of individuals, and a perpetual struggle of their spirits, sharpens their wits, and gives constant training to the mind. The acquirement of information in things and business, which becomes necessary to this mode of life, gives the mind, thus sharpened, and thus exercised, a turn of inquiry and investigation which forms a character peculiar to these people, which is not to be met with, nor ever did exist in any other to the same degree, unless in some of the ancient republics, where the people were under the same predicament. This turn of character, which, in the ordinary occurrences of life, is called inquisitiveness, and which, when exerted about trifles, goes even to a degree of ridicule in many instances; is yet, in matters of business and commerce, a most useful and efficient talent.

...

In America, the wisdom and not the man is attended to; and America is peculiarly a poor man's country. . . . They find themselves at liberty to follow what mode they like; they feel that they can venture to try experiments, and that the advantages of their discoveries are their own. They, therefore, try what the soil claims, what the climate permits, and what both will produce and sustain to the greatest advantage.

Although the civilizing activity of America does not, by artificial and false helps, contrary to the natural course of things, inconsistent with, and checking the first applications of, its natural labour, and before the community is ripe for such endeavour, attempt to force the establishment of manufactures: yet following, as Use and Experience lead, the natural progress of improvement, it is every year producing a surplus profit; which surplus, as it enters again into the circulation of productive employment, creates an accumulating accelerated progressive series of surpluses. With these accumulated surpluses of the produce of the earth and seas, and not with manufactures, the Americans carry on their commercial exertions. Their fish, wheat, flour, rice, tobacco, indigo, live stock, barrel pork and beef (some of these articles being peculiar to the country and staple commodities) form the exports of their commerce. This has given them a direct trade to Europe; and, with some additional articles, a circuitous trade to Africa and the West Indies. The same ingenuity of mechanic handicraft, which arises concomitant with agriculture, doth here also rise concomitant with commerce, and is exerted in SHIP-BUILDING: it is carried on, not only to serve all the purposes of their own carriage, and that of the West Indies in part, but to an extent of sale, so as to supply great part of the shipping of Britain;

and further, if it continues to advance with the same progress, it will supply great part of the trade of Europe also with shipping, at chea[p]er rates than they can any where, or by any means, supply themselves.

Thus their commerce, although subsisting (while they were subordinate provinces) under various restrictions, by its advancing progress in ship-building, hath been striking deep root, and is now shot forth an active commerce, growing into amplitude of state and great power. . .

I will here, therefore, from this comparison of the spirit of civilizing activity in the old and in the new world, as one sees it in its application to agriculture, handicrafts, and mechanics, and finally in an active commerce, spatiating on an amplitude of base, the natural communion of a great country, and rising in a natural progression, venture to assert, that in this point, NORTH AMERICA HAS ADVANCED, AND IS EVERY DAY ADVANCING, TO GROWTH OF STATE, WITH A STEADY AND CONTINUALLY ACCELERATING MOTION, OF WHICH THERE HAS NEVER YET BEEN ANY EXAMPLE IN EUROPE.

But farther; when one looks to the progressive POPULATION which this fostering happiness doth, of course, produce, one cannot but see, in North America, that God's first blessing, "Be fruitful and multiply; replenish the earth and subdue it," hath operated in full manifestation of his will...

This might have been, indeed, the spirit of the British Empire, America being a part of it: This is the spirit of the government of the new Empire of America, Great Britain being no part of it. It is a Vitality, liable, indeed, to many disorders, many dangerous diseases; but it is young and strong, and will struggle, by the vigour of internal healing principles of life, against those evils, and surmount them; like the infant Hercules, it will strangle these serpents in its cradle. Its strength will grow with its years, and it will establish its constitution, and perfect adultness in growth of state.

To this greatness of empire it will certainly arise. That it is removed three thousand miles distant from its enemy; that it lies on another side of the globe where it has no enemy; that it is earth-born, and like a giant ready to run its course, are not alone the grounds and reasons on which a speculatist may pronounce this. The fostering care with which the rival Powers of Europe will nurse it, ensures its establishment beyond all doubt or danger.

[Thomas Pownall], A Memorial, most humbly addressed to the Sovereigns of Europe, on the Present State of Affairs, between the Old and New World (second edition, London, 1780), 4–69 passim.

