shillings, and one penny, old tenor, equal to about six hundred and forty dollars. He also sold a goodly number of his rings. From all this, the conclusion is irresistible, that this truly good man and faithful minister must have been, if I may use the common expression, hand and glove with his parishioners. The little volume before me contains the record of other matters, highly interesting, doubtless, in their day but of precious little moment, at the present hour. Of what importance can it be, I beg leave to inquire, for any one to know, on what precise day, one hundred years ago, the worthy pastor borrowed a box of candles of Deacon Langdon, or a loaf of sugar of his own father, or ten shillings, old tenor, of Deacon Grant! Who, of the present generation, cares, on what day, one hundred years ago, he repaid those three pounds to Deacon Barrett! Of what consequence to any living mortal can it be, that, on the thirteenth day of April, one hundred years ago, Betty Bouvè came to live at the manse, as a maid! It is past. The last of that box of candles has burnt down into the socket, long ago. That sugar has dissolved, and lost its sweetness. And Betty Bouvè! The places that knew her know her no more. Her sweeping days are over; for time, with its irresistible broom, hath swept her from the face of the earth, and given her the grave for a dustpan.
The good old man himself has been called to the account of his stewardship. “It was a pleasant day,” saith Father Gannett, on the fly-leaf of his almanac, “Sept. 15, 1778, when near four hundred couples and thirty-two carriages followed the remains of Dr. Andrew Eliot from his house, before the south side of his meeting-house, into Fore Street, up Cross Street, through Black Horse Lane, to Corpse Hill.” I adopt Mr. Gannett’s orthography, though rather less accurate than applicable.
No. XXIX.
The true value of an enlightened conscience may be duly estimated by him, who has enjoyed the luxury of travelling in the dark, with the assistance of a lantern, without a candle. A man, who has a very strong sense of duty, and very little common sense, is apt to be a very troublesome fellow; for he is likely to unite the stupidity of an ass with the obstinacy of a mule. Yet such there are; and, however inconvenient, individually, the evil is immeasurably increased, when they become gregarious, and form a party, for any purpose whatever. Such conscience parties have existed, in every age and nation. A few individuals, of higher intelligence, dissatisfied with their civil, political, military, religious, or literary importance, and fatally bent upon distinction, are necessary to elevate some enormous green cheese high in the firmament, and persuade their followers, that it is neither more nor less than the moon, at full. Herod was the great director of that conscience party, that believed it to be their bounden duty, to murder all the little children in Judea, under a certain age. The terrible sacrifice, on St. Bartholomew’s eve, was conducted by a conscience party. The burnings and starvings, in bloody Mary’s reign, were planned and executed, by a conscience party. In no country has conscience been so very rampant, as in Ireland, from the days of Heremon and King Olam Fodla, to the present hour. Almost every reader is aware how conscientiously Archbishop Sharp was murdered, in presence of his daughter, in Scotland.
The widows of Hindostan, when they attempt to escape from the funeral pile, on which their late husbands are burning, are driven back into the flames, by a conscience party. It is well known, that certain inhabitants of India deposit their aged and decrepit parents, upon the very margin of the river, that the rising waters may bear them away. This is not the act of a few individuals; but the common practice, clearly indicating the existence of a conscience party, who undoubtedly believe they are acting, in a most filial and dutiful manner, and doing the very best thing in the world, for all parties. Infanticide is tolerated in China. Very little account is made of female babies there. This has been doubted and denied. Doubt and denial are of no use. There is a conscience party there, who believe it to be their duty to their male babies, to drown the females, unless they are pretty, and then they have a chance for life, in being sold for concubines. Among the numerous and best modern authorities, on this point, is Gutzlaff, whose voyages, along the coast of China, were published, in London, 1834. “At the beach of Amoy,” says he, “we were shocked, at the spectacle of a pretty, new-born babe, which, shortly before, had been killed. We asked some of the bystanders what this meant; they answered with indifference, ‘it is only a girl.’ ” On page 174, Gutzlaff remarks, “It is a general custom among them to drown a large proportion of their new-born female children. This unnatural crime is so common, that it is perpetrated, without any feeling, and even in a laughing mood; and, to ask a man of distinction, whether he has daughters, is a mark of great rudeness.” Earle, in his narrative of New Zealand, London, 1832, states that the practice existed there.
The insurrection of Shays, in this Commonwealth, in 1787, was a matter of conscience, beyond all doubt. He and many of his associates believed themselves a conscience party. After General Lincoln had suppressed the rebellion, great lenity was shown to the prisoners—not an individual was executed—and Shays, who died in 1825, at the age of 85, was even pensioned, in his old age, for his prior services in the revolution.
The revolt of the Pennsylvania line, in 1781, was, I admit, less an affair of the conscience, than of the stomach and bowels; for the poor fellows were nearly starved to death. The insurrection under Fries, commonly called the whiskey rebellion, in Western Pennsylvania, in 1792, was a different affair. A conscience party resolved to drink nothing but untaxed whiskey—they conscientiously believed the flavor to be utterly ruined, by the excise. It is certain, that, when General Washington moved against the rebels, there was conscience enough, among them, to make cowards of them all, for they scattered, in all directions.
A conscience party existed, in the early settlement of our country, when our pious ancestors, having fled to the howling wilderness, that they might enjoy liberty of thought, on religious subjects, began to hang the poor Quakers, for the glory of God.
Never before had there been such a conscience party in Massachusetts, as from 1689 to 1693. It was then Cotton Mather exclaimed from the pulpit, that witchcraft was the “most nefandous high treason against the Majesty on high.” It was then, that he satisfied himself, by repeated trials, that devils were skilled in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. It was then, that they hanged old women, for riding on broomsticks through the air; a mode of conveyance, which Lord Mansfield declared, long after, to be perfectly lawful, for all who preferred that mode of equitation.
A conscience party has recently appeared, in this country, which it is not easy to describe. Every other party seems to have contributed to its formation. It is a sort of political mosaic, made up of tag, rag, and bobtail. Some of the prominent members of this party were whigs, but yesterday; and yet they have put forth all their energies, to elect, as president, a man, whom they and all other whigs have hitherto opposed, and denounced, and who, it was manifest, from the beginning, could not possibly be elected. This man has been accounted, by the whigs, a political charlatan; and all that he has done, to obtain the support of this conscience party, such of them at least, as were once whigs, is to avow certain sentiments, on the subject of slavery, the very contrary of those, which he has hitherto maintained, most openly and zealously. No grave and reflecting whig puts any more confidence, in the promises of this political spin-button, than he would put, in the words of Nicholas Machiavelli. Nor could this candidate do more to check the progress of slavery, than every honest whig believes will be done, by the candidate of their party, who certainly resembles Washington, in three particulars; he is himself a slaveholder—he is an honest man—and he wears the same political phylactery, “I will be the president of the people, not of a party.”
In consideration of the limit of power, neither of these candidates can do more than the other, for the object in view, if they were equally honest, which nobody dreams of, unless he dreams in Sleepy Hollow. If there had been an anti-cholera party, Van Buren might have commanded suffrages, as sensibly, by pledging himself to do all in his power, to prevent its extension. The remaining candidate, it is agreed, would, if elected, have turned the hopes, one and all, of both whig and conscience
