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 340 that he possessed was a rope, and with this he went into the wood, intending to hang himself.

While he was wandering sadly in the huge wood, he heard a sound of piteous lamentation; he goes towards it, and then he sees a little tiny snake writhing about on the top of a tree-trunk, which was on fire, but it was unable to escape, for it was surrounded by flames and red-hot embers, and it would be killed if it went near them.

"But", said the poor lad to himself, "I won't let this unreasoning animal die an innocent death, though I have determined to die myself." With that he went up to the burning trunk, stretched out a good firm bough, and lifted the little snakelet down on it.

Ha! how profusely the poor little snake thanked him! And it would not leave its life-preserver any peace until he accompanied it to its father's home, and allowed him also to thank him for his kindness.

"God bless you", thought the lad, "it will prolong my life a little, at all events."

For, words are words, but the poor lad was afraid of death. He therefore accompanied the little snakelet to his father's home. They went slowly on until they reached a large cave. It was here that the young snake's father lived, and he was the very King of the Snakes himself. Eh! behold a wonder! the King of the Snakes was just as big as a hay-fork, and in his head there shone such a large diamond that the poor lad almost lost the sight of his eyes when he stepped in. There lay the King of the Snakes in the middle of the cave, and when the lad stepped in he fixed his great eyes upon him.

"Well", thought the lad, "I shall have no need to hang myself, for this snake will gobble me up at once."

But when the aged king knew that the poor lad had preserved his son's life, his countenance changed at once, and he said to the lad: "God bless you, you poor boy, for saving my son's life. In return I will make you fortunate all your life, and your descendants fortunate too; only I


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 Rh warn you of this, not to tell anyone in the world of my gift, for the very moment you do, your life will come to an end."

Now the King of the Snakes whispered something in the lad's ear, and then the poor lad felt at once that from that moment he was not the same person that he had been before. All at once he knew everything, and he knew everything in such sort that he was equally well able to talk to human beings and animals, and he could even understand the humming of the flies besides.

He thanked the King of the Snakes over and over again for his valuable gift, and said: "I thank you, illustrious King of the Snakes, for your invisible gift. I saved your child's life, and you have saved mine, for I was resolved upon dying a horrible death!"

With that he took his leave, commending the King of the Snakes, with his entire family and all his people, to God, and then set out towards home. He went sauntering on through the wood, and all at once he hears the sparrows twittering in a tree overhead. The oldest sparrow was just then speaking and saying: "Ah! if this poor lad could know what I know, he certainly would not think of putting an end to his life, but he would grow so rich that he would not exchange even with the king."

"You don't say so!" said the other sparrows. "How would it be possible?"

"Why, this way, to be sure", said the other sparrow; "by digging up the pan of gold which is beneath the hollow willow-tree, and he would be rich all his life, even if he were to distribute half to the poor."

"Hem", thinks the poor lad to himself, "I will try, anyhow, whether the old sparrow speaks the truth."

He went home, procured a spade and hoe, and in the evening returned to the wood, to the hollow tree. He began to dig, and he dug until his spade clinked against the pan.

Hurrah! he hurriedly seized hold of the pan, and the

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 342 sweat just dropped from his face while he lifted the pan full of gold out of the hole.

For indeed it was full of gold to the top; the old sparrow had not lied. He took the gold home too that same evening, and the next morning he began at the lower end of the village, and did not stop until he had distributed half among the poor.

He gained great esteem in the village, you may be sure! And then, moreover, when his neighbour's cow fell ill, and he knew from its lowing what was the matter with it, and was able to cure it besides, the whole village and the neighbourhood too, for a great distance round, came to him, bringing all their sick animals, and he cured them.

But when he had nothing else to do, he always wandered out in the woods and fields, and listened to what the birds were saying. One day, being very tired with wandering about so much, he sat down on the roots of a tree. While he was lying there idly, a raven overhead spoke and said, "Ah! if the person who is dozing under the tree knew what I know, he would be the king's son-in-law in a week!"

"If he knew what, then?" asked the other ravens.

"Why, this, that the king's daughter has lost her precious gold cross, and now she has bound herself not to marry anyone but the man who shall produce the gold cross, for it is a keepsake from her dear mother. Well, indeed, she will keep her párta all her life, for the man who can find it is not yet born into this world. It is in a good place here, in the hollow of the tree. The old king, however, has had a proclamation made throughout the whole kingdom that he will give his daughter and half his kingdom to whoever produces the gold cross."

The lad laughed to himself, and thought, "You have spoken just at the right time, you chattering raven!"

He waited for them to fly away, and then he climbed up the tree, and actually found the gold cross in the hollow.


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52 The three little kittens washed their mittens, And hung them out to dry; "O mother dear, Do you not hear, That we have washed our mittens? '

"Washed your mittens! Oh, you 're good kittens. But I smell a rat close by! ' "Hush, hush ! mee-ow, mee-ow! We smell a rat close by! Mee-ow, mee-ow, mee-ow!'

THERE was an owl lived in an oak, Wisky, wasky, weedle; And every word he ever spoke Was "fiddle, faddle, feedle."

A gunner chanced to come that way, Wisky, wasky, weedle; Says he, "I'll shoot you, silly bird." Fiddle, faddle, feedle.

title: Page:A Book of Nursery Rhymes.djvu/74


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 344 "What are you laughing at so heartily?" asked his wife.

"That I can't tell you", answered her husband.

There was great wrath at this! "Her husband was laughing at her! who could tell what he did not think about her! But she would not leave him any peace until he told her."

"Very well", said her husband, "I will tell you, but, believe me, I shall die that same instant. Do you wish me to die?"

"Don't make game of me!" burst forth the lady. "You won't die just for telling a secret to your wife."

"Well then, I will tell you. If you desire my death, let it be as you wish."

The lady only laughed. She did not believe her husband.

However, he told her from beginning to end his adventure with the snake, and when he had come to the end of his story, that moment he fell from his horse and died suddenly.

Now, indeed, the lady believed that her husband was right, but it was too late. The wonder-working doctor who could raise her husband up was not yet born. She was never comforted, not entirely even when her beautiful little golden-haired son was born, and grew up into just such a gallant lad as his father had been. The one thing she taught her son was to keep any promise once made lest the same thing should happen to him as to his dear father.

So it was, that was the end, it was true. If anyone does not believe it, let him go and see.


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 Rh He hastened home immediately, but before he went to the king, he had such a palace built for him that there was not its fellow for a distance of seventh-seven lands; then he sent for a tailor, and ordered such a brilliant gunya that he might even have been taken for a duke. When both the palace and his cloak were ready, and he had looked at himself repeatedly from head to foot in the pier-glass to see whether he looked like a gentleman (which he did, of course!), he took the gold cross and set out with it to the king's court. He went straight up into the princess's room, and told a great lie, saying that he had taken the cross away from twelve robbers.

Ah! the princess was so delighted, she could not think of anything in her great delight. Then, when she had had a good look at the lad, and saw that he was a handsome, knightly-looking youth, she certainly did not take back her word, but said: "Here is my hand, I am yours till death, till my coffin is closed!"

After that there was a wedding, but such a wedding that the whole country rang with it, and it was talked of besides more than seven times seven lands off. The young couple lived happily, only the wife was not pleased at her husband's always wandering in the woods and fields, nor at his constantly forgetting himself even when they went out together, and listening to the songs of all the birds. They often quarrelled about this, but then they made peace again.

One day they rode out on horseback into the wood. For a good while they kept close together, but then the mistress's horse lagged a little behind. The master's horse neighed back at it:

"I say, you, why are you lagging behind?"

"It is easy for you", answered the mistress's horse. "You have only one to go with besides yourself, and I have three."

On hearing this the master laughed very much.


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Not sure what the issue is; we are trying to reproduce the text of the book and have done so.--Longfellow (talk) 10:33, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


text: Folk-Lore/Volume 4/Szekely Tales, 1

title: Folk-Lore/Volume 4/Szekely Tales, 1


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 PIN-WELLS AND RAG-BUSHES

HE customs of throwing pins into sacred wells and of tying rags to bushes, especially to bushes growing about sacred wells, have exercised students of folk-lore ever since folk-lore came to be studied. They seem such odd, senseless practices that, until one has learned that most human practices, however odd and senseless they appear, have their reasons and are not mere caprices, it is not easy to suppose they ever had a reasonable basis. And even when one is assured that there is an underlying reason, the question, What is that reason? has been found a very perplexing one. During the last year or two it has been brought into prominence by the enquiries of Professor Dr. Rhys in Wales and the Isle of Man; and he has discussed it with the Folk-lore Society and elsewhere without arriving at any satisfactory conclusion. If I offer a suggestion for which I have looked in vain in the reported discussions, it is hardly in the hope of settling the matter, so much as of drawing attention to a habit of archaic thought running through many a habit of archaic practice, and possibly therefore affecting these customs.

Let us first endeavour to obtain a clear idea of the customs with which we are dealing. One or two examples will suffice for this purpose. I take them from Professor Rhys' paper, read before a joint meeting of the Cymmrodorion and Folk-lore Societies, on the 11th January 1893. He quotes a correspondent as saying of Ffynnon Cae Moch, about halfway between Coychurch and Bridgend in Glamorganshire: "People suffering from rheumatism go there.


