Devil to pay, and no pitch hot

Love. Or an exquisite at his devotions
1825 by Alfred Crowquill via The British Museum

In his great speech at the 1844 Jackson Jubilee, Gansevoort Melville recycled a joke from two years before about the "fashionable" way of restating the common expression, "There's the devil to pay and no pitch hot." Here's one 1842 version of the joke, from the Elmira Gazette, March 10, 1842:

Elmira Gazette - March 10, 1842 via Fulton History

It is not customary at the present day to say--"There's the devil to pay and no pitch hot;" the fashionable phrase being--"There is a certain liability due to the 'old gentleman,' and no bituminous matter of the proper temperature to liquidate the obligation."

In 1844 Gansevoort ascribed the "fashionable" phraseology to Whigs whom he portrayed as anti-democratic Broadway dandies or "exquisites":

Now, my fair countrywomen, with your permission, a word with you. I grant ye that the whigs have the advantage of us plain-spoken democrats in scented hair, diamond rings, and white kid gloves—[roars of laughter]—in the language of compliment and the affectation of manner, and most particularly, in their style of dressing. If one of these exquisites wished to express the idea contained in the home-spun adage, “There is the devil to pay and no pitch hot,” he would say, “There is a pecuniary liability due to the old gentleman, and no bituminous matter, of the proper temperature, wherewith to liquidate the obligation.” [Uproarious laughter and applause, in which the ladies joined.]

The term Broadway exquisite was a stereotype of affectation and elitism that the Louisville Courier Journal (July 19, 1845) later applied to Gansevoort himself, after his appointment as Secretary of Legation in London. In New York City, the Morning Courier and Enquirer questioned Gansevoort's understanding of the word pay in "the devil to pay."

A General Dictionary of Provincialisms
(London, 1840)

Criticizing Gansevoort's flourishes, the Whig newspaper pointed out the nautical meaning of pay as tar or "pitch" used to caulk the seams of a ship. As further explained on the Official Website of the United States Navy along with other instances of Navy Terminology,

The "devil" was the wooden ship's longest seam in the hull. Caulking was done with "pay" or pitch (a kind of tar). The task of "paying the devil" (caulking the longest seam) by squatting in the bilges was despised by every seaman.

Gansevoort's Whig critic seems to have realized, eventually, that the misunderstanding of the nautical metaphor could also be regarded as part of the joke, attributable to the clueless dandy being described. From the Morning Courier and New-York Enquirer, March 22, 1844; found at Fulton History:

Mr. Gansevoort Melville, who seems to be aiming at a rivalry with Anacharsis Cloots for the honor of being considered "Orator of the Human Race," emptied his last bag of blarney into the laps of the ladies and gentlemen who assembled the other night at the Tabernacle to celebrate the seventy-seventh birthday of Gen. Jackson. The whole oration appears to have been a budget of beauties, a congeries of "unstrung pearls," with now and then a boquet of blossoms, fragrant as a poppy bud and redolent of odours from a newly blown swamp cabbage. The following figure, however, is a "metaphor of another smell," and shows a versatility of conception, and stretchiness of imagination worthy of Orator Henley himself. Mr. Melville, addressing himself to the ladies with one of his archest and blandest smiles, said,

"Now, my fair countrywomen, with your permission, a word with you. I grant ye that the Whigs have the advantage of us plain spoken Democrats in scented hair, diamond rings, and white kid gloves—(roars of laughter)—in the language of compliment and the affectation of manner, and most particularly, in the style of dressing. If one of these exquisites wished to express the idea contained in the home-spun adage, 'There is the devil to pay, and no pitch hot,' he would say, 'There is a pecuniary liability due to the old gentleman, and no bituminous matter of the proper temperature, wherewith to liquidate the obligation.'"

This is peculiarly beautiful we acknowledge, and the euphuism put into the mouth of the modern "poodle dog of society" would have charmed Sir Piercie Shafton; but it strikes us that a nautical critic would be apt to accuse Mr. Melville of having no knowledge of his own metaphor. It is not generally understood that the phrase implies any pecuniary obligation to the old rascal from Sulphurdom. When a sailor says there is "the devil to pay and no pitch hot," he simply means that his seams are to be caulked and payed over, and there is no hot tar to do it with. However, we repeat that the figure is decidedly pretty and poetical, and we dare say appropriate to the occasion and the audience ———, or Mr. M. would not have used it.

Portrait of John Henley via The British Museum

Related posts:

• Gansevoort Melville at the 1844 Jackson Jubilee
• Gansevoort Melville as Broadway Exquisite
• Glimpse of tall, very tall Gansevoort in March 1845 

Gansevoort Melville's Height

UPDATE: Turns out "small potato" was a common and freely exchanged slur in 1844, hurled at Democrat and Whig alike without regard to physical height. In Kentucky they called Gansevoort a small potato, but Gansevoort threw it right back at them in calling Theodore Frelinghuysen a "small potato Whig." From the Auburn Journal and Advertiser, October 30, 1844:

Gansevoort Melville.

A fortnight since we referred to the disgraceful terms used by the above “doughty champion of Democracy” in reference to Hon. Theodore Frelinghuysen. The Patriot man, forced by a sense of shame and mortification (perhaps, in a measure awakened by the impolicy of such language in this section) endeavors to help poor Melville out of the mire by a flat denial that any such language was by him used. This, however is altogether too barefaced to be of any service—as in the present case we chance to have in our possession the very language, taken down as heard by those present. After treating for a time of Mr. Clay, the speaker said,— “Theodore Frelinghuysen is a different sort of a Whig—a small potato Whig. He is as cold, selfish, sanctimonious and sacrilegious a man as God Almighty ever made, whose heart never felt one generous pulsation!” Here you have it, Mr. Patriot, word for word. While puffing the other portions of his speech, why did you not also devote a puff or two upon this also? So much for the “doughty” Melville! as well as for his “doughty” reporter of the Patriot.

Auburn [New York] Journal and