The Memories of Fifty Years Part 32

On one occasion I was with him when charity was solicited of him by a wretched old woman. "Give me five dollars," he said to me; the money was handed the woman, and she was sent away, to be drunk and in a police-station within the hour. I remarked: "That old wretch has brought all this upon her by an abandoned profligacy." "Then I owe her sympathy as well as charity," was his reply; "I do not know the cause of her suffering, but I know she is suffering: it may be for food, it may be for drink; if either obliterates her misery, your money is well spent."

He had no idea of the value of money; was constantly in the receipt of large fees, with a most lucrative practice, but was always embarra.s.sed, owed everybody, loaned to everybody, gave to everybody, and paid n.o.body.

During the existence of the law which imprisoned for debt, he was constantly in the sheriff's hands, but always settling, by the most ingenious devices, the claim at the jail-door. It is told of him, that the sheriff on one occasion notified him that there was a _ca. sa._ in his hands, and that he did not want to arrest him. The sum was large, some two thousand dollars--Grymes had not a dollar. He paused a moment, then said, "Come to me to-morrow. I have a case of Milliadon's for trial to-morrow; he is greatly interested in it. When it is called, I will give you the wink, then arrest me." In obedience to directions, the sheriff came, the case was called, and Grymes arrested. Milliadon was in court, his hopes were in Grymes, and when he was informed that Grymes was in custody of the sheriff, he groaned aloud.

"Oh! Mr. Grymes, vat am I to do?"

"Why, you must employ other counsel," said Grymes.

"_Mon dieu!_ but I have pay you for attend this case, and I want you.

You know about it, and it must be try now."

"Yes," continued the imperturbable Grymes, "you have paid me, I know, and I know it would be dangerous to trust it to other counsel, but it is your only hope. I have no money, and here is a _ca. sa._, and I am on my way to jail."

"Oh! _mon dieu! mon dieu!_ vat is de amount of de _ca. sa._?"

"Two thousand dollars," said the sheriff.

"Two thousand dollars!" repeated Milliadon.

"Goodall _vs._ Milliadon," said the Judge, "Preston, for plaintiff--Grymes, for defendant. What do you do with this case, gentlemen?"

"We are ready," said Preston.

"And you, Mr. Grymes?" asked the court.

"Vill you take my check for de _ca. sa._, Mr. Sheriff?"

"Certainly, sir," replied the officer.

"Say we is ready too, Mr. Grymes--all my witness be here."

"I believe we are ready, your honor," answered Grymes. Milliadon was writing his check. "Enter satisfaction on the _ca. sa._," said Grymes.

The sheriff did so, as Milliadon handed him the check. Grymes now turned his attention to the case as coolly as though nothing had occurred. That was the last Milliadon ever heard of his two thousand dollars.

Laurent Milliadon and the millionaire John McDonough were litigious in their characters; and their names occur in the report of the Supreme Court decisions more frequently than those of any ten other men in the State. Grymes was the attorney for both of them for many years. They were both men of great shrewdness, and both speculative in their characters, and both had acc.u.mulated large fortunes. Without any a.s.signable cause, McDonough ceased to employ Grymes, and intrusted his business to other counsel, who did not value their services so extravagantly. Mentioning the fact upon one occasion to Grymes, "Ah!

yes," said he, "I can explain to your satisfaction the cause. In a certain case of his, in which he had law and justice with him, he suddenly became very uneasy. 'I shall certainly lose it, Grymes,' he said excitedly to me. I told him it was impossible; he had never had so sure a thing since I had been his attorney. In his dogmatical manner, which you know, he still persisted in saying, he was no great lawyer as I was, but some things he knew better than any lawyer, and 'I shall lose that case.' At the same time he significantly touched his pocket and then his palm, signifying that money had been paid by his adversary to the court, or some member of it. 'Ah!' said I, 'are you sure--very sure?' 'Very sure--I know it; and you will see I shall lose this suit.' He was not wont to speak so positively, without the best evidence of any fact. 'Well, Mac,' said I, jestingly, 'if that is the game, who can play it better than you can--you have a larger stake than any of them, and of course better ability?' Well, sir, he did lose one of the plainest cases I ever presented to a court. From that day forward I have not received a fee from him: and now the secret is before the world. He has been detected in bribing one of the judges of the Supreme Court."

