To some persons it has appeared a mystery, how Peter Faneuil, having had but a short lease of life, some two and forty years, should have acquired the “large and plentiful estate,” that Master Lovell speaks of, in his funeral oration. This mystery is readily explained. He had, for several years, before the death of his uncle, Andrew, been engaged in commerce. As Master Lovell justly observes—“No man managed his affairs with greater prudence and industry.” His commercial correspondence proves that his relations were extensive and diversified, though it must be admitted, that rum, fish, sugar and molasses, are the chorus, or burden, of the song. It will also appear, that the large and plentiful estate, was, probably overrated.

Though he had a high sense of commercial honor, no man had a sharper eye for the main chance, as it is called, by money getting men. Let me illustrate both these positions, by extracts—not from “Peter’s letters to his kinsfolks,” but from Peter’s letters to his correspondents. He repeatedly scolds Signor Miguel Pacheco de Silva, and Monsieur Sigal, severely, for inattention to his drafts. To S. & W. Baker, of London, who, by reason of the informality of a power to transfer stock, were unsupplied with funds, to meet his drafts, yet paid them, for the honor of the drawer; he writes a letter of cordial thanks, Sept. 7, 1737, in which he says—“I would not for £500 you had not accepted all those drafts; for, if you had not, it would have been a slur to my character, which I value more than all the money upon earth.”

January 22, 1738, he requests Mr. Peter Baynton to advise him, on several points—“also what good French brandy is worth, and if it be possible to cloak it so, as to ship it for rum.” On the 13th of March, in the same year, he writes Mr. Peter Baynton, that he has sent him four hogsheads of brandy, and adds—“Pray be as cautious as possible, in taking them on shore, by reason the man has signed bills of lading, for four hogsheads rum, not knowing the contents, which it is not convenient he should.”

What a goodly number will openly pronounce Peter a very bad fellow, who, if they have not done this identical thing, have done things, quite as exceptionable, or more so, and who are willing to—

“Compound for sins they are inclined to,
By damning those they have no mind to.”

Merchant princes, if I am rightly instructed, do not place the offence of cheating the Government, in the category of cardinal, or unpardonable, sins. And, notwithstanding all, that we so frequently hear, of commercial integrity, and the chivalry of trade; I rather doubt, upon the whole, if traffic is really the “ne plus ultra strap,” upon which the very finest possible edge can be given to the moral sense. Exceptions there are, but they only establish, more fully, the general rule: and, in accordance with the spirit of the old, prudential legend, we are rather too much in the habit of postponing prayers, till we have sanded the sugar, and watered the molasses. I have long entertained the opinion, that a cheap vade mecum edition of Dr. Chalmers’ Commercial Discourses, for New Year’s gifts, might be very beneficially distributed.

Exceptions certainly there are. I have one, within my own memory. The collector of a Southern port—a Huguenot withal—of whom my personal recollections are exceedingly agreeable, and whose integrity was a proverb, was surprised one day, upon his return, at the dinner hour, by the display of a costly service of plate, which his lady had procured from London. A few inquiries developed the fact, that, by the agency of a gentleman, a friend of the family, it had been gotten over, with his baggage, duty free—in other words, smuggled. In an instant, the old gentleman ordered his wife’s whole service of silver to the public stores; and seized it for the government. Such cases, I apprehend, are not of frequent occurrence.

If Peter Faneuil made not broad his phylactery, he made broad that mantle of charity, which covereth a multitude of sins. If such had not been the fact, and notoriously so, Master Lovell would not have ventured to proclaim, in Faneuil Hall, one hundred and eight years ago, and before a scanty population, as cognizant, as the population of a village, of all the shortcomings of their neighbors that—

“Peter’s acts of charity were so secret and unbounded, that none but they who were the objects of it could compute the sums, which he annually distributed”—that “his alms flowed, like a fruitful river”—that “he fed the hungry, clothed the naked, comforted the fatherless, and the widows in their affliction, and his bounty visited the prisoner. So that Almighty God, in giving riches to this man, seems to have scattered blessings all abroad among the people”—that the building “erected by him at an immense charge, for the convenience and ornament of the town, is incomparably the greatest benefaction ever yet known to our Western shoar”—that this act of munificence, however great, “is but the first fruits of his generosity, a pledge of what his heart, always devising liberal things, would have done for us, had his life been spared.” To all this good Master Lovell adds the assertion—“I am well assured from those, who were acquainted with his purposes, that he had many more blessings in store for us, had Heaven prolonged his days.”

