CHAPTER V.

BUT though this fire was a most calamitous event to my neighbours, there was in it a mercy towards me as great even as the marvellous preservation of my property.

Mr. Hoskins, as I have mentioned, was in New York, seeing a cargo made up for Lisbon, and once or twice, before the fire broke out, he had proposed to me to send a venture by the same ship, or to go on shares with him. Το acknowledge the truth, I was coming round to be so inclined, saying to myself, "faint heart never won fair lady."

The chief cause of my hesitation was owing to a doubt I had of the propriety of stepping out of the line of my own business-for it was one of the solid advices of my father, never to

leave a trade so long as it would bide with me. The confusion caused by the fire settled the question; for although I could not complain of any loss, the insurance company having at once made good my damage, I was yet for several days in a state of great confusion, and could think of nothing but of my missing articles, and how I should get my store again in order. Sooth to say, I was disturbed and fykie, and could lay my mind to no sort of consideration.

"I guess," said Mr. Hoskins, one evening, when he came to drink tea with us; 66 I guess the Squire ha'n't a got 'livered of 'at ere fire fright."

In the way of jocularity I did not object to being called squire by him, for it was his way; but the fire was connected in my mind with so many awful things, that I could not endure to hear it lightly spoken of, so I replied:

"You know, Mr. Hoskins, that I have no right to be called squire, and, therefore, it would oblige me if ye would not use to me such a decoration."

"Well, if that ben't Solomon, I a'nt nobody; for to speak the truth right-away to Mr.

Todd, I have myself obstinacious objections—a considerable some—against 'em ere parley voos; for though I be a major of militia, and a judge in our county, State of Vermont, I ain't special 'bout pedigrees; but my wife, she's as the gentleman knows an almighty ambitious woman, and will have her kitchen as clean as her parlour --she won't have nobody call me but squire; for myself, Zerobabel L. Hoskins, I ain't so audacious, and yet, when I judgefies at sessions, there isn't such a Belzeebub to knaves in all the Union. They sha'n't speak to me then but as I let's em. But giving such gabbing the go by, Squire, Marlin spikes and Cucumbers! I have a compulsion to call you squire, are you screwed up not to make a shipment?”

"As dourly as a door-nail, Mr. Hoskins," was my answer; and then I expatiated on my reasons for declining the advantages which he promised himself from the spec; adding, among other things, that may be, before the ship could reach Lisbon, Wellington might be obliged to take his knapsack on his back and go home.

"And if so be, I calculate, that ain't nothing

to make nobody afeared, for we have got double papers for the ship."

Poor man! but he was strong in worldly wisdom, little thinking that where he thought himself so well-fenced would be found his weakest part. The ship soon after sailed, and was not well clear of Sandy Hook, when a British frigate laid hold of her by the cuff of the neck, and hauled her, by the lug and the horn, away to Bermuda, where she was detained, on account of the two sets of papers, so long, that the codfish began to spoil and quicken to such a degree, that they spoilt the flour, and the whole cargo became a dead loss. Was it not a capital escape my having nothing to do with it! though in the end, I, with others, came in for a share of the consequences, by the embargo and the war with England that soon after followed. For you see, when Mr. Hoskins heard of what had happened to the ship, he fell into a terrible passion, and went about kindling the people to revenge his cause, until there was not a patriotic heart in the Union, but thought the island of Great Britain ought to be tarred and feathered.

One night, as Mr. Hoskins was enlarging on this text, and saying it would be a Devil blessed thing if the King were skinned alive and crammed up to the neck in a cask with a salt and vitriol pickle, I tried to counsel him to moderation, but the more I reasoned he grew the madder; and when I but hinted in a far off way, that his misfortune might be altogether owing to the dissimilation of the ship's papers, he was touched to the quick, asserting that the ship of every free country had a right to carry what goods or papers her owners chose to send by her. This sort of unsound doctrine, as I at the time maintained it was, infected the heads of every body that heard of Mr. Hoskins and his unlucky and unsavoury venture, till at last the Government saw no other way of pacifying the people but by declaring war against England.

As a Christian, I deplored this violent step; and as a Scotchman, I was distressed to think of the detriment that might be done to my native land, though I never went the length of those who thought the United States would scuttle the island.

"To a moral certainty," said Mr. Hoskins,