W. H. SPARKS. (continued 10)

Very soon after he commenced, the Senate chamber was deserted, and the Vice-President and Secretary were left alone. Webster, Benton, Calhoun, Clay, Wright, and Evans came in and ranged themselves near him. Every space large enough, in the chamber, lobby, and galleries, was filled with a listener, and all were still and unmoving, however painful their position, until the enunciation of the last word of that wonderful oration. The speech occupied two hours and forty minutes, and the peroration was thrilling. When exhausted, and closing, he lifted his eyes to the national flag, floating above the Speaker's chair, and said, in an almost exhausted voice, "If, Mr. Speaker, in obedience to the necessities and corrupt behest of party, you are determined to wrest from Mississippi her rights as a sister, and coequal in this union of States, and turn from their seats her representatives constitutionally chosen, and place in their stead the repudiated of her people, strike from the flag which waves above you the star which represents her there; but leave the stripes, apt emblem of your iniquity and her degradation."

An adjournment was immediately moved; the painful excitement was relieved, the spell was broken, and from every side, and from every party, came men to congratulate him. Webster was the first to stretch forth his hand, and with more animation than was his wont, said, in his deep, sonorous tones, "New England claims her own, and is proud of her son."

The House, notwithstanding the demonstrative proof, and its enforcement by the powerful and unanswerable argument of Prentiss, sent the election back to the State, to be determined by a new election. In this, Prentiss and Wood were triumphantly elected. He was not again a candidate, retiring for the time from politics, and giving his undivided attention to his profession.

It was always a matter of astonishment, to all who could never make of a political enemy a personal friend, why it was that Prentiss, so bitter in his political denunciations of political partisans, and so bitter a partisan, should yet, among the opposition, have so many warm admirers and most devoted friends. His nature was sensitive, generous, and confiding. There was no malice festering in his heart, and in his opposition, he was only so to the politics, not the personal qualities of the man. By these he judged of the man, and the character of these regulated his conduct toward him. He did not pass through life without enemies. The man to whom this is possible is one of no positive points in his character, no strength of will, no fixity of purpose, and of but little intellect. Such men never occupy the public attention—are altogether negative, as well in action as in mind. The enemies of Prentiss were such from envy, or political hatred. His great abilities, when brought in contact with those suing for popular favor, so shrivelled and dwarfed them as to inspire only fear and hatred. But men of this character were scarce in that day in Mississippi. Such was the tone of society, and such the education of her sons, that traits so dishonorable rendered odious the man manifesting them, and those of talent and education emigrating to the country soon caught this spirit as by inoculation. If there were any who were influenced by such base and degrading motives, and who felt these a part of their nature, they most generally could command policy enough to conceal them.

No community is long in discovering the genuine from the counterfeit character. It did not require months to learn all the heart, all the nature of Prentiss. Too frequently are great abilities coupled with a mean spirit, and transcendent genius underlaid with a low, grovelling nature; but these may be known by the peculiar form or development of the cranium. The high coronal developments discover the intense moral organization: the lofty and expansive forehead, the steady, unblenching eye, and the easy self-possession of manner are all indications of high moral organization, and the possession of a soul superior to envy, malice, and vindictive hatred, and one to which little meannesses are impossible. Such a head and such a soul had S.S. Prentiss. His whole character was in his face, and so legible that the most illiterate could read it. This won to him like natures, and all such who knew him were instinctively his friends.

Judge Wilkinson was such a man, and though as ardently Democratic as Prentiss was Whig, and as uncompromising in his principles, yet these two were friends in the loftiest sense of the term. Judge Wilkinson had a difficulty with a tailor in Louisville, Kentucky, who attempted an imposition upon him to which he would not submit. A quarrel ensued, and the knight of the needle and shears determined on revenge. Collecting about him his ready associates, they went to the hotel where Wilkinson lodged, and waylaid him at the door between the dining-parlor and the reception-room, and attacked him on his coming in from supper. In the rencontre three of the assailants were killed, and the remainder of the gang fled. Immediately surrendering himself, he was incarcerated and held for trial: although assaulted with murderous intent, and acting clearly in self-defence, he was denied bail. He was a stranger, and the prejudices of the court and the people of Louisville were so manifest that he demanded and obtained a change of venire.

The trial came off at Harrodsburg. Prentiss, learning the facts and the situation of his friend, volunteered immediately to defend him in court, and to befriend him in any manner possible to him. The celebrated Ben Hardin was employed to assist in the prosecution. The eyes of all Mississippi and Kentucky were turned to Harrodsburg when this trial commenced. Others volunteered—and among these was John Rowan—to assist in the defence. But the case for Wilkinson was conducted exclusively by Prentiss. It continued for some days. John Rowan—so celebrated in the State for his talents and great legal learning, as well as for his transcendent abilities as an advocate—sat by, and trusted all to Prentiss.

There were many sparrings in the course of the trial between Hardin and Prentiss upon points in the law of evidence, and as to the admissibility or rejection of testimony, as also upon many points of the criminal law of England, whether changed or not by statutory provisions of the State.

In one of these, Rowan handed an open authority to Prentiss, and was taunted by Hardin for the act, by saying: "Give your friend all the aid you can: he needs it."

"I only preserved the book open at the page where Mr. Prentiss had marked the law," said Rowan: "he requires no aid from me, brother Hardin. With all your learning and experience, he is more than a match for you."

This Hardin was not long in discovering, and especially did he feel it when Prentiss came to reply to his address to the jury. So long accustomed to defy competition as a criminal lawyer, Hardin was not only surprised at the tact and masterly talent displayed by his adversary, but he was annoyed, and felt that to maintain his prestige as the great criminal lawyer of Kentucky, he must put forth all his powers. He had done so; and in his summing up before the jury he seemed more than himself. When he had concluded there were many who deemed conviction sure.

Prentiss followed, and in his grandest manner tore to tatters every argument and every position advanced and assumed by Hardin. Towering in the majesty of his genius in one of those transcendent flights of imagination so peculiar to him, when his illustrations in figures followed each other in such quick and constant succession as to seem inexhaustible, he turned suddenly upon Hardin, and, stooping his face until it almost touched that of the stern old Kentuckian, he hissed forth: "Dare you, sir, ask a verdict of such a jury as is here sitting upon this testimony?—you, sir, who under the verdict of nature must soon appear before the awful bar to which you now strive prematurely to consign this noble, this gallant young man! Should you succeed, you must meet him there. Could you, in the presence of Almighty God—He who knows the inmost thoughts—justify your work of to-day? His mandate is not to the gibbet. Eternal Justice dictates there, whose decrees are eternal. Do you think of this? Do you defy it? If not—if you invoke it, do it through your acts toward your fellow-man. Have you to-day done unto this man as you would he should do unto you? I pause for a reply—none. Then shudder and repent, for the record even now is making up against you in that high court from which there is no appeal. You, gentlemen of the jury, are no hired advocates: you are not laboring for blood-money. Though your responsibility to your God is equal to his, you will not go to the bar of your Creator with blood—guiltless blood—upon your consciences. You will not, as he will, in that awful presence, on that eventful day, look around you for the accusing spirit of him whom you consigned to the gibbet with a consciousness of his innocence of murder. How will it be with you? (turning again to Hardin.) Ah! how will it be with you? Still silent. Despite the hardness of his features, mercy like a halo sweeps over them, and speaks to you, gentlemen, eloquently: 'Acquit the accused!' Look over yonder, gentlemen: within these walls is one awaiting your verdict in tearless agony—she who but for this untoward event would now have been happy as his bride: she who has cheered him in his prison-cell daily with her presence and lovely soul! Hers, not his fate, is in your hands. To him death is nothing: the brave defy death—the good fear it not; then why should he fear? But she! O God! it is a fearful thing to crush to death with agony the young, hopeful, and loving heart of virtuous woman. His death is only terrible in her future. Go with her, gentlemen, through life; contemplate the wan features of slow decay: see in these the one eternal, harrowing thought; list to the sigh which rives the heart; watch the tear which falls in secret; see her sink into the grave; then turn away, look up into heaven, and from your heart say: 'O God! I did it.' You will not; you cannot; you dare not."

Hardin's conclusion was tame, and without effect; the demonstrations on the part of the jury dispirited him, and his concluding speech had none of the power of his opening. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty, without hesitation. Wilkinson was immediately discharged, and in company with his friends was repairing to the hotel, when, in the warmth of his emotion, he said, laying his hand on the shoulder of Prentiss: "How shall I pay you, my friend, for this great service you have done me?"

"By never mentioning pay again," was the prompt and decisive reply.

CHAPTER XXV.

A FINANCIAL CRASH.

A Wonderful Memory—A Nation Without Debt—Crushing the National Bank—Rise of State Banks—Inflated Currency—Grand Flare-Up—Take Care of Yourself—Commencing Anew—Failing to Reach an Obtuse Heart—King Alcohol Does His Work—Prentiss and Foote—Love Me, Love My Dog—A Noble Spirit Overcome—Charity Covereth a Multitude of Sins.

