Читать книгу Manuel Pereira; Or, The Sovereign Rule of South Carolina - F. Colburn Adams - Страница 11

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ON the 22d of March last, about ten o'clock in the morning, a thin, spare-looking man, dressed in a black cashmeret suit, swallow-tail coat, loose-cut pants, a straight-breasted vest, with a very extravagant shirt-collar rolling over upon his coat, with a black ribbon tied at the throat, stood at the east corner of Broad and Meeting street, holding a very excited conversation with officers Dusenberry and Dunn. His visage was long, very dark—much more so than many of the colored population—with pointed nose and chin, standing in grim advance to each other; his face narrow, with high cheek-bones, small, peering eyes, contracted forehead, reclining with a sunken arch between the perceptive and intellectual organs—or, perhaps, we might have said, where those organs should have been. His countenance was full of vacant restlessness; and as he stared at you through his glasses, with his silvery gray hair hanging about his ears and neck in shaggy points, rolling a large quid of tobacco in his mouth, and dangling a little whip in his right hand, you saw the index to his office. As he raised his voice—which he did by twisting his mouth on one side, and working his chin to adjust his enormous quid—the drawling tone in which he spoke gave a picture not easily forgotten.

“You must pay more attention to the arrivals,” said he in a commanding tone. “The loss of one of these fellers is a serious drawback to my pocket; and that British consul's using the infernalest means to destroy our business, that ever was. He's worse than the vilest abolitionist, because he thinks he's protected by that flag of their'n. If he don't take care, we'll tar-and-feather him; and if his government says much about it, she'll larn what and who South Carolina is. We can turn out a dozen Palmetto regiments that'd lick any thing John Bull could send here, and a troop o' them d—d Yankee abolitionists besides. South Carolina's got to show her hand yet against these fellers, afore they'll respect the honor and standing of her institutions. They can't send their navy to hurt us. And it shows that I always predicts right; for while these commercial fellers about the wharves are telling about digging out the channel, I've al'ays said they didn't think how much injury they were doing; for it was our very best protection in war-time. South Carolina can lick John Bull, single-fisted, any time; but if that pack of inconsiderate traders on the wharves get their own way, away goes our protection, and John Bull would bring his big ships in and blow us up. And these fellows that own ships are getting so bold, that a great many are beginning to side with Mathew, the consul. Yes, they even swear that 'tis the officials that stick to the law for the sake of the fees. Now, if I only knew that the consul was the means of that Nassau nigger getting away, I'd raise a mob, and teach him a lesson that South Carolinians ought to have teached him before. It took about seventeen dollars out of my pocket, and if I was to sue him for it, I could get no recompense. The next time you allow one to escape, I must place some other officer over the port,” said our man whom, we shall continue to call Mr. Grimshaw.

“Sure I heard the same consul, when spakin to a gintleman, say that the law was only an abuse of power, to put money into the pockets of yourself and a few like ye. And whin meself and Flin put the irons on a big nigger that the captain was endeavoring to skulk by keeping him in the forecastle of the ship, he interfered between me and me duty, and began talking his balderdash about the law. Sure, with his own way, he'd have every nigger in the city an abolitionist in three weeks. And sure, Mr. Sheriff, and ye'd think they were babies, if ye'd see himself talk to them at the jail, and send them up things, as if they were better than the other criminals, and couldn't live on the jail fare,” said officer Dunn, who continued to pledge himself to the sheriff that the wharves should not be neglected, nor a hopeful English darky escape his vigilant eye.

“For my own part, I think they're better off in jail than they would be on the wharf,” continued Grimshaw. “They're a worthless set, and ha'n't half the character that a majority of our slaves have; and instead of attending the captain on board, they'd be into Elliot street, spending their money, getting drunk, and associating with our worst niggers. And they all know so much about law, that they're always teaching our bad niggers the beauties of their government, which makes them more unhappy than they are. Our niggers are like a shoal of fish—when one becomes diseased, he spreads it among all the rest; and before you know where you are, they're done gone.”

