Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445: Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852Various
History
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445: Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852
Various
Periodicals
Still, if there was honour on one side, there was enlarged confidence
on the other; and in the course of a few months, the American mail
brought to London the famous L.600 due since before the War of
Independence. The business now was to divide and distribute it. Of
course, each of the creditors was loud in expressions of admiration of
the honour of the B. family, whose representative, while forwarding
the money, asked with much simplicity to have a few old English
newspapers sent out to him by way of acknowledgment. For his own part,
however, he experienced a strong desire to behold some of the persons
to whom he had thus paid a debt of the last century; and he gave a
warm and pressing invitation to any of them, to come out and stay as
long as they thought proper at his house in Charleston. Had the
invitation been accepted, we cannot doubt that Brother Jonathan would
have acted as hospitably in the character of host as he behaved
honourably in that of debtor. It would have been a pleasure, we might
indeed say a distinction, to live under the same roof with such a man,
whose very name carries us back to the primitive times of the colony,
when Charleston was a city of the British Empire, and English laws,
manners, habits, and feelings regulated the proceedings and relations
of its inhabitants. It is to be hoped, therefore, that the London
solicitor will some day drop in quietly upon his friend in Charleston,
to smoke a cigar, and discuss old times with him. He will in that case
probably fancy himself chatting with a contemporary of Rip Van Winkle.
Doubtless there are thousands of such men in the States, where
frequently everything that is estimable in the English character is
cultivated with assiduity.
How the property was distributed among the S. family in England, we
need not say. Each surviving individual had his or her share. The
solicitor was only connected with them by marriage; but with good old
English ideas of uprightness and integrity, he was fully able to
appreciate the Charleston lawyer's sentiments. He would have done
exactly the same himself under similar circumstances; and therefore,
had the sum been tens of thousands instead of hundreds, it could not
be said to have fallen into bad hands. Whether the transaction above
noticed has led or not to a continued correspondence between the
families, we are unable to say; but we think the creditors in England
would naturally have felt a pleasure in exchanging intelligence from
time to time with their worthy debtors in Charleston. These things,
however, are private, and therefore we do not intend to trench upon
them.
THE PARLOUR AQUARIUM.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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