it may be considered a strange matter, that a man should be scourged and fined for giving a shelter beneath his roof to a weary traveller; but such is the fact. In those primitive days, a good Christian was hardly accounted comme il faut, unless he had either worried a witch, or given a quietus to a Quaker; and Thomas Macy having done neither, he was naturally looked upon with suspicion by his neighbors, notwithstanding he had lived among them twenty years, without giving any cause of offence, but that related above; after which, however, either remorse of conscience, or the persecution of his pious rulers, drove him from his home and possessions. Being first arraigned for his offence, however, he put in the following plea in extenuation, the original of which is still in existence :

This is to entreat the honored court not to be offended because of my non-appearance. It is not from my slighting the authority of the honored court, nor fear to answer the case; but have been for some weeks past very ill, and am so at present; and notwithstanding my illness, yet I, desirous to appear, have done my utmost endeavors to hire a horse, but cannot procure one at present. I, being at present destitute, have endeavored to purchase one, but cannot at present attain it; but I shall relate the truth of the case, as my answer would be to the honored court; and more cannot be proved, nor so much. On a rainy morning, there came to my house Edward Wharton and three men more: the said Wharton spoke to me, saying that they were travelling eastward, and desired me to direct them in the way to Hampton; and never saw any of the men afore, except Wharton, neither did I inquire their names, or what they were; but by their carriage, I thought they might be Quakers, and said I so; and therefore desired them to pass on in their way; saying to them, I might possibly give offence in entertaining them; and soon as the violence of the rain ceased, (for it rained hard,) they went away, and I never saw them since. The time that they staid in the house was about three quarters of an hour; they spoke not many words, in the time, neither was I at leisure to talk with them; for I came home wet to the skin, immediately afore they came to the house, and I found my wife sick in bed. If this satisfy not the honored court, I shall submit to their sentence. I have not willingly offended. I am ready to serve and obey you in the Lord. THOMAS MACY.'

27 of 8th mo., '59.'

But this did not satisfy the honored court;' and therefore he was forced to flee; and two of the men who had caused him to of fend, by seeking a shelter beneath his roof, viz: William Robinson, merchant of London, and Marmaduke Stephenson, of Yorkshire, England, were hanged in Boston the same year, for being Quakers.

It is not to be wondered at that Thomas Macy was suspicious of the whole race of white folks, as well he might be; and he determined to remove himself and family as far from their influence as he could. He put his wife and little ones, together with such of his effects as he could carry upon his shoulders, into an open boat, and having persuaded a neighbor to accompany him, he launched his frail vessel, and set sail in quest of a place where Christian men had not intruded themselves. He coasted along the barren shore of Cape Cod, past the Elizabeth Islands, and Martha's Vineyard, so called from its abound

ing in herrings, until he reached a little heap of arid sand, just lifting itself above the surface of the waters, and surrounded on every side by dangerous shoals and sand-bars, as if nature, in her kindness, had determined that no rash individual should set foot upon a spot that she was evidently ashamed of. But these things, which might have daunted a fainter hearted man than Thomas Macy, were only inducements to him to set up his Ebenezer in this place. For he doubtless thought that in this spot he and his descendants would be free from intrusion, to the end of time; unless some guilty, outlawed wretch like himself, who had given shelter to the houseless and oppressed, should seek its desert shore for an asylum, when pursued by the conscientious and over pious. This little heap of sand has since been called Nantucket, and from this true-hearted and brave man sprang up just such a race of men and women as one might suppose such a stock capable of producing; kind-hearted, generous, careful, brave and enterprising, but withal greatly inclined to peace; thrifty and prudent, and at the same time hospitable to a proverb.

Thomas Macy afterward returned to Salisbury, and brought back with him to Nantucket several families, among whom were the ancestor of Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin, and the maternal ancestor of Doctor Franklin. They found the island peopled with savages, who suffered the new comers to take up their abode there without molesting them; and the white intruders in return treated the hospitable natives with uniform kindness and gentleness; a mode of proceeding which was found much more efficacious in exterminating them, than hunting them with blood-hounds, or shooting them with patent rifles. They were literally killed with kindness. If this method of exterminating natives was but known and practised in the everglades of Florida, a very large sum of money might be annually saved by our government. But let me not wander from my subject.

