a great deal
of money is lost very foolishly, but
though no fatalist, I do not believe that
all the care and prudence in the world
will materially alter the great Scriptural
law, that the riches of this world will
often take wings to themselves and flee
away. There is far too much recklessness,
far too much of what is called
in business circles ‘expansion;’ but the
time will never come, in our country,
when generation after generation, in one
family, will keep on in the path of success.
Great fortunes will still melt
away, and the shrewdest maxims of
those who built them up will fail sometimes.
Nothing can be considered certain
in regard to worldly goods, beyond
the fact that industry, good principles,
and average capacity will always, in the
long run, secure a competence; but
wealth will still be the prize that only a
few need expect to draw.

I have endeavored to call up a few
of the reflections that may console a
man under adversity, remembering that
drooping fortunes may revive, that many
of the noblest men have suffered the
same privations, and remembering how
much lighter this form of affliction generally
is than some others that Providence
often sees fit to lay upon us.
Trite as it is, I can not help echoing the
remark, how vastly the sum of human
happiness would be increased, if men
could only learn to prize more highly
the blessings they have. Those of us
who are in moderate circumstances find
it so much easier to envy our rich
neighbors than to think with gratitude
of our happy lot, contrasted with the
many thousand of our needier brethren.

We enjoy so many blessings, that we
become unmindful of them. We rarely
think at all about our health, until a
few days’ sickness reminds us of the
boon we have been enjoying so unconsciously.
In the darkest days of the
great crisis, accounts reached us every
week from India, telling us that refined
and delicately-reared English men and
women were being brutally slaughtered
or exposed to the loathsome horrors of
a lingering siege. What a paradise the
humblest cottage at home would have
seemed to these poor creatures, though
some of them had been accustomed to
‘stately homes.’

How beautifully this sentiment of
gratitude for the common blessings of
life has been expressed by Emile Souvestre,
one of the purest and noblest
writers of our time, and one whose
early history presents an instance of
great obstacles and trials nobly met and
overcome!

‘If a little dry sand be all that is left
us, may we not still make it blossom
with the small joys we now trample under
foot. Ah! if it be the will of God,
let my labor be still more hard, my
home less comfortable, my table more
frugal; let me even assume a workman’s
blouse, and I can bear it all willingly
and cheerfully, provided I can see the
loved faces around me happy, provided
I can feast upon their smiles and
strengthen myself with their joy.
O holy contentment with poverty! it
is thy presence I invoke. Grant me
the cheerful gayety of my wife, the free,
unrestrained laughter of my children,
and take in exchange, if necessary, all
that is yet left me.’

The Molly O’Molly Papers.

All Together.

A True Story.

Alone in the world! alone in the great
city of Paris, a world in itself! alone,
and with scarcely a livre in my purse!

Such were my reflections as I turned
away from the now empty house, in
which for two-and-twenty years I had
dwelt with my poor, wasteful, uncalculating
father. My father was a scholar
of most stupendous attainments, particularly
in Oriental literature, but a perfect
child in all that related to the ordinary
affairs of life. Absorbed in his
studies, he let his pecuniary matters
take care of themselves. Consequently,
when death suddenly laid him low, and
deprived me of my only friend and protector,
his affairs were found to be in
a state of inextricable confusion. His
effects, including the noble library of
Eastern lore which it had been the labor
of his life to collect, were seized, and
sold to pay his debts, and were found
insufficient.

My mother had died when I was a
child, and my father had educated me
himself, pouring into my young and
eager mind the treasures of knowledge
he possessed. I was—I say it without
boasting—a prodigy of learning; but in
all that relates to domestic economy, as
well as to the ordinary attainments of
woman, I was as ignorant as my father
himself.

I lingered in the house until the sale
was over and the last cart-load of goods
had been removed. Then I repaired to
a wretched garret in the Rue du Temple,
where I had found a refuge, and where I
designed to remain until such time as I
could, by the exercise of my talents, replenish
my purse and procure a better
lodging. Here I sat down, took a calm
survey of my position, and questioned
myself as to what employment I was
fit for.

Of the usual feminine accomplishments,
I possessed none. I could neither
draw nor paint; I could not play a
note of music on any instrument; I
could sing, it is true, but knew nothing
of the science of vocal music; I did not
know a word of Spanish, or Italian, or
German, or English; even with the literature
of France I was but little acquainted;
but I could read the cuneiform characters
of Babylon and Persepolis as
readily as you read this page, while Sanscrit,
Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, and Chaldaic,
flowed from my tongue as freely as
a nursery rhyme. As an instructress
of young ladies, therefore, I could not
hope to find a livelihood, but as an assistant
to some learned man or body of
men, I knew that my attainments would
be invaluable.

Full of hope, therefore, and with a
cheerful heart, I set about obtaining a
situation.

Hearing that the Oriental department
of the Bibliothèque du Roi was about to
undergo some alterations, and that an assistant
librarian was wanted to reärrange
and re-catalogue the books, I applied at
once for the situation. I was closely
examined as to my qualifications, and
much surprise manifested at the proficiency
I had attained in these unwonted
studies; but my application was refused,
because—I was a woman.

I next answered by letter the advertisement
of a distinguished savant who
was about to undertake the translation
of the Sacred Vedas, and was in want
of an amanuensis. To this I received
the following reply:

My sex again! Discouraged, but not
daunted, I applied successively to the
Société Asiatique, to the librarian of the
Institute, and to three or four private
individuals of more or less note. From

all of them I received the same answer—the
situation was not open to women.

Meantime the few francs I had had at
my father’s death vanished, one by one.
The woman from whom I hired my room
became clamorous for the rent. I had a
few superfluous articles of clothing. I
disposed of them at the Mont-de-Piété,
and thus kept the wolf from the door a
little longer. When they were all gone,
what should I do?

I persevered in my quest for employment.
It was all in vain. Many people
added insults to their harsh refusal of
my application, accusing me of being an
impostor; for who ever heard, said they,
of a young girl like me being acquainted
with these abstruse studies! Day after
day, week after week, I plodded on
through the mire and dirt, for it was
winter, the weeping winter of Paris, and
the obscure and narrow streets (traversed
by a filthy kennel in the center,
and destitute of sidewalks) through
which my researches led me, were in a
dreadful condition. And evermore the
question recurred to me, What shall I
do?

As day after day passed, and still no
opening appeared, I thought of the river,
rolling darkly through the heart of the
city, in whose silent tide so many a poor
unfortunate has sought a refuge from
present misery. One day, as in the
course of my peregrinations I passed
the Morgue, I saw the dead body of a
young woman which had been taken
that morning from the river, and laid
out for recognition by her friends. As
I looked on her livid, bloated face, her
drenched and tattered garments, her long
dark hair hanging in dank matted masses,
and streaming over the edge of the table
on which she lay, my heart was moved
with pity. Yet I half envied her position,
and might have followed her example,
but for my belief in a future state.
Her body was free from every mortal
ill, but her poor soul, where was it?

But besides, looking at it from a merely
human point of view, there is in my
nature a certain stern and rugged resolution,
a sort of ‘never-give-up’ feeling,
which induces me to hope and struggle
on, and leads me to think, with the great
Napoleon, that suicide is the act of a
coward, since it is an attempt to fly from
those evils which God has laid upon us,
rather than to bear them with a brave,
enduring trust in Providence.

Still, as I passed by the river, spanned
by its noble bridges, and covered with
those innumerable barges in which the
washerwomen of Paris ply their unceasing
trade, eating, sleeping, and living
constantly in their floating dwellings, I
would think, with a shudder, that unless
relief soon arrived, I must choose
between its silent waters and a lingering
death by starvation.

True, there are in Paris many employments
open to women, but what was
that to me? Could I stand behind a
counter and set forth with a glib tongue
the merits of ribbons and laces; or bend
over the rich embroidered robe of the
fashionable lady; or even, like those
poor washerwomen, earn my scanty
livelihood by arduous manual labor?
I knew nothing of business; I knew
nothing of embroidery; and I had neither
the strength nor the capital necessary
to set up the establishment of a
blanchicheuse.

I had returned home, one evening,
after another weary tramp. As I looked
from my lofty attic, and saw Paris glittering
with her million lights, I said to
myself: ‘Must I perish of hunger in
these streets? Must I starve in the
midst of that abundance which might
be mine but for the fact that I am a
woman? No! I shall abjure my sex,
and in the semblance of themselves, win
from men that subsistence which they
deny to a woman.’

The thought was no sooner conceived
than executed. Tearing off part of my
woman’s attire, I threw around me an
old cloak of my father’s, which now
served as a coverlet to my lowly bed,
and descended the long flights of stairs
to the street. Determined to have
legal sanction for what I was about to
do, I went straight to the Prefecture of
Police. It was not yet very late, and

the Prefect was still in his bureau. I
entered his presence, told him my story,
and demanded permission to put on male
attire, and assume a masculine name, in
order to obtain the means of subsistence.
He heard me respectfully, treated
me kindly, and advised me to ponder
well before I took a step so unusual and
unseemly. But I was firm. Seeing my
determination, he granted me a written
permission.

Early next morning I took what remained
of my feminine wardrobe and
hastened to the Marché de Vieux Linge,
(old clothes market,) which was not far
distant from my place of abode. Built
on the site of the ancient Temple, the
princely residence of the Knights Templar
of old, and in later times the prison
of Louis XVI. previous to his execution—this
vast market, with its eighteen
hundred and eighty-eight stalls, hung
with the cast-off garments of both sexes,
and of every age, condition and clime,
presents the appearance of a miniature
city. Men’s apparel, women’s apparel,
garments for children of all sizes, boots
and shoes, hats and bonnets, tawdry
finery of every description, sheets and
blankets, carpets, tattered and stained,
military accouterments, swords and belts,
harness, old pots and kettles, and innumerable
other articles, attract attention
in the different stalls. There, on
every side, sharp-faced and shrill-voiced
dealers haggle with timid customers over
garments more or less decayed. There
the adroit thief finds a ready market for
the various articles he has procured from
chamber and entry, or purloined from
the pockets of the unwary. There the
petted lady’s maid disposes of the rich
robe which her careless mistress has
given her, and the Parisian grisette, with
the money her nimble fingers have earned,
purchases it to adorn her neat and
pretty form for the Bal paré et masqué,
to which her lover takes her, at Belleville
or Montmartre. In yonder stall
hangs a tattered coat which once belonged
to a marquis, but has gone
through so many hands since then, and
accumulated so much dirt and grease in
the process, that one wonders how the
dealer would have ventured to advance
the few sous which its last wretched
owner had raised upon it.

In this place I exchanged, without
much difficulty, my female habiliments
for a suit of respectable masculine attire.
I took it home, and with a feeling
of shame of which I could not get rid,
but yet with unflinching resolution, arrayed
myself in it. As a woman I know
I am not handsome; my mouth is large
and my skin dark; but this rather favored
my disguise; for had I been very
pretty, my beardless face and weak voice
might have awakened more suspicion.
I cut my hair off short, parted it at one
side, brushed it with great care, and
crowned it with a jaunty cap, which, I
must say, was very becoming to me. In
this dress I appeared a tolerably well-looking
youth of nineteen or thereabout,
for the change of garments made me
look younger than I was.

As I surveyed myself in the little
cracked looking-glass which served me
as a mirror, I could not forbear laughing
at the transformation. Certainly no one
would have recognized me, for I could
scarcely recognize myself.

Folding the old cloak around me, I
sallied forth. With the long, thick braid
of hair I had cut from my head, I purchased
a breakfast, the best I had eaten
in a long time.

Then I went direct to the residence of
the gentleman who had said I would suit
him exactly, if I were a young man.
There had been something in the tone
of this gentleman’s letter that attracted
me, I could not tell why. To my great
joy, he had not yet found the person he
wanted; and after a short conversation
he engaged me, at what seemed to me a
princely salary.

He told me laughingly that a young
woman had applied for the situation a
short time previous; and seemed very
much amused at the circumstance.

