The Attache or Sam Slick in England Part 1

The Attache.

by Thomas Chandler Haliburton.

London, July 3rd, 1843.

MY DEAR HOPKINSON,

I have spent so many agreeable hours at Edgeworth heretofore, that my first visit on leaving London, will be to your hospitable mansion. In the meantime, I beg leave to introduce to you my "Attache," who will precede me several days. His politics are similar to your own; I wish I could say as much in favour of his humour. His eccentricities will stand in need of your indulgence; but if you can overlook these, I am not without hopes that his originality, quaint sayings, and queer views of things in England, will afford you some amus.e.m.e.nt. At all events, I feel a.s.sured you will receive him kindly; if not for his own merits, at least for the sake of

Yours always,

THE AUTHOR.

CHAPTER I. UNCORKING A BOTTLE.

We left New York in the afternoon of -- day of May, 184-, and embarked on board of the good Packet s.h.i.+p "Tyler" for England. Our party consisted of the Reverend Mr. Hopewell, Samuel Slick, Esq., myself, and Jube j.a.pan, a black servant of the Attache.

I love brevity--I am a man of few words, and, therefore, const.i.tutionally economical of them; but brevity is apt to degenerate into obscurity. Writing a book, however, and book-making, are two very different things: "spinning a yarn" is mechanical, and book-making savours of trade, and is the employment of a manufacturer. The author by profession, weaves his web by the piece, and as there is much compet.i.tion in this branch of trade, extends it over the greatest possible surface, so as to make the most of his raw material. Hence every work of fancy is made to reach to three volumes, otherwise it will not pay, and a manufacture that does not requite the cost of production, invariably and inevitably terminates in bankruptcy. A thought, therefore, like a pound of cotton, must be well spun out to be valuable.

It is very contemptuous to say of a man, that he has but one idea, but it is the highest meed of praise that can be bestowed on a book. A man, who writes thus, can write for ever.

Now, it is not only not my intention to write for ever, or as Mr. Slick would say "for everlastinly;" but to make my bow and retire very soon from the press altogether. I might a.s.sign many reasons for this modest course, all of them plausible, and some of them indeed quite dignified.

I like dignity: any man who has lived the greater part of his life in a colony is so accustomed to it, that he becomes quite enamoured of it, and wrapping himself up in it as a cloak, stalks abroad the "observed of all observers." I could undervalue this species of writing if I thought proper, affect a contempt for idiomatic humour, or hint at the employment being inconsistent with the grave discharge of important official duties, which are so distressingly onerous, as not to leave me a moment for recreation; but these airs, though dignified, will unfortunately not avail me. I shall put my dignity into my pocket, therefore, and disclose the real cause of this diffidence.

In the year one thousand eight hundred and fourteen, I embarked at Halifax on board the Buffalo store-s.h.i.+p for England. She was a n.o.ble teak built s.h.i.+p of twelve or thirteen hundred tons burden, had excellent accommodation, and carried over to merry old England, a very merry party of pa.s.sengers, _quorum parva pars fui_, a youngster just emerged from college.

On the banks of Newfoundland we were becalmed, and the pa.s.sengers amused themselves by throwing overboard a bottle, and shooting at it with ball.

The guns used for this occasion, were the King's muskets, taken from the arm-chest on the quarter-deck. The shooting was execrable. It was hard to say which were worse marksmen, the officers of the s.h.i.+p, or the pa.s.sengers. Not a bottle was. .h.i.t: many reasons were offered for this failure, but the two princ.i.p.al ones were, that the muskets were bad, and that it required great skill to overcome the difficulty occasioned by both, the vessel and the bottle being in motion at the same time, and that motion dissimilar.

I lost my patience. I had never practised shooting with ball; I had frightened a few snipe, and wounded a few partridges, but that was the extent of my experience. I knew, however, that I could not by any possibility shoot worse than every body else had done, and might by accident shoot better.

"Give me a gun, Captain," said I, "and I will shew you how to uncork that bottle."

I took the musket, but its weight was beyond my strength of arm. I was afraid that I could not hold it out steadily, even for a moment, it was so very heavy--I threw it up with a desperate effort and fired. The neck of the bottle flew up in the air a full yard, and then disappeared. I was amazed myself at my success. Every body was surprised, but as every body attributed it to long practice, they were not so much astonished as I was, who knew it was wholly owing to chance. It was a lucky hit, and I made the most of it; success made me arrogant, and boy-like, I became a boaster.

