LETTER XXXVII.
My Dear Mr. —:
[figure description] Page 302.[end figure description]
If you see a report going the rounds of certain barbarous
journals that I am married, I forbid your copying
it, and command you to contradict it. It is a shame
how some of these bachelor editors will make use of a
young lady's name. If one protests, they say, “It is
only a paragraph,” and each one scissors away and sets
up his type, without caring who is hurt, so that his
paper is “racy.” I am not married; and when I am, I
desire it to be properly announced, under the head of
Marriages, like those of other people, and not blazoned
en paragraphe in an editor's column. Why, the bare
idea of being thus paragraphed, is enough to prevent
any modest young man from proposing, much less marrying,
at such a venture.
So, please, Mr. —, don't paragraph my marriage,
even should you hear of it; and if you catch that ugly,
little paragraph about me going the rounds of those everlasting
echoing country papers, put your finger upon it,
and annihilate it. It originated somewhere in Oktibbehaw
county, in a paper called the Independent Rifle
Ranger, the editor of which is the intelligent gentleman
who took a telegraph wire, stretched across the country,
to be the Tropic of Cancer.
-- 303 --
[figure description] Page 303.[end figure description]
In my last we were just quitting Baton Rouge, the
rural and Franco-American capital of Louisiana. The
name of this place (Red Pole) originated in a very pretty
buccaneering custom of the olden times of this romantic
corner of the New World.
“You see, ma'am,” said our old pilot, who told me the
story,—for these ancient river-gods of the Mississippi
are tremendous story-tellers, (I don't mean fibbers, Mr.—,)
and they always have a grand, great story about
every bend, point, island, bluff, and pass in the river,—
“you see, ma'am, in them old Frenchified times, folks
didn't care 'mazin much 'bout law, nor gospel neither.
If a man killed another, why, if there was any relative
of the killed man, he'd take it up, and shoot the other;
and so it went, every man his own lawyer. Well, there
was no steamboats them days, and keelers used to float
down from up country, filled with peltry and sich goods
for the Orleans market. There wasn't many men on
board to man 'em—pr'aps seven or nine; but they kept
well out in the middle o' the stream, at long shot from
the Indian's arrers, and the Frenchman's gun. But
there was a regular band o' pirates lived on the river
where Baton Rouge now is, and they had a captain, and
numbered fifty men or more—awful rascals; every one
on 'em—had done enough murder to hang seven honest
Christians. This captain was the essence on 'em, all
biled down for deviltry and wickedness; and yet they
say he was young, almost a boy, plaguy handsome fellow,
with an eye like a woman, and a smile like a hyena;
and his men were as afraid of him as death.
“Well, he lived in a sort of castle of his own, over on
the little rise you see, near the town, and people said he
-- 304 --
[figure description] Page 304.[end figure description]
had, begging your pardon, ma'am, as many wives as old
Captain Bluebeard, and killed 'em as easy. Well, he
had a lookout kept on the point just in the bend, and
there had a red pole raised to hoist a flag on. When his
men saw a boat coming in sight, they'd hoist a green flag
to the top o' the pole, and in the night a green lantern;
for he was a great friend to green color, and wore green
velvet himself like a foreign lord.
“When he'd see the light or the flag, he'd wind his
silver bugle and collect his men to the boats, and when
the keeler would get nearly opposite, he'd shout like
twenty heathens, and dart out with his seven barges upon
the descending craft. It was short work they made then.
A rush, and leaping on board, a few pistol shots and
cutlass blows, and the crew were dead or overboard. The
prize was then towed into the cove beneath the castle,
and plundered, and set on fire. Them were rough and
bloody times, Miss!”
The pilot, finding his cigar had gone out, drew a locofoco
match from his vest pocket, ignited it by drawing it
across his horny thumb-nail, relighted his cigar, and
began to scan the appearance of the sky, which looked
fitful. But I was too much interested in my Green Corsair
of the Rouge Baton to let his story end there; so I
said:
“Please tell me, Mr. Bedlow, what became of this man
and his crew?”
“Some say he was shot in the Public Plaza, in New
Orleans, by the Spanish Governor; but I heard an old
pilot say, that he was assassinated by a young woman he
had captured; and that is likely by all accounts.”
-- 305 --
[figure description] Page 305.[end figure description]
“How was it?” I inquired, seeing that the old man's
eye looked communicative.