My employer was a man already past
his prime. His hair was slightly sprinkled
with gray, and his form showed that
tendency to fullness so frequently found

in persons of sedentary habits. But in
his fine, thoughtful eyes, and expansive
brow, one saw evidence of that noble
intellect for which he was distinguished,
while his beaming smile and pleasant
voice showed a genial and benevolent
heart. The kindness of his voice and
manner went straight to my lonely and
desolate heart, and affected me so much
that I almost disgraced my manhood by
bursting into tears.

He occupied a modest but commodious
house in the Quartier Latin. His
domestic affairs were administered by a
respectable-looking elderly man, who
performed the part of cook, to his own
honor and the entire satisfaction of his
master; while a smart but mischievous
imp of a boy ran of errands, tended the
fires, swept the rooms, and kept old
Dominique in a continual fret, by his
tricks and his short-comings.

Here, in the well-furnished library of
my new master, with every convenience
for annotation and elucidation, the translation
of the Vedas was commenced.
Like my father, my employer was possessed
of vast erudition; but, unlike
him, he was also a man of the world,
high in favor at court, wealthy, honored,
and enjoying the friendship of all the
most noted savans and other celebrities
of the metropolis. During the progress
of the work some of these would occasionally
enter the study where I sat
writing almost incessantly, and I saw
more than one to whom I had applied
in the days of my misery, and been rejected.
But happily no one recognized
me.

My kind master expressed great astonishment
at my proficiency in Sanscrit,
and frequently declared my services
to be invaluable to him. I was
sometimes able to render a passage
which he had given up as intractable;
and he more than once asserted that my
name should appear on the title-page as
well as his own. My name? Alas! I
had no name.

My master frequently chid me for my
unceasing devotion to my work; and
would sometimes playfully come behind,
as I sat writing, snatch the manuscript
from my desk, and substitute in
its place some new and popular book,
or some time-honored French classic, to
which he would command me to give my
whole attention for the next two hours,
on pain of his displeasure.

His kindness to me knew no bounds.
He ordered Dominique and the boy Jean
to treat me with as much respect as himself.
He took me with him to the Oriental
lectures of the Bibliothèque du
Roi. He procured for me the entrée to
the discussions of several literary and
scientific bodies, and afforded me every
facility for the improvement of my mind
and the development of my powers. He
introduced me to all that was noblest
and best in the great aristocracy of intellect,
and constantly spoke of me as a
young man of great promise, who would
one day be heard of in the world.

He used to rally me on my studious
habits, and often expressed surprise that
a young man of my years should not
seek the society of his compeers, and
especially of that other sex, to which the
heart of youth usually turns with an
irresistible, magnet-like attraction. Little
did he dream that the person he addressed
belonged to that very sex of
which he spoke.

One day he startled me by saying:
‘What pretty hair you have, Eugene; it
is as soft and fine as that of a young girl.’

The conscious blush rushed to my
face, for I thought he had surely discovered
my secret; but one glance at
his calm countenance reassured me. In
his large, open, honest heart there never
entered a suspicion of the ‘base deception’
that had been practiced upon him.

He did not notice my emotion, and I
answered, in as calm a voice as I could
command: ‘My mother had fine, soft
hair; I have inherited it from her.’

Thus passed a year, the happiest I
had ever known. My master became
kinder and more affectionate every day.
He would often address me as ‘mon fils,’
and seemed indeed to regard me with
feelings as warm as those of a father to
a son.

And I—what were my sentiments toward
this good and noble man who was
so kind to me? I worshiped him; he
was every thing to me. Father and
mother were gone, sisters and brothers
I had none, other friends I had never
known. My master was all the world
to me. To serve him was all I lived for.
To love him, though with a love that
could never be known, never be returned,
was enough for me.

I have said that I was happy; but
there was one drawback to my happiness.
It lay in the self-reproach I felt
for the deception practiced on my benefactor.
Many times I resolved to resume
my woman’s garments, (a suit of
which I always kept by me, safe under
lock and key,) fall at his feet, and confess
all. But the fear that he would
spurn me, the certainty that he would
drive me from his presence, restrained
me. I could not exist under his displeasure;
I could not endure life away
from him.

Although he was, of course, unconscious
of the intensity of the feeling
with which I regarded him, he knew—for
I did not conceal it—that I was much
attached to him; and I was aware that
I, or rather Eugene, was very dear to
him. On one occasion, as we sat together
in the study, he said to me, abruptly:

‘How old are you, Eugene?’

‘Twenty-two,’ I answered.

He sat silent for some moments; then
he said:

‘If I had married in my early years,
I might have had a son as old as you.
Take my advice, Eugene, marry early;
form family ties; then your old age will
not be lonely as mine is.’

‘O my dear master!’ cried I, safe
under my disguise, ‘no son could love
you as dearly as I do. A son would
leave you to win a place for himself in
the world; but your faithful Eugene
will cling to you through life; he only
asks to remain with you always—always.’

‘My good Eugene!’ said my master,
grasping my hand warmly, ‘your words
make me happy. I am a lonely man,
and the affection which you, a stranger
youth, entertain for me, fills me with
profound and heart-felt joy.’

Ah! then my trembling heart asked
itself the question: ‘What would he
think if he knew that it was a young
girl who felt for him this pure and tender
affection?’ Something whispered
me that he would be rather pleased than
otherwise, and a wild temptation seized
me to tell him all—but I could not—I
could not.

As my labors approached their completion,
a gloomy feeling of dread oppressed
me. I feared that when the
Vedas were finished my master would
no longer require my services. But he
relieved my fears by reëngaging me, and
expressing a desire to retain me as his
secretary until I became too famous and
too proud to fill the office contentedly.

Scarcely was this cause of dread removed
when another, more terrible still,
overtook me.

One evening he took me with him to a
literary reünion, at which every bel-esprit
of the capital was to be present. At
first I refused to go, for I feared that the
eyes of some of my own sex might penetrate
my disguise; but he seemed so
much hurt at my refusal that I was
forced to withdraw it. The soirée was
a very brilliant one. But little notice
was taken of the shy, awkward, silent
youth, who glided from room to room,
hovering ever near the spot where his
beloved, master stood or sat, in conversation
with the gifted of both sexes.
How I envied the ladies whose hands
he touched, and to whom his polite attentions
were addressed. For, as I have
said, my master was a man of the world,
wealthy and distinguished; and notwithstanding
his advanced years, ladies still
courted his attentions.

There was one lady in particular, who
spared no pains to attract him to herself.
She was the widow of a celebrated litterateur

and was herself well known as a
brilliant but shallow writer. She was
not young, but she was well-preserved,
and owed much to the arts of the toilet.

I saw her lavishing her smiles and blandishments
on my dear master; I saw that
he was not insensible to the power of
her charms, artificial as they were; and
a cruel jealousy fastened, like the vulture
of Prometheus, on my vitals.

Could I but have entered the lists
with her on equal ground; could I but
have appeared before him in my own
proper person, arrayed in appropriate
and maidenly costume, I felt sure of
gaining the victory, for I had youth on
my side; I had already an interest in
his heart; but, alas! I could not do this
without first announcing myself as an
impostor, as a liar and deceiver, to the
man whose good opinion I prized above
all earthly things.

A dreadful thought now rested on my
mind day and night: What if this woman
should accomplish her designs?
What if my master should marry her?
What would then become of me?

But I was spared this trial.

The translation was finished; it was
in the hands of the publisher; and the
proof-sheets had been carefully revised,
partly by my master, partly by myself.
He had insisted on putting my name
with his own on the title-page; but I
refused my consent with a pertinacity
which he could not comprehend, and
which came nearer making him angry
than any thing that had ever transpired
between us.

One day, as I sat in the library, I saw
my master come home, accompanied by
two gentlemen. He did not, as was his
custom with his intimates, bring them
into the library, but received them in
the little used reception-room. They
remained some time.

When they left, my master came into
the library, rubbing his hands and looking
exceedingly well-pleased. But at
sight of me, his countenance fell. He
approached me, and in a tone of regret,
said:

‘My poor Eugene! we must part.’

Part? It seemed as if the sun was
suddenly blotted from the heavens.

I started up, and looked at him with
a face so white and terror-stricken that
he came up to me and laid his hand
kindly on my shoulder.

‘My poor Eugene!’ he repeated, ‘it
is too true—we must part.’

I tried to speak. ‘Part!’ I cried.
‘O my master—’

Tears and sobs choked my utterance,
in spite of all my efforts to restrain
them. I sat down again, and gave free
vent to my irrepressible grief.

My master was much affected by the
sight of my emotion; and for some minutes
the silence was unbroken, save by
my heart-wrung sobs.

‘Nay, Eugene, this is womanish; bear
it like a man,’ said he, wiping the tears
from his own eyes. ‘Most gladly would
I spare you this sorrow; most gladly retain
you near me; but in this matter I
am powerless. I have received an appointment
from government, to travel in
Northern Asia, in order to study the dialects
of that vast region. Every individual
who is to accompany me has been
officially specified, and there is no place
left for my poor Eugene.’

‘O my dear, dear master!’ cried I,
with clasped hands and streaming eyes,
‘take me with you—I shall die if you,
leave me—put me in the place of some
one else.’

‘Impossible,’ said he. ‘The government
has filled up every place with its
own creatures—except,’ he added, with
a faint smile, ‘that they have left provision
for my wife—if married. I would
I had the wand of an enchanter, Eugene,
that I might transform you to a woman,
and make you my wife.’

His wife! his wife! Had I heard the
words aright? I sprang to my feet. I
tried to say, ‘I am a woman—I will be
your wife!’ but my tongue refused its
utterance—there was a rushing sound
in my ears—I grasped the air wildly—I
heard my master cry, ‘Eugene! Eugene!’
as he rushed forward to support
me, and the next moment I lost consciousness.

* * * * *

When I recovered my senses, I was
still in the arms of my master. He had
borne me to the window, and torn open

my vest and shirt-collar. I looked up
in his face. One glance revealed to me
that my secret was discovered.

Blushing and trembling, I tried to
raise myself from his arms; but he held
me fast.

‘Eugene,’ said he, in earnest tones,
‘tell me the truth. Are you indeed a
woman?’

‘I am. My name is Eugenie D——,
O my dear master! forgive the deception
I have practiced. Do not despise
me.’

‘Eugenie!’ cried he, in joyful accents,
‘you shall go with me to the East! You
shall go as my wife! Vive I’ Empereur!

‘But wherefore this disguise?’ he
added.

I told him my story in few words;
and informed him that I was that very

young woman who had applied to him
for the office I now held.

‘Is it possible?’ exclaimed he. ‘But,
Eugenie, tell me—do you really love
me as you have so often protested you
did?’

‘Yes, my dear master,’ I whispered.

‘Vive l’ Empereur!’ cried he again;
‘but for his strictness I should never
have found it out. Now go; array
yourself in your woman’s gear, and let
me see you as you really are.’

I went; and resumed, with a pleasure
I can not describe, the garments I had
for a whole year forsworn.

When I returned, my master caught
me to his heart, and thanked Heaven
for the ‘charming wife’ so unexpectedly
sent him.

Maccaroni And Canvas.

III.

Fairies.

John Bright.

The late misunderstanding between
this country and Great Britain, relative
to Mason and Slidell, elicited a free expression
of opinion from the statesmen
of the mother country, as to the contest
now proceeding in this country; and
while we regretted to witness so many
proofs of the prejudice and jealousy
which seem to hold possession of the
minds of our transatlantic cousins, we
were gratified by the heroic and brilliant
defense of our cause by one so eminent
in intellectual and moral qualities as
JOHN BRIGHT. The boldness and vigor
of his efforts to dispel the hostility of
his compatriots toward America, and
the masterly ability with which he disarmed
the weapons of our opponents,
elicited the respect of our people and
have made his name one of veneration
among them. His position in our favor,
amid the many discouragements which
beset him, justifies an attempt to lay
before our readers an account of his
career and character, which, we doubt
not, they will be interested to hear.

