“In none,” interrupted my friend, “except where merchants and their agents hold a higher rank than statesmen and legislators; in which it is a disgrace to be a politician, and a reproach to be called a patriot.”
At this moment one of the waiters announced breakfast; which agreeable news put us all into the best possible humour, and, amid the hilarity excited by hock and champaign, we soon forgot fashions, politics, professions, and even the riches of this world.
While we had thus been wasting our time, a hundred ships had probably discharged their cargoes; a thousand emigrants from all parts of the globe had landed with big hearts and stout hopes to realise their dreams of the free and happy West. Many of them might have already commenced their peregrination towards the Mississippi, where their friends and relatives who preceded them were already clearing the wilderness, or enjoying the fruits of their labour. Fortunes might have been lost or won, merchants established or ruined, politicians raised or undone. Many an enterprising pioneer might have formed a plan for a new settlement; while hundreds of others were probably employed in transporting the produce of the fertilized West to the seaports of the Atlantic. Wealth and misery had perhaps been expected by thousands with the arrival of the mail or packet. Fathers might have been separated from their children,—husbands from their wives,—in the eager and universal quest of fortune, and many a heart left bleeding with the loss of all it held dear; while others, happier than these, might have greeted the unexpected return of their friends and relatives.
Is it not strange, thought I, before I had drunk the first glass of champaign, that in a country which more than any other convinces one of the vanity of human pursuits,—in which wealth, honour, and distinction are mere bubbles floating on the surface of society,—men should be more eager after aristocratic distinctions, than where these are founded on an historical basis, and in accordance with the customs of the people? Such, however, is the irony of Fate, inseparable from nations as from individuals.
CHAPTER II.
Return to the City.—Arrival of the London Packet.—Reception of the Passengers.—American Speculations on an English Lord.—Introduction to a Fashionable Boarding-house.—A New England Minerva.—A Belle.—A Lady from Virginia.—Conduct of Fashionable young Ladies towards Gentlemen of an inferior standing.—Confusion produced by the Dinner-bell.
Duke Senior.—“What fool is this?”
Jaques.—“O worthy fool! One that has been a courtier,
And says, if ladies be but young and fair,
They have the gift to know it.”
As You Like It, Act. II. Scene 7.
On our return to the city, the steam-boat was quite animated. The packet-ship T*** had arrived from London, and, having reported a clean bill of health, was permitted to land her passengers. Our boat, therefore, went alongside of her, and was greeted by loud cheers from the steerage passengers, who, dressed in their Sunday’s best, were crowding the bow, gangway, and even the rigging of the vessel, eagerly awaiting their long-hoped-for delivery from imprisonment.
The company on board of our boat, which, besides ourselves, consisted of a dozen gentlemen and nearly as many ladies, returned the salute in a dignified manner by a wild stare of amazement; until, turning to the captain of the packet, who had jumped on the bulwarks of our boat to assist in landing his passengers, a fashionably dressed lady, accompanied by a gentleman, inquired what sort of cabin passengers he had brought with him?