ed
their laws with impunity, referred the Vraibleusians, when injured and
complaining, to a foreign master.

No doubt this appeal to the patriotism, and the common sense, and the
vanity of the nation would have been successful had not the produce of
the suckers been both inferior in size and deficient in flavour. The
Vraibleusians tasted and shook their heads. The supply, too, was as
imperfect as the article; for the Government gardeners were but sorry
horticulturists, and were ever making experiments and alterations in
their modes of culture. The article was scarce, though the law had
decreed it universal; and the Vraibleusians were obliged to feed upon
fruit which they considered at the same time both poor and expensive.
They protested as strongly against the present system as its
promulgators had protested against the former one, and they revenged
themselves for their grievances by breaking the shop-windows.

As any result was preferable, in the view of the Statue, to the
re-introduction of foreign fruit and foreign agents, and as the Managers
considered it highly important that an indissoluble connection should in
future exist between the Government and so influential and profitable a
branch of trade, they determined to adopt the most vigorous measures to
infuse a taste for suckers in the discontented populace. But the eating
of fruit being clearly a matter of taste, it is evidently a habit which
should rather be encouraged by a plentiful supply of exquisite
produce than enforced by the introduction of burning and bayonets. The
consequences of the strong measures of the Government were universal
discontent and partial rebellion. The Islanders, foolishly ascribing the
miseries which they endured, not so much to the folly of the Government
as to the particular fruit through which the dissensions had originated,
began to entertain a disgust for pine-apples altogether, and to sicken
at the very mention of that production which had once occasioned them
so much pleasure, and which had once commanded such decided admiration.
They universally agreed that there were many other fruits in the world
besides Pine-apple which had been too long neglected. One dilated on the
rich flavour of Melon; another panegyrised Pumpkin, and offered to make
up by quantity for any slight deficiency in gout; Cherries were not
without their advocates; Strawberries were not forgotten. One maintained
that the Fig had been pointed out for the estab