John Bright, Member of Parliament
for the great city of Birmingham, is the
son of respectable Quaker parents, and
was born at Greenbank, near Rochdale,
in the year 1811. His family being
largely interested in the cotton manufacture,
he was bred to a participation
in this employment, and is now the
senior member of an extensive and enterprising
firm, in company with his
brothers. It is hardly to be expected
that one whose early youth had been
devoted to the restricted sphere of a
counting-room, would be remarkable for
an extensive knowledge of men and
events, liberal opinions, freshness of intellect,
and vigorous brilliancy of declamation;
and yet Mr. Bright has always
manifested superiority in these
qualities. Known, while occupied exclusively
in the details of his proper
avocation, for skill, promptness, and enterprise,
he has also been distinguished,
since his sphere of usefulness has been extended
to the national councils, for the
scope and accuracy of his general information,
the comprehensiveness of his
mind, the richness of his imagination,
and the effective energy of his eloquence.
He early manifested an interest in politics,
which was intensified by the agitation
of questions nearly affecting his
own business interests. The celebrated
Anti-Corn-Law League, which was instituted
in the time of Lord Melbourne’s
ministry, by some eminent Whigs, for
the purpose of opposing the tariff erected
by the corn-laws, excited his enthusiastic
coöperation, and afforded him an
early opportunity of entering political
life. The enlightened ideas of the Reformers
had already effected a glorious
renovation in the machinery of the government;
and the regeneration of the
commercial system was next to be accomplished,
by a successful resistance
to the selfish restrictions imposed upon
trade by the landed proprietors. In
such a cause, John Bright embarked in
his twenty-seventh year; and his subsequent
career has been a consistent adherence
to the same views which marked
his entrance into public notice. He
espoused with ardor the principles
avowed by the League, and leaving the
management of his private interests in
the hands of the junior members of the
firm, began to discuss them publicly,
with great force and effect. The League
soon perceived the valuable acquisition
they had made in the young Quaker,
and not only encouraged him to exertion
but gave him opportunities to appear
before many important assemblages.
On the list of orators whom the League
commissioned to go into the agricultural
districts to advocate their cause, Mr.
Bright’s name soon became prominent.
By the irresistible cogency and energetic
expression which characterized his
speech before many thousands in Drury
Lane Theatre, his reputation became

national, and printed copies being distributed
throughout England, a desire
to hear him on the important question
of the day became every where manifest.
He went about among the farmers
and gentry, instilling with ability
the principles of free trade, developing
arguments with telling effect, and rapidly
organizing branches of the League
throughout the kingdom. The distrust
of the lower classes, which was awakened
in some degree against the nobles
and nabobs who sustained the League,
did not operate against him, who, as a
man directly from the people, educated
in the stern school of labor, and as the
daily witness of and sympathizer with
the suffering of the poor, at once elicited
their confidence in his honesty and
their respect for his intellectual power.
Political advantage, which might be
sought by life-long politicians and hereditary
nobles, could, they well knew,
offer no inducement to nor corrupt the
ingenuous principles of one who showed
so little respect to party distinction,
and who was entirely independent of
great connections.

The statesmen with whom he acted,
in favor of free trade, were unwilling to
be without so valuable an ally on the
floor of the House of Commons; and,
in April, 1843, he was placed in nomination
by his numerous friends at Durham,
for the seat to which that city was
entitled.

On the first trial, he was defeated;
but a new election for the same city becoming
necessary in the following July,
he was returned, by a gratifying majority,
to represent a place noted for its
conservative proclivities. He continued
the member for Durham until 1847.

His first efforts, after entering Parliament,
were directed to the repeal of the
Corn-Laws, in which beneficent measure
he coöperated with such men as
Charles P. Villiers, brother of Lord
Clarendon, Lord Morpeth, now Earl of
Carlisle, Lord John Russell, and his
friend, Mr. Richard Cobden. Sir Robert
Peel, who was at that time Prime Minister,
had always adhered to the protective
doctrines of Pitt and Wellington;
and it was mainly due to the clear and
cogent reasoning of Bright and his associates,
that the illustrious statesman
at the head of the Treasury finally
yielded, with a magnanimity never surpassed
in the annals of ministerial history,
to the enlightened policy of free
trade in respect to corn. The distress
which had for years resulted from the
stringent enactments of Lord Liverpool’s
government to the lower class, was, by
this patriotic sacrifice of the first minister,
done away with; and not least
among those who contributed to the accomplishment
of so auspicious a result,
we must reckon the subject of this
sketch. The Tory party, headed by
such chiefs as Wellington and Lyndhurst,
in the Lords, and Stanley and
Disraeli, in the Commons, made a stern
and pertinacious resistance to the repeal;
and no one was more feared by
the intellectual giants of that party than
was Bright. His severe wit, his plain,
blunt manner of exposing the defects
of his opponents, and his impulsive and
overwhelming declamation, were hardly
exceeded by the fluent exuberance of
Stanley and the keen sarcasm of the
Hebrew novelist, Disraeli.

While he generally acted with the
party of which Lord Russell and Lord
Landsdowne were the chiefs, he did not
place himself supinely under the dictation
of the caucus-room. Professing
to be bound by the precepts of no faction,
acting frequently with the conservatives,
although oftener with the
liberals, independent of ministerial control,
and disdaining to attain power by
the sacrifice of any principle, he was
excluded from a participation in the
government, when those with whom he
in general sympathized succeeded to the
administration in 1846. He early adopted
ultra-liberal views, and has always
been known as the advocate of universal
suffrage, the separation of Church and
State, and the diminution of the influence
of hereditary nobles; and although
he could not but be aware that many of
his doctrines were repugnant to those

of his auditors, and a majority of his
countrymen, he has not hesitated to
uphold and express them with great
perseverance and ingenuousness.

Had he lived in the days of Russell
and Sidney, he had perhaps shared
their fate, and paid the penalty of unpopular
politics on the scaffold. That
bold spirit which he has ever manifested,
exciting his great talents in the advocacy
of repugnant theories, would not
have feared the restraints which a ruder
age encouraged despotic kings to
put upon freedom of political action.
Luckily, he has been living in an age
which respects independent thought
and proscribes the conscience of no
man. While he is certainly premature
in his theories of equality, the tendency
of popular feeling is toward him rather
than from him. Tory policy to-day was
Whig policy a century ago. Walpole
would have sustained the younger Pitt,
and Derby and Lyndhurst will hardly
dispute the benefits of the reform of
1832.

Mr. Bright was returned to Parliament
for Manchester, in 1847, and again
in 1852. This great town, which is the
market for Rochdale, and consequently
in which he was well known, sent him
to the Commons by a handsome majority
of eleven hundred. In the
early session of 1857, Mr. Cobden
introduced a motion condemning the
war into which the administration had
entered with China, on which the government
was defeated. Mr. Bright,
though absent on account of ill-health,
used his influence in favor of the motion,
by reason of which, on the appeal
of Lord Palmerston to the country,
during the summer of that year, he was
defeated in his constituency by over
five thousand votes; his successful opponent,
though agreeing with him in
general, being a supporter of the Chinese
war.

In 1859, he was reinstated in Parliament,
by the electors of Birmingham,
of whose manufacturing interests he
had always shown himself a consistent
and ardent friend. For this constituency
he is now member. He has been
twice married; first, to the daughter of
Jonathan Priestley, Esq., of Newcastle-on-Tyne,
who died in 1841; and secondly,
to his present wife, the eldest
daughter of W. Leatham, Esq., of
Wakefield, York.

His career of nineteen years in the
House of Commons has been a series of
successful efforts, not only contributing
to his lasting fame as an orator and
legislator, but achieving many important
modifications in the commercial system
and in public sentiment. He has been
the life of the radical party, leading
them on in their crusades against existing
abuses with fearless audacity, encouraging
them to renewed contests,
animating them by the hopefulness and
enthusiasm of his own soul, and by his
lucid logic attracting new converts to
his views with every year. The Radicals
who, when he entered Parliament,
were a mere handful, are already assuming,
under the vigorous lead of Bright,
Cobden, and Villiers, the proportions of
a systematic and powerful element in
the lower house. Caring little for the
impotent sneers of an aristocracy in its
dotage, and mindful only to advance
systems of popular improvement and
alleviation, he has become a nucleus
around which has gathered the extreme
wing of the liberal party. The
last century beheld the profligate Wilkes
and the shallow Burdett at the head of
the ultraists; our own time is more fortunate
in superseding vicious and unprincipled
radical leaders by men more
virtuous and ingenuous. The great
manufacturing towns and districts, composed
mainly of the lower orders of society,
and devoted to the interests of commerce,
as opposed to the narrow demands
of the agricultural interest, have,
owing in a great degree to Mr. Bright’s
exertions, become pillars of his party.
Lord Palmerston, than whom a more
sagacious politician does not or has not
existed, testified his knowledge of the
influence of the Bright party, by offering
Mr. Cobden a seat in the Cabinet,
and afterward by sending him as special

agent of England to negotiate a commercial
treaty with France.

John Bright has always shown himself
a staunch friend to the prosperity
of the United States. Whenever an
opportunity offered in which to propose
this country as an example worthy of
the imitation of his own countrymen,
he has never failed to urge the superiority
of our system. His political ideas,
approaching to republicanism, and abhorring
the dominance of hereditary
aristocrats, and a political Church,
have found their theories realized in
the admirable machinery of our own
government. Untainted with that jealous
prejudice which appears to animate
many of his fellow-citizens, he can discern,
and is ready to acknowledge, the
superior efficacy of the principles which
underlie our Constitution. No one has,
of late, been more earnest in denunciation
of the irritating policy of Great
Britain toward America, than Mr. Bright.

His personal appearance is that of a
hearty, good-natured, and yet determined
Englishman, and both his form and face
betoken the John Bull as much as any
member of the House. His morals are
of a high order, his honesty proverbial,
his courage undoubted, his social character
amiable, and calculated to make
him welcome to every circle. It is said,
that although opposed in the extreme
to the political doctrines of Lord Derby,
his personal relations with that aristocratic
nobleman are not only friendly,
but intimate; and that, after abusing
one another lustily at Westminster, they
retire together arm in arm, chatting and
laughing as familiarly as if there never
had been the least difference of opinion
between them. Like Fox, in this particular,
he never allows his partisan
views to interfere with his social relations;
and although he is a fierce and
bitter antagonist on the benches of Parliament,
no one is a more constant or a
more zealous friend in private life. His
efforts have always been enlisted in behalf
of the education of the masses;
conceiving that this is the foundation
of a thoroughly popular political system,
such as he is desirous to introduce into
the British Constitution. Bred among a
timid and peaceful sect, his opposition
to wars has been determined and earnest;
and he was one of those who, in
1854, sent a deputation to the Emperor
Nicholas to urge an abandonment of his
war policy, and the maintenance of
peace, as the duty of a Christian race.
He is, however, rather fitted to be a
reformer and agitator than a statesman.
He has all that enthusiasm, all that energy,
all that courage, all that stubborn
perseverance in the pursuit of his purpose,
which distinguish the characters
of those men who have conducted the
great revolutions of society to a successful
issue. Perhaps he would be found
deficient in judging how far to proceed
in innovation; but this, though an important,
is not an essential element in
the composition of the mere reformer.
It is for him to lead on the people to
great and startling changes, to overturn
tyrannies, to break down old forms, to
inculcate novel precepts, to regenerate
public sentiment. These rather require
an impetuous spirit, a bold heart, an
active and restless mind, than calmness,
judgment, and deliberation. It is when
a new polity is to be erected, when revolution
has passed away, and the crisis
reached and left, when a constitution is
to be framed, and new principles are to
be brought to their test, that the steady
process of a sound judgment is called
into requisition. Then it is that the
reformer yields to the statesman; that
impulse retires before reason; that passion
and confusion become subordinated
to the elements of order and the authority
of intellect. Many have been both
the reformers producing and the statesmen
correcting, revolutions; minds
which, with the fire of enthusiasm,
and the hot impulse of indignation at
wrongs done, have united a judicious
discrimination, a cool faculty of reflection,
and the power of separating
the benefits from the evils of revolution.

