... My hombel request is that you will
be charitabel of me.... Let justies and merci be goyned.... You may plese
to soggest youer will to this barrer, you will find him tracktabel." The
concluding phrase seems admirably chosen, when we consider the means of
making people "tractable" which the magistrates of the Bay had in their
hands, and were not slow to exercise, as Underhill himself had
experienced.
I cannot deny myself the pleasure of giving one more specimen of the
Captain's "grand-delinquent" style, as I once heard such fine writing
called by a person who little dreamed what a hit he had made. So far as I
have observed, our public defaulters, and others who have nothing to say
for themselves, always rise in style as they sink in self-respect. He is
speaking of one Scott, who had laid claim to certain lands, and had been
called on to show his title. "If he break the comand of the Asembli &
bring not in the counterfit portreture of the King imprest in yello waxe,
anext to his false perpetuiti of 20 mile square, where by he did chet the
Town of Brouckhaven, he is to induer the sentance of the Court of
Asisies." Pistol would have been charmed with that splendid amplification
of the Great Seal. We have seen nothing like it in our day, except in a
speech made to Mr.
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