o brag on. And what did he get for
it? Why colony sarce, half-pay, and leave to make room for Englishers
to go over his head; and here is a lyin' false monument, erected to this
man that never even see'd one of our national ships, much less smelt
thunder and lightning out of one, that English like, has got this for
what he didn't do.
"I am sorry Mr. Lett [Footnote: This was the man that blew up the Brock
monument in Canada. _He was a Patriot_.] is dead to Canada, or I'd give
him a hint about this. I'd say, 'I hope none of our free and enlightened
citizens will blow this lyin', swaggerin', bullyin' monument up? I
should be sorry for 'em to take notice of such vulgar insolence as this;
for bullies will brag.' He'd wink and say, 'I won't non-concur with you,
Mr. Slick. I hope it won't be blowed up; but wishes like dreams come
con_trary_ ways sometimes, and I shouldn't much wonder if it bragged
till it bust some night.' It would go for it, that's a fact. For Mr.
Lett has a kind of nateral genius for blowin' up of monuments.
"Now you talk of our Eagle takin' an anchor in its claws as bad taste.
I won't say it isn't; but it is a nation sight better nor this. See what
the little admiral critter is about! why he is a stampin' and a jabbin'
of the iron heel of his boot into the lifeless body of a fallen foe!
It's horrid disgustin', and ain't overly brave nother; and to make
matters wus, as if this warn't bad enough, them four emblem figures,
have great heavy iron chains on 'em, and a great enormous sneezer of
a lion has one part o' the chain in its mouth, and is a-growlin' and
a-grinnin' and a-snarling at 'em like mad, as much as to say, 'if you
dare to move the sixteen hundredth part of an inch, I will fall to and
make mincemeat of you, in less than half no time. I don't think there
never was nothin' so bad as this, ever seen since the days of old daddy
Adam down to this present blessed day, I don't indeed. So don't come for
to go, Squire, to tarnt me with the Eagle and the anchor no more, for I
don't like it a bit; you'd better look to your '_Nelson monument_' and
let us alone. So come now!"
Amidst much that was coarse, and more that was exaggerated, there was
still some foundation for the remarks of the Attache.
"You arrogate a little too much to yourselves," I observed, "in
considering the United States as all America. At the time these
brilliant deeds were achieved, which this monument is intended to
commemorate, th
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