The Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863, by Various
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Title: Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863
Author: Various
Release Date: June 12, 2004 [EBook #12593]
Language: English
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THE
ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
VOL. XI.—MARCH, 1863.—NO. LXV.
CHRISTOPHER NORTH.
Plutarch, when about to enter upon the crowded lives of Alexander and Caesar, declares his purpose and sets forth the true nature and province of biography in these words:—"It must be borne in mind that my design is not to write histories, but lives. And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men. Sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclinations than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles whatsoever. Therefore, as portrait-painters are more exact in the lines and features of the face, in which character is seen, than in the other parts of the body, so I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the marks and indications of the souls of men, and while I endeavor by these to portray their lives, may be free to leave more weighty matters and great battles to be treated of by others."
That these general principles of biography are correct, and that Plutarch, by adhering to them, succeeded, beyond all others, in making his heroes realities, men of flesh and blood, whom we see and know like those about us, in whom we feel the warmest interest, and from whom we derive lessons of deep wisdom, as from our own experience,—all this could best be shown by the enduring popularity of his "Lives," and the seal of approval set upon them by critics of the most opposite schools. What a long array of names might be presented of those who have given their testimony to the wondrous fascination of this undying Greek!—names of the great and wise through many long centuries, men differing in age, country, religion, language, and occupation. For ages he has charmed youth, instructed manhood, and solaced graybeards. His heroes have become household words throughout the world. He has been equally familiar with court, with camp, and with cottage. He has been the companion of the soldier, the text-book of the philosopher, and the vade-mecum of kings and statesmen. And his name even now, after the lapse of so many generations, is fresher than ever.
Yet Lord Macaulay could not refrain from a sneer at Plutarch as a pedant who thought himself a great philosopher and a great politician. Pedant he may have been; philosopher and politician he may not have been; but he was, nevertheless, the prince of biographers. Macaulay has praised Boswell's "Life of Johnson" as the best biography ever written. But was not Boswell a pedant? Was he a philosopher? Macaulay himself has penned many biographies. Most of them are quite above the pedantry of small facts. Instead, they are crammed with deep philosophy, with abstractions, and with the balancing of antithetical qualities. They are bloodless frameworks, without life or humanity,—bundles of peculiarities skilfully grouped, and ticketed with such and such a name. No one sees a man within. As biographies they will not be remembered, but as instances of labored learning, of careful special pleading, and of brilliant rhetoric. Elsewhere, however, he has descended from philosophy, and not been above the pedantry of detail. And he has given us, in consequence, charming lives,—successful, in fact, just so far as he has followed in the footsteps of the old Greek. Yet who would for a moment compare his Pitt, his Goldsmith, or his William IV., as biography, with Plutarch's Alcibiades, or Cato the Censor? We remember the fact that Goldsmith sometimes wore a peach-blossom suit, but we see Cato in his toga.
Very many works have been written, purporting to be "The Life and Times" of this or that man. Where a man has occupied a large historic place, has been moulded by his times, and has moulded in turn the coming years, such works are well enough as history. As biography they are failures. The Times get the upper hand, and thrust down the Life. Without the Life, such works would be better, too, as history; for man and the world are two different things, and their respective provinces cannot, without confusion, be thrown into one. Now every leading man bears a twofold character. He is man, and something more: he is a power in history. Whatever concerns him as man,—his humanity, his individuality, his personal qualities, his character and inclinations, "the marks and indications of the soul," as Plutarch phrases it,—all this, and hardly more than this, is matter for biography, and for that alone. But so far as he is a representative man, standing for communities, for nations, for the world of his time,—so far as he is an historic force, making and solving, in some degree, large human problems,—so far as he is the organ chosen by destiny to aid in the development of his race,—just so far he is a maker of history, and therefore its proper subject, and its alone. Napoleon was not only a man, but he was Europe for some twenty years. Louis XIV was the Europe of half a century. There should be lives of such men, for they were akin to their fellows: histories, too, should be theirs, for they were allied to Nature, and fate, and law. They jested; and Biography, smiling, seized her tablets. They embodied a people; and Clio, pondering, opened the long scrolls of time.
All biography has been said to be eulogistic in its nature. This is well enough. But it is not well, when the author, high on daring stilts, overlooks the little matters just about him, and, rapidly running his eye over the wastes that stretch from Dan to Beersheba, prates of the fields that lie along the distant horizon. Nor is it well, when he forgets his hero, and writes himself,—when he constantly thrusts upon us philosophy, abstractions, and the like,—when he has a pet theory to sustain through thick and thin,—when narrative becomes disquisition, memoir is criticism, life is bloodless, and the man is a puppet whose strings he jerks freakishly. There may be something good in all this; but it is all quite out of place: it is simply not biography. The foundation of most biographical sins is, perhaps, ambition,—an ambition to do something more or something other than the subject demands, and to pitch the strain in too high a key. Hence we have usually found the memoirs of comparatively insignificant men to be better reading, and more fertile in suggestion, than those of what are called great men. Not that the real life, as he lived it, of a man of mediocrity has in itself more seeds of thought than that of a hero. Far otherwise. But his written life has often greater lessons of wisdom for us, precisely because it is generally found to give us more of the individual, and more of our common humanity,—which is the very thing we want. There is less of pretext to pour this one small drop into the broad ocean, and then treat us to a vague essay on salt-water.
Christopher North—Heaven be praised!—was not an "historic force." He was a good many things, but not that. And so it was always pleasant to read him and about him. He was so completely vital and individual, that nothing that concerned him ever lacked in human interest. The world has known him for a long time, and has lost nothing by the acquaintance. Latterly it has come to know him better than before in his character of citizen, son, husband, and father; and it has come to the sage conclusion that even as a family-man he was not quite so bad, after all. It is a great relief to know at last that Christopher was throughout consistent,—that the child was father to the man. One of his first exploits was fishing with a bent pin. Another was to preach a little sermon on a naughty fish. The "application," though brief, was earnest. To the infant expounder, the subject of his discourse doubtless appeared in the guise of a piscatorial Cockney. After many other the like foreshadowings, and after draining dry his native village, he went, when twelve years of age, to Glasgow University. Professor Jardine, who then held the chair of Logic, was fully alive to the rare promise of his pupil, and said of him subsequently,—"He lived in my family during the whole course of his studies at Glasgow, and the general superintendence of his education was committed to me; and it is but justice to him to declare, that during my long experience I never had a pupil who discovered more genius, more ardor, or more active and persevering diligence." But his ardor was not limited to philosophy and the humanities; his powers required a larger field than the curriculum. He walked, ran, wrestled, boxed, boated, fished, wrote poetry, played the flute, danced, kept a careful diary, and read largely. Even at this early age, he felt the merit of the then unappreciated Wordsworth, and, on the appearance of the "Lyrical Ballads," wrote the author a letter expressive of his admiration.