The rare combination of the elements of the mind in Mr. Prentiss is only occasionally met with in time. Judgment, imagination, and memory were all transcendent and equal in their respective powers. With such a mind, everything possible to man may be accomplished. The invention is rapid; the combining and applying responds as rapidly; the fitting and the proper wait on these in the judgment, and the emanation of the whole is perfect. The imagination conceives, the memory retains, and the judgment applies. The consummate perfection of all of these elements in one mind, assures greatness. Charles James Fox, one of England's ablest statesmen, said this combination, organized in the brain of Napoleon, was more complete than had existed with any man since the days of Julius Cæsar, and would have made him transcendently great in anything to which he might have addressed his powers. As a poet, he would have equalled Homer; as a lawyer, the author of the Pandects; as an architect, Michael Angelo; as an astronomer, Newton or Galileo; as an actor, Garrick, or his beloved Talma—as he had equalled Cæsar and Hannibal, and greatly surpassed Marlborough, Frederick the Great, and Charles XII.; as an orator, Demosthenes; and as a statesman, the greatest the earth ever knew.

This combination in the mind of Prentiss, with the great development of the organ of language, made him the unrivalled orator of his age. His powers of memory were so great as to astonish even those eminently gifted in the same manner. In reading, he involuntarily committed to memory, whether of prose or poetry. He seemed to have memorized the Bible, Shakspeare, Dryden, Ben Jonson, Byron, and many others of the modern poets. The whole range of literature was at his command: to read once, was always to remember. This capacity to acquire was so great that he would in a month master as much as most men could in twelve.

It appeared immaterial to what he applied himself, the consequence was the same. Scientific research, or light literature; the ordinary occurrences of the day, recorded in the newspapers, or detailed by an occasional visitor—all were remembered, and with truthful exactness. Dates, days, names, and events fastened upon his memory tenaciously, and remained there without an effort. Hence, the fund of information possessed by him astonished the best informed, who were gray with years and reading. The exuberance of his imagination continually supplied new and beautiful imagery to his conversation; and in private intercourse, such was the rich purity of his language, and his ideas so bold and original, that all were willing listeners: no one desired to talk if Prentiss was present and would talk.

The disasters which followed the commercial crisis of 1837 crushed almost every interest in Mississippi: especially was this true of the planting, the great interest of the State. On the healthy condition of him who tills the soil depends that of every other interest. The rapid rise in cotton, commencing in 1832, from the increased demand all over the world for cotton fabrics, caused a heavy immigration to the fertile cotton-lands of the West, and particularly to the extensive and newly acquired lands of Mississippi. The world was at peace, and great prosperity was universal; money was cheap, or rather its representative, bank paper. The system of finance, so wisely conceived and put in practical operation subsequently to the war of 1812, had been disturbed by being made an element in the political struggles of party. It had paid the war debt, and all the expenses of the Government—furnished a uniform currency, equal to, and at the holder's will convertible into coin. Its face was the nation's faith, and its credit equal in New York, London, and Calcutta. A surplus fund was accumulating in the United States Treasury, and the unexampled instance of a nation out of debt, and with an accumulating surplus of money in her treasury, was presented to the world by the United States.

The political economist, from this fact, would naturally infer that the people were heavily taxed: not so; there was not on earth a people who contributed, in proportion to their means, so little to the support of their Government. The tax-gatherer of the nation was never seen or known in the house of any citizen; he knew not that he contributed one dollar to the public treasury. So admirably was the source of revenue contrived, that no man knew or felt he paid a national tax. The Bank of the United States received and disbursed the moneys arising from customs, or tariffs upon imports, without one cent of expense to the Government; affording at the same time every healthy facility to the commerce of the country—holding in check and confining the local State banks to a legitimate business—and was the most complete and perfect fiscal agent ever organized. In the struggle for party ascendency, the idea was conceived of using the bank in aid of one of the factions which divided the country. The machinators of this scheme failed to accomplish it, and, being in power at the time, determined to destroy it, upon the plea of its unconstitutionality, and of having been used to overturn the Government—that is, the party in power. It was declared dangerous to the liberties of the country.

At the expiration of its charter, then approaching, it was refused a renewal. So intimately was it connected with every interest in the country, that its passing out of existence threatened universal bankruptcy. Its branches located at every important commercial point, its credit was universally employed. It furnished exchange at almost a nominal rate upon every commercial city of the world, and permeated every transaction, giving health and vigor as the circulating fluid does the animal system.

Suddenly to arrest and destroy this, was universal ruin. But to serve the behest of party in a double form, it was crushed. But a substitute was proposed by the party interested, and upon whom the responsibility rested—the creation of State banks without limit, which were recommended to discount liberally to the people, and supply the wants created by the withdrawal of the capital and accommodations of the national bank. This recommendation was literally and instantly obeyed. In every State where the dominant party held control—and they did so throughout the South and West—the legislatures made haste to create, without limit, State banks, with power to flood the country with irresponsible bank paper. Each assumed that it must supply not only its portion, but the entire amount of the banking capital withdrawn, and double or treble the circulation. The natural consequence was immense inflation of the currency, or circulating medium, and the rapid appreciation of every species of property in price. Everybody and every interest flourished most prosperously—gaunt poverty had fled the land, and bloated abundance laughed in every home. Suddenly men sprang into importance who a little while before were humble artizans or employed in the meanest capacities. A new El Dorado had been discovered; fortunes were made in a day, without enterprise or work; and unexampled prosperity seemed to cover the land as with a golden canopy—forests were swept away in a week; labor came in crowds to the South to produce cotton; and where yesterday the wilderness darkened over the land with her wild forests, to-day the cotton plantation whitened the earth—production was quadrupled—labor doubled in value, land rose to fearful prices, the wildest extravagance obtained; costly furniture, expensive equipages, ostentatious display—all were contributing to hasten the catastrophe. The wise saw what was impending, and the foolish thought it impossible. All of this was based on credit. The banks were irresponsible, for they were without capital: they had created a credit and loaned it in the shape of bank paper to every one. Finally, the hour came when all was to be paid for. The banks failed—like the fame of woman, a whisper destroys it; so a whisper blew away the banks. They could not redeem their promises to pay. These were no longer available for currency: they had driven from the country the coin, and there was no money. The merchants failed, the planters failed, money appreciated to the gold standard, and property correspondingly depreciated; and ruin—financial ruin—swept over the country as a consuming fire.

Nowhere was this destruction so complete as in Mississippi. The people of the State had been collected from all the States of the West and South. There was no common bond but interest; a healthy public sentiment, which must result from a homogeneous population, was unknown; there was no restraining influence upon the conduct of men, save only the law, and, for the want of efficient administration, this was almost powerless. Every one was making haste to be rich; speculation was wild, and everyday was witnessing transactions of doubtful morality. Society was a chaos, and sauve qui peut, or, take care of yourself, the rule. Every one who owed money, however inconsiderable the sum, was ruined. Under such circumstances, Prentiss determined on removing from Mississippi, and selected New Orleans for his future home. The civil law, or Roman Code, was the law in Louisiana, and materially differed from the common or English law, which was the law of authority in Mississippi. Very few lawyers coming from the common-law States, have ever been able to succeed in Louisiana, especially after having practised in other States for any length of time. They have not only to learn the civil law, but to unlearn the common. Some, who did not know the extraordinary powers of Prentiss's mind, feared he, like many others who had made the attempt, would fail; but, almost from the moment of his advent at the New Orleans bar, his success was complete. To realize the expectations of the public, required abilities and attainments of the highest order. Fame had heralded his name and powers to every one: all had and did expect from him more than from any other man, and none were disappointed. From this time forward he eschewed politics, and devoted himself to his profession.

Some years before leaving Mississippi, Prentiss had married Miss Williams, of Adams County. This lady was the daughter of James C. Williams, a large planter; her mother was a Percy, descended from the proud Percys of Northumberland, and was a most accomplished and intellectual woman. Her position was the first among the first, and her birth, blood, and attainments entitled her to the distinction. Her daughter, grown up under her eye and training, was the mother's equal, and fit companion for the man of her choice.

Prentiss had lost everything in the general crash, and was commencing anew, with a growing family to provide for. His business rapidly increased, and his displays at the Bar were frequent and wonderful. Some of these, recited here, might, if such a necessity existed, serve to illustrate his wonderful powers; but there are parties living whose feelings might suffer, and hence I forbear. It is my earnest wish, in recording these recollections, to offend no one; nor will I "set down aught in malice."

The ardent and excitable temperament of Prentiss, combined with his social qualities, required constant excitement. When employed with the duties of his profession, or engaged in any matter of business pertaining to politics, or his relations in any capacity with the world, requiring attention, he was sufficiently excited to afford escape for the restlessness of his mind; nor did this man seem fatigued in such occupations sufficiently to require repose and rest. On the contrary, it seemed to whet his desire for fiercer and more consuming excitement. Whenever he went abroad, the crowd followed him, and the presence of the increasing mass stimulated his feelings to mild, social delight, and this led him too frequently to indulge beyond a proper temperance in the exhilaration of wine. This, superadded to the fire of his genius, was wearing fearfully his vigorous physique.