It is certain that Mr. Bright would be
a fearless and zealous reformer; it is

doubtful whether he would not give
place to others in the after-work. Well
qualified to lead an enthusiastic faction
to a crusade against precedent and authority,
he has thus far failed to show
himself capable of conducting an administration.
Among the statesmen of
modern times, honesty and enthusiasm
are not qualities which control the policy
of the state. Compare the crafty
demeanor, the dubious expressions, the
cautious statements of Earl Russell,
with the plain, rude, blunt harangues
of Mr. Bright, and we perceive the
qualities which have elevated the former,
and those which have kept the latter in
the background. Lord Russell thinks
what is for his interest to think; Mr.
Bright thinks what that homely monitor,
his conscience, urges on him. Lord
Russell might adopt all the consequences
of universal suffrage, and the principles
of free trade, if he could still sit at
the council-board, and dictate dispatches
with a double meaning to foreign governments;
but he fears to go beyond,
though he nearly approaches, the line
which separates the popular from the
unpopular reformer. Expediency, on
the contrary, forms no part of Mr.
Bright’s creed; and, not being a scion
of a noble and illustrious house, nor
having attained a position in the state
which might have made him a conservative,
he has no hesitation in announcing
his opinions in favor of universal suffrage
and free trade, in opposition of a dominant
aristocracy, and in defiance of a
religious establishment, and dares with
provoking coolness the retaliation of
the great and powerful of the land.

Mr. Bright’s oratory is of a fresh, vigorous,
and versatile character, and never
fails to draw a multitude to the House
when it is announced that he is to speak.
Unlike the hesitating and timid delivery
of Russell, the rapid jargon of Palmerston,
the rich and graceful intonation of
Gladstone, or the splendid sarcasm of
Disraeli, his eloquence is bold, masculine,
and ringing, and gives a better idea
of intellectual and physical strength
than any other speaker in the House.
Although blunt, and careless of the
feelings of others, there is a certain elegance
in every sentence, which softens
the rude sentiment into a vigorous
anathema. Accurate in fact, naturally
easy in delivery, bitter in irony, and ingenuous
in argument, few are ready to
meet him on the floor of the Commons.
He is a fair specimen of what we hear
called ‘the fine old English gentleman,’
without the ignorance, the bigotry, the
awkwardness, and the peevishness,
which go to make up the characters
of a large proportion of the country
baronets and gentry; that is, he is
hearty, cordial, and merry, entering
with enthusiasm into whatever he proposes
to do, and determined to leave no
stone unturned to accomplish it. If he
should live to see the day when his
countrymen shall adopt the views of
which he is the foremost champion, no
honor of the state will be denied him,
and his name will rank with those of
William of Orange, and Lord Grey, as
the regenerators of the British Constitution;
and if he does not, he can not
but be respected, as Milton and Sidney
are, by future generations, for his honesty,
his patriotism under difficulty, and
his fearless spirit.

The Ante-Norse Discoverers Of America.

(Concluded.)

State Rights.

The theory of State Rights, as expounded
by its advocates in its application
to the several States of the American
Union, is subversive of all government,
and calculated to destroy our political
organization. Its tendency is to
weaken the central government by minute
division of the power necessary
for its maintainance. Without power
to make its authority respected, no government
can live. The doctrine of State
Sovereignty detracts from this authority
by lessening the power which upholds
it. Thirty-four-States, each claiming
exclusive authority to act independently
on any given subject, have only
one thirty-fourth part of the strength
that they would have, were they all acting
under and controlled by one central
head. That central head in our Union
is the Federal Government, formed by
and growing out of the Constitution,
and it must exist for the protection of
each of its thirty-four members, as well
as for itself, the connecting power. Its
acts must not be disputed by any one of
the States or by any number of them
acting in concert. If one or more States
may defy the central authority or attempt
to withdraw from its government, any
other States may do likewise, to the ruin
of the political fabric erected at so much
cost, and in its place would spring up
scores of weak and unprotected communities.
But, says the State rights advocate,
this central power will have too
much authority, too much control over
the States; will become despotic, and in
time destroy the liberties of the people.
How? By whom will those liberties be
destroyed? This central power, styled
the Federal Government, is formed by the
people, is of the people, is for the people,
and has only such power as the people
gave it; and thus being of and from the
people, it (or they) can not destroy its (or
their) own liberties. Were our government
hereditary instead of elective; were
our institutions monarchical instead of
republican; had we privileged classes perpetuated
by primogeniture, there might
be some danger of placing too much
power in the hands of the Federal Government;
but formed as our institutions
are, framed as our Constitution is, educated
as our people are, there can be no
fear of having the central power or general
Federal Government too strong, or
its authority supreme. Without strength
there can be no authority; without authority
there can be no respect; without
respect there can be no government;
without government there can be no
civilization. The doctrine of State
rights as applied to the communities
forming the American Union, elevates
the State over the nation, demands that
the Federal shall yield to the State laws,
and completely ignores the supremacy
of the united authority of the whole
people. This theory carried out logically,
would make counties equal to
States; towns equal to counties; wards
and districts equal to towns; neighborhoods
equal to districts and wards; and
to come down to the last application of
the principle, every one man in a neighborhood
equal to the whole, in fact,
superior, if the State rights doctrine
be true, that the State is supreme within
its own limits. The application of
this principle ends society by destroying
the order based on authority, and placing
the State above the Nation, and the
individual above the State. Civilized
societies are but the aggregation of persons
coming or remaining together for
mutual interest and protection. This
mutual interest requires certain rules
for the protection of the weak from the
encroachments of the strong in the society,
as well as from outside enemies.
These rules take the form of laws.
These laws must be administered; their
administration requires power. This
power is placed in the hands of certain
members of this society, community, or
State, as the case may be, for the good

of the whole State, and each individual
claiming protection from the State, or
whose interest is promoted by being a
member thereof, is under moral as well
as legal obligations to submit to this
authority thus exercised by the chosen
executors of the public will. Rights
that might pertain to one man on an
island by himself, do not attach to man
in civilized communities. There he must
not go beyond the landmarks established
by law, and he agrees to this arrangement
by remaining in the State or community.
The same principle is equally
applicable to the States of the American
Union. Before the adoption of the Federal
Constitution, they were separate,
distinct, and so far as any central head
or supreme governing power was concerned,
independent States, or, in fact,
sovereignties. True, they had tried to
get along under a sort of confederation
agreement, a kind of temporary alliance
for offensive and defensive ends, but
which failed from its own inherent
weakness, from the lack of that cohesiveness
which nothing but centralization
can give. Prior to the adoption of
the Federal Constitution, these different
States were like so many different individuals
outside of any regular society;
were merely so many isolated aggregations
of non-nationalized individuals.
Experience showed them their unfortunate
condition; as separate States
they had no strength to repel a common
enemy, no credit, no money, no
authority, commanded no respect. So
it is with an individual outside of society.
These States were then in the enjoyment—no,
not in the enjoyment but
merely in possession—of State rights to
the fullest extent. They had the right
to be poor; the right to be weak; the
right to get in debt; the right to issue
bills of credit, (was any one found who
thought it right to take them?) the right
to wage war with any of their neighbors;
the right to do any and all acts
pertaining to an independent sovereignty;
but these rights were not all that
the people of these States desired; and
after trying the independent and the
confederate State policy until experience
had shown the utter fallacy of
both, they met in convention and passed
the present Constitution, and formed
themselves into ONE NATION. This Constitution,
compact, copartnership, confederation,
combination, or whatever it
may be called, was and is the written
foundation (voluntarily made) on which
the NATION is built and maintained.

The charter, instrument, or Constitution,
defines, by common consent and
mutual agreement of the parties voluntarily
forming it, the powers, rights, and
duties of the national government growing
out of and based on this Constitution.
Among the powers thus delegated
to the National or Federal Government,
and to be used by the legislative
authority thereof, are the following:

The first two words in this section—’the
Congress’—completely annul the
separate integrity of States. The Congress
of what, and for what? The Congress
of the UNITED STATES, acting for
the UNITED States, as a UNIT, a WHOLE,
a UNION. The only allusion in this section
to any thing like a right existing in
any State after the adoption of the Constitution,
is the right to officer the militia,
and these officers are to ‘train’ the
militia, under the direction of Congress,
and not under State laws—a clause
which of itself strikes a decisive blow
at the theory of independent State
rights. In no one of these specifications
is there a single allusion to any
‘State.’ Every power enumerated is
given to the ‘United States,’ to the

‘Union’ formed by virtue of the Constitution.
Never was there a more perfect
absorption of atoms into one mass,
than in these specifications; but to
make the principle still stronger, and
as if to remove any doubt as to ‘State
rights,’ the first clause of the Ninth Section
of the same Article expressly prohibits
any State from importing certain
persons after a given date, which, when
it arrived, (in 1808,) Congress passed a
national law stopping the slave-trade—a
trade that some of the States would
have been glad to encourage, or at least,
allow, if they had had authority to do
so. This right was taken from them by
the Constitution, in the year 1808; up
to that time they had that right; but
after that date the right no longer existed,
and Congress passed the law referred
to, in accordance with the power
given them by this clause of the Constitution.

But this First Article of Section Nine
is not all in that section that smothers
State rights; for Article Five declares
that vessels bound to or from one State
need not enter, clear, or pay duties in
another. Why this specification, if the
States were to be supreme in their own
limits? (and this doctrine of State rights
is, in its essence, supremacy.) Independent
states exact clearances and entrances,
and demand duties from foreign
vessels, but never from their own. State
rights are ignored in this Article. But
to prevent any possibility of any State
ever exercising the rights of sovereignty
now claimed by the advocates of this
most pernicious doctrine, from which
has grown the present gigantic rebellion,
Section Ten, of the same Article,
goes on to declare that—

Language can not be stronger; intentions
were never more clearly expressed;
thoughts were never more explicitly set
forth in words. Nothing is left for
doubt; all is concise, positive, and binding.

Nothing is left to be guessed at;
nothing left that could be construed to
mean that States ‘may’ or ‘may not.’
‘SHALL’ and ‘SHALL NOT,’ are the words
used to define what the States are to do
or not to do. The very slight ‘right’

given to the States to lay duties for executing
their inspection laws, carries
with it a proviso, or command, that the
proceeds of such duties must be paid
into the National Treasury, and the
very laws that the States might pass
for this purpose must be approved by
‘THE CONGRESS.’ What Congress? The
Congress of the UNITED STATES—of the
UNION. Every vestige of State sovereignty,
of ‘State rights,’ is utterly
annihilated in these clauses.

Independent, sovereign states may
and do make treaties, alliances, grant
letters of marque, or coin money; in
fact, no ‘State’ or sovereignty can exist
without these powers; and the fact that
these powers are all taken from and
denied to the States of the American
Union, is conclusive proof that the
framers of the Constitution did not intend
to allow the States the sovereignty
now claimed for them, and which the
rebellious States are endeavoring to
maintain. This heresy must be exorcised
now and forever.

Is there any thing more in the Constitution
(and bear in mind that no right
is claimed for any State except in accordance
with this instrument, which is
still in full force except in those rebellious
States where this disorganizing
doctrine of ‘State rights’ has uncontrolled
sway) making the Union supreme
and the States subordinate?
What says the following section?

A State, therefore, may so legislate,
that is, it may have acts and records,
but each other State SHALL give to the
records and proceedings of all the rest
‘full faith and credit.’ Does not this
enactment thoroughly negative all theories
of the exclusive supremacy of
State rights? Independent sovereign
States do not, in the absence of treaties,
give any faith or credit to the records
or proceedings of other independent
states. Our States are not only
compelled to do this, by this section,
but must do so in accordance with the
manner prescribed by ‘the Congress’

of the UNITED STATES, of the UNION,
and of the NATION. No other congress
is mentioned.

