Newspaper Page Text
the various religious and benevolent Socie- !
ties hold their annuary assemblies. I have, j
however, already trespassed too long upon
your patience, to think of saying anything at
present of what these bodies are doing or are
going to do. Ever yours, Flit.
_ . ‘ __ -
sl)c Sontljcrn Grclectic.
TO THE MOCKING-BIRD.
BY THE LATE RICHARD HENRY WILDE.
Wing’d mimic of the woods ! thou motley fool!
Who shall thy gay buffoonery describe 1
Thine ever-ready notes of ridicule
Pursue thy fellows still with jest and gibe:
Wit, sophist, songster, Yorick of thy tribe,
Thou sportive satirist of Nature’s school;
To thee the palm of scoffing we ascribe,
Arch-mocker and mad Abbot of Misrule!
For such thou art by day—and all night long
Thou pour’st a soft, sweet, pensive, solemn strain,
As if thou didst in this thy moonlight song
Like to the melancholy Jacques complain,
Musing on falsehood, folly, vice and wrong,
And sighing for thy motley coat again.
THE STORY OF THE ACAD IANS,
i
BY REV. WM. BACON STEVENS.
The history of this people constitutes one
of the most thrilling passages in the fortunes
of the French Americans. Nova Scotia,
called by the French, Acadie, and first settled
by them, was, after various wars and chan
ges, yielded by the treaty of Utretcht, in 1713,
to the crown of England. The inhabitants,
of French descent, speaking that language,
and professing the Romish faith, were re
quired at its cession to Great Britain to take
the oath of allegiance to their English mon
arch, or leave the country. This the Aca
dians consented to do, provided they were
not required to take up arms against France
or their old Indian allies. The Governor ac
quiescing in this proviso, they took the oath;
but it was disallowed by the court at home,
who required an unconditional oath or an im
mediate departure. Refusing to comply with
these peremptory demands, the matter re
mained unsettled until 1755; the Acadians
taking, and as a body maintaining, a neutral
position. They were an agricultural and
pastoral people —tilled their lands with great
art and industry —reared large flocks and
herds —dwelt in neat and convenient houses —
subsisted upon the varied stores gathered from
sea and land, and, with few wants, and no
money, lived in peace and harmony under
the mild jurisdiction of their elders and pas
tors. The Abbe Raynal has described them
in terms almost too eulogistic for human na
ture, representing a state of social happiness
more consonant with the license of poetry
than the fidelity of history. It cannot be de
nied, however, that they presented a rural
and social picture, full of. charming scenes
and lovely portraits, showing simple manners,
guileless lives, peaceable habits, scrupulous
integrity, and calm devotion. But the eye of
English envy was upon them, and English
rapacity planned their removal.
The pretexts for this gross violation of hu
man rights were as frivolous as they were
unjust; as Edmund Burke truly said, “Pre
tences that, in the eye of an honest man, are
not worth a farthing/’ But after the reduc
tion of Forts Beau-Sejour and Gaspareau, by
Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow, it was resolved,
at a meeting of Lieutenant-Governor Law
rence, his Council, and Admirals Boscawen
and Moysterq to remove the entire popula
tion, and disperse them “ among the British
colonies, where they could not unite in any
offensive measures, and where they might be
naturalized to the government and country.”
The uprooting of this whole people was
entrusted to Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow,
commanding the Massachusetts forces, a gen
tleman of great moral and military worth,
and much commended for his humanity and
firmness. Nothing but his strict ideas of mil
itary obedience brought Colonel Winslow
to consent to take so conspicuous a part in
this, as he himself termed it, “ disagreeable
and ungrateful kind of duty, which required
an ungenerous cunning, anil a subtle kind of
severity.”
By a proclamation, so artfully framed that
its design could not be discovered, and yet
requiring compliance by penalties so severe
as prevented any absence, the attendance of
the male Acadians was required at a specified
time, and in a specified place. At Grand
Pre, where Col. Winslow commanded, over
four hundred men met on the appointed day,
September sth, 1755, at 3 P. M., in the vil
lage church; when, going into their midst,
§©© If SUB Bl&i &aIfBIE A& V ®A S B IP'*? B.
