Dealings With The Dead Volume I Part 15

I never was a s.e.xton in the Berry Street Church, but I knew Dr. Jeremy Belknap well, in 1797, when he lived on the southeasterly side of Lincoln Street, near Ess.e.x. He died the following year. His garden was overrun with spiders. I had a great veneration for the doctor--he gave me a copy of his Foresters--and, to repay a small part of the debt, I was proceeding, one summer morning, with a strong arm, to demolish the spiders, when he pleasantly called to me to desist, saying, that he preferred them to the flies.

Slavery was here--negro slavery--at a very early day. Josselyn speaks of three slaves, in the family of Maverick, on Noddle's Island, Oct. 2, 1639, M. H. C., xxiii. 231. These were probably brought directly from Africa.

In 1645, the General Court of Ma.s.sachusetts ordered Mr. Williams, at Pascataqua, over which Ma.s.sachusetts exercised jurisdiction, to send the negro he had of Captain Smith, to them, that he might be sent home; as Smith had confessed, that the negroes he brought were stolen from Guinea.

Ibid. iv. 195. In the same year, a law was pa.s.sed, against the traffic in slaves, those excepted, who were taken in war, or cast into servitude, for crime. Ibid.

The slave trade was carried on, in Ma.s.sachusetts, to a very small extent.

"In 1703," says Dr. Belknap, "a duty of 4 was laid on every negro imported." He adds--"By the inquiries which I have made of our oldest merchants, now living, I cannot find that more than three s.h.i.+ps in a year, belonging to this port, were ever employed in the African trade. The rum distilled here, was the mainspring of this traffic. Very few whole cargoes ever came to this port. One gentleman says he remembers two or three. I remember one, between thirty and forty years ago, which consisted almost wholly of children. At Rhode Island the rum distillery and the African trade were prosecuted to a greater extent than in Boston; and I believe no other seaport, in Ma.s.sachusetts, had any concern in the slave business."

Ibid. 196. Dr. Belknap drew up his answers to Judge Tucker's inquiries, April 21, 1795: "_between thirty and forty years ago_," therefore, was between 1755 and 1765. Dr. Belknap remembered the arrival in Boston of a "_whole cargo_" of slaves, "_almost wholly children_," between the years 1755 and 1765! If we have ever had an accurate and careful narrator of matters of fact, in New England, that man was Jeremy Belknap. The last of these years, 1765, was the memorable year of the Stamp Act, and LIBERTY TREE! Let us hope the arrival was nearer to 1755.

"About the time of the Stamp Act," says Dr. Belknap, "this trade began to decline, and, in 1788, it was prohibited by law. This could not have been done previous to the Revolution, as the governors sent hither from England, it is said, were instructed not to consent to any acts made for that purpose." Ibid. 197. In 1767, a bill was brought into the House of Representatives, "to prevent the unnatural and unwarrantable custom of enslaving mankind, and the importation of slaves into the Province:" but it came to nothing. "Had it pa.s.sed both houses in any form whatever," says Dr. B., ibid. page 202, "Gov. Bernard would not have consented to it."

One scarcely knows which most to admire, the fury against the South, of gentlemen, whose ancestors imported cargoes of slaves, or bought and sold them, at retail, or the righteous indignation of Great Britain, who instructed her colonial governors, to veto every attempt of the Ma.s.sachusetts Legislature, to abolish the traffic in human flesh. A disposition existed, at an earlier period, to abolish the brutal traffic.

In a letter to the Rev. Dr. Freeman from Timothy Pickering, which may found in M. H. C., xviii. 183, he refers to the following transcript, from the records of the Selectmen of Boston: "1701, May 26. The Representatives are desired to promote the encouraging the bringing of white servants, and to put a period to negroes being slaves."

"A few only of our merchants," says Dr. B., M. H. C., iv. 197, "were engaged in this traffic. It was never supported by popular opinion. A degree of infamy was attached to the characters of those, who were employed in it. Several of them, in their last hours, bitterly lamented their concern in it." Chief Justice Samuel Sewall wrote a pamphlet against it. Many, says Dr. B., who were wholly opposed to the traffic, would yet buy a slave, when brought here, on the ground that it was better for him to be brought up in a Christian land! For this, Abraham and the patriarchs were vouched in, of course, as supporters.

