Volume Ii Part 10 (1/2)

History of Oregon, by George Wilkes, 25 cents.

T. S. Hawkes.

Gaiter Pants made to order, No. 11, Pearl Street.

E. W. Smith.

Voice of the People. Need not force them down.

Sugar-coated Indian vegetable pills.

G. B. Smith.

Ill.u.s.trations of the most ridiculous kinds show that newspaper advertis.e.m.e.nts must be very cheap indeed, for everything literally, from a was.h.i.+ng-tub to a steamboat, is advertised daily for sale at Buffalo.

Buffalo is a sample city of the lake frontier of the United States, better than Rochester, a more manufacturing mill-power place; a specimen of what enterprise, energy, and paper money credit can do: a specimen of the border population, where hatred to England reigns supreme among the lower cla.s.ses, and where a residence of six months would quite cure any English ultra-radical destructive of good education; an ultra-radical destructive of no education, or half educated, would, however, be vastly improved.

I had a soldier with me, and he asked leave to go on sh.o.r.e, which I freely granted, convinced, from what I knew of him, that he was proof against Buffalonian eloquence. He had scarcely stepped out of the vessel, on the wharf, in plain clothes, before he was hailed by a deserter, who was doing duty as a porter to some shopkeeper, and told of the delights of liberty and independence; but the porter had left the regiment for a little false estimate of the words _meum_ and _tuum_, and therefore the old soldier declined turning from the carrying of Brown Bess[1] to being a beast of burden. He was then a.s.sailed by a sergeant, who had been obliged to desert for misconduct in a pecuniary point of view, and shown into a little grog-shop on the quay, that he was keeping; but appearances were here not very flattering either: in short, the deserter is not at a premium in the United States, for he is always suspected. Strange to say, these men are occasionally enlisted in the regular American army; a proof of which was witnessed last winter at Sackett's Harbour, where some of our officers from Kingston saw a man who had been received, and who had deceived all the American officers, except the surgeon. This gentleman, suspecting he was not a free and enlightened citizen, although he a.s.sumed the drawl and guess, suddenly said to him, ”Attention!” upon which the deserter immediately dropped his hands straight, and stood, confessed, a soldier.

[Footnote 1: Brown Bess, a musket--_vide Infantry Dictionary._]

It would appear that in peace-time deserters should not be received into the ranks of a friendly power. Even in war, they are received by European nations with difficulty and distrust; for a man who once voluntarily breaks his oath and casts off his allegiance is very likely to be a double traitor.

The deserters from the regiments stationed in Canada frequently apply to be received back, but it is a rule to refuse them; and very properly so.

It is incredible what pains are taken on the frontier, by the loafing population from the States, to persuade the young soldiers to desert; and that, too, without any adequate prospect of benefit, but merely out of hatred, intense hatred, to England; for they soon leave the unfortunate men, who usually are plied with liquor, to their fate, when once in the land of liberty; and this fate is almost invariably a very miserable one.

The soldier I had with me told me that, while we were at the Falls, a man made up to him at the hotel, for he was then in uniform, being on the British side, and introduced himself as a general, saying that he was surprised he could remain in such a service, and volunteered to place him in their army, which he laughed at, and told him he preferred Queen Victoria's. This man he described to me as a gentleman, in his dress and manner; but, if he was a general, he was certainly a militia one, for the regular generals are not very plenty; and, from what I have heard of them, are above such meanness.

We had a military general, who is, I believe, a shoemaker of Buffalo or of New York, at Kingston last winter, who gave out that he had crossed over the ice to see if it was true that fortifications were actually in progress at Kingston. He met a keen young gentleman, who was determined to have a little fun with General Crispia.n.u.s, who was attired in a fine furred, frogged, winter coat, and pointed Astracan cap, with a heavy ta.s.sel of silk.

”So you are at work here, I guess?”

”Yes,” said the young gentleman, ”we are.”

”Well, I do hope you will be prepared in Kanaday, for though we don't approve some of our president's notions, we shall sustain him to a man; and, as soon as ever war is declared, we shall pour two or three hundred thousand men into your country and annex it.”

”Oh, is that all!” replied the youth; ”I advise you then, general, to take care of yourself, for we expect sixty thousand regulars from England.”

”I didn't hear that before,” said General Crispia.n.u.s; and no doubt he returned to his last somewhat discomfited. _Ne sutor ultra crepidam._

Before his departure, however, he went to see a newly invented pile-driver, which was at work, and, after looking at the _monkey_ for some time, which was raised and lowered by two horses, and drove the piles very quickly, with enormous power, he said to his friend suddenly, ”Waal, I swar, that does act sa.s.sy.”

So much for General Crispia.n.u.s.

We pa.s.sed the night aboard of the Thames, preferring her s.p.a.cious accommodations to those of the hotels in such a hot season, when the rain poured in torrents; but sleep was out of the question, for the climate of Sierra Leone could scarcely be more insufferable than the atmosphere then and there.

The rain cleared away in the morning, and a prospect of Lake Erie in a rage presented itself; so we could not quit the miserable apology for a harbour which Buffalo Creek affords, crowded, narrow, and nasty, until half past nine, and then, with great difficulty, on board the Emerald, a small Canadian steamboat, worked out amidst a string or maze of all sorts of merchant-craft.

Lake Erie presented an appearance exactly like the shallow sea, green and foamy, and very angry; and, in pa.s.sing the shoals at the entrance of the Niagara river, it rolled the boat so that there was some danger; and one old lady vowed that she would never quit the United States any more.