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 452 They bathe the part affected with water, and afterwards tie a piece of rag to the tree which overhangs the well. The rag is not put in the water at all, but is only put on the tree for luck. It is a stunted but very old tree, and is simply covered with rags." In another case, that of Ffynnon Eilian (Elian's Well), near Abergele in Denbighshire, of which Professor Rhys was informed by Mrs. Evans, the late wife of Canon Silvan Evans, some bushes near the well had once been covered with bits of rag left by those who frequented it. The rags used to be tied to the bushes by means of wool—not woollen yarn, but wool in its natural state. Corks with pins stuck in them were floating in the well when Mrs. Evans visited it, though the rags had apparently disappeared from the bushes. The well in question, it is noted, had once been in great repute as "a well to which people resorted for the kindly purpose of bewitching those whom they hated". The Ffynnon Cefn Lleithfan, or Well of the Lleithfan Ridge, on the eastern slope of Mynydd y Rhiw, in the parish of Bryncroes, in the west of Carnarvonshire, is a resort for the cure of warts. The sacred character of the well may be inferred from the silence in which it is necessary to go and come, and from the prohibition to turn or look back. The wart is to be bathed at the well with a rag or clout, which has grease on it. The clout must then be carefully concealed beneath the stone at the mouth of the well. The Professor, repeating this account of the well, given him by a Welsh collector of folk-lore, says: "This brings to my mind the fact that I have, more than once, years ago, noticed rags underneath stones in the water flowing from wells in Wales, and sometimes thrust into holes in the walls of wells, but I had no notion how they came there." This is an experience we have probably all shared.

Professor Rhys mentions several wells wherein it was usual to drop pins; but the most detailed account was afterwards furnished by Mr. T. E. Morris, from a correspondent who supplied him with the following information


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 Rh relating to Ffynnon Faglan (St. Baglan's Well) in the parish of Llanfaglan, Carnarvonshire: "The old people who would be likely to know anything about Ffynnon Faglan have all died. The two oldest inhabitants, who have always lived in this parish (Llanfaglan), remember the well being used for healing purposes. One told me his mother used to take him to it, when he was a child, for sore eyes, bathe them with the water, and then drop in a pin. The other man, when he was young, bathed in it for rheumatism, and until quite lately people used to fetch away the water for medicinal purposes. The latter, who lives near the well at Tan-y-graig, said that he remembered it being cleared out about fifty years ago, when two basins-full of pins were taken out, but no coin of any kind. The pins were all bent, and I conclude the intention was to exorcise the evil spirit supposed to afflict the person who dropped them in, or, as the Welsh say, dadwitsio. No doubt some ominous words were also used. The well is at present nearly dry, the field where it lies having been drained some years ago, and the water in consequence withdrawn from it. It was much used for the cure of warts. The wart was washed, then pricked with a pin, which, after being bent, was thrown into the well."

Such being the rites, we will next attempt to sketch the geographical distribution of these and some apparently analogous superstitions. Pin-wells and Rag-bushes are found all over the British Isles. The observances, however, are not confined to the exact form described by Professor Rhys and his correspondents. Sir Arthur Mitchell mentions a well renowned for the cure of insanity on the island of Maelrubha in Loch Maree. Near the well is an oak tree covered with nails, to each of which was formerly attached a portion of the clothing of an afflicted person who had been brought thither; and a few ribbons are said to be still flying


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 454 from one or two of them. Two gilt buttons and two buckles are also nailed to the tree. Many of the nails are believed to be covered with the bark, which appears to be growing over them all. This resembles the ceremony prescribed for hernia in Mecklenburg. A cross is made over the affected part with a nail on a Friday; and the nail is then driven, in unbroken silence, into a young beech or oak The operation is repeated on the two Fridays following. A variant prescription directs the part to be touched with a coffin-nail, which is then to be driven over its head into the tree by the sufferer, barefoot and silent. As the nail is overgrown by the bark, the hernia will be healed.

In Belgium, halfway between Braine l'Alleud and the wood of Le Foriet, two hollow, and therefore doubtless very ancient, roads cross one another. Two aged pine-trees are planted at the top of the bank at one of the corners; and formerly there stood between them a cross, which has disappeared for some thirty years. It was a very ancient custom to bury in the pines, and even in the cross, pins or nails, in order to obtain the cure of persons attacked by fevers of various kinds. The pins and nails thus employed must have been previously in contact with the patient or his clothes. If anyone took out one of these pins or nails from the pines or the cross, and carried it home, it was believed that the disease would certainly have been communicated to some member of his family. The custom is said to have fallen out of use. Yet M. Schepers, who visited the place in September 1891, and to whose article on the subject in Wallonia, a periodical published at Liège, I am indebted for these particulars, found not only rusty nails in the pines, but also pins quite recently planted. He was told that it was equally customary to roll round the pines, or the arms of the cross, some band of cloth or other stuff which had touched the sufferer. As soon as the nail or pin had been driven in, or the ribbon fastened, the operator


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Rh used to run away as hard as he could go. The spot was called A l'crwè Saint Zè, St. Etto's Cross, or Aux deux Sapins, The two pine-trees. Saint Etto, it seems, was an Irish missionary to these parts in the seventh century.

At Croisic, in Upper Brittany, there is a well, called the well of Saint Goustan, into which pins are thrown by those who wish to be married during the year. If the wish be granted, the pin will fall straight to the bottom. Similar practices are said to be performed in Lower Brittany, and in Poitou and Elsass. Girls used to resort to the little shrine of Saint Guirec, which stands on an isolated rock below high-water-mark on the beach at Perros Guirec in Lower Brittany, to pray for husbands. The worshipper, her prayer concluded, stuck a pin into the wooden statue of the saint; and when I saw the shrine, in the year 1 889, the figure was riddled from top to toe with pinholes. It was said that the prayer for a husband would infallibly be granted within a year. On the other side of Brittany, in the Morbihan, there is a chapel dedicated to Saint Uférier, credited with a similar reputation. The saint's foot, if I may be guilty of a bull, is almost entirely composed of holes. It is, however, necessary here that the pin should be a new one and quite straight; not that the prayer will not be granted otherwise, but the husband will be crooked, hump-backed, and lame. In Upper Brittany, at Saint Lawrence's Chapel near Quintin, and elsewhere, the condition is that the pin be planted at the first blow; the marriage will then take place within the year.

All over France the like practices exist, or have died out only within comparatively recent years. In the Protestant villages of Montbeliard, between the Vosges and the Jura, at the moment of celebration of a wedding a nail was planted in the gallery (or, in some places, in the


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 456 floor) of the church, to "nail" or fasten the marriage. In various parts of the country there are stone or iron crosses which have doubtless replaced wooden ones. In the new crosses it is of course impossible to hammer nails, or stick pins. Devotees, therefore, content themselves with depositing pins upon the arms or pedestal, or in the joints. The well of Monies in the department of Tarn had, at the beginning of the present century, a great renown for the cure of various diseases. The rags which had been used in bathing with the sacred water the diseased members were left stretched out on the neighbouring bushes. An instance where the honour and glory, not to say the substantial gains attendant on the superstition, were early annexed by the Church is that of St. Michel-la-Rivière in the diocese of Bordeaux. Both the honour and the gains were considerable in the seventeenth century, as appears from orders made, and quarrels between the curé and the fabriqueur of the church decided, by the Archbishop of Bordeaux. The sick man was required to pass through a hole called a veyrine at the end of the apse; and the patients left offerings not merely of linen, but also of money, wax, and other things. Nor was this case at all singular; for similar practices obtained wherever in the diocese was a church dedicated to St. Michael. In a North-German example the object of veneration was an oak-tree; and the pilgrim, after creeping through the hole in the prescribed manner, completed the performance by burying a piece of money under the roots. As many as a hundred patients a day are said to have visited it. Here the Church had neglected her opportunities.

Passing the Pyrenees, let us note that in the seventeenth


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 Rh century it was usual to stick needles or pins in a certain tree belonging to the church of Saint Christopher, situated on a high mountain near the city of Pampeluna. In Mediterranean lands we must not forget the rite practised from very early times at Rome. From the date of the erection of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus it was the custom on the festival of the dedication, the Ides of September, for the highest person of the state to drive a nail into the right wall of the Cella Jovis. This was usually done by the consuls or prætor; but in case of the appointment of a dictator the latter performed the ceremony. After it was dropped as an annual performance, recourse was occasionally had to it for the staying of a pestilence, or as an atonement for crime. Two curious parallels to this Roman custom existed almost down to the present day in modern Europe. Near Angers was an oak which bore the singular name of Lapalud. It was regarded as of the same antiquity as the town, and was covered with nails to the height of ten feet or thereabouts. From time immemorial every journeyman carpenter, joiner, or mason who passed it, used to stick a nail in it. Near the cathedral at Vienna was the stock of an old tree, called the Stock im Risen, said to be the last remnant of an ancient forest which covered the neighbourhood. Every workman who passed through Vienna was expected to fasten a nail in it; and it was in fact covered with a complete coat of mail, consisting entirely of the heads of the nails it had thus received.