Psychological peculiarities are more enduring than physiological. The lineaments of an entire race may change, while their moral features remain unaltered. Whether the descendants of Thomas Macy bear any resemblance in their outward seeming to their progenitor, cannot now be known; but certain it is, the leading points in their characters are singularly like to his. Driven by a barren soil and an isolated situation to draw their subsistence from the ocean, they became early accustomed to its perils, and to love its dangers; and leaving the smaller of the finny tribe to the less adventurous spirits of Cape Cod and Cape Ann, they grappled with the huge leviathan of the deep, and have ever since made the capture of him the leading pursuit of their lives; and now, in whatever part of the globe, how remote soever it may be from their island home, no sooner does the black-coated monster of the deep thrust his head above its surface, than one of the descendants of Thomas Macy stands ready in the bow of his fragile skiff, with harpoon in hand to fasten upon his prey. Such was the commencement of Nantucket; and more than half a century ago, colonies from that little spot had settled down in Dunkerque in France, Milford Haven in Wales, Halifax in Nova Scotia, New-Bedford in Massachusetts, and Hudson in our own state, for the purpose of carrying on the business of catching whales; and by their descendants it is continued to this day. The immediate descendants

of the first settlers of Nantucket not only supplied this continent with oil before the revolution, but they exported large quantities to England and France. In the latter country, they were the first to introduce it into use, being obliged to create a demand, in order to meet it. It is related, in an authentic history, that some persons standing on a high hill on the island, watching the whales spouting and sporting with each other, one said: There,' pointing to the sea, is a green pasture, where our children's grand-children will go for bread.' The prophecy has been literally fulfilled.

Although all men are gregarious, and above all, civilized men, yet in proportion as they become civilized, they strive to appear other than what they are, by affecting to live apart from their own species. It is to this feeling that country-seats and watering-places owe their existence. And although men pretend to wish to be very exclusive in their retreats from what they call the bustle of the great world, yet they are very certain to go, on such occasions, where there is the greatest probability of finding the greatest crowd; so impossible is it for men to sin against their own natures. The simple inhabitants of Nantucket, although differing essentially from the rest of mankind in many particulars, partook of this common foible with the rest. As they grew rich and refined, they felt the want of a summer retreat; and in process of time, there were clustered together, on the eastern end of the island, sixty or seventy little houses, standing on the edge of a high cliff, with the waves of the Atlantic constantly dashing against its base.

This was SIASCONSET. But how unlike all other summer retreats and watering-places! It rises in the midst of ocean, with neither a green tree nor a towering rock to divide the attention, or to entice the eye from contemplating the grandeur of the wild waste of waters spread out around it. The hoarse roar of the breakers continually dashing against the shore, makes a nobler symphony than was ever heard within the walls of a cathedral, and awakening within the soul a vague feeling of sublimity, rebukes and puts to flight all mean and trivial thoughts. One of those wooden gimcracks, with its Grecian porticoes and Venetian blinds, that disfigure all other places of summer resort in the twenty-four states, would look like an impertinence here; and luckily no enterprising individual has yet seen proper to build such an incubus upon the fair fame of Siasconset. The little houses that are ranged along the cliff, with a green avenue running between them, are the most modest and unpretending edifices that civilized men ever reared for their accommodation. And here may be seen and felt all those gentle graces which adorn and distinguish cultivated minds, without any of those external affectations and incumbrances, which accompany them in other places. Pride and luxury are exotics, that cannot take root where there is so little of the blandishments of Nature, or the achievements of art, to distract the mind from the contemplation of its Maker. And here, by common consent, men and women throw aside all useless restraints and cold formalities, and intermingle with each other like brethren appointed to one common lot, and who are joint heirs to one heritage. Fashion here loses her sway, and even women cease to acknowledge her as their sovereign. That foul demon, the SPIRIT OF PARTY, has never yet

shed his baneful influences over Siasconset, and strait-coated Sectarianism has never approached within sound of its breakers. The tinkling of a piano has never been heard within its borders, and the hissing of steam has never marred the hoarse melody of its waters. But the hilarious music of happy hearts is often heard there, and the gentle whispers of heart-subduing voices. And too often the thrilling cry of drowning wretches has been borne on the midnight blast; for many noble ships have been wrecked upon its rips, without one soul being left to tell the story of their disaster. And the shore has not unfrequently been lined with costly goods, and lifeless bodies, while the vessel that once bore them has been entirely beaten to pieces and swallowed up in a night. And once the waters around were crimsoned with human blood, and the echoes of the solitary cliffs were awakened by sounds never heard there before; the clashing of swords, the reports of cannon, and the fierce cry of men engaged in mortal combat. It was near the close of the last war, when the privateer Neufchatel, lying within a very short distance of the shore, was attacked by the boats of the Endymion frigate. Of one hundred and forty men, including the first lieutenant of the ship, that manned the barges, only fourteen returned alive.

