Textbook Liberty or Death The French Revolution Peter Mcphee Ebook All Chapter PDF
Textbook Liberty or Death The French Revolution Peter Mcphee Ebook All Chapter PDF
Textbook Liberty or Death The French Revolution Peter Mcphee Ebook All Chapter PDF
Peter Mcphee
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://textbookfull.com/product/liberty-or-death-the-french-revolution-peter-mcphee/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...
https://textbookfull.com/product/liberty-or-death-the-french-
revolution-mcphee/
https://textbookfull.com/product/1789-the-french-revolution-
begins-robert-h-blackman/
https://textbookfull.com/product/short-history-of-the-french-
revolution-1st-edition-popkin/
https://textbookfull.com/product/vercors-1944-resistance-in-the-
french-alps-peter-lieb-peter-dennis-illustrator/
A New World Begins The History of the French Revolution
Jeremy Popkin
https://textbookfull.com/product/a-new-world-begins-the-history-
of-the-french-revolution-jeremy-popkin/
https://textbookfull.com/product/nigeria-and-the-death-of-
liberal-england-peter-j-yearwood/
https://textbookfull.com/product/the-fascination-with-death-in-
contemporary-french-thought-a-longing-for-the-abyss-betty-
rojtman/
https://textbookfull.com/product/fintech-evolution-or-
revolution-1st-edition-sumit-chakraborty/
https://textbookfull.com/product/the-industrial-revolution-in-
world-history-peter-n-stearns/
Liberty or Death
i
ii
PETER M c PHEE
Liberty
or
Death
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
iii
Copyright © 2016 Peter McPhee
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form
(beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and
except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission from the publishers.
For information about this and other Yale University Press publications, please contact:
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
iv
For Kit
v
vi
Contents
List of Maps ix
Introduction x
vii
viii cont ent s
Chronology 371
The Revolutionary Calendar 380
Notes 381
Select Bibliography 434
Index 455
Illustration Credits 469
Maps
ix
Introduction
x
i n t r od uc t ion xi
In the towns you see only insolent or evil people. You are spoken to only
in a tone which is brusque, demanding or defiant. Every face has a
sinister look; even children have a hostile, depraved demeanour. One
would say that there is hatred in every heart. Envy has not been satis-
fied, and misery is everywhere. That is the punishment for making a
revolution.2
Historians, like those who lived through those years, have agreed on the
unprecedented and momentous nature of the great acts of revolution in
the months between May and October 1789. They have never agreed,
however, about why what came to be called the ancien régime was over-
thrown with such widespread support, or about why the Revolution took
its subsequent course, or about its outcomes. The consequences of the
events of 1789 were so complex, violent and significant that reflection and
debate on their origins and course show no signs of concluding. The
Revolution continues to fascinate, perplex and inspire. Indeed, the two
great waves of revolutionary change since the 1980s—the overthrow of
regimes in eastern and south-eastern Europe and the ‘Arab spring’—have
served to revivify our interest in the world-changing upheavals of the late
eighteenth century.3
The drama, successes and tragedies of the Revolution, and the scale of
the attempts to arrest or reverse it, have attracted scholars to the subject
for more than two centuries.4 By the time of Napoleon Bonaparte’s
seizure of power in November 1799, the first historians of the Revolution
had begun to outline their narratives of these years and their judgements
about the origins and consequences of revolutionary change. Why and
how did an apparently stable regime collapse in 1789? Why did it prove
to be so difficult to stabilize a new order? Did the political turmoil of
these years disguise a more fundamental social and economic continuity?
Was the French Revolution a major turning point in French—even
world—history, or instead a protracted period of violent upheaval and
warfare that wrecked millions of lives? This book seeks to answer those
questions.
Like all major revolutions, the French Revolution had many episodes of
heroism and horror, civic sacrifice and slaughter. When commenting in
1927 on peasant uprisings in Hunan province, Mao Tse-Tung famously
wrote that
xii int r od uct ion
Mao was then thirty-four years of age, the same age as a French revolu-
tionary, Maximilien Robespierre, when he responded in November 1792 to
the taunts of his political opponents that he had blood on his hands:
‘Citizens, did you want a revolution without revolution?’ The Parisians who
had overthrown Louis XVI in August 1792 and slaughtered hundreds of
his guards were, Robespierre insisted, acting for all patriots: ‘to make a
crime of a few apparent or real misdemeanours, inevitable during such a
great upheaval, would be to punish them for their devotion’.6
Most general histories of the French Revolution have been written as if
it was purely Parisian, and imposed on a recalcitrant, increasingly hostile,
countryside. Paris made the Revolution; the provinces reacted to it.7 In
contrast, the underlying approach of this book is that the Revolution is best
understood as a process of negotiation and confrontation between govern-
ments in Paris and people across the country, in cities, towns and villages.
