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Let us skip over the small hours which were consumed by
our little community — we may suppose — after a very common
fashion on shore. There was silence in the ship for a space.
But a good strong corps was ready, at the peep of day, to
respond, with a general shout, to that salutation to the morn
which our worthy captain had assigned to the throats of his pet
brass pieces. We were not missing at the moment of uproar;
and, as the bellowing voices roared along the deep, we echoed
the clamor with a hurrah scarcely less audible in the courts of
Neptune.

I need not dwell upon the exhibition of deshabilles, as we severally
appeared on deck in nightgown and wrapper, with otherwise
scant costume. But, as our few lady-passengers made no
appearance at this hour, there was no need for much precaution.
We took the opportunity afforded by their absence to procure
a good sousing from the sea, administered, through capacious
buckets, by the hands of a courteous coalheaver, who received
his shilling a-head for our ablutions. By the way, why should
not these admirable vessels, so distinguished by their various
comforts, be provided with half-a-dozen bathing-rooms? We
commend the suggestion to future builders. A bath is even
more necessary at sea than on shore, and, lacking his bath, there
is many a pretty fellow who resorts to his bottle. Frequent
ablution is no small agent of a proper morality.

Outraging no propriety by our garden-like innocence of costume,
we began the day merrily, and contrived to continue it
cheerily. At the hour of twelve, the awning spread above us,
a smooth sea below, a fine breeze streaming around us, we were
all assembled upon the quarter-deck, a small but select congregation,
to hear the man in a saffron skin and green spectacles.

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We dispensed with the whole reading of the Declaration of
Independence; our reader graciously abridging it to doggrel
dimensions, after some such form as the following, which he
delivered, as far as permitted, with admirable grace and most
senatorial dignity: —


“When in the course of human events,
A people have cravings for eloquence,
A decent regard for common-sense
Requires—”
He was here broken in upon by a sharp shriek, rather than a
voice, which we found to proceed from a Texan, who had worn
his Mexican blanket during the whole voyage, and whom some
of the passengers were inclined to think was no other than
Sam Houston himself. His interruption furnished a sufficiently
appropriate finishing line to the doggrel of our reader: —

“Oh, go ahead, and d—n the expense.”

“The very principle of the Revolution,' said the orator.

“Particularly as they never redeemed the continental money.
My grandmother has papered her kitchen with the `I. O. U'S'
of our fathers of Independence.”

This remark led to others, and there was a general buzz,
when the orator put in, first calling attention, and silencing all
voices, by a thundering slap with the flat of his hand upon the
cover of a huge volume which he carried in his grasp.

“Look you, gentlemen,” said he, with the air of a person who
was not disposed to submit to wrong — “you asked me to be
your orator, and hang me if I am to be choused out of the performance,
now that I have gone through all my preparations.
Scarcely had I received your appointment before I proceeded
to put myself in training. I went below and got myself a dose
of `snake and tiger' — a beverage I had not tasted before for
the last five months — and I commended myself, during a
twenty minutes' immersion in the boatswain's bath at the fore —
while you were all sleeping, I suppose — to the profound and
philosophical thoughts which were proper to this great occasion.
With the dawn, and before the cannon gave counsel to the day,
I was again immersed in meditation and salt-water; followed by
a severe friction at the hands of one of the stewards, and another
touch of `snake and tiger' at the hands of the butler. I have

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thus prepared myself for the occasion, and I'll let you know I
am not the man to prepare myself for nothing. Either you
must hear me, or you must fight me. Let me know your resolution.
If I do not begin upon you all, I shall certainly begin
upon some one of you, and I don't know but that Texan shall
be my first customer, as being the first to disturb the business
of the day. An audible snort from the blanket was the only
answer from that quarter; while the cry of — “An orator!
an orator!” from all parts of the ship, pacified our belligerent
Demosthenes.

He began accordingly.

THE ORATION OF THE GREEN-SPECTACLED ALABAMIAN.

“Shipmates or Fellow-Citizens: We are told by good authority
that no man is to be pronounced fortunate so long as he
lives, since every moment of life is subject to caprices which
may reverse his condition, and render your congratulations
fraudulent and offensive. The same rules, for the same reason,
should be adopted in regard to nations, and no eulogy should
be spoken upon their institutions, until they have ceased to
exist. It would accordingly be much easier for me to dilate
upon the good fortune of Copan and Palenque than upon any
other countries, since they will never more suffer from invasion,
and the scandalous chronicle of their private lives is totally lost
to a prying posterity.

