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of a house." He therefore resolved to sell it, and live in it as a tenant, paying a rent to the purchaser. He went to a rich Turk, whom he knew to be honest, and made his proposal to him, which he immediately accepted, and going into his closet, brought forth the price in Venetian chequeens, which North carried home in his bosom, "without leaving scrip or scroll of acquittance concerning it." "Such trust," saith his biographer, "may men gain by a steady, honest behaviour." Of his selling jewels to the Seraglio, and the liberality with which they dealt, and the honesty with which they paid, we are next told-"I wish," quoth Roger, himself a teller of money, in the days of Lord Guilford's keepership, "I wish I could say as much for all Christian courts, treasurers, and exchequers."

At the time when Roger North's work was published, one of its great charms must have been his happy descriptions of oriental manners and character. The descriptions, then true, are for the most part, still applicable to modern Turkey; and repeated in substance in five hundred volumes of travels. We therefore pass them over rapidly. The details of his sicknesses and recoveries have nothing to detain us. The habits of mercantile society at Constantinople are such, saith the sly biographer, "that many come home as very sots as if they had never gone abroad." Mr. North did as they did, till at length he found he could not sleep "if he went to bed without a bottle or two in his belly." He gave this up soon, and erred on the side of abstemiousness. By the advice of one of their doctors he then took a light supper, "and particularly what was savoury, as cavear, or anchovies sufficient to relish a glass of wine or two before he went to bed." This course he continued while he lived.

He now began to grow fat, and his brother delights to tell that "it increased upon him till being somewhat tall and well whiskered, he made a jolly appearance such as the Turks approve most of all in a man."

"This," he adds, "gives me a handle to relate a passage concerning himself, which he told me in familiarity and confidence, saying he had let no mortal else (his best brother only excepted) have any knowledge of it, lest they should think he lied out of vanity. The great officers about the grand signor, with whom he had transacted, and (with such respects as became him) familiarly conversed, told

his majesty that there was now, in the city of Constantinople, an extraordinary gower, as well for person as abilities, to transact the greatest affairs; and so, in the ordinary conversation with the grand signor, he was often named for somewhat considerable, besides his acting as hasnadar of the English nation under their ambassador.

The grand signor declared he would see this extraordinary gower; and accordingly the merchant was told of it; ducted him into the seraglio, and carried and, at the time appointed, an officer conhim about till he came to a little garden, and there two other men took him by the two arms, and led him to a place where he saw the grand signor sitting against a large window open, in a chamber not very high from the ground; the men, that were his conductors, holding each an arm, put their hands upon his neck, and bowed him down till his forehead touched the ground; and this was done more than once, and is the very same forced obeisance of ambassadors at their audience. After this, he stood bolt upright as long as the grand signor thought fit to look at him; and then, upon a sign given, he was taken away and set free again by himself, to reflect

on this his romantic audience.

"As to his public capacities, the treasurership gave him opportunity to show his address, and enlarge his acquaintance. He held a fair correspondence with the ambassadors of other nations and their dependents, and was well accepted by them. He was good company, facetious, fluent, and knew how to behave himself to all. He observed decorums, regarded his superiors, familiarized with his equals, and gave no offence to his inferiors. He had acquired an exquisite skill in human nature, aud knew how to deal with all

the various species of politicians and trickers, and was never, in any considerable pass, over-reached by any of them. And if, in a small matter, at any time, he found himself deluded, his cheater had better have been further off, for he made it known with a witness. Once a Jew had taken advantage of a little too much credulity, and turned a trick upon him. When he found it, he began to rage most desperately; and a brother Jew, to pacify him, came and told him, that a man was a pitiful wretch; and, if it should be known, that so great a man was cheated by such a fellow, it would much concern his honour, and reflect upon his wisdom. But this did not stop the fury of our merchant; but he so much the louder cried out, I was a fool and I was cheated; and he is a villain, and a dog;' and the like. He was resolved the fellow's knavery should be known, and that the flattering insinuation of his

brother Jew should not cover him from open disgrace."

His office of treasurer brought North into constant communication with the vizier of the day; and his own papers have supplied his biographer with an amusing and instructive account of the exactions to which, under pretence of law, the foreign merchants were subjected. A number of cases are stated with great particularity, and on each are given our merchant's observations, in general we think too favorable to the Turkish authorities. When he felt himself, by the management of the affairs of the Turkey Company, better acquainted than any other Englishman of his time with the "Turkish Economy," he entertained the ambitious hope of being, through Lord Guilford's interest, appointed ambassador. When this was proposed to his brother he at once threw cold water on

the project, regarding his brother's rank, as, being a merchant, not sufficient for this dignity. It was replied, that Mr. North could be of more service as ambassador, than any man ever had been before; that the Turks have no regard to quality, but to the commission alone; that they refuse to distinguish between an envoy resident and ambassador. "The Dutch envoy," say they, "has a commission-have you more, and is not all the rest nothing?" The only effect, however, which this reasoning had in England was, to show that " they knew as little of London, and interest at court here, as we did of Constantinople and of the court there." The plan failed, but North escaped the ridicule which it would have exposed him to had it been mentioned upon the Exchange. The secret of his ambitious hope was not made public till after his death.