As an orator, Grymes was among the first of the country. All he wanted, to have been exceedingly eloquent, was earnestness and feeling; of this he was devoid. His manner was always collected and cool; his style chaste and beautiful, with but little ornament; he spoke only from the brain--there was nothing from the heart. In argument he was exceedingly cogent and lucid, and when the subject seemed most complicated, the acuteness of his a.n.a.lytical mind seemed to unravel and lay bare the true features of the case, with an ease and power that required scarce an effort. His powers of ratiocination were very great, and this was the forte of his mind; his conclusions were clearly deduced from arguments always logical.

There were times when he would be serious--and then there was a grandeur about him very striking. At such times, bursts of pa.s.sionate feeling would break from him that seemed like volcanic eruptions. They appeared to come from a deep and intense tenderness of heart. These were momentary--the lightning's flash illuminating the gloom and darkness of its parent cloud. I have thought this was the man's nature, born with a heart capable of intense feeling, which had been educated to believe this weakness. Coming very young away from his home and early a.s.sociations, to live and mingle with strangers of a different race--leaving the rural scenes and home a.s.sociations which were forming and developing nature's glorious gifts, to come to a profligate and heartless city--the whole current of his susceptible nature was changed, and the feeling and good perverted and overshadowed, yet not entirely rooted out. Hence the contradictions in his character. Sometimes nature was too strong for art, and would break out in beauty, as the flower, rich in fragrance and delicate loveliness, when touched by the genial sun, will burst from the black and uninviting bud.

Upon one occasion, when there was a United States senator to be elected, and when the Democratic party held a majority in the Legislature, rendering it impossible for the Whigs to elect any member of their own party, yet, with the a.s.sistance of three from the Democratic party, could choose from this party any man they would select and unite upon--they determined to propose Grymes, and had secured the requisite a.s.sistance from the Democracy. I was a member, and a Whig, and was delegated to communicate the facts to Grymes. I knew the Senate had been his ambition for years. I knew he felt his powers would give him a position with the greatest of that body, and an immediate national reputation, and had no doubt of his cheerful acquiescence. To my astonishment he a.s.sumed a grave and most serious manner. "I am grateful, most grateful to you," he said, "for I know this has been brought about by you, and that you sincerely desire to gratify me; but I cannot consent to be a candidate. Most frankly will I tell you my reasons. I admit it has been my desire for years. It has been, I may say to you, my life-long ambition; but I have always coupled the possession of the position with the power of sustaining it reputably. I was never ambitious of the silly vanity of simply being a senator and known as such; but of giving to it the character and dignity due it. Louisiana is a proud State, her people are a n.o.ble and a proud people, they have a right to be so--look at her! With a soil and a climate congenial to the production of the richest staples now ministering to the luxuries and necessities of man--with a river emptying into her commercial mart the productions of a world, her planters are princes, in feeling, fortune, and position. At their mansions is dispensed a n.o.ble hospitality, rich in the feasts of body and mind, generous and open as was Virginia's in her proudest days. At Washington I would represent these, and the merchant-princes of her metropolis. You have said, as eloquently as truly, 'There is but one Mississippi River; but one Louisiana; but one New Orleans on the face of the earth.' As she is, and as her people are, I would represent her as her senator.

"I am a beggar, and cannot consent, in this character, to be made more conspicuous, by being made a beggarly senator. I cannot take a house in Washington, furnish it, and live in it as a gentleman. I could not, in any other manner, entertain my people visiting Washington, consistently with my ideas of what a senator should do. I cannot go to Washington, and, as one of them, stand among the great men of the Senate, in that magnificent hall, and feel my soul swell to theirs and its proportions, and then dodge you, or any other gentleman from Louisiana, and sneak home to a garret. My means would allow me no better apartment. I could not live in the mean seclusion of a miserable penury, nor otherwise than in a style comporting, in my estimation, with the dignity and the duty of a senator from Louisiana, as some have done, who were able to live and entertain as gentlemen, for the purpose of the degraded saving of half my _per diem_ to swell my coffers at home.

"Now, my friend, I feel how miserably foolish I have been all my life.

I have thrown away fortune because I despised it. It was too grovelling a pursuit, too mean a vocation, to make and to h.o.a.rd money.

In my soul I despised it, and now you see it is revenged; for without it, I have learned, there is no gratification for ambition--no independence of a sneering, envious world. A bankrupt is a felon, though his mind, his virtues, and his attainments may be those of a G.o.d. He is a useless waif upon the world; for all he has, or all he may be, is, to himself and the world, unavailable without money. I have discarded all my ambitious aspirations long since, and tried to reconcile myself to the fact that my life has been and is a failure.