(they not even suspecting the cause of their
convention,) he revealed to their astonished
ears the startling resolutions of the Governor
and Council, “that your lands and tenements,
cattle of all kinds, and live stock of all sorts,
are forfeited to the crown, with all other your
effects, saving your money and household
goods, and you yourselves to be removed
from this province.”
The late happy but now wretched inhabi
tants, eighteen thousand in number, were ap- !
palled by the magnitude of the calamity which
thus suddenly burst upon them. No lan
guage can describe their woes: turned out of !
their dwellings, bereft of their stock, stripped
of all their possessions, their bright hopes of
the future blasted in a single hour, their la
bors of years wrested from them by a single 1
effort, and torn from each and every associa
tion which binds the heart to its native fields
—they were declared prisoners, for no crimes,
and destined to expatriation only because
English blood flowed not in their veins, and
English words did not dwell upon their lips.
That it might be impossible for them to re
main, their houses were burnt down, their
fields laid waste, their improvements des
troyed—churches, mills, barns, dwellings, and
school-houses mingled together in one gene
ral conflagration. “For several successive j
evenings, the cattle assembled around the
smouldering ruins, as if in anxious expecta
tion of the return of their masters, while all
night long, the faithful watch-dogs of the
neutrals howled over the scene of desolation,
I and mourned alike the hand that had fed,
and the house that had sheltered them.”
Forced to embark at the point of the bayo
net, crowded into small vessels at the rate of
two persons per ton, provided with neither
comforts nor even necessaries, broken up as
a community into many fragments —wives
separated from husbands —children from pa
; rents —brothers from sisters —they were stow
ed on board like a cargo of slaves, and guard
ed like the felons of a convict-ship. Thus
were they hurried away from their native
land, their fertile fields, their once social
hearths, and scattered like leaves by the
ruthless winds of autumn, from Massachu
i setts to Georgia, among those who hated
| their religion, detested their country, derided
: their manners, and mocked at their language,
i Landed on these distant shores, those who
| had once known wealth and plenty, wnohad
i enjoyed peace and prosperity, w 7 ere scouted
;at as vagrants, reduced to beggary, bearing
within them broken hearts and lacerated af
! sections. where but few Samaritans were
! found to bind up their wounded spirits and
pour in the oil and wine of consolation into
their aching bosoms. This was English pol
icy outraging English humanity. It was an
inhuman act, blending fraud, robbery, arson,
slavery and death, such as history can scarce
ly equal. “It was the hardest case,” said
one of the sufferers, “ which had happened
since our Saviour was on earth.” English
philanthropy planted Georgia; English inhu
manity uprooted the Acadians. How shall
we reconcile the two 1 The one was prompt
ed by the mild spirit of peace; the other, by
stern counsels of war. It was a detachment
of this persecuted people whose arrival in
Savannah recalled Governor Reynolds to the
seat of government.
But what could the Governor do with such
a body of strangers ] It was one of the ex
press condftions on which Georgia was set
-1 tied, that no Papist should be permitted in it;
yet here were four hundred in one body, set
down in its midst. It was also of the last
importance to break up French influence on
the frontiers, but now nearly half a thousand
French were consigned to the weakest and
most exposed of all the thirteen colonies. —
The season of ihe year not admitting of their
going north, their provisions being all ex
pended, and themselves “ready to perish,”
; they were distributed in small parties about
the province, and maintained at the public
| expense until spring, when, by leave of the
Governor, they built themselves a number of
rude boats, and in March, most of them left
for South Carolina; two hundred, in ten
boats, going off* at one time, indulging the
| hope that they might thus work their way
along to their native and beloved Acadie.
South Carolina, to which fifteen hundred
had been sent, apportioned them out by an
act of the Governor, Council, and Assembly,
among the different parishes, offered them ves
sels at the public charge to transport them
i selves elsewhere, and many went to France ;
others remained in the colonies ; some reached :
Canada; but they became dispersed as a peo
ple, and extinct as a community. Reynolds ;
acted towards the poor Acadians as humane- i
i ly as the indigent circumstances of the colony
permitted ; he supplied their wants to the ex
tent of his ability, and suffered them to go
without molestation on their earnest, but :
I hopeless pilgrimage.— History of Georgia.
£l|c (Medic of til it.
THE DISCOVERY.
_ BY THOMAS HOOI).
