I ventured to write for other journals without consulting him;
whereat he grew tetchy and impertinent, and I blew him up sky-high,
recalled an article in type for which he had paid me _fifteen_
guineas, (I wish he had kept it,) refunded the money, (I wish I
hadn't,) and left him forever. But this I will say: _Blackwood_
behaved handsomely to me from first to last, with one small
exception, and showed more courage and good feeling toward '_my
beloved_ country' while I was at the helm of that department, than
any and all the editors, publishers, and proprietors in Britain.
Give the devil his due, I say!'

This escapade with _Blackwood_ might have been a national loss; but
happily, Neal had accomplished his purpose--vindicated his country by
telling the truth, and by showing in himself the metal of one of her
sons. He had silenced the whole British battery of periodicals who had
been abusing America. He had forced literary England to a capitulation,
and he could well enough afford to leave his fifteen guineas at
_Blackwood's_, and go to France for recreation, as he did about this
time.

In 1826 he returned to America, and applied for admission to the
New-York bar. This started a hornet's nest. He had been 'sarving up' too
many newspaper and other scribblers, to be left in peace any longer.
With an excellent opinion of himself, his contempt was often quite as
large, to say the least of it, as his charity; and he had doubtless, at
times, in England, ridiculed his countrymen to the full of their
deserving; knowing that if he admitted the debtor side honestly, he
would be allowed to fix the amount of credit without controversy. His
Yankees are alarming specimens, which a growing civilization has so
nearly 'used up' that they are now regarded somewhat like fossil remains
of some extinct species of animal.

About the time Neal applied for admission to the New-York bar, a portion
of the people of Portland, stimulated by the aggrieved _literati_ above
mentioned, determined to elevate themselves into a mob _pro tem._, and
expel him from Portland. In the true spirit of his Quaker ancestry, who,
some one has said, always decided they were needed where they were not
wanted, Neal determined to stay in Portland, The mobocrats declared that
he was sold to the British. Neal retorted, in cool irony, that 'he only
wished he had got an offer.' They asserted that he was the mortal enemy
of our p