Manuel Pereira; Or, The Sovereign Rule of South Carolina — John Shaqi
Manuel Pereira; Or, The Sovereign Rule of South CarolinaAdams, F. Colburn (Francis Colburn)
General
Manuel Pereira; Or, The Sovereign Rule of South Carolina
Adams, F. Colburn (Francis Colburn)
African Americans -- Fiction; Biographical fiction; Pereira, Manuel -- Fiction; South Carolina -- Fiction
ON the 22d of March last, about ten o'clock in the morning, a thin,
spare-looking man, dressed in a black cashmeret suit, swallow-tail
coat, loose-cut pants, a straight-breasted vest, with a very extravagant
shirt-collar rolling over upon his coat, with a black ribbon tied at the
throat, stood at the east corner of Broad and Meeting street, holding a
very excited conversation with officers Dusenberry and Dunn. His
visage was long, very dark--much more so than many of the colored
population--with pointed nose and chin, standing in grim advance to
each other; his face narrow, with high cheek-bones, small, peering eyes,
contracted forehead, reclining with a sunken arch between the perceptive
and intellectual organs--or, perhaps, we might have said, where
those organs should have been. His countenance was full of vacant
restlessness; and as he stared at you through his glasses, with his
silvery gray hair hanging about his ears and neck in shaggy points,
rolling a large quid of tobacco in his mouth, and dangling a little whip
in his right hand, you saw the index to his office. As he raised his
voice--which he did by twisting his mouth on one side, and working his
chin to adjust his enormous quid--the drawling tone in which he spoke
gave a picture not easily forgotten.
“You must pay more attention to the arrivals,” said he in a commanding
tone. “The loss of one of these fellers is a serious drawback to my
pocket; and that British consul's using the infernalest means to destroy
our business, that ever was. He's worse than the vilest abolitionist,
because he thinks he's protected by that flag of their'n. If he don't
take care, we'll tar-and-feather him; and if his government says much
about it, she'll larn what and who South Carolina is. We can turn out
a dozen Palmetto regiments that'd lick any thing John Bull could send
here, and a troop o' them d--d Yankee abolitionists besides. South
Carolina's got to show her hand yet against these fellers, afore they'll
respect the honor and standing of her institutions. They can't send
their navy to hurt us. And it shows that I always predicts right; for
while these commercial fellers about the wharves are telling about
digging out the channel, I've al'ays said they didn't think how much
injury they were doing; for it was our very best protection in war-time.
South Carolina can lick John Bull, single-fisted, any time; but if that
pack of inconsiderate traders on the wharves get their own way, away
goes our protection, and John Bull would bring his big ships in and
blow us up. And these fellows that own ships are getting so bold, that a
great many are beginning to side with Mathew, the consul. Yes, they even
swear that 'tis the officials that stick to the law for the sake of the
fees. Now, if I only knew that the consul was the means of that Nassau
nigger getting away, I'd raise a mob, and teach him a lesson that South
Carolinians ought to have teached him before. It took about seventeen
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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