The Arkansas Advocate

MISCELLANEOUS.

NEWS, POLITICS, AND FINE WRITING.

Washington City, July 8, 1831.

DEAR SIR: I am much distressed to learn that my "Southern Tour" has not reached you. What has become of Messrs. H. & L.? Have they heard nothing of the books? In March last, I left a box containing forty copies of the first volume, and forty of the second volume, with Messrs. Woodhull & Minion in New York, myself, and paid the freight to Darien, those gentlemen promising to forward them to that port, by a vessel to sail in two or three days. The box was directed to Messrs. H. & L. in Macon, via Darien; of which I apprised them; but will you believe it? They haven't been so polite as to acknowledge my favor with the scratch of a pen. Perhaps they're not friendly; and yet such a man as Mr. H. would seem proof against anything but the most rigid censor. O! he's a sweet creature! I wish I was young for his sake! You, madam, don't think "age is dark and unlovely?" I know you can't. It's vile slander of that old Scotch savage, Johnson, when he got to be too lazy to blow music on his bagpipes for the dance, and the country girls used to place him in the chimney corner and give him nothing but salt herring and small potatoes to eat. Ladies never get too old for love or to be interesting, especially when blest with genius and mistress of an eloquent pen. Remember Eloise. Should you visit northwardly next fall or winter, come to my lodgings sans ceremonie, and in the meantime, be satisfied I shall not give myself away before the latter part of next session of Congress! I am not like modern flirts: no man shall step into the shoes of my dear departed husband, a patriotic hero of the Revolution, before he is well cold in his grave. Waiting to the end of the next session will be paying sufficient respect to his memory; and to tell you the truth, I am tired of my weeds. Several advantageous offers have been made me. V-n --n has more than once or twice called at my lodgings, and prattled soft things! but his bald scalp and sinister eye ain't at all to my fancy, besides he's a horse-jockey and mystifying intriguer, which don't agree with my republican and moral principles: I showed him the door. Roanoke R. --h wrote me a letter from London, so illegible as to look like a sheet of paper that a chimney sweep's pet crow had been scratching. With the help of Mr. Agg, I was able to make out that he offered to settle his wide possessions, inherited from his great great Indian grandmother, on me for life with remainder to our issue, if I would marry him. Was it not an impudent proposal for a colored fellow to make to a lady of my standing? But as he is a savage in speech and manners as well as in dress, feelings and decent, I thought it best to touch him lightly, and sardonically wrote "by our led love, for any love of living mould."

-n, of Kentucky, has also made me a tender of his hand; but I abhor the half-horse half-alligator breed. D. W. -r, too has been very trifling with the feeling worth orator, I dismissed him with a flea in his ear. On account of his being a tariffite and renegade federalist-and Colonel T-i-p made love like an angel. He's quite small and so he is; but the very pink of politeness, gallantry, and talents! I was too well acquainted with his history however to risk my happiness with him; but had that objection been out of the way, still I would have been reluctant to unite our destinies, as the provost martial might make me in six months a widow again, unless I could have changed his politics, which are said to be quite irreclaimable. So you see, the way is yet quite clear. Don't forget to give me a call, if you come by the way of Washington City. Rotmu C.

But my Southern Tour!--What do you think has gone with the box containing the first and second volumes? Can it have gone to Charleston? If it has, I would stake my life the Nullifiers have embezzled it, distributed the books among their stump speakers, and the only splendid passages in their orations of Monday last are pine-blank plagiarisms from the pen! They are a vile set; and not a bit too good, to rob me of my property and labor, without offering an equivalent; but if I can only get proof, I'll be revenged as sure as my name is Royall. Do write Daniels of Camden and Landrum of Columbia on the subject: they can ferret out the truth, and are not afraid to publish it--they are coeur de leon. May I, dear -m, beseech you to get Mr. H. in the meantime to write to some friend, whom he may know in Darien, to inquire for a box directed to him and his partner? If he refuses to do so, please write yourself-I can do no more. I am surprised you have not seen the books! Mr. took them from here. What could he do with them? I sent a proof-sheet to Mr. H. which took in your town I am alarmed at this. I'm sure I did Macon justice.