For the first time, in the case of fraud against James Irwin, in which he made one of the most powerful efforts of his life, he manifested mental as well as physical fatigue. It was my good fortune to listen to that speech made to a New Orleans jury. I had listened many times to his speeches, and had thought some of these could never be surpassed by any man, not even by himself, and especially that delivered in Faneuil Hall, Boston, and the one delivered from the steps of the court-house at Vicksburg, after returning from his political campaign when a candidate for Congress. But this one was even grander and more powerful than any I had ever heard from him. Returning from the court-house with him upon that occasion, I remarked a flagging in the brilliancy of his conversation. For a moment he sat silent in the carriage, and then remarked: "I was never so much fatigued; I am afraid I am getting old. I have not an idea in my brain."

"Certainly, you have poured out enough to-day to empty any brain," was my reply; "and you should be content not to have another for a month. But I am sorry your invective was so severe."

"Ah! my old friend," he continued, "he deserved it all! From my heart I feel he deserved it all! The magnitude of his iniquities inspired the rebuke, and I exhausted my quiver in the attempt to pierce his shame; but I failed. The integuments of his sensibility are armor against the shafts from my bow; and I feel the failure, but I don't regret the attempt: the intention was as sincere as the failure has been signal."

"Why, what do you mean?" I asked; "for, assuredly, you have to-day made the most powerful and telling speech of your life."

"Yes, telling upon the audience, perhaps, but not upon the victim—he escapes unscathed. I care nothing for the crack of the rifle, if the bullet flies wide of the mark. I wanted to reach his heart, and crush it to remorse; but I have learned his moral obtusity is superior to shame. I have failed in my attempt."

This speech was followed by a challenge to Prentiss from the son of Irwin. This was promptly accepted, and a meeting was only prevented by the interference of parties from Kentucky, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The settlement was honorable to both parties. Soon after, young Irwin died by his own hand. He was a youth of brilliant parts, and promised a future of usefulness and distinction.

The habits of Prentiss were daily growing worse—the excitement he craved he found in the intoxicating bowl. The influence of his lovely and loving wife greatly restrained him; but when she was away, he was too frequently surrounded by his friends and admirers, and in social conviviality forgot the prudence of restraint, and indulged to excess. The more this indulgence was tolerated, the more exacting it became. The great strength of his nervous system had successfully resisted the influence of these indulgences, and after potations deep and long, it was remarked that they had no inebriating effect upon him. This nervous strength by degrees yielded to the power of alcohol, and as he advanced in life it was apparent the poison was doing its work.

Now it was that he found it necessary, in order to stimulate his genius to its wonted activity and vigor, on occasions demanding all his powers, to resort to artificial stimulants. His friends urged upon him temperance, to forbear altogether, to visit his mother and friends in Maine, recreate amidst the scenes of his childhood, and to do so in company with his wife and his lovely children, for they were all a parent could wish them to be. He promised to do so. Sad memory brings up our last meeting, and when the subject of his intemperance was the theme of our parting conversation. We stood together upon the portico of the St. Charles Hotel; he was preparing to leave for Maine; I was leaving for my home in the country.

"You still keep the old cane," he said, taking from my hand his gift many years before.

"I shall do so, Prentiss, while I live."

He continued to view the head, upon which our names were engraved, and a melancholy shade gathered upon his features. "Oh, were I," said he, "to-day, what I was the day I gave you this!" and he paused many minutes; still the shade darkened, and his voice trembled as he proceeded: "We were both young then, and how light our hearts were! We have gathered about us household gods, and we worship them; how sad to think we shall have to leave them! You married long before I did. Your children will grow up while yet you live; I shall never see mine other than children."

"Say not so, Prentiss. You are yet young. You have but one thing to do, and you will live to see those boys men; and what may you not expect of them, with such a mother to aid you in rearing them!"

"I know what you mean, and I know what I will; but, like Laocoon in the folds of the snake, the serpent of habit coils around me, and I fear its strength is too powerful for mine. Perhaps, had my angel of to-day been my angel when first a man, I had never wooed the scorpion which is stinging me to death; but all I can do I will. This is all I can promise. Keep this stick to remember me: it will support you when tottering with the weight of years, and with strength will endure. When age has done her work, and you are in the grave, give it to your son to remember us both. Farewell."

With a clasp of the hand we parted, never to meet again. Not long after, he died at Natchez, and, in the family cemetery of the Sargents, sleeps near the city.

But few of the speeches of Prentiss were ever reported, and though they are like and have the ring of the true metal, yet not one of them is correctly reported. The fragment given in a former chapter is the report of one who heard it, and who wrote it the very hour of its delivery, to myself, that the information of the acquittal might be communicated to the friends of the lady Judge Wilkinson was about to be married to, who resided in my immediate neighborhood. There is not a word of it in the reporter's speech, which was some time after written out from notes. These speeches, with the traditions of his fame, will serve to perpetuate his memory as perhaps the most gifted man, as an orator, that adorned his generation.

In stature he was below the ordinary standard, and his lameness seemed to dwarf even this. His head was large, round, and high; his forehead expansive, high, and rising almost perpendicularly above his eyes, which were gray, deep set, and brilliant; his nose was straight and beautifully chiselled, thin, and the nostrils large, and swelling and expanding when excited. In speaking, his eyes blazed with a most peculiar expression. His chin was broad, square, and strong. His mouth was the most striking feature of his face—large and flexible, with a constant twitching about the corners. The entire contour of the face indicated humor, combined with firmness. This latter trait was also indicated in the large, strong under jaw—no trait was more prominent in his character than this. Yet he was slow to anger, and always conciliatory in language and manners. He was charitable in the extreme toward others for any laches in principle; always ready to find an excuse for the short-comings of others. Yet no man adhered more closely and more steadily to his principles and opinions. He never gave an insult, unless greatly provoked, but never failed to resent one; always loath to quarrel, but, once in, bore himself like a man, and a brave one. The high oval crown of his head confessed high moral qualities; here the moral organs were in wonderful development. Too generous to be malicious, he was ever ready to forgive, and too noble to permit his worst enemy to be slandered in his presence.

There was once a quarrel between Prentiss and that erratic man of wonderful genius, H.S. Foote. This culminated in a hostile meeting, in which Foote was wounded. In their impulsiveness these two were very like, as also in the generosity of their natures. Neither bore the other malice beyond the conflict, and neither ever permitted an insult to be offered to the name of the other in his absence. A short time after this affair, Prentiss was with some friends in Cincinnati. There is always to be found men who swell their importance by toadying men of character and eminence. Such are as frequently found in Cincinnati as elsewhere.

One of these had sought out Prentiss, and was attempting to make himself agreeable to him by abusing Foote: this abuse wound up by denouncing the distinguished Mississippian as a dog. Prentiss turned sharply upon him with the exclamation: "If he is a dog, sir, he is our dog, and you shall not abuse him in my presence!" The discomfiture of the toady may be easily imagined; he slunk away, nor did he again obtrude his unwanted presence upon Prentiss during his stay.

Few men have ever so fastened themselves upon the affections of their friends as did Prentiss: his qualities of heart and head were fascinating, almost beyond humanity; none ever met him for a day and went away unattached; strangers, who knew him not, listening to him, not only admired, but loved him. He never lost a friend; and all his enemies were political, or from envy. In the society of ladies he was extremely diffident and unobtrusive, and always apprehensive lest he should be unable to entertain them agreeably.

On one occasion, not long before our final parting, he said he had committed two great errors in his life: leaving his native home to find one in the South, and not marrying when he first commenced the practice of law. "My constitution was strong and suited to a northern climate, and there home-influences would have restrained propensities that have grown with indulgence, and are threatening in their consequences. I feel this: I am not the strong man I was; mind and body are failing, and the beautiful lines of our friend Wild are constantly recurring to my mind:

"Why did not Wild give his life to literature, instead of the musty maxims of the law. Little as he has written, it is enough to preserve his fame as a true poet; and though he has been a member of Congress, and a distinguished one, a lawyer, and a distinguished one, his fame and name will only be perpetuated by his verse, so tender, so touching, and so true to the feelings of the heart. It is the heart that he lives in. Ah! it is the heart only which forms and fashions the romance of life; and without this romance, life is scarcely worth the keeping.

"We feel as Byron did when he imagined these lines. I see him with upturned eyes gazing on the blue expanse above, watching the stars; thinking of heaven; feeling earth, and hating it, and his soul flying away from it, to meet and mingle in the firmament above him with the spiritually bright and heavenly pure brilliants sparkling on her diadem. How mean—how miserably mean this earth, and all it gives! One diamond in a world of dirt. The soul that loves and contemplates the eternal—shall it shake off at once the miserable clod, and in a moment glisten among the millions, pure, bright, and lovely as these? There is but one idea of hell—eternal torture! But every man has his own idea of heaven: yet, with all, its chiefest attribute is eternal happiness. The wretch craves it for rest; he who never knew care or suffering, desires it for enjoyment; and the wildest imagination sublimates its bliss to love and beauty. And God only knows what it is, or in what it consists. But we shall know, and I, in a little time. On Him who gave me being I confidently rely for all which is destined in my future."