So readers of this book will find much about how the ordinary people of
town and country made, opposed and experienced revolutionary change as
well as about the history of political struggle in Paris.
It is true that Paris was the epicentre of revolution, but only approxi-
mately one French person in forty—about 650,000 of more than 28
million—lived in Paris in the 1780s. This was a land of villages and small
towns. The men who governed France through a decade of revolution were
overwhelmingly of provincial origin and brought to their nation-building
the perspectives that their constituents communicated to them in waves of
correspondence. The book will investigate the ways in which the lived
experience of legislative, cultural and social change in France from 1789 to
1799 challenged and transformed assumptions about power and authority
across provincial society. How did rural and small-town men and women
adopt, adapt to and resist change from Paris? The results are surprising.
As a turbulent, violent crisis in a predominantly visual and oral culture,
the Revolution generated a vast quantity of visual representations designed
to make sense of what had happened and to pour vituperation or mockery
on one’s enemies. It also produced a mass of ephemera: objects such as
entry cards for political clubs, cartoons, or the revolutionary banknotes
int r od uct ion xiii
N A
E U
Lille T S
FLANDERS
H TR
English Channel E
and ARTOIS Valenciennes R L I A
Amiens 1691 A N
N
ROUEN A M I E N S D
1542 S
1542 Oise
Rouen SOISSONS
C A E N Caen Sei 1595
1542 ne Soissons
ALENÇON Verdun Metz
1636
Châlons-
RENNES Alençon Paris sur-Marne
1689 Rennes LORRAINE
ine
1682 A C E
P A R I S
C H Â L O N S Toul Nancy
Rh
ORLÉANS 1542 1542 Strasbourg
TOURS 1558
1542 Orléans AND BARROIS
S
1737
A L
Tours ire
Lo
F R A N C E Dijon
Bourges Besançon
ne
BOURGES
SaϺ
P O I T I E R S
Vienne
1542 BESANÇON
1552 Moulins 1676
Poitiers D I J O N SWISS
La Rochelle 1542
M O U L I N S
1587 CONFEDERATION
LA ROCHELLE Limoges DOMBES
1694 Angoulême Trévoux 1762
to LIMOGES Riom Lyon
Bay of Limoges 1558
Massif Central L Y O N
1542 KINGDOM OF
Biscay Bordeaux Dordogne R I O M
1542 Grenoble
BORDEAUX SARDINIA
RhϺne
1542
Ga GRENOBLE
ron
ne MONTAUBAN
1635
1542
MONTPELLIER A l p s
to Pau
AUCH Montauban 1542
Bayonne 1716 PIED M ON T
TOULOUSE VENAISSIN
Auch 1542
Pau A I X
Toulouse Montpellier Aix 1542
PAU and BAYONNE
1784
S P A I N P y to Pau
Perpignan
r e
n e PERPIGNAN 1660
e s
Pays d’Élection
Bastia
Pays d’État Mediterranean
1689 Year of foundation of a généralité Sea
CORSICA
AU C H Généralité or intendance name
Généralité or intendance capital Hainaut and Cambrai
Généralité or intendance boundary Bishopric
xiv
MONTMARTRE
BUTTES-CHAUMONT
FAUBOURG
MONTMARTRE
Saint-Lazare Hôpital
NEUILLY R.
ST
-H
ON FAUBOURG Saint-Louis
OR SAINT-HONORÉ FAUBOURG
É SAINT-DENIS
CH
AM BELLEVILLE
PS- Jacobin Club
NIS
ELY
SÉE
FAUBOURG
SAINT-MARTIN
-DE
S
Palais-
RTIN
Salle du Manège
R. ST
Royal
CHAILLOT FAUBOURG
-MA
DU TEMPLE
Temple
R. ST
Halle-au-Blé
Place de la Tuileries
Louvre Place de Grève
Révolution Jardin des
Châtelet Hôtel de Ville
PASSY Tuileries
La Force
Invalides FAUBOURG Pont-Neuf
VIN
Champ de SAINT- Conciergerie
Mars R. S
GERMAIN Palais de Justice T-A Place des Vosges
CEN
NT
Abbaye OI
NE FAUBOURG
École Cordeliers Club Notre Bastille SAINT-ANTOINE
NES
militaire S Carmes Dame
VR
E FAUBOURG Arsenal
SÈ Luxembourg SAINT-VICTOR
GRENELLE R.
