r payment. The Irishman suffered it to be taken
off, expecting, it is to be presumed, that it would be returned to him
as valueless, when the captain jerked it overboard. "Oh! murder!--
captain, drop the boat," cried Paddy; "pick my jacket up, or I'm a
ruined man. _All_ my _money's_ in it." The jacket was fortunately
picked up before it sank, and, on ripping it up, it was found to
contain, sewed up in it, upwards of fifty sovereigns and gold eagles.
The same captain narrated to me the particulars of one instance in which
about one hundred Irish were on board, who when asked for payment,
commenced an attack upon the captain and crew with their bludgeons; but,
having before experienced such attempts, he was prepared for them, and
receiving assistance from the shore, the Irishmen were worsted, and then
every man paid his fare. The truth is that they are very turbulent, and
the lower orders of the Americans are very much enraged against them.
On the 4th of July there were several bodies of Americans, who were out
on the look-out for the Irish, after dark, and many of the latter were
severely beaten, if not murdered; the Irish, however, have to thank
themselves for it.
The spirit of the institutions of the States is so opposed to servitude,
that it is chiefly from the emigrants that the Americans obtain their
supply of domestics; the men servants in the private houses may be said
to be, with few exceptions, either emigrants or free people of colour.
Amongst other points upon which the Americans are to be pitied, and for
which the most perfect of theoretical governments could never
compensate, is the misery and annoyance to which they are exposed from
their domestics. They are absolutely slaves to them, especially in the
western free States; there are no regulations to control them. At any
fancied affront they leave the house without a moment's warning, putting
on their hats or bonnets, and walking out of the street-door, leaving
their masters and mistresses to get on how they can. I remember when I
was staying with a gentleman in the west, that, on the first day of my
arrival, he apologised to me for not having a man servant, the fellow
having then been drunk for a week; a woman had been hired to help for a
portion of the day, but most of the labour fell upon his wife, whom I
found one morning cleaning my room. The fellow remained ten days drunk,
and then (all his money being spent) sent to his master to say that he
|