LETTER XLIV. In which Captain Downing tells about the Legislature's making Lawyers. Augusta, State of Maine, March 1st, 1832. To the Editor of the Portland Courier. MY DEAR OLD FRIEND, I begin to feel as uneasy as a fish out of water, because I havn't writ to you for most two weeks. Now, old March has come, and found us digging here yet; and sometimes I'm most afraid we shall be found digging here, when we ought to be at home digging potatoes, or planting of 'em at least. I've been waiting now above a week for the Legislater to do something, that I could write to you about; but they dont seem to get along very smart lately. Sometimes the wheels almost stop; and then they start and rumble along a little ways, and then they drag again. I dont think we shall get through before sometime next week, if we do before week arter. These secret sessions take up a good deal of time. I dont see what in natur they have so many of 'em for. I tried to get into some of 'em, but they wouldn't let me; they said lobby members had no business there, and shot the door right in my face. There's one kind of business though that they carry on here pretty brisk lately, and that is, making lawyers. Some days they make 'em almost as fast as uncle Ephraim used to make sap-troughs; and I've known him to chop off and hew out two in fifteen min utes. But for all the Legislater can make 'em so fast, it is as much as ever they can get along with all that come and want to be made over into lawyers. And 'tother day, when the law committee got pretty well stuck, having so many of 'em on hand, a new batch come up, and Mr Hall of your town moved to refer them to the committee on manufactures. This is a capital committee to make things, and I havn't heard any complaint since, but what they can turn 'em out as fast as they come. It rather puzzled me at first to know what made every body want to be worked over into lawyers; so I asked one of 'em that stood waiting round here a day or two, to be put into the hopper and ground over, what he wanted to be made into a lawyer for? And he kind of looked up one side at me, and give me a knowing wink, and says he, don't you know that the lawyers get all the fat things of the land, and eat out the insides of the oisters, and give the shels to other folks? And if a man wants to have any kind of an office, he can't get it unless he's a lawyer; if he wants to go to the Legislater, he can't be elected without he's a lawyer; and if he wants to get to Congress, he cant go without he's a lawyer; and any man that don't get made into a lawyer as fast as possible, I say, is a fool. The whole truth come across my mind then, as quick as a look, why it was that I spent two or three years trying to get an office, and couldn't get one. It was because I wasn't a lawyer. And I dont believe I should have got an office to this day, if my good friend President Jackson hadn't found out I was a brave two fisted chap, and jest the boy to go down to Madawaska and flog the British. We've agreed unanimously to support Governor Smith for re-election; and he'll come in all hollow, let the Jacksonites and Huntonites say what they will about it. Our party know too well which side their bread is buttered, to think of being split up this heat. I should write vou more to day, but I feel so kind of agitated 1 on to the President to take my commission away from me. It has been thrown out to me that I ought to be down to Madawaska, instead of being here all winter. Some have hinted to me that Mr Clifford has taken a miff against me, because the other day when he was chosen Speaker pro. tem. one of my friends voted for me; and he thinks I was a rival candidate, and means to have me turned out of office if he can. I am your loving friend, CAPT. JACK DOWNING. LETTER XLV. Capt. Downing is in a peck of trouble about the Legislature's selling Madawaska to the General Government to be given up to the British, and sits down and figures up the price. Madawaska, State of Maine, or else Great Britain, I dont know which, March 12, 1832. To the Editor of the Portland Courier - this with care and speed. MY DEAR OLD FRIEND, I cleared out from Augusta in such a kind of a whirlwind, that I hadn't time to write you a single word before I left. And I feel so kind of crazy now, I dont know hardly which end I stand upon. I've had a good many head-flaws and worriments in my life time, and been in a great many hobbles, but I never, in all my born days, met with any thing that puzzled me quite so bad as this ere selling out down here. I fit in the Legislater as long as fighting would do any good, that is, I mean in the caucus, for they would n't let me go right into the Legislater in the day time and talk to 'em there, because I was only a lobby member. But jest let them know it, lobby members can do as much as any of 'em on sich kind of business as this. I laid it down to 'em in the caucus as well as I could. I asked 'em if they did n't think I should look like a pretty fool, after marching my company down there, and standing ready all winter to flog the whole British nation the moment any of 'em stept a foot on to our land, if I should now have to march back again and give up the land and all without flogging a single son-of-a-gun of 'em. But they said it was no use, it could n't be helped: Mr Netherlands had given the land away to the British, and the President had agreed to do jest as Mr Netherlands said about it, and all we could do now was to get as much pay for it as we could. So I set down and figured it up a little to see how much it would come to, for I used to cypher to the rule of three when I went to school, and I found it would come to a pretty round sum. There was, in the first place, about two millions of acres of land. This, considerin the timber there was on it, would certainly be worth a dollar an acre, and that would be two millions of dollars. Then there was two or three thousand inhabitants, say twenty-five hundred; we must be paid for them too, and how much are they worth? I've read in the newspapers that black slaves, at the south, sell for three or four hundred dollars apiece. I should think, then, that white ones ought to fetch eight hundred. This, according to the rule of three, would be two hundred thousand dollars. Then there's the pretty little town of Madawaska that our Legislater made last winter, already cut and dried with town officers all chosen, out choosing him over again, they ought to pay us for that too. Now I have read in the newspapers that it sometimes costs, in England, two hundred thousand dollars to choose a representative to Parliament, reckoning all the grog they drink and all the money they pay for votes. But I wouldn't be screwing about it, so I put Mr Lizote down at one hundred thousand dollars. And then I footed up, and found it to be, For land, including timber, two millions of For inhabitants, including women and chil- $2,000,000 200,000 10,000 For Mr Lizote, all ready to go to Parliament, one hundred thousand dollars, 100,000 $2,310,000 Total, This was a pretty round sum, and I begun to think, come to divide it out, it would be a slice a-piece worth having; especially if we didn't give the Feds any of it, and I supposed we shouldn't, as there wasn't any of 'em there in the caucus to help see about it. In this view of the subject,' I almost made up my mind that we ought to be patriotic enough to give it up, and help the general government out of the hobble they had got into. And I was jest a-going to get up and make a speech and tell 'em so, when Mr McCrate of Nobleborough, and Capt. Smith of Westbrook, two of the best fellers in our party, came along and see what I was figuring about, and, says they, Capt. Downing, are you going to sell your country? In a minute I felt something rise right up in my throat, that felt as big as an ox-yoke. As soon as I got so I could speak, says I, No, never, while my name is Jack Downing, or my old rifle can carry a bullet. They declared too, that they wouldn't sell out to the general government, nor the |