“In regard to our country, what would you have me say? Am
I summoned to the tribune to deal in the miserable follies and
falsehoods which now pervade the land? At this moment, from
every city, and state, and village, and town and hamlet in the
Union, ascends one common voice of self-delusion and deception.
You hear, on all hands, a general congratulation of themselves
and one another, about our peace, and prosperity and harmony.
About our prosperity a great deal may be said honestly, if not
about its honesty. Never did a people so easily and excellently
clothe and feed themselves. Our ancestors were very poor
devils, compared to ourselves, in respect to their acquisitions.
Their very best luxuries are not now to be enumerated, except
among our meanest and commonest possessions; and, without

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being better men, our humblest citizens enjoy a domestic condition
which would have made the mouths to water, with equal
delight and envy, of the proudest barons of the days of Queen
Bess and Harry the Eighth. What would either of these
princes have given to enjoy ices such as Captain Berry gave us
yesterday, and the more various luxuries which (I see it in his
face) he proposes to give us to-day! What would the best
potentates, peers and princes of Europe, even at this day, give
to be always sure of such oysters as expose themselves, with all
their wealth of fat, buried to the chin, about the entrances of
our harbors, from Sandy Hook to Savannah, in preference to
the contracted fibres and coppery-flavored substitutes which
they are forced to swallow, instead of the same admirable and
benevolent ocean vegetable, as we commonly enjoy it here.
And what — O Americans! — can they offer in exchange for
the pear, the peach, the apple and the melon, such as I already
taste, in anticipation of events which shall take place in this
very vessel some two hours hence? It is enough, without enumerating
more of our possessions — possessions in the common
enjoyment of our people — that I insist on the national prosperity.

“But this is our misfortune. We are too prosperous. We are
like Jeshuran, of whom we read in the blessed volume, who,
waxing too fat, finally kicked. Fatal kicking! Foolish Jeshuran!
In our fatness— in our excess of good fortune — we are
kicking ungraciously, like him; and we shall most likely, after
the fashion of the ungracious cow of which the Book of Fables
tells us, kick over the bucket after we have fairly filled it.

“We admit the prosperity: but where's the peace? It is in
the very midst of this prosperity that we hear terrible cries from
portions of our country, where they have not yet well succeeded
in casting off the skins of their original savage condition. There's
Bully Benton, and Big-Bone Allen, and Humbug Houston, and
Little Lion Douglass, and Snaky-Stealing Seward, and Copper-Captain
Cass, and a dozen others, of bigger breeches than
brains, and mightier maws than muscles — hear how they severally
roar and squeak!* One would cut the carotid of

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corpulent John Bull; another would swallow the mines of Mexico;
a third would foul the South, a fourth the North; and they are
all for kicking up a pretty d—d fuss generally, expecting
the people to foot the bill.

“And now, with such an infernal hubbub in our ears, on every
side, from these bomb-bladders, should there be peace among
us? We cry `peace' when there is no peace! Their cry is
`war,' even in the midst of prosperity, and when short-cotton is
thirteen cents a pound! And war for what? As if we had not
prosperity enough, and a great deal too much, shipmates, since
we do not know what to do with it, and employ such blatherskites
as these to take it into their ridiculous keeping. In so
many words, shipmates, these Beasts of Babylon, representing
us poor boobies of America, are each of them, professedly on our
part, playing the part of Jeshuran the Fat! They are kicking
lustily, and will, I trust, be kicked over in the end, and before
the end, and kicked out of sight, by that always-avenging destiny,
which interposes, at the right moment, to settle accounts
with blockhead statesmen and blockhead nations.

“Now, how are we to escape our own share of this judgment
of Jeshuran? Who shall say how long it will be before we set
our heels against the bucket, and see the green fields of our
liberties watered with the waste of our prosperities! (I'm not
sure of the legitimacy of this figure, but can't stop now to analyze
it. We'll discuss it hereafter before the Literary Club of
Charleston, which is said to be equally famous for its facts and
figures.) But, so long as it is doubtful if we shall escape this
disaster — so long as the future is still in nubibus, and these
clouds are so full of growl and blackness — we may reasonably
doubt if our prosperity is either secure or perfect. Certainly,
it is not yet time either for its history or eulogy.

“But for our peace, our harmony, if not our prosperity?