I know but little of what is passing here, having hardly time to read a newspaper. I am wounded however by the unfortunate difference between the late Secretaries of the Treasury and the War Departments. Ingham is a bad man, and Eaton one of the best of his species. Their guard about their wives is lamentable, and was the work of the blueskins, the Presbyterians Ing. ham having joined them after he was appointed. The Jackson party have hurt themselves much by putting bad men and paupers into offices, and particularly into the post offices. The post masters are the vilest of men, and have robbed me of considerable sums. But, dear sir, the two contending political parties are only underactors in the great drama now going on in our country, and are substantially nothing. It is a mere contention for office, and the people have no friend! But worse than all this, is the alarming power of the Presbyterians and the United States Bank. They have all the money and the presses in the country, except our own State. (in which negroes are allowed to be merchants,'and white men to have black wives) and New Orleans, (where the negroes are permitted to dance Congo on Sunday in the little white clover park near the basin at the head of the canal.) It is only in Georgia and New Orleans that freedom dwells. The Bank and Presbyterians, the two monied monsters of tyranny, are uniting. In fact, our liberty is done, as you will perceive by the facts in my books, particularly in the third volume, under St. Louis head. Throughout my whole tour, I found the Presbyterians in possession of the post offices, the traveling routs, the steamboats, with the Bethel flags, (excepting in your State, &c.) But this is nothing. They have the army and the navy!! and have seized on the annuities of the Indians, (paying them in trash,) the lead, fur, and Santa Fe trade; and were going with a high hand at St. Louis, when I broke in upon them. By the aid and countenance of the army, they kept me from landing two days; but I outwitted them at last; and drove the whole town: five thousand citizens and the army (or at least the officers, the soldiers being twelve miles off) flew before me! But I had like to have fallen into their hands at last. The cannibals had prepared tar and feathers; but I fortunately escaped, by a noble Spaniard conveying me privately over into Illinois. He was the most majestic looking creature I have ever seen, and his voice was music itself. On the father's side, he was a descendant of the Castilian hidalgos, and on the mother's of Quetlavaca, the last aboriginal emperor of Mexico, whom Cortez roasted; but the rough-scuff of St. Louis called my deliverer a Watchenango. I had inspired him with tender emotions, which he could not conceal, but like Mary Queen of Scotland, I would not bestow my hand on an inferior, although my deliverer: she refused Douglas, because she was a queen and he a noble only-I rejected the Spaniard, because I was a republican by extraction, birth, education, marriage, principle and habit, the highest dignity in human nature, and he no more than a half Indian prince and half Iberian gentleman. You will see the facts in the third volume and a note in the first volume.

But the Blueskins are taking ample revenge of me. By the money they receive to spread the Gospel, they have bought up nearly all my booksellers, as I suppose. My books are suppressed, and the subscription lists returned to me with insolent messages to send for the books. They have spread into Canada, and have seized on everything worth having. I found six Bibles in my chamber at one time, and two great Bibles on the supper table in Canada I would as lief handle as much hippo.

One Mr. P-a-r, a mail contractor, (whose advertisements you see signed "P.-r & B -n" in splendid impudence) stopped $180 worth of my books secretly, and kept them from the 5th March till the last of May till the Post Master General ordered a search through the lines, and they were found with him. They were then forwarded by a friend, and again stopped by another Blueskin at Fayetteville. N. C. detained there, and burnt by the great fire. Some, I have heard since, were stopped between these two places and escaped, but the packages were torn open and the books lost or stolen. All these were subscribed for in North and South Carolina, and though they were anxious at first for the books, many of them refuse to take them now!!! I have no doubt but they will finally succeed in suppressing the work, as they fear my writings more than the whole United States, since they find me proof against bribery. In the West, I think the United States' Bank have a hand in it, as I am hard against it. Is this religion? Meantime, I am grieved to the heart for my poor patient workmen, whose children are crying for bread, and themselves chased from place to place by constables! and I am not able to help them! The city is drained of every cent by those religious robbers. They held a seventeen days meeting here, while I was on a visit, and even entered into the brothels for money. - Vice stalks abroad at noon day. Infants, newly born, are found, with their throats cut; and so abandoned are the presses here, not a word of it is published. This is the picture of our miserable city; while hundreds of people too lazy to work are flocking here for offices.

I am not afraid of losing the sale of my books on account of my misfortune in forwarding. The Georgians are the noblest people in the United States.- Had it not been for the generosity of Savannah, I must have wanted bread! Dear people! may heaven reward them. For the sake of the other towns, I am sorry Milledgeville behaved so ill. It was really too vulgar for them to insult me with that big nosed pigmy, and quite unbecoming to tease me with the importunities of that outlandish literary blockhead that wears the spectacles.-- My friends in Savannah are much hurt at the notice I take of the Milledgeville lians; but it is their own fault: had they apologized, I would have suppressed their conduct.

Dear sir, my address is always "Washington City." Please send the books as heretofore directed (if ever you get them) to Columbus: the people there want them badly.

Before concluding, let me tell you a measure I have in contemplation for the benefit of the republican party and the credit of the country. You know that Kendall, the fourth auditor, and Blair, the editor of the Globe, are both Clay men with a thin coating of Jackson white wash. The democrats have no confidence in them, and their connexion with the government is bringing odium upon the Administration, as that slanderer and changeling Duff Green did before them. To do away the danger, I shall propose to the President their dismission, and to appoint me as their successor-- I can with perfect ease discharge the duties of both stations; and being a republican by intuition, full confidence will be placed in the government paper and the character of the Treasury Department be retrieved. Much as you may doubt it, the President will not dare to refuse me: for he cannot be re-elected without my influence in his favor.-- So you will perceive that my hand is worth contending for, and the man I shall make my husband, must hold the balance of power.

Let me hear from you, and result of the inquiries at Darien. I hope the Blueskins have not got those books too.

Your affectionate friend,

ANNE ROYALL.

N. B. Say to my friends, I am much grieved at their neglect.