True Blue

[James A. Landau]

The following extracts are from a letter dated "31st Octo. 1768", published in the "Supplement to the New York Journal or General Advertiser, No. 1351, November 24, 1768".  The letter is an incoherent diatribe about Protestant politics which I cannot decypher.

heading on the letter is "New-Brunswick, 31st Octo. 1768"

"the Letter [to which the writer is replying], in all Probability, was not written from Brunswick, but by some stanch True Blue in the City of New-York"

"he insinuates, That Conventions have lately been held much more frequently than the used to be: The Contrary to which, especially in this Government, he must have been convinced of, had he been an Inhabitant of New Brunswick: Indeed it is difficult to conceive how the most flaming Independent of them all would have the Face to mention the frequent and numerous Meetings of the Episcopal Clergy"

"there is not a single Resident in this City---Blush, if it be possible, ye Whigs of New-York, ye Centinels of Philadelphia, ye Founts of Connecticut, and ye Ram-Chickens of Boston---who has the Hardiness even to Insinuate"

"And if such "sprited Application", when made to the "powers at home," does not meet with a suitable return...as his M---y declares in their Favour, my Advice should be, to make Application to Powers which are not at home..."

"And lastly, as for the Trumpet of Disaffection, which he blows at the Poop of his Performance..."

MWCD11 gives a date of 1650 for "true blue" as an adjective and 1762 as a noun, so this isn't quite an antedating.  It is not clear whether the writer means "true blue" as "someone stanch in his beliefs" or as a nickname for New Yorkers. If the former, and also considering the reference to Whigs, it would seem that "Centinels", "Founts", and "Ram-Chickens" are references to political factions rather than being geographical terms.

I cannot figure out what the writer means by "Face" in the second quote or what is hiding in "M---y" in the fourth quote.

"Poop" apparently means "end [of his Performance]" and is a metaphor based on the "poop deck" of a ship, which MWCD11 defines as "a partial deck above a ship's main afterdeck" and dates as 1815, so this could be an antedating.

Note the inconsistent use of the hyphen in "New-York" and "New-Brunswick" (the latter is named once without "New").

full bibliographic citation on request

OT: Dennis Levinson, our County Executive, is very proud of having placed defibrillators in every police car in the county, thereby saving 25 lives so far.  Shades of President Carter's "nucular", he consistently refers to the devices as "defibulators".

    - Jim Landau

"white people have no souls"  - Baron Munchausen

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