"Ah," said I coolly, "you must be born with a rifle in your hand, Captain, to shoot well. Every body shoots well in America. I do not call myself a good shot. I have not had the requisite experience; but there are those who can take out the eye of a squirrel at a hundred yards."

"Can you see the eye of a squirrel at that distance?" said the Captain, with a knowing wink of his own little ferret eye.

That question, which raised a general laugh at my expense, was a puzzler. The absurdity of the story, which I had heard a thousand times, never struck me so forcibly. But I was not to be pat down so easily.

"See it!" said I, "why not? Try it and you will find your sight improve with your shooting. Now, I can't boast of being a good marksman myself; my studies" (and here I looked big, for I doubted if he could even read, much less construe a chapter in the Greek Testament) "did not leave me much time. A squirrel is too small an object for all but an experienced man, but a "_large_" mark like a quart bottle can easily be hit at a hundred yards--that is nothing."

"I will take you a bet," said he, "of a doubloon, you do not do it again?"

"Thank you," I replied with great indifference: "I never bet, and besides, that gun has so injured my shoulder, that I could not, if I would."

By that accidental shot, I obtained a great name as a marksman, and by prudence I retained it all the voyage. This is precisely my case now, gentle reader. I made an accidental hit with the Clockmaker: when he ceases to speak, I shall cease to write. The little reputation I then acquired, I do not intend to jeopardize by trying too many experiments.

I know that it was chance--many people think it was skill. If they choose to think so, they have a right to their opinion, and that opinion is fame. I value this reputation too highly not to take care of it.

As I do not intend then to write often, I shall not wire-draw my subjects, for the mere purpose of filling my pages. Still a book should be perfect within itself, and intelligible without reference to other books. Authors are vain people, and vanity as well as dignity is indigenous to a colony. Like a pastry-cook's apprentice, I see so much of both their sweet things around me daily, that I have no appet.i.te for either of them.

I might perhaps be pardoned, if I took it for granted, that the dramatis personae of this work were sufficiently known, not to require a particular introduction. d.i.c.kens a.s.sumed the fact that his book on America would travel wherever the English language was spoken, and, therefore, called it "Notes for General Circulation." Even Colonists say, that this was too bad, and if they say so, it must be so. I shall, therefore, briefly state, who and what the persons are that composed our travelling party, as if they were wholly unknown to fame, and then leave them to speak for themselves.

The Reverend Mr. Hopewell is a very aged clergyman of the Church of England, and was educated at Cambridge College, in Ma.s.sachusetts.

Previously to the revolution, he was appointed rector of a small parish in Connecticut. When the colonies obtained their independence, he remained with his little flock in his native land, and continued to minister to their spiritual wants until within a few years, when his paris.h.i.+oners becoming Unitarians, gave him his dismissal. Affable in his manners and simple in his habits, with a mind well stored with human lore, and a heart full of kindness for his fellow-creatures, he was at once an agreeable and an instructive companion. Born and educated in the United States, when they were British dependencies, and possessed of a thorough knowledge of the causes which led to the rebellion, and the means used to hasten the crisis, he was at home on all colonial topics; while his great experience of both monarchical and democratical governments, derived from a long residence in both, made him a most valuable authority on politics generally.

Mr. Samuel Slick is a native of the same parish, and received his education from Mr. Hopewell. I first became acquainted with him while travelling in Nova Scotia. He was then a manufacturer and vendor of wooden clocks. My first impression of him was by no means favourable. He forced himself most unceremoniously into my company and conversation. I was disposed to shake him off, but could not. Talk he would, and as his talk was of that kind, which did not require much reply on my part, he took my silence for acquiescence, and talked on. I soon found that he was a character; and, as he knew every part of the lower colonies, and every body in them, I employed him as my guide.

I have made at different times three several tours with him, the results of which I have given in three several series of a work, ent.i.tled the "Clockmaker, or the Sayings and Doings of Mr. Samuel Slick." Our last tour terminated at New York, where, in consequence of the celebrity he obtained from these "Sayings and Doings" he received the appointment of Attache to the American Legation at the Court of St. James's. The object of this work is to continue the record of his observations and proceedings in England.

