Life and Remarkable Adventures of Israel R. Potter

by Israel Potter

So far from uttering unreasonable complaints, the hearts of my highly favoured countrymen ought rather to be filled with gratitude to that Being, by whose assistance they have been enabled to avert so many of the miseries of life, so peculiar to a portion of the oppressed of Europe at the present day—and who after groaning themselves for some time under the yoke of foreign tyranny, succeeded in emancipating themselves from slavery and are now blessed with the sweets of liberty, and the undisturbed enjoyment of their natural rights. Britain, imperious Britain, who once boasted the freedom of her government and the invincible power of her arms—now finds herself reduced to the humiliating necessity of receiving lessons of liberty from those whom till late she despised as slaves!—while our own country on the other hand, like a phoenix from her ashes, having emerged from a long, an expensive and bloody war, and established a constitution upon the broad and immovable basis of national equality, now promises to become the permanent residence of peace, liberty, science, and national felicity.—But, to return to the tale of my own sufferings—

While hundreds were daily becoming the wretched victims of hunger and starvation, I was enabled by my industry to obtain a morsel each day for my family; although this morsel, which was to be divided among four, would many times have proved insufficient to have satisfied the hunger of one—I seldom ever failed from morning to night to cry “old chairs to mend,” through the principal streets of the city, but many times with very little success—if I obtained four chairs to rebottom in the course of one day, I considered myself fortunate indeed, but instances of such good luck were very rare; it was more frequent that I did not obtain a single one, and after crying the whole day until I made myself hoarse, I was obliged to return to my poor family at night empty handed.

So many at one time engaged in the same business, that had I not resorted to other means my family must inevitably have starved—while crying “old chairs to mend,” I collected all the old rags, bits of paper, nails and broken glass which I could find in the streets, and which I deposited in a bag, which I carried with me for that purpose—these produced me a trifle, and that trifle when other resources failed, procured me a morsel of bread, or a few pounds of potatoes, for my poor wife and children—yet I murmured not as the dispensation of the supreme Arbiter of allotments, which had assigned to me so humbled a line of duty; although I could not have believed once, that I should ever have been brought to such a state of humiliating distress, as would have required such means to alleviate it.

In February 1793, War was declared by Great Britain against the republic of France—and although war is a calamity that ought always to be regretted by friends of humanity, as thousands are undoubtedly thereby involved in misery; yet, no event could have happened at that time productive of so much benefit to me, as this—it was the means of draining the country of those who had been once soldiers, and who, thrown out of employ by the peace, demanded a sum so trifling for their services, as to cause a reduction in the wages of the poor labouring class of people, to a sum insufficient to procure the necessaries of life for their families;—this evil was now removed—the old soldiers preferred an employment more in character of themselves, to doing the drudgery of the city—great inducements were held out to them to enlist, and the army was not long retarded in its operations for the want of recruits. My prospects in being enabled to earn something to satisfy the calls of nature, became now more flattering;—the great number that had been employed during the Peace in a business similar to my own, were now reduced to one half, which enabled me to obtain such an extra number of jobs at chair mending that I no longer found it necessary to collect the scrapings of the streets as I had been obliged to do for the many months past. I was now enabled to purchase for my family two or three pounds of fresh meat each week, an article to which (with one or two exceptions) we had been strangers for more than a year—having subsisted principally on potatoes, oat meal bread, and salt fish, and sometimes, but rarely however, were enabled to treat ourselves to a little skim milk.

Had not other afflictions attended me, I should not have had much cause to complain of very extraordinary hardships or privations from this period, until the conclusion of the war in 1817;—my family had increased, and to increase my cares there was scarcely a week passed but that some one of them was seriously indisposed—of ten children of which I was the father, I had the misfortune to bury seven under five years of age, and two more after they had arrived to the age of twenty—my last and only child now living, it pleased the Almighty to spare to me, to administer help and comfort to his poor afflicted parent, and without whose assistance I should (so far from having been enabled once more to visit the land of my nativity) ’ere this have paid the debt of nature in a foreign land, and that too by a death no less horrible than that of starvation!