His spirit was eminently worshipful. The wisdom and goodness of God he saw in every creature; he contemplated these as a part of the grand whole, and saw a union and use in all for the harmony of the whole; he saw all created nature linked, each filling and subserving a part, in duties and uses, as designed, and, his mind filled with the contemplation, his soul expanded in love and worship of the great Architect who conceived and created all.

With all this might of mind and beauty of soul, there lurked a demon to mar and destroy. It worked its end: let us draw a veil over the frailties of poor human nature, and, in the admiration of the genius and the soul, forget the foibles and frailties of the body.

CHAPTER XXVI.

ACADIAN FRENCH SETTLERS.

Sugar vs. Cotton—Acadia—A Specimen of Mississippi French Life—Bayou La Fourche—The Great Flood—Theological Arbitration—A Rustic Ball —Old-Fashioned Weddings—Creoles and Quadroons—The Planter—Negro Servants—Gauls and Anglo-Normans—Antagonism of Races.

Forty years ago, there was quite an excitement among the cotton-planters, in the neighborhood of Natchez, upon the subject of sugar-planting in the southern portion of Louisiana. At that time it was thought the duty (two and a half cents per pound) on imported sugars would be continued as a revenue tax, and that it would afford sufficient protection to make the business of sugar-planting much more profitable than that of cotton. The section of country attracting the largest share of attention for this purpose was the Teche, or Attakapas country, the Bayous La Fourche, Terre Bonne, and Black. The Teche and La Fourche had long been settled by a population, known in Louisiana as the Acadian French. These people, thus named, had once resided in Nova Scotia and Lower Canada, or Canada East as now known. When peopled by the French, Nova Scotia was called Acadia. Upon the conquest by the English, these people were expelled the country, and in a most inhuman and unchristian manner. They were permitted to choose the countries to which they would go, and were there sent by the British Government. Many went to Canada, some to Vincennes in Indiana, some to St. Louis, Cape Girardeau, Viedepouche, and Kaskaskia in Mississippi, and many returned to France.

Upon the cession, or rather donation to Spain of Louisiana by France, these, with many others of a population similar to these, from the different arrondissements of France, were sent to Louisiana, and were located in Opelousas, Attakapas, La Fourche, and in the parishes of St. John the Baptist, St. Charles, and St. James (parishes constituting the Acadian coast on the Mississippi). On the La Fourche they constituted, forty years ago, almost the entire population. They were illiterate and poor. Possessing the richest lands on earth, which they had reclaimed from the annual inundations of the Mississippi River by levees constructed along the margins of the stream—with a climate congenial and healthful, and with every facility afforded by the navigation of the bayou and the Mississippi for reaching the best market for all they could produce—yet, with all these natural advantages, promising to labor and enterprise the most ample rewards, they could not be stimulated to industry or made to understand them.

They had established their homes on the margin of the stream, and cleared a few acres of the land donated by the Government, upon which to grow a little corn and a few vegetables. With a limited amount of stock, which found subsistence upon the cane and grass of the woods, and with the assistance of a shot-gun, they managed to subsist—as Peake's mother served the Lord—after a fashion.

Their houses were unique: a slender frame, often of poles cut from the forest, and rudely squared, served the purpose. Into the studding were placed pins, extending from one to the other, horizontally, and about ten inches apart. The long gray moss of the country was then gathered and thrown by layers into a pit dug for the purpose, with the soil, until the pit was full, when water was added in sufficient quantities to wet the mass through; this done, all who are assisting in the construction of the house—men, women, boys, and girls—jump in upon it, and continue to tramp until mud and moss are completely intermingled and made of proper consistence, when it is gathered up and made into rails about two feet long. These rolls are laid over the pins, commencing at the bottom or sill of the building, when each roll is bent down at the ends, covering the intervals between the pins, pressed hardly together, and smoothed with the hands, inside and out, forming a wall some five inches in thickness, with a perfectly smooth surface. The roof is first put on, and the floors laid. When this mud dries thoroughly it is white-washed; the house is then complete, and presents quite a neat appearance. It will continue to do so if the white-washing is annually continued. If, however, this is neglected, the lime falls off in spots, and the primitive mud comes out to view: then the appearance is anything but pleasant. No pains are taken to ornament their yards, or gather about them comforts. There is a pig or two in a pen in the corner of the yard, a hen-roost immediately at the house, a calf or two at large, and numerous half-starved, mangy dogs—and innumerable ragged, half-naked children, with little, black, piercing eyes, and dishevelled, uncombed hair falling about sallow, gaunt faces, are commingling in the yard with chickens, dogs, and calves. A sallow-faced, slatternly woman, bareheaded, with uncared-for hair, long, tangled, and black, with her dress tucked up to her knees, bare-footed and bare-legged, is wading through the mud from the bayou, with a dirty pail full of muddy Mississippi water.

A diminutive specimen of a man, clad in blue cottonade pants and hickory shirt, barefooted, with a palm-leaf hat upon his head, and an old rusty shot-gun in his hands, stands upon the levee, casting an inquiring look, first up and then down the bayou, deeply desiring and most ardently expecting a wandering duck or crane, as they fly along the course of the bayou. If unfortunately they come within reach of his fusee, he almost invariably brings them down. Then there is a shout from the children, a yelp from the dogs, and all run to secure the game; for too often, "No duck, no dinner." Such a home and such inhabitants were to be seen on Bayou La Fourche forty years ago, and even now specimens of the genuine breed may there be found, as primitive as were their ancestors who first ventured a home in the Mississippi swamps.

The stream known as Bayou La Fourche, or The Fork, is a large stream, some one hundred yards wide, leaving the Mississippi at the town of Donaldsonville, eighty miles above the city of New Orleans, running south-southeast, emptying into the Gulf, through Timbalier Bay, and may properly be termed one of the mouths of the Mississippi. Its current movement does not in high water exceed three miles an hour, and when the Mississippi is at low water, it is almost imperceptible. Large steamers, brigs, and schooners come into it when the river is at flood, and carry out three or four hundred tons of freight each at a time.

The lands upon the banks of this stream are remarkably fertile, entirely alluvial, and decline from the bank to the swamp, generally some one or two miles distant. This Acadian population was sent here during the Spanish domination, and with a view to opening up to cultivation this important tract of country. It was supposed they would become—under the favorable auspices of their emigration to the country, and with such facilities for accumulating money—a wealthy and intelligent population. This calculation was sadly disappointed. The mildness of the climate and the fruitfulness of the soil combined to enervate, instead of stimulating them to active industry, without which there can be no prosperity for any country. A few acres, though half cultivated, were found sufficient to yield an ample support, and the mildness of the climate required but little provision for clothing. Here, in this Eden upon earth, these people continued to live in a simplicity of primitive ignorance and indolence scarcely to be believed by any but an actual observer. Their implements of agriculture were those of two centuries before. More than half the population wore wooden shoes, when they wore any at all. Their wants were few, and were all supplied at home. Save a little flour, powder, and shot, they purchased nothing. These were paid for by the sale of the produce of the poultry-yard—the prudent savings from the labor of the women—to the market-boats from the city.

There were, at the period of which I write, but half a dozen Americans upon the bayou. These had found the country illy adapted to the growth of cotton, and some of them had commenced the planting of sugar-cane. The results from this were very satisfactory, and consequently stimulating to the enterprise of men of means, who felt they could be more profitably employed in this new culture than in cotton, even in the very best cotton regions.

There was one man of high intelligence and long experience who denied this—Stephen Duncan, of Natchez—and the subsequent experience of many brought bitter regret that they had not yielded to the counsels of Dr. Duncan.

The great flood of 1828 had not touched the La Fourche or Teche, while the entire alluvial plain above had been covered many feet, and for many months. This was the most terrible inundation, perhaps, ever experienced in that region; and every one appeared to be now satisfied that to continue to cultivate lands already reduced to man's dominion, or to open and prepare any more, subject to this scourge, was madness. Hence the emigration from this chosen section to the new El Dorado. Lands rose rapidly in South Louisiana as an effect of this, while above, in the flooded district, they were to be bought for almost a nominal price. Those who ventured to purchase these and reduce them to cultivation realized fortunes rapidly; for there was not a sufficient flood to reach them again for ten years. The levees by this time had become so extended as to afford almost entire immunity against the floods of annual occurrence. The culture of sugar received a new impetus and began rapidly to increase, and capital came flowing in. Population of an industrious and hardy character was filling up the West, and the demand from that quarter alone was equal to the production, and both were increasing so rapidly as to induce the belief that it would be as much as all the sugar lands in the State could accomplish to supply this demand. Steam power for crushing the cane was introduced—an economy of labor which enhanced the profits of the production—and a new and national interest was developed, rendering more and more independent of foreign supply, at least that portion of the Union most difficult of access to foreign commerce—the great and growing West.