"When our merchant went first up to Constantinople, the Lord Winchelsea was our ambassador there.

He was a

jolly lord, and extremely favoured by the good Vizier Cuperli, who advised him often to live after his way; that is, as a man of pleasure, merrily; and not trouble himself with business, which, upon application by his dragomen, should be done to his hand; and having a goodly person and mustachios, with a world of talk, and that all (as his way was) of mighty wonders, the vizier delighted in his company. In this time, one John, a quaker, went on a sort of pilgrimage to Constantinople, for converting the Great Turk; and the first scene of his action was standing up in a corner of a street, and preaching to the people. They stared at him, and

concluding him out of his wits, he was taken and carried to the mad-house; there he lay six months. At last, some of the keepers heard him speak the word English, and told it so as it came to the ambassador's ear, that he had a subject in the mad-house; his lordship sent and

had him to his house. The fellow stood before the ambassador with a ragged, dirty hat on, and would not put it off, though he was so charged, and admonished; thereupon the ambassador ordered him down, and had him drubbed upon the feet, after the Turkish manner; then he was any thing, and would do any thing; and afterwards did own that that drubbing had a great effect upon his spirit. Upon searching him, there was found in his pouche, among a few beans, a letter to the grand signor, very long and canting; but the substance was, to let him know, that he was the scourge in wicked Christians; and now their wickGod's hand, with which he chastised the Spirit had sent him, to let him know, edness was so great, that God by the that he must come forthwith to scourge them. He was sent for England, but got off by the way, and came up a second time to Constantinople; from whence he was more surely conveyed; and some, that knew John, told Sir Dudley North they had seen him on the Exchange, where he recognised the admirable virtue of Turkish drubbing."

There are some curious notices of the superstitions of the Turks. Our merchant narrowly escaped the danger of being reputed an enchanter, and falling into the hands of the mob-for while looking at his watch, and counting the seconds during the exhibitions of a rope dancer, the rope at the moment broke. A fellow who saw North, came forward to state that he saw him hold something in his hand, and mutter over it three-four-five. Our conjuror was glad to make his escape. In Turkey he found the same superstitions as are every where prevalentfor all nations in a certain stage believe in fairies, goblins, &c. The plague is explained to the mind of the people by the supposition that ministering angels are sent forth, and go about with banners. One has a red banner and the other a white; and as these angels strike the people, they fall down and either die or recover; numbers were found to affirm that they had actually seen these angels. If a horse became sick, his master would have the Alcoran read over it, and rather than fail of having the sick animal read over, the law of Moses or the gospel of Christ. This superstition was not confined to the Turks :

"There are many poor Christians," saith Roger, speaking of the dwellers in Constantinople in our merchant's time, "that will get a holy man, though a Turk, to read over a sick child, and the Jews the like. It is the reading over that they value, together with the venerable phiz of the holy man that performs, without much distinction what it is he reads."

A party of English merchants were riding with a janizzary for their protection ; as they passed the Jewish bury ing ground, they saw an old Jew sitting by a sepulchre. The janizzary, a firm believer in all the superstitions of the Levant, rode up to him, and rated him for stinking the world a second time, and commanded him to get into his grave again.

When North returned to England he was fond of relating his observations in the East; and from his conversations this part of his brother's book is made up. The Jews he seems thoroughly to have detested and despised. They were universally poor; for did any of them rise a little above the rest, the extortions of the Turkish government, and the yet more severe extortions of their own poorer brethren under the name of asking charity, soon reduced them to the common level of abject distress. The Jews beg, as the proverb says con basto in mano, that is, with a stick in their hand; and the rich are forced to comply with their exactions. In North's time they were allowed to live as a separate people, according to the Mosaic law, in every thing except that they were denied the power of life and death. When an offence by the Jewish law was punishable with death, as the sentence could not be executed, they had recourse to the strange artifice of accusing the intended victim, in the Turkish courts of justice, of some capital crime. Jews, whose testimony would not be received against Turks, are competent witnesses against a Jew; and the synagogue took care to procure and instruct witnesses who thought they were doing God service by swearing up to high-water mark.