And I am sorry you have come to me to remind me that the aim of my young life was within my reach, when I have no means to grasp it, and, now that I am miserable, to show me what I might have been. No, my friend, I must go on with the drudgery of the law, to earn my bread, and thus eke out a miserable future. I am grateful to you and my other friends, who have delegated you to this mission. Say so to them, if you please. I must go to court. The horse of the bark-mill must go to his daily circle. Good morning!"

Some years after the event above mentioned, Grymes, as the attorney of the city of New Orleans, succeeded, before the Supreme Court of the United States, in making good the t.i.tle to the batture property in the city. What is termed batture in Louisiana is the land made by accretion or deposits of the Mississippi. One strange feature of this great river is, that it never gets any wider. It is continually wearing and caving on one side or the other, and making a corresponding deposit on the other bank. Opposite a portion of the city of New Orleans this deposit has been going on for many years, while the opposite bank has been wearing away. There are living citizens who saw in youth the river occupying what is now covered by many streets and many blocks of buildings, and is one of the most valuable portions of the city. In truth, what was a century ago entire river, is now one-fourth of the city, and this deposit goes on annually without any decrease in its ratio.

By agreement of all parties, this batture was surveyed into squares and lots, and sold at public auction, and the money deposited in the Bank of Louisiana, to the credit of the Supreme Court of the United States, to abide the decision of that tribunal as to the rightful ownership. The decision gave it to the city. Grymes, as attorney for the city, by order of the court, received a check for the money. The bank paid the check, and Grymes appropriated one hundred thousand dollars of it, as a fee for his services, and then deposited the balance to the credit of the mayor and council of the city. This was a large fee, but was not really what he was ent.i.tled to, under the custom of chancery for collecting money. He had agreed to pay Daniel Webster for a.s.sistance rendered; but Mr. Webster, some years after, informed me that he had never received a cent, and I am sure he never did, after that.

Grymes was well aware, if the city fathers got their hands upon the money, it would be years before he got this amount, if ever. With a portion of this money he liquidated all claims not antiquated and forgotten by him, and the balance was intrusted to the hands of a friend to invest for his benefit. This, together with his practice, which was now declining, furnished a handsome support for him. Age appeared to effect little change in his _personnel_. At sixty-seven, he was as erect in person and as elastic in step as at thirty. There was none of that _embonpoint_ usually the consequence of years and luxurious living. He was neither slender nor fat; but what is most agreeable to the eye--between the two, with a most perfectly formed person. His features were manly, and strikingly beautiful; his blue eyes beaming with the _hauteur_ of high breeding and ripe intelligence. These features were too often disfigured with the sneer of scorn, or the curled lip of expressive contempt. His early hopes, his manhood's ambition had been disappointed; and, soured and sore, he sneered at the world, and despised it. He had no confidence in man or woman, and had truly reached Hamlet's condition, when "Man delighted him not, nor woman either." He felt the world was his debtor, and was n.i.g.g.ardly in its payments. He grew more and more morose as the things of time receded. Others, full of youth, talent, and vigor, were usurping the positions and enjoying the honors of life, which were slipping away from him unenjoyed. He turned upon these the bitterness engendered by disappointment. Cynicism lent edge to his wit, and bitterness to his sarcasm. He was at war with himself, and consequently with all the world. His mind felt none of the imbecility of age, and to the last retained its perspicuity and power. As he came into life a man, and never knew a boyhood, so he went from it a man, without the date of years. At sixty-eight years of age, he went quietly from life without suffering, and, to himself, without regret.

He was a man--take him all in all--whose like we shall not look on soon again.

The virtues and the vices, the loves and the hates of life were strangely blended in the character of John Randolph Grymes; but if we judge from the fact that he had and left many warm and devoted friends, and few enemies, we must suppose the good in his nature greatly preponderated. But notwithstanding the great s.p.a.ce he had filled in the eyes of the people of the city, his death startled only for a moment, and straightway he was forgotten; as the falling pebble dimples for a moment the lake's quiet surface--then all is smooth again.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

DIVISION OF NEW ORLEANS INTO MUNIc.i.p.aLITIES.

AMERICAN HOTEL--INTRODUCTION OF STEAMBOATS--FAUBOURG ST. MARY--Ca.n.a.l STREET--ST. CHARLES HOTEL--SAMUEL J. PETERS--JAMES H. CALDWELL-- FATHERS OF THE MUNIc.i.p.aLITY--BERNARD MARIGNY--AN a.s.s--A.B. ROMAN.