The Americans, or those Americans speaking English alone, immigrating into these sections of Louisiana, so far as the language, manners, and customs of the people were concerned, were going into a foreign land. The language of the entire population was French, or a patois, as the European French term it—a provincialism which a Parisian finds it difficult to understand. The ignorance and squalid poverty of these people put their society entirely out of the question, even if their language had been comprehensible. They were amiable, kind, law-abiding, virtuous, and honest, beyond any population of similar character to be found in any country. Out of some fifty thousand people, extending over five or six parishes, such a thing as a suit for slander, or an indictment for malicious mischief, or a case of bastardy was not known or heard of once in ten years. This will seem strange when we reflect that at this time schools were unknown, and not one out of fifty of the people could read or write, and when it was common for the judge of the District Court to ask, when a grand jury was impanelled, if there was a man upon it who could write, that he might make him foreman. And not unfrequently was he compelled to call from the court-room one who could, and trump him on the jury for a foreman, as the action was termed. There was not upon the La Fourche, which comprised three large parishes, but one pleasure carriage, and not half a dozen ladies' bonnets. The females wore a colored handkerchief tastily tied about their heads, when visiting or at church; and when not, not anything but blowzed, uncombed hair.

The enterprise of the new-comers did not stimulate to emulation the action of these people. They were content and unenvious, and when kindly received and respectfully treated, were social and generous in their intercourse with their American neighbors. They were confiding and trustful; but once deceived, they were not to be won back, but only manifested their resentment by withdrawing from communicating with the deceiver, and ever after distrusting, and refusing him their confidence. They were universally Catholic; consequently, sectarian disputes were unknown. They practised eminently the Christian virtues, and were constant in their attendance at mass. The priest was the universal arbiter in all disputes, and his decision most implicitly acquiesced in. They had a horror of debt, and lawsuits, and would sacrifice any property they might have, to meet punctually an obligation. Fond of amusements, their social meetings, though of most primitive character, were frequent and cordial. They observed strictly the exactions of the Church, especially Lent; but indulged the Carnival to its wildest extent. Out of Lent they met to dance and enjoy themselves, weekly, first at one, and then at another neighbor's house; and with the natural taste of their race, they would appear neatly and cleanly dressed in the attire fabricated by their own hands in the loom and with the needle.

The method of invitation to these reunions was simple and speedy. A youth on his pony would take a small wand, and tie to its top end a red or white flag, and ride up and down the bayou, from the house where the ball was intended, for two or three miles; returning, tie the wand and flag to flaunt above the gate, informing all—"This is the place." All were welcome who came, and everything was conducted with strict regard to decent propriety. Nothing boisterous was ever known—no disputing or angry wrangling, for there was no cause given; harmony and happiness pervaded all, and at proper time and in a proper manner all returned to their homes.

Marriages, almost universally, were celebrated at the church, as in all Catholic countries. The parsonage is at the church, and the priest always on hand, at the altar or the grave; and almost daily, in this dense population, a marriage or funeral was seen at the church. It was the custom for the bride and groom, with a party of friends, all on horseback, to repair without ceremony to the church, where they were united in matrimony by the good priest, who kissed the bride, a privilege he never failed to put into execution, when he blessed the couple, received his fee, and sent them away rejoicing. This ceremony was short, and without ostentation; and then the happy and expectant pair, often on the same horse, would return with the party as they had come, with two or three musicians playing the violin in merry tunes on horseback, as they joyfully galloped home, where a ball awaited them at night, and all went merry with the married belle.

These people are Iberian in race, are small in stature, of dark complexion, with black eyes, and lank black hair; their hands and feet are small, and beautifully formed, and their features regular and handsome; many of their females are extremely beautiful. These attain maturity very early, and are frequently married at thirteen years of age. In more than one instance, I have known a grandmother at thirty. As in all warm countries, this precocious maturity is followed with rapid decay. Here, persons at forty wear the appearance of those in colder climates of sixty years. Notwithstanding this apparent early loss of vigor, the instances of great longevity are perhaps more frequent in Louisiana than in any other State of the Union. This, however, can hardly be said of her native population: emigrants from high latitudes, who come after maturity, once acclimated, seem to endure the effects of climate here with more impunity than those native to the soil.

The Bayou Plaquemine formerly discharged an immense amount of water into the lakes intervening between the La Fourche and the Teche. These lakes have but a narrow strip of cultivable land. Along the right margin of the La Fourche, and the left of the Teche, they serve as a receptacle for the waters thrown from the plantations and those discharged by the Atchafalayah and the Plaquemine, which ultimately find their way to the Gulf through Berwick's Bay. They are interspersed with small islands: these have narrow strips of tillable land, but are generally too low for cultivation; and when the Mississippi is at flood, they are all under water, and most of them many feet. The La Fourche goes immediately to the Gulf, between Lake Barataria and these lakes, affording land high enough, when protected as they now are, for settlement, and cultivation to a very great extent. Its length is some one hundred miles, and the settlements extend along it for eighty miles. These are continuous, and nowhere does the forest intervene.

At irregular distances between these Acadian settlements, large sugar plantations are found. These have been extending for years, and increasing, absorbing the habitats of these primitive and innocent people, who retire to some little ridge of land deeper in the swamp, a few inches higher than the plane of the swamp, where they surround their little mud-houses with an acre or so of open land, from the products of which, and the trophies of the gun and fishing-line and hook, and an occasional frog, and the abundance of crawfish, they contrive to eke out a miserable livelihood, and afford the fullest illustration of the adage, "Where ignorance is bliss, it is folly to be wise."

The contrast between these princely estates, and the palatial mansions which adorn them, and make a home of luxuriant beauty, and the little log huts, their immediate neighbors, tells at once that the population is either very rich or very poor, and that under such circumstances the communication must be extremely limited; for the ignorance of the poor unfits them for social and intelligent intercourse with their more wealthy and more cultivated neighbors. This is true whether the planter is French or American. The remarkable salubrity of the climate, combined with the comforts and luxuries of home, causes the planter to spend most of his time there, where he can give his attention to his business and mingle with his brother planters in a style and manner peculiar to Louisiana and the tastes of her people. Intercommunication is facilitated by steamboat travel, and as every plantation is located upon a navigable stream, the planter and family can at any time suiting his business go with little trouble to visit his friends, though they may be hundreds of miles apart. Similarity of pursuit and interest draw these together. There is no rivalry, and consequently no jealousy between them. All their relations are harmonious, and their intercourse during the summer is continuous, for at that season the business of the plantation may be safely trusted to a manager, one of whom is found on every plantation.

This social intercourse is highly promotive of a general amity, as it cultivates an intimacy which at once familiarizes every one with the feelings, situation, and intentions of the other. Sometimes the contiguity of plantations enables the families of planters to exchange formal morning and evening calls, but most generally the distance to be overgone is too great for this. Then the visiting is done by families, and extends to days, and sometimes weeks. Provisions are so abundant that the extra consumption is never missed, and the residences are always of such dimensions that the visitors seem scarcely to increase the family—never to be in the way; and the suits of apartments occupied by them were built and furnished for the purpose to which they are then devoted. The visitor is at home. The character of the hospitality he is enjoying permits him to breakfast from seven till ten, alone, or in company with the family if he chooses. Horses, dogs, and guns for the gentlemen—billiards, the carriage, music, or promenading, with cards, chess, backgammon, or dominos for the ladies, to pass away the day until dinner. At this meal the household and guests unite, and the rich viands, wines, and coffee make a feast for the body and sharpen the wit to a feast of the soul. This society is the freest and most refined to be found in the country.

Upon the coast of the Mississippi, from Baton Rouge to many miles below the city, the proximity of the large plantations presents an opportunity of close and constant intercourse. A very large majority of these are the property and habitations of the cultivated and intelligent Creoles of the State. And here let me explain the term Creole, which has led to so many ludicrous, and sometimes to painful mistakes. It is an arbitrary term, and imported from the West Indies into Louisiana. Its original meaning was a native born of foreign parents; but universal use has made it to mean, in Louisiana, nothing more than simply "native;" and it is applied indiscriminately to everything native to the State—as Creole cane, Creole horse, Creole negro, or creole cow. Many confound its meaning with that of quadroon, and suppose it implies one of mixed blood, or one with whose blood mingles that of the African—than which no meaning is more foreign to the word.

The Creole planters, or what are termed French Creoles, are descended from a very different race from the Acadian Creole, or Iberian. The first colonists who came to Louisiana were men of the first blood and rank in France. The Ibervilles, the Bienvilles, St. Denises, and many others, were of noble descent; and the proud prestige of their names and glorious deeds still clings around their descendants now peopling the lands they conquered from the desert, the savage, and the flood. These daring men brought with them the chivalrous spirit which descended to their sons—the open, gallant bearing; the generous hospitality; the noble humanity; the honor which prefers death to a stain, and the soul which never stoops to a lie, a fraud, or a meanness degrading to a gentleman. They have been born upon the banks of the great river of the world; they have seen all the developments of talent, time, and enterprise which have made their country great as the river through which it flows. Accustomed from infancy to look upon this scene and these developments, their souls with their ideas have been sublimated, and they are a population unsurpassed in the higher attributes of humanity, and the nobler sympathies of man, by any on the face of the earth—surrounded by wealth, tangible and substantial, descending from generation to generation, affording to each all the blessings wealth can give.

