Israel Potter

“ For Israel Potter is not merely another good man adrift in a world devoid of goodness: he is, above all, an American, whose ideals and aims are derived from that same self-reliant democratic ethos which Whitman and Emerson were later to celebrate. Hired laborer, farmer, chain bearer, hunter, trapper, Indian trader, merchant sailor, whaler, soldier, courier, spy, carpenter, and beggar, through it all, Israel remains the American, the man who, even in the hardships of exile, insists that all will be well once he can again walk “on American ground.” ”

“ This lighted London of some of its superfluous hordes, and lost Israel the subterranean society of his friends, the corporals and sergeant, with whom wandering forlorn through the black kingdoms of mud, he used to spin yarns about sea prisoners in hulks, and listen to stories of the Black Hole of Calcutta; and often would meet other pairs of poor soldiers, perfect strangers, at the more public corners and intersections of sewers—the Charing-Crosses below; one soldier having the other by his remainder button, earnestly discussing the sad prospects of a rise in bread, or the tide ”

“ It is this quality, this peculiarly “frontier” attempt to reconcile the promise of life with the actualities of existence, that stamps the real Israel Potter. Somehow, for the American, life is never as good, as ennobling, or as fulfilling as he feels it was meant to be. For against his dream of selfhood the American is forced to measure the accidental evil of existence itself. It was as such a gauge that Melville attempted to make use of this short Life of an insignificant “native of Cranston, Rhode Island.” ”

“ As it proved to be with so many of his countrymen, success was Israel’s failure. He returned, in May, 1823, after an absence of 48 years, to an America that was already far different from the country he remembered leaving at the age of 31. He had grown older and now he looked back; America, too, had grown older, but now it looked forward. Israel had come home to die; America was far too busy in the conquest of itself to give death anything more than the platitudinous comfort of words. ”

“ The next business in which I engaged was that of brick making, and which together with that of gardening, I pursued in the summer seasons almost exclusively for five years; in all which time I was not once suspected of being an American, yet, I must confess that my feelings were not unfrequently most powerfully wrought upon, by hearing my countrymen dubbed with cowardice, and by those too who had been thrice flogged or frightened by them when attempting to ascend the heights of Bunker Hill! ”

“ IN the foregoing pages we have attempted a simple narrative of the life and extraordinary adventures of one of the few survivors who fought and bled for American Independence. There is not probably another now living who took an equally active part in the Revolutionary war, whose life has been marked with more extraordinary events, and who has drank deeper of the cup of adversity, than the aged veteran with whose History we now beg liberty to present the American public. ”

“ The house was thronged early in the evening by many of the “good and faithful subjects of King George,” who had assembled to take a peep at the “yankee rebel,” (as they termed me) who had so recently taken an active part in the rebellious war, then raging in his Majesty’s American provinces—while others came apparently to gratify a curiosity in viewing, for the first time, an “American Yankee!” whom they had been taught to believe a kind of non descripts—beings of much less refinement than the ancient Britains, and possessing little more humanity than the Buccaneers. ”

“ At the age of Seventy-Nine, an age in which it cannot be expected that the lamp of human life can long remain unextinguished, he has arrived among us, in a state of penury and want, to seek in common with his countrymen the enjoyment of a few of the blessings produced by American valour, in her memorable conflict with the mother country and in which he took a distinguished part. ”

“ I had now been three days without food (with the exception of a single two-penny loaf) and felt myself unable much longer to resist the cravings of nature—my spirits, which until now had armed me with fortitude began to forsake me—indeed I was at this moment on the eve of despair! when, calling to mind that grief would only aggravate my calamity, I endeavoured to arm my soul with patience ”

“ That one half the world knows not how the other half lives, is a common and just observation;—complaints and murmurs are frequent I find among those of the inhabitants of this highly favoured country, who are not only blessed with the liberty and means of procuring for themselves and their families, the necessaries and comforts, but even many of the luxuries of life!—they complain of poverty, and yet never knew what it was to be really poor! ”

“ I might add many more melancholly instances of the extreme poverty and distress of the wretched poor of London, and with which I was personally acquainted; but the foregoing it is presumed will be sufficient to satisfy the poorest class of inhabitants of America, that, if deprived of the superfluities, so long as they can obtain the necessaries of life, they ought not to murmur, but have reason to thank the Almighty that they were born Americans. ”

“ The differences between what Melville saw in Israel’s life and what Israel himself saw are interesting enough: for Melville, who saw the truth so intensely that he found himself unable to commit his perceptions to paper, Israel’s life was further proof of man’s insignificance in a universe whose order remains completely beyond his comprehension; but Israel, who is neither what Madison Avenue or Socrates calls a “thinking man,” constantly confuses the what is of life with the what ought to be. One sees the limitations of Israel’s perception in his attitude towards Benjamin Franklin ”

“ Great as was my joy on finding myself once more among my countrymen, I felt not a little impatient for the arrival of the happy moment when I should be able to meet my son. Agreeable to the orders which I received from the American Consul, I applied to the Custom House in New-York for a passage from thence to Boston, and with which I was provided on board a regular packet which sailed the morning ensuing—in justice to the captain, I must say that I was treated by him as well as by all on board, with much civility. ”

