bridge and the ferry, and made their way through some marshy grounds up to the town of Hackensack, and there passed the river. 5 the seat of war? The answer is easy: New-England is not infested with tories, and we are. I have been tender in raising the cry against these men, and used numberless arguments to show them their danger, but it will not do to sacrifice a world either to their folly or their baseness. The period is now arrived, in which either they or we must change our sentiments, or one or both must fall. And what is a tory? Good God! what is he? I should not be afraid to go with a hundred whigs against a thousand tories, were they to attempt to get into We brought off as much baggage as the wagons could contain, the rest was lost. The simple object was to bring off the garrison, and march them on till they could be strengthened by the Jersey or Pennsylvania militia, so as to be enabled to make a stand. We staid 10 four days at Newark, collected our outposts with some of the Jersey militia, and marched out twice to meet the enemy, on being informed that they were advancing, though our numbers were 15 arms. Every tory is a coward; for greatly inferior to theirs. Howe, in my little opinion, committed a great error in generalship in not throwing a body of forces off from Staten Island through Amboy, by which means he might have 20 seized all our stores at Brunswick, and intercepted our march into Pennsylvania; but if we believe the power of hell to be limited, we must likewise believe that their agents are under some providential 25 controul. I shall not now attempt to give all the particulars of our retreat to the Delaware; suffice it for the present to say, that both officers and men, though greatly 30 harrassed and fatigued, frequently without rest, covering, or provision, the inevitable consequences of a long retreat, bore it with a manly and martial spirit. All their wishes centered in one, which 35 was, that the country would turn out and help them to drive the enemy back. Voltaire has remarked that King William never appeared to full advantage but in difficulties and in action; the same 40 remark may be made on General Washington, for the character fits him. There is a natural firmness in some minds which cannot be unlocked by trifles, but which, when unlocked, discovers a cabi- 45 net of fortitude; and I reckon it among those kind of public blessings, which we do not immediately see, that God hath blessed him with uninterrupted health, and given him a mind that can even 50 flourish upon care. I shall conclude this paper with some miscellaneous remarks on the state of our affairs; and shall begin with asking the following question, Why is it that 55 the enemy have left the New-England provinces, and made these middle ones servile, slavish, self-interested fear is the foundation of toryism; and a man under such influence, though he may be cruel, never can be brave. But, before the line of irrecoverable separation be drawn between us, let us reason the matter together: Your conduct is an invitation to the enemy, yet not one in a thousand of you has heart enough to join him. Howe is as much deceived by you as the American cause is injured by you. He expects you will all take up arms, and flock to his standard, with muskets on your shoulders. Your opinions are of no use to him, unless you support him personally, for 'tis soldiers, and not tories, that he wants. I once felt all that kind of anger, which a man ought to feel, against the mean principles that are held by the tories: a noted one, who kept a tavern at Amboy, was standing at his door, with as pretty a child in his hand, about eight or nine years old, as ever I saw, and after speaking his mind as freely as he thought was prudent, finished with this unfatherly expression. "Well! give me peace in my day." Not a man lives on the continent but fully believes that a separation must some time or other finally take place, and a generous parent should have said, "If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace;" and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty. Not a place upon earth might be so happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world. and she has nothing to do but to trade with them. A man can distinguish himself between temper and principle, and I am as confident, as I am that God FRANCIS HOPKINSON (1737-1791) During the period before Irving, Philadelphia was the literary and artistic centre of America. Here were to be found such leaders as Franklin, Freneau, Thomas Godfrey, Benjamin Webb, the painter, and Hopkinson, the last in many respects the literary superior of them all. The first matriculant in what is now the University of Pennsylvania, graduated in 1757; a brilliant student of the law, in later years leading lawyer before the supreme court in the Dartmouth College case; a man of cosmopolitan experience, twice resident in England as an officer under the Crown; a patriot and a statesman, signer of the Declaration of Independence, he was