THE FRUITS IN CONVENTION. 445 



whether things should be called by names that sounded real, or 

 names that had a foreign, fictitious and romantic air ; whether an 

 honest man might be called in plain English a " good Christian," or 

 whether he should forever be doomed to be misrepresented and 

 misunderstood as a " Bon Chretien" For his own part, he said, he 

 thought it was time to assert our nationality ; and while he was the 

 last man to say or do any thing to prevent foreigners from settling 

 among us, he did think that they should have the courtesy to drop 

 foreign airs and come down to plain English, or plain Yankee com- 

 prehension. He was himself a " native American," and he gloried 

 in it. He considered himself, though a plain republican, as good as 

 any foreigners, however high-sounding their titles ; and he believed 

 that if fruits would be more careful about their intrinsic flavor, and 

 study, as he did, how to maintain their credit perfect and unimpaired 

 for the longest possible period, it would in the end be found more to 

 their advantage than this stickling for foreign titles. His ancestors, 

 he said, were born in the State of New-York ; and he was himself 

 raised in a great and well-known orchard on the Hudson. (Hear, 

 hear.) If any gentleman present wished to know the value of a 

 plain American name, he would be glad to show him, in dollars and 

 cents, the income of that orchard. He was in greater favor in 

 Covent Garden market than any English or continental fruit ; and 

 such sums had been realized from the sales of that orchard, that it 

 was seriously proposed in the English parliament to impose a duty 

 on Newtown Pippins, to pay off the national debt. (Great applause, 

 and a hiss from a string of Currants.) He concluded, by trust- 

 ing the chairman would pardon this allusion to his own affairs, which 

 he only gave to show that a Pippin, in plain English, was worth 

 as much in the market and the world's estimation, as the finest 

 French title that was ever lisped in the Faubourg St. Germain. 

 He moved that all foreign names of fruits be done into plain Eng- 

 lish. 



This speech produced a great commotion among the Pears on 

 the right, who had evidently not expected such a straightforward 

 way of treating the matter. For a moment all was confusion. That 

 little fellow, the Petit Muscat, always the first on the carpet, 

 ran hither and thither gathering little clusters about him. The 



