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A CONSTITUTION had been adopted and laws
about to be made, when Teague O`Regan at the head of
a number of his countrymen, began to make a disturbance.
Assembling in groups and calling out for more
liberty. It was thought advisable, this Jack Cade, being
his own bog-trotter, that the governor should address
them, and bring them to reason. Mounting a stump
where they were assembled in an old field, he addressed
them accordingly. Sons of St. Patrick, said he, you
appear to me like draught cattle that are put into the
plough or harnessed in a team and striving to throw off
your tackle. Can you draw without gears? Is not some
confinement necessary to enable you to draw together?
A joint force cannot be applied without some means of
coupleing you. You have as much liberty as you are
capable of enjoying. Teague in particular cannot endure
more; I say a little less would do him good. [At
this time a noise was heard of some one singing Erin go
bra;] it is a good tune said the governor; and I admire
it more than Britannia rules the waves. For I always
thought that a very impudent chorus. It is sufficient to
excite the indignation of nations, to avow despotism of
the seas, in so barefaced a manner. Not but that I
think we are under French influence. For do we not see
in these states French emigrants teaching French, and
can there be a liking to the French without some predilection
for the people. We have imitated the manners
of the St. Domingo people because they speak French,
and the dress of our females is improved as some think by
borrowing from them the Grecian stole, with the cincture
of Venus, which is thought in a warm climate to
give more grace to the shape, than the short jacket and
the hoop of old maidens formerly, by which the form
was cut into two, nearly in the middle, like those we call
insects in the history of animals. But that French influence
prevails no one can doubt, who will reconsider
the history of these states. There is reason to believe
that the French were at the very bottom of our revolution.

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I will take the liberty of stopping a little at this point
of the game to express a few thoughts that come into my
mind, though it may be esteemed a digression. I observe
that some of you come to breakfast with your
beards on in the morning. It is because you are waiting
for the barber: but why not shave yourselves? I would
have you learn this oeconomy even were it at the expense
of some blood drawn. How can you be independent
unless you can do this within yourselves, the taking
off your beards. You talk of reforming the government,
and you leave undone the reforming yourselves. I can
excuse curriers who have to clean horses in the morning,
but those that have to take care but of themselves, to
be coming to breakfast with their visages untrimmed,
is ungraceful. The first thing to be done in the morning,
is to shave, wash and dress for the day.

The savages greese themselves to save from the damp
earth, and to guard against the rheumatism, as well as
to amuse the flies; and the people of this new settlement
who are bordering on savages, may be indulged
in a little resemblance; but clerks of an office, or young
lawyers, subject the delicacy of their minds to be called
in question, to be shuffling about in their hippen in the
morning, with their hair in disorder, and their hands, begrimmed,
and their faces black.

Nor is it in your persons that you are deficient in attention.
How much more comfortable might you make
your habitations by little more judgment in the construction
of them. The nearer the water you build, you save
toil in carrying from thence, but the ground is low, and
you subject yourselves to colds, whereas the higher
ground, at the expense of a little more labour, would
preserve health; lasiness is visible in all your vestiges.
There are many inches and bits of days which you
lose, because it is like for rain; and a thousand small
matters are neglected, which might be done at these
shreds and patches of employment. All this you overlook
less considerate than the fowls who make their nests
on the trees around. Yet you are sharp-sighted in the
affairs of government; you abuse governors; you attack
judges. Were I at the head of a paper I would
turn the battery upon yourselves; I would carry the
war into your own country.

Your error in deracinating grubs; not keeping your
mattocks sharp; wearing leather aprons when you

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bestride saplins, worming your fences when you might
have post and rail, planting corn without cross
ploughing your fields: occasioning so much labour of
the hoe, and giving way to the weeds. I know but little
of these things, it is true, nor do you much about the
nature of constitutions and the common law. But I
would charge home upon your ignorance of agriculture;
and keep your minds employed in defending yourselves.
Now you are dissatisfied when I call you ignoramouses,
and clodpoles; just out of an anxiety to get you to take
care of your interests.

This harangue had some effect for the present, in stilling
house, and quieting accusations, though it did not
actually eradicate the cause of the dissatisfaction. For
in the language of the poet.

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