“They're not very profitable customers for us, Sheriff,” said Dusenberry. “We have a deal of watching, and a mighty smart lot of trouble after we get them fellows; and if we get a perquisite, it never amounts to much, for I seldom knew one that had money enough to treat as we took him up. These Britishers a'n't like us; they don't pay off in port and if the fellows get any thing in jail from the consul, it's by drib-drabs, that a'n't no good, for it all goes for liquor. And them criminals make a dead haul upon a black steward, as soon as he is locked up. But if these sympathizing fools follow up their bugbears about the treatment at the jail, they'll get things so that our business won't be worth a dollar. For my own part, I'm not so much beholdin', for I've made myself comfortable within the last few years, but I want my son to succeed me in the office. But if this consul of their'n keeps up his objections, appeals, and his protests in this way, and finds such men as his honor the district-attorney to second him with his nonsense and his notions, folks of our business might as well move north of Mason and Dixon's.”

“I can wake him up to a point,” said Grimshaw, “that that abolition consul ha'n't learnt before; and if he'd stuck his old petition in Charles Sumner's breeches pocket instead of sending it to our legislature, he might have saved his old-womanish ideas from the showing' up that Myzeck gave 'em. It takes Myzeck to show these blue-skin Yankees how to toe the mark when they come to South Carolina. If South Carolina should secede, I'd say give us Myzeck and Commander to lead our war, and we'd be as sure to whip 'em as we won the Mexican war for the Federal Government. There is three things about an Englishman, Dusenberry, which you may mark for facts. He is self-conceited, and don't want to be advised;—he thinks there is no law like the law of England, and that the old union-jack is a pass-book of nations;—and he thinks everybody's bound to obey his notions of humanity and the dictates of his positive opinions. But what's worse than all, they've never seen the sovereignty of South Carolina carried out, and according to Consul Mathew's silly notions, they think we could be licked by a gun-boat.

“It's no use arguing this thing, you must keep a keen eye upon the English niggers; and when a man pretends to dispute the right, tell him its 'contrary to law,' and to look at the statute-books; tell him it costs more to keep them than they're all worth; and if they say the law was never intended for foreign citizens, tell 'em its 'contrary to law.' South Carolina's not bound to obey the voice of the General Government, and what does she care for the federal courts? We'll pursue a course according to the law; and any thing that is contrary to it we will take care of for the better protection of our institutions. Now, don't let one pass, upon the peril of your office,” continued Mr. Grimshaw.

“It's not a button I'd care for the office,” said Dunn. “Sure it's yerself be's makin' all the fees, and ourselves getting the paltry dollar; and yerself gives us as much trouble to get that as we'd be earning two dollars at magistrate Jiles' beyant. Sure! himself's liberal and doesn't be afraid to give us a division of the fees when the business is good. And sure ye make yer ten times the fees on an English nigger, and never gives us beyant the dollar,” continued he, moving off in high dudgeon, and swearing a stream of oaths that made the very blood chill. There was a covert meaning about Mr. Grimshaw's language that was not at all satisfactory to Mr. Dunn's Irish; especially when he knew Mr. Grimshaw's insincerity so well, and that, instead of being liberal, he pocketed a large amount of the fees, to the very conscientious benefit of his own dear self. The reader must remember that in Charleston, South Carolina, there is a large majority of men who care little for law, less for justice, and nothing for Christianity. Without compunction of conscience, and with an inherited passion to set forward the all-absorbing greatness of South Carolina, these men act as a check upon the better-disposed citizens. The more lamentable part is, that forming a large portion of that species of beings known as bar-room politicians, they actually control the elections in the city; and thus we may account for the character of the incumbents of office, and for the tenacity with which those oppressive laws are adhered to.

This almost incompatible conversation between a high sheriff and two menial constables, may to many seem inconsistent with the dignity that should be observed between such functionaries. Nevertheless, all restraint is not only annihilated by consent, but so prominently is this carried out, and so well understood by that respectable class of citizens whose interests and feelings are for maintaining a good name for the city and promoting its moral integrity, that in all our conversation with them, we never heard one speak well of those functionaries or the manner in which the police regulations of the city were carried out.