Thomas Chandler Haliburton

“ Oh, I wish you could see them!”
“There it is, Sam,” he continued “That illustrates what I always told you of their social system here. We may boast of our independence, but that independence produces isolation. There is an individuality about every man and every family in America, that gives no right of inquiry, and imposes no duty of relief on any one. Sickness, and sorrow, and trouble, are not divulged; joy, success, and happiness are not imparted. If we are independent in our thoughts and actions, so are we left to sustain the burden of our own ills. ”

“ By a very natural process, the scene of our affections soon becomes identified with them, and a portion of our regard is transferred from animate to inanimate objects. The streams on which we sported, the mountains on which we clambered, the fields in which we wandered, the school where we were instructed, the church where we worshipped, the very bell whose pensive melancholy music recalled our wandering steps in youth, awaken in after-years many a tender thought, many a pleasing recollection, and appeal to the heart with the force and eloquence of love. ”

“ When the Whigs came into office, the Tories were not a party, they were the people of England. Where and what are they now? Will they ever have a lucid interval, or again recognise the sound of their own name? And yet, Sam, doubtful as the prospect of their recovery is, and fearful as the consequences of a continuance of their malady appear to be, one thing is most certain, a Tory government is the proper government for a monarchy, a suitable one for any country, but it is the only one for England. I do not mean an ultra one, for I am a moderate man, and all extremes are equally to be avoided. ”

“ Recollect that the distance from New Orleans to the head of the River is greater than from Halifax N. S., to Liverpool. I do not want to see colonists and Englishmen arrayed against each other, as different races, but united as one people, having the same rights and privileges, each bearing a share of the public burdens, and all having a voice in the general government.
“The love of distinction is natural to man. Three millions of people cannot be shut up in a colony. They will either turn on each other, or unite against their keepers. ”

“ Authors are vain people, and vanity as well as dignity is indigenous to a colony. Like a pastry-cook’s apprentice, I see so much of both their sweet things around me daily, that I have no appetite for either of them. ”

“ It is the heart of the Universe. All the circulation centres here, and hence are derived all those streams that give life and strength to the extremities. How vast, how populous, how rich, how well regulated, how well supplied, how clean, how well ventilated, how healthy!—what a splendid city! How worthy of such an empire and such a people! ”

“ How much of love, of tenderness, of forbearance, of kindness, of liberality, is embodied in that word—children: of the same father, members of the same great human family I Love is the bond of union—love dwelleth in the heart; and the heart must be cultivated, that the seeds of affection may germinate in it. ”

“ It is, that there is no such country in the world as England, and no such place in England as London; that London is better than any other town in winter, and quite as good as any other place in summer; that containing not only all that he requires, but all that he can wish, in the greatest perfection, he desires never to leave it. ”

“ With a Queen all men love, and a Prince all men like, royalty has a root in the heart here. Pity, too, for the English don’t desarve to have a Queen; and such a Queen as they have got too, hang me if they do. ”

“ When I first came I was nation proud of that title, ‘the Attache;’ now I am happified it’s nothin’ but ‘only an Attache,’ and I’ll tell you why. The great guns, and big bugs, have to take in each other’s ladies, so these old ones have to herd together. Well, the nobodies go together too, and sit together, and I’ve observed these nobodies are the pleasantest people at table, and they have the pleasantest places, because they sit down with each other, and are jist like yourself, plaguy glad to get some one to talk to. ”

“ We owe it a debt of gratitude that not only cannot be repaid, but is too great for expression. Their armies protect us within, and their fleets defend us, and our commerce without. Their government is not only paternal and indulgent, but is wholly gratuitous. We neither pay these forces, nor feed them, nor clothe them. We not only raise no taxes, but are not expected to do so. ”

“ The former is not needed, and a man does better without one; the latter is essential. A good book, like good wine, needs no bush; but to get an office, you want merits or patrons;—merits so great, that they cannot be passed over, or friends so powerful, they cannot be refused.”
“Oh! you can’t do nothin’, Squire,” said Mr. Sick, “send it back to Old Marm; tell her you have the misfortin to be a colonist; that if her son would like to be a constable, or a Hogreave, or a thistle-viewer, or sunthin’ or another of that kind, you are her man: but she has got the wrong cow by the tail this time. ”

“ A real Englishman is generous, loyal and brave, manly in his conduct and gentlemanly in his feeling. When I meet such a man as this, I cannot but respect him; but when I find that in addition to these good qualities, he has the further recommendation of being a churchman in his religion and a tory in his politics, I know then that his heart is in the right place, and I love him. ”

“ But surely, Squire, you will never so far forget the respect that is due to so high an officer as a Secretary of State, or, indeed, so far forget yourself as to adopt a course, which from its eccentricity, violence, and impropriety, must leave the impression that your intellects are disordered. Surely you will never be tempted to make the experiment? ”

“ Slick, “is a case in pint.”
“One moment, Sam,” said Mr. Hopewell.
“The very word ‘dependencies’ shows the state of the colonies. If they are to be retained, they should be incorporated with Great Britain. The people should be made to feel, not that they are colonists, but Englishmen. They may tinker at constitutions as much as they please; the root of the evil lies deeper than statesmen are aware of. O’Connell, when he agitates for a repeal of the Union, if he really has no ulterior objects beyond that of an Irish Parliament, does not know what he is talking about. ”