In 1803, Wilson, now eighteen, was transferred to Oxford as a Gentleman Commoner of Magdalen. And surely never lighted on the Oxford orb so glorious a vision, or such a bewildering phenomenon. He was, indeed,
"Rara avis in terris, nigroque simillima cygno."
There, as elsewhere, his life was an extraordinary one. His immense vitality forced him to seek expression in every possible direction. The outlets which sufficed for ordinary souls were insignificant conduits for the great floods pent up within his breast; and he surged forth mightily at every point, carrying all before him. His tastes and sympathies were all-embracing. His creed and his practice were alike catholic. All was fish that came to his net. He sat at the feet of muscular Gamaliels, and campaigned with veterans of the classics. He hobnobbed with prize-fighters, and was the choice spirit in the ethereal feasts of poets. He was king of the ring, and facile princeps in the Greek chorus. He could "talk horse" with any jockey in the land; yet who like him could utter tender poetry and deep philosophy? He had no rival in following the hounds, or scouring the country in breakneck races; and none so careered over every field of learning. He angled in brooks and books, and landed many a stout prize. He would pick up here and there a "fly in amber," and add it to his stores. He was the easy victor in every foot-race, and took the Newdigate prize for poetry, in 1806. He burned the midnight oil, and looked through ruddy wine at the small hours chasing each other over the dial. For hours, almost whole days, he would sit silent at the helm of his boat on the Isis, his rapt eye peopling the vacant air with unutterable visions. He swam like a dolphin, rode like a Centaur, and De Quincey called him the best unprofessional male dancer he had ever seen. Three times he was vanquished by a huge shoemaker,—so the story goes,—champion of the "Town": at the fourth meeting, the Gentleman Commoner proved himself the better man, knocked his antagonist out of time, and gave him twenty pounds. Another professor of the manly art of self-defence, who had ventured to confront the young Titan, and was unexpectedly laid low, said in astonishment,—"You can be only one of the two: you are either Jack Wilson or the Devil." He proved himself to be the former, by not proclaiming, "Voe victis!" and by taking his prize of war to the nearest alehouse, and then and there filling him with porter. Sotheby said it was worth a journey from London to hear him translate a Greek chorus; and, at a later day, the brawny Cumberland men called him "a varra bad un to lick."
Never were such "constitutionals" known, even at old Oxford. He would wander away alone, sometimes for many days, tramping over the country leagues and leagues away, making the earth tremble with his heavy tread, and distancing everything with his long, untiring stride. Then, on his return, he would be the prince of good-fellows once more, and fascinate the merry revellers with the witchery of his tongue. Even when a boy, he had won a bet by walking six miles in two minutes less than an hour. He once dined in Grosvenor Square, and made his appearance at Oxford at an early hour the next morning, having walked the fifty-eight miles at a tremendous pace. In his vacations, he walked over all the Lake region of England, the North of Scotland, and the greater part of Wales. On finishing his course at Oxford, he went on foot to Edinburgh,—more than three hundred miles. He was equally remarkable as a leaper, surpassing all competitors. He once jumped across the Cherwell—twenty-three feet clear—with a run of only a few yards. This is, we believe, the greatest feat of the kind on record. General Washington, it is known, had great powers in this way; but the greatest distance ever leaped by him, if we remember right, was but twenty-one feet.
The many vagaries into which he was led, and the innumerable odd pranks he played, would be sufficient, in the case of any one else, to prove that he was not a reading man. But not so with Wilson. One of his contemporaries at Oxford thus described him:—"Wilson read hard, lived hard, but never ran into vulgar or vicious dissipation. He talked well, and loved to talk. Such gushes of poetic eloquence as I have heard from his lips,—I doubt whether Jeremy Taylor himself, could he speak as well as he wrote, could have kept up with him. Every one anticipated his doing well, whatever profession he might adopt, and when he left us, old Oxford seemed as if a shadow had fallen upon its beauty." Wilson himself confessed that he yielded, for a short time, to "unbridled dissipation," seeking solace for the agony he experienced from the conduct of his stern mother, who ruthlessly nipped in the bud his affection for a bonny lass at Dychmont. He might have used the very words of Gibbon, whose father nipped, in a similar way, his attachment for Mademoiselle Susan Curchod, afterward Madame Necker:—"After a painful struggle, I yielded to my
We mentioned above that Wilson carried off the Newdigate prize for the best poem, in 1806. His subject was, "Painting, Poetry, and Architecture." He professed, in general, to put a very low estimate on college prize-poems, and rated his own so low that he would not allow it to be published with his subsequent poems. But in the "Noctes Ambrosianae" for October, 1825, he was not above saying a good word in favor of these much-berated effusions, as follows:—
"North. It is the fashion to undervalue Oxford and Cambridge prize-poems; but it is a stupid fashion. Many of them are most beautiful. Heber's 'Palestine!' A flight, as upon angel's wing, over the Holy Land! How fine the opening!
[We omit the lines quoted,—the well-known beginning of the poem.]
"Tickler. More than one of Wrangham's prize-poems are excellent;
Richard's 'Aboriginal Brutus' is a powerful and picturesque performance;
Chinnery's 'Dying Gladiator' magnificent; and Milman's 'Apollo
Belvedere' splendid, beautiful, and majestic.
"North. Macaulay and Praed have written very good prize-poems. These two young gentlemen ought to make a figure in the world."
Heber was a contemporary and friend of Wilson at Oxford; as was also Lockhart, among others. The distant See of Calcutta interrupted the intercourse of the former, in after-life, while Maga and party bound the latter still closer to his old college-friend. One of Wilson's college-mates has given an odd anecdote descriptive of his appearance at their social gatherings:—
"I shall never forget his figure, sitting with a long earthen pipe, a great tie-wig on. Those wigs had descended, I fancy, from the days of Addison, (who had been a member of our college,) and were worn by us all, (in order, I presume, to preserve our hair and dress, from tobacco-smoke,) when smoking commenced after supper; and a strange appearance we made in them."