Our winters were unfavorable to unacclimated negroes; white laborers were therefore preferred to black. "_Negro children_," says Dr. B., ibid. 200, "_were reckoned an inc.u.mbrance in a family; and, when weaned, were given away like puppies. They have been publicly advertised in the newspapers, to be given away_."

In answer to the question, how slavery had been abolished in Ma.s.sachusetts? Dr. Belknap answered--"_by public opinion_." He considers, that slavery came to an end, in our Commonwealth, in 1783. After 1781, there were, certainly, very few, who had the bra.s.s to offer negroes, for sale, openly, in the newspapers of Boston. Public opinion, as Dr. Belknap says, was accomplis.h.i.+ng this work: and every calm, impartial person may opine for himself, how patiently we of the North should have endured, at that time, even a modic.u.m of the galling abuse, of which such a _profluvium_ is daily administered, to the people of the South. It seems to me, that such rough treatment would have been more likely to addle, than to hatch the ovum of public opinion in 1783.

Dr. Belknap's account, ibid. 203, is very clear. He says--"The present const.i.tution of Ma.s.sachusetts was established in 1780. The first article of the declaration of rights a.s.serts that '_all men are born free and equal_.' This was inserted, not merely as a moral or political truth, but with a particular view to establish the liberation of the negroes, on a general principle; and so it was understood, by the people at large; but some doubted whether this were sufficient. Many of the blacks, taking advantage of the _public opinion_, and of this general a.s.sertion, in the bill of rights, asked their freedom and obtained it. Others took it without leave. Some of the aged and infirm thought it most prudent to continue in the families, where they had been well used, and experience has proved that they acted right. In 1781, at the court in Worcester County, an indictment was found against a white man for a.s.saulting, beating, and imprisoning a black. He was tried at the Supreme Judicial Court, in 1783. His defence was that the black was his slave, and that the beating, &c., was the necessary restraint and correction of the master.

This was answered by citing the aforesaid clause in the declaration of rights. The Judge and Jury were of opinion that he had no right to beat or imprison the negro. He was found guilty and fined forty s.h.i.+llings. This decision was a mortal wound to slavery in Ma.s.sachusetts."

The reader will perceive, that a distinction was maintained, between the _slave trade_, eo nomine, and the _holding of slaves_, inseparably connected as it was, with the incidents of sale and transfer from man to man, in towns and villages. He, who was engaged in the _trade_, so called, was supposed _per se_ or _per alium_ to _steal_ the slaves; but, contrary to the proverb, the _receiver_ was, in this case, not accounted so bad as the _thief_! The prohibition of the _traffic_, in 1788, grew out of public indignation, produced by the act of one Avery, from Connecticut, who decoyed three black men on board his vessel, under pretence of employing them; and while they were at work below, proceeded to sea, having previously cleared for Martinico. The knowledge of this outrage produced a great sensation. Gov. Hanc.o.c.k, and M. L'Etombe, the French Consul, wrote in favor of the kidnapped negroes, to all the West India Islands. A pet.i.tion was presented to the Legislature, from the members of the a.s.sociation of the Boston Clergy; another from the blacks; and one, at that very time, from the Quakers, was lying on the table, for an act against equipping and insuring vessels, engaged in the traffic, and against kidnappers. Such an act was pa.s.sed March 26, 1788.

The poor negroes, carried off by that arch villain, Avery, were offered for sale, in the island of St. Bartholomew. They told their story publicly--_magna est veritas_--the Governor heard and believed it--the sale was forbidden. An inhabitant of the island--a Mr. ATHERTON, of blessed memory--became their protector, and gave bonds for their good behavior, for six months. Letters, confirming their story, arrived. They were sent on their way home rejoicing, and arrived in Boston, on the following 29th day of July.

In 1763, according to Dr. Belknap, ibid. 198, there was 1 black to every 45 whites in Ma.s.sachusetts; in 1776, 1 to every 65; in 1784, 1 to every 80. The whole number, in the latter year, 4377 blacks, 354,133 whites.

It appears, by a census, taken by order of Government, in the last month of 1754, and the first month of 1755, that there were then in the Province of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay 2717 negro slaves of and over 16 years of age. Of these, 989 belonged to Boston. This table may be found in M. H. C., xiii.

95.

No. XLVIII.

