The Attache or Sam Slick in England Part 8

"But, Minister," said Mr. Slick, "holdin' the high and dignified station I do, as Attache, they will be a-pumpin' me for everlastinly, will the great men here, and they think a plaguy sight more of our opinion than you are aware on; we have tried all them things they are a jawin' about here, and they naterally want to know the results. Cooper says not one Tory called on him when he was to England, but Walter Scott; and that I take it, was more lest folks should think he was jealous of him, than any thing else; they jist cut him as dead as a skunk; but among the Whigs, he was quite an oracle on ballot, univarsal suffrage, and all other democratic inst.i.tutions."

"Well, he was a ninny then, was Cooper, to go and blart it all out to the world that way; for if no Tory visited him, I should like you to ask him the next time you see him, how many gentlemen called upon him? Jist ask him that, and it will stop him from writing such stuff any more."

"But, Minister, jist tell us now, here you are, as a body might say in England, now what are you?"

"I am a man, Sam; _h.o.m.o sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto_."

"Well, what's all that when it's fried?"

"Why, that when away from home, I am a citizen of the world. I belong to no party, but take an interest in the whole human family."

"Well, Minister, if you choose to sing dumb, you can, but I should like to have you answer me one question now, and if you won't, why you must jist do t'other thing, that's all. Are you a Consarvative?"

"No."

"Are you a Whig?"

"No."

"A Radical?"

"G.o.d forbid!"

"What in natur' are you then?"

"A Tory."

"A Tory! well, I thought that a Tory and a Consarvative, were as the Indgians say, "all same one brudder." Where is the difference?"

"You will soon find that out, Sam; go and talk to a Consarvative as a Tory, and you will find he is a Whig: go and talk to him again as a Whig, and you will find he is a Tory. They are, for all the world, like a sturgeon. There is very good beef steaks in a sturgeon, and very good fish too, and yet it tante either fish or flesh. I don't like taking a new name, it looks amazing like taking new principles, or, at all events, like loosenin' old ones, and I hante seen the creed of this new sect yet--I don't know what its tenets are, nor where to go and look for 'em. It strikes me they don't accord with the Tories, and yet arn't in tune with the Whigs, but are half a note lower than the one, and half a note higher than t'other. Now, changes in the body politic are always necessary more or less, in order to meet the changes of time, and the changes in the condition of man. When they are necessary, make 'em, and ha' done with 'em. Make 'em like men, not when you are forced to do so, and n.o.body thanks you, but when you see they are wanted, and are proper; but don't alter your name.

"My wardens wanted me to do that; they came to me, and said 'Minister,'

says they, 'we don't want _you_ to change, we don't ask it; jist let us call you a Unitarian, and you can remain Episcopalian still. We are tired of that old fashioned name, it's generally thought unsuited to the times, and behind the enlightment of the age; it's only fit for benighted Europeans. Change the name, you needn't change any thing else.

What is a name?'

"'Every thing,' says I, 'every thing, my brethren; one name belongs to a Christian, and the other don't; that's the difference. I'd die before I surrendered my name; for in surrenderin' that, I surrender my principles.'"

"Exactly," said Mr. Slick, "that's what Brother Eldad used to say.

'Sam,' said he, 'a man with an _alias_ is the worst character in the world; for takin' a new name, shows he is ashamed of his old one; and havin' an old one, shows his new one is a cheat.'"

"No," said Mr. Hopewell, "I don't like that word Consarvative. Them folks may be good kind of people, and I guess they be, seein' that the Tories support 'em, which is the best thing I see about them; but I don't like changin' a name."

"Well, I don't know," said Mr. Slick, "p'raps their old name was so infarnal dry rotted, they wanted to change it for a sound new one. You recollect when that super-superior villain, Expected Thorne, brought an action of defamation agin' me, to Slickville, for takin' away his character, about stealing the watch to Nova Scotia; well, I jist pleaded my own case, and I ups and sais, 'Gentlemen of the Jury,' sais I, "Expected's character, every soul knows, is about the wust in all Slickville. If I have taken it away, I have done him a great sarvice, for he has a smart chance of gettin' a better one; and if he don't find a swap to his mind, why no character is better nor a bad one.'

"Well, the old judge and the whole court larfed right out like any thin'; and the jury, without stirrin' from the box, returned a vardict for the defendant. P'raps now, that mought be the case with the Tories."

"The difference," said Mr. Hopewell, is jist this:--your friend, Mr.