By this clause a native or naturalized
citizen of Maine can conduct business,
hold and convey real estate (the highest
civil, social, and judicial tests of
citizenship) in the State of Georgia.
The citizen of Minnesota can do likewise
in New-York, and so of each and
in all the States. Independent states
or supreme sovereignties do not allow
these privileges to any but their own
citizens. The United States do not,
neither do other nations. Citizenship
must precede the right to hold and
convey real estate. All governments
are naturally jealous of the alien. By
this clause, no American citizen can be
an alien in any State of the American
Union. He is a citizen of the nation.
No State can pass any law demanding
more of a citizen not born, though residing
within its limits, than from one
born therein, or place him under any
restrictions not common to the native
or other citizen of such State. Not a
vestige of ‘State’ exclusiveness is there
in the clause. Every idea of State supremacy
is blotted out by it. A heavier
blow is, however, dealt at State
rights in the following section:

The greatest of all rights that an independent
state can or may have, is the
right to adopt its own form of government;
but this clause completely destroys
such right on the part of any
State of this Union to frame its own
form of government. No State, for example,
can have a monarchical government;
since the United States are to
guarantee a republican form: and no
State can adopt an hereditary or theocratic
government, because the UNITED
STATES are bound to give each State a
republican government. In like manner
we might run through all the forms
of government that have ever blessed or
cursed our race, without finding one
which can he adopted by any State of
this Union, except the single form of
‘republican,’ named in the Constitution.
But can a State bereft of the right to
frame its own mode of government be
said to be possessed of ‘sovereign‘
‘State rights,’ or could a more effectual
provision against their development
have been formed than this?

This Constitution, these laws, these
treaties, shall be the supreme law, no
matter what ‘State’ constitutions and
‘State’ laws may declare. ‘Shall!’ is
the word, and there can be no doubt as
to its meaning. Again, members of the
State Legislatures, and all officers of the
several States ‘shall’ be bound to support
the ‘Constitution.’ Where are the

‘State rights’ in these clauses? Every
State and every State official is made
subordinate to and an executive of the
acts of the ‘United States,’ and the
United States constitutes a ‘nation‘.
That is the only word which meets our
case. WE ARE A NATION, not ‘a tenant-at-will
sort of confederacy.’

The waters of the Bay of New-York
and of the Hudson river flow entirely
within the States of New-York and
New-Jersey. One of the vested rights
of an independent state, is that known
as ’eminent domain,’ or supreme ownership,
implying control. Apply this doctrine
of State rights in this case, or
rather, allow it to be applied by the
States named above, and they could
prevent the navigation of these waters
by any but their own citizens or those
to whom they might grant that privilege.
If this doctrine of State rights
is sound, these two States would have
the right to levy tolls or duties on every
vessel that sails those waters, as the
State of New-York exacts tolls on her
canals. Such power thus exercised,
would cripple commerce, inconvenience
the public, and utterly destroy all comity
between the States. This exacting
tolls for navigation of waters is one of
the most offensive systems left us by
past generations. It is so odious that
modern governments decline to submit
to it in cases where there is no doubt
as to ‘State rights,’ as in that of the

‘Sound Dues’ exacted by Denmark. If,
however, the State is supreme within
its limits, it has a perfect right to exact
such tolls. But no State in this nation
has any such right under the Constitution.
Its existence would destroy the
Union by placing each State under the
laws and exactions of either one of the
others. The troubles growing out of
such exactions would beget dispute;
these disputes would beget open strife,
which would end in open rupture and
the downfall of the NATIONAL UNION.

The ‘UNITED STATES,’ ‘the Union,’ ‘the
Nation,’ are supreme. The States, as
States, are subordinate; as ‘parts,’ they
are inferior to the ‘whole.’ The ‘State
rights’ doctrine is wrong, disorganizing,
destructive of national life, and must be
destroyed.

Again, one grand evidence of a nation’s

or a people’s civilization, is
found in the correspondence, written
and printed, conducted by the citizens.
Barbarians have and need no correspondence.
Civilization needs it, and
can not exist without it. A migratory
people like ours have more correspondence
than older and less migratory nations.
A citizen emigrating from Vermont
to Illinois must correspond with
the friends of his old home. The old
friend in Vermont must know how the
absent one ‘gets along in the world.’
To conduct this correspondence, the
postal or mail service was devised.
Before its existence the communication
between separated friends and business
people was uncertain, irregular, and
mere matter of chance, to be conveyed
by stray travelers, or not interchanged
at all. The necessities of civilization
brought the postal or mail service into
action. To conduct this service over a
nation, requires the right of passage
through the entire limits of the nation.
This right, to be available, must have
power to enforce its own requirements.
It must be central, CONTROLLING, SUPREME.
Without these, there would
be no safety, no system, no uniformity,
no regularity. To insure these to all
the people of the States, the Constitution
has wisely placed these powers in
‘THE CONGRESS’ of the Union, of the
‘NATION.’ In accordance with the powers
thus vested in Congress, our present
postal or mail service has been created.
No State has a right to set up its own
mail or postal system. No State has
a right to interfere with the transportation
of the national mails. ‘The
UNITED STATES MAIL,’ is the term
used. If any State had a right to establish
a mail within its own limits, it
would also have the right to prohibit
or curtail the transportation of other
States’ mails through its limits. This
right would destroy the entire system,
and break up the interchange of correspondence
so essential to our civilization.
If the States had any such right,
they could affix discriminating tariffs on
the correspondence of other States passing
through them. The State of New-York
could, if this right existed, make
the letters sent over its roads by the
people of Massachusetts to the people
of Ohio, pay just such tariffs for the

‘right of passage’ as it might choose.
The absurdity and utter unreasonableness
of this claimed right is so apparent
as to need no argument against it.

The exercise of this pretended right
by the Southern States has caused the
present rebellion. But for this doctrine
we should not be expending a million
a day in supporting six hundred thousand
men in camp, who ought to be
producers for the support of life instead
of missionaries of death. This war is
the legitimate result of this heresy of
‘State rights.’ If this doctrine had
never been put in practice, we should
not now have slavery to curse us
with its degrading, inhumanizing influences.
Slavery exists in violation of
the Constitution. Slavery was never
established by that document. The
States violated it in their attempts at
legalizing it. All their laws declaring
that the status of the child must be
that of the mother, are but so many
‘BILLS OF ATTAINDER,’ working ‘CORRUPTION
OF BLOOD;’ and every State, as
well as Congress itself, was and is
positively prohibited by the Constitution
from passing any such bill or law;
and should we ever succeed in having
any but a pro-slavery, slave-catching
Supreme Court, all these laws will be
annulled by their own most positive
unconstitutionally. True, there were
slaves at the time the Constitution was
adopted, but all then living are now
dead; and but for this doctrine of ‘State
rights,’ there never would have been
any State law making the child of a
slave mother also a slave; but for this
doctrine no such bill of attainder would
have been passed, or if passed, it never
could have been enforced; and we should
not to-day be listening to the cries of
four millions of slaves, nor have the
homes of thousands of honest citizens
made desolate by the absence of loved
ones. But for this terrible doctrine,

‘the click of hammers closing rivets up,’
would not now be giving ‘dreadful note
of preparation.’ But for this heresy,
subversive of all law, of all order, of all
nationality, we should not to-day be at
war for our existence. But for this doctrine,
and the right claimed by some of
the States to extend their ‘bills of attainder,’
working corruption of blood
over the entire Union, we should not
have our homes filled with grief and
our streets covered with the funeral
pageants of brave men killed in defense
of the Union. We want no more evidence
of the accursed nature of the doctrine
of ‘State rights.’ We are a UNION—a
NATION. We must have NATIONAL
LAWS, NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS, NATIONAL
FREEDOM. We have had too much of
State law, too much of State rights,
too much of State slavery. The NATION
MUST BE SUPREME. The States
must be subordinate. As we uphold
and perpetuate the National authority,
so will be our existence as a people.
As we detract from this, so will be
our weakness and downfall.

GOD PRESERVE THE NATION!

Roanoke Island.

The Site Of The First English Colony In America.

The name of Roanoke Island awakens
in the mind of every lover of American
history, sentiments of veneration and
respect. It carries us back to the days
of England’s great Queen, to ruffs and
rapiers, and calls up the memories of
the gallant but unfortunate Raleigh, and
of the brave knights, Grenville, Lane,
and White, men who made their mark
in history even in that golden era of
chivalry and enterprise.

Let us go back through the vista of
nearly three centuries, and trace the
history of this spot where our language
was first spoken and written on this
continent. When we recall the first
occupation of this island by the English,
and picture to ourselves the Indians
in their normal state, with their
dress, habitations, and implements, so
picturesque and unique, as well as the
gallant gentlemen in the costume of that
picturesque age, it seems almost to border
on romance. But there is a dark
side to the picture. The sombre veil
of uncertainty hangs over the fate of
two entire colonies, which, if lifted,
would consecrate this spot to the extremes
of suffering and bloodshed. It
was, no doubt, better to have these
scenes buried in oblivion, and for each
succeeding historian to fill up this chapter
with his own fancies, than to be
able to give the minute details of long
days and months of probable famine,
pestilence, war, captivity, and torture,
which have occurred here or in the immediate
vicinity. The certain knowledge
of them would have awakened
in their countrymen sentiments of
retaliation and vengeance, and a fearful
retribution would have been meted
but to the natives, and have fallen
upon the innocent as well as the
guilty.

It was not until about the commencement
of the sixteenth century that England
could be considered one of the
great maritime powers in Europe. Although
Henry the Seventh had authorized
Cabot to prosecute a voyage of discovery
as early as 1497, in which he

discovered the continent, thus actually
anticipating Columbus, who did not
discover it till the succeeding year,
no real attempts at colonization took
place until a century afterward. In
1578, Sir Humphrey Gilbert obtained
a patent from Queen Elizabeth to
colonize such parts of North-America
as were not then occupied by any of
her allies. Soon after, he, assisted and
accompanied by his step-brother, Sir
Walter Raleigh, fitted out an expedition
and sailed for America; but they were
intercepted by a Spanish fleet, and returned
unsuccessful.

In 1583, they equipped a new squadron,
in which Raleigh did not embark.
This enterprise failed, and Sir Humphrey
perished at sea. Still Raleigh
was not disheartened. He had been a
soldier in the religious war then raging
in France, and associated with the Protestant
admiral, Coligny, and many of
his officers, whose ill-fated colony met
so bloody a fate near the river St. John.
Doubtless, during his intercourse with
these men, their experience in Florida
often became the theme of discourse,
and it may be that from it he imbibed
that passion for discovery and colonization
in America, which ended only with
his life. He doubtless learned of the
voyage of Verranzo, who, in the employ
of France, had, in 1524, coasted from
Cape Fear to Rhode Island; but still
our shores were hardly more than a
myth, and the country north of the
peninsula of Florida a terra incognita.
Early in 1584, Raleigh, then a gallant
courtier, received a grant from Elizabeth
to ‘discover and find out such remote
and heathen lands, not actually possessed
or inhabited by any Christian King,
or his subjects, and there to have, hold,
fortify, and possess, in fee-simple to him
and his associates and their heirs forever,
with privileges of allegiance to the
crown of all that might there reside;
they and their descendants.’

This grant would apply to any portion
of the globe not claimed or inhabited
by the subjects of a Christian prince.
The grant bears date March 25th, in the
twenty-sixth year of the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, 1584. Raleigh anticipated its
passing the great seal, and probably had
for some months been making preparations
for a voyage of discovery under
this patent. So energetic was he, that
two barks were prepared and dispatched
from the west of England on the 27th
of April. They were under the commands
of Captains Amidas and Barlow,
with Simeon Fernando as pilot, who, it
may be presumed from the name, was a
Spaniard, and no doubt had been on this
coast before. They took the route by
way of the Canaries and West-India
Islands, and by the tenth of May had
reached the former, and by the tenth of
June the latter, where they staid twelve
days.

Continuing their voyage, on the second
of July they found shoal water,
where they say11: ‘We smelled so
sweet and strange a smell, as if we had
been in the midst of a delicate garden,
abounding with all kinds of odoriferous
herbs and flowers, so we were assured
that the land could not be far distant;
and keeping good watch, and bearing
but slack sail, the fourth of the same
month we arrived upon the coast, which
we supposed to be a continent, and firm
land; and we sailed along the same a
hundred and twenty miles, before we
could find any entrance or river issuing
into the sea.’

