Refreshed from the fatigues of this long wandering tramp, we then took a fresh start 304 years ago from Sainte Augustine, plodded on northwards forty-eight years to Jamestown, in six years more passed the little group of Dutch cabins on Manhattan island, and so, trending off eastward, followed the wavy coast for eight years more, until we brought up, in 1620, at the newly erected temperance inn at Plymouth, where we halted, glad even of its scant and unpromising cheer. Very early after leaving the James, we were accosted by that well-known wag, John Smith, who turned up in high feather with Pocahontas,—the future mother of Virginia,—and who keeps turning up and down everywhere in all humors, moods, and tenses,—active, passive, transitive, and intransitive,—to suit and amuse every taste.
A Puritan Breakfast.
(p. 259)
Mile-stone after mile-stone has been left behind us. We have been hindered by Indian ambushes along the wayside, and have been obliged often to pick out arrows shot into our covered emigrant-wagon, as we have toiled up and over the New England hills, through the Mohawk Valley, and along the broad bottom-lands of Virginia, Georgia, and the Carolinas. French gentlemen with pleasant manners have often stopped us at cross-roads, and attempted by very sharp arguments to convince us that we were on the wrong track. Several large parties of these Gallic gentlemen, at various narrow parts of the way, especially in 1689, 1710, 1745, and notably for nine consecutive years from 1754 to 1763, have warned us back, and indeed endeavored to turn us entirely off the road, claiming that it was a private one of their own. But past all these have we succeeded in pushing our historic journey, shunning the miry places left open by colonial negligence, the shaky bridges full of witch holes, the badly mended ruts of religious bigotry, and the rough patches of corduroy posts, laid crosswise over trembling, low-lying swamps of political scheming and financial speculation. Here and there we have found bits of plank road, laboriously and ambitiously placed over the public highway in front of colleges, school-houses, churches, and occasionally through pleasant thrifty villages.
Now and then we have ascended, after much patient up-hill work, to large, noble summits of civil or religious freedom, commanding wide horizons and broad views; but often, too, have we felt a sinking of spirits, a saddening depression, as we have been compelled to descend to lower levels and to jog along again over wearisome flats.
We have been detained occasionally by civil-spoken English governors and royal councillors, who have persuaded us to alight and partake of their cheer, which, it must be admitted, was much better than that which we obtained along the common road; but well knowing that it had never been honestly paid for or justly earned, we should have found it more palatable had it been thus properly seasoned. Landed proprietors, with smooth, royal manners, have, also, sometimes stopped us to state little points of difference between themselves and their North American tenants.
Several times have we crossed the Atlantic together for the purpose of obtaining certain information about the colonial ways, rights, manners, customs, and costumes, which could only be cleared up by papers which had been either accidentally or carelessly left behind, when the first emigrants packed their chests with the prime necessaries for subsistence on their briny journey. As we returned and again resumed our land travels, we had only proceeded a short distance before we were stopped by unceremonious and hard-visaged European highwaymen, French, Dutch, and English, with whom we have had stout fights, to prevent the party which we were convoying from being captured, plundered, and carried off to foreign lands. But, thanks to a kind Providence and the strong arms and plucky vigor of the brave chaps inside the wagon, we have been able to disperse these banditti. Two of them, however, as we have just noted, escaping from those lesser encounters, entered formally into a set contest with each other for the championship and custody of our historical party,—a contest which came off a few rods from the top of the hill, and which we halted to witness.
At last, however, we have reached the summit of the great pass,—the high beacon-point of American history,—where the sleepless, vigilant eagle sits screaming, while his strong, horny claws grasp the flag-staff, from whose top the flag of the married empires is anxiously ready, day and night, to slap in its saucy, quarrelsome face every wind that whispers a provocation. Here, on this elevated plateau, we come suddenly upon a very nice party of picturesquely dressed, intelligent, earnest, and thoughtful gentlemen, looking like a large gathering of state midwives, called together to consider a most important, impending family event.
Let us take breath for a few moments after our long ascent, and look more carefully at this noteworthy group. It is the 4th of July,—always a very hot day; and yet, although the weather is characteristic, and there is very warm work ahead, all the party—numbering that day fifty-one persons—seem, with few exceptions, to be very cool and unheated. They are quite unconcerned about the thunder-storm, signalled by white caps fringing the black heads which crowd the eastern horizon beyond the Atlantic, and which has shaken from its heavy locks leaden powder, which has sprinkled the exposed plantations, Breed’s Hill, Concord, Lexington, Ticonderoga, Crown Point, and Long Island, and even shaken its disastrous dust upon Quebec and Montreal.
This notable group is sometimes called the Second Continental Congress. Remarkable in looks and marked men are nearly all of the persons there gathered,—remarkable for their average youth, as most of the members became equally famous for great age,—remarkable, too, in a majority of the whole number, for handsome features and intellectual presence, for their aptitude for, and ready proficiency in, the then very mysterious and royal business of statecraft, law-making, and army-raising,—for their thoughtful air and high-bred bearing, and their readiness in argument, logic, and knowledge of human rights and human nature; marked by the heavy Hanoverian displeasure of George III., of the aristocratic Frederic, Lord North, his minister, and of Sir William Howe, his military generalissimo in the Colonies. Many of them, too, were marked by heads so peculiar that the three English gentlemen just named became very desirous of having them to put into the English State Museum, and even went so far as to offer heavy sterling rewards for any one who would secure them.