Expected Thorne, had a name he had ought to have been ashamed of, and the Tories one that the whole nation had very great reason to be proud of. There is some little difference, you must admit. My English politics, (mind you, I say English, for they hare no reference to America,) are Tory, and I don't want to go to Sir Robert Peel, or Lord John Russell either."

"As for Johnny Russell," said Mr. Slick, "he is a clever little chap that; he--"

"Don't call him Johnny Russell," said Mr. Hopewell, "or a little chap, or such flippant names, I don't like to hear you talk that way. It neither becomes you as a Christian nor a gentleman. St. Luke and St.

Paul, when addressing people of rank, use the word '[Greek text]'

which, as nearly as possible, answers to the t.i.tle of 'your Excellency.'

Honour, we are told, should be given to those to whom honour is due; and if we had no such authority on the subject, the omission of t.i.tles, where they are usual and legal, is, to say the least of it, a vulgar familiarity, ill becoming an Attache of our emba.s.sy. But as I was saying, I do not require to go to either of those statesmen to be instructed in my politics. I take mine where I take my religion, from the Bible. 'Fear G.o.d, honour the King, and meddle not with those that are given to change.'"

"Oh, Minister," said Mr. Slick, "you mis't a figur at our glorious Revolution, you had ought to have held on to the British; they would have made a bishop of you, and shoved you into the House of Lords, black ap.r.o.n, lawn sleeves, shovel hat and all, as sure as rates. 'The right reverend, the Lord Bishop of Slickville:' wouldn't it look well on the back of a letter, eh? or your signature to one sent to me, signed 'Joshua Slickville.' It sounds better, that, than 'Old Minister,' don't it?"

"Oh, if you go for to talk that way, Sam, I am done; but I will shew you that the Tories are the men to govern this great nation. A Tory I may say '_noscitur a sociis_.'"

"What in natur is that, when it's biled and the skin took off?" asked Mr. Slick.

"Why is it possible you don't know that? Have you forgotten that common schoolboy phrase?"

"Guess I do know; but it don't tally jist altogether nohow, as it were.

Known as a Socialist, isn't it?"

"If, Sir," said Mr. Hopewell, with much earnestness, "if instead of ornamenting your conversation with cant terms, and miserable slang, picked up from the lowest refuse of our population, both east and west, you had cultivated your mind, and enriched it with quotations from cla.s.sical writers, you would have been more like an Attache, and less like a peddling clockmaker than you are."

"Minister," said Mr. Slick, "I was only in jeest, but you are in airnest. What you have said is too true for a joke, and I feel it. I was only a sparrin'; but you took off the gloves, and felt my short ribs in a way that has given me a st.i.tch in the side. It tante fair to kick that way afore you are spurred. You've hurt me considerable."

"Sam, I am old, narvous, and irritable. I was wrong to speak unkindly to you, very wrong indeed, and I am sorry for it; but don't teaze me no more, that's a good lad; for I feel worse than you do about it. I beg your pardon, I--"

"Well," said Mr. Slick, "to get back to what we was a sayin', for you do talk like a book, that's a fact; '_noscitur a sociis_,' says you."

"Ay, 'Birds of a feather flock together,' as the old maxim goes. Now, Sam, who supported the Whigs?"

"Why, let me see; a few of the lords, a few of the gentry, the repealers, the manufacturin' folks, the independents, the baptists, the dissentin' Scotch, the socialists, the radicals, the discontented, and most of the lower orders, and so on."

"Well, who supported the Tories?"

"Why, the majority of the lords, the great body of landed gentry, the univarsities, the whole of the Church of England, the whole of the methodists, amost the princ.i.p.al part of the kirk, the great marchants, capitalists, bankers, lawyers, army and navy officers, and soon."

"Now don't take your politics from me, Sam, for I am no politician; but as an American citizen, judge for yourself, which of those two parties is most likely to be right, or which would you like to belong to."

"Well, I must say," replied he, "I _do_ think that the larnin', piety, property, and respectability, is on the Tory side; and where all them things is united, right most commonly is found a-joggin' along in company."

"Well now, Sam, you know we are a calculatin' people, a commercial people, a practical people. Europe laughs at us for it. Perhaps if they attended better to their own financial affairs, they would be in a better situation to laugh. But still we must look to facts and results.

How did the Tories, when they went out of office, leave the kingdom?--At peace?"

"Yes, with all the world."

"How did the Whigs leave it?"

"With three wars on hand, and one in the vat a-brewin' with America.

Every great interest injured, some ruined, and all alarmed at the impendin' danger--of national bankruptcy."

"Well, now for dollars and cents. How did the Tories leave the treasury?"