Wilson left Oxford in 1807, after passing a highly creditable examination for his degree. His disappointed affections had so weighed upon him, that he had a nervous apprehension of being plucked,—which, however, turned out to be quite unnecessary. He was now twenty-two years of age, a man singularly favored both by Nature and by fortune,—possessed of almost everything which might seem to insure the fullest measure of health, happiness, success, and fame. Rarely, indeed, do the gods give so freely of their good gifts to a single mortal. His circumstances were easy: a fortune of some fifty thousand pounds having come to him from his father, who had died while his son was a mere boy. After visiting his mother at Edinburgh, and rambling largely here and there, he purchased the beautiful estate of Elleray on Lake Windermere, and there fixed his residence. These were the halcyon days of that noted region: the "Lakers," as they were called, were then in their glory. A rare coterie, indeed, it was that was gathered together along the banks of Windermere. Though they are now no more, yet is their memory so linked to these scenes that thousands of fond pilgrims still visit these placid waters to throw one glance upon the home of genius, the birthplace of great thoughts. Here Wilson was in his element. His soul feasted itself on the wondrous charms of Nature, and held high converse with the master-minds of literature. There was quite enough to satisfy the cravings even of his multiform spirit. He soon came to know, and to be on terms of greater or less intimacy with, Coleridge, Wordsworth, De Quincey, Southey, the celebrated Bishop Watson, of the See of Llandaff, Charles Lloyd, and others,—then the genii loci. It may be remembered that his admiration for Wordsworth was already of long standing, his boyish enthusiasm having led him, when at Glasgow, to send his tribute of praise to the author of the "Lyrical Ballads." Some fifteen to twenty years later,—in one of the numbers of the "Noctes,"—his admiration for the poet had temporarily cooled somewhat. Then was its aphelion, and soon it began to return once more toward its central sun. It must have been transient spleen which dictated such sentences as these:—
"Tickler. Wordsworth says that a great poet must be great in all things.
"North. Wordsworth often writes like an idiot; and never more so than when he said of Milton, 'His soul was like a star, and dwelt apart!' For it dwelt in tumult, and mischief, and rebellion. Wordsworth is, in all things, the reverse of Milton,—a good man, and a bad poet.
"Tickler. What! that Wordsworth whom Maga cries up as the Prince of Poets?
"North. Be it so: I must humor the fancies of some of my friends. But had that man been a great poet, he would have produced a deep and lasting impression on the mind of England; whereas his verses are becoming less and less known every day, and he is, in good truth, already one of the illustrious obscure …
"And yet, with his creed, what might not a great poet have done? That the language of poetry is but the language of strong human passion! … And what, pray, has he made out of this true and philosophical creed? A few ballads, (pretty, at the best,) two or three moral fables, some natural description of scenery, and half a dozen narratives of common distress or happiness. Not one single character has he created, not one incident, not one tragical catastrophe. He has thrown no light on man's estate here below; and Crabbe, with all his defects, stands immeasurably above Wordsworth as the Poet of the Poor … I confess that the 'Excursion' is the worst poem, of any character, in the English language. It contains about two hundred sonorous lines, some of which appear to be fine, even in the sense, as well as the sound. The remaining seven thousand three hundred are quite ineffectual. Then what labor the builder of that lofty rhyme must have undergone! It is, in its own way, a small Tower of Babel, and all built by a single man."
Christopher was surely in the dumps, when he wrote thus: he was soured by an Edinburgh study. After a run in the crisp air of the moors, he would never have written such atrabilious criticism of a poet whom he admired highly, for it was not honestly in the natural man. Neither his postulates nor his inferences are quite correct. It is incorrect to say that the poet's creed was a true one; that, with it, he might have been a great poet; but that, from not making the most of it, he was a bad one. De Quincey's position, we think, was the only true one: that Wordsworth's poetic creed was radically false,—a creed more honored in the breach than the observance,—a creed good on paper only; that its author, though professing, did in fact never follow it; that, with it, he could never have been a great poet; and that, without it, he was really great.
Wilson at Windermere, like Wilson at Oxford, was versatile, active, Titanic, mysterious, and fascinating. An immense energy and momentum marked the man; and a strange fitfulness, a lack of concentration, made the sum total of results far too small. There was power; but much of it was power wasted. He overflowed everywhere; his magnificent physique often got the better of him; his boundless animal spirits fairly ran riot with him; his poetic soul made him the fondest and closest of Nature's wooers; his buoyant
Wilson, in some of his phases, reminds us often of a great glorified child, rejoicing in an eternal boyhood. He had the same impulse, restlessness, glee, zest, and abandon. All sport was serious work with him, and serious work was sport. No frolic ever came amiss, whatever its guise. He informed play with the earnestness of childhood and the spirituality of poesy. He could turn everything into a hook on which to hang a frolic. No dark care bestrode the horse behind this perennial youth. No haggard spectre, reflected from a turbid soul, sat moping in the prow of his boat, or kept step with him in the race. Like the Sun-god, he was buoyant and beautiful, careless, free, elastic, unfading. Years never cramped his bounding spirits, or dimmed the lustre of his soul. He was ever ready for prank and pastime, for freak and fun. Of all his loves at Elleray, boating was the chief. He was the Lord-High-Admiral of all the neighboring waters, and had a navy at his beck. He never wearied of the lake: whether she smiled or frowned on her devotee, he worshipped all the same. Time and season and weather were all alike to the sturdy skipper. One howling winter's night he was still at his post, when Billy Balmer brought tidings that "his master was wellnigh frozen to death, and had icicles a finger-length hanging from his hair and beard." Though there was storm without, the great child had his undying sunshine within.
In 1811, he married Miss Jane Penny, of Ambleside, described as the belle of that region,—a woman of rare beauty of mind and person, gentle, true, and loving. She was either a pedestrian by nature, or converted by the arguments of her husband; for, a few years after marriage, they took a long, leisurely stroll on foot among the Highlands, making some three hundred and fifty miles in seven weeks. The union of these two bright spirits was singularly happy and congenial,—a pleasing exception to the long list of mismated authors. Nought was known between them but the tenderest attachment and unwearied devotion to each other. For nearly forty years they were true lovers; and when death took her, a void was left which nothing could fill. The bereaved survivor mourned her sincerely for more than seventeen years,—never, for an instant, forgetting her, until his own summons came. Some one has related the following touching incident. "When Wilson first met his class, in the University, after his wife's death, he had to adjudicate on the comparative merits of various essays which had been sent in on competition for a prize. He bowed to his class, and, in as firm voice as he could command, apologized for not having examined the essays,—'for,' said he, 'I could not see to read them in the darkness of the shadow of the Valley of Death.' As he spoke, the tears rolled down his cheeks; he said no more, but waved his hand to his class, who stood up as he concluded and hurried out of the lecture-room."
