A reading by Alex Morris for Early American Literature (Spring 2006). This is number 6 in the series. This post contains the full text of this edition, which is also available in a graceful PDF format.
First, here is the PDF version: Download AH06Exciseman.pdf (119.5K).
Kindly report any typographical or other errors to mjon at uakron dot edu.
Now for the plain-vanilla ASCII etext:
Hugh Henry Brackenridge, “Provincial Honors to an Exciseman” (1807)
Alex Morris, Early American Literature, Dr. Jon Miller, Spring 2006
“Provincial Honors to an Exciseman.” From Modern Chivalry.
Introduction
Eccentric crank, passionate revolutionary, and unpopular politician are all terms that could be applied to Hugh Henry Brackenridge (1748–1816), but none of them adequately encapsulate the mixture of achievement and disappointment that characterized his life. Brackenridge was born in Kintyre, Scotland. His father William moved the family to York, Pennsylvania in 1753, beginning what would for Hugh be a life of vocational and ideological as well as physical wandering.
As Claude M. Newlin writes in The Life and Writings of Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Brackenridge was a poor farmer’s son, but his parents nonetheless made sure that he received an education. He was well read in the classics, and he could read Latin as well as a little Greek. By fifteen he was a teacher at a free school in Maryland, where Newlin describes him enforcing discipline on the older boys with a firebrand (7). Brackenridge went to Princeton in 1768, where he collaborated with Phillip Freneau to write Father Bombo’s Pilgrimage to Mecca (1770), a satirical prose work that foreshadows his later satires. Brackenridge would collaborate with Freneau again in composing the prophetic poem The Rising Glory of America (1771), which envisioned a united America as the new seat of western civilization.
In 1772 Brackenridge became the schoolmaster of an academy in Back Creek, with Freneau as his assistant. Freneau found the work intolerable, comparing the children to leeches (Newlin 25), but Brackenridge stayed on until 1774, when he appears, according to Newlin, to have had a nervous breakdown. He returned to Princeton to pursue his master’s degree the fall of the same year. Brackenridge went on to be a chaplain in Washington’s army, though his sermons were more about patriotism than spirituality. In 1778 he started The United States Magazine, again working with Freneau. The magazine, which published everything from current events to belles lettres, was conceived as a way of educating Americans in republicanism. It ultimately failed.
Disappointed in his literary aspirations, Brackenridge studied law under Samuel Chase before moving to the Pennsylvania frontier in 1781. He established a law practice in Pittsburgh and helped to found the Pittsburgh Gazette. In 1786 he won a seat in the state assembly, where he advocated for the founding of the Pittsburgh Academy (now the University of Pittsburgh). Brackenridge lost re-election after making a number of unpopular decisions that were regarded by his constituents as betrayals, not the least of which was his support of the new Constitution. He only exacerbated the problem when he tried to explain his reasons for acting independently of the public will in the Pittsburgh Gazette. Responding to resentment over his voting against a popular land bill, Brackenridge argued that the people did not necessarily know what was in their best interests and should rely on their representatives, a position that had “sown the seeds of his own eventual political failure” (Newlin 86). Brackenridge subsequently lost his seat in the state assembly as well as his bid for a place in the state’s constitutional ratifying convention.
In the wake of his political defeats and the death of his first wife in 1787, Brackenridge composed The Modern Chevalier, a Hudibrastic poem depicting the travels of a modern knight. The poem satirized Brackenridge’s former political opponents and the people of the frontier, but he did not publish The Modern Chevalier, instead seeking to improve it by rendering it in prose. The result was the first installment of his most famous work, Modern Chivalry.
Modern Chivalry is a novel in the picaresque tradition depicting the wanderings of the aristocratic Captain Farrago and his ambitious but incompetent and uneducated servant, Teague O’Regan. Brackenridge named Cervantes, Fielding, and Swift as major influences on this work. Don Quixote is particularly striking as an apparent model for Modern Chivalry. Much of the work’s episodic plot is devoted to Teague’s search for an office and Captain Farrago’s various attempts to deprive him of those offices (ostensibly for the good of the republic), though in the latter part of the work he begins attempting to educate Teague for public service.