DE
Jardin
RD Sorbonne
IRA des Plantes
UG
VA
ES
Se
VAUGIRARD R. D
E FAUBOURG Panthéon
ACQU
in
e
SAINT-MICHEL
R. ST-J
FAUBOURG
ST-MARCEAU
FAUBOURG CHARENTON
SAINT-JACQUES
0 km 1
La Salpêtrière
Gobelins
0 miles 1
2 Revolutionary Paris.
xv
0 km 100
G R E AT B R I TA I N
0 miles 100
N A
Lille U E
English Channel PAS-DE-CALAIS S T
H TR
Arras E
R IA
S OM M E NO R D LA N
S EIN E- Amiens N
I N FR E. Mézieres D
Rouen Laon S
St.-Lô Beauvais A I SNE ARDENNES
Caen OIS E
M AN C HE CALVADOS EUR E
St.-Brieuc Évreux MOSELLE
PAR I S Châlons-
FINIST ÈRE CÔTES-DU- OR N E sur-Marne MEUSE Metz
NORD Versailles
Quimper Alençon SEINE- Melun M A R NE Bar-le-Duc
Rennes BAS-
Chartres ET-OISE SEINE-
ine
MAYENNE Nancy RHIN
MORBIHAN ILLE-ET
Rh
VILAINE
Laval EURE-ET- ET-MARNE Troyes M E U RT H E
Vannes Le Mans LOIR Strasbourg
S ARTHE AU BE HAUTE- Épinal
Orléans MARNE
LOIRE-ET- LOIRET Auxerre VO SG E S
LOI R E- Angers Chaumont Colmar
INFÉR I EUR EMAINE-ET- Tours Blois
YO NNE Vesoul HAUTE-
Nantes LOIRE INDRE-ET- CHER RHIN
CÔTE-D’OR HAUTE-
LOIRE Bourges NI È V R E SAÔNE
La Roche-sur-Yon Châteauroux C HER Nevers Dijon
DEUX- Besançon DOUBS
VENDÉE SÈVRES F R A N C E
Poitiers I N DR E JURA SWISS
VIENNE Moulins SAÔNE-ET-
La Rochelle Niort LOIRE Lons-le-Saunier
CHARENTE- Guéret ALLI E R Mâcon
HAUTE-
C R EUS E
Bourg CONFEDERATION
INFRE.
CHARENTE VIENNE Clermont
Angouleme Limoges Ferrand RHÔNE A I N
PUY-DE- Lyon
CORRÈZE DÔME LOIRE
Bay of Périgueux Tulle St Étienne
Biscay I SÈ R E KINGDOM OF
Bordeaux DORDOGNE C AN TAL Le Puy
Aurillac HAUTE- Grenoble SARDINIA
GIRON DE
LOT LOIRE Valence
LOT-ET Mende
GARONNE Cahors Privas HAUTE-
Rodez ARDÈCHE DRÔME
LANDES Agen TARN-ET AVEY RON LOZÈRE ALPES
Gap
Mont-de-Marsan Montauban
GER S GARONNE Albi Digne PIED M ON T
G A R D VAUCLUSE
Auch TARN Avignon BASSES-
BASSES- Pau Toulouse Nîmes ALPES
HAUTE- Montpellier
BOUCHES-
ORIENTALES Tarbes GARONNE HÉRAULT DU-RHÔNE VA R Draguignan
Foix Carcassonne Marseille
AR IÈGE AUDE
HAUTES- Perpignan
ORIENTALES Bastia
PYRÉNÉES ORIENTALES
S P A I N GOLO
Corsica
Albi Département name Mediterranean Ajaccio
Département capital Sea
LIAMONE
Département boundary
xvi
1. Antoine-François Callet, Louis XVI, c.1778. Callet’s formal portrait of the king in his coronation
robes was used as a ‘prime version’ for later copies used as gifts.
2. The Place Royale, Bordeaux, was completed c.1755. The stock exchange at its apex symbolized
the wealth and confidence of the city’s mercantile élite. A statue of Louis XV in the centre was
melted down during the Revolution.