As my life was unattended with any very extraordinary circumstance (except the one just mentioned) from the commencement of the war, until the re-establishment of monarchy in France, and the cessation of hostilities on the part of Great Britain, in 1817, I shall commence on the narration of my unparalleled sufferings, from the latter period, until that when by the kind interposition of Providence, I was enabled finally to obtain a passage to my native country; and to bid an adieu, and I hope and trust a final one, to that Island, where I had endured a complication of miseries beyond the power of description.

The peace produced similar effects to that of 1783—thousands were thrown out of employ and the streets of London thronged with soldiers seeking means to earn a humble subsistence. The cry of “Old Chairs to Mend,” (and that too at a very reduced price) was reiterated through the streets of London by numbers who but the month before were at Waterloo fighting the battles of their country—which, so seriously effected my business in this line, that to obtain food (and that of the most humble kind) for my family, I was obliged once more to have recourse to the collecting of scraps of rags, paper, glass, and such other articles of however trifling value that I could find in the streets.

It was at this distressing period, that, in consequence of the impossibility of so great a number who had been discharged from the service procuring a livelihood by honest means, that instances of thefts, and daring robberies, increased throughout Great Britain three fold. Bands of highwaymen and robbers hovered about the vicinity of London in numbers which almost defied suppression; many were taken and executed or transported; but this seemed to render the rest only the more desperately bold and cruel, while house-breaking and assassination were daily perpetrated with new arts and outrages in the very capital. Nor were the starving condition of the honest poor, who were to be met with at all times of day and in every street, seeking something to appease their hunger, less remarkable—unable to procure by any means within their power sustenance sufficient to support nature, some actually became the victims of absolute starvation, as the following melancholly instance will show:—a poor man exhausted by want; dropped down in the street—those who were passing unacquainted with the frequency of such melancholly events, at first thought him intoxicated; but after languishing half an hour, he expired. On the following day, an inquest was held on the body, and the verdict of the jury not giving satisfaction to the Coroner, they adjourned to the next day.—In the interim, two respectable surgeons were engaged to open the body, in which not a particle of nutriment was to be found except a little yellow substance, supposed to be grass, or some crude vegetable; which the poor man had swallowed to appease the cravings of nature!—this lamentable proof confirmed the opinion of the jury, that he died for want of the necessaries of life, and gave their verdict accordingly.

Miserable as was the fate of this man and that of many others, mine was but little better, and would ultimately have been the same, had it not been for the assistance afforded me by my only remaining child, a lad but seven years of age. I had now arrived to an advanced age of life, and although possessing an extraordinary constitution for one of my years, yet by my incessant labours to obtain subsistence for my family, I brought on myself a severe fit of sickness, which confined me three weeks to my chamber; in which time my only sustenance was the produce of a few half pennies, which my poor wife and little son had been able to earn each day by, disposing of matches of their own make, and in collecting and disposing of the articles of small value, of which I have before made mention, which were to be found thinly scattered in the streets. In three weeks it was the will of providence so far to restore to me my strength, as to enable me once more to move abroad in search of something to support nature.

The tenement which I at this time rented and which was occupied by my family, was a small and wretched apartment of a garret, and for which I had obligated myself to pay sixpence per day, which was to be paid at the close of every week; and in case of failure (agreeable to the laws or customs of the land) my furniture was liable to be seized. In consequence of my illness, and other misfortunes, I fell six weeks in arrears for rent; and having returned one evening with my wife and son, from the performance of our daily task, my kind readers may judge what my feelings must have been to find our room stripped of every article (of however trifling value) that it contained!—alas, oh heavens! to what a state of wretchedness were we now reduced! if there was any thing wanting to complete our misery, this additional drop to the cup of our afflictions, more than sufficed. Although the real value of all that they had taken from me, or rather robbed me of, would not if publicly disposed of, have produced a sum probably exceeding five dollars; yet it was our all, except the few tattered garments that we had on our backs, and were serviceable and all important to us in our impoverished situation. Not an article of bedding of any kind was left us on which to repose at night, or a chair or stool on which we could rest our wearied limbs! but, as destitute as we were, and naked as they had left our dreary apartment, we had no other abiding place.