Forty years ago there was not a public hotel in the city of New Orleans which received and entertained ladies. There was but one respectable American hotel in the city. This was kept by John Richardson, who still lives, and was on Conti Street, between Chartres and the levee. About that time Madame Heries opened the Planter's Hotel on Ca.n.a.l Street, which some years after fell and crushed to death some thirty persons. There were many boarding-houses, where ladies were entertained, and to these were all ladies visiting the city constrained to resort. Some of these were well kept and comfortable, but afforded none or very few of the advantages of public hotels. They were generally kept by decayed females who were constrained to this vocation by pecuniary misfortunes. The liberal accommodation afforded in hotels, especially built and furnished for the purpose, was not to be found in any of them.

At this period all the means of travel between Mobile and New Orleans, across the Lake, consisted of one or two schooners, as regular weekly packets, plying between the two cities. It was about this time that the tide of emigration which had peopled the West, and the rapid increase of production, was stimulating the commerce of New Orleans.

It was obeying the impulse, and increasing in equal ratio its population. This commerce was chiefly conducted by Americans, and most of these were of recent establishment in the city. That portion of the city above Ca.n.a.l Street, and then known as the Faubourg St. Mary, was little better than a marsh in its greater portion. Along the river and Ca.n.a.l Street, there was something of a city appearance, in the improvements and business, where there were buildings. In every other part there were shanties, and these were filled with a most miserable population.

About this time, too, steamboats were acc.u.mulating upon the Western waters--a new necessity induced by the increase of travel and commerce--affording facilities to the growing population and increasing production of the vast regions developing under the energy of enterprise upon the Mississippi and her numerous great tributaries.

It seemed that at this juncture the whole world was moved by a new impulse. The difficulties of navigating the Mississippi River had been overcome, and the consequences of this new triumph of science and man's ingenuity were beginning to a.s.sume a more vigorous growth.

The Ohio and its tributaries were peopling with a hardy and industrious race; the Missouri, Arkansas, and Red rivers, too, were filling with a population which was sweeping away the great wild forests, and fields of teeming production were smiling in their stead.

New Orleans was the market-point for all that was, and all that was to be, the growth of these almost illimitable regions. It was, as it ever is, the exigencies of man answered by the inspirations of G.o.d. The necessities of this extending population along the great rivers demanded means of transportation. These means were to be devised, by whom? The genius of Fulton was inspired, and the steamboat sprang into existence. The necessity existed no longer, and the flood of population poured in and subdued the earth to man's will, to man's wants. Over the hills and valleys, far away it went, crowding back the savage, demanding and taking for civilized uses his domain of wilderness, and creating new necessities--and again the inspired genius of man gave to the world the railroad and locomotive.

The great increase in the production of cotton in the West, and which went for a market to New Orleans, necessitated greater accommodations for the trade in that city--presses for compressing, and houses for merchants, where the business could be conducted with greater facility and greater convenience. American merchants crowded to the city, and located their places of business above Ca.n.a.l Street, beyond which there was not a street paved. There was not a wharf upon which to discharge freights, consequently the cotton bales had to be rolled from the steamers to the levee, which in the almost continued rains of winter were muddy, and almost impa.s.sable at times for loaded vehicles.

Below Ca.n.a.l Street the levee was made firm by being well sh.e.l.led, and the depth of water enabled boats and shipping to come close alongside the bank, which the acc.u.mulating batture prevented above.

The French, or Creole population greatly preponderated, and this population was all below Ca.n.a.l Street. They elected the mayor, and two-thirds of the council, and these came into office with all the prejudices of that people against the Americans, whom a majority of them did not hesitate to denominate intruders. The consequence was the expenditure of all the revenue of the city upon improvements below Ca.n.a.l Street. Every effort was made to force trade to the lower portion of the city. This was unavailing. The Faubourg St. Mary continued to improve, and most rapidly. Business and cotton-presses sprang up like magic. Americans were purchasing sugar plantations and moving into the French parishes, drawing closer the relations of fellow-citizens, and becoming more and more acquainted with the feelings and opinions of each other, and establishing good neighborhoods and good feelings, and by degrees wearing out these national prejudices, by encouraging social intercourse and fraternity.