The Jews succeeded in making themselves necessary to the management of all business. Universally distrusted and despised-known to be thieves and spies they were yet universally employed.

"When a fresh merchant, or factor, comes to Constantinople, the first Jew, that catches a word with him, marks him for his own, as becoming his peculiar

property, and calls him his merchant; and
so he must be as long as he stays. And,
from this time, no other Jew will inter-
pose to deprive him of his purchase, but
as soon rob a house as do it.
And thus,

by compact or custom among themselves,
this sacred rule of right is established.
On the other side, the merchant can no
more shake off his Jew than his skin.
He sticks like a bur, and, whether well
used or ill used, will be at every turn in
with him; and no remedy. Somewhat
the rogue will get out of him in spite of
his teeth, and commonly (beside pay)
just so much more as he is trusted with.
And the merchant cannot be without a
Jew, nor change that he hath. The only
expedient is to make the best of him,
and never trust him upon honour. It is
not a little convenience that is had by
these appropriated Jews; for they serve
in the quality of universal brokers, as
well for small as great things. Their
trade is running up and down, and
through the city, like so many of Job's
devils, perpetually busking after one
thing or other, according as they are em-
ployed. If the merchant wants any
thing, be it never so inconsiderable, let
him tell his Jew of it, and, if it be above
ground, he will find it. This is accounted
a common advantage; for there are mul-
titudes of people, that have need of each
other, and want means to come together;
which office the Jews perform admirably.
And in like manner they apply to the
great men at court, calling themselves
his merchant at whose house or gate
they wait expecting employment. For,
when any thing is wanted, the Jew is
spoke to, and he, with wonderful de-
spatch, procures it: and they have great
profit by these trusts, which they account
as the vails of their places.'

For several years North lived abroad, each day telling to another of encreased prosperity. In scenes such as formed to habits of shrewdness, such we have described, his mind was fiery temper, which yet would now and as have rarely been surpassed; and his then burst forth in indignation not unlike the language of honest feeling, was subdued to an appearance of serenity, which in the civil conflicts into

be thrown, was strongly contrasted with which it was his fortune afterwards to the excitement of every one around, and increased the effect of his natural talents an hundred fold. The interest of the subject has led us almost unconsciously to extend this article beyond what we had originally proposed. In a future number we propose giving some account of his adventures after his return to England.

BY-WAYS OF IRISH HISTORY.

CHAP. VII.

THE WHITE-BOY INSURRECTION.-DATE OF ITS FIRST RISE.

"At the end of more than sixty years we are still struggling with insurrection in the third generation of those against whom those laws (the White-boy Acts) were pointed."-Lord Chief Justice Bushe, at the Special Commission in Maryborough, 1832.

MORE than sixty years struggling with insurrection! More than five years since that fearful truth was spoken; and if the state is not "still struggling with insurrection," all loyal subjects are suffering under it. And yet there are men listened to, favored, supported, who pronounce, from places of au thority, that the disorders by which Ireland has been so incessantly and so cruelly afflicted, are no more than desultory outbreaks of popular violence, caused as well as occasioned by some temporary or local grievance. This is not our persuasion.

Insurrection is now, almost recognised, certainly felt, among our constitutional agencies, as a power, in effecting alterations in the laws and government of the country. Such a consequence naturally followed from the length of time during which its operation was permitted. Three generations of men could not have grown up amidst its influences, without being essentially affected by them, nor could insurrection have prevailed extensively and for so long a time, without acquiring a character of virtual though not acknowledged legitimacy. A successful insurrection is pronounced a revolution; insurrection, protracted and unpunished, becomes "a system of agitation;" it outgrows the power of conscience to do it harm; it overcomes prejudices by which in its first essays it was discouraged; it encompasses itself with accessories by which it wins favorable judgments from those who own the power of impulse more than the government of principle or reason; it becomes provided with a machinery which gives it, to those whose morals accord with their present interests, an air of permanence and power; and if its blandishments are artfully displayed, it will win to itself the obedience which is ennobled by love, and zeal, and loyalty, leaving to the legitimate authority in the state the ignoble servitude of craft and fear. After this there is but one stage previous tosuccess, and Irish insurrection has

reached it; that in which the only terrors which are truly formidable are numbered among the agencies of treason. In a word, an insurrection of sixty or, as we should rather say, eighty years' standing, is a state; the habits of the oldest members of the community have been affected by its usages and laws; the judgments, or at least the actions of the boldest, where its legitimate rival is weak, become biassed and restrained by its threatenings and its professions.