The joys of Elleray were destined to be fleeting. The fortune of its master was melted away by the mismanagement of others, leaving him but a slender pittance. He bore his loss like a man, sorrowing, but not repining. The estate was given up, and a new home found with his mother, in Edinburgh. This was in 1815. Four years later, fortune had smiled on his cheerful labors, and given him the wherewithal to provide a home of his own for his wife and little ones,—the well-known house in Anne Street, which was for so many years the abode of domestic joys, the shrine of literature, the centre of friendship and hospitality. On his arrival at Edinburgh, Wilson, already famous, though young, finding fame an unsubstantial portion for a man with a family, looked about him for something more tangible, and determined to get his livelihood by the law. Kit North a lawyer, eating bread earned by legal sweat! The very idea seems comical enough. Yet it cannot be doubted, that, with his intellect, energy, eloquence, and capacity for work, he would, when driven to concentration and persistence by the spurs of necessity, duty, and affection, have run his race manfully, and reached the goal with the very foremost. Happily the question is an open one, for his affairs took another turn, which may have given Scotland one legal lord the less. For some time the briefless barrister diligently frequented the Edinburgh courts, on the lookout for business. If he had few cases, he had excellent company in another "limb," of his own kidney, John Gibson Lockhart. These two roystering pundits, having little to do, filled up their moments mainly with much fun, keeping their faculties on the alert for whatever might turn up. The thing that soon turned up was "Blackwood."
The "Edinburgh Review"—the first in the field of the modern politico-literary periodicals—commenced its career in 1802, under the leadership of Brougham, Sydney Smith, Jeffrey, and Horner, all stanch Whigs. At first, literature had the second place, while politics occupied the chief seat; though in later years their relative positions have been reversed. Then, the one great thing in view was to have an able party-organ, the fearless champion of a certain policy in matters of State. The Whigs must be glorified, and the Tories put down, at all events, whatever else might be done. The rejoicings of the former, and the discomfiture of the latter, soon bore witness to the ability and success of this new-fledged champion. But this one-sided state of things could not continue always. The Tories, too, must have a mouth-piece to testify of their devotion to "the good old cause," and silence the clamors of their opponents. Accordingly, in 1809, appeared the "Quarterly Review," with Gifford as editor, and Scott, Southey, Croker, Canning, and others, as chief contributors. Under the conduct of such men, it became at once an organ of great power, yet still not quite what was wanted. It did not seem to meet entirely the demands of the case. It had not the wit, pungency, and facility of its rival, and failed of securing so general a popularity. Its learning and gravity made it better suited to be the oracle of scholars than the organ of a party. Compared with its adversary across the Tweed, it was like a ponderous knight, cased in complete steel, attacking an agile, light-armed Moorish cavalier; or, to use Ben Jonson's illustration, like a Spanish great galleon opposed to the facile manoeuvres of a British man-of-war. For such an enemy there were needed other weapons. Well might the Tories say,—
"Non tali auxilio, nee defensoribus istis Tempos eget."
William Blackwood, the Prince-Street publisher, thought, that, to be successful, the war should be carried into Africa,—that the enemy must be met on his own ground with his own weapons. Hogg, whose weekly paper, "The Spy," had recently fallen through, also came to the conclusion that a sprightly monthly publication, of strong Tory proclivities, could not fail to do well. So, the times being ripe, Blackwood issued, in March, 1817, the first number of his new monthly, then called "The Edinburgh Monthly Magazine." Though himself a violent Tory, he, singularly enough, chose as his editors two Whigs,—Pringle the poet, and Cleghorn. Hogg lent his aid from the beginning. Scott, too, wrote now and then; and very soon Wilson made his appearance as "Eremus,"
The power and personality which thus early characterized the magazine were its leading features in after-years. Wilson and Lockhart became at once its chief contributors,—Wilson especially writing for its columns, with the most extraordinary profusion, on all conceivable topics, in prose and verse, for more than thirty years. By these articles he became known beyond his own circle, and on these his fame must ultimately rest. His daughter points to them with pride, and unhesitatingly expresses the opinion that they in themselves are a sufficient answer to all who doubt whether the great powers of their author ever found adequate expression. We are unable to agree with her. Able and brilliant as these articles unquestionably were, we cannot think that such glimpses and fragments—or, in fact, all the relics left by their author—furnish results at all commensurate with the man. Though Maga increased his immediate reputation, we think it diminished his lasting fame, by leading him to scatter, instead of concentrating his remarkable powers on some one great work. Scott and other great authorities saw so much native genius in Wilson, that they often said that it lay in him to become the first man of his time, though they feared that his eccentricities and lack of steadiness might prove fatal to his success.
Though never really the editor of "Blackwood," Wilson was from the first its guiding spirit,—the leaven that leavened the whole lump. The way in which he threw himself into his work he described as follows:—"We love to do our work by fits and starts. We hate to keep fiddling away, an hour or two at a time, at one article for weeks. So off with our coat, and at it like a blacksmith. When we once get the way of it, hand over hip, we laugh at Vulcan and all his Cyclops. From nine of the morning till nine at night, we keep hammering away at the metal, iron or gold, till we produce a most beautiful article. A biscuit and a glass of Madeira, twice or thrice at the most,—and then to a well-won dinner. In three days, gentle reader, have We, Christopher North, often produced a whole magazine,—a most splendid number. For the next three weeks we were as idle as a desert, and as vast as an antre,—and thus on we go, alternately laboring like an ant, and relaxing in the sunny air like a dragon-fly, enamored of extremes." Of all his contributions, we think the "Noctes Ambrosianae" give by far the best idea of their author. They are perfectly characteristic throughout, though singularly various. Every mood of the man is apparent; and hardly anything is touched which is not adorned. Their pages reveal in turn the poet, the philosopher, the scholar, and the pugilist. Though continued during thirteen years, their freshness does not wither. To this day we find the series delightful reading: we can always find something to our taste, whether we crave fish, flesh, or fowl. Whether we lounge in the sanctum, or roam over the moors, we feel the spirit of Christopher always with us.
It has been attempted, on Wilson's behalf, to excuse the fierce criticism and violent personality of Maga in its early days, on the plea that his influence over that periodical was less then than afterwards,—and that, as his control increased, the bitterness decreased. This is a special plea which cannot be allowed. The magazine was moulded, from the beginning, more by Wilson than by all others. If personalities had been offensive to him, they would not have been inserted, except in a limited degree. Lockhart, it is true, was far more bitter, but his influence was less. He could never have been successful in running counter to Wilson. Besides, though Wilson's nominal power might have been greater in the control of the magazine in later years, it was virtually but little, if at all, increased. The fact is, these onslaughts were perfectly congenial to his nature at that time.
