Irish Negro — 277
A negro from Montzerat, or Marigalante, where the Hiberno-Celtic is spoken by all classes, happened to be on the wharf at Philadelphia when a number of Irish emigrants were landed; and seeing one of them with a wife and four children, he stepped forward to assist the family on shore. The Irishman, in his native tongue, expressed his surprise at the civility of the negro; who, understanding what had been said, replied in Irish, that he need not be astonished, for that he was a bit of an Irishman himself. The Irishman, surprised to hear a black man speak in his Milesian dialect, it entered his mind with the usual rapidity of Irish fancy, that he really was an Irishman, but that the climate had changed his fair complexion. “If I may be so bold, sir,” said he, “may I ask how long you have been in this country?” The negro man, who had only come hither on a voyage, said he had been in Philadelphia only about four months. Poor Patrick turned round to his wife and children, and looking as if for the last time on their rosy cheeks, concluding that in four months they must also change their complexion, exclaimed, “O merciful powers! Biddy, did you hear that? He is not more than four months in this country, and he is already almost as black as jet.”