The question-how has insurrection been thus prolonged?—is one to which the legislature and the government of Great Britain never seem to have adverted; and it is a question in which beyond all others, the state has a deep and obvious concern. Indeed, as we have already observed, the rashest answer is the best received, and it seems taken for granted, that without any principle of continuity-without the guide or governance of any presiding mind-without a great end or a comprehensive design-insurrection has been maintained in Ireland during the lapse of eighty years, by a succession of separate and independent causes, by incidents and accidents, local in their origin, transitory in their character, but presenting themselves in most felicitous though inexplicable accommodation to the necessities of the times, to prevent disorder from subsiding. Ours, as we have stated, is a different persuasion. We are far from denying that local causes and griev ances, domestic rather than political, have been productive of much strife and crime in Ireland. We do not deny that political disabilities have also contributed their share to the stock of discontent and disturbance. But we have not the conviction which, in our more inexperienced years, possessed us, that such matters as these could explain the phenomena of Irish disorder. We believe that the discomforts of the uneducated, and exclusions which occasioned discontent to the more aspiring, were productive

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of an evil state of things; but that to give life, and body, and consistence to an eighty years' insurrection, demanded the presence of more potent agencies. We hasten to submit the grounds of our belief, as we have found them in the circumstances from which, the various tumults which disordered our country, derived their character.

THE WHITEBOYS, A.D. 1759. Their first appellation was Levellers, by which, at their rising, they were known in 1757. The ordinary history of the Whiteboy insurrection is familiar to every reader. The pestilence or murrain which carried off horned cattle in England, and thus opened the English market to imports from Ireland, gave encreased value to those wastes upon which cottier tenants had been previously indulged with a privilege or right of pasturage; and thus induced landed proprietors to enclose them. In opposition to so invidious an exercise of right or power, the people assembled by night, and levelled the enclosures which had been erected in the day. Hence their first nameLevellers. In two years after, when their objects had become more numerous, they took a new name, and, it was said, from their uniform -a shirt over their other garments, were called Whiteboys. So far, the history of the first insurrectionary movement, since the accession of the House of Brunswick, is notorious. Those who enquire no further, think it was merely what they are pleased to term "prædial;" having in its plans and purposes nothing religious or political." The arguments by which this agreeable untruth is supported have been received by modern politicians with so much favor and complacency, that, however insignificant they are in themselves, respect for public opinion renders it becoming to notice and to expose them. We are enabled to perform this duty on easier terms than it could have been formerly discharged, by the labors of an English gentleman, (learned in the law we believe,) who has collected and prepared, with no ordinary diligence, the testimonies by which Irish insurrection is proved innocent of political guilt. The British ministry appear to have acquired so very exalted an opinion of this gentleman's merits that they have published, as official documents, certain papers prepared or col

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Lewis on Irish Disturbances, p. 4.

lected by him respecting ecclesiastical establishments in Prussia. If his foreign enquiries were not conducted with a more successful regard for truth than those which he has instituted respecting Ireland, we would not recommend parliament or the public to set much value on the learned gentleman's Prussian speculations. But he has taken up the case of Irish disorder, and has affirmed its political innocence. We will give his arguments and testimonies a brief examination.

GEORGE CORNWALL LEWIS, ON THE WHITEBOY TUMULT.

"The first of the risings which origiginated in this new state of things, and which had little or nothing in common with the previous troubles in Ireland, (such as the great rebellionof 1641) was that of the Whiteboys or Levellers, in 1761.*

This sentence contains a tolerably fair epitome of the difference between Mr. Lewis and us on the subject of the Whiteboy Insurrection. He pronounces it purely prædial, and dates its origin at 1761. We suspect a political purpose, although cloaked by pretexts not likely to cause much alarm. We also affirm that it had its origin at a period earlier than that assigned by Mr. Lewis. We shall consider, in the first place, the learned gentleman's chronology-the reader will presently see that it is a matter of some importance.

In proof of his assertion that the Whiteboy system commenced in 1761, Mr. Lewis cites two authorities, one a letter which appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine, the second a speech of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The letter, or rather the extract, published in 1762, professes to give "a succinct account of a set of miscreants in the counties of Waterford, Cork, Limerick, and Tipperary, called Bougheleen Bawns, or Whiteboys." This (anonymous) extract affirms that "their" (Whiteboys) "first rise was in October last, 1761. The other testimony is furnished by the Lord Lieutenant, in two speeches, one delivered October 22, 1761, at the opening of the session of parliament; the other delivered at the close of the same session, April 30, 1762. The former "speaks of the peaceable demeanour of the papists of this kingdom;' and hopes that nothing may interrupt that tranquillity which is desirable at all times, and at this season

† Lewis, page 5. Note.

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