A Legend of New York.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "TALES OF AN ANTIQUARY."
I cannot tell how the truth may be, I say the tale as 'twas said to me.—Scott.
The reader perhaps scarcely requires to be reminded, that an acknowledgment of the independence of America, and preliminaries of peace between that country and Britain, were signed at Paris, November 30th, 1782; though it was not until the following February that a vessel from the United States first arrived in the river Thames. Early in that month the friend who communicated this narrative chanced to visit an old London physician, who had long since retired from practice, and who had, oddly enough, selected as the seat of his repose one of those ancient houses, built half of brick and half of wood, which stood within the last seven years, on the western side of the Southwark end of old London Bridge, partly hanging over the roaring water, and partly standing in the street called Bridge-Foot. Another visitor, who was then present, was a zealous old Dissenting clergyman, probably originally of the family of Dunwoodie, or Dinwithie, but who at this time was called Doctor Downwithit; a name which he singularly well deserved, from his practice of beating the cushion in his fervency, in the pulpit, and of vehemently striking the table in conversation, to enforce his arguments and observations. In supporting these, he was generally rather loud and tenacious; and one of his most favourite notions was, that almost all genuine religion had travelled westward to America, which had thus become the ark wherein it was preserved, and the very Salem of the modern world. He believed, however, on the authority of the early historians of the country, and especially on that of the strange narratives of the Mather family, that certain parts were grievously vexed by witches and evil spirits; for, like many of his brethren, he held that compacts with the infernal powers were still possible. But if New England were thus troubled, he also considered that Old England was in a still worse condition; for he maintained the well-known saying to be no allegory, but a literal fact, that Satan was bodily resident in London!
The remainder of the party, to which the reader is now introduced, consisted of the old physician himself, and his wife,—a little sharp old dame, most terrifically stiff and ceremonious, and dressed in the most solemn fashion of half-a-dozen years previous. Her hair, superbly powdered, was most exactly combed straight upright over a cushion, the sides being curiously frizzed, and the back turned up in a broad loop; upon the top of which tower appeared a tremulous little gauze cap, decorated with ribands, and fastened by long pins with heads of diamond-paste. The rest of her dress consisted of a stiff rose-colour silk gown, of great length in the waist, and bordered in every part with rich full trimmings; whilst the front, and all around it, was open, and drawn up in large festoons with knots of riband, discovering an under garment of purple silk, and a round and full-flounced white muslin apron. Black silk shoes, with high French heels and rich diamond-cut steel buckles, completed her costume. Next to this stately dress, if there were any thing in which Mistress Cleopatra Curetoun was most particularly particular, it was in observing and exacting the most punctilious manners, and in the exhibition and preservation of her tea-equipage; a very rare, very small, and very fragile, set of Nan-kin porcelain, which forty years back, was in the highest estimation and value.
The recent peace with America, and particularly the arrival of a ship from the United States, had inspired Dr. Downwithit with even more than his usual warmth and energy in discoursing of them, especially when he spake of the unlooked-for happiness and glory of "the Thirteen Stripes of America at that moment flying in the river!" He also farther expressed his joyful zeal by frequent and vigorous blows upon Mrs. Cleopatra's small round tea-table, of the carved Honduras mahogany then so fashionable, which approached in colour to ebony itself. At every stroke of his broad and heavy fist, all the china simultaneously leaped and chattered, and the table declined and rose again with a creaking jerk, which showed how much it was internally affected by the worthy preacher's zealous orations; and it may be doubted if either spring or hinge ever perfectly recovered them. At each of these convulsions, Mrs. Cleopatra regarded her visitor with a withering frown, every lineament of which was visible, from the extremely open character of her head-dress; and she appeared to be earnestly wishing that the boisterous admirer of America were safe in irons on board the vessel he declaimed about, with thrice the thirteen stripes duly laid upon his back.
"The Thirteen Stripes of America in the river, madam!" exclaimed the doctor for the twentieth time; and for the twentieth time he drove his fist upon the table with the aforesaid consequences; "the Thirteen Stripes of America in the river!—it's a step towards the universal peace of the world, and an event not to be paralleled in our times! But what do we hereupon? Why, I'll tell you: instead of receiving our American brethren with repentance, kindness, and honour, we let their ship come up even to the very Custom-house with as little regard as a herring-buss or the Gravesend tilt-boat!
"Convince yourself of it by today's London Chronicle. Only listen. 'February 8th. Mr. Hammet begged to inform the House of a very recent and extraordinary event; that, at the very time he was speaking, an American ship was in the river Thames, with the Thirteen Stripes flying on board!'—an interjectional bang upon the table.—'She offered to enter at the Custom-house, but the officers were at a loss what to do.' Now, Mr. Physician, what have you to say to this?"
"Why, doctor," said Curetoun merrily, "that brother Jonathan was in vastly great haste to get a week sooner where nobody wanted him at all; and so we may conclude that he's very glad the war's over, notwithstanding his swaggering."
"But, sir, we do want our Transatlantic brother," instantly rejoined Downwithit, in a vehement and positive voice; "we want all those blessings which America has in such abundance,—her liberty, her patriotism, her pastoral simplicity, her temperance, her humanity, her piety, her——"