They entered the first inlet which appeared,
‘but not without difficulty, and
anchored on the left-hand side.’ Subsequent
historians have written much to
settle the long-disputed question, by
what channel or inlet the earliest English
navigators entered. After a careful
examination of the early and of later
authorities, and with some practical acquaintance
with the localities, I am of
the opinion that they must have entered
by what is now known as Hatteras Inlet.
‘The island twenty miles long and

not over six miles broad,’ was that part
of the banks or shore between this inlet
and that now known as Ocracoke.

So soon as they had given thanks to
God for their safe arrival, they landed,
and took possession in ‘the right of the
Queen’s most excellent majesty,’ and
afterward delivered it over to the use of
the grantee. They found the land sandy
and low, and expressed their admiration
of the abundance of wild grapes, as well
as the pines and cedars; but saw no inhabitants.
The third day, they espied
a small boat, with three persons, who
came to the shore. There they were
met by the two captains and the pilot,
and one of the natives boldly commenced
a conversation entirely unintelligible
to the Englishmen, but most
friendly in its tones. Having received
a shirt and hat, the Indian, after viewing
the vessels, fell to fishing, and in
less than half an hour loaded his boat
as deep as she could swim with fishes,
which he soon landed on the shore and
divided between the ship and pinnace.
The next day, there came divers boats,
containing forty or fifty natives, ‘a very
handsome and goodly people, and in
their behavior and manners as civil as
any in Europe.’ Among them was the
king’s brother, ‘Grangamimeo,’ who
said the king was called Winginia.
They commenced trading with the Indians,
no doubt greatly to their own
advantage. The natives were, of course,
much astonished at the splendor and
profusion of the articles offered; but
of all things which he saw, a bright tin
dish most pleased Grangamimeo. He
clapped it on his breast, and after drilling
a hole in the brim, hung it about
his neck, making signs that it would defend
him from his enemies. This tin
dish was exchanged for twenty deerskins,
worth twenty crowns, and a copper
kettle for fifty skins. In a few
days, they were visited by the king and
his family. The women had bracelets
of pearl and ornaments of copper; the
pearl was probably nothing but pieces
of shell, and the copper must have been
obtained from near Lake Superior,
where the mines had been worked ages
before the advent of the white man.
The Indians told them of a ship that
had been wrecked near there twenty-six
years previously, and that the crew attempted
to escape in their boat, but
probably perished, as the boat was
afterward found on another island.
This story has usually been looked
upon with doubt; but recent researches
in the Spanish archives have shown
that they had a fort and colony at Port
Royal in 1557, and about the same
period, another in the Chesapeake.
There can be but little doubt that
the story was true, and that the ship
contained Spaniards passing between
these two places. They also told curious
stories of a great river ‘Cipo,’ where
pearl was obtained, which has puzzled
later historians to locate; but we now
know that Cipo or Sepo, in the Algonquin
language, which was spoken from
Maine to about this point, means simply
a river, and probably referred to either
the Moratio, now called the Roanoke, or
to the Chowan.

These narratives give a glowing account
of the natives and of their ability
to construct their houses and canoes
and weirs for fish. As this was their
first intercourse with Europeans, it undoubtedly
shows what their true condition
was and had been for centuries.
Situated, as this territory is, under a
mild climate, where corn, beans, and
melons can be so easily raised, and having
a great abundance of game and fish,
it must have been a paradise for the Indians.
Of the king’s brother, it is said:

Their advent to Roanoke Island is
thus described:

Thus they picture the country with
the rosy tint so natural to all discoverers.
They speak of the island as being
sixteen miles long, which recent surveys
show nearly correct. Many of the trees,
animals, and fish were new to them, and
like all travelers, they did not neglect to
give a fair embellishment in their report
to Raleigh. Their stay in the country
was brief, less than sixty days, and on
their return, they carried with them
two of the Indians, named Wanchese
and Mantco, who were regarded as a
great curiosity by the English. They
were exhibited at London to thousands,
and gave Raleigh great satisfaction, as
they were the first natives of America
who had visited England.

The return of Amidas and Barlow,
with their flattering report of the discovery
and beauty of Virginia, created
great excitement throughout England,
and with it a desire to visit the new
land. The soldiers of fortune, of which
that reign was fruitful, were ready to
embark in any cause that promised
wealth or fame; and the nobility and
merchants, with sanguine views of trade
and extensive domains containing the
precious metals, were ready to furnish
the means to transport a colony to the
new El Dorado. It was not difficult to
procure men, under such dazzling aspects;
a sufficient number was soon enrolled,
but the material was not of a
kind to make a successful and permanent
settlement. Disbanded soldiers from
foreign service, and London tradesmen
out of business, and enlisting only with
the hope of soon obtaining wealth, and
returning home to enjoy it, were not the
men to clear away forests, cultivate the
soil, or develop industry, the only true
source for success in America. The fleet
consisted of seven vessels, the ‘Tiger’
and ‘Roebuck,’ each of one hundred and
forty tons; the ‘Lion,’ of one hundred;
and the ‘Elizabeth,’ of fifty tons; with

a small bark and two pinnaces, which
were without decks.

In this fleet were several, eminent
among the gallant men who have contributed
so much to render the reign of
the Virgin Queen illustrious in history.
The commander, Sir Richard Grenville,
distinguished himself at the battle of
Lepanto, and afterward lost his life in
a desperate encounter with a Spanish
fleet off the Azores. He was a cousin of
Raleigh, and always his friend. The
next in real rank was Ralph Lane, to
whom was delegated the office of governor,
and of whom we shall speak hereafter.
Thomas Cavendish commanded
one of the vessels. He was a wealthy
and dashing adventurer, who, after his
return, fitted out an expedition and
captured some Spanish ships with great
treasure; but after a reckless life, he
found an early grave. Lewis Stukely,
another cousin of Raleigh, had some
prominent station. He proved a base
character, and assisted, by his intrigues,
in bringing his patron to the block.
Amidas, who was in the first voyage,
also found place here, with the title of
‘admiral.’ Simeon Fernando, the former
pilot, was now in command of the
‘Tiger.’

The fleet sailed from Plymouth on the
ninth of April, 1585, and made one of
the West-India Islands, where they had
many adventures, on the fourteenth of
May. Thence proceeding on their voyage,
they reached the coast of Florida
on the twentieth of June; on the
twenty-third, they barely escaped wreck
on Cape Fear shoals; and on the twenty-sixth
anchored at Wocokon, now known
as Ocracoke. Three days afterward,
in attempting to cross the bar, the
‘Tiger’ struck, and remained for some
time; the first of many similar accidents
on that wild and dangerous spot. On
the third of July, they sent word of
their arrival to Winginia, the Indian
king at Roanoke; and the same day dispatched
Captain Arundell across the
sound to the main land, where he found
two men who had arrived twenty days
before, in one of the smaller vessels.
For the next ten days, they were engaged
in visiting the Indian towns on
the main. Here one of the Indians
stole a silver cup. To recover it, a
party visited a town, and not obtaining
the cup, burned the houses and spoiled
the corn; ‘a mean revenge,’ destined to
meet a bloody retaliation.

Soon after, the fleet sailed to Hatorask;
not the cape or the inlet which
we now call by nearly the same name,
but an inlet then nearly opposite Roanoke,
where all those intending to remain
were probably landed. On the
twenty-fifth of August, the fleet sailed
for England.

The colony, landed on Roanoke, consisted
of one hundred and seven persons,
of whom Ralph Lane was the Governor,
Amidas, the admiral, Hariot, the historian
and chaplain, and John White the
artist. So soon as they were settled at
the island, they began the exploration
of the country. This was done in boats,
and entirely toward the south. Visiting
the Neuse and the western shore of
Pamlico Sound, they explored Currituck,
on the east; while on the north,
they penetrated to the distance of one
hundred and sixty miles, and ascended
Moratio, now known as the Roanoke
river, probably more than fifty miles
from its mouth. This was done with
extreme labor and peril, as the Indians
had deluded them with a story of mines
of gold, and having notice of Lane’s
coming, were prepared to attack him.
So sanguine were the party of finding
mines, and yet so reduced, that they
still pushed on, though they once found
that they had but a half-pint of corn for
a man, besides two mastiffs, upon the
pottage of which, with sassafras leaves,
they might subsist for two days. They
returned safe, however, without any of
the precious metals which they had
made such exertions to find. Lane also
explored the Chowan, or, as he called it,
the Chowanook. The king of this country
gave him much information respecting
the territory, which proved to be
perfectly truthful.

From the Indians, Lane had received

intimations of the existence of Chesapeake
Bay,12 and was desirous of visiting it.

The story of this ‘king’ of the Chesapeans
was full of interest, he knowing
well the route, which Lane communicates,
with the plans he intended to carry
out, but which the sudden departure of
the colony left unfulfilled, so that the
great bay remained for a few years
longer a mere myth to the English. Of
this native king, Lane says:

He goes on to state that he would
have sent two small pinnaces to the
northward, to have discovered the bay
he speaks of, while he, with all the
small boats and two hundred men, would
have gone up the Chowanook with the
guides, whom he would have kept in
manacles, to the head of the river, where
he would have left his boats, and raised
a small trench with a palisado on it, and
left thirty men to guard the boats and
stores. Then he would have marched
two days’ journey, and raised another
‘sconce,’ or small fort, and left fifteen or
twenty men near a corn-field, so that
they might live on that. Then, in two
days more, he would have reached the
bay, where he would have built his main
fort, and removed his colony.

It is interesting, at this time, to see
how Lane would, with the caution and
boldness of a good soldier, have passed
up the broad estuary of the Chowan to
‘where it groweth to be as narrow as
the Thames between Lambeth and
Westminster,’ and so on, and turning
into the Blackwater, which he would
have navigated probably to where it is
now crossed by the railroad, he would
have been within fifty or sixty miles
of the bay. While we write, General
Burnside is pursuing the same
route, not to capture from a savage
tribe, but from a rebellious and traitorous
people, the same domain.

The same chief or king gave Lane a
fanciful account of the Moratio river,
which we now call the Roanoke. He
says:

This river he afterward explored.
But ere long, either from oppression or
fear of the English, the Indians assumed
a hostile attitude, and laid plans to surprise
them. The English had to be
continually on their guard, and in the
mean time famine compelled them to
leave Roanoke in large parties, to obtain
subsistence from the corn-fields, or proceed
along the coast for shell-fish.

About the first of June, 1586, Lane,
with a party, left the island, proceeding
across the sound, and by a stratagem,
hardly authorized in an honorable soldier,
captured and killed the chief of the
country and many of his people.

In the mean time, he was on the look-out
for ships from England, with supplies,
and had sent Captain Stafford,
with a party, to ‘Croatan,’ probably at
or near what is now known as Cape
Lookout, to discover their approach.
Suddenly, he reported a great fleet of
twenty sail in sight, which proved to be
the squadron commanded by the celebrated
Sir Francis Drake, who was returning
from one of his expeditions
among the Spanish settlements in the
West-Indies. When Drake left England,
he was directed to look after
Raleigh’s colony, and had accordingly
brought a letter to Lane. He anchored
his fleet opposite Roanoke, (probably
just off ‘Nagg’s Head,’ now celebrated
as the scene of the temporary sojourn
and flight of Governor Wise,) and supplied
them with the needed provisions.
He also made them an offer of one of
his small vessels, which they very gladly
accepted.

But a storm, which continued for
many days, came upon them; the
promised bark was driven to sea; the
open roadstead, where the larger ships
were compelled to anchor, made Roanoke
an undesirable location, and as the
time had long expired when the promised
reinforcements should have arrived
from England, this disappointment, together
with the hostilities of the Indians,
so discouraged the leaders of the
colony, that they solicited and obtained
from Drake a passage to England. On
the nineteenth of June, after a little less
than a year’s residence in the new land,
they all sailed for home, and Roanoke
Island was left in solitude.

