The Attache | Page 3

to take care of it.
As I do not intend then to write often, I shall not wire-draw my subjects, for the mere purpose of filling my pages. Still a book should be perfect within itself, and intelligible without reference to other books. Authors are vain people, and vanity as well as dignity is indigenous to a colony. Like a pastry-cook's apprentice, I see so much of both their sweet things around me daily, that I have no appetite for either of them.
I might perhaps be pardoned, if I took it for granted, that the dramatis personae of this work were sufficiently known, not to require a particular introduction. Dickens assumed the fact that his book on America would travel wherever the English language was spoken, and, therefore, called it "Notes for General Circulation." Even Colonists say, that this was too bad, and if they say so, it must be so. I shall, therefore, briefly state, who and what the persons are that composed our travelling party, as if they were wholly unknown to fame, and then leave them to speak for themselves.
The Reverend Mr. Hopewell is a very aged clergyman of the Church of England, and was educated at Cambridge College, in Massachusetts. Previously to the revolution, he was appointed rector of a small parish in Connecticut. When the colonies obtained their independence, he remained with his little flock in his native land, and continued to minister to their spiritual wants until within a few years, when his parishioners becoming Unitarians, gave him his dismissal. Affable in his manners and simple in his habits, with a mind well stored with human lore, and a heart full of kindness for his fellow-creatures, he was at once an agreeable and an instructive companion. Born and educated in the United States, when they were British dependencies, and possessed of a thorough knowledge of the causes which led to the rebellion, and the means used to hasten the crisis, he was at home on all colonial topics; while his great experience of both monarchical and democratical governments, derived from a long residence in both, made him a most valuable authority on politics generally.
Mr. Samuel Slick is a native of the same parish, and received his education from Mr. Hopewell. I first became acquainted with him while travelling in Nova Scotia. He was then a manufacturer and vendor of wooden clocks. My first impression of him was by no means favourable. He forced himself most unceremoniously into my company and conversation. I was disposed to shake him off, but could not. Talk he would, and as his talk was of that kind, which did not require much reply on my part, he took my silence for acquiescence, and talked on. I soon found that he was a character; and, as he knew every part of the lower colonies, and every body in them, I employed him as my guide.
I have made at different times three several tours with him, the results of which I have given in three several series of a work, entitled the "Clockmaker, or the Sayings and Doings of Mr. Samuel Slick." Our last tour terminated at New York, where, in consequence of the celebrity he obtained from these "Sayings and Doings" he received the appointment of Attache to the American Legation at the Court of St. James's. The object of this work is to continue the record of his observations and proceedings in England.
The third person of the party, gentle reader, is your humble servant, Thomas Poker, Esquire, a native of Nova Scotia, and a retired member of the Provincial bar. My name will seldom appear in these pages, as I am uniformly addressed by both my companions as "Squire," nor shall I have to perform the disagreeable task of "reporting my own speeches," for naturally taciturn, I delight in listening rather than talking, and modestly prefer the duties of an amanuensis, to the responsibilities of original composition.
The last personage is Jube Japan, a black servant of the Attache.
Such are the persons who composed the little party that embarked at New York, on board the Packet ship "Tyler," and sailed on the -- of May, 184-, for England.
The motto prefixed to this work
(Greek Text)
sufficiently explains its character. Classes and not individuals have been selected for observation. National traits are fair subjects for satire or for praise, but personal peculiarities claim the privilege of exemption in right of that hospitality, through whose medium they have been alone exhibited. Public topics are public property; every body has a right to use them without leave and without apology. It is only when we quit the limits of this "common" and enter upon "private grounds," that we are guilty of "a trespass." This distinction is alike obvious to good sense and right feeling. I have