Modern Chivalry has often been regarded as a part of the neoclassical tradition, and Brackenridge made it clear that it was a work intended for the instruction of the masses. While it is replete with moral instruction, modern critics like William Hoffa and Emory Elliott, among others, have recognized that Brackenridge’s didacticism is often subtle and complex, satirizing the aristocratic Farrago even as he appears to use Farrago to instruct the reader. Modern Chivalry’s satire is wide-ranging, directing barbs at the wealthy elite of Philadelphia as well as the common people of the frontier.
Modern Chivalry is a difficult work to categorize, in part because it was published in a number of installments and critics have disagreed over whether to regard it as a single work or as a series. According to Newlin’s account of the work’s complex textual history, Brackenridge published the first two volumes in Philadelphia in 1792 and volume three the following year in Pittsburgh (319). The events of the Whiskey Rebellion seemed to interfere with his literary aims. Newlin writes that the fourth installment of Modern Chivalry was not published until 1797. In 1804 the first two volumes were republished as Modern Chivalry and a new installment of the tale was written, called Modern Chivalry Part II. The following year Part II was accompanied by Part II, Volume II. Modern Chivalry, Vol. II, which contained the original volumes III and IV, was published in 1807 along with reprints of both volumes of Part II. The first four volumes of Part I were reprinted in 1808 as Modern Chivalry, Vol. I. Finally, in 1815 Modern Chivalry was republished in its entirety, with some additional material. Brackenridge’s work would continue to be reprinted in a variety of forms during the nineteenth century, and it appeared in a few editions in the twentieth.
Modern Chivalry does not appear to have received much critical attention in its own time, a fact that Brackenridge mentioned ironically at the conclusion of his third volume, in which he wonders why no one has attacked his work. Despite its obviously republican aims, Modern Chivalry depicts an America of contradiction, diversity, and conflict during a time when many desperately longed for unity and stability. Joseph J. Ellis goes so far as to characterize Modern Chivalry as “the first distinctly American novel” for its depiction of the contradictions that shape the American character (102).
The passage reproduced in this edition closely parallels the harassment of revenue officers that occurred leading up to the Whiskey Rebellion. In Whiskey Rebels, Leland D. Baldwin describes an escalating pattern of harassment that begins with the robbery of an excise officer in 1784. In 1785, Brackenridge defended a group of rioters who were accused of assaulting and cutting the hair of excise officer William Graham. By 1791 several people presumed to be connected to the excise were tarred and feathered, including Robert Wilson, a potentially delusional young man who had caused some people to believe he was a tax collector. Wilson was “seared in several places with a hot iron, then tarred and feathered” (Baldwin 83). Brackenridge later attempted to mediate between the rebels and the government during the insurrection. On one hand, he had long opposed the excise tax on alcohol. On the other, he also opposed armed rebellion against the government. His attempts to prevent the hostilities earned him the status of traitor among both groups, and he expected to be hanged with the other rebels when the militia seized the territory. Though subject to suspicion and resentment from members of both parties, Brackenridge was eventually exonerated. Brackenridge went on to be a justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court known for his eccentricity and defense of the law. He died in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1816.
Note on the Text
The text of this edition is taken from Edmund Clarence Stedman and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson, A Library of American Literature, vol. 3 (New York: Charles L. Webster, 1891) 392-96. The spelling and punctuation of the original have been maintained throughout.
The source for this edition contains some inconsistencies with the first editions of Brackenridge’s work as it appears in the Leary edition, though it is unclear if these inconsistencies arise as a result of Brackenridge’s numerous revisions or later editorial decisions made by Stedman and Hutchinson.
Bibliography
Baldwin, Leland D. Whiskey Rebels: The Story of a Frontier Uprising. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1939. Leland’s book is a classic account of the Whiskey Rebellion and the events leading up to it. Brackenridge’s role in these events is foregrounded throughout the work.
Elliott, Emory. Revolutionary Writers: Literature and Authority in the New Republic, 1725-1810. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. One of the most cited works in Brackenridge scholarship; deals with the biographical context of his writings as well many other topics, such as textual issues with Modern Chivalry, use of irony and satire, and the place of authors in the new republic.
Brackenridge, Hugh H. and Leary, Lewis, ed. Modern Chivalry: Containing the Adventures of Captain John Farrago and Teague O’Reagan, His Servant. Rowman & Littlefield Masterworks of American Literature. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. Only complete edition of Modern Chivalry still in print.