At Athens, mothers bring their sick children to the little church of Santa Marina, under the Observatory Hill, and there undress them, leaving the old clothes behind. There is a dripping well near Kotzanes, in Macedonia, "said to issue from the Nereids' breasts, and to cure all human ills.


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Chester, Robert (fl.1182)


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52 appetite for peaceful avocations; and they threatened to become as great a peril as had been the freebooters. The nobles leagued against them, the royal forces were set in motion; the White Hoods were defeated and butchered without compunction, and the society founded for a good purpose came to an end, and its disappearance gave free scope for the great Companies to reorganise and resume their depredations.

When the massacre of S. Bartholomew was determined on in 1572, sealed orders were sent to the Count-Bishop of Le Puy as to all other governors to order a butchery of the Huguenots. Antoine de S. Nectaire was bishop at the time. He was the brother of the famous Madelaine who had been married to Guy de Miremont. Left a widow when young, beautiful, and rich, she was surrounded by aspirants after her hand. Madelaine had embraced the reform of Calvin. She enrolled her sixty lovers in a corps to serve as bodyguard. A word, a look sufficed to send this enthusiastic corps to smash crucifixes, burn villages, and storm castles. She rode in armour at the head of her suitors,and of an army that had gathered about her eager for plunder. She advanced to the gates of Riom and Clermont at its head, taking fortresses and burning towns and villages on her way. The King's Lieutenant, the Sieur de Montal, was routed by her in several encounters, and he, exasperated at his humiliation, resolved on storming and destroying her castle of Miremont, to which she had withdrawn. So soon as he appeared before it, at the head of the royal troops, she issued from the gates, her visor raised and mounted on a noble steed, sword in hand, followed by her bodyguard, engaged the lieutenant in single combat and smote


text:
Author:Hugh Longbourne Callendar

Works

 * On the Law of the Condensation of Steam (1898) IA
 * A Manual of Cursive Shorthand (1889) IA
 * A System of Phonetic Spelling (1889) (small work) IA
 * On the Variation of the Specific Heat of Water (1912) IA
 * The Callendar Steam Tables (1915) IA
 * Properties Of Steam And Thermodynamic Theory Of Turbines (1920) IA

title: Author:Hugh Longbourne Callendar


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Rh him from his steed. Finally, after an ineffectual siege that lasted forty days, Madelaine forced the royal host to retire. "Ventre saint gris!" exclaimed Henry of Navarre, "if I were not king, I would desire to be Madelaine de Saint Nectaire!" This by the way.

Her brother was Bishop of Le Puy, and by no means inclined to accept Calvinism. When the order came to him requiring a massacre of the Huguenots in Le Puy, he called the consuls together, and read to them the royal letter. "Messieurs," said he, "this concerns only rebels and disloyal Calvinists, and there are none such here. We read in the Gospel that the love of God and of our neighbours form the sum of the Law and the Prophets. Let us live together as a Christian people in all good charity."

This was excellent. If we knew no more of him than this, we would set him down as an enlightened prelate and a man of high principle. But unhappily it is not all.

Next year the Calvinists had entered the Province, and had captured several places; amongst others Fay-le-Froid. The Bishop at once, with promptitude, marched thither at the head of five hundred men. He rode a richly caparisoned mule, clad in black armour, with a gold cross on his breast, and his arms, five silver spindles on a field azure, emblazoned on his mantle. He was a magnificent man, ruddy-faced, with bright blue eyes and a flowing white beard. He was of Herculean strength, and as canon law forbade a Churchman shedding blood, he bore a heavy club with which to brain the enemies of the King and of the Church. In his train were two cannons. As he arrived unexpectedly before Fay-le-Froid, the town surrendered. He swept


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54 the inhabitants and the rebel garrison together, and hung as many as were involved in the insurrection. "What a lamentable scene it was," wrote a contemporary author; "poor women weeping, tearing their hair, pleading for the lives of their husbands, their brothers, and their friends; but Mgr. de Saint Nectaire would not so much as vouchsafe them a look."

Then, with the bodies dangling from the gibbets, he had an altar erected in the public square and a Mass sung, whilst his pikemen prodded the Calvinists at the proper moment to oblige them to cross themselves and to kneel.

The Bishop returned to Le Puy highly elated at his success, but his elation was damped on his arrival by hearing that in the meantime the Huguenots had captured his castle at Espaly, at the very door of Le Puy, and were menacing the capital. He made his way in with all speed, and despatched a courier to the Baron de S. Vidal to come to his aid.

Espaly was then a walled town at the foot of a trap dyke that shoots above the Borne, and on which stood a castle, the summer residence of the bishops.

The castle had been erected in the thirteenth century by William de la Roue, of whose misdeeds I have already told. It was completed by Jean de Bourbon (1443-85). The part taken by this prelate in the League of the Public Good brought on Espaly the horrors of a siege. But it suffered especially in the Wars of Religion. Within thirty years it was taken and retaken by Huguenots and Catholics eight times.

The story of the last siege is sufficiently curious to be told.

In 1574, Vidal Guyard, a hatmaker of Le Puy, placed


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Rh himself at the head of a hundred and twenty Calvinists, and, favoured by the moon, on the night of January 9th approached Espaly, and by penetrating into the castle by a drain succeeded in surprising the garrison and making themselves masters of the place. The news reached Le Puy through fugitives from the town, and next day the young men of the city, acting against the advice of the Bishop, determined on retaking the fortress. A crowd of citizens armed, assumed a white cross on their breasts, and marched against the place. But heavy rain came on, they were drenched to the skin, and their powder and courage were damped, so they returned having effected nothing. The Cavinists now set to work to destroy the houses in the little town, sparing only such as were redeemed by their owners with a heavy money payment.

On January 20th the Baron de S. Vidal, whom the Bishop had summoned to his aid, assembled troops at Le Puy and marched to Espaly, forced his way into the town, but could effect nothing against the castle, that was accessible by one path only, cut in the face of the rock. One of the garrison with his arquebus wounded S. Vidal in the shoulder. After that they made a sortie and did much execution among the besiegers.

S. Vidal, despairing of reducing the place by force of arms, resolved on trying negotiation. But Guyard demanded such an exorbitant sum for its surrender that it was refused. S. Vidal now tried stratagem. He framed a letter, as from Guyard, addressed to the consuls of Le Puy, offering to deliver up the castle, his lieutenant Morfouse, and the garrison, if his own life were spared and he were liberally rewarded. This letter was smuggled into the fortress, read by Morfouse,


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56 and in a paroxysm of jealousy and alarm he and the rest fell on Guyard and killed him. Then they entered into communication with S. Vidal, and surrendered on February 3rd, the day on which the baron received the news of his nomination by the King to be governor of Le Velay. Le Puy itself had undergone a siege by the Huguenots twelve years before this.

In 1562 the terrible Baron des Adrets, who was in Dauphiné stamping out every spark of Catholicism, deputed his lieutenant, Blacons, to secure Le Puy. Blacons was a man as ruthless as his commander, but without his military genius. It was settled that Blacons should assemble an army at Pont-en-Peyrat, a village on the borders of Forez and Velay. Thither accordingly gathered the Calvinists and a horde of adventurers thirsting for the pillage of the wealthy city and the shrine of the Madonna. The consuls of Le Puy sent the brother of their seneschal, Christopher d'Allègre, with 20,000 livres to treat with Blacons, and offer this sum if he would divert his column on some other town. Christopher d'Allègre, who was himself a Calvinist, and had been selected for the embassy on that ground, pocketed the money without intimating to Blacons the purpose for which it had been confided to him, and was instant in urging the Huguenot captain to capture and sack the city. The consuls, bishop, and chapter met in consultation and armed all the male inhabitants of the place, and hastily repaired the fortifications.

On August 4th arrived the citizens of S. Paulien, escaping with their goods and chatels from the Calvinists with terrible stories of outrage and murder committed by them. The alarm-bells pealed; a message was sent


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Rh to the Viscount Polignac for aid, but he remained inert on the top of his rock, alleging that he had not a force sufficient at his disposal to be able materially to assist the citizens.

On the night of the same day the siege began. The Huguenots crossed the Borne, which was then dry, and planted their cannon. After a steady bombardment they rushed to the assault, and a desperate struggle ensued. Towards evening of August 5th the resistance of the citizens slackened, and the Calvinists pressed on, when a postern was thrown open and out poured a body of monks and friars variously armed. They fell upon the enemy in flank and put them to rout. The members of the monasteries and convents round Le Puy had fled to the city at the approach of Blacons, and had been clustered on the top of the rock Corneille watching events. Observing the progress of the Huguenots, and knowing that if the city fell every one of them would be hung or hurled down the rock, they had gone to the episcopal armoury and seized whatever weapons came to hand; and these men determined the fate of the engagement.

The disconcerted Huguenots retired for the night to Espaly. Next day they returned to the assault, and planted their cannon on a height whence they could play on the town. The suburb of Aiguilhe fell into their hands and was sacked. The hospital and the monasteries were burnt, the church of S. Laurence and the chapel of S. Michael were plundered and the carved work mutilated. If the latter escaped better than the former, it was due to the height at which it stood, and the danger attending any who climbed aloft to smash the sculptures with axes and hammers.


text: Translation:Announcements, Acts, and Decrees From the Reign of Rama VIII/Tome 2/Part 24


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 BY S. BARING-GOULD, M.A.