His young blood made him impetuous, passionate, and fond of extremes,—perhaps unduly so. He was a warm lover, and a strong, though not malignant, hater,—and consequently deliberately made himself the fiercest of partisans. It was all pure fun with him, though it was death to the victims. He dearly loved to have a cut at the Cockneys, and was never happier than when running a tilt à l'outrance with what seemed to be a sham. Still, he felt no ill-will, and could see nothing wrong in the matter. We are entirely disposed, even in reference to this period of his life, to accept the honest estimate which he made of himself, as "free from jealousy, spite, envy, and uncharitableness." When the fever of his youth had been somewhat cooled by time, his feelings and opinions naturally became more moderate, and his expression of them less violent. In his early days, when his mother heard of his having written an article for the "Edinburgh Review," she said, "John, if you turn Whig, this house is no longer big enough for us both." But his Toryism then was quite as good as hers. By-and-by, as party became less, and friendship more, he entertained at his house the leading Whigs, and admitted them to terms of intimacy. Even his daughter was allowed to marry a Whig. And in 1852 the old man hobbled out to give his vote for Macaulay the Whig, as representative in Parliament of the good town of Edinburgh. Conceive of such a thing in 1820! All this was but the gradual toning-down of a strong character by time and experience. "Blackwood" naturally exhibited some of the results of the change.
Much allowance must be made for the altered spirit of the times. A generation or two ago, there was everywhere far more of rancor and less of decorum in the treatment of politics and criticism than would now be tolerated. All the world
"It is impossible for us, at this time, to realize fully the state of feeling that prevailed in the literature and politics of the years between 1810 and 1830. We can hardly imagine why men who at heart respected and liked each other should have found it necessary to hold no communion, but, on the contrary, to wage bitter war, because the one was an admirer of the Prince Regent and Lord Castlereagh, the other a supporter of Queen Caroline and Mr. Brougham. We cannot conceive why a poet should be stigmatized as a base and detestable character, merely because he was a Cockney and a Radical; nor can we comprehend how gentlemen, aggrieved by articles in newspapers and magazines, should have thought it necessary to the vindication of their honor to horsewhip or shoot the printers or editors of the publications. Yet in 1817 and the following years such was the state of things in the capital of Scotland…. You were either a Tory and a good man, or a Whig and a rascal, and vice versa. If you were a Tory and wanted a place, it was the duty of all good Tories to stand by you; if you were a Whig, your chance was small; but its feebleness was all the more a reason why you should be proclaimed a martyr, and all your opponents profligate mercenaries." But parties changed, and men changed with them. It was a Whig ministry which gave Wilson, in 1852, a pension of two hundred pounds.
Mrs. Gordon has praised her father as "the beau-ideal of what a critic should be, whose judgments will live as parts of literature, and not merely talk about it." That these so-called judgments are worthy to live, and will live, we fully believe; yet we could never think him a model critic, or even a great one. Though not deficient in analytic power, he wanted the judicial faculty. He could create, but he could not weigh coolly and impartially what was created. His whole make forbade it. He was impatient, passionate, reckless, furious in his likes and dislikes. His fervid enthusiasm for one author dictated a splendid tribute to a friend; while an irrational prejudice against another called out a terrific diatribe against a foe. In either case, there might be "thoughts that breathe and words that burn"; still, there was but little of true criticism. The matchless papers on Spenser and Homer represent one class, and the articles on Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt the other. While the former exhibit the tender sympathy of a poet and the enthusiasm of a scholar, the latter reveal the uncompromising partisan, swinging the hangman's cord, and brandishing the scourge of scorpions. Of the novelist's three kinds of criticism—"the slash, the tickle, and the plaster"—he recognized and employed only the two extremes. Neither in criticism nor in the conduct of life was Ovid's "Medio tutissimus ibis" ever a rule for him. In the "Noctes" for June, 1823, some of his characteristics are wittily set forth, with some spice of caricature, in a mock defiance given to Francis Jeffrey, "King of Blue and Yellow," by the facetious Maginn, under his pseudonym of Morgan Odoherty: —"Christopher, by the grace of Brass, Editor of Blackwood's and the Methodist Magazines; Duke of Humbug, of Quiz, Puffery, Cutup, and Slashandhackaway; Prince Paramount of the Gentlemen of the Press, Lord of the Magaziners, and Regent of the Reviewers; Mallet of Whiggery, and Castigator of Cockaigne; Count Palatine of the Periodicals; Marquis of the Holy Poker; Baron of Balaam and Blarney; and Knight of the most stinging Order of the Nettle."
In 1820 Wilson was elected Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh,—an office which he held for more than thirty years. The rival candidate was his friend, Sir William Hamilton, a firm Whig; and the canvass, which was purely a political one, was more fiery than philosophic. Wilson's character was the grand object of attack and defence, and round it all the hard fighting was done. Though it was pure and blameless, it offered some points which an unscrupulous adversary might readily misconstrue, with some show of plausibility. His free, erratic life, his little imprudences, his unguarded expressions, and the reckless "Chaldee MS.," might, with a little twisting, be turned to handles of offence, and wrested to his disadvantage. But the fanatic zeal of his opponents could not rest till their accusations had run through nearly the whole gamut of immoralities. He was not only a blasphemer towards God, but corrupt to wife and children. It seems comical enough at this day that he was obliged to bolster up his cause by sending round to his respectable acquaintances for certificates of good moral character. When at last he triumphed by a greater than two-thirds vote, an attempt was made to reconsider; but the new Professor held his own, and the factious were drowned in hisses.
His personal relations to his pupils were singularly happy. A strange charm went out from his presence at all times, which fascinated all, and drew them to him. Their enthusiasm and love for him have been spoken of as "something more to be thought of than the proudest literary fame." "As he spoke, the bright blue eye looked with a strange gaze into vacancy, sometimes darkening before a rush of indignant eloquence; the tremulous upper lip curving with every wave of thought or hint of passion; and the golden gray hair floating on the old man's mighty shoulders,—if, indeed, that could be called age which seemed but the immortality of a more majestic youth." In his lecture-room utterances, there was an undue preponderance of rhetoric, declamation, and sentiment over logic, analysis, and philosophy. Yet he once said of himself, that he was "thoroughly logical and argumentative; not a rhetorician, as fools aver." Whether this estimate was right or wrong in the main may be a matter of question: we think it wrong. His genius, in our view, lay rather in pictorial passion than in ratiocination. At all events, as a teacher of philosophy, it appears to us that his conception of the duties of his office, and his style of teaching, were far inferior to those of his competitor and subsequent associate, Sir William Hamilton. The one taught like a trumpet-tongued poet, and the other like an encyclopaedic philosopher. The personal magnetism of the former led captive the feelings, while the sober arguments of the latter laid siege to the understanding. The great fact which impressed Wilson's students was his overpowering oratory, and not his particular theory, or his train of reasoning. One of them compares the nature of his eloquence with that of the leading orators of his day, and thinks that in absolute power over the hearers it was greater than that of any other. The matter, too, as well as the manner of the lectures, receives commendation at the hands of this enthusiastic disciple. He says,—"It was something to have seen Professor Wilson,—this all confessed; but it was something also, and more than is generally understood, to have studied under him. Nothing now remains of the Professor's long series of lectures save a brief fragment or two. Here and there some pupil may be found, who has treasured up these Orphic sayings in his memory or his note-book; but to the world at large these utterances will be always unknown."