“On one of the craft captured there was a young girl,
the skipper's wife, who had been married only the day
afore the keeler left Pittsburgh, and Major Washington
(afterwards General) they say was at the weddin', and
gave away the bride; for she was mighty pretty, and
General Washington, like a true soldier, always had an
eye to a handsome face. Well, this pirate took the craft,
and killed or driv' overboard all hands, and he made the
bride prisoner. He took her to his castle, and was dreadful
in love with her. But she saw only her husband's
blood on his hands, and, taking a pistol from his belt,
she shot him dead, and escaped in a boat to New Orleans,
where the Governor gave her a thousand crowns, and
afterwards married her. They say he took her to Spain,
and presented her to court, and that she became one o'
the greatest ladies in the Spanish land. That's the story
I hearn, ma'am, but I won't vouch for its Bible truth, for
it's mighty hard reckoning up things happening so long
ago.”
So the old pilot left me, being called to the wheel,
while I pondered on the story I had heard, and gazed on
the shores about Baton Rouge with deeper interest—so
wonderfully do associations fling charms about locality.
What a nice story some writer of imagination might
make out of this rough-hewn narrative of the old pilot!
Cooper is dead, Simms a Senator, Kennedy a politician,
Mrs. Lee Hentz an editress. Who shall we get to write
it? All the old novelists have left the field, and if we
do not have more new ones come into it, there will be
-- 306 --
[figure description] Page 306.[end figure description]
no more novels. Perhaps the world would be wiser and
better. Who knows yes? Who knows no?
Among the passengers who came on board at Baton
Rouge was the newly elected Senator from Louisiana to
Congress, Mr. Benjamin. Having heard much of him,
I scanned him closely. He is a small man, but made with
a certain compactness and dignity, that makes one forget
his stature in his bearing. His face is very fine, dark,
healthy, full, and pleasing. He resembles General G. P.
Morris, as this latter gentleman was some years ago; he
has the same smiling eyes, agreeable mouth, and bonhomie
air. His eyes are dark and expressive, and his whole
face indicates rather good-natured repose and amiable indolence
than that high order of talent which has won for
him, at little above thirty years of age, the high distinction
of representing the proud state of Louisiana in the
U. S. Senate.
The more I looked at Mr. Benjamin, the more I was
puzzled to divine why he should have been chosen to this
high position. I could see in his face only qualities that
would attach him to his friends, make him a loving
father, and a husband greatly beloved by whatever lady
might be so happy as to hold the holy relations of wife
to him; but I saw no indications of that ruling and marked
mind, which I took it for granted he ought from his
fame and rank to possess. While I was observing him, as
he sat reading, some gentlemen approached and entered
into conversation with him, upon the subject of the annexation
of the suburban town of Lafayette to New
Orleans. His opinion was referred to. His eyes opened
and lighted. His face changed its whole character, and
for half an hour I listened to his conversation with
-- 307 --
[figure description] Page 307.[end figure description]
increasing delight and fascination. I saw and heard
the man of talent! I discovered in his close reasoning,
his acute manner of analysis, his calm self-command,
his thorough knowledge of his subject, his fluent and
graceful speech, the causes of his elevation above the
men about him.
His voice is not good, and his size is against him; and
when he shall first appear in the American Senate he
will not attract any eye, save the glance of wonder at
his youthful appearance, for he does not look above
twenty-five. But they will find him their equal—an
eagle among eagles. His eloquence, wisdom, and knowledge
of affairs will make him tell in the Senatorial
Hall. It was Mr. Benjamin, who, in speaking of the
progress of the age, gave utterance to this fine sentiment
in one of his speeches in the Legislature of Louisiana:—
“The whistle of the locomotive is finer music than the
clarion of war, and the thunder of its wheel, than the
roar of artillery.”
Mr. Benjamin is an Israelite. His election, therefore,
is a practical illustration of the free institutions of our
happy land, where theological disabilities are not known.
It is surprising how the Jews, I mean the educated and
talented, place themselves in the highest rank of society
always. There is inherent in them an element of greatness
that irresistibly finds its noble level. We see in
them the blood of David and Isaiah, of Abraham and
Solomon, of Joseph and the Maccabees; their princely
lineage is not extinct. How odd it would be if we should
have a Jew to be President of the United States. And
why not? Mr. Benjamin is a Senator. He is a rising
man. He may one day hold the highest office in the
-- 308 --
[figure description] Page 308.[end figure description]
gift of the nation. Would any man refuse to vote for
him because he is a Jew? But I am adventuring beyond
my depth—so, good night, Mr.—.
Yours truly,
Kate.
-- 309 -- p613-314
Ingraham, J. H. (Joseph Holt), 1809-1860 [1860], The sunny South, or, The Southerner at home embracing five years' experience of a Northern governess in the land of the sugar and the cotton. (G.C. Evans, Philadelphia) [word count] [eaf613T].