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Rh Yes, sir, that was the propitious moment, when our country stood alone, the last hope of the world, struggling for her existence against the colossal power of Great Britain, “concentrated in one mighty effort to crush us at a blow;” that was the chosen hour to revive the grand scheme of building up “a great northern confederacy”—a scheme which, it is stated in the work before me, had its origin as far back as the year 1796, and which appears never to have been entirely abandoned.

In the language of the writers of that day, (1796,) “rather than have a constitution such as the anti-federalists were contending for, (such as we are now contending for,) the Union ought to be dissolved;” and to prepare the way for that measure, the same methods were resorted to then that have always been relied on for that purpose, exciting prejudice against the south. Yes, sir, our northern brethren were then told, “that if the negroes were good for food, their southern masters would claim the right to destroy them at pleasure.” (Olive Branch, p. 267.) Sir, in 1814, all these topics were revived. Again we hear of “a northern confederacy.” “The slave states by themselves;” “the mountains are the natural boundary;” we want neither “the counsels nor the power of the west,” &c., &c. The papers teemed with accusations against the south and the west, and the calls for a dissolution of all connection with them were loud and strong. I cannot consent to go through the disgusting details. But to show the height to which the spirit of disaffection was carried, I will take you to the temple of the living God, and show you that sacred place, which should be devoted to the extension of “peace on earth and good will towards men,” where “one day’s truce ought surely to be allowed to the dissensions and animosities of mankind,” converted into a fierce arena of political strife, where, from the lips of the priest, standing between the horns of the altar, there went forth the most terrible denunciations against all who should be true to their country in the hour of her utmost need.

“If you do not wish,” said a reverend clergyman, in a sermon preached in Boston, on the 23d July, 1812, “to become the slaves of those who own slaves, and who are themselves the slaves of French slaves, you must either, in the language of the day,, or so far alter the national compact as to insure to yourselves a due share in the government.” (Olive Branch, p. 319.) “The Union,” says the same writer, (p. 320,) “has been long since virtually dissolved, and it is full time that this part of the disunited states should take care of itself.”

Another reverend gentleman, pastor of a church at Medford, (p. 321,) issues his anathema—“”—against all, all who, by their “personal services,” for “loans of money,” “conversation,” or “writing,” or “influence,” give countenance or support to the unrighteous war, in the following terms: “That man is an accomplice in the wickedness—he loads his conscience with the blackest crimes—he brings the guilt of blood upon his soul, and in the sight of God and his law, he is a .”

One or two more quotations, sir, and I shall have done. A reverend doctor of divinity, the pastor of a church at Byfield, Massachusetts, on the 7th of April, 1814, thus addresses his flock, (p. 321:) “The Israelites became weary of yielding the fruit of their labor to pamper their splendid tyrants. They left their political woes. ; where is our Moses? Where the rod of his miracles? Where is our Aaron? Alas! no voice from the burning bush has directed them here.”


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26 “We must trample on the mandates of despotism, or remain slaves forever,” (p. 322.) “You must drag the chains of Virginian despotism, unless you discover some other mode of escape.” “Those Western States which have been violent for this abominable war—those states which have thirsted for blood—God has given them blood to drink,” (p. 323.) Mr. President, I can go no further. The records of the day are full of such sentiments, issued from the press, spoken in public assemblies, poured out from the sacred desk. God forbid, sir, that I should charge the people of Massachusetts with participating in these sentiments. The south and the west had there their friends—men who stood by their country, though encompassed all around by their enemies. The senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Silsbee) was one of them; the senator from Connecticut (Mr. Foot) was another; and there are others now on this floor. The sentiments I have read were the sentiments of a party embracing the political associates of the gentleman from Massachusetts. If they could only be found in the columns of a newspaper, in a few occasional pamphlets, issued by men of intemperate feeling, I should not consider them as affording any evidence of the opinions even of the peace party of New England. But, sir, they were the common language of that day; they pervaded the whole land; they were issued from the legislative hall, from the pulpit, and the press. Our books are full of them; and there is no man who now hears me but knows that they were the sentiments of a party, by whose members they were promulgated. Indeed, no evidence of this would seem to be required beyond the fact that such sentiments found their way even into the pulpits of New England. What must be the state of public opinion, where any respectable clergyman would venture to preach, and to print, sermons containing the sentiments I have quoted? I doubt not the piety or moral worth of these gentlemen. I am told they were respectable and pious men. But they were men, and they “kindled in a common blaze.” And now, sir, I must be suffered to remark that, at this awful and melancholy period of our national history, the gentleman from Massachusetts, who now manifests so great a devotion to the Union, and so much anxiety lest it should be endangered from the south, was “with his brethren in Israel.” He saw all these things passing before his eyes—he heard these sentiments uttered all around him. I do not charge that gentleman with any participation in these acts, or with approving of these sentiments.

But I will ask, why, if he was animated by the same sentiments then which he now professes, if he can “augur disunion at a distance, and snuff up rebellion in every tainted breeze,” why did he not, at that day, exert his great talents and acknowledged influence with the political associates by whom he was surrounded, and who then, as now, looked up to him for guidance and direction, in allaying this general excitement, in pointing out to his deluded friends the value of the Union, in instructing them that, instead of looking “to some prophet to lead them out of the land of Egypt,” they should become reconciled to their brethren, and unite with them in the support of a just and necessary war? Sir, the gentleman must excuse me for saying, that if the records of our country afforded any evidence that he had pursued such a course, then, if we could find it recorded in the history of those times, that, like the immortal Dexter, he had breasted that mighty torrent which was sweeping before it all that was great and valuable in our political institutions—if like him he had stood by his country in opposition to his party, sir, we would, like little children, listen to his precepts, and abide by his counsels.


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Rh As soon as the public mind was sufficiently prepared for the measure, the celebrated Hartford Convention was got up; not as the act of a few unauthorized individuals, but by authority of the legislature of Massachusetts; and, as has been shown by the able historian of that convention, in accordance with the views and wishes of the party of which it was the organ. Now, sir, I do not desire to call in question the motives of the gentlemen who composed that assembly. I knew many of them to be in private life accomplished and honorable men, and I doubt not there were some among them who did not perceive the dangerous tendency of their proceedings. I will even go further, and say, that if the authors of the Hartford Convention believed that “gross, deliberate, and palpable violations of the constitution” had taken place, utterly destructive of their rights and interests, I should be the last man to deny their right to resort to any constitutional measures for redress. But, sir, in any view of the case, the time when and the circumstances under which that convention assembled, as well as the measures recommended, render their conduct, in my opinion, wholly indefensible. Let us contemplate, for a moment, the spectacle then exhibited to the view of the world. I will not go over the disasters of the war, nor describe the difficulties in which the government was involved. It will be recollected that its credit was nearly gone, Washington had fallen, the whole coast was blockaded, and an immense force, collected in the West Indies, was about to make a descent, which it was supposed we had no means of resisting. In this awful state of our public affairs, when the government seemed almost to be tottering on its base, when Great Britain, relieved from all her other enemies, had proclaimed her purpose of “reducing us to unconditional submission,” we beheld the peace party of New England (in the language of the work before us) pursuing a course calculated to do more injury to their country, and to render England more effective service than all her armies.” [sic] Those who could not find it in their hearts to rejoice at our victories sang Te Deum at the King’s Chapel in Boston, for the restoration of the Bourbons. Those who could not consent to illuminate their dwellings for the capture of the Guerriere could give no visible tokens of their joy at the fall of Detroit. The “beacon fires” of their hills were lighted up, not for the encouragement of their friends, but as signals to the enemy; and in the gloomy hours of midnight, the very lights burned blue. Such were the dark and portentous signs of the times, which ushered into being the renowned Hartford Convention. That convention met, and, from their proceedings, it appears that their chief object was to keep back the men and money of New England from the service of the Union, and to effect radical changes in the government—changes that can never be effected without a dissolution of the Union.

Let us now, sir, look at their proceedings. I read from “A Short Account of the Hartford Convention,” (written by one of its members,) a very rare book, of which I was fortunate enough, a few years ago, to obtain a copy. [Here Mr. H. read from the proceedings. ]


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28 Resolved, That the most inviolable secrecy shall be observed by each member of this convention, including the secretary, as to all propositions, debates, and proceedings thereof, until this injunction shall be suspended or altered.

On the 24th of December, the committee appointed to prepare and report a general project of such measures as may be proper for the convention to adopt, reported, among other things,—

“1. That it was expedient to recommend to the legislatures of the states the adoption of the most effectual and decisive measures to protect the militia of the states from the usurpations contained in these proceedings.” [The proceedings of Congress and the executive, in relation to the militia and the war.]