But the chief glory of Siasconset, and what serves to embalm it in the memories of all those who visit it, is neither its solitary grandeur, its unique customs, nor the charms of its society, but its fish. To appreciate them, they must be eaten. To describe an elegant woman, a beautiful picture, or a fine landscape, would be an easy task; but to give a correct idea of a 'soused chowder,' would baffle the readiest pen, or the warmest imagination. No doubt many lovers of good things would think it a lucky chance if they could sip a cup of young hyson with the moon's first cousin, his highness of china; or sup with an unbreeched Gaucho, in the Banda Oriental, off a Pampa buÎl roasted whole, and undivested of his hide and horns; or breakfast at Mackinac on a lake trout, which they had watched dying and broiling upon the hot embers in an Indian wigwam; or to dine at the Rocher de Cancale, on turbot à la créme; or they may have feasted in imagination with Didius Julianus, or with Varius Heliogabalus on shrimps and sausages, cooked according to the receipt of the latter emperor; or have partaken of one of the men-fed fish from the pond of Vedius Pollio, at a déjeunner à la fourchette; or have eaten cow-heel in their dreams with Glaucus Lorrensis; I am persuaded that no one who has ever eaten fried tongues and 'sounds' at Siasconset, can ever long for any other dish, unless it be a codfish chowder, served up at the same place. Indeed, if one were called upon to decide between the two dishes, he would be placed in a most puzzling predicament; it would be like asking a mother which of her children she would be willing to give up. They pretend to make chowder in other parts of the Bay State; and I have tasted a villanous compound, even on the sea-coast of New-Hampshire and Maine, that was dignified by the name; but it was an insult to the noblest of the finny tribe to serve one of them up in such style. Every body has read, or heard, of the tragic end of the illustrious Vatel, who ran himself through the body with his sword, because the sea-fish that he expected to serve up for the dinner of his royal master did not arrive in season. And

doubtless many thoughtless people have looked upon the too sensitive cook as a fool, or at best as having fallen a sacrifice to a false principle of honor. But I could never look upon the martyrdom of the unfortunate Frenchman in such a light. Taking it for granted that the fish he expected was a cod, and that the dish he intended to make of it was chowder, I do not see that any other method of expressing his chagrin could have been adequate to the occasion. He certainly did right to fall upon his sword. But how melancholy to reflect, that while the heroic artist was breathing his last breath, whole cart loads of marée were arriving from every sea-port in France, whence he had ordered it for fear of disappointment. His feelings were no doubt well understood and appreciated by his royal master; for Madame Sévigné, in her letter to Madame Grignan, says he was much praised, and his courage was lauded as well as blamed.

There are other kinds of fish, beside cod, caught at Siasconset; but the sojourners at that fascinating spot, like the emperor Geta, have their fish served up in alphabetical order; and it so happens that they never get beyond the third letter. It would literally be descending too far, to go below c. The chromatic scale of their culinary conceptions cannot go beyond cod. But the charmed circle of their appetite is by no means a narrow one. First comes chowder, then fried tongues and sounds, then fried cheeks, next corned cod, then boiled sounds, and lastly dried cod. Who would ever wish to leave such a round of enjoyment! What were the lampreys of Julius Cæsar, compared with the cod-fish of Siasconset!

These delightful fish are taken with hook and line in boats, peculiarly constructed for riding on the breakers, about a mile from the shore. It requires great skill and address to land the boats safely on the beach; and it frequently happens that they are swamped in the attempt, and the fruits of a day's labor and peril are lost. But so accustomed are the fishermen to diving in the surf, that it rarely happens that one of them is drowned. In landing, as soon as the boat touches the shore, the crew leap out, and catching her by the gunwales, drag her up high and dry out of the reach of the returning breaker. The fish are immediately thrown out upon the beach, when some bare-footed urchin, or bare-armed damsel, without question or hindrance, claps an eye and a hand upon the largest and finest looking one of the fare, and darts up the steep 'bank with surprising alacrity. The fish is cleaned and thrust into the pot which has been hanging over the fire, with its pork and onions all in readiness, in an incredible short space of time; and if you are a looker-on, you begin to feel longings within you that would be wholly insupportable, were it not for the prospect of their speedy gratification. The keen bracing air; the pure limpid water; the exercise upon the beach; the simple joyousness of all around you; all tend to whet up the appetite to such a degree, that you feel that the coarsest food would be eaten with the liveliest zest imaginable; but when the additional stimulus of the aroma arising from a pot of chowder is given, your appetite becomes a phrenzy, and you seize a spoon and abandon your self to the gratification of your desires, with a recklessness and utter regardlessness of the whole world, and every thing it contains, except the tureen before you, which you can never feel at any other