CHAPTER XI

Summary

The inhabitants of our new district were highly delighted at having their frequent prayers for a resident police magistrate at length granted, and the full measure of popularity was accorded to him; whilst I was enabled to judge of the degree of reflected lustre which I enjoyed, by the number of calls which succeeded my arrival: by the time these complimentary visits were over, and in due order returned, I had grown quite weary of answering the same questions over and over again. I soon discovered that, although we had a more numerous list of visitors than at Swan Port, we had not gained in point of society.

All the residents were farmers, of greater or less degree, and all “esquires,” if not in their own right, by their own assertion, which was often very amusing, and, for all common purposes, did as well. In America, military titles seem the especial ambition of the shop-keeping and agricultural classes, and “majors,” “colonels,” and “generals” abound on all sides; but in our peaceful island, all such redundant ambition tends towards one point of glory, and “esquire” is the coveted and demanded distinction, asked for, when not accorded without, and now so universally applied, that its omission will soon begin to be the really honourable distinction of a colonial gentleman.