“Believing ourselves prosperous, as we all do and loudly
asseverate, and there should be no good reason why harmony
should not be ours. But this harmony is of difficult acquisition,
and we must first ask, my brethren, what is harmony?

“When we sit down to dinner to-day, it is in the confident
expectation that harmony will preside over the banquet. There
is no good reason why it should be otherwise. There will be

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ample at the feast for all the parties. Each will get enough,
and probably of the very commodity he desires. If he does
not, it is only because there is not quite enough for all, and the
dish happens to be nearer me than him! Nevertheless, we
take for granted that harmony will furnish the atmosphere of
the feast to-day. It will render grateful the various dishes of
which we partake. It will assist us in their digestion. We
will eat and drink in good humor, and rise in good spirits.
Each one will entertain and express his proper sentiments, and,
as our mutual comfort will depend upon a gentlemanly conduct,
so no one will say or do anything to make his neighbor feel
uncomfortable. If you know that the person next to you has
a corn upon his toe, you will not tread on it in order to compel
his attention to your wants; and, should you see another about
to swallow a moderate mouthful of cauliflower, it will not be
your care to whisper a doubt if the disquiet of the person in the
adjoining cabin was not clearly the result of cabbage and cholera.
This forbearance is the secret of harmony, and I trust we
shall this day enjoy it as the best salad to our banquet.

“And now, how much of this harmony is possessed among
our people in the states? Are you satisfied that there is any
such feeling prevailing in the nation, when, in all its states, it
assembles in celebration of this common anniversary? Hearken
to the commentary. Do you hear that mighty hellabaloo in the
East? It comes from Massachusetts Bay. It is just such an
uproar as we have heard from that quarter for a hundred years.
First, it fell upon the ears of the people of Mohegan, and Naraganset,
and Coneaughtehoke — the breechless Indians — and
it meant massacre. The Indians perished by sword-cut and
arquebus-shot and traffic — scalps being bought at five shillings
per head, till the commodity grew too scarce for even cupidity
to make capital with. Very brief, however, was the interval
that followed. Our Yankee brethren are not the people to
suffer their neighbors to be long at peace, or to be themselves
pacific. Very soon, and there was another hellabaloo! The
victims this time were the Quakers; and they had to fly from a
region of so much prosperity, using their best legs, in order to
keep their simple scalps secure under their broad brims. What
was to be done to find food for the devouring appetite of these

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rabid wretches, who so well discriminated always as to seek
their victims in the feeble, and rarely suffered their virtues to
peril their own skins. They turned next, full-mouthed, upon
the old women, and occasionally upon the young. At the new
hellabaloo of these saints, these poor devils — and, unluckily,
the devils whom they were alleged to serve were too poor to
bring them any succor — were voted to be witches; they were
cut off by cord and fire, until the land was purged of all but its
privileged sinners.

“Short again was the rest which these godly savages gave
themselves or their neighbors. The poor Gothamites next fell
beneath the ban, and the simple Dutchmen of Manhattan were
fain to succumb under the just wrath of the God-appointed race.
And now, all the neighboring peoples being properly subjected,
the hellabaloo was raised against the cavaliers who dwelt south
of the Potomac.

“These were ancient enemies of the saints in the mother-country.
But there had been reasons hitherto for leaving them
undisturbed. They had been good customers. They had been
the receivers of the stolen goods brought them by these wise
men of the East, and did not then know that the seller could
give no good title to the property he sold. As long as our cavalier
continued to buy the African, the saints hinted not a word
about the imperfectness of the title. It was only when he
refused to buy any more of the commodity that he was told it
was stolen.

“And now the hellabaloo is raised against all those having
the stolen goods in possession. Does this hellabaloo sound like
harmony, my brethren? and don't you think there will be an
answering hellabaloo to this, which will tend still more to disturb
the harmonies? And, with these wild clamors in our ear,
rocking the nation from side to side, who is it that cries `peace!
peace! peace!' when there is no peace? Am I to be made
the echo of a falsehood? Shall my lips repeat the silly commonplace
which cheats nobody, and persuades nobody, and
makes nobody repent? No, my brethren! Let us speak the
truth. There is no peace, no harmony, no union among us.
As a people, we are already sundered. We now hate and strive
against each other; and, until we come back to justice — to the

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recognition of all those first principles which led our ancestors
into a league, offensive and defensive, for a common object and
with a common necessity, — the breach will widen and widen,
until a great gulf shall spread between us, above which Death
will hang ever with his black banner; and across which terror,
and strife, and vengeance, shall send their unremitting bolts of
storm and fire! Let us pray, my brethren, that, in regard to
our harmony, we arrest our prosperity, lest we grow too fat, and
kick like Jeshuran!”