“2. That it was expedient also to prepare a statement, exhibiting the necessity which the improvidence and inability of the general government have imposed upon the states of providing for their own defence, and the impossibility of their discharging this duty, and at the same time fulfilling the requisitions of the general government, and also to recommend to the legislatures of the several states to make provision for mutual defence, and to make an earnest application to the government of the United States, with a view to some arrangement whereby the states may be enabled to retain a portion of the taxes levied by Congress, for the purposes of self-defence, and for the reimbursement of expenses already incurred on account of the United States.

“3. That it is expedient to recommend to the several state legislatures certain amendments to the constitution, viz.,—

“That the power to declare or make war, by the Congress of the United States, be restricted.

“That it is expedient to attempt to make provision for restraining Congress in the exercise of an unlimited power to make new states, and admit them into the Union.

“That an amendment be proposed respecting slave representation and slave taxation.”

On the 29th of December, 1814, it was proposed “that the capacity of naturalized citizens to hold offices of trust, honor, or profit ought to be restrained,” &c.

The subsequent proceedings are not given at large. But it seems that the report of the committee was adopted, and also a recommendation of certain measures (of the character of which we are not informed) to the states for their mutual defence; and having voted that the injunction of secrecy, in regard to all the debates and proceedings of the convention, (except so far as relates to the report finally adopted,) be continued, the convention adjourned sine die, but, as it was supposed, to meet again when circumstances should require it. It is unnecessary to trace the matter further, or to ask what would have been the next chapter in this history, if the measures recommended had been carried into effect; and if, with the men and money of New England withheld from the government of the United States, she had been withdrawn from the war; if New Orleans had fallen into the hands of the enemy; and if, without troops and almost destitute of money, the Southern and the Western States had been thrown upon their own resources, for the prosecution of the war, and the recovery of New Orleans.

Sir, whatever may have been the issue of the contest, the Union must have been dissolved. But a wise and just Providence, which “shapes our ends, roughhew them as we will,” gave us the victory, and crowned our efforts with a glorious peace. The ambassadors of Hartford were seen retracing their steps from Washington, “the bearers of the glad tidings of great joy.” Courage and patriotism triumphed—the country was saved—the Union was preserved. And are we, Mr. President, who stood by our country then, who threw open our coffers, who bared our bosoms, who freely perilled all in that conflict, to be reproached with want of attachment to the Union? If, sir, we are to have lessons of patriotism read to us, they must come from a different quarter. The senator from Massachusetts, who is now so sensitive on all subjects connected with the Union, seems to have a memory forgetful of the political


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Rh events that have passed away. I must therefore refresh his recollection a little further on these subjects. The history of disunion has been written by one whose authority stands too high with the American people to be questioned; I mean Thomas Jefferson. I know not how the gentleman may receive this authority. When that great and good man occupied the presidential chair, I believe he commanded no portion of the gentleman’s respect.

I hold in my hand a celebrated pamphlet on the embargo, in which language is held, in relation to Mr. Jefferson, which my respect for his memory will prevent me from reading, unless any gentleman should call for it. But the senator from Massachusetts has since joined in singing hosannas to his name; he has assisted at his apotheosis, and has fixed him as “a brilliant star in the clear upper sky.” I hope, therefore, he is now prepared to receive with deference and respect the high authority of Mr. Jefferson. In the fourth volume of his Memoirs, which has just issued from the press, we have the following history of disunion from the pen of that illustrious statesman: “Mr. Adams called on me pending the embargo, and while endeavors were making to obtain its repeal: he spoke of the dissatisfaction of the eastern portion of our confederacy with the restraints of the embargo then existing, and their restlessness under it; that there was nothing which might not be attempted to rid themselves of it; that he had information of the most unquestionable authority, that certain citizens of the Eastern States (I think he named Massachusetts particularly) were in negotiation with agents of the British government, the object of which was an agreement that the New England States should take no further part in the war (the commercial war, the ‘war of restrictions,’ as it was called) then going on, and that, without formally declaring their separation from the Union, they should withdraw from all aid and obedience to them, &c. From that moment,” says Mr. J., “I saw the necessity of abandoning it, [the embargo,] and, instead of effecting our purpose by this peaceful measure, we must fight it out or break the Union.” In another letter, Mr. Jefferson adds, “I doubt whether a single fact known to the world will carry as clear conviction to it of the correctness of our knowledge of the treasonable views of the federal party of that day, as that disclosed by this, the most nefarious and daring attempt to dissever the Union, of which the Hartford Convention was a subsequent chapter; and both of these having failed, consolidation becomes the fourth chapter of the next book of their history. But this opens with a vast accession of strength, from their younger recruits, who, having nothing in them of the feelings and principles of ’76, now look to a single and splendid government, &c., riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry.” (vol. iv. pp. 419, 422.)

The last chapter, says Mr. Jefferson, of that history, is to be found in the conduct of those who are endeavoring to bring about consolidation; ay, sir, that very consolidation for which the gentleman from Massachusetts is contending—the exercise by the federal government of powers not delegated in relation to “internal improvements” and “the protection of manufactures.” And why, sir, does Mr. Jefferson consider consolidation as leading directly to disunion? Because he knew that the exercise, by the federal government, of the powers contended for, would make this “a government without limitation of powers,” the submission to which he considered as a greater evil than disunion itself. There is


text: A Book of the Cevennes/The Crescent

title: A Book of the Cevennes/The Crescent


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30 one chapter in this history, however, which Mr. Jefferson has not filled up; and I must therefore supply the deficiency. It is to be found in the protests made by New England against the acquisition of Louisiana. In relation to that subject, the New England doctrine is thus laid down by one of her learned doctors of that day, now a doctor of laws, at the head of the great literary institution of the east; I mean Josiah Quincy, president of Harvard College. I quote from the speech delivered by that gentleman on the floor of Congress, on the occasion of the admission of Louisiana into the Union.

“Mr. Quincy repeated and justified a remark he had made, which, to save all misapprehension, he had committed to writing, in the following words: If this bill passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is virtually a dissolution of the Union; that it will free the states from their moral obligation; and as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, to prepare for a separation, amicably if they can, violently if they must.”

Mr. President, I wish it to be distinctly understood, that all the remarks I have made on this subject are intended to be exclusively applied to a party, which I have described as the “peace party of New England”—embracing the political associates of the senator from Massachusetts—a party which controlled the operations of that state during the embargo and the war, and who are justly chargeable with all the measures I have reprobated. Sir, nothing has been further from my thoughts than to impeach the character or conduct of the people of New England. For their steady habits and hardy virtues I trust I entertain a becoming respect. I fully subscribe to the truth of the description given before the revolution, by one whose praise is the highest eulogy, “that the perseverance of Holland, the activity of France, and the dexterous and firm sagacity of English enterprise, have been more than equalled by this recent people.” Hardy, enterprising, sagacious, industrious, and moral, the people of New England of the present day are worthy of their ancestors. Still less, Mr. President, has it been my intention to say any thing that could be construed into a want of respect for that party, who, trampling on all narrow, sectional feeling, have been true to their principles in the worst of times; I mean the democracy of New England.

Sir, I will declare that, highly as I appreciate the democracy of the south, I consider even higher praise to be due to the democracy of New England, who have maintained their principles “through good and through evil report,” who, at every period of our national history, have stood up manfully for “their country, their whole country, and nothing but their country.” In the great political revolution of ’98, they were found united with the democracy of the south, marching under the banner of the constitution, led on by the patriarch of liberty, in search of the land of political promise, which they lived not only to behold, but to possess and to enjoy. Again, sir, in the darkest and most gloomy period of the war, when our country stood single-handed against “the conquerer of the conquerers of the world,” when all about and around them was dark and dreary, disastrous and discouraging, they stood a Spartan band in that narrow pass, where the honor of their country was to be defended, or to find its grave. And in the last great struggle, involving, as we believe, the very existence of the principle of popular sovereignty, where were the democracy of New England? Where they always have been found, sir, struggling side by side, with their brethren of the south


text: Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Swisshelm, Jane Grey


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Rh and the west, for popular rights, and assisting in that glorious triumph, by which the man of the people was elevated to the highest office in their gift.

Who, then, Mr. President, are the true friends of the Union? Those who would confine the federal government strictly within the limits prescribed by the constitution; who would preserve to the states and the people all powers not expressly delegated; who would make this a federal and not a national Union, and who, administering the government in a spirit of equal justice, would make it a blessing, and not a curse. And who are its enemies? Those who are in favor of consolidation; who are constantly stealing power from the states, and adding strength to the federal government; who, assuming an unwarrantable jurisdiction over the states and the people, undertake to regulate the whole industry and capital of the country. But, sir, of all descriptions of men, I consider those as the worst enemies of the Union, who sacrifice the equal rights which belong to every member of the confederacy to combinations of interested majorities, for personal or political objects. But the gentleman apprehends no evil from the dependence of the states on the federal government; he can see no danger of corruption from the influence of money or of patronage. Sir, I know that it is supposed to be a wise saying that “patronage is a source of weakness;” and in support of that maxim, it has been said, that “every ten appointments make a hundred enemies.” But I am rather inclined to think, with the eloquent and sagacious orator now reposing on his laurels on the banks of the Roanoke, that “the power of conferring favors creates a crowd of dependants;” he gave a forcible illustration of the truth of the remark, when he told us of the effect of holding up the savory morsel to the eager eyes of the hungry hounds gathered around his door. It mattered not whether the gift was bestowed on Towzer or Sweetlips, “Tray, Blanch, or Sweetheart;” while held in suspense, they were all governed by a nod, and when the morsel was bestowed, the expectation of the favors of to-morrow kept up the subjection of to-day.