Of all sorts of affectation the affectation of happiness is the most universal. How many, whose domestic relations are full of trouble, are, abroad, apparently, the happiest of mortals. How many, after laying down the severest sumptuary laws, for their domestics, on the subject of _sugar_ and _b.u.t.ter_, go forth, in all their personal finery, to inquire the prices of articles, which they have no means to purchase, and return, comforted by the a.s.surance, that they have the reputation of fas.h.i.+on and wealth, with those, at least, who have, so deferentially, displayed their diamonds and pearls!

Who would not be thought wealthy, and wise, and witty, if he could!

Happiness is every man's _cynosure_, when he embarks upon the ocean of life. No man would willingly be thought so very unskilful, as that ill-starred Palinurus, who made the sh.o.r.es of Norway, on a voyage to the coast of Africa. Whether wealth, or fame, or fas.h.i.+on, or pleasure be the princ.i.p.al object of pursuit, no one is willing to be accounted a disappointed man, after the application of his best energies, for years.

The man of wealth--the man of ambition, for example, are desirous of being accounted happy. It would certainly be exceedingly annoying to both, to be convinced, that they were believed, by mankind, to be otherwise. Their condition is rendered tolerable, only by the conviction, that thousands suppose them happy, and covet their condition accordingly. There is something particularly agreeable, in being envied, of course. Now, it is the common law of man's nature--a law, that executes itself--that _possession makes him poor_ as Horace says, Sat. i. 1, 1.

--------"Nemo, quam sibi sortem, Seu ratio dederit, seu fors objecerit illi, Contentus vivat."--------

All experience has demonstrated, that happiness is not to be bought, and that what there is of it, in this present life, is a home-made article, which every one produces for himself, in the workshop of his own bosom. It no more consists, in the acc.u.mulation of wealth, than in snuffing up the east wind. The poor believe the rich to be happy--they become rich, and find they were mistaken. But they keep the secret, and affect to be happy, nevertheless.

Seneca looked upon the devotion of time and talent to the acquirement of money, beyond the measure of a man's reasonable wants, with profound contempt. He called such, as gave themselves up to the unvarying pursuit of wealth, _short lived_; meaning that the hours and years, so employed, were carved out of the estate of a man's life, and utterly thrown away.

There is a fine pa.s.sage, in ch. 17, of Seneca's book, _De Brevitate Vitae_.

"Misserrimam ergo necesse est, non tantum brevissimam, vitam eorum esse, qui magno parant labore, quod majore possideant: operose a.s.sequuntur quae volunt, anxii tenent quae a.s.secuti sunt. Nulla interim nunquam amplius redituri temporis est ratio"--It is clear, therefore, that the life must be very miserable, and very brief, of those, who get their gains with great labor, and hold on to their gettings with greater--who obtain the object of their wishes, with much difficulty, and are everlastingly anxious for the safe keeping of their treasures. They seem to have no true estimate of those hours, thus wasted, which never can return.

In one of his admirable letters to Lucilius, the eightieth, on the subject of poverty, he says--"Si vis scire quam nihil in illa mali sit, compara inter se pauperum et divitum vultus. Saepius pauper et fidelius ridet; nulla sollicitudo in alto est; etiamsi qua incidit cura, velut nubes levis transit Horum, qui felices vocantur, hilaritas ficta est, au gravis et suppurata trist.i.tia; eo quidem gravior, quia interdum non licet palam esse miseros, sed inter aerumnas, cor ipsum exedentes, necesse est agere felicem"--If you wish to know, that there is no evil therein, compare the faces of the rich and the poor. The poor man laughs much oftener, and more heartily. There is no wearying solicitude pressing upon his inmost soul, and when care comes, it pa.s.ses away, like a thin cloud. But the hilarity of these rich men, who are called happy, is affected, or a deep-seated and rankling anxiety, the more oppressive, because it never would answer for them to appear as miserable, as they are, being constrained to appear happy, in the midst of hara.s.sing cares, gnawing at their vitals.

If Seneca had been on 'Change, daily, during the last half year, and watched the countenances of our wealthy money-lenders, he could not have portrayed the picture with a more masterly pencil. The rate of usury has, of course, a relation to the hazard encountered, and that hazard is ever uppermost in the mind of the usurer: and it is extremely doubtful, if the hope, however sanguine, of realizing two per cent. a month, is always sufficient, to quiet those fears, which will occasionally arise, of losing the princ.i.p.al and interest together.