These statements, publicly pronounced, one hundred and eight years ago, have never been gainsayed, nor even qualified. They must therefore be viewed, in the light of an ancient deposition, read before the grand inquest of the whole people, before whom Peter Faneuil was tried, shortly after his decease, according to the fashion of the Egyptians, while dealing with their departed kings.

I, by no means, approve of Peter’s conduct, in jostling the Government, out of the excise, on a few casks of brandy; but, in full view of all these public and private charities, there seems to be something about it, like the gallantry of Robin Hood, whose agrarian philosophy taught him to rob the rich, and feed the poor. And, when the trial comes on, in the Higher Court, about the duties upon these four hogsheads of brandy; and Peter Baynton is summoned to testify; and, upon his evidence, Peter Faneuil is convicted; most truly, do I believe, that some good natured angel, will slyly draw, over the record, a corner of that broad mantle of gold and tissue—that mantle of charity—whose warp and woof were formed of private alms and public benefactions, and which good Peter Faneuil spent so many of his hours, in weaving, in this lower world.

If Peter Faneuil was otherwise an offender, I am sorry for it; having a passion for rarities, I should like to behold the tabula immaculata—the unsullied sheet of one human being! I am not aware of anything, in the life of Peter Faneuil, which that mantle will not abundantly cover.

It may be otherwise. If the schoolmaster is not always abroad, the antiquarian is—the moral virtuoso—who delights, metaphorically speaking, to find spots on snow, and specks in amber. This species of antiquarian, male or female, may be found in every city and village. It is a curious creature, and, in the cabinet of a malicious memory, has stowed carefully away the weak points, and the peccadilloes of the living and the dead. In its contracted receptacle, there is no room for public or private charities, nor for merits of any kind: it is capable of holding nothing but delinquencies.

Nothing is more refreshing to this species of antiquarian, than any fair pretence, for opening his cabinet, and showing his precious collection. Nollikens, among his terra cottas, was not more adroit, in fitting the heads and members of Priapi to the trunks of fauns and satyrs, than is the ingenious character, of whom I speak, in adapting the legendary gossip, which has been told, till it is stale, of one individual, to the person of another. Such personages are, characteristically, selfish and ungenerous. It would not be a very notable miracle, if some person, of this description, pained and offended, by the trying contrast, between the munificent and charitable career of Peter Faneuil, and the extremely dry and unprofitable character of his own existence, should ransack the charnel-house of his memory, for some offensive offset, against Master Lovell’s laudation of Peter.

For this I can truly vouch, excepting that affair of the brandy, the commercial correspondence of Peter Faneuil—and I have read the whole volume, that remains, French and English—is highly honorable to the head and the heart of the writer.The charity of Peter Faneuil was not that clap-trap munificence, examples of which are frequently heralded, among us, in demi-stipendiary journals—it did not so truly spring—it oozed from Peter’s warm heart, continually, and constitutionally. He required no impressive hints, to be charitable—he felt for the poor and needy, habitually. His letter of Sept. 19, 1738, is before me, to one of his commercial correspondents, to whom he has just then made a shipment, Mons. Thomas Bayeaux—“Inclosed you have Madame Guinneau’s account, by which you are indebted to that poor widow £16, which you will do well to pay her, it being for money she advanced, for the board of you and your family. One would have thought you should have paid that, before you left the country, and not to have served the poor widow as you did.”

However direct, and even severe, while addressing delinquents, his French politeness never forsakes him. Such letters always conclude—“Sir, I salute you,” or “I kiss your hand.”

April 24, 1740, he writes thus to Peter Baynton—“This accompanies Capt. Burgess Hall, who carries with him to your parts two unfortunate Palatine women, that were some time ago shipwrecked, in their voyage from Europe to your place, who, being objects of charity, which the providence of God has thrown in our way, I take leave to recommend to you, as such, not doubting you will so far commisserate their condition, as to direct them the nearest way, to get among their friends, with such other relief as you may think necessary.”

Though Peter Faneuil had acquired property, before the death of his uncle Andrew; yet, as we shall presently see, by far the larger part of his “large and plentiful estate” came to him, by that uncle’s will.