5. While completed more than a century before the Revolution, Jacques de Stella’s La Veillée à la
ferme pendant l’hiver captures the ambiance of comfortable peasant households gathered for an
evening in winter.
6. The storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789 is here captured by one of the most talented of the
revolutionary artists, Jean-Louis Prieur, who contributed 67 of the 144 quasi-official ‘Tableaux
historiques’ series. Prieur, a juror on the Revolutionary Tribunal, was guillotined with Fouquier-
Tinville in May 1795, the day after the death of his father.
7. Anne-Louis Girodet, a twenty-two-year-old student of Jacques-Louis David, captured his horror
at the killings of the royal officials Launay, Foulon and Bertier de Sauvigny in July 1789 before
leaving to take up an artistic residency in Rome.
10. Pierre Gabriel Berthault here captures the scale of the celebrations in Paris for the first
anniversary of the seizure of the Bastille. The Festival of Federation of July 1790 was the high point
of revolutionary unity and optimism.
11. This barely surviving plane tree was
probably planted in the tiny village of
Tamniès, north of Sarlat, to mark the first
anniversary of the storming of the Bastille.
It grows in front of the parish church,
from where it was photographed. It is now
probably the only living ‘liberty tree’ from
that point of the Revolution.
13. After the building entrepreneur Pierre-François Palloy was contracted to demolish the Bastille,
he sent carvings of it made from its foundation stones to the eighty-three new departments. This
stone was acquired in 1790 by the village of Saint-Julien-du-Sault in Burgundy on ‘Liberty Square’.
It remains there today. Palloy’s certification of authenticity is just discernible along the bottom.
14. The proclamation of
martial law at the Champ de
Mars on 17 July 1791, here
captured by Jean-Louis Prieur,
and the subsequent killing
of people signing a petition
calling for Louis to abdicate,
was a violent rupture in
revolutionary unity.
17. The Revolution changed the material objects of daily life, as with this
plate marking the nation’s unity and resolve in 1792. Household crockery was
a particularly common choice for symbolizing support for the Revolution.
18. Charlotte Corday was born in 1768 into a minor noble family at this farm of Les Champeaux,
near Écorches in Normandy. A committed Girondin republican, she murdered Jean-Paul Marat on
13 July 1793. She was executed four days later.
19. Jacques-Louis David’s brilliant work of political deification, commemorating Jean-Paul Marat,
assassinated by Charlotte Corday in July 1793.
20. In 1793 Revolutionary administrators in Nantes found this note, a call to celebration
of the ‘holy sacraments’, referring also to the role of Marie Giron. The commitment of
women to the ‘traditional’ church was at the heart of the rejection of revolutionary change
in the west.
21. Political life after 1789 centred on a small area between the Jacobin Club (lower left), the Rue
St-Honoré, where Robespierre and other deputies lived, and the National Convention, housed
until 10 May 1793 in the Manège (bottom), then in a theatre within the Tuileries Palace (top). The
Committee of Public Safety met on the left-hand side of the Tuileries. Robespierre’s life ended on
the Place de la Révolution at lower right.
22. A meeting of a ‘popular society’ or political club in Paris in 1793, by Louis René Boquet,
foregrounds a sans-culottes, distinguished by his full-length work trousers rather than the culottes of
the well-to-do.
4 0—0 6—6
Incisors Canines Molars = 28
2, 0—0, 5—5,
“The upper incisors are longer and broader than those of the
American Hare, marked, like all the rest of the species, with a deep
longitudinal furrow. The small accessory incisors are smaller and
less flattened than those of the last mentioned species, and the
molars are narrower and a little shorter. The transverse diameter of
the cranium is much smaller, the vertical diameter about equal.
Orbits of the eyes one-third smaller. This is a striking peculiarity,
giving it a smaller and less prominent eye than that of any other
American species. The pterygoid processes of the temporal bone
project downwards nearly in a vertical line, whilst those of the
American Hare are almost horizontal.
“Head and ears shorter than those of the Lepus Americanus; legs
short, and rather small; body short and thick; feet small, thinly
clothed with hair beneath, so as not to cover the nails, which are
larger than those of the American Hare. Tail shorter than that of any
other species of true hare inhabiting the United States, except the
Lepus Nuttalli. Hair on the back long and somewhat rough. From the
short legs and ears of this species, and its general clumsy habit, it
has the appearance when running through the marshes, splashing
through mud and mire, and plunging into creeks and ponds of water,
of some large Norway Rat, hastening to escape from its pursuers.