The third person of the party, gentle reader, is your humble servant, Thomas Poker, Esquire, a native of Nova Scotia, and a retired member of the Provincial bar. My name will seldom appear in these pages, as I am uniformly addressed by both my companions as "Squire," nor shall I have to perform the disagreeable task of "reporting my own speeches," for naturally taciturn, I delight in listening rather than talking, and modestly prefer the duties of an amanuensis, to the responsibilities of original composition.

The last personage is Jube j.a.pan, a black servant of the Attache.

Such are the persons who composed the little party that embarked at New York, on board the Packet s.h.i.+p "Tyler," and sailed on the -- of May, 184-, for England.

The motto prefixed to this work

(Greek Text)

sufficiently explains its character. Cla.s.ses and not individuals have been selected for observation. National traits are fair subjects for satire or for praise, but personal peculiarities claim the privilege of exemption in right of that hospitality, through whose medium they have been alone exhibited. Public topics are public property; every body has a right to use them without leave and without apology. It is only when we quit the limits of this "common" and enter upon "private grounds,"

that we are guilty of "a trespa.s.s." This distinction is alike obvious to good sense and right feeling. I have endeavoured to keep it constantly in view; and if at any time I shall be supposed to have erred (I say "supposed," for I am unconscious of having done so) I must claim the indulgence always granted to involuntary offences.

Now the patience of my reader may fairly be considered a "private right." I shall, therefore, respect its boundaries and proceed at once with my narrative, having been already quite long enough about "uncorking a bottle."

CHAPTER II. A JUICY DAY IN THE COUNTRY.

All our preparations for the voyage having been completed, we spent the last day at our disposal, in visiting Brooklyn. The weather was uncommonly fine, the sky being perfectly clear and unclouded; and though the sun shone out brilliantly, the heat was tempered by a cool, bracing, westwardly wind. Its influence was perceptible on the spirits of every body on board the ferry-boat that transported us across the harbour.

"Squire," said Mr. Slick, aint this as pretty a day as you'll see atween this and Nova Scotia?--You can't beat American weather, when it chooses, in no part of the world I've ever been in yet. This day is a tip-topper, and it's the last we'll see of the kind till we get back agin, _I_ know.

Take a fool's advice, for once, and stick to it, as long as there is any of it left, for you'll see the difference when you get to England. There never was so rainy a place in the univa.r.s.e, as that, I don't think, unless it's Ireland, and the only difference atween them two is that it rains every day amost in England, and in Ireland it rains every day and every night too. It's awful, and you must keep out of a country-house in such weather, or you'll go for it; it will kill you, that's sartain. I shall never forget a juicy day I once spent in one of them dismal old places. I'll tell you how I came to be there.

"The last time I was to England, I was a dinin' with our consul to Liverpool, and a very gentleman-like old man he was too; he was appointed by Was.h.i.+ngton, and had been there ever since our glorious revolution. Folks gave him a great name, they said he was a credit to us. Well, I met at his table one day an old country squire, that lived somewhere down in Shrops.h.i.+re, close on to Wales, and says he to me, arter cloth was off and cigars on, 'Mr. Slick,' says he, 'I'll be very glad to see you to Norman Manor,' (that was the place where he staid, when he was to home). 'If you will return with me I shall be glad to shew you the country in my neighbourhood, which is said to be considerable pretty.'

"'Well,' says I, 'as I have nothin' above particular to see to, I don't care if I do go.'

"So off we started; and this I will say, he was as kind as he cleverly knew how to be, and that is sayin' a great deal for a man that didn't know nothin' out of sight of his own clearin' hardly.

"Now, when we got there, the house was chock full of company, and considerin' it warn't an overly large one, and that Britishers won't stay in a house, unless every feller gets a separate bed, it's a wonder to me, how he stowed away as many as he did. Says he, 'Excuse your quarters, Mr. Slick, but I find more company nor I expected here. In a day or two, some on 'em will be off, and then you shall be better provided.'

"With that I was showed up a great staircase, and out o' that by a door-way into a narrer entry and from that into an old T like looking building, that stuck out behind the house. It warn't the common company sleepin' room, I expect, but kinder make s.h.i.+fts, tho' they was good enough too for the matter o' that; at all events I don't want no better.

"Well, I had hardly got well housed a'most, afore it came on to rain, as if it was in rael right down airnest. It warn't just a roarin', racin', sneezin' rain like a thunder shower, but it kept a steady travellin'