“ It’s a nasty evening,” said Mr.Dornton,thc
stock-broker, as he settled himself in the last
inside place of the last Fulham coach, driven
by our friend Mat—an especial friend in need,
be it remembered, to the fair sex.
“ I wouldn’t be outside,” said Mr.Jones, an
other stockbroker, “for a trifle.”
“ Nor as a speculation in options,” said Mr.
Parsons, another frequenter of the Alley.
“ I wonder what Mat is waiting for,” said
Mr.Tidwell, “for we are full, inside and out.”
Mr. Tidwell’s doubt was soon solved, —the
coach door opened, and Mat somewhat osten
tatiously inquired, what indeed he very well
knew— U I believe every place is took “up in
side]”
“We are all here,” answered Mr. Jones, on
behalf of the usual complement of old sta
gers.
“ I told you so, Ma’am,” said Mat, to a fe
male who stood beside him, but still leaving
the door open to an invitation from within. —
However, nobody spoke—on the contrary, I
felt Mr. Hindmarsh, my next neighbor, dila
ting himse'f like the frog in the fable.
“ I don’t know what I shall do,” exclaimed
the woman; “ I’ve no where to go to, and it’s
mining cats and dogs!”
“You’d better not hang about anyhow,”
said Mat, “ for you may ketch your death, —
and I am the last coach, —an’t I Mr. Jones ]”
“ To he sure you are,” said Mr. Jones rath
er impatiently; “ shut the door.”
“I told the lady the gentlemen couldn’t
make room for her,” answered Mat, in a tone
of apology,—“ I’m very sorry, my dear” (turn
ing towards the female,) “you should have
my seat, if you could hold the ribbons—but
such a pretty one as you ought to have a
coach of her own.”
He began slowly closing the door.
“ Stop, Mat, stop!” cried Mr. Dornton, and
the door quickly unclosed again ; “ I can’t give
up my place, for I am expected home to din
ner; but if the lady wouldn’t object to sit on
my knees —”
“Not the least in the world,” answered
Mat, eagerly; “you won’t object, will you,
ma’am, for once in a way, with a married
gentleman, and a wet night, and the last coach
on the road I”
“If I thought I shouldn’t uncommode,” said
the lady, precipitately furling her umbrella,
which she handed in to one gentleman, whilst
she favored another with her muddy pattens.
She then followed herself, Mat shutting the
door behind her, in such a manner as to help
her in. “ I’m sure I'm obliged for the favor,”
she said, looking round; but which gentle
man was so kind I”
“It was I who had the pleasure of propo
sing, Madam” said Mr. Dornton : and before
he pronounced the last words she was in his
lap, with an assurance that she would sit as
lightsome as she could. Both parties seemed
very well pleased with the arrangement; but
to judge according to the rules of Lavater, the
rest of the company were but ill at ease.—
For my own part, I candidly confess I was
equally out of humor with myself and the
person who had set me such an example of
gallantry. I, w 7 ho had read the lays of Trouba
dours —the awards of ihe ‘ Courts of Love”—
the lives of the “ preux Chevaliers”—the his
tory of Sir Charles Grandison—to be outdone in
courtesy to the sex by a married stockbroker!
How I grudged him the honor she. conferred
upon him—how 1 envied his feelings!
I did not stand alone, 1 suspect, in this un
justifiable jealousy; Messrs. Jones, Hind
marsh, Tidwell, and Parsons, seemed equally
disinclined to forgive the chivalrous act which
had, as true knights, lowered afl our crests
and blotted our scutcheons, and cut off our
spurs. Many an unfair jibe was launched at j
the champion of the fair, and when he attemp
ted to enter into conversation with the lady,
he was interrupted by incessant questions of
“What is stirring in the Alley]”—“What is
doing in Dutch ?”—“ How are the Rentes ] ”
To all these questions Mr. Dornton incon
tinetly returned business-like answers, accord
ing to the last Stock Exchange quotations;
and he was in the middle of an elaborate enu
meration, that so and so was very firm, and
so and so very low, and this rather brisk, and
that getting up, and operations, and fluctua
tions, and so forth, when somebody enquired
about Spanish Bonds.