“The teeth are yellowish-white; the eyes are dark brown, appearing
in certain lights quite black. Upper parts of the head brown and
greyish-ash. Around the orbits of the eyes slightly fawn-coloured.
Whiskers black. Ears dark greyish-brown. The back and whole upper
parts yellowish-brown, intermixed with many strong black hairs. The
hairs, when examined singly, are bluish-grey at the roots, then light
brown, and are tipped with black. The fur, beneath, is light
plumbeous; under the chin grey; throat yellowish-brown; belly light
grey, the fur beneath bluish. Under surface of the tail ash-colour,
edged with brown. During winter the upper surface becomes
considerably darker than in summer.
“I have not heard of the existence of this small species of Hare to the
north of the State of South Carolina, nor is it found in the upper parts
of this State,—confining itself to the maritime districts, to low marshy
grounds partially inundated, to the borders of rivers subject to the
overflowing of their banks, and to the ponds, usually termed
reserves, where the waters intended to overflow the rice-fields are
preserved. In these situations, rendered almost inaccessible on
account of mud, entangled vines, and stagnant waters, sending up
poisonous miasmata, the fruitful source of disease, surrounded by
frogs, water-snakes, and alligators, this species resides through the
whole year, scarcely molested by man. In these forbidden retreats,
frequented by Herons (Ardea), Snake-birds (Plotus Anhinga), and
Ibises, this almost aquatic quadruped finds a home suited to its
habits; making up for its want of speed in eluding pursuit, by its
facility in winding through miry pools and marshes overgrown with
rank weeds and willows. In such situations, I have met with it fifty
miles north of Charleston; but, as soon as the traveller arrives at the
high grounds of the middle country, where the marshes disappear,
this Hare is no longer seen. It is common in all the lower parts of
Georgia, and I have observed it for sale in the market of Savannah.
It is abundant in East Florida, even at its farthest southern extremity.
I received a living animal of this species, taken on one of the islands
near Indian Key, called Rabbit Key, separated from the main-land by
several miles of sea; where it could have proceeded only by
swimming, but where it is now found in great numbers. In all the low
grounds of Florida, this species takes the place of the American
Hare, which has not been observed in those situations.
“The Marsh Hare is one of the most singular in its habits of all the
species. It runs low on the ground, and cannot be said to possess
the fine leaping gait of the American Hare. It is so slow of foot, that
nothing but the sheltered and miry situations in which it resides can
save it from being easily overtaken and captured. I have, indeed,
observed the domestics on a plantation, during a holiday, setting fire
to a piece of marsh ground, in a very dry season, and armed with
clubs, waiting till the flames drove these Hares from their retreats,
when they were run down and killed in considerable numbers, I
noticed that when the American Hare made its appearance it was
suffered to pass, on account of the speed they knew it to possess,
but no sooner did the Marsh Hare appear, than with a whoop, they
gave chase, and seldom failed to overtake it.
“The feet of the Marsh Hare are admirably adapted to its aquatic
habits. A thick covering of hair on its soles, like that on the other
species, would be inconvenient; they would not only be kept wet for
a considerable length of time, but would retard them in swimming. All
quadrupeds that frequent the water, such as the Beaver, Otter,
Muskrat, Mink, &c., and aquatic birds, have nearly naked palms; and
it is this peculiar structure, together with the facility of distending its
toes, that enables this quadruped to swim with such ease and
rapidity. The track, when observed in moist or muddy situations,
differs very much from that of the other species. Its toes are spread
out, each leaving a distinct impression, like those of the rat.
“The Marsh Hare deposits its young in a pretty large nest, composed
of a large species of rush (Juncus effusus) growing in a convenient
situation. These appeared to have been cut into pieces of about a
foot in length. I have seen these nests nearly surrounded by, and
almost floating on, the water. They were generally arched, by
carefully bending the rush-grass over them, admitting the mother by
a pretty large hole in the side. A considerable quantity of hair was
found lining the nest, but whether plucked out by the parent, or the
effect of the season, (it being late in spring when these animals shed
their coat) I was unable to ascertain. The young were from five to
seven. They evidently breed several times in the season, but I have
observed that the females usually produce their young two months
later, at least, than the American Hare. Twenty-one specimens were
obtained from the 9th to the 14th day of April; none of the females
had produced young that season, although some of them would
have done so in a very few days. On one occasion only, have I seen
the young in March. These bear a strong resemblance to the adults,
and may almost at a glance be distinguished from those of the last-
mentioned species.