The senator from Massachusetts, in denouncing what he is pleased to call the Carolina doctrine, has attempted to throw ridicule upon the idea that a state has any constitutional remedy, by the exercise of its sovereign authority, against “a gross, palpable, and deliberate violation of the constitution.” He calls it “an idle” or “a ridiculous notion,” or something to that effect, and added, that it would make the Union a “mere rope of sand.” Now, sir, as the gentleman has not condescended to enter into any examination of the question, and has been satisfied with throwing the weight of his authority into the scale, I do not deem it necessary to do more than to throw into the opposite scale the authority on which South Carolina relies; and there, for the present, I am perfectly willing to leave the controversy. The South Carolina doctrine, that is to say, the doctrine contained in an exposition reported by a committee of the legislature in December, 1828, and published by their authority, is the good old republican doctrine of ’98—the doctrine of the celebrated “Virginia Resolutions” of that year, and of “Madison’s Report” of ’99. It will be recollected that the legislature of Virginia, in December, ’98, took into consideration the alien and sedition laws, then considered by all republicans as a gross violation of the constitution of the United States, and on that day passed, among others, the following resolutions:—

“The General Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that


text:
The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Swisshelm, Jane Grey

SWISSHELM, Jane Grey, American reformer and author: b. Pittsburgh, Pa., 6 Sept. 1815; d. Swissdale, Pa., 22 July 1884. She was among the earliest advocates of woman's rights; an ardent opponent of slavery, and while editing the Saint Cloud (Minn.) Visitor had her office and press destroyed by a mob for advocating abolitionism. She was among the first to become a nurse in the Union army. Besides voluminous contributions to current periodicals, she published ‘Letters to Country Girls’ (1853), and an autobiography ‘Half of a Century’ (1881).


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32 it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact to which the states are parties, as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that compact, as no further valid than they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining, within their respective limits, the authorities, rights, and liberties appertaining to them.”

In addition to the above resolution, the General Assembly of Virginia “appealed to the other states, in the confidence that they would concur with that commonwealth, that the acts aforesaid [the alien and sedition laws] are unconstitutional, and that the necessary and proper measures would be taken by each for coöperating with Virginia in maintaining unimpaired the authorities, rights, and liberties reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

The legislatures of several of the New England States, having, contrary to the expectation of the legislature of Virginia, expressed their dissent from these doctrines, the subject came up again for consideration during the session of 1799, 1800, when it was referred to a select committee, by whom was made that celebrated report which is familiarly known as “Madison’s Report,” and which deserves to last as long as the constitution itself. In that report, which was subsequently adopted by the legislature, the whole subject was deliberately reëxamined, and the objections urged against the Virginia doctrines carefully considered. The result was, that the legislature of Virginia reaffirmed all the principles laid down in the resolutions of 1798, and issued to the world that admirable report which has stamped the character of Mr. Madison as the preserver of that constitution which he had contributed so largely to create and establish. I will here quote from Mr. Madison’s report one or two passages which bear more immediately on the point in controversy. “The resolutions, having taken this view of the federal compact, proceed to infer ‘that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining, within their respective limits, the authorities, rights, and liberties appertaining to them.’ ”

“It appears to your committee to be a plain principle, founded in common sense, illustrated by common practice, and essential to the nature of compacts, that, where resort can be had to no tribunal superior to the authority of the parties, the parties themselves must be the rightful judges in the last resort, whether the bargain made has been pursued or violated. The constitution of the United States was formed by the sanction of the states, given by each in its sovereign capacity. It adds to the stability and dignity, as well as to the authority, of the constitution, that it rests upon this legitimate and solid foundation. The states, then, being the parties to the constitutional compact, and in their sovereign capacity, it follows of necessity that there can be no tribunal above their authority, to decide, in the last resort, whether the compact made by them be violated, and consequently that, as the parties to it, they must themselves decide, in the last resort, such questions as may be of sufficient magnitude to require their interposition.”

“The resolution has guarded against any misapprehension of its object


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Rh by expressly requiring for such an interposition ‘the case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous breach of the constitution, by the exercise of powers not granted by it.’ It must be a case, not of a light and transient nature, but of a nature dangerous to the great purposes for which the constitution was established.

“But the resolution has done more than guard against misconstruction, by expressly referring to cases of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous nature. It specifies the object of the interposition, which it contemplates, to be solely that of arresting the progress of the evil of usurpation, and of maintaining the authorities, rights, and liberties appertaining to the states, as parties to the constitution.

“From this view of the resolution, it would seem inconceivable that it can incur any just disapprobation from those who, laying aside all momentary impressions, and recollecting the genuine source and object of the federal constitution, shall candidly and accurately interpret the meaning of the General Assembly. If the deliberate exercise of dangerous powers, palpably withheld by the constitution, could not justify the parties to it in interposing even so far as to arrest the progress of the evil, and thereby to preserve the constitution itself, as well as to provide for the safety of the parties to it, there would be an end to all relief from usurped power, and a direct subversion of the rights specified or recognized under all the state constitutions, as well as a plain denial of the fundamental principles on which our independence itself was declared.”

But, sir, our authorities do not stop here. The state of Kentucky responded to Virginia, and on the 10th of November, 1798, adopted those celebrated resolutions, well known to have been penned by the author of the Declaration of American Independence. In those resolutions, the legislature of Kentucky declare, “that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself, since that would have made its discretion, and not the constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge, for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.”

At the ensuing session of the legislature, the subject was reëxamined, and on the 14th of November, 1799, the resolutions of the preceding year were deliberately reaffirmed, and it was, among other things, solemnly declared,—

“That, if those who administer the general government be permitted to transgress the limits fixed by that compact, by a total disregard to the special delegations of power therein contained, an annihilation of the state governments, and the erection upon their ruins of a general consolidated government, will be the inevitable consequence. That the principles of construction contended for by sundry of the state legislatures, that the general government is the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing short of despotism; since the discretion of those who administer the government, and not the constitution, would be the measure of their powers. That the several states who formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction, and that a nullification, by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under color of that instrument, is the rightful remedy.”

Time and experience confirmed Mr. Jefferson’s opinion on this


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34 point. In the year 1821, he expressed himself in this emphatic manner: “It is a fatal heresy to suppose that either our state governments are superior to the federal. or the federal to the state; neither is authorized literally to decide which belongs to itself or its copartner in government; in differences of opinion, between their different sets of public servants, the appeal is to neither, but to their employers peaceably assembled by their representatives in convention.” The opinion of Mr. Jefferson on this subject has been so repeatedly and so solemnly expressed, that they may be said to have been among the most fixed and settled convictions of his mind.

In the protest prepared by him for the legislature of Virginia, in December, 1825, in respect to the powers exercised by the federal government in relation to the tariff and internal improvements, which he declares to be “usurpations of the powers retained by the states, mere interpolations into the compact, and direct infractions of it,” he solemnly reasserts all the principles of the Virginia Resolutions of ’98, protests against “these acts of the federal branch of the government as null and void, and declares that, although Virginia would consider a dissolution of the Union as among the greatest calamities that could befall them, yet it is not the greatest. There is one yet greater—submission to a government of unlimited powers. It is only when the hope of this shall become absolutely desperate, that further forbearance could not be indulged.”

In his letter to Mr. Giles, written about the same time, he says,—

“I see as you do, and with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides with which the federal branch of our government is advancing towards the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the states, and the consolidation in itself of all powers, foreign and domestic, and that too by constructions which leave no limits to their powers, &c. Under the power to regulate commerce, they assume, indefinitely, that also over agriculture and manufactures, &c. Under the authority to establish post roads, they claim that of cutting down mountains for the construction of roads, and digging canals, &c. And what is our resource for the preservation of the constitution? Reason and argument? You might as well reason and argue with the marble columns encircling them, &c. Are we then to stand to our arms with the hot-headed Georgian? No; [and I say no, and South Carolina has said no;] that must be the last resource. We must have patience and long endurance with our brethren, &c., and separate from our companions only when the sole alternatives left are a dissolution of our Union with them, or submission to a government without limitation of powers. Between these two evils, when we must make a choice, there can be no hesitation.”

Such, sir, are the high and imposing authorities in support of “the Carolina doctrine,” which is, in fact, the doctrine of the Virginia Resolutions of 1798.