The spirit of hospitality and independence has ennobled the sons, as hereditary wealth and privilege had the sires who planted this colony. These sires laid the foundation of this wealth, in securing for their posterity the broad acres of this fat-land where now they are to be found. None have emigrated: conscious of possessing the noblest heritage upon earth, they have remained to eliminate from this soil the wealth which in such abundance they possess. As they were reared, they have reared their sons; the lessons of truth, virtue, honor have borne good fruit. None can say they ever knew a French Creole a confirmed drunkard or a professional gambler. None ever knew an aberration of virtue in a daughter of one.

The high-bred Creole lady is a model of refinement—modest, yet free in her manners; chaste in her thoughts and deportment; generous in her opinions, and full of charity; highly cultivated intellectually and by association; familiar from travel with the society of Europe; mistress of two, and frequently of half a dozen languages, versed in the literature of all. Accustomed from infancy to deport themselves as ladies, with a model before them in their mothers, they grow up with an elevation of sentiment and a propriety of deportment which distinguishes them as the most refined and polished ladies in the whole country. There is with these a softness of deportment and delicacy of expression, an abstinence from all violent and boisterous expressions of their feelings and sentiments, and above all, the entire freedom from petty scandal, which makes them lovely, and to be loved by every honorable and high-bred gentleman who may chance to know them and cultivate their association. Indeed, this is a characteristic of the gentlemen as well as the ladies.

These people may have a feud, and sometimes they do; but this rarely remains long unsettled. No one will ever hear it publicly alluded to, and assuredly they will never hear it uttered in slanderous vituperation of the absent party. I may be permitted here to narrate an incident illustrative of this peculiarity.

A gentleman, knowing of a dissension between two parties, was dining with one of them, in company with several others. This guest spoke to the hostess disparagingly of the enemy of her husband, who, hearing the remark, rebuked his officious guest by remarking to him: "Doctor, my lady and myself would prefer to find out the foibles and sins of our neighbors ourselves." The rebuke was effectual, and informed the doctor, who was new in the country, of an honorable feeling in the refined population of the land of his adoption alien to that of his birth, and which he felt made these people the superior of all he had ever known.

No one has ever travelled upon one of those palatial steamers abounding on the Mississippi, in the spring season of the year, when the waters swell to the tops of the levees, lifting the steamer above the level of the great fields of sugar-cane stretching away for miles to the forest on either bank of that mighty river, who has not been delighted with the lovely homes, surrounded with grounds highly cultivated and most beautifully ornamented with trees, shrubs, and flowers, which come upon the view in constant and quick succession, as he is borne onward rapidly along the accumulated waters of the great river. This scene extends one hundred and fifty miles up the river, and is one not equalled in the world. The plain is continuous and unbroken; nor hill nor stream intersects it but at two points, where the Plaquemine and La Fourche leave it to find a nearer way to the sea; and these are so diminutive, in comparison with all around, that they are passed almost always without being seen.

The fringe of green foliage which is presented by the trees and shrubs adorning each homestead, follows in such rapid succession as to give it a continuous line, in appearance, to the passers-by on the steamer. These, denuded of timber to the last tree, the immense fields, only separated by a ditch, or fence, which spread along the river—all greened with the luxuriant sugar-cane, and other crops, growing so vigorously as at once to satisfy the mind that the richness of the soil is supreme—and this scene extending for one hundred and fifty miles, makes it unapproachable by any other cultivated region on the face of the globe. Along the Ganges and the Nile, the plain is extensive. The desolate appearance it presents—the miserable homes of the population, devoid of every ornament, without comfort or plenty in their appearance—the stinted and sparse crops, the intervening deserts of sand, the waste of desolation, spreading away far as the eye can reach—the streams contemptible in comparison, and the squalid, degraded, thriftless people along their banks, make it painful to the beholder, who is borne on his way in some dirty little craft, contrasting so strangely with the Mississippi steamer. Yet, in admirable keeping with everything else, all these present a grand contrast to the valley of the Mississippi, and only prove the latter has no equal in all that pertains to grandeur, beauty, and abundance, on the globe. To appreciate all these, you must know and mingle with the population who have thus ornamented, with labor and taste, the margin of this stream of streams.

As this great expanse of beauty is a fairy-land to the eye, so is the hospitality of its homes a delight to the soul. In this population, if nowhere else in America, is seen a contented and happy people—a people whose pursuit is happiness, and not the almighty dollar. Unambitious of that distinction which only wealth bestows, they are content with an abundance for all their comforts, and for the comfort of those who, as friends or neighbors, come to share it with them. Unambitious of political distinction, despising the noisy tumult of the excited populace, they love their homes, and cultivate the ease of quiet in these delicious retreats, enjoying life as it passes, in social and elegant intercourse with each other, nor envying those who rush into the busy world and hunt gain or distinction from the masses, through the shrewdness of a wit cultivated and debased by trade, or a fawning, insincere sycophancy toward the dirty multitude they despise. By such, these people are considered anomalous, devoid of energy or enterprise, contented with what they have, nor ambitious for more—which, to an American, with whom, if the earth is obtained, the moon must be striven for, is stranger than all else—living indolently at their ease, regardless of ephemeral worldly distinctions, but happy in the comforts of home, and striving only to make this a place for the enjoyment of themselves and those about them.

To the stranger they are open and kind, universally hospitable, never scrutinizing his whole man to learn from his manner or dress whether he comes as a gentleman or a sharper, or whether he promises from appearance to be of value to them pecuniarily in a trade. There is nothing of the huckster in their natures. They despise trade, because it degrades; they have only their crops for sale, and this they trust to their factors; they never scheme to build up chartered companies for gain, by preying upon the public; never seek to overreach a neighbor or a stranger, that they may increase their means by decreasing his; would scorn the libation of generous wine, if they felt the tear of the widow or the orphan mingled with it, and a thousand times would prefer to be cheated than to cheat; despising the vicious, and cultivating only the nobler attributes of the soul.

Such is the character of the educated French Creole planters of Louisiana—a people freer from the vices of the age, and fuller of the virtues which ennoble man, than any it has fallen to my lot to find in the peregrinations of threescore years and ten. The Creoles, and especially the Creole planters, have had little communication with any save their own people. The chivalry of character, in them so distinguishing a trait, they have preserved as a heritage from their ancestors, whose history reads more like a romance than the lives and adventures of men, whose nobility of soul and mind was theirs from a long line of ancestors, and brought with them to be planted on the Mississippi in the character of their posterity.

Is it the blood, the rearing, or the religion of these people which makes them what they are? They are full of passion; yet they are gentle and forbearing toward every one whom they suppose does not desire to wrong or offend them; they are generous and unexacting, abounding in the charity of the heart, philanthropic, and seemingly from instinct practising toward all the world all the Christian virtues. They are brave, and quick to resent insult or wrong, and prefer death to dishonor; scrupulously just in all transactions with their fellow-men, forbearing toward the foibles of others, without envy, and without malice. In their family intercourse they are respectful and kind, and particularly to their children: they are cautious never to oppress or mortify a child—directing the parental authority first to the teaching of the heart, then to the mind—instilling what are duties with a tenderness and gentleness which win the affections of the child to perform these through love only. Propriety of deportment toward their seniors and toward each other is instilled from infancy and observed through life. All these lessons are stamped upon the heart, not only by the precepts of parents and all about them, but by their example.

The negro servants constitute a part of every household, and are identified with the family as part of it. To these they are very kind and forbearing, as also to their children, to whom they uniformly speak and act gently. A reproof is never given in anger to either, nor in public, for the purpose of mortifying, but always in private, and gently—in sorrow rather than in anger; and where punishment must be resorted to, it is done where only the parent or master, and the child or servant, can see or know it. This is the example of the Church. The confessional opens up to the priest the errors of the penitent, and they are rebuked and forgiven in secret, or punished by the imposition of penalties known only to the priest and his repentant parishioner. Is it this which makes such models of children and Christians in the educated Creole population of Louisiana? or is it the instinct of race, the consequence of a purer and more sublimated nature from the blue blood of the exalted upon earth? The symmetry of form, the delicacy of feature in the males, their manliness of bearing, and the high chivalrous spirit, as well as the exquisite beauty and grace of their women, with the chaste purity of their natures, would seem to indicate this as the true reason.

All who have ever entered a French Creole family have observed the gentle and respectful bearing of the children, their strict yet unconstrained observance of all the proprieties of their position, and also the affectionate intercourse between these and their parents, and toward each other—never an improper word; never an improper action; never riotous; never disobedient. They approach you with confidence, yet with modesty, and are respectful even in the mirth of childish play. Around the mansions of these people universally are pleasure-grounds, permeated with delightful promenades through parterres of flowers and lawns of grass, covered with the delicious shade thrown from the extended limbs and dense foliage of the great trees. These children, when wandering here, never trespass upon a parterre or pluck unbidden a flower, being restrained only by a sense of propriety and decency inculcated from the cradle, and which grows with their growth, and at maturity is part of their nature. Could children of Anglo-Norman blood be so restrained? Would the wild energies of these bow to such control, or yield such obedience from restraint or love? Certainly in their deportment they are very different, and seem only to yield to authority from fear of punishment, and dash away into every kind of mischief the moment this is removed. Nor is this fear and certainty of infliction of punishment in most cases found to be of sufficient force to restrain these inherent proclivities.