“This species possesses a strong marshy smell at all times, even
when kept in confinement, and fed on the choicest food. Its flesh,
however, although dark, is fully equal, if not superior, to that of the
American Hare. The Marsh Hare never visits gardens or cultivated
fields, confining itself throughout the year to the marshes. It is
occasionally found in places overflown by salt or brackish water, but
seems to prefer fresh-water marshes, where its food can be most
conveniently obtained. It feeds on various grasses, gnaws off the
twigs of the young sassafras, and of the pond spice (Laurus
geniculata). I have seen many places in the low grounds dug up, the
foot-prints indicating that it was the work of this species in search of
roots. It frequently is found digging for the bulbs of the wild potato
(Apios tuberosa), as also for those of a small species of Amaryllis
(Amaryllis Atamasco).
“I possess a living animal of this species, which was sent me a few
weeks ago, having been captured when full grown. It became so
gentle in a few days that it freely took its food from the hand. It is fed
on turnip and cabbage leaves, but prefers bread to any other food
that has been offered to it. It is fond of lying for hours in a trough of
water, and seems restless and uneasy when the trough is removed,
scratching the sides of its tin cage until it has been replaced, when it
immediately plunges in, burying the greater part of its body in the
water.
“It has already shed a great portion of its summer, and resumed its
winter, dress. The hairs on the upper surface, instead of becoming
white at the point, as in the American Hare, have grown long and
black, through which the brownish parts beneath are still distinctly
visible.
“This species, like others of the genus existing in this country, as well
as in the deer and squirrels, is infested with a troublesome larva of
an œstrus in the summer and autumn, which, penetrating into the
flesh, and continually enlarging, causes pain to the animal, and
renders it lean. One of these larvæ dropped from an orifice in the
throat of the hare which I have in confinement. It was of the usual
cylindrical shape, but appears to differ in some particulars from the
Œstrus cuniculi.”
EVENING GROSBEAK.
Fringilla melanocephala.
PLATE CCCLXXIII. Male and Female.
There is a pleasure which that ornithologist only can feel who spends
his days in searching for the materials best adapted for his purpose,
and which arises from the contemplation of the objects he is anxious
to portray and describe, as they roam in freedom over Nature’s wild
domains. Another pleasure is derived from finding in different
countries birds so much alike in form, colour, and habits, that they
seem as if formed for the purpose of exercising our faculties of
observation and comparison. But this pleasure passes into pain, or
at least perplexity, when, as in the present instance, two species
differ so slightly that you cannot clearly define their characters,
although they yet seem to be distinct. In fact, I long felt uncertain
whether the American bird described by Wilson under the names of
Sharp-shinned Hawk, and Slate-coloured Hawk, was distinct from
the Sparrow Hawk, F. Nisus, of Europe.
It is mentioned in the Fauna Boreali-Americana, that a specimen of
this bird was killed in the vicinity of Moose Factory, and that it has
been deposited by the Hudson’s Bay Company in the Zoological
Museum of London. This specimen I have not seen, but confiding
entirely in the accuracy of every fact mentioned by the authors of
that work, I here adduce it as a proof of the extraordinary range of
this species in America, which from the extreme north extends to our
most southern limits, perhaps far beyond them, during its autumnal
and winter migrations. I have met with it in every State or Territory of
the Union that I have visited. In the spring of 1837, it was abundant
in Texas, where it appeared to be travelling eastward. I have a
specimen procured by Dr Townsend in the neighbourhood of the
Columbia River; and, when on my way towards Labrador, I met with
it plentifully as far as the southern shores of the Gulf of St Lawrence,
beyond which, however, none were observed by me or any of my
party.