Ellis, Joseph J. After the Revolution: Profiles of Early American Culture. New York: Norton, 1979. Provides a broad political and cultural context for Brackenridge’s life and works.
Hoffa, William. “The Language of Rogues and Fools in Brackenridge’s Modern Chivalry.” Studies in the Novel 12.4 (1980): 289-300. Deals with Brackenridge’s treatment of language and rhetoric, as well as aspects of his narration and use of irony.
Newlin, Claude M. The Life and Writings of Hugh Henry Brackenridge. 1932. Mamaroneck, NY: P.P. Appel, 1971. An exhaustive biography of Brackenridge.
Rice, Grantland S. “Modern Chivalry and the Resistance to Textual Authority.” American Literature 67.2 (1995): 257-81. Provides a discussion of Brackenridge’s relationship to print culture and republican ideology.
PROVINCIAL HONORS TO
AN EXCISEMAN.
[Modern Chivalry; or, The
Adventures of Captain Farrago. 1796-1806]
Just at this instant a noise was heard, and looking up, a crowd of people were discovered at a considerable distance, advancing toward them, but with acclamations that began to be heard. They were dragging a piece of timber of considerable length, which appeared to be just hewn from the woods; and was the natural stem of a small tree, cut down from the stump, and the bark stripped off. At the same time a couple of pack horses were driven along, which appeared to be loaded with beds and pillow-cases.
The captain was led to believe that these were a number of country people, who having heard of the revenue officer coming to his district, had come forward to pay their respects to him, and to receive him with that gratulation[1] which is common to honest but illiterate people, in the first paroxysms of their transport. Having understood that country to be chiefly peopled with the descendants of the Irish, or with Irish emigrants themselves, he had supposed that hearing the new officer was a countryman, they had been carried forward, with such zeal to receive him, with huzzaing and tumult. On this occasion, he thought it not amiss to turn the conversation, and to prepare the mind and the manners of the deputy for this scene, which being unusual, might disconcert and embarrass him.
“Teague,”[2] said he, “it is not less difficult to preserve equanimity in a prosperous situation, than to sustain with fortitude a depression of fortune. These people, I perceive, in a flow of mind, are coming forward to express, with warmth, the honest but irregular sallies of their joy, on your arrival amongst them. It was usual in the provinces under the Roman republic, when a Quæstor,[3] of whom a favorable impression had preceded, was about to come amongst them. It is a pleasing, but a transient felicity, and a wise man will not count too much upon it. For popular favor is unstable, to a proverb. These very people, in the course of a twelvemonth, if you displease them, may shout as loud at your degradation and removal from dignity. At the same time this ought not to lead you to be indifferent, or at least to seem so, to their well-meant expressions of favor at present; much less to affect a contempt, or even a neglect of them. A medium of ease and gracefulness in receiving their advances, and answering their addresses, whether it is a rustic orator in an extempore harangue, or some scholar of the academy, or school-master, they may have prevailed upon to draw up a speech, and read it to you. There is no manner of doubt but the President of the United States may have been a thousand times embarrassed with the multitude of addresses delivered or presented to him; and it required no small patience and fortitude to sustain them. Yet it has been remarked, that he has received them all with complacency; showing himself neither elevated with the praise, nor irritated with the intrusion. And it is but reasonable, and what a benevolent man would indulge; for it is a happiness to these creatures, to give themselves the opportunity of being distinguished in this manner.”
Duncan, who had heard a rumor in the village of what was going forward, had in the mean time come up, and understanding from the last words of the captain, what had been the drift of the conversation with Teague, and discovering his mistake, interrupted him at this place.—“Captain,” said he, “ye need na be cautioning him against applause, and popularity, and the turning o’ the head wi’ praise and guid usage: for I doubt muckle if it comes to that wi’ him yet. I wad rather suspect that these folks have na guid-will toward him. I dinna ken what they mean to do wi’ him, but if a body guess frae the bed ye see there on the pony’s back, they mean to toss him in a blanket. But if it were to be judged frae the tree they hae trailing after them, I wad suppose they mean to mak a hanging matter o’ it, and tak his life a’ thegether. There is na doubt but they are coming in a mob, to make a seizure o’ the gauger, and the talk o’ the town is o’ a punishment I dinna understand, o’ tarring and feathering. I have heard o’ the stocks, and the gallows, and drowning like a witch, but I never heard o’ the like o’ that in Scotland. I have heard o’ the tarring the sheep, to keep them frae the rot, but I never heard o’ tarring a human creature. Maybe they mean to put it on his nose, to hinder him frae smelling their whiskey. I see they’ve got a keg o’t there in their rear, drawn upon a sled; at least, I suppose it to be whiskey they hae in that keg, to take a dram, as they gae on wi’ the frolic; unless it be the tar that they talk of to put upon the officer.”