Too frequently with such as these the heart-training in childhood is neglected or forgotten, and they learn to do nothing from love as a duty to God and their fellow-beings. The good priest comes not as a minister of peace and love into the family; but is too frequently held up by the thoughtless parent as a terror, not as a good and loving man, to be loved, honored, and revered, and these are too frequently the raw-head and bloody-bones painted to the childish imagination by those parents who regard the rod as the only reformer of childish errors—who forget the humanities in inspiring the brutalities of parental discipline, as well as the pastoral duties of their vocation. They persuade not into fruit the blossoms of the heart, but crush out the delicate sensibilities from the child's soul by coarse reproofs and brutal bearing toward them. The causes of difference I cannot divine, but I know that the facts exist, and I know the difference extends to the adults of the two races.

The Anglo-American is said to be more enterprising, more energetic and progressive—seeks dangers to overcome them, and subdues the world to his will. The Gallic or French-American is less enterprising, yet sufficiently so for the necessary uses of life. He is more honest and less speculative; more honorable and less litigious; more sincere with less pretension; superior to trickery or low intrigue; more open and less designing; of nobler motives and less hypocrisy; more refined and less presumptuous, and altogether a man of more chivalrous spirit and purer aspirations. The Anglo-American commences to succeed, and will not scruple at the means: he uses any and all within his power, secures success, and this is called enterprise combined with energy. Moral considerations are a slight obstacle. They may cause him to hesitate, but never restrain his action. The maxim is ever present to his mind: it is honorable and respectable to succeed—dishonorable and disreputable to fail; it is only folly to yield a bold enterprise to nice considerations of moral right. If he can avoid the penalties of the civil law, success obviates those of the moral law. Success is the balm for every wrong—the passport to every honor.

This demoralizes: the expedient for the just—that which will do, not that which should do, if success requires, must be resorted to. This idea, like the pestilence which rides the breeze, reaches every heart, and man's actions are governed only by the law—not by a high moral sense of right. Providence, it is supposed, prepares for all exigencies in the operations of nature. If this be true, it may be that the peculiarities of blood, and the consequence to human character, may, in the Anglo-American, be specially designed for his mission on this continent; for assuredly he is the eminently successful man in all enterprises which are essential in subduing the earth, and aiding in the spreading of his race over this continent. Every opposition to his progress fails, and the enemies of this progress fall before him, and success is the result of his every effort. That the French Creoles retain the chivalry and noble principles of their ancestry is certainly true; but that they have failed to preserve the persevering enterprise of their ancestors is equally true.

Emigration from France, to any considerable extent, was stayed after the cessation of Louisiana to the United States, and the French settlements ceased to expand. The country along and north of Red River, on the Upper Mississippi and the Washita, was rapidly filled up with a bold, hardy American population, between whom and the French sparsely peopling the country about Natchitoches on the Red, and Monroe on the Washita River, there was little or no sympathy; and the consequence was that many of those domiciled already in these sections left, and returned to the Lower Mississippi, or went back to France.

There had been, anterior to this cession, two large grants of land made to the Baron de Bastrop and the Baron de Maison Rouge, upon the Washita and Bartholomew, including almost the entire extent of what is now two parishes. These grants were made by the European Government upon condition of settlement within a certain period. The Revolution in France was expelling many of her noblest people, and the Marquis de Breard, with many followers, was one of these: he came, and was the pioneer to these lands. A nucleus formed, and accessions were being made, but the government being transferred and the country becoming Americanized, this tide of immigration was changed from French to American, and the requisite number of settlers to complete the grants was not reached within the stipulated period, and they were, after more than half a century, set aside, and the lands disposed of as public lands by the United States Government. Had the government continued in the hands of France, it is more than probable that the titles to these tracts would never have been contested, even though the requisite number of settlers had not been upon the lands to complete the grants at the specified period; and it is also probable there would have been, in proper time, the required number. But this transfer of dominion was exceedingly distasteful to the French population.

The antagonism of races itself is a great difficulty in the way of amalgamation, even though both may belong to the same great division of the human family; but added to this the difference of language, laws, habits, and religion, it would almost seem impossible. In the instance of Louisiana it has, so far, proved impossible. Although the French have been American subjects for more than sixty years, and there now remain in life very few who witnessed the change, and notwithstanding this population has, so far as the government is concerned, become thoroughly Americanized, still they remain to a very great extent a distinct people. Even in New Orleans they have the French part and the American part of the city, and do not, to any very great degree, extend their union by living among each other. Kind feelings exist between the populations, and the prejudices which have so effectually kept them apart for so long a time are giving way rapidly now, since most of the younger portion of the Creole-French population are educated in the United States, and away from New Orleans; consequently they speak the English language and form American associations, imbibe American ideas, and essay to rival American enterprise. Still there is a distinct difference in appearance. Perhaps the difference in bearing, and in other characteristics, may be attributable to early education, but the first and most radical is surely that of blood.

The settlements upon the Red and Washita Rivers did not augment the French population in the country; it has declined, but more signally upon the latter than the former river. There remain but few families there of the ancient population, and these are now so completely Americanized as scarcely to be distinguishable. The descendants of the Marquis de Breard, in one or two families, are there, but all who located on the Bayou Des Arc (and here was the principal settlement), with perhaps one family only, are gone, and the stranger is in their homes.

The French character seems to want that fixity of purpose, that self-denial, and steady perseverance, which is so necessary to those who would colonize and subdue a new and inhospitable country. The elevated civilization of the French has long accustomed them to the refinements and luxuries of life; it has entered into and become a part of their natures, and they cannot do violence to this in a sufficient degree to encounter the wilderness and all its privations, or to create from this wilderness those luxuries, and be content in their enjoyment for all the hardships endured in procuring them: they shrink away from these, and prefer the inconveniences and privations of a crowded community with its enjoyments, even in poverty, to the rough and trying troubles which surround and distress the pioneer, who pierces the forest and makes him a home, which, at least, promises all the comforts of wealth and independence to his posterity. He rather prefers to take care that he enjoys as he desires the present, and leaves posterity to do as they prefer. Yet there are many instances of great daring and high enterprise in the French Creole: these are the exceptions, not the rule.

CHAPTER XXVII.

ABOLITION OF LICENSED GAMBLING.

Baton Rouge—Florida Parishes—Dissatisfaction—Where There's a Will, There's a Way—Storming a Fort on Horseback—Annexation at the Point of the Poker—Raphignac and Larry Moore—Fighting the "Tiger"—Carrying a Practical Joke Too Far—A Silver Tea-Set.

That portion of Louisiana known as the Florida parishes, and consisting of the parishes east of the Mississippi, was part of West Florida, and was almost entirely settled by Americans when a Spanish province. Baton Rouge, which takes its name from the flagstaff which stood in the Spanish fort, and which was painted red, (baton meaning stick, and rouge, red, to Anglicize the name would make it red stick,) was the seat of power for that part or portion of the province. Here was a small Spanish garrison: on the opposite bank was Louisiana; New Orleans was the natural market and outlet for the productions of these Florida settlements.

When the cession of Louisiana to the United States occurred, these American settlers, desirous of returning to American rule, were restless, and united in their dissatisfaction with Spanish control. They could devise no plan by which this could be effected. Their people reached back from the river, along the thirty-first degree of north latitude, far into the interior, and extended thence to the lake border. On three sides they were encompassed by an American population and an American government. They had carried with them into this country all their American habits, and all their love for American laws and American freedom; to the east they were separated by an immense stretch of barren pine-woods from any other settlements upon Spanish soil. Pensacola was the seat of governmental authority, and this was too far away to extend the feeble arm of Spanish rule over these people. They were pretty much without legal government, save such laws and rule as had been by common consent established. These were all American in character, and, to all intents, this was an American settlement, almost in the midst of an American government, and yet without the protection of that or any other government. It was evident that at no distant day the Floridas must fall into the hands of the American Government. But there was to these people an immediate necessity for their doing so at once. They could not wait. But, what could they do? Among these people were many adventurous and determined men: they had mostly emigrated from the West—Tennessee, Kentucky, Western Pennsylvania, and Virginia; and some were the descendants of those who had gone to the country from the South, in 1777 and '8, to avoid the consequences of the Revolutionary War. This class of men met in council, and secretly determined to revolutionize the country, take possession of the Spanish fort, and ask American protection.

They desired to be attached to Louisiana as a part of that State. This, however, they could not effect without the consent of the State; and to ask this consent was deemed useless, until they were first recognized as part of the United States. In this dilemma, a veteran of the Revolution, and an early pioneer to Kentucky, and thence to West Florida, said: "'Wherever there is a will, there is a way:' we must first get rid of the Spanish authority, and look out for what may follow."