Sir, at that day the whole country was divided on this very question. It formed the line of demarcation between the federal and republican parties; and the great political revolution which then took place turned upon the very questions involved in these resolutions. That question was decided by the people, and by that decision the constitution was, in the emphatic language of Mr. Jefferson, “saved at its last gasp.” I should suppose, sir, it would require more self-respect than any gentleman here would be willing to assume, to treat lightly doctrines derived from such high resources. Resting on authority like this, I will ask gentlemen


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Rh whether South Carolina has not manifested a high regard for the Union, when, under a tyranny ten times more grievous than the alien and sedition laws, she has hitherto gone no further than to petition, remonstrate, and to solemnly protest against a series of measures which she believes to be wholly unconstitutional and utterly destructive of her interests. Sir, South Carolina has not gone one step further than Mr. Jefferson himself was disposed to go, in relation to the present subject of our present complaints—not a step further than the statesmen from New England were disposed to go, under similar circumstances; no further than the senator from Massachusetts himself once considered as within “the limits of a constitutional opposition.” The doctrine that it is the right of a state to judge of the violations of the constitution on the part of the federal government, and to protect her citizens from the operations of unconstitutional laws, was held by the enlightened citizens of Boston, who assembled in Faneuil Hall, on the 25th of January, 1809. They state, in that celebrated memorial, that “they looked only to the state legislature, who were competent to devise relief against the unconstitutional acts of the general government. That your power (say they) is adequate to that object, is evident from the organization of the confederacy.”

A distinguished senator from one of the New England States, (Mr. Hillhouse,) in a speech delivered here, on a bill for enforcing the embargo, declared, “I feel myself bound in conscience to declare, (lest the blood of those who shall fall in the execution of this measure shall be on my head,) that I consider this to be an act which directs a mortal blow at the liberties of my country—an act containing unconstitutional provisions, to which the people are not bound to submit, and to which, in my opinion, they will not submit.”

And the senator from Massachusetts himself, in a speech delivered on the same subject in the other house, said, “This opposition is constitutional and legal; it is also conscientious. It rests on settled and sober conviction, that such policy is destructive to the interests of the people, and dangerous to the being of government. The experience of every day confirms these sentiments. Men who act from such motives are not to be discouraged by trifling obstacles, nor awed by any dangers. They know the limit of constitutional opposition; up to that limit, at their own discretion, they will walk, and walk fearlessly.” How “the being of the government” was to be endangered by “constitutional opposition” to the embargo, I leave to the gentleman to explain.

Thus it will be seen, Mr. President, that the South Carolina doctrine is the republican doctrine of ’98—that it was promulgated by the fathers of the faith—that it was maintained by Virginia and Kentucky in the worst of times—that it constituted the very pivot on which the political revolution of that day turned—that it embraces the very principles, the triumph of which, at that time, saved the constitution at its last gasp, and which New England statesmen were not unwilling to adopt, when they believed themselves to be the victims of unconstitutional legislation. Sir, as to the doctrine that the federal government is the exclusive judge of the extent as well as the limitations of its powers, it seems to me to be utterly subversive of the sovereignty and independence of the states. It makes but little difference, in my estimation, whether Congress or the Supreme Court are invested with this power. If the federal government, in all, or any, of its departments, is to prescribe the limits of its own


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36 authority, and the states are bound to submit to the decision, and are not to be allowed to examine and decide for themselves, when the barriers of the constitution shall be overleaped, this is practically “a government without limitation of powers.” The states are at once reduced to mere petty corporations, and the people are entirely at your mercy. I have but one word more to add. In all the efforts that have been made by South Carolina to resist the unconstitutional laws which Congress has extended over them, she has kept steadily in view the preservation of the Union, by the only means by which she believes it can be long preserved—a firm, manly, and steady resistance against usurpation. The measures of the federal government have, it is true, prostrated her interests, and will soon involve the whole south in irretrievable ruin. But even this evil, great as it is, is not the chief ground of our complaints. It is the principle involved in the contest—a principle which, substituting the discretion of Congress for the limitations of the constitution, brings the states and the people to the feet of the federal government, and leaves them nothing they can call their own. Sir, if the measures of the federal government were less oppressive, we should still strive against this usurpation. The south is acting on a principle she has always held sacred—resistance to unauthorized taxation. These, sir, are the principles which induced the immortal Hampden to resist the payment of a tax of twenty shillings. Would twenty shillings have ruined his fortune? No! but the payment of half twenty shillings, on the principle on which it was demanded, would have made him a slave. Sir, if acting on these high motives—if animated by that ardent love of liberty which has always been the most prominent trait in the southern character—we should be hurried beyond the bounds of a cold and calculating prudence, who is there, with one noble and generous sentiment in his bosom, that would not be disposed, in the language of Burke, to exclaim, “You must pardon something to the spirit of liberty”?


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 persons were executed for contriving his escape), and passed two years at Liège. In the autumn of 1590 he again returned to England, and officiated for some time in the west, eluding capture in spite of there being at one time sixteen warrants out against him. Eventually one of Sir William Waad's agents discovered him; but his imprisonment, apparently in the Gatehouse, was comparatively mild until Topcliffe again intervened with his tortures. Once again Watson, ‘taking occasion of the dores set wyde open unto me,’ effected his escape, in order, he maintained, to avoid legal proceedings on account of 200l. which had been ‘taken up’ by some one using his name; possibly this was on 18 May 1597, when he escaped from Bridewell with ‘an Irish bishop’ (Cal. Hatfield MSS. vii. 204). On 30 June 1599 it was reported ‘Watson, a seminary priest, has again escaped from the Gatehouse and cannot be heard of; he is thought to have with him a servant who, with his consent, has stolen his master's best gelding and 40l. in money for Watson's use’ (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1598–1601, p. 226). He now seems to have fled to Scotland, hoping to cross thence to France, but returned to the north of England, and thence once more to London. Here apparently he was again arrested, and he was one of the thirty-three secular priests in prison at Wisbech Castle who on 17 Nov. 1600 signed the famous ‘appeal’ against the appointment of George Blackwell [q. v.] as archpriest, on the ground that he was a tool of Parsons and the jesuits. Watson's thirty articles against Blackwell's appointment are printed by Mr. T. G. Law in ‘The Archpriest Controversy’ (Camden Soc.), i. 90–8.

To this struggle between the secular priests and the jesuits Watson had devoted his entire energy. Like other seculars, he was bitterly opposed not only to the domination of the jesuits, but also to their anti-national intrigues, especially the project for securing the succession to the infanta of Spain; he maintained that but for these plots Elizabeth's government would grant a large measure of toleration to Roman catholics. As early as 1587, while in the Marshalsea, he had protested against Babington's plot, and the jesuits denounced him as a government spy and his sufferings in prison as fictitious; Watson himself declared that he endured more from the tongues of the jesuits than from Topcliffe's tortures. Possibly his visit to Scotland was in connection with his project of answering the ‘Conference about the next Succession,’ which Parsons had published under the pseudonym of Doleman in 1594, advocating the claims of the infanta. The account which Watson gives of his book is obscure and possibly untrue; at first apparently he wished to advocate the exclusion of all ‘foreign’ claims, the Scottish included, and he says that the queen and Essex liked what he wrote; then he maintained James's right, and when this proved unpalatable at court he suggested that he had only been entrapped into writing the book at all by jesuit intrigues.

This book does not seem to have been printed, but in 1601 appeared four works, all probably printed at Rheims and ascribed to Watson. The first, ‘A Dialogue betwixt a Secular Priest and a Lay Gentleman concerning some points objected by the Jesuiticall Faction against such Secular Priests as haue shewed their dislike of M. Blackwell and the Jesuit Proceedings,’ was erroneously assigned by Parsons and Anthony Rivers to John Mush [q. v.], another of the appellants (, Records, i. 42;, Jesuits and Seculars, p. cxxxvii). The second, ‘A Sparing Dis-coverie of our English Iesuits and of Fa. Parsons' Proceedings under pretence of promoting the Catholike Faith in England … newly imprinted’ (Rheims? 4to), is ascribed by Rivers to Christopher Bagshaw [q. v.] (ib.) But ‘the most notable of these later writings on the side of the appellants was the “Important Considerations.” It forms, however, an exception to the general character of Watson's productions, both in matter and style. Indeed it has so little of Watson's manner that it is not improbable that he was the writer of no more than the prefatory epistle, which is signed with his initials. The book itself professes to be “published by sundry of us, the Secular Priests,” and is a brief, and on the whole fair, historical survey of all the rebellions, plots, and “bloody designments” set on foot against England by the pope or others, mainly at the instigation of the jesuits’ (ib. p. xci). Its title was ‘Important Considerations which ought to move all true and sound Catholickes who are not wholly Jesuited to acknowledge … that the Proceedings of Her Majesty … have been both mild and merciful.’ It was reprinted in ‘A Collection of Several Treatises concerning … the Penal Laws,’ 1675 and 1688, in ‘The Jesuit's Loyalty,’ 1677 series, in ‘A Preservative against Popery,’ 1738, vol. iii., and was edited by the Rev. Joseph Mendham in 1831. It was also extensively used by Stillingfleet in his ‘Answer to Cressy,’ and by Joseph Berington [q. v.] in his ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Catholic Religion,’ 1813 (ib., p. cxxxv;, pref. pp. xiv–xv). In 1601 also


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 was published Watson's longest work, ‘A Decacordon of Ten Quodlibeticall Questions concerning Religion and State; wherein the author, framing himself a Quilibet to every Quodlibet, decides an Hundred Crosse Interrogatorie Doubts about the generall contentions betwixt the Seminarie Priests and Iesuits …,’ Rheims? 4to. Though dated 1602, it was described by Father Rivers in a letter to Parsons on 22 Dec. 1601. It contains a few interesting allusions to Nash, Tarlton, and Will Somers, which seem to indicate that Watson frequented the theatre (pp. 266, 329). Fuller called it a ‘notable book,’ and declared that no answer to it was published by the jesuits (Church History, 1656, bk. x. pp. 5–6). A puritan reply, however, appeared early in 1602 (, i. 30) as ‘Let Quilibet beware of Quodlibet,’ n.d., n. pl., and ‘An Antiquodlibet or an Advertisement to beware of Secular Priests’ (Middelburg, 1602, 12mo) has been attributed to John Udall [q. v.] who, however, died ten years before.