Here a pause. Our orator was covered with perspiration.
He hemmed thrice with emphasis. He had reached a climax.
The Texan was sleeping audibly, giving forth sounds like an
old alligator at the opening of the spring. Our few Yankee
voyagers had arisen some time before, not liking the atmosphere,
and were now to be seen with the telescope, looking out into
the East for dry land. The orator himself seemed satisfied
with the prospect. He saw that his audience were in the right
mood to be awakened. He wiped his face accordingly, put on
his green spectacles, and in a theatrical aside to the steward —

“Hem! steward! another touch of the snake and tiger.”

I do not know that I need give any more of this curious oration,
which was continued to much greater length, and discussed
a most amusing variety of subjects, not omitting that of Communism,
and Woman's Rights. Know-Nothingism had not then
become a fixed fact in the political atmosphere, or it would,
probably, have found consideration also.

Very mixed were the feelings with which the performance
was greeted. Our secessionists from South Carolina and other
states, of whom there were several on board, were quite satisfied
with our orator's view of the case; but our Yankees, reappearing
when it was fairly over, were not in the mood to suffer
it to escape without sharp censure. The orator was supposed
to have made a very unfair use of the occasion and of his
own appointment. But the orator was not a customer with
whom it was politic to trifle; and as he seemed disposed to
show his teeth, more than once, the discussion was seasonably
arrested by the call to dinner.

They live well on the steamers between New York and
Charleston. Both cities know something of good living, and in

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neither is the taste for turtle likely to die out. Why is the
breed of aldermen so little honored in either? Our captain is
proverbially a person who can sympathize duly with the exigencies
of appetite, and his experience in providing against them
has made him an authority at the table. Ordinarily admirable,
our dinner on the glorious Fourth was worthy of the occasion.
The committee of arrangements had duly attended to their
duties.

The time at length arrived for that interchange of mortal and
mental felicities which the literary stereotypists describe as the
feast of reason and the flow of soul; and sentiment was to be indulged.
Our excellent captain, sweetness in all his looks, homage
in his eye, in every action dignity and grace, filling his
glass, bowed to a stately matron, one of our few lady-passengers—

“The pleasure of a glass of wine with you, madam.”

“Thank you, captain, but I never take wine,” was the reply.

“Perfectly right, madam,” put in the orator of the day;
“Though written that wine cheereth the heart of man it is nowhere
said that it will have any such effect on the heart of
woman.”

There was a little by-play after this, between the orator and
the lady, the latter looking and speaking as if half disposed now
to take the wine, if only to prove that its effects might be as
cheering to the one sex as to the other. But the captain rising,
interrupted the episode.

“Fill your glasses, gentlemen.”

“All charged,” cried the vice.

1. The day we celebrate! — Dear to us only as the memorial
of an alliance between nations, which was to guaranty protection,
justice, and equal rights, to all.

The batteries being opened, the play went on without interruption:
I shall go on with the toasts, seriatim.

2. The Constitution.—Either a bond for all, or a bond for none.
Not surely such a web as will bind fast the feeble, and through
which the strong may break away without restraint.

3. The Union.— The perfection of harmony, if, as it was designed
to be, in the language of Shakspeare, — the “unity and
married calm of States.”—

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4. The Slave States of the South.— The conservators of the
peace, where faction never rears its head, where mobs tear not
down, nor burn, nor destroy the hopes and habitations of the
peaceful and the weak, and where reverence in the people is
still the guarantee for a gentleman in the politician.

5. The Agriculture of the South.— The source of peace, hospitality,
and those household virtues, which never find in business
a plea against society.

6. Cotton and Corn.— The grand pacificators, which in covering
and lining the poor of Europe, bind their hands with peace,
and fill their hearts with gratitude.

7. Washington.— A Southron and a slaveholder—pious without
cant; noble without arrogance; brave without boast; and
generous without ostentation!—When the Free-Soilers shall be
able to boast of such a citizen and son, it may be possible to believe
them honest in their declarations, and unselfish in their objects—
but not till then.

8. The President of the United States.— We honor authority
and place; but let authority see that it do honor to itself. Let
no man suppose that he shall play the puppet in his neighbors'
hands, and not only escape the shame thereof, but win the good
name of skilful play for himself. He who would wield authority,
must show himself capable of rule; and he who has famously
borne the sword, must beware lest other men should use his
truncheon.