27. A Satire on Town-Meeting (1782)

BY JOHN TRUMBULL

Trumbull, a Connecticut jurist, was the most conspicuous literary character of his day, and his mock-heroic poem, M‘Fingal, enjoyed an immense popularity. — For Trumbull, see Tyler, Literary History of the Revolution, I, 187–221, 427–450.- For town-meetings, see Contemporaries, II, No. 78.

T

HUS stor'd with intellectual riches,

Skill'd was our 'Squire in making speeches,
Where strength of brains united centers
With strength of lungs surpassing Stentor's.
But as some musquets so contrive it,
As oft to miss the mark they drive at,
And tho' well aim'd at duck or plover,
Bear wide and kick their owners over :
So far'd our 'Squire, whose reas'ning toil
Would often on himself recoil,

And so much injur'd more his side,
The stronger arg'ments he applied:
As old war-elephants dismay'd,

Trode down the troops they came to aid,
And hurt their own side more in battle

Than less and ordinary cattle.

Yet at town-meetings ev'ry chief
Pinn'd faith on great M'Fingal's sleeve,
And as he motion'd, all by rote
Rais'd sympathetic hands to vote.

The town, our Hero's scene of action,
Had long been torn by feuds of faction,
And as each party's strength prevails,
It turn'd up diff'rent, heads or tails;
With constant rattl'ing in a trice
Show'd various sides as oft as dice:
As that fam'd weaver, wife t' Ulysses,
By night each day's-work pick'd in pieces,
And tho' she stoutly did bestir her,
Its finishing was ne'er the nearer :
So did this town with stedfast zeal

Weave cob-webs for the public weal,
Which when compleated, or before,
A second vote in pieces tore.

They met, made speeches full long winded,
Resolv'd, protested, and rescinded;
Addresses sign'd, then chose Committees,
To stop all drinking of Bohea-teas;
With winds of doctrine veer'd about,
And turn'd all Whig-Committees out.
Meanwhile our Hero, as their head,
In pomp the tory faction led,

Still following, as the 'Squire should please,
Successive on, like files of geese.

And now the town was summon'd greeting,
To grand parading of town-meeting;
A show, that strangers might appall,
As Rome's grave senate did the Gaul.
High o'er the rout, on pulpit-stairs,
Like den of thieves in house of pray'rs,
(That house, which loth a rule to break,
Serv'd heav'n but one day in the week,
Open the rest for all supplies
Of news and politics and lies)
Stood forth the constable, and bore
His staff, like Merc'ry's wand of yore,
Wav'd potent round, the peace to keep,
As that laid dead men's souls to sleep.
Above and near th' hermetic staff,
The moderator's upper half,

In grandeur o'er the cushion bow'd,
Like Sol half-seen behind a cloud.
Beneath stood voters of all colours,
Whigs, tories, orators and bawlers,
With ev'ry tongue in either faction,
Prepared, like minute-men, for action;
Where truth and falshood, wrong and right,
Draw all their legions out to fight;
With equal uproar, scarcely rave

Opposing winds in Æolus' cave;

G

Such dialogues with earnest face,
Held never Balaam with his ass.

With daring zeal and courage blest
Honorius first the crowd address'd;
When now our 'Squire returning late,
Arrived to aid the grand debate,
With strange sour faces sat him down,
While thus the orator went on.

As thus he spake, our 'Squire M'Fingal
Gave to his partizans a signal.

Not quicker roll'd the waves to land,
When Moses wav'd his potent wand,
Nor with more uproar, than the Tories
Set up a gen'ral rout in chorus;

Laugh'd, hiss'd, hem'd, murmur'd, groan'd and jeer'd;
Honorius now could scarce be heard.
Our Muse amid th' increasing roar,

Could not distinguish one word more :
Tho' she sat by, in firm record
To take in short-hand ev'ry word;
As antient Muses wont, to whom
Old Bards for depositions come;
Who must have writ 'em; for how else
Could they each speech verbatim tell 's?
And tho' some readers of romances
Are apt to strain their tortur'd fancies,
And doubt, when lovers all alone
Their sad soliloquies do groan,

Grieve many a page with no one near 'em,
And nought but rocks and groves to hear 'em,
What spright infernal could have tattled,
And told the authors all they prattled;

Whence some weak minds have made objection,
That what they scribbled must be fiction:

'Tis false; for while the lovers spoke,
The Muse was by, with table-book,
And least some blunder might ensue,

Echo stood clerk and kept the cue.