Whatever hand other appellants had in the production of these works, their bitterness and extravagance impelled the deputation then pleading the appellants' cause at Rome to repudiate repeatedly all share in them (Archpriest Controversy, ii. 68, 77, 87, 89). The jesuits at the same time endeavoured to saddle them with the responsibility, and made good use of the books in their attempt to prejudice the papal court against the appellants. Parsons replied to them with equal scurrility, but more skill, in his ‘Briefe Apologie’ (1602) and ‘Manifestation of the Great Folly …’ (1602), in which he heaps on Watson all manner of personal abuse.

Meanwhile Watson had benefited by the favour shown by Elizabeth's government to the secular priests. He had probably been removed from Wisbech with the other seculars to Framlingham, but in April 1602 he was in the Clink. In a letter to Parsons, Anthony Rivers relates how the Roman catholics in that prison had made secret arrangements for celebrating mass when they were surprised by government agents, and asserts that this was prearranged by Watson, who was removed to the king's bench, but discharged the next day. He was now seen in frequent consultation with Bancroft, bishop of London, the subject of their deliberations being a form of oath of allegiance which might be taken by the more moderate catholics. This oath was taken in November following by Watson and other seculars, who were thereupon released; and to this period must probably be referred the report (dated October 1601 in Cal. State Papers, Dom. Addenda, 1580–1625) of Watson's ‘going gallantly, in his gold chain and white satin doublet … contrary to his priest's habit.’ He had now begun to regard himself as a person of importance, and on the death of Elizabeth he hurried to Scotland to obtain from James a promise of toleration which would completely justify his own policy and cripple the influence of the jesuits. He gained access to James and boasted that his reply was favourable. When therefore no change of policy was forthcoming Watson was bitterly mortified; ‘the resolution of James to exact the fines was regarded by him almost in the light of a personal insult’ (, i. 109). He began to meditate more forcible methods of effecting his aims, and communicated his grievances to Sir Griffin Markham [q. v.], Anthony Copley [q. v.], William Clark (d. 1603) [q. v.], and others, seculars like himself or disappointed courtiers. In May 1603 Markham suggested recourse to the Scottish precedent of seizing the king's person and compelling him to accede to their demands. Even wilder schemes were discussed; the king, not yet crowned and anointed, might, Watson thought, be set aside if he proved obdurate; the Tower could easily be seized, and Watson nominated himself future lord keeper or lord chancellor, and Copley secretary of state. Bands of catholic adherents were to be collected for 24 June, when they would press their demands on the king at Greenwich. This conspiracy became known as the ‘Bye’ or ‘Priests' Plot,’ and George Brooke, his brother, Lord Cobham, and Lord Grey de Wilton were implicated in it; but Watson also knew of Cobham's or the ‘Main’ plot (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1603–10, pp. 34–8), and even discussed the advisability of drawing Ralegh into the ‘Bye’ plot (Addit. MS. 6177, f. 265).

Watson's plot gave the jesuits an opportunity, which they were not slow to use, of turning the tables on the seculars and revenging their defeat over the archpriest controversy. Father Gerard obtained from the pope an express prohibition of ‘all unquietness,’ and the whole influence of the society was exerted to frustrate Watson's scheme. Copley, who was to have brought in two hundred adherents, could not obtain one, ‘for I knew never a catholic near me of many a mile that were not jesuited’ (confession ap., ed. Tierney, vol. iv. App. pp. i. sqq.). Gerard, Blackwell, and Garnett all hastened to inform the government of what was going on, and Gerard at least made a merit of this when charged with complicity in the ‘gunpowder plot.’ The attempt


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BABY RHINOS

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 CHAPTER VII

BABY BEARS

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 CHAPTER VIII

BABY CAMELS

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Mr. in the debate, Mr. WEBSTER addressed the Senate as follows:—

Mr. : When the mariner has been tossed, for many days, in thick weather, and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his latitude, and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his true course. Let us imitate this prudence, and before we float farther, refer to the point from which we departed, that we may at least be able to conjecture where we now are. I ask for the reading of the resolution.

[The secretary read the resolution, as follows:—

“Resolved, That the committee on public lands be instructed to inquire and report the quantity of the public lands remaining unsold within each state and territory, and whether it be expedient to limit, for a certain period, the sales of the public lands to such lands only as have heretofore been offered for sale, and are now subject to entry at the minimum price. And, also, whether the office of surveyor general, and some of the land offices, may not be abolished without detriment to the public interest; or whether it be expedient to adopt measures to hasten the sales, and extend more rapidly the surveys of the public lands.”]

We have thus heard, sir, what the resolution is, which is actually before us for consideration; and it will readily occur to every one that it is almost the only subject about which something has not been said in the speech, running through two days, by which the Senate has been now entertained by the gentleman from South Carolina. Every topic in the wide range of our public affairs, whether past or present,—every thing, general or local, whether belonging to national politics or party politics,—seems to have attracted more or less of the honorable member’s attention, save only the resolution before us. He has spoken of every thing but the public lands. They have escaped his notice. To that subject, in all his excursions, he has not paid even the cold respect of a passing glance.

When this debate, sir, was to be resumed, on Thursday morning, it so happened that it would have been convenient for me to be elsewhere. The honorable member, however, did not incline to put off the discussion to another day. He had a shot, he said, to return, and he wished to discharge it. That shot, sir, which it was kind thus to inform us was coming, that we might stand out of the way, or prepare ourselves to fall before it, and die with decency, has now been received. Under all advantages, and with expectation awakened by the tone which preceded it, it has been discharged, and has spent its force. It may become me to say no more of its effect than that, if nobody is found, after all, either killed or wounded by it, it is not the first time in the history of human affairs (37)


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38 that the vigor and success of the war have not quite come up to the lofty and sounding phrase of the manifesto.

The gentleman, sir, in declining to postpone the debate, told the Senate, with the emphasis of his hand upon his heart, that there was something rankling here, which he wished to relieve. [Mr. rose and disclaimed having used the word rankling.] It would not, Mr. President, be safe for the honorable member to appeal to those around him, upon the question whether he did, in fact, make use of that word. But he may have been unconscious of it. At any rate, it is enough that he disclaims it. But still, with or without the use of that particular word, he had yet something here, he said, of which he wished to rid himself by an immediate reply. In this respect, sir, I have a great advantage over the honorable gentleman. There is nothing here, sir, which gives me the slightest uneasiness; neither fear, nor anger, nor that which is is sometimes more troublesome than either, the consciousness of having been in the wrong. There is nothing either originating here, or now received here by the gentleman’s shot. Nothing original, for I had not the slightest feeling of disrespect or unkindness towards the honorable member. Some passages, it is true, had occurred, since our acquaintance in this body, which I could have wished might have been otherwise; but I had used philosophy, and forgotten them. When the honorable member rose, in his first speech, I paid him the respect of attentive listening; and when he sat down, though surprised, and I must say even astonished, at some of his opinions, nothing was farther from my intention than to commence any personal warfare; and through the whole of the few remarks I made in answer, I avoided, studiously and carefully, every thing which I thought possible to be construed into disrespect. And, sir, while there is thus nothing originating here, which I wished at any time, or now wish, to discharge, I must repeat, also, that nothing has been received here, which rankles, or in any way gives me annoyance. I will not accuse the honorable member of violating the rules of civilized war—I will not say that he poisoned his arrows. But whether his shafts were, or were not, dipped in that which would have caused rankling if they had reached, there was not, as it happened, quite strength enough in the bow to bring them to their mark. If he wishes now to find those shafts, he must look for them elsewhere; they will not be found fixed and quivering in the object at which they were aimed.

The honorable member complained that I had slept on his speech. I must have slept on it, or not slept at all. The moment the honorable member sat down, his friend from Missouri rose, and, with much honeyed commendation of the speech, suggested that the impressions which it had produced were too charming and delightful to be disturbed by other sentiments or other sounds, and proposed that the Senate should adjourn. Would it have been quite amiable in me, sir, to interrupt this excellent good feeling? Must I not have been absolutely malicious, if I could have thrust myself forward to destroy sensations thus pleasing? Was it not much better and kinder, both to sleep upon them myself, and to allow others, also, the pleasure of sleeping upon them? But if it be meant, by sleeping upon his speech, that I took time to prepare a reply to it, it is quite a mistake: owing to other engagements, I could not employ even the interval between the adjournment of the Senate and its meeting the next morning in attention to the subject of this debate. Nevertheless, sir, the mere matter of fact is undoubtedly true—I did sleep on the