[Par Parenthese.— Brave old Zachary Taylor was the reigning
president when this toast was given.]

9. The Native State.—Yours or mine, no matter. We are all
linked indissolubly, by a strange and more than mortal tie, to a
special soil. To that soil does the true soul always hold itself
firmly bound in a fidelity that loves to toil in its improvement,
and will gladly die in its defence.

10. Woman. — Whether as the virgin she wins our fancies,
as the wife our hearts, as the mother our loyalty, still, in all, the
appointed angel to minister to our cares, to inspirit our hopes,
to train our sensibilities, and to lift our sympathies, to the pure,
the gentle, the delicate, and the true.

11. Our Slaves.— Like our children, minors in the hands of
the guardian, to be protected and trained to usefulness and virtue

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— to be taught service and obedience — love and loyalty — to
be nurtured with a care that never wrongs, and governed by a
rule that simply restrains the excesses of humanity.

12. Our Captain and his Ship.— A good husband for such a
wife, — he lets her steam it, but keeps her in stays; — she may
boil up, but never keeps the house in hot water — and all the
hellabaloo finally ends in smoke. If she keeps up a racket below,
he at least, trumpet in hand, walks the decks, and is still
the master. May he always keep her to her bearings, and never
suffer her to grow so old, as, like some other old woman, to become
past bearing.

Here, the captain, overcome with emotion, his face covered
with blushes, rose, and after the fierce plaudits of the table had
subsided, replied in the most eloquent language to the compliment,
concluding thus —

“And while I remain the master of this goodly creature, gentlemen,
let me assure you, she will never discredit her breeding;
certainly never while she continues to bear such children as I
have the honor to see before me. Gentlemen, I give you —

“The Fair — Equally precious as fair weather, fair play, and
fair women. While deriving from these the best welfare of the
heart, may we be called upon to bid them farewell only when
it is decreed that we shall fare better.”

The regular toasts were resumed and concluded with the thirteent:—

13. The Orator of the Day.— He hath put the chisel to the
seam, the wedge to the split, the hammer to the head, the saddle
on the horse. He has spoken well and wisely, and decently,
without the hellabaloo which usually marks a fourth of July
oration. Let him be honored with the mark of greatness, and
if there be a place in senate and assembly which it would not
discredit a wise man and a gentleman to occupy, send him
thither.

Our orator was again on his feet. His green spectacles under
them at the same moment — and, such a speech in reply: —
there is no reporting it, but if Alabama does not yet ring with
the voice of that nondescript, then hath she lost the taste for
racy matters.

It will be seen that, thus far, the secessionists have pretty

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much had the affair in their own hands: and our brethren north
of the Hudson were not in the best of humors — were somewhat
riled, indeed, by the character of the oration and the toasts that
followed. They attempted to reply, in the volunteer toasts
which they offered, quoting Daniel Webster and others very
freely, but without much visible effect. For once, the majority
was against them. Our space will not suffice to report their
toasts, the answers, or the discussions which ensued; but it is
doing them justice only to give one of the several volunteer
songs which were sung in honor of the Union. The secessionists
had a poet on board, but his muse was suffering from sea-sickness
or some other malady. She was certainly reluctant
and made no sign. The lay that I give might have issued from
the mint of Joel Barlow for aught I know: —

UNION AND LIBERTY.

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Pretty sharp were the criticisms of this ode on the part of
our secessionists.

“It halts and hobbles like the Union itself,” was the sneer of
one.

“In truth,” said another, “it is ominous, lacking, here and
there, some very necessary feet.”

“Its measures, like those of government are admirably unequal.”

In short, politically, poetically, morally, and musically, the
poor ode was declared, by a punster present, to be certainly
within poetic rule, as it was decidedly odeous. At this — unkindest
cut of all — the unhappy singer — author, too, perhaps—
was suddenly seized with sea-sickness, and disappeared on
deck. The day was at its close as we left the table. We came
forth to enjoy a delicious sunset, and I was then officially notified
that a story was expected from me that night. My turn
had come. The ladies were graciously pleased to command
that I should give them a tale of the Revolution, as appropriate
to the day, and, after a fine display of fireworks, we composed
ourselves in the usual circle, and I delivered myself of the following
narrative, which I need not say to those who know me
was founded on fact: —

A TALE OF THE REVOLUTION.