This last conjecture was the true one. For it was tar; and the stem of the tree which they drew, was what is called a liberty-pole,[4] which they were about to erect, in order to dance round it, with hallooing and the whoop of exultation.
The calvacade[5] now approaching, they began to cast their eyes toward the group of three, as they stood together.
“By de holy faders,” said Teague, “I see day have deir looks upon me. Dey look as wild as de ‘White Boys,’ or de ‘Hearts of Oak’[6] in Ireland. By de holy apostles, dere is no fighting wid pitch-forks; we shall be kilt,[7] and murdered into de bargain.”
“Teague,” said the captain, “recollect that you are an officer of government, and it becomes you to support its dignity, not betraying unmanly fear, but sustaining the violence even of a mob itself with fortitude.”
“Fait, and I had rather be no officer at all,” said Teague, “if dis is de way de paple get out o’ der senses in dis country. Take de office yourself; de divil burn me, but I shall be after laying it down, as fast as a hot piraty, if dis is to come of it; to be hooted at like a wild baste, and shot, and hanged upon a tree, like a squirrel, or a Paddy from Cork, on St. Patrick’s day, to make fun o’ de Irish. I scorn to be choked before I am dead; divil burn de office for me, I’ll have none of it. I can take my oat upon de holy cross, dat I am no officer. By Saint Patrick, and if dere were any Irish boys amongst dem I would rather join wid ‘em. What is de government wid offices to one dat is choked, and can’t spake to his acquaintance in dis world? By de holy apostles, I am no officer; I just took it for a frolic as I was coming up de road, and you may be officer yourself, and good-luck wid de commission; captain, I shall have noting to do wid it.”
At this instant the advancing crowd raised a loud shout, crying Liberty and no excise! liberty and no excise! down with all excise officers!
Teague began to tremble, and to skulk behind the captain. “By de holy water o’ de confession,” said he, “dey are like de savages, dey have deir eyes upon me, I shall be scalped; I shall be kilt and have de skin of me head off, like a wolf or a shape. God love you, captain, spake a good word to dem, and tell dem a good story, or I shall be ate up like a toad, or a wild baste in de forests.”
The bog-trotter[8] was right; for this moment they had got their eyes upon the group, and began to distinguish him as the officer of the revenue. An exact description had been given them of his person and appearance, for these people had their correspondents, even at the seat of government; and travellers,[9] moreover, had recognized him, and given an account of his physiognomy and apparel.
“There he is, there he is,” was the language; “the rascally excise officer; we shall soon take care of him. He is of the name of O’Regan, is he? We shall O’Regan him in a short time.”
“Divil burn me, if I am de excise officer,” said Teague. “It’s all a mistake, gentlemen. It is true I was offered de commission; but de captain here knows dat I would not take it. It is dis Scotchman dat is de officer. By my soul, you may tar and feader him, and welcome.”
“No,” said the captain, stepping forward, “no gentlemen: for so I yet call you; though the menaces which you express, and the appearance of force which your preparations exhibit, depart from the desert of that appellation. Nevertheless, as there is still a probability of arresting violence, and reclaiming you from the error of your meditated acts, I address you with the epithet of gentlemen. You are not mistaken in your designation of the officer of the revenue, though he had not the candor to avow himself; but would meanly subject a fellow bog-trotter to the odium and risk: an act of which, after all the pains that have been taken of his education, to impress him with sentiments of truth and honor, I am greatly ashamed. No, gentlemen, I am unwilling to deceive you, or that the meditate injury should fall on him, who, if he has not the honor of the office, ought not to bear the occasional disadvantage: I am ready to acknowledge and avow, nor shall these wry faces, and contortions of body, which you observe in the red-headed man, prevent me; that he is the bona fide, actual excise officer. Nevertheless, gentlemen, let me expostulate with you on his behalf. Let me endeavor to save him from your odium, not by falsehood, but by reason. Is it not a principle of that republican government which you have established, that the will of the majority shall govern; and has not the will of the majority of the United States enacted this law? Will—”
By this time they had sunk the butt-end of the sapling in the hole dug for it, and it stood erect with a flag displayed in the air, and was called a liberty-pole. The beds and pillow cases had been cut open, and were brought forward. A committee had been appointed to conduct the operation. It was while they were occupied doing this, that the captain had without interruption gone on in making his harangue. But these things being now adjusted, a principal person of the committee came forward, just at the last words of the captain.