“They are looking up, my dear ,” answered
Mr. Dornton, sowewhat abstractedly; and be
fore the other stockbrokers had done tittering
the stage stopped. A bell was rung, and
Mat stood beside the open coach-door, a staid
female in a calash and clogs, with a lantern I
in her hand, came clattering pompously down
a front garden.
“Is Susan Pegge come ?” inquired a shrill
voice.
“ Yes, I be,” replied the lady who had been
dry-nursed from town; —“are you, ma’am,
number ten, Grove Place ]”
“This is Mr. Dornton’s,” said the dignified
woman in the hood, advancing her lantern, —
“and —mercy on us! you’re in master’s lap!”
A shout of laughter from five of the inside
passengers corroborated the assertion, and like
a literal cat out of the bag, the ci-devant la
dy, forgetting her umbrella and her pattens,
bolted out of the coach, and with feline celeri
ty rushed up the garden, and down the area,
of number ten.
“ Renounce the woman !” said Mr. Dornton,
as he scuttled out of the stage—“ Why the
devil did’nt she tell me she was the new
cook ]”
PLEA OF A SUCKER LAWYER.
An imperfect report of the following plea
before an Illinois jury, has already been pub
lished ; but we are happy to be able to pre
sent the speech in full, from the manuscript
notes of a friend of ours, present at the trial:
It is with feelings of no ordinary commo
tion that I arise, gentlemen of the jury, to
defend my client’s hitherto unapproachably
character. And I feel, gentlemen, that al
though a great deal smarter than any of you
are, or even the honorable judge there, that I
am utterly uncompetent to present the sub
ject in that magnanimous and heart-rending
light, which its importance demands; and
I trust, therefore, gentlemen of the jury, that
whatever I may lack in presenting the sub
ject, will be immediately made up by your
own natural good sense and discernment, that
is if you have any.
The counsel for the persecution will tell
you, undoubtedly, that his client is a man of
function—that he is a man of unimpeachable
voracity —that he is a man who would scorn
to fotch a suit agin another, merely to gratify
his own corporosity; but, gentlemen, let me
retreat of you to beware how you rely on
any spacious reasoning like this, for I myself
apprehend, that this suit has been wilfully
and maliciously fotched ; fotched, gentlemen,
for the soul purpose of brow-beating my un
fortunate client, and in an eminent manner,
of grinding the face of the poor; and I ap
prehend that, if you could but look into
that man’s heart, and examine the motives
that propelled him to fotch this suit, such a
feeling of moral turpentine and heart-felt in
gratitude would be brought to light, as has
never been experienced, since the falls of Ni
agara.
And now, gentlemen, I wish to make a few
remarks in favor of my unhappy client, and
then, I shall introduce n*y remarks to a close.
Here is a poor man, with a very numerous
wife and children dependent on him for their
daily bread and butter, wantonly and mali
ciously fotched up here and arranged before
an intelligent jury, for having ignominiously
hooked, yes gentlemen, mark the charge—of
hooking six quarts of cider.
You, gentlemen, have been placed in the
same situation, and you know how to sym
pathise with my heart-broken client; and I
don’t want you to let the nateral gushins of
your overflowin hearts, to be overthrown by
the arguments of my superstitious opponent
there, on the other side. Will you, dare you
convict him ]
The law expressly declares, in the beauti
ful language of Shakspeare, that where no
doubt exists, of the guilt of the prisoner, it is
your duty to lean to the side of justice, and
fotch him in innocent. If, gentlemen, you
keep this fact in view, you will have the
honor of making a friend of him and all his
relations; the consolation of having healed
their damaged hearts—and you can always
look back upon this case, and reflect that
you did as you have been did by. But if
you disregard this first point of law, set at
nought all my eloquent remarks and exhor
tations, and fotch him in guilty, the silent
; twitches and jerks of conscience will thunder
in your ears; will follow you over every
fair cornfield, and gentlemen, my client will
be pretty apt to light on you some of these
dark nights, like a cat lights on a saucer full
of new milk.
I
ANECDOTE OF JOHNSON.
“Do you really believe, Dr. Johnson,”
said a Litchfield lady, “in the dead walking
after death ]” —“ Madam,” said Johnshn, “1
have no doubt on the subject; I have heard
i the Dead t March in Saul.” “You really be
lieve then, Doctor, in ghosts]” —“Madam,”
said Johnson, “ I think appearances are in
their favour.”
13