It is somewhat singular that with all
the wars, famine, and privations of these
adventurers, not a solitary death occurred
during the time they spent here.

It certainly speaks much for the salubrity
of the climate, as well as for the
care of the officers who were in command.
They all arrived safely in England,
about the last of July.15

Among the eminent men who accompanied
Lane, and passed nearly a year
at Roanoke, was Thomas Hariot, an Oxford
scholar and a celebrated mathematician.
He went out in the expedition
as historian and naturalist, to make a
topographical and scientific survey and
report of the country and its commodities,
duties fulfilled by him in the most
faithful manner. His report was published
in London, in 1588, under the
title of A Brief and True Report of
the New-found Land in Virginia, of
the Commodities found there, etc. It
was, in 1590, put into Latin, and published
by Theodore de Bry, at Frankfort,
with about thirty curious engravings,
from the designs of John White,
the artist who accompanied the expedition.
These pictures are exceedingly
well executed, by eminent Dutch artists,
and a number of them give undoubtedly
the exact portraits of many of the principal
Indians, with their costumes and
habits, as they were before they were
changed by intercourse with the Europeans,

showing us their original condition.

The Aborigines were certainly further
advanced in agriculture and civilization
than has been generally supposed, and
probably much more than the tribes
who resided further north. To all who
are curious in the history of the early
inhabitants of North-America, this work
will be found of extraordinary interest.
It may be observed that the maps of the
coast which it contains are remarkably
correct, and at the same time indicate
many important changes to have since
occurred. But its greatest value is its
description of the ‘commodities’ or valuable
productions, of daily use and commercial
value, which were found here.
Thus, under the Indian name of Uppowoc,
Hariot gives a description of the
tobacco-plant,16 which had been previously
known to the Spaniards. This,
however, seems to have been its earliest
introduction to the English, and it was
carried home by them ‘to the nobility.’
In the account of this plant, we are told
that it is so esteemed by the Indians
that they even think their gods are delighted
with it. Our chronicler further
says: ‘We were in the habit of using
this plant for our diseases, as the natives
did, and have continued the practice
since our return.’ It was only used
to smoke; the natives were never guilty
of chewing it.’ Among the roots, it
mentions Openauk, which must have
been what we call the pea-nut, which is
now largely cultivated along that coast,
and is quite an article of commerce.
They also found here the sweet potato
and various kinds of squashes and melons,
as well as many varieties of beans,
some of which are still cultivated extensively
in that region.

It also describes a root which grows
sometimes as large as a human head;
this must have been what is now known
as the tanger. But the greatest discovery
of all was the potato, which has been
of such inestimable benefit to mankind.
This, which they carried home, was cultivated
by Raleigh, on his estate in Ireland,
and thence disseminated through
Europe. Doubt has been thrown over
this statement by the fact that botanists
have been unable to find this plant in
North-America in an indigenous state,
and so have concluded that it never
grew here at all. Our volume, however,
proves that it was cultivated by the
natives, as were corn, beans, and tobacco.
Of it, Hariot speaks as follows:

Scarcely any part of our country has
a greater variety of plants and trees
than this vicinity. It will be found an
interesting field for botanists.

Only a few days had elapsed after the
departure of the colonists, when a ship,
prepared and furnished with supplies
from Raleigh, arrived at Roanoke. After
some days spent by her commander
in searching for his countrymen, he set
sail for home. Fifteen days after the
departure of this supply-ship, three vessels,
under the command of Sir Richard
Grenville, made their appearance before
the place, and when he ascertained the
state of affairs, his disappointment was
extreme. He, however, made extensive
explorations, and leaving fifteen men to
reside at Roanoke and keep possession
of the country, departed for home.
One would suppose that Raleigh, by
this time, would have become disheartened
by his disappointments in America;
but he was now at the hight of his
prosperity, and seemed never to despair
of the final success of this his favorite
project. The following year, 1587, a
new expedition was fitted out under
the charge of John White, as Governor,
with twelve assistants. They were to
found the city of Raleigh, in Virginia.
This fleet of three ships left Plymouth
on the fifth of May, and after making a
short stay at the West-India Islands,
sailed for our coast, reaching it on the

sixteenth of July. They a second time
barely escaped a wreck on Cape Fear
shoals, but anchored safely at Hatorask,
on the twenty-seventh of the same
month. They had been directed by
Raleigh to visit Roanoke, and then proceed
to the Chesapeake and there land
the colony which they had transported.
The Governor and party landed on
Roanoke Island, and proceeded to the
place (probably on the side next the
sea) where Sir Richard Grenville left
fifteen men the year previous. They
found, however, only the skeleton of
one, who with his companions had probably
been slain by the savages. The
next day they repaired to the south end
of the island, where Lane had built his
fort and houses. No human being was
to be seen, and thus the fate of the
fifteen was confirmed.

The commander of this fleet was Simeon
Fernando, a prominent officer in
the two previous expeditions, who no
doubt had given satisfaction to Lane,
for his name was given to the fort at
Roanoke. But the chronicles, in this
instance, have charged him with treachery,
he having refused to proceed to the
Chesapeake. In consequence of this
refusal, the colony remained here, occupying
the buildings erected by Lane.
The Indians soon gave proof of hostility
by attacking and murdering one of
the assistants. Master Stafford, who
had previously been with Lane, accompanied
by the Indian Manteo, (who came
with them from England,) with twenty
others, passed over to the mainland,
and renewed their former intercourse
with the Indians. The natives claimed
to be friendly, and related how the fifteen
were murdered by the tribe that
once inhabited Roanoke. This party
again visited the mainland on the ninth
of August, and falling in with a party
of natives, whom they supposed to be
hostile, attacked and killed a number,
but subsequently learned that they were
of a friendly tribe. On the thirteenth
of August Manteo was christened and
announced as Lord of Roanoke, in reward
for his faithful service. How far
he understood the meaning or value
of the rite, we are unable to state;
but the tendency of the act to influence
the natives to regard the Europeans with
more favor, can be readily implied.

The first child of English blood born
upon this continent, (August 18th,) was
‘Virginia’ Dare, a granddaughter of the
Governor. At the expiration of the
time when the ships were to return
home, it was thought advisable to send
one of the principal men with them to
make sure that supplies should be forwarded
by their friends; but so satisfied
were the majority with their present prospects,
that it was a difficult matter to find
one willing to go. At the last moment,
finding all else so reluctant to leave, the
Governor, John White, decided to return
in person, and sailed, in company
with the returning ships, on the twenty-fifth
of August, leaving at Roanoke one
hundred and seventeen persons to an
unknown fate. He, with his vessel and
her consorts, arrived safely in England.

The ship in which the Governor embarked,
reached England in November,
1587. The succeeding year was, perhaps,
as trying for that country as any
it had ever experienced, the fear of the
Spanish invasion and its consequences,
being the absorbing theme of public
attention. No doubt White had in view
the best interests of his colony; he
knew the condition of the colonists, and
that their prosperity and perhaps their
lives depended on his reinforcing them.
But the war was imperative, and demanded
the services of all. Raleigh,
Lane, and White had important positions
assigned them, and all gained a
reputation for valor. It was not, therefore,
till two years later, that White was
able to embark for the colony, and then
without either men or provisions; as he
expresses it, ‘with only myself and my
chest.’

The ships put to sea on the twentieth
of March, and lingered among the West-India
Islands till the last of July, when,
proceeding on their voyage, they anchored
off old Hatorask Inlet on the
fifteenth of August. Here they descried

a great smoke issuing from Roanoke,
which gave White great hopes of meeting
the friends he had left three years
before. The party landed with much
difficulty, explored the island, and found
that the smoke proceeded from the
burning of grass and dead trees. Footprints
of savages were seen in the sand,
but to the sound of their voices and
their trumpet-calls there was no response.

Circumnavigating the island, they
went to the north end, where a colony
had been left, and where they saw letters
cut in the bark of a tree, indicating
that the settlers had gone to Croatan,
(Cape Lookout.)

They found the fort deserted and dilapidated,
and within it, guns, bars of
iron, and lead, thrown on the ground,
with weeds growing over them; and
they afterward discovered buried in a
trench, several chests, some containing
property of White, and among it his
own armor.

He was now anxious to proceed to
Croatan, but a severe storm coming on
compelled the ships, after losing men
and anchors, to put to sea. As it continued,
they bore away for home, leaving
Roanoke to solitude.

It is probable that the colony found
the Indians hostile, and despairing of
relief from home, abandoned the island
and proceeded to Croatan, where they
ultimately perished. However, a writer
who resided in the country more than a
century after, says there were traditions
among a tribe that inhabited the coast,
that their ancestors were white people,
and could talk in a book, and many of
the children had gray eyes, which are
never seen among natives of pure blood.

Raleigh is said to have sent three several
times to ascertain their fate, but
without any success. In some of the memoirs
of the later Virginia settlements,
which have recently been printed, there
are references to persons said to have
been recovered from Raleigh’s colony on
Roanoke, but they are indirect, and only
show that tradition was busy with their
fate. There can be no doubt every soul
perished on this isolated coast.

The ancient history of Roanoke closed
with the departure of Raleigh’s last ship,
and the natives resumed possession of
their favorite spots.

The Chesapeake was entered, and
Jamestown settled, in 1607; and although
the bold explorer of the bay
and rivers, Captain John Smith, was desirous
of sending a party to look after
the lost colony, it was never done.
Years passed away, and the grant of
Carolina embraced all the country once
claimed and occupied by Raleigh and
his colonists.

In 1653, an adventurer from Virginia,
with a small craft, entered Currituck Inlet
and visited Roanoke. Here he found
residing a great Indian chief, with whom
he made a treaty of peace and alliance,
which led to a purchase of land and to
a long intimacy. A house for the chief
was built like the English dwellings,
and his son was confided to the English
to be educated. The young chief embraced
Christianity, and was baptized.

At this time the ruins of Lane’s fort
were plainly visible, and the natives
were familiar with its history.

The first permanent settlement in
what is now North-Carolina, can not
be traced to an earlier date than 1656.
It was on the shores of Albermarle
Sound, some forty miles from Roanoke.

Almost coëval with this came small
vessels from New-England, to trade,
first for furs and peltry, and soon after
to exchange their own productions and
those of the West-Indies for the tobacco,
corn, naval stores, and lumber of the
country; and for the succeeding century
our people were almost entirely the
merchants and carriers of all this region.
As a consequence some of them permanently
settled here, and many of the merchants
of Boston held extensive tracts of
land obtained by grants or purchase.

Our public records contain many references
to these, and among others we
find a grant of the Island of Roanoke,
as early as 1676, to Joshua Lamb, of

New-England. It would seem that it
was then settled, and had houses and
buildings,17 and probably had been occupied
for many years, and perhaps antedated
the settlements before referred to,
thus making it the first place permanently
settled in North-Carolina.

Lawson, the very truthful historian of
this country, who wrote about 1700,
says:

In time, the settlers extended over the
Island, and slowly and quietly partially
cultivated it. They were from the humblest
class. Slavery, with its consequences,
never came here, and the small
farms were ‘worked’ by their owners
and their sons.

Many years ago the writer visited
Roanoke. It was then, to a great extent,
covered with its original growth
of pines and oaks; the whole population,
being only three or four hundred, a simple,
industrious community, who alternated
their agricultural labors with fishing
in the adjacent waters, and sometimes
navigating their small vessels to neighboring
ports. He then visited the site
of Lane’s fort, the present remains of
which are very slight, being merely the
wreck of an embankment. This has at
times been excavated by parties who
hoped to find some deposit which would
repay the trouble, but with little success,
a vial of quicksilver being the only
relic said to have been found. This
article was doubtless to be used in discovering
deposits of the precious metals
by the old adventurers. While walking
through the lonely forests the mind of
the visitor is involuntarily carried back
to the scenes that took place there, as
well as to the actors who centuries ago
passed away. Now silence broods over
the place once so active with life, and
nothing but nature remains, while the
distant surf is ever sounding an everlasting
requiem to the memory of the
brave colonists.