They were introducing new methods of cultivation, and new modes of making sugar; pushing improvements, stimulating enterprise, and encouraging a community of feeling, as they held a common interest in the country. In the country parishes these prejudices of race had never been so strong as in the city, and were fast giving way; intermarriages and family relations were beginning to identify the people, and this to some extent was true in the city. But here there was a conflict of interest, and this seemed on the increase. The improvements made in the Faubourg were suggested by the necessities of commerce, and this naturally went to these. There was a superior enterprise in the American merchant, there was greater liberality in his dealings: he granted hazardous accommodations to trade, and made greater efforts to secure it. This had the effect of securing the rapidly increasing commerce of the city to the American merchants, and of course was promoting the settlement and improvement of the Faubourg St. Mary. It excited, too, more and more the antipathies of the ancient population. These, controlling the city government constantly in a most envious spirit, refused to extend the public improvements of the Faubourg.

There was not, forty years ago, or in 1828, a paving-stone above Ca.n.a.l Street, nor could any necessity induce the government of the city to pave a single street. Where now stands the great St. Charles Hotel, there was an unsightly and disgusting pond of fetid water, and the locations now occupied by the City Hotel and the St. James were cattle-pens. There was not a wharf in the entire length of the city, and the consequence was an enormous tax levied upon produce, in the shape of drayage and repairs of injuries to packages, from the want of these prime necessities.

The navigation of the Bayou St. John commanded for the lower portion of the city the commerce crossing the lake, and to monopolize the profits of travel, a railroad was proposed from the lake to the river, and speedily completed. The people of the Faubourg, to counteract as much as possible these advantages, constructed a ca.n.a.l from the city to the lake, which was to enter the city, or Faubourg St. Mary, at the foot of Julia Street, one of the broadest and best streets in that quarter of the city. This was of sufficient capacity for schooners and steamboats of two hundred tons burden. When this was completed, with great difficulty the authorities were prevailed upon to pave Julia Street; still the greatly increasing demands of commerce were neglected, and while by these refusals the population of the city proper was doing all it could to force down to the city this increasing trade, they neglected to do anything there for its accommodation. The streets were very narrow; the warehouses small and inconvenient; the merchants close and unenterprising, seemingly unconscious of the great revolution going on in their midst.

From the growing greatness of the surplus products of the immense Valley, this was quadrupling annually. The cotton crop of the United States, forty years ago, scarcely reached half a million of bales, and of this New Orleans did not receive one-third; but in five years after, her receipts were very nearly one-half of the entire crop. At the same period, the sugar crop did not amount to more than twenty thousand hogsheads; five years thereafter, it had quadrupled, and the commerce from the upper rivers had increased a hundred-fold, and was going on in all the products of the soil to increase in like ratio. At this time the antipathy was at its acme between the two races or populations.

Then the Legislature held its sessions in New Orleans, and the American residents, merchants, and property-holders determined to apply to the Legislature for an amendment of the city charter. A bill was introduced accordingly, proposing to divide the city into three munic.i.p.alities, making Ca.n.a.l and Esplanade streets the lines of division; giving the city proper and each faubourg a separate government: in truth, making three cities where there had been but one. The excitement in the city became intense, and sectional animosities increased in bitterness. To the American population it was a matter of prime necessity; to the property-holders and merchants of the city proper it was a matter of life and death. To these it was apparent that the moment this bill became a law, and the Faubourg St.

Mary controlled her own finances, her streets would be paved and warehouses spring up to meet every demand--wharves would be constructed, the quay or levee would be sheltered, capital would flow to the Faubourg, and, in a moment as it were, she would usurp the entire domestic trade of the country: in other words, the Faubourg St.

Mary would become the City of New Orleans.

After carefully canva.s.sing the Legislature, it was found very doubtful whether the bill would pa.s.s or not; the attempt had heretofore proved eminently unsuccessful, but now it was apparent that it had gained many friends, and it was not certain it could be defeated. Under these circ.u.mstances, overtures were made by the city government, to expend all the revenue in improvements above Ca.n.a.l Street, which should be collected from the inhabitants of that quarter. This proposition was declined, and the bill after a most exciting struggle became a law.

Under its provisions a new council and recorder were chosen, and a new impetus was given the Faubourg St. Mary, which was now, under this law, the second munic.i.p.ality. Extensive wharves were erected along the front of the munic.i.p.ality; streets were paved, and the whole trading community felt the improvements were a.s.suming gigantic proportions, and trade relieved of onerous and vexatious impositions. Property rose in value rapidly; Ca.n.a.l Street grew speedily into importance. The dry-goods trade, hitherto confined almost exclusively to Chartres Street, came out upon this magnificent street as rapidly as it could be accommodated. From an almost deserted suburb, it became the centre of business and the great boulevard of the city. A company built the great St. Charles Hotel, and here were first opened hotel accommodations for ladies in New Orleans, thirty-one years ago.