1744 / New York

City Talk

Tags:: America,; ethnography,; gossip,; language,; slang,; words

After I had sat some time with this polite company, Dr. Colchoun, surgeon to the fort, called in, to whom I delivered letters, and he carried me to the tavern which is kept by one Todd, an old Scotsman, to sup with the Hungarian Club, of which he is a member and which meets there every night. The company were all strangers to me except Mr. Home, secretary of New Jersey, of whom I had some knowledge, he having been at my house at Annapolis. They saluted me very civilly, and I, as civilly as I could, returned their compliments in neat short speeches such as, “Your very humble servant,” “I’m glad to see you,” and the like commonplace phrases used upon such occasions. We went to supper, and our landlord Todd entertained us as he stood waiting with quaint saws and jack-pudding speeches. “Praised be God,” said he, “as to cuikry, I defaa ony French cuik to ding me, bot a haggis is a dish I wadna tak the trouble to mak. Look ye, gentlemen, there was anes a Frenchman axed his frind to denner. His frind axed him ‘What ha’ ye gotten till eat?’ ‘Four an’ twanty legs of mutton,’ quo’ he, ‘a’ sae differently cuiked that ye winna ken whilk is whilk.’ Sae whan he gaed there; what deel was it, think ye, but four and twanty sheep’s trotters, be God.’” He was a-going on with this tale of a tub when, very seasonably for the company, the bell, hastily pulled, called him to another room, and a little after we heard him roaring at the stair head, “Dam ye bitch, wharefor winna ye bring a canle?”

After supper they set in for drinking, to which I was averse and therefore sat upon nettles. They filled up bumpers at each round, but I would drink only three which were to the king, Governor Clinton, and Governor Bladen, which last was my own. Two or three toapers in the company seemed to be of opinion that a man could not have a more sociable quality or endowment than to be able to pour down seas of liquor and remain unconquered while others sunk under the table. I heard this philosophical maxim but silently dissented to it. I left the company at ten at night pretty well flushed with my three bumpers and, ruminating on my folly, went to my lodging at Mrs. Hogg’s in Broadstreet.

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Dr. Alexander Hamilton, from The Itinerarium of Dr. Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton received a medical degree from the University of Edinburgh in 1737, writing his thesis on bone disease; two years later, he moved to Annapolis, where he set up a successful practice. Suffering from tuberculosis—“I shall only say that I am not well in health and for that reason chiefly continue still a bachelor”—Hamilton decided to tour the colonies with his slave Dromo; they traveled more than sixteen hundred miles in a little over four months.

Making a film means, first of all, to tell a story. That story can be an improbable one, but it should never be banal. It must be dramatic and human. What is drama, after all, but life with the dull bits cut out?