If this brief history had been penned
a year ago, the task would have ended
here; but Roanoke has now another
chapter to add to the annals of our
country. The great rebellion of 1861
had overshadowed the land, and its instigators
were endeavoring to overthrow
a Government whose power had only
been felt by them as the dew of heaven,
and with as beneficent results. The
authority of Government was called
into action, and Roanoke Island once
more felt the tread of armed men. Hatteras
Inlet, now the principal entrance
to these sounds, and well fortified by the
insurgents, was in August of 1861, captured
by the Federal forces. The rebels
then concentrated at Roanoke, which is

the key to Albemarle Sound, and an
important military position. Here they
assembled a large body of troops and
erected strong fortifications, deeming
themselves secure against any force that
could be sent against them. General
Burnside left the Chesapeake with a
large fleet, and having succeeded in
passing Hatteras Inlet and the bars
which encircle it, sailed up the sound
and came to anchor off the lower end of
the Island on the sixth of February,
1862.

On the morning of the seventh the
fleet under the command of Captain
Goldsborough, attacked that of the enemy,
and after a sharp cannonade, the
rebel vessels were, with one exception,
captured or destroyed. As soon as the
naval action ceased, General Burnside
landed his troops at the lower part of
the island, where they were forced to
wade through mud and water; but nothing
could retard the valor of these New-England
soldiers, who, pressing on toward
the centre of the Island, carried
the entrenchments and drove the enemy
before them. The rebels retreated to
the northern end of the island and surrendered
as prisoners of war, in number
about twenty-five hundred men, with all
their stores and implements.

The fleet and army subsequently visited
Edenton, Pascotank, the Chowan,
Neuse, and Roanoke rivers, and planted
the National flag over them—visiting
nearly the same shores so long ago
explored by Lane and his adventurers,
and like him returning victorious to the
headquarters at Roanoke Island.

A Story Of Mexican Life.

‘You are an unbelieving set of fellows,
and though you admire my rings,
my breastpin, and my studs, and though
you willingly accept any stray gems that
I occasionally offer you, still you sneer
and laugh at my mine; but it is no
laughing matter, and now that we are
all here together, I suppose I may as
well gratify you by telling you all about
it. However, as the yarn is a long one,
I will first of all put the cigars and the
wine within reach, so that you can help
yourselves during the recital.

‘Soon after our forces had evacuated
Mexico, on my return from a long, tedious
journey across the Cordilleras, I
hired, what for the city of Mexico, might
be deemed sumptuous apartments, overlooking
the Cathedral Square; so luxurious,
in fact, that my Mexican friends
were lavish in their praises, though I
confess my American visitors said much
less. But my domicil consisted of only
two ‘pieces,’ one answering for both
bedroom and parlor, while in the other I
dressed. Never mind the latter, for it
contained little else than one shelf, which
was adorned with a brown earthen pitcher
and a gourd cut in two, for all my
washing. My drawing-room, however,
deserves a more elaborate description.
The walls were frescoed, in a peculiarly
gorgeous style; garlands of flowers were
represented as twining around piles of
fruit, and it was hard to say whether
the profusion of the fruit, or the colors
of the flowers, were the severest tax on
the imagination, though I always thought
myself, that they were both surpassed by
incredible swarms of impossible humming-birds,
with very gold and silver
wings. The floor was covered with bran
new matting, and the bedstead of cedar-wood
was also new, though the bullock-skin
on which the mattress rested, had
rather an antiquated air. Moreover, I

had a pair of sheets which were not of
a bad color, although slightly patched.
In addition, there was a Madonna hanging
on one wall, and a Saint looking
at her from the other; and against a
door near the foot of my bed, stood a

rocking-chair, which on my conscience I
believe must have been worth at least a
dollar and a half. As the door was fastened
up, this rocking-chair was the favorite
resort of my first morning visitor,
all subsequent callers having to choose
between the window-sill, the matting,
and the bedstead.

‘As for the neatness and cleanliness
of my sanctum, it was marvelous—for
Mexico. I don’t remember ever seeing
more than ten scorpions at one time
there, and two or three tarantulas on
the ceiling were too much a matter of
course to attract notice. Still, I had
been so long away from civilized society,
and endured so many privations,
that I confess, notwithstanding the attractions
that my home offered, I spent
but little of my time there, for I was
warmly received by several American
families, and gladly availed myself of
their hospitality and friendly attentions.
To own the honest truth, ere a month
had elapsed, I had so well compensated
myself for past privations, that I had a
serious attack of illness.

‘To this illness was I indebted for my
second interview with my worthy landlady,
Donna Teresa Lopez, who had
been invisible since the day on which
my lucky stars first guided me to her
roof. This worthy woman, who was
somewhere between forty and sixty
years of age, (Mexican women, be it
understood, when once they pass thirty,
enter on a career of the most ambiguous
antiquity,) had two branches of
business, of which she claimed a thorough
knowledge—tobacco and medicine.
My sickness, therefore, was to her a
source of intense gratification. She was
everlastingly bringing me some new
remedy of her own invention, in spite
of which, thanks be to God, and a good
constitution, I at length rallied, and
grew gradually convalescent.

‘One night, while lying half-asleep
and half-awake, dreamily promising myself,
if the weather were favorable on
the morrow, that I would venture out
of doors, I fancied I heard a voice, muttering
words in my own mother tongue.
I rose, and resting on my elbow, listened
attentively—but then a profound
silence reigned around me. Persuaded,
that feeble as I still was, I had mistaken
a dream for a reality, I languidly let my
head fall back upon my pillow. Scarcely
a minute, however, had elapsed, ere a
voice whose tone denoted anguish and
distress, and which seemed to come
from the middle of the room, exclaimed,
in distinct English: ‘My God! my God!
take pity on my anguish, and in mercy
help me!’

‘Assured this time that I was no
longer dreaming, I started up again,
and laboring under much excitement,
cried out: ‘Who is there?’

‘Again all was perfectly silent. Just
as I was about to jump out of bed and
explore the mystery, my eye fell upon
a faint streak of light, which glimmered
through a crack in the door behind my
rocking-chair, near the foot of my
bed. From the same direction, also,
came the sound of a nervous, unequal,
jerking tread, which fully explained a
portion of the mystery. It was pretty
evident, first, that I had a neighbor;
secondly, that he spoke English; and
thirdly, that he was either a somnambulist
or a soliloquist.

‘This discovery, ordinary and common-place
enough in itself, for Englishmen
and Americans are plentiful enough
in Mexico now-a-days, still made a very
serious impression on my mind, for the
words I had overheard, and above all,
the tone in which they were uttered,
seemed to imply something mysterious,
and to be the key-note of some dramatic
fragment. For hours I tossed about,
pondering over those words, and day
was dawning ere I fell asleep.

‘The entrance of my learned landlady
with a cup brimful of her latest
concoction, awoke me.

”Here, Señor,’ said she, presenting
the dose to me with a serene air of matronly
confidence, ‘Here, Señor, is a tea
containing no less than seventeen different
ingredients; and I have a presentiment
that this is the very thing to perfect
your cure.’

”Thank you a thousand times,’ I said,
‘but I feel perfectly well this morning.’

”That is no matter—’

”No matter! what is no matter?’

”Why, no matter how well you fancy
you feel; this is a sovereign remedy, so
just drink it off to please me.’

”For mercy’s sake, Señora, put down
your medicine, sit down in the rocking-chair
and draw near to the bedside, for
I have several questions to ask.

”How long has my present neighbor
lodged with you, Señora,’ said I, when
she had duly ensconced herself. She
gazed inquiringly at me, but when I
pointed to the door behind her, she replied,
with apparent nonchalance:

”Somewhere about three months.’

”And who is he?’

”That is a question I can not answer?’

”Why not?’

”Because, over and above his rent,
he paid me five dollars to hold my
tongue.’

”If I were to offer you ten to let it
go, how would it be then?’

”Ten dollars!’ replied my hostess,
in a ruminating tone of voice.

”Yes, ten dollars.’

”I should feel it my duty to my fatherless
children to speak,’ said this excellent
mother of the bereaved heirs of
the defunct Lopez. ‘Yes—holy Virgin,
forgive me—but I should feel bound to
speak.’

”It is a bargain, then; Señora, proceed.’

”Your neighbor, Señor,’ replied my
hostess, in a low voice, ‘is a heretic—an
Englishman.’

”Not an American?’

”English or American—what is the
difference, any way? I tell you he is a
heretic, and you know we Mexicans
make no difference between those heathens—we
call them all Inglez.”

‘The fair Teresa, I may remark, had
always taken me for one of her fellow-countrymen,
as I spoke the language
fluently, and had been thoroughly sun-burnt
years before.

”He arrived here, as I have already
had the honor of saying, about three
months since. He appears very sickly
and exhausted, and from the look of his
clothing I judge he had just returned
from a long journey in the interior.
‘Señora,’ said he, when paying his bill
in advance, ‘I wish you to speak to no
one of my residence in this house. I
have no family, no country, and no
name; I hate the world; I do not know
a soul in this city, and I do not want
to. I expect two inquiries to be made
for me, one by a man, the other will be
by a woman. I will not see any others.
Should either of them call, their first
salutation to you will be: ‘The price of
liberty is eternal vigilance.’ Without
that pass-word, I forbid you to allow
any one to have access to my room.”

”Well, Señora Lopez, have these
folks with the eternal pass-word turned
up yet?’

”No, Excellency, during the whole
three months he has not had a single
visitor. Every morning when I take
him his chocolate, he promises a dollar
if I can find him a letter at the post-office.
So every day I go, but unfortunately
I have only found two for him
in all that time.’

”But, of course, if you go for his
letters, you must know his name, and
surely you noticed where the two came
from, which you received for him.’

”They were addressed to Albert
Pride, and bore the stamp, ‘New-Orleans.’
But who knows whether that
is his real name?’

”How does he spend his time?’

”He alone can answer that question.
Since the first hour of his entering the
house he has shut himself up in that
room, and no one has seen him quit it.
Between you and me, I confess candidly,
that my opinion of him is by no
means favorable. Why, would you believe,
that though he is as thin as a rail
and as pale as a ghost, he won’t admit
that he is even slightly indisposed. If
I ask him about his symptoms, he gets
angry; and if I offer him any of my
specifics, he has the ill-manners to exclaim:

‘Bosh! Oh! that man is a

wicked fellow; I have no confidence in
him!’

”Many thanks, Señora Lopez, for
your information,’ said I, handing her
the promised reward’—vaya vm; con
Dios!‘

‘After her departure I began to reflect
that my own conduct had not been
much less dishonorable than hers. What
right had I to tear aside the vail of mystery
in which my neighbor wished to
wrap himself? I owned to myself that
I was very clearly in the wrong. And
yet, having made this concession to the
claims of conscience, my fancy was busy
putting together the scraps I had gleaned.
The field of speculation was so vast and
unbounded that I knew not where to
stop. The starting-point was easy.
Curiosity began by asking, Why the
deuce, Albert Pride was so carefully
hiding himself away in the city of Mexico?
He must be a fellow-countryman;
because an Englishman, no matter how
branded at home, by fraud or dishonor,
could boldly strut about New-Orleans or
New-York, without submitting to voluntary
self-imprisonment in the city of Mexico.
Was he a fraudulent merchant, or
a bank-defaulter? Good heavens! such
gentlemen generally assume such a graceful
nonchalance, or else laugh at their little
transactions so good-naturedly that
such a supposition was ridiculous. Well,
then, perhaps he had had a personal
difficulty? I think that is the phrase,
is it not, for sending a fellow-mortal on his
last long journey? What of that? that
even would be no reason for concealment,
for once in Mexico, what had he
to dread? Thus I went on, tormenting
my mind with suppositions and conjectures
without end, until at last I resolved
to dispel my apparently inextricable
tangle of mystery by taking a
walk, as soon as I had finished my
breakfast. Accordingly I sallied forth,
turned my steps toward the Alameda,
and at no great distance from one of the
fountains I sat down on a bench, beneath
the shade of one of the grand old
trees.