Now I declare to all mankind, I should be ready to sacrifice my own concerns to his quiet; but the care of his interest, and that of the honest tradesmen[1] that are embarked with us, keeps me from entering into this composition. What shall become of those poor creatures? The thoughts of their impending ruin disturbs my night's rest, therefore I desire they may speak for themselves. If they are willing to give up this affair, I shan't make two words of it".
John Bull begged him to lay aside that immoderate concern for him; and withal put him in mind, that the interest of those tradesmen had not sat quite so heavy upon him some years ago, on a like occasion. Nic. answered little to that, but immediately pulled out a boatswain's whistle. Upon the first whiff, the tradesmen came jumping into the room, and began to surround Lewis, like so many yelping curs about a great boar; or, to use a modester simile, like duns at a great lord's levee the morning he goes into the country. One pulled him by his sleeve, another by the skirt, a third hollaed in his ear: they began to ask him for all that had been taken from their forefathers by stealth, fraud, force, or lawful purchase; some asked for manors, others for acres, that lay convenient for them: that he would pull down his fences, level his ditches: all agreed in one common demand, that he should be purged, sweated, vomited, and starved, till he came to a sizeable bulk, like that of his neighbours: one modestly asked him leave to call him brother; Nic. Frog demanded two things, to be his porter and his fishmonger, to keep the keys of his
- ↑ The allies.