They secretly assembled a small force, and, upon a concerted day, met in secret, and under the cover of night approached the vicinity of the fort. Here they lay perdu, and entirely unsuspected by the Spanish Governor Gayoso. As day was approaching, they moved forward on horseback, and entered the open gate of the fort, and demanded its immediate surrender. The only opposition made to the assault was by young Gayoso, the governor's son, who was instantly slain, when the fort surrendered unconditionally. Perhaps this is the only instance in the history of wars that a fort was ever stormed on horseback. Thomas, Morgan, Moore, Johnson, and Kemper were the leaders in this enterprise. They were completely successful, and the Spanish authorities were without the means to subdue them to their duty as Spanish subjects.

The next step in their action was now to be decided. If the Government of the United States attempted their protection, it would be cause for war with Spain; and it was deemed best to organize under the laws of Louisiana, and ask annexation to that State. This was done. Members of the Legislature were elected in obedience to the laws of this State, and appeared at the meeting of that body, and asked to be admitted as members representing the late Florida parishes, then, as they assumed, a part and portion of the State.

When asked by what authority they claimed to be a part of the State, they answered, succinctly: "We have thrown off the Spanish yoke, and, as free and independent Americans, have annexed ourselves and the parishes we represent to this State, and claim as our right representation in this Legislature: we have joined ourselves to you, because it is our interest to do so, and yours, too; and we mean to be accepted." At the head of this representation was Thomas, who was the commander of the party capturing the fort; associated with him was Larry Moore. Thomas came from the river parishes; Moore from those contiguous to the lakes; both were Kentuckians, both illiterate, and both determined men. They did not speak as suppliants for favors, but as men demanding a right. They knew nothing of national law, and, indeed, very little of any other law; but were men of strong common sense, and clearly understood what was the interest of their people and their own, and, if determination could accomplish it, they meant to have it.

There were in the Legislature, at the time, two men of strong minds, well cultivated—Blanc and Raphignac; they represented the city, were Frenchmen—not French Creoles, but natives of la belle France. They led the opposition to the admission of the Florida parishes as part of the State, and their representatives as members of the Legislature. They were acquainted with national law, and appreciated the comity of nations, and were indisposed to such rash and informal measures as were proposed by Thomas and Moore. The portion of the State bordering upon this Spanish territory, and especially that part on the Mississippi, were anxious for the admission and union; they were unwilling that Spain should participate in the control and navigation of any part of the river; and, being peaceable and law-abiding, they wanted such close neighbors subject to the same government and laws. The influence of Blanc and Raphignac was likely to carry the majority and reject the application of the Floridans.

The pertinacious opposition of these men inflamed to anger Moore and Thomas. The matter, to them, was life or death. By some means they must get under the American flag, and they saw the only preventive in these two men. Moore (for it was a cold day when the decision was to be made) was seen to place the iron poker in the fire, and leave it there. Thomas was replying to Blanc in a most inflammatory and eloquent address; for, though rude and unlettered, he was full of native eloquence, and was very fluent: if he could not clothe his strong thoughts in pure English, he could in words well understood and keenly felt. They stimulated Moore almost to frenzy.

At that critical moment Raphignac walked to the fireplace, where Moore had remained sitting and listening to Thomas. Warm words were passing between Thomas and Blanc, when suddenly Moore grasped the heated poker—the end in the fire being at white heat—and calling to Thomas with a stentorian voice, "General Thomas! you take that white-headed French scoundrel, and I'll take blue-nose," and, brandishing his hot poker over his head, he charged, as with the bayonet, pointing the poker at the stomach of Raphignac. "Tonnerre!" exclaimed the frightened Frenchman, and, lifting both hands, he fell back against the wall. Moore still held the poker close to his stomach, as he called aloud, "Take the question, General Thomas! We come here to be admitted, and d—- me if we won't be, or this goes through your bread-basket, I tell you, Mr. Raphy Blue-nose!" Raphignac was a tall, thin man, with a terribly large bottled nose. At the end it was purple as the grape which had caused it. The question was put, and the proposition was carried, amid shouts of laughter. "Oh!" said Raphignac, as the poker was withdrawn, and Moore with it, "vat a d—- ole savage is dat Larry Moore!" Thus a part of West Florida became a part of Louisiana.

From that day forward, many of these men became most prominent citizens of the State. The son of Johnson—one of the leaders—became its Governor. Thomas was frequently a member of the Legislature, and once a member of Congress, from the Baton Rouge district, where he resided, and where he now sleeps in an honored grave. Morgan and Moore were frequently members of the Legislature. But of all the participants in this affair, Thomas was most conspicuous and most remarkable. He was almost entirely without education; but was gifted with great good sense, a bold and honest soul, and a remarkable natural eloquence. His manner was always natural and genial—never, under any circumstances, embarrassed or affected; and in whatever company he was thrown, or however much a stranger to the company, somehow he became the conspicuous man in a short time. The character in his face, the flash of his eye, the remarkable self-possession, the natural dignity of deportment, and his great good sense, attracted, and won upon every one. In all his transactions, he was the same plain, honest man—never, under any circumstances, deviating from truth—plain, unvarnished truth; rigidly stern in morals, but eminently charitable to the shortcomings of others. He was, from childhood, reared in a new country, amid rude, uncultivated people, and was a noble specimen of a frontier man; without the amenities of cultivated life, or the polish of education, yet with all the virtues of the Christian heart, and these, perhaps, the more prominently, because of the absence of the others. It was frequently remarked by him that he did not think education would have been of any advantage to him. It enabled men, with pretty words, to hide their thoughts, and deceive their fellow-men with a grace and an ease he despised; and it might have acted so with him, but it would have made him a worse and a more unhappy man. He now never did or said anything that he was ashamed to think of. He did not want to conceal his feelings and opinions, because he did not know how to do it; and he was sure if he attempted it he should make a fool of himself; for lies required so much dressing up in pretty words to make them look like truth, that he should fail for want of words; and truth was always prettiest when naked. In the main, the General was correct; but there are some who lie with a naiveté so perfect that even he would have deemed it truth naked and unadorned.

Larry Moore was a different man, but quite as illiterate and bold as Thomas, without his abilities; yet he was by no means devoid of mind. He resided upon the lake border, in the flat pine country, where the land is poor, and the people are ignorant and bigoted. Larry was far from being bigoted, save in his politics. He had been a Jeffersonian Democrat, he knew; but he did not know why. He lived off the road, and did not take the papers. He knew Jefferson had bought Louisiana and her people, and, as he understood, at seventy-five cents a head. He did not complain of the bargain, though he thought, if old Tom had seen them before the bargain was clinched, he would have hesitated to pay so much. But, anyhow, he had given the country a free government and a legislature of her own, and he was a Jefferson man, or Democrat, or whatever you call his party. He had been sent to the Legislature, and volunteered to meet the British under General Jackson.

From Jefferson to Jackson he transferred all his devotion; because the one bought, and the other fought for, the country. Some part of the glory of the successful defence of New Orleans was his, for he had fought for it, side by side with Old Hickory; and he loved him because he had imprisoned Louallier and Hall. The one was a Frenchman, the other an Englishman, and both were enemies of Jackson and the country.

Now he adored General Jackson, and was a Jackson Democrat. He did not know the meaning of the word, but he understood that it was the slogan of the dominant party, and that General Jackson was the head of that party. He knew he was a Jackson man, and felt whatever Jackson did was right, and he would swear to it. He was courageous and independent; feared no one nor anything; was always ready to serve a friend, or fight an enemy—a fist-fight; was kind to his neighbors, and always for the under dog in the fight. It would, after this, be supererogatory to say he was popular with such a people as his neighbors and constituents. Whenever he chose he was sent to the Senate by three parishes, or to the House by one; and in the Legislature he was always conspicuous. He knew the people he represented, and could say or do what he pleased; and for any offence he might give, was ready to settle with words, or a fist-fight. Physically powerful, he knew there were but few who, in a rough-and-tumble, could compete with him; and when his adversary yielded, he would give him his hand to aid him from the ground, or to settle it amicably in words. "Any way to have peace," was his motto.

There was, however, a different way of doing things in New Orleans, where the Legislature met. Gentlemen were not willing to wear a black eye, or bruised face, from the hands or cudgels of ruffians. They had a short way of terminating difficulties with them. A stiletto or Derringer returned the blow, and the Charity Hospital or potter's field had a new patient or victim. These were places for which Larry had no special penchant, and in the city he was careful to avoid rows or personal conflicts. He knew he was protected by the Constitution from arrest, or responsibility for words uttered in debate, and this was all he knew of the Constitution; yet he was afraid that for such words as might be offensive he would be likely to meet some one who would seek revenge in the night, and secretly. These responsibilities he chose to shun, by guarding his tongue by day, and keeping his chamber at night. Sometimes, however, in company with those whom he could trust, he would visit, at night, Prado's or Hicks's saloon, and play a little, just for amusement, with the "tiger."