I never buried an old usurer, without a conviction, as I looked upon his hard, corrugated features, that, if he could carry nothing else with him, he certainly carried upon his checkered brow the very phylactery of his calling. We may talk about money, as an article of commerce, till we are tired--we may weary the legislature, by our importunity, into a repeal of the existing laws against usury--we may cudgel our brains, to stretch the mantle of the law over our operations, and make it appear _a regular business transaction_--it is a case, in which no refinement of the culinary art will ever be able to disguise, or neutralize, the odor of the opossum--there ever was--there is--there ever will be, I am afraid, a certain touch of moral _nastiness_ about it, which no casuistical chemistry will ever be able entirely to remove.

Doubtless, there are men, who take something more, during a period of scarcity, than legal interest, and who are very worthy men withal. There are others, who are descendants, in the right line, from the horse-leech of biblical history--who take all they can get. Now, there is but one category: _they are all usurers_; and those, who are respectable, impart of their respectability to such, as have little or none; and give a confidence to those, who would be treated with contempt, for their merciless gripings, were they not banded together, with men of character, in the same occupation, as usurers. Those, who take seven or eight per cent. per annum, and those who take _one per cent. a day_, and such things have been, are not easily distinguished; but the question, who come within the category, as usurers, is a thing more readily comprehended. All are such, who exceed the law.

_Usurer_, originally, was not a term of reproach; for _interest_ and _usury_ meant one and the same thing. The earlier statutes against usury, in England, were directed chiefly against the Jews--whose lineal descendants are still in our midst. Usury was forbidden, by act of Parliament, in 1341. The rate then taken by the Jews, was enormous. In 1545, 37 Henry VIII., the rate established was ten per cent. This statute was confirmed by 13 Eliz. 1570. Reduced to eight per cent., 21 James I.

1623, when the word _interest_ was first employed, instead of _usury_.

Again reduced, by Cromwell, 1650, to six per cent. Confirmed by Charles II. 1660. Reduced to five per cent., 5 Anne, 1714.

There are not two words about it; extortion and usury harden the heart; soil the reputation; and diminish the quantum of happiness, by lowering the standard of self-respect. That unconscionable griper, whose G.o.d is Mammon, and who fattens upon misery, as surely as the vulture upon carrion, stalking up and down like a commercial buzzard, tearing away the substance of his miserable victim, by piecemeal--_two per cent. a month_--can he be happy! However much like a human being he may have looked, in his youth, the workings of his mercenary soul have told too truly upon his iron features, until that visage would form an appropriate figure-head for the portal of 'Change alley, or the Inquisition.

--------"Is your name Shylock?

Shylock is my name."

To how many, in this age of _anxious inquirers_, may we hold up this picture, and propound this interrogatory!

G.o.d is just, though Mahomet be not his prophet. Instead of exclaiming, that G.o.d's ways are past finding out, let us go doggedly to work, and study them a little. Some of them, I humbly confess, appear sufficiently intelligible, with common sense for an expositor. Does not the All-wise contriver say, in language not to be mistaken, to such as wors.h.i.+p, at the shrines of avarice and sensuality--you have chosen idols, and your punishment shall consist, in part, in the ridicule and contempt, which the wors.h.i.+p of these idols brings upon your old age. You--the victim of intemperance--shall continue, with your bloated lips, to wors.h.i.+p--not a stone image--but a stone jug; and grasping your idol with your trembling fingers, literally stagger into the grave! And you, though last, not least, of all vermicular things, whose whole time and intellectual powers are devoted to no higher object than making money--shall still crawl along, heaping up treasure, day after day--day after day--to die at last, not knowing who shall come after you, a wise man or a fool!

"Constant at Church and 'Change; his gains were sure, His givings rare, save farthings to the poor!

The Dev'l was piq'd such saints.h.i.+p to behold, And long'd to tempt him, like good Job of old; But Satan now is wiser than of yore, And tempts, by making rich, not making poor."

No. XLIX.

Self-conceit and vanity are very pardonable offences, till, stimulated by flattery, or aggravated by indulgence, they a.s.sume the offensive forms of arrogance and insolence. If we should drive, from the circle of our friends, all, who are occasionally guilty of such petty misdemeanors, we should restrict ourselves to the solitude of Selkirk. There are some worthy men, with whom this little infirmity is an intermittent, alternating, like fever and ague, between self-conceit and self-abas.e.m.e.nt.