I never saw this daring little marauder on wing without saying or
thinking “There goes the miniature of the Goshawk!” Indeed, reader,
the shortness of the wings of the Sharp-shinned Hawk, its long tail,
though almost perfectly even, instead of being rounded as in the
Goshawk, added to its irregular, swift, vigorous, varied, and yet often
undecided manner of flight, greatly protracted however on occasion,
have generally impressed upon me the idea alluded to. While in
search of prey, the Sharp-shinned Hawk passes over the country,
now at a moderate height, now close over the land, in so swift a
manner that, although your eye has marked it, you feel surprised that
the very next moment it has dashed off and is far away. In fact it is
usually seen when least expected, and almost always but for a few
moments, unless when it has procured some prey, and is engaged in
feeding upon it. The kind of vacillation or wavering with which it
moves through the air appears perfectly adapted to its wants, for it
undoubtedly enables this little warrior to watch and to see at a single
quick glance of its keen eyes every object, whether to the right or to
the left, as it pursues its course. It advances by sudden dashes, as if
impetuosity of movement was essential to its nature, and pounces
upon or strikes such objects as best suit its appetite; but so very
suddenly that it appears quite hopeless for any of them to try to
escape. Many have been the times, reader, when watching this
vigilant, active, and industrious bird, I have seen it plunge headlong
among the briary patches of one of our old fields, in defiance of all
thorny obstacles, and, passing through, emerge on the other side,
bearing off with exultation in its sharp claws a Sparrow or Finch,
which it had surprised when at rest. At other times I have seen two or
three of these Hawks, acting in concert, fly at a Golden-winged
Woodpecker while alighted against the bark of a tree, where it
thought itself secure, but was suddenly clutched by one of the
Hawks throwing as it were its long legs forward with the quickness of
thought, protruding its sharp talons, and thrusting them into the back
of the devoted bird, while it was endeavouring to elude the harassing
attacks of another, by hopping and twisting round the tree. Then
down to the ground assailants and assailed would fall, the
Woodpecker still offering great resistance, until a second Hawk
would also seize upon it, and with claws deeply thrust into its vitals,
put an end to its life; when both the marauders would at once
commence their repast.
On several such occasions, I have felt much pleasure in rescuing
different species of birds from the grasp of the little tyrant, as
whenever it seizes one too heavy to be carried off, it drops to the
ground with it, and being close by, I have forced it to desist from
committing further mischief, as it fears man quite as much as its poor
quarry dreads itself. One of these occurrences, which happened in
the neighbourhood of Charleston, in South Carolina, is thus related
in my journal.
Whilst walking one delightful evening in autumn, along a fine hedge-
row formed by the luxuriant Rocky Mountain rose-bushes, I observed
a male of this species alighted in an upright position on the top-bar of
a fence opposite to me. I marked it with particular attention, to see
what might follow. The Hawk saw me as plainly as I did him, and
kept peeping now at me, and now at some part of the hedge
opposite, when suddenly, and with the swiftness of an arrow, it shot
past me, entered the briars, and the next instant was moving off with
a Brown Thrush, Turdus rufus in its talons. The Thrush, though
seized by the sharp claws of the marauder, seemed too heavy for
him to carry far, and I saw both falling to the ground. On running up, I
observed the anxiety of the Hawk as I approached, and twice saw it
attempt to rise on wing to carry off its prize; but it was unable to do
so, and before it could disengage itself I was able to secure both.
The Thrush must have been killed almost instantaneously, for, on
examining it, I found it quite dead.
My friend Thomas Nuttall, Esq., tells us that in the “thinly settled
parts of the States of Georgia and Alabama, this Hawk seems to
abound, and proves extremely destructive to young chickens, a
single one having been known regularly to come every day until he
had carried away between twenty and thirty. At noon-day, while I was
conversing with a planter, one of these Hawks came down, and
without ceremony, or heeding the loud cries of the housewife, who
most reluctantly witnessed the robbery, snatched away a chicken
before us.” Again, while speaking of the wild and violent manner of
this bird, he adds “descending furiously and blindly upon its quarry, a
young Hawk of this species broke through the glass of the green-
house, at the Cambridge Botanic Garden; and fearlessly passing
through a second glass partition, he was only brought up by the
third, and caught, though little stunned by the effort. His wing-
feathers were much torn by the glass, and his flight in this way so
impeded as to allow of his being approached.”
Whilst travelling to some distance, the Sharp-shinned Hawk flies
high, though in a desultory manner, with irregular quick flappings of
the wings, and at times, as if to pause for a while and examine the
objects below, moves in short and unequal circles, after which it is
seen to descend rapidly, and then follow its course at the height of
only a few feet from the ground, visiting as it were every clump of low
bushes or briar patches likely to be supplied with the smaller birds,
on which it principally feeds. Again, after having satisfied its hunger,