“The will of the majority,” said he; “yes, faith, the will of the majority shall govern. It is right that it should be the case. We know the excise officer very well. Come lay hands upon him.”
“Guid folk,” said Duncan, “I am no the gauger, it is true; nor am I a friend to the excise law, though I come in company wi’ the officer; nevertheless I dinna approve o’ this o’ your dinging down the government. For what is it but dinging down the government to act against the laws? Did ye never read i’ the Bible, that rebellion is worse than witchcraft? Did ye never read o’ how mony lairds and dukes were hanged in Scotland lang ago for rebellion? When the government comes to tak this up, ye sal all be made out rebels, and hanged. Ye had better think what ye are about. Ye dinna gie fair play. If ye want to fight, and ony o’ ye will turn out wi’ me I sal tak a turn wi’ him; and no just jump upon a man a’ in ae lump, like a parcel o’ tinklers[10] at a fair.”
The committee had paid no attention to this harangue; but had in the mean time seized Teague, and conveyed him to a cart, in which the keg of tar had been placed. The operation had commenced amid the vociferation of the bog-trotter, crossing himself, and preparing for purgatory. They had stripped him to the waist, and pouring the tar upon his naked body, emptied at the same time a bed of feathers on his head, which, adhering to the viscous fluid, gave him the appearance of a wild fowl of the forest. The cart being driven off with the prisoner in this state, a great part of the mob accompanied, with the usual exclamation of “Liberty, and no excise law. Down with all excise officers.”
Notes
1. “A joyful greeting; a welcome,” (OED, def. 4).
2. Teague’s name derives from an appellation commonly applied to Irish laborers at the time (Newlin 96).
3. A Quæstor was a magistrate of the Roman Republic responsible for overseeing the finances of the military and the government.
4. A Liberty-pole was a flag-pole often erected to call meetings. It became a symbol of the Revolution. The Whiskey Rebels erected similar poles during their insurrection to symbolize their ideological connection to the Sons of Liberty.
5. An apparently common erroneous form of cavalcade (OED).
6. Both groups were peasant militant organizations in Ireland during the eighteenth century, the “White Boys” being Catholic and the “Hearts of Oak” Protestant. These secretive organizations, and many like them, violently opposed Ireland’s powerful landowners.
7. Possibly a pun on “kilt” in the sense of “To fasten or tie up; to pull or hoist up; to ‘string up’, to hang” (OED, def.2).
8. Eighteenth-century slang for an Irish person.
9. The first instance listed in the OED of the now US standard “traveler” form is Webster’s 1828 Dictionary.
10. In Scottish dialect, a tinker or metal-worker (OED).
=> “Hugh Henry Brackenridge, ‘Provincial Honors to an Exciseman’ (1807).” Copyright 2006 Alex Morris. This text was prepared to fulfill a critical edition assignment offered in “Early American Literature,” a graduate-level seminar taught by Jon Miller at The University of Akron in the Spring of 2006. Please note, this is not peer-reviewed work. License: You are free and encouraged to copy and distribute this work under the following conditions: 1. You may not use this work for commercial purposes. 2. Any reuse or distribution must preserve this copyright, license, version, and citation information. 3. Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder. This document is, was created with, or contains the full text of a PDF file published by a website, The Akron Heron: Materials of American Literature. Please visit akronheron.com for possible corrections or improvements, which may appear in later editions of this file. Suggested citation: Hugh Henry Brackenridge, “Provincial Honors to an Exciseman.” Ed. Alex Morris. The Akron Heron: Materials of American Literature from Jon Miller at The University of Akron no. 6 (May 2006): 5p. [Add date accessed and URL accessed].
5 4 3 2