We have been considerably disappointed in Wilson's "Letters." We looked for something racy, having the full flavor of the author's best spirits. We found them plain matter-of-fact, not what we should term at all characteristic. Perhaps it was more natural that they should be of this sort. Letters are
An anecdote of De Quincey, given by Wilson's biographer, is worth repeating. He and Wilson were warm friends during many long years, and innumerable were the sessions in which they met together to hold high converse. One stormy night the philosophic dreamer made his appearance at the residence of his friend the Professor, in Gloucester Place. The war of the elements increased to such a pitch, that the guest was induced to pass the night in his new quarters. Though the storm soon subsided, not so with the "Opium-Eater." The visit, begun from necessity, was continued from choice, until the revolving days had nearly made up the full year. He bothered himself but little with the family-arrangements, but dined in his own room, often turning night into day. His repast always consisted of coffee, boiled rice and milk, and mutton from the loin. Every day be sent for the cook, and solemnly gave her his instructions. The poor creature was utterly overwhelmed by his grave courtesy and his "awfu' sicht of words." Well she might be, for he addressed her in such terms as these:—"Owing to dyspepsia affecting my system, and the possibility of an additional disarrangement of the stomach taking place, consequences incalculably distressing would arise, so much so, indeed, as to increase nervous irritation, and prevent me from attending to matters of overwhelming importance, if you do not remember to cut the mutton in a diagonal, rather than a longitudinal form."
The picture of the aged Christopher, sitting by his own fireside, and surrounded by his grandchildren, is a charming one. He always loved to be with and to play with children,—a trait which he had in common with Agesilaus, Nelson, Burke, Napoleon, Wellington, and many others to whom was given the spirit of authority. As he grew old, he became passionately fond of the little men and women, and his affection was reciprocated. It was rare sport, when grandpapa kept open doors, and summoned the youthful company into his room. There were games, and stories, and sweetmeats, and presents. Sometimes notable feasts were set out, to which the little mouths did large justice, while the stalwart host took the part of waiter, and decorously responded to every wish. Of course, he played at fishing; for what would Christopher be without a hook? When an infant, he fished with thread and pin: when age had crippled him, the ruling passion still led him to limp into deep waters on a crutch, and cast out as of yore. So he and the youngsters angled for imaginary trouts, with imaginary rods, lines, and flies, out of imaginary boats floating in imaginary lochs. And whether there were silly nibbles or sturdy bites, all agreed that they had glorious sport.
"With sports like these were all their cares beguiled;
The sports of children satisfy the child."
And—the poet might have added—they often do much to satisfy the child of larger growth. It was thus that the old man kept alive the embers of his youth.
Charles Lamb once, considering whom of the world's vanished worthies he would rather evoke, singled out Fulke Greville, and also—if our memory is correct—Sir Thomas Browne. He thought, very sensibly, that any reasonable human being, if permitted to summon spirits from the vasty deep, would base his choice upon personal qualities, and not on mere general reputation. There would be an elective affinity, a principle of natural selection, (not Darwinian,) by which each would aim to draw forth a spirit to his liking. One would not summon the author of such and such a book, but this or that man. Milton wrote an admirable epic, but he would be awful in society. Shakspeare was a splendid dramatist, but one would hardly ask him for a boon-companion. Who could feel at ease under that omniscient eye? But, if the Plutonian shore might, for a few brief moments, render to our call its waiting shades, there are not very many for whom our lips would sooner syllable the word of resurrection than for Christopher North. Only to look upon him in his prime would be worth much. To have a day with him on the moors, or an ambrosial night, would be a possession forever.
Even now we can almost see him standing radiant before us, illuminated and transfigured by the halo streaming round him. A huge man, towering far above his fellows; with Herculean shoulders, deep chest, broad back, sturdy neck, brawny arms, and massive fists; a being with vast muscle and tense nerve; of choicest make, and finest tone and temper,—robust and fine, bulky and sinewy, ponderous and agile, stalwart and elastic; a hammer to give, and a rock to receive blows; with the light tread of the deer, and the fell paw of the lion; crowned with a dome-like head, firm-set, capacious, distinctive, cleanly cut, and covered with long, flowing, yellow hair; a forehead broad, high, and rounded, strongly and equally marked by perception and imagination, wit and fancy; light blue eyes, capable of every expression, and varying with every mood, but generally having a far, dim, dreamy look into vacancy,—the gaze of the poet seeing visions; a firm, high, aquiline nose, indicating both intellect and spirit; flexile lips, bending to every breath of passion; a voice of singular compass and pliancy, responding justly to all his wayward humors and all his noble thoughts, now tremulous with tender passion, now rough with a partisan's fury; a man of strange contradictions and inconsistencies every way; a hand of iron with a glove of silk; a tiger's claw sheathed in velvet; one who fought lovingly, and loved fiercely; champion of the arena, passionate poet, chastiser of brutes, caresser of children, friend of brawlers, lover of beauty; a pugilistic Professor of Moral Philosophy, who, in a thoroughly professional way, gayly put up his hands and scientifically floored his man in open day, at a public fair;[A] sometimes of the oak, sometimes of the willow; now bearing grief without a murmur, now howling in his pain like the old gods and heroes, making all Nature resonant with his cries; knowing nothing of envy save from the reports of others, yet never content to be outdone even in veriest trifles; a tropical heart and a cool brain; full of strong prejudices and fine charities, generous and exacting, heedless and sympathetic, quick to forgive, slow to resent, firm in love, transient in hate; to-day scaling the heavens with frantic zeal, to-morrow relaxing in long torpor; fond of long, solitary journeys, and given to conviviality; tender eyes that a word or a thought would fill, and hard lips that would never say die; a child of Nature thrilled with ecstasy by storm and by sunshine, and a cultured scholar hungering for new banquets; dreamer, doer, poet, philosopher, simple child, wisest patriarch; a true cosmopolitan, having largest aptitudes,—a tree whose roots sucked up juices from all the land, whose liberal fruits were showered all around; having a key to unlock all hearts, and a treasure for each; hospitable friend, husband-lover, doting father; a boisterous wit, fantastic humorist, master of pathos, practical
[Footnote A: One who met him many years ago in Edinburgh, at the conclusion of a lecture, tells us, as we write these closing sentences, of his splendid figure, as he saw him twirl an Irish shillalah and show off its wonderful properties as an instrument of fun at a fair.]
"CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY WHOM YE WILL SERVE."
Yes, tyrants, you hate us, and fear while you hate
The self-ruling, chain-breaking, throne-shaking State!
The night-birds dread morning,—your instinct is true,—
The day-star of Freedom brings midnight for you!
Why plead with the deaf for the cause of mankind?
The owl hoots at noon that the eagle is blind!
"We ask not your reasons,—'t were wasting our time,—
Our life is a menace, our welfare a crime!
"We have battles to fight, we have foes to subdue,—
Time waits not for us, and we wait not for you!
The mower mows on, though the adder may writhe
And the copper-head coil round the blade of his scythe!
"No sides in this quarrel," your statesmen may urge,
Of school-house and wages with slave-pen and scourge!—
No sides in the quarrel! proclaim it as well
To the angels that fight with the legions of hell!
They kneel in God's temple, the North and the South,
With blood on each weapon and prayers in each mouth.
Whose cry shall be answered? Ye Heavens, attend
The lords of the lash as their voices ascend!
"O Lord, we are shaped in the image of Thee,—
Smite down the base millions that claim to be free,
And lend Thy strong arm to the soft-handed race
Who eat not their bread in the sweat of their face!"
So pleads the proud planter. What echoes are these?
The bay of his bloodhound is borne on the breeze,
And, lost in the shriek of his victim's despair,
His voice dies unheard.—Hear the Puritan's prayer!
"O Lord, that didst smother mankind in Thy flood,
The sun is as sackcloth, the moon is as blood,
The stars fall to earth as untimely are cast
The figs from the fig-tree that shakes in the blast!
"All nations, all tribes in whose nostrils is breath,
Stand gazing at Sin as she travails with Death!
Lord, strangle the monster that struggles to birth,
Or mock us no more with Thy 'Kingdom on Earth'!
"If Ammon and Moab must reign in the land
Thou gavest Thine Israel, fresh from Thy hand,
Call Baäl and Ashtaroth out of their graves
To be the new gods for the empire of slaves!"
Whose God will ye serve, O ye rulers of men?
Will ye build you new shrines in the slave-breeder's den?
Or bow with the children of light, as they call
On the Judge of the Earth and the Father of All?
Choose wisely, choose quickly, for time moves apace,—
Each day is an age in the life of our race!
Lord, lead them in love, ere they hasten in fear
From the fast-rising flood that shall girdle the sphere!
* * * * *
THE HORRORS OF SAN DOMINGO.[A]
[Footnote A: See Numbers LVI., LVIII., and LIX. of this magazine.]
CHAPTER V.
INTRODUCTION OF SLAVERY—THE SLAVE-TRADE—AFRICAN TRIBES—THE CODE NOIR—THE MULATTOES.
It will be necessary for the present to omit the story of the settlement and growth of the French Colony, and of the pernicious commercial restrictions which swelled the unhappy heritage of the island, in order that we may reach, in this and a succeeding article, the great points of interest connected with the Negro, his relation to the Colony and complicity with its final overthrow.
The next task essential to our plan is to trace the entrance of Negro Slavery into the French part of the island, to describe the victims, and the legislation which their case inspired.
The first French Company which undertook a regular trade with the west coast of Africa was an association of merchants of Dieppe, without authority or privileges. They settled a little island in the Senegal, which was called St. Louis. This property soon passed into the hands of a more formal association of Rouen merchants, who carried on the trade till 1664, the date of the establishment of the West-India Company, to which they were obliged to sell their privileges for one hundred and fifty thousand livres. This great Company managed its African business so badly, that it was withdrawn from their hands in 1673, and made over as a special interest to a Senegal Company. The trade, in palm-oil, ivory, etc., was principally with France, and negro slaves for the colonies do not yet appear in numbers to attract attention.[B] But in 1679 this Company engaged with the Crown to deliver yearly, for a term of eight years, two thousand negroes, to be distributed among the French Antilles. This displaced a previous engagement, made in 1675, for the delivery of eight hundred negroes. The Company had also to furnish as many negroes for the galleys at Marseilles as His Majesty should find convenient. And the Crown offered a bounty of thirteen livres per head for every negro, to be paid in "pieces of India."
[Footnote B: Du Tertre, the missionary historian of the Antilles, proudly says, previously to this date, that the opinion of France in favor of personal liberty still shielded a French deck from the traffic: "Selon les lois de la France, qui abhorre la servitude sur toutes les nations du monde, et ou tous les esclaves recouvrent heureusement la liberté perdue, sitost qu'ils y abordent, et qu'ils en touchent la terre."]
This is a famous phrase in the early annals of the slave-trade. Reckoning by "pieces" was customary in the transaction of business upon the coast of Africa. Merchandise, provisions, and presents to the native princes had their value thus expressed, as well as slaves. If the negro merchant asked ten pieces for a slave, the European trader offered his wares divided into ten portions, each portion being regarded as a "piece," without counting the parts which made it up. Thus, ten coarse blankets made one piece, a musket one piece, a keg of powder weighing ten pounds was one, a piece of East-India blue calico four pieces, ten copper kettles one piece, one piece of chintz two pieces, which made the ten for which the slave was exchangeable: and at length he became commercially known as a
The traffic by pieces is as old as the age of Herodotus;[C] it was originally a dumb show of goods between two trading parties ignorant of each other's language, but at length it represented a transaction which the parties should have been ashamed to mention.
[Footnote C: Melpomene, § 196.]
Although this second Senegal Company was protected by the rigid exclusion, under pain of fine and confiscation, of all other Frenchmen from the trade, it soon fell into debt and parted with its privilege to a third Company, and this in turn was restricted by the formation of a Guinea Company, so that it soon sold out to a fourth Senegal Company, which passed in 1709 into the hands of Rouen merchants who started a fifth; and this too was merged in the West-India Company which was formed in 1718. So little did the agriculture of the islands, overstocked with engagés, justify as yet the slave-traders in the losses and expenses which they incurred.