Like some estimable people, of both s.e.xes, who, at one moment, proclaim themselves the chief of sinners, and the next, are in admirable working condition, as the spiritual guides and instructors of all mankind; these persons, under the influence of the wind, or the weather, or the world's smiles, or its frowns, or the state of their digestive organs, indicate, by their air and carriage, today, a feeling, far on the sunny side of self-complacency, and of deep humility, tomorrow.

William Boodle has been dead, some twenty years. He was my school-fellow.

I would have undertaken anything, for Boodle, while living, but I could not undertake for him, when dead. The idea of burying Billy Boodle, my playmate from the cradle--we were put into breeches, the very same day--with whom I had pa.s.sed, simultaneously, through all the epocha--rattles--drums--go-carts--kites--tops--bats--skates--the idea of shovelling the cold earth upon him, was too much. I would have buried the Governor and Council, with the greatest pleasure, but Billy Boodle--I couldn't. So I changed works, that day, with one of our craft, who comprehended my feelings perfectly.

I never shall forget my sensations, the first time he called me _Mr.

Wycherly_. We had ever been on terms of the greatest intimacy, and had never known any other words of designation, than Abner and Bill. I was very much amazed; and he seemed a little confused, himself, when I laughed in his face, and asked him what the devil he meant by it. But he grew daily more formal in his manners, and more particular in his dress. His voice became changed--he began to use longer words--a.s.sumed an unusual wave of the hand, and a particular movement of the head, when speaking--and, while talking, on the most common-place topics, he had a way, quite new with him, of bringing down the fore-finger of his right hand, frequently and forcibly, upon the ball of the uplifted thumb of the left. He was a leather-breeches maker; and I caught him, upon two or three occasions, spouting in his shop, all by himself, before a small looking-gla.s.s. He once made a pair of buckskins, for old General Heath--they did not fit--the General returned them, and Boodle said he would have them _taken into a new draft_--I thought he was a little deranged: "taken where?" said the old General. Boodle colored, and corrected himself, saying he would have them _let out_. He had two turns of this strange behavior, in one year, during which, he was rather neglectful of his business, pompous in his family, and talked to his wife, who was a plain, notable woman, of nothing but first principles, and political economy. In the intervals between these attacks, he was perfectly himself again, and it was Abner and Bill, as in former days.

I have often smiled, at my own dullness, in not sooner apprehending the solution of this little enigma. Boodle was a member of the Legislature; and the fits were upon him, during the sessions. No man, probably, was ever more thoroughly confounded, than my old friend, when, it having been deemed expedient to compliment the leather-breeches interest, the committee requested him to permit his name to be put upon the list of candidates, as one of the representatives of the city of Boston, in the General Court. He could not think of it--the committee averred the utter impossibility of doing without him--he was ignorant of the duties--they could be learned in half a day--he was without education--the very thing, a self-taught man! He consented.

How much more easily we are persuaded to be great men, than to be Christians! There is but a step from conscious insignificancy to the loftiest pretension. Boodle was elected, and awoke the next morning, less surprised by the event, than at the extraordinary fact, that his talents had been overlooked, so long. He spoiled three good skins that day, from sheer absence of mind.

However disposed we may be to laugh at the airs of men, who so entirely misapprehend themselves and their const.i.tuents, our laughter should be tempered with charity. They are not honestly told, that they are wanted, only as makeweights--to keep in file--to follow, _en suite_--to register an edict: and their vanity is pardonable, in the ratio of that ignorance of themselves, which leads them to rely, so implicitly, upon the testimony of others.

Comparative mensuration is a very popular process, and a very comforting process, for all, who have made small progress in self-knowledge; and this category comprehends all, but a very small minority. There are a few, I doubt not, who think humbly of themselves; but there are very few, indeed, who cannot perceive, in themselves, or their possessions, some one or more points of imaginary superiority, over their fellows. This is an inexpensive mode of enjoying one's self, and I cannot see the wisdom, or the wit, of disturbing the self-complacency of any one, upon such an occasion, unless the delusion is of vital importance to somebody. What, if your neighbor prefers his Dutch domicil, with its overhanging gable, to your cla.s.sic chateau--or sees more to admire, in his broad-faced squab of a wife, than in your faultless Helen--or vaunts the superiority of his short-legged cob, over your famous blood horse! Let him. Such things should be pa.s.sed, with great forbearance, were it only for the innocent amus.e.m.e.nt they afford us. So far, however, is this from the ordinary mode of treating them, that I am compelled to believe vanity is often more apt, than criminality, to excite our irritable principle, and stimulate the spirit of resentment.