“ It’s a sort of divil me-kear-kind o’ audience; independent critters, that look at a feller full in the face, as sarcy as the divil; as much as to say, ‘Talk away, my old ‘coon, you won’t alter me, I can tell you, it’s all Bunkum.’
“Lord, I shall never forget poor old Davy Crocket’s last speech; there was no “bunkum” in that. He despised it; all good shots do, they aim right straight for the mark and hit it. There’s no shootin’ round the ring, with them kinder men. Poor old feller, he was a great hunter; a great shot with the rifle, a great wit, and a great man. ”

“ Cuss ‘em! Look at Dickens; was there ever a man made so much of, except La Fayette? And who was Dickens? Not a Frenchman that is a friend to us, not a native that has a claim on us; not a colonist, who, though English by name is still an American by birth, six of one and half a dozen of t’other, and therefore a kind of half-breed brother. No! he was a cussed Britisher ”

“ Sourcrout gig goggles ag’in, till he takes a fit of the asmy, sets down on a stump, claps both hands on his sides, and coughs, and coughs till he finds coughing no joke no more. Oh dear, dear convarted men, though they won’t larf themselves, make others larf the worst kind, sometimes; don’t they?
“I do believe, on my soul, if religion was altogether left to the voluntary in this world, it would die a nateral death; not that men wouldn’t support it, but because it would be supported under false pretences. Truth can’t be long upheld by falsehood. ”

“ Well, I looks to the sky, and I sees it was a considerable of a piece yet to daylight down, so I begins to pick strawberries as I goes along, and you never see any thing so thick as they were, and wherever the grass was long, they’d stand up like a little bush, and hang in clusters, most as big and twice as good, to my likin’, as garden ones. Well, the sun, it appears to me, is like a hoss, when it comes near dark it mends its pace, and gets on like smoke, so afore I know’d where I was, twilight had come peepin’ over the spruce tops. ”

“ If the English have been amused by the sketches their tourists have drawn of, the Yankees, perhaps the Americans may laugh over our sketches of the English. Let us make both of them smile, if we can, and endeavour to offend neither. If Dickens omitted to mention the festivals that were given in honour of his arrival in the States, he was doubtless actuated by a desire to avoid the appearance of personal vanity. A man cannot well make himself the hero of his own book. ”

“ This love of country is both natural and laudable: so natural, that to exclude a man from his country, is the greatest punishment that country can inflict upon him; and so laudable, that when it becomes a principle of action, it forms the hero and the patriot. ”

“ Dissent is cold and sour; it never appeals to the affections, but it scatters denunciations, and rules by terror. Scepticism is proud and self-sufficient. It refuses to believe in mysteries and deals in rhetoric and sophistry, and flatters the vanity, by exalting human reason. ”

“ They make excellent huntin’-coats, and would make beautiful razor-straps, bindin’ for books, and such like things; it would make a noble export. Tannin’ in hemlock bark cures the horrid nigger flavour. But then, we hante arrived at that state of philosophy; and when it is confined to one class of the human family, it would be dangerous. The skin of a crippled slave might be worth more than the critter was himself; and I make no doubt, we should soon hear of a stray nigger being shot for his hide, as you do of a moose for his skin, and a bear for his fur. ”

“ I like dignity: any man who has lived the greater part of his life in a colony is so accustomed to it, that he becomes quite enamoured of it, and wrapping himself up in it as a cloak, stalks abroad the “observed of all observers.” ”

“ The climate of England is healthy, and, as it admits of much out-door exercise, and is not subject to any very sudden variation, or violent extremes of heat and cold, it may be said to be good, though not agreeable; but its great humidity is very sensibly felt by Americans and other foreigners accustomed to a dry atmosphere and clear sky. That Mr. Slick should find a rainy day in the country dull, is not to be wondered at; it is probable it would be so any where, to a man who had so few resources, within himself, as the Attache. ”

“ If he thinks I’ll put that treatment to my wife, Miss Lot, into my pocket, and walk off with it, he’s mistaken in the child, that’s all, Sir. He may be stubbeder than I be, Uncle, that’s a fact; but if he was twice as stubbed, I’d walk into him like a thousand of bricks. I’ll give him a taste of my breed. Insultin’ a lady is a weed we don’t suffer to grow in our fields to Umbagog. Let him be who the devil he will, log-leg or leather-breeches—green-shirt or blanket-coat—land-trotter or river-roller, I’ll let him know there is a warrant out arter him, I know. ”

“ In this uncertainty, I will not omit this, perhaps my only opportunity, of making my most grateful acknowledgments, for the very great measure of indulgence I have received, from the public on both sides of the Atlantic, and of expressing a hope that Mr. Slick, who has been so popular as a Clockmaker may prove himself equally deserving of favour as “an Attache.” ”

“ The blessings of true religion are diffused among us, by the pious liberality of England, and a collegiate establishment at Windsor, supported by British friends, has for years supplied the Church, the Bar and the Legislature with scholars and gentlemen. Where the national funds have failed, private contribution has volunteered its aid, and means are never wanting for any useful or beneficial object.
“Our condition is a most enviable one. The history of the world has no example to offer of such noble disinterestedness and such liberal rule, as that exhibited by Great Britain to her colonies. ”

“ CHAPTER V. T’OTHER EEND OF THE GUN.
“Squire,” said Mr. Hopewell, one morning when we were alone on the quarter-deck, “sit down by me, if you please. I wish to have a little private conversation with you. I am a good deal concerned about Sam. I never liked this appointment he has received: neither his education, his habits, nor his manners have qualified him for it. He is fitted for a trader and for nothing else. He looks upon politics as he does upon his traffic in clocks, rather as profitable to himself than beneficial to others. Self is predominant with him. ”