one of the most cultured and most symmetrically rounded of all the early American writers. Literature was to him an avocation, pursued only as he could find time from more pressing duties, but he pursued it his life long. His literary remains have been published in three large volumes. He was the first humorist who may be called genuinely American in his humor. Many of his facetious and satirical essays have a singularly modern style: it is but a short step from Hopkinson to Washington Irving. He was a caustic satirist both in prose and verse and a controversialist who wielded a cogent pen. Unlike most of the poets of his period,-Barlow, Trumbull, Freneau, Dwight, and the others he had no vision of an American poetry of epic dimensions. He was distinctively a lyrist, and judging from the few lyrics that he allowed himself to publish, he had a lyric genius that was equalled in its time only by Freneau's. By a curious irony, he has been remembered almost solely because of a rollicking bit of doggerel dashed off during the British occupancy of Philadelphia, his mock heroic "Battle of the Kegs" [pronounced in 1778 kags undoubtedly], an effusion the most popular in its day of all the revolutionary balladry. A LETTER FROM A GENTLEMAN 5 Dear Sir, The peculiar customs of every country appear to strangers awkward and absurd, but the inhabitants consider them as very proper and even necessary. Long habit imposes on the understanding, and reconciles it to any 10 thing that is not manifestly pernicious. or immediately destructive. The religion of a country is scarcely held in greater veneration than its established customs: and it is almost as 15 difficult to produce an alteration in the one as in the other. Any interference of government for the reformation of national customs, however trivial and absurd they may be, never fails to pro- 20 duce the greatest discontent, and sometimes dangerous convulsions. Of this there are frequent instances in history. Bad habits are most safely removed by the same means that established them, 25 viz. by imperceptible gradations, and the constant example and influence of the higher class of the people. We are apt to conclude that the fashions and manners of our own country are most rational and proper, because the eye and the understanding have long since been reconciled to them, and we ridicule or condemn those of other nations on account of their novelty; yet the foreigner will defend his national habits with at least as much plausibility as we can our own. The truth is, that reason has little to do in the matter. Customs are for the most part arbitrary, and one nation has as good a right to fix its peculiarities as another. It is of no purpose to talk of convenience as a standard: everything becomes convenient by practice and habit. I have read somewhere of a nation (in Africa, I think) which is governed by twelve counsellors. When these counsellors are to meet on public business, twelve large earthen jars are set in two rows, and filled with water. The counsellors enter the. apartment one after another, stark naked, and each leaps into a jar, where he sits up to the chin in water. When the jars are all filled with counsellors, they proceed to deliberate on the great concerns of the nation. This, to be sure, forms a very grotesque scene; 5 but the object is to transact the public The established manners of every country are the standards of propriety with the people who have adopted them; and every nation assumes the right of 15 considering all deviations therefrom as barbarisms and absurdities. The Chinese have retained their laws and customs for ages immemorial: and although they have long had a commer- 20 cial intercourse with European nations, and are well acquainted with their improvements in the arts, and their modes of civilization, yet they are so far from being convinced of any superiority in the 25 European manners, that their government takes the most serious measures to prevent the customs of foreigners taking root amongst them. It employs their utmost vigilance to enjoy the benefits of 30 commerce, and at the same time guard against innovations that might affect the characteristic manners of the people. Since the discovery of the Sandwich islands in the South-Sea, they have been 35 visited by ships from several nations; yet the natives have shown no inclination to prefer the dress and manners of the visitors to their own. It is even probable that they pity the ignorance of the 40 Europeans they have seen, as far removed from civilization; and value themselves on the propriety and advantage of their own customs. There is nothing new in these observa- 45 tions, and I had no intention of making them when I sat down to write, but they obtruded themselves upon me. My intention was to give you some account of the people of these new states; but I am 50 not sufficiently informed for the purpose, having, as yet, seen little more than the cities of New-York and Philadelphia. I have discovered but few national singularities