“ When I parted with the Consul he presented me with half a crown, and directions where to apply for board—it was at a public Inn where I found many American seamen, who, like myself, were boarded there at the Consul’s expence, until passages could be obtained for them to America—I was treated by them with much civility, and by hearing them daily recount their various and remarkable adventures, as well as by relating my own, I passed my time more agreeably than what I probably should have done in other society. ”

“ Israel praises Franklin as “that great and good man,” the living embodiment of all that the American dream promises. For Melville, on the other hand, Franklin is not the embodiment but the decay of that dream, the sophisticated but soulless statesman who is damned as “everything but a poet.” The real Israel dismisses Franklin in two pages, but Melville cannot dismiss him for six chapters. “It’s wisdom that’s cheap, and it’sviii fortune that’s dear,” Melville has his Israel say as he disgustedly slams down a copy of Poor Richard. But the real Israel was a believer in wisdom ”

“ Perhaps it was also his limited perception that enabled Israel to devote almost half these memoirs to his years of exile; he records his sufferings in detail, a record that was so painful to Melville that he could do no more than hurriedly outline it in a few short, concluding chapters. One can scarcely see what other choice Melville could have made—such intense and unalleviated suffering can easily make of its victim a mock-epic buffoon. In his own story, Israel manages to avoid this fate, but only because he does not fully understand what is happening to him. Melville saw the truth ”

“ I was not I must confess displeased nor a little disappointed to witness the evident emotions of pity and commiseration, which this woeful declaration appeared to excite in their minds: as I had supposed them too much accustomed to witness scenes of misery and distress, to have their feelings much effected by a brief recital of my sufferings and deprivations—but in justice to them I must say, that although a very illiterate, I found them (with a few exceptions) a humane and benevolent people. ”

“ Doomed by the fate of War to be early separated from kindred and friends, and to be conveyed by a foreign foe a prisoner of war from his native land, to a far distant country, where after having for 48 years experienced almost every hardship and deprivation of which adverse fortune is productive, providence appears at length to have so far interfered in his behalf, as to provide means whereby he has been enabled at an advanced age once more to visit and inhale the pure air of his native land. ”

“ To conclude—although I may be again unfortunate in a renewal of my application to government, for that reward to which my services so justly entitle me—yet I feel thankful that I am priviledged (after enduring so much) to spend the remainder of my days, among those who I am confident are possessed of too much humanity, to see me suffer; and which I am sensible I owe to the divine goodness, which graciously condescended to support me under my numerous afflictions, and finally enabled me to return to my native country in the 79th year of my age—for this I return unfeigned thanks to the Almighty ”

“ I had in vain represented to my unfeeling creditor my inability to satisfy his demands, and in vain represented to him the suffering condition of those wholly dependent on me; unfortunately for me, he proved to be one of those human beasts, who, having no soul, take pleasure in tormenting that of others, who never feel but in their own misfortunes, and never rejoice but in the afflictions of others—of such beings, so disgraceful to human nature, I assure the reader London contains not an inconsiderable number. ”

“ After acquainting myself with the state of my boy’s health, &c. my next enquiry was whether he found the country as it had been described by me, and how he esteemed it—“well, extremely well (was his reply) since my arrival I have fared like a Prince, I have meat every day, and have feasted on American puddings and pies (such as you used to tell me about) until I have become almost sick of them!” ”

“ I took a small ready furnished chamber, in Red Cross Street, where with the fruits of my hard earnings, I was enabled to live tolerable comfortable for three or four years—when, by sickness and other unavoidable circumstances, I was doomed to endure miseries uncommon to human nature. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Why at one given stone in the flagging does man after man cross yonder street? What plebeian Lear or Œdipus, what Israel Potter, cowers there by the corner they shun? From this turning point, then, we too cross over and skim events to the end; omitting the particulars of the starveling’s wrangling with rats for prizes in the sewers ”

“ And it is because of this lack of perception that his own story is a far truer portrayal of the mystique of victimization than is Melville’s novel. Israel consistently does the admirable thing at the right time, only to see himself mocked by circumstance or fate or whatever label we choose to give to the quiet terror that life so frequently breeds. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The peace had thrown thousands who had taken an active part in the war, out of employ; London was thronged with them—who, in preference to starving, required no other consideration for their labour than a humble living, which had a lamentable effect in reducing the wages of the labouring class of people ”

“ We left our miserable habitation in the morning, with hopes that the wretched spectacle that we presented, weak and emaciated as we were, would move some to pity and induce them to impart that relief which our situations so much required—it would however be almost endless to recount the many rebuffs we met with in our attempts to crave85 assistance. Some few indeed were more merciful, and whatever their opinion might be of the cause of our misery, the distress they saw us in excited their charity, and for their own sakes were induced to contribute a trifle to our wants. ”

“ I continued in Boston about a fortnight, and then set out on foot to visit once more my native State. My son accompanied me as far as Roxbury, when I was obliged reluctantly to part with him, and proceeded myself no farther on my journey that day than Jamaica plains, where at a public house I tarried all night—from thence I started early the next morning and reached Providence about 5 o’-clock in the afternoon, and obtained lodgings at a public Inn in High-Street. ”