The Water-Witch by James Fenimore Cooper (ebook reader online free TXT) 📕

"There shall be, in England, seven half-penny loaves sold for a penny. The three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops; and I will make it felony, to drink small beer."—Jack Cade.

Had Alderman Van Beverout been a party in the preceding dialogue, he could not have uttered words more apposite, than the exclamation with which he first saluted the ears of those in the pavilion.

"Gales and climates!" exclaimed the merchant, entering with an open letter in his hand. "Here are advices received, by way of Curaçoa, and the coast of Africa, that the good ship Musk-Rat met with foul winds off the Azores, which lengthened her passage home to seventeen weeks—this is too much precious time wasted between markets, Captain Cornelius Ludlow, and 'twill do discredit to the good character of the ship, which has hitherto always maintained a sound reputation, never needing more than the regular seven months to make the voyage home and out again. If our vessels fall into this lazy train, we shall never get a skin to Bristol, till it is past use. What have we here, niece? Merchandise! and of a suspicious fabric!--who has the invoice of these goods, and in what vessel were they shipped?"

"These are questions that may be better answered by their owner;" returned la Belle, pointing gravely, and not without tremor in her voice, towards the dealer in contraband, who, at the approach of the Alderman, had shrunk back as far as possible from view.

Myndert cast an uneasy glance at the unmoved countenance of the commander of the royal cruiser, after having bestowed a brief but understanding look at the contents of the bale. "Captain Ludlow, the chaser is chased!" he said. "After sailing about the Atlantic, for a week or more, like a Jew broker's clerk running up and down the Boom Key at Rotterdam, to get off a consignment of damaged tea, we are fairly caught ourselves! To what fall in prices, or change in the sentiments of the Board of Trade, am I indebted for the honor of this visit, Master a—a—a—gay dealer in green ladies and bright tissues?"

The confident and gallant manner of the free-trader had vanished. In its place, there appeared a hesitating and embarrassed air, that the individual was not wont to exhibit, blended with some apparent indecision, on the subject of his reply.

"It is the business of those who hazard much, in order to minister to the wants of life," he said, after a pause that was sufficiently expressive of the entire change in his demeanor, "to seek customers where there is a reputation for liberality. I hope my boldness will be overlooked, on account of its motive, and that you will aid the lady in judging of the value of my articles, and of their reasonableness as to price, with your own superior experience."

Myndert was quite as much astonished, by this language, and the subdued manner of the smuggler, as Ludlow himself. When he expected the heaviest demand on his address, in order to check the usual forward and reckless familiarity of Seadrift, in order that his connexion with the 'Skimmer of the Seas' might be as much as possible involved in ambiguity, to his own amazement, he found his purpose more than aided by the sudden and extraordinary respect with which he was treated. Emboldened, and perhaps a little elevated in his own esteem, by this unexpected deference, which the worthy Alderman, shrewd as he was in common, did not fail, like other men, to impute to some inherent quality of his own, he answered with a greater depth of voice, and a more protecting air, than he might otherwise have deemed it prudent to assume to one who had so frequently given him proofs of his own fearless manner of viewing things.

"This is being more eager as a trader, than prudent as one who should know the value of credit;" he said, making, at the same time, a lofty gesture to betoken indulgence for so venial an error. "We must overlook the mistake, Captain Ludlow; since, as the young man truly observes in his defence, gain acquired in honest traffic is a commendable and wholesome pursuit. One who appears as if he might not be ignorant of the laws, should know that our virtuous Queen and her wise counsellors have decided that Mother England can produce most that a colonist can consume! Ay! and that she can consume, too, most that the colonist can produce!"

"I pretend not to this ignorance, Sir; but, in pursuing my humble barter, I merely follow a principle of nature, by endeavoring to provide for my own interests. We of the contraband do but play at hazard with the authorities. When we pass the gauntlet unharmed, we gain; and when we lose, the servants of the crown find their profit. The stakes are equal, and the game should not be stigmatized as unfair. Would the rulers of the world once remove the unnecessary shackles they impose on commerce, our calling would disappear, and the name of free-trader would then belong to the richest and most esteemed houses."

The Alderman drew a long, low whistle. Motioning to his companions to be seated, he placed his own compact person in a chair, crossed his legs with an air of self-complacency, and resumed the discourse.

"These are very pretty sentiments, Master—a—a—a—, you bear a worthy name, no doubt, my ingenious commentator on commerce?"

"They call me Seadrift, when they spare a harsher term;" returned the other, meekly declining to be seated.

"These are pretty sentiments, Master Seadrift, and they much become a gentleman who lives by practical comments on the revenue-laws. This is a wise world, Captain Cornelius Ludlow, and in it there are many men whose heads are tilled, like bales of goods, with a general assortment of ideas.—Hornbooks and primers! Here have Van Bummel, Schoenbroeck, and Van der Donck, just sent me a very neatly-folded pamphlet, written in good Leyden Dutch, to prove that trade is an exchange of what the author calls equivalents, and that nations have nothing to do but to throw open their ports, in order to make a millennium among the merchants!"

"There are many ingenious men who entertain the same opinions;" observed Ludlow, steady in his resolution to be merely a quiet observer of all that passed.

"What cannot a cunning head devise, to spoil paper with! Trade is a racer, gentlemen, and merchants the jockeys who ride. He who carries most weight may lose; but then nature does not give all men the same dimensions, and judges are as necessary to the struggles of the mart as to those of the course. Go, mount your gelding, if you are lucky enough to have one that has not been melted into a weasel by the heartless blacks, and ride out to Harlaem Flats, on a fine October day, and witness the manner in which the trial of speed is made. The rogues of riders cut in here, and over there; now the whip and now the spur; and though they start fair, which is more than can always be said of trade, some one is sure to win. When it is neck and neck, then the neat is to be gone over, until the best bottom gains the prize."

"Why is it then that men of deep reflection so often think that commerce flourishes most when least encumbered?"

"Why is one man born to make laws, and another to break them?—Does not the horse run faster with his four legs free, than when in hopples? But in trade, Master Seadrift, and Captain Cornelius Ludlow, each of us is his own jockey; and putting the aid of custom-house laws out of the question, just as nature has happened to make him. Fat or lean, big bones or fine bones, he must get to the goal as well as he can. Therefore your heavy weights call out for sandbags and belts, to make all even. That the steed may be crushed with his load, is no proof that his chance of winning will not be better by bringing all the riders to the same level."

"But to quit these similies," continued Ludlow, "if trade be but an exchange of equivalents——"

"Beggary and stoppages!" interrupted the Alder man, who was far more dogmatical than courteous in argument. "This is the language of men who have read all sorts of books, but legers. Here have advices from Tongue and Twaddle, of London, which state the nett proceeds of a little adventure, shipped by the brig Moose, that reached the river on the 16th of April, ultimo. The history of the whole transaction can be put in a child's muff—you are a discreet youth, Captain Cornelius; and as to you, Master Seadrift, the affair is altogether out of your line—therefore, as I was observing, here are the items, made out only a fortnight since, in the shape of a memorandum;" while speaking, the Alderman had placed his spectacles and drawn his tablets from a pocket. Adjusting himself to the light, he continued: "Paid bill of Sand, Furnace, and Glass, for beads, L. 3. 2. 6.—Package and box, 1. 10½—Shipping charges, and freight, 11. 4.—Insurance,