The Guinea Company was bound to import only one thousand yearly into all the French Antilles; but it did not flourish until it became an Asiento Company, when, during the War of Succession, a Bourbon mounted the throne of Spain. It was called Asiento because the Spanish Government let, or farmed by treaty, the privilege of supplying its colonies with slaves. The two principal articles of this contract, which was to expire in 1712, related to the number of negroes and the rent of the privilege. If the war continued, the French Company was bound to furnish Spain with thirty-eight thousand negroes during the ten years of the contract, but in case of peace, with forty-eight thousand. Each negro that the Company could procure was let to it for 33-1/3 piastres, in pieces of India. In consequence of this treaty, the ports of Chili and Peru, and those in the South Sea, from which all other nations were excluded, stood open to the French, who carried into them vast quantities of merchandise besides the slaves, and brought home great sums in coin and bars. The raw gold and silver alone which they imported for the year 1709 was reckoned at thirty millions of livres.
But at the Peace of Utrecht, Louis XIV., exhausted by an unprofitable war, relinquished his asiento to the English, who were eager enough to take it. It was for this advantage that Marlborough had been really fighting; at least, it was the only one of consequence that Blenheim and Malplaquet secured to his country.
The reign of Louis XV. commenced in 1715. By letters-patent which he issued on the 16th of January, 1716, he granted permission to all the merchants in his kingdom to engage in the African trade, provided their ships were fitted out only in the five ports of Rouen, Rochelle, Bordeaux, Nantes, and St. Malo; nine articles were specially framed to encourage the trade in slaves, as by the Peace of Utrecht all the South-Sea ports were closed to the French, and only their own colonies remained. France no longer made great sums of money by the trade in slaves, but her colonies began to thrive and demand a new species of labor. The poor white emigrants were exhausted and demoralized by an apprenticeship which had all the features of slavery, and by a climate which will not readily permit a white man to become naturalized even when he is free.
It is the opinion of some French anti-slavery writers that the engagés might have tilled the soil of Hayti to this day, if they had labored for themselves alone. This is doubtful; the white man can work in almost every region of the Southern States, but he cannot raise cotton and sugar upon those scorching plains. It is not essential for the support of an anti-slavery argument to suppose that he can. Nor is it of any consequence, so far as the question of free-labor is concerned, either to affirm or to deny that the white man can raise cotton in Georgia or sugar in Louisiana. The blacks themselves, bred to the soil and wonted to its products, will organize free-labor there, and not a white man need stir his pen or his hoe to solve the problem.
At first it seems as if the letters-patent of Louis XV. were inspired by some new doctrine of free-trade. And he did cherish the conviction that in the matter of the slave-trade it was preferable to a monopoly; but his motive sprang from the powerful competition of England and Holland, which the Guinea Company faced profitably only while the War of Succession secured to it the asiento. The convention of merchants which Louis XIV. called in Paris, during the year 1701, blamed monopolies in the address which it drew up, and declared freedom of trade to be more beneficial to the State; but this was partly because the Guinea Company arbitrarily fixed the price of slaves too high, and carried too few to the colonies.
So a free-trade in negroes became at last a national necessity. Various companies, however, continued to hold or to procure trading privileges, as the merchants were not restrained from engaging in commerce in such ways as they preferred. The Cape-Verde, the South-Sea, the Mississippi or Louisiana, and the San-Domingo Companies tried their fortunes still. But they were all displaced, and free-trade itself was swallowed up, by the union of all the French Antilles under the great West-India Company of 1716. This was hardly done before the Government discovered that the supply of negroes was again diminishing, partly because so extensive a company could not undertake the peculiar risks and expenses of a traffic in slaves. So in the matter of negroes alone trade was once more declared free in 1741, burdened only with a certain tax upon every slave imported.
At this time the cultivation of sugar alone in the principal French islands consumed all the slaves who could be procured. The cry for laborers was loud and exacting, for the French now made as much sugar as the English, and were naturally desirous that more negroes should surrender the sweets of liberty to increase its manufacture. In less than forty years the average annual export of French sugar had reached 80,000 hogsheads. In 1742 it was 122,541 hogsheads, each of 1200 pounds. The English islands brought into the market for the same year only 65,950 hogsheads, a decrease which the planters attributed to the freedom enjoyed by the French of carrying their crops directly to Spanish consumers without taking them first to France. But whatever may have been the reason, the French were determined to hold and develop the commercial advantage which this single product gained for them. The English might import as many slaves and lay fresh acres open to the culture, but the French sugar was discovered to be of a superior quality; that of San Domingo, in particular, was the best in the world.
The French planter took his slaves on credit, and sought to discharge his debt with the crops which they raised. This increased the consumption of negroes, and he was constantly in debt for fresh ones. To stimulate the production of sugar, the Government lifted half the entry-tax from each negro who was destined for that culture.
A table which follows shortly will present the exports for 1775 of the six chief products of San Domingo, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Cayenne. But we must say something first about the value of the livre.
In the Merovingian times, the right of coining money belonged to many churches and abbeys,—among others, to St. Martin de Tours. There were seigniorial and episcopal coins in France till the reign of Philip Augustus, who endeavored to reduce all the coin in his kingdom to a uniform type. But he was obliged still to respect the money of Tours, although he had acquired the old right of coinage that belonged to it.
It is plain from this, that, when livres are spoken of during a period of a hundred years, their precise equivalent in English or American money cannot be stated,—still less their market-relations to all the necessaries of life. The reader can therefore procure from the statistics of these periods only an approximative idea of the values of crops and the wealth created by their passing into trade.
A great deal of the current specie of the island consisted of Spanish and Portuguese coin, introduced by illegal trade. A Spanish piastre gourde in 1776 was rated at 7-1/2 livres, and sometimes was worth 8-1/4 livres. A piastre gourde was a dollar. If we represent this dollar by one hundred cents, we can approach the value of the French livre, because the gourde passed in France for only 5-1/4 livres; that is, a livre had already fallen to the value of the present franc, or about nineteen cents.
The difference of value between Paris and the colony was the cause of great embarrassment. Projects for establishing an invariable money were often discussed, but never attempted. All foreign specie ought to have become merchandise in the colony, and to have passed according to its title and weight. Exchange of France with San Domingo was at 66-2/3: that is, 66 livres, 13 sols, 4 deniers tournois were worth a hundred livres in the Antilles. Deduct one-third from any sum to find the sum in livres tournois.
Pounds. Livres.
Sugar, {To France, 166,353,834 for 61,849,381
{Abroad, 104,099,866 " 38,703,720
Coffee, {To France, 61,991,699 " 29,421,039
{Abroad, 50,058,246 " 23,757,464
Indigo, {To France, 2,067,498 " 17,573,733
{Abroad, 1,130,638 " 9,610,423
Cacao, {To France, 1,562,027 " 1,093,419
{Abroad, 794,275 " 555,992