amongst them. Their customs 55 and manners are nearly the same with those of England, which they have long been used to copy. For, previous to the late revolution, the Americans were taught from their infancy to look up to the English as the patterns of perfection in all things. I have, however, observed one custom, which, for aught I know, is peculiar to this country. An account of it will serve to fill up the remainder of this sheet, and may afford you some amusement. When a young couple are about to enter on the matrimonial state, a neverfailing article in the marriage treaty is, that the lady shall have and enjoy the free and unmolested rights of WHITEWASHING, with all its ceremonials, privileges, and appurtenances. You will wonder what this privilege of white-washing is. I will endeavor to give you an idea of the ceremony, as I have seen it performed. There is no season of the year in which the lady may not, if she pleases, claim her privilege; but the latter end of May is generally fixed upon for the purpose. The attentive husband may judge, by certain prognostics, when the storm is nigh at hand. If the lady grows uncommonly fretful, finds fault with the servants, is discontented with the children, and complains much of the nastiness of everything about her: these are symptoms which ought not to be neglected, yet they sometimes go off without any further effect. But if, when the husband rises in the morning, he should observe in the yard, a wheel-barrow, with a quantity of lime in it, or should see certain buckets filled with a solution of lime in water, there is no time for hesitation. He immediately locks up the apartment or closet where his papers and private property are kept, and putting the key in his pocket, betakes himself to flight. A husband, however beloved, becomes a perfect nuisance, during this season of female rage. His authority is superseded, his commission suspended, and the very scullion who cleans the brasses in the kitchen becomes of more importance than him. He has nothing for it, but to abdicate, for a time, and run from an evil which he can neither prevent nor mollify. The husband gone, the ceremony begins. The walls are stripped of their furniture-paintings, prints, and look ing-glasses lie huddled in heaps about numerable gallons of water against the glass panes, to the great annoyance of passengers in the street. I have been told that an action at law was once brought against one of these water nymphs, by a person who had a new suit of clothes spoiled by this operation: but after long argument it was determined that no damages could be awarded; inasmuch as the defendant was in the exercise of a legal right, and not answerable for the consequences. So the poor gentleman was doubly nonsuited; for he lost both his suit of clothes and his suit at law. These smearings and scratchings, these washings and dashings, being duly performed, the next ceremonial is to cleanse and replace the distracted furniture. You may have seen a house-raising, or a ship launch-recollect, if you can, the hurry, bustle, confusion, and noise of such a scene, and you will have some idea of this cleansing match. The misfortune is, that the sole object is to make things clean. It matters not how many useful, ornamental, or valuable articles suffer mutilation or death under the operation. A mahogany chair and a carved frame undergo the same discipline; they are to be made clean at all events; but their preservation is not worthy of attention. For instance: a fine large engraving is laid flat upon the 35 floor; a number of smaller prints are piled upon it, until the super-incumbent weight cracks the lower glass-but this is of no importance. A valuable picture is placed leaning against the sharp 40 corner of a table; others are made to lean against that, till the pressure of the whole forces the corner of the table through the canvas of the first. The frame and glass of a fine print are to be cleaned; the spirit and oil used on this occasion are suffered to leak through and deface the engraving-no matter! If the glass is clean and the frame shines it is sufficient-the rest is not worthy of consideration. An able arithmetician hath made a calculation, founded on long experience, and proved that the losses and destruction incident to two whitewashings are equal to one removal, and three removals equal to one fire. This ceremony completed, and the 45 house thoroughly evacuated, the next operation is to smear the walls and ceilings with brushes, dipped into a solution. of lime called WHITE-WASH; to pour buckets of water over every floor, and 50 scratch all the partitions and wainscots with hard brushes, charged with soft Soap and stone-cutter's sand. The windows by no means escape the general deluge. A servant scrambles 55 out upon the pent-house, at the risk of her neck, and with a mug in her hand, and a bucket within reach, dashes in This cleansing frolic over, matters begin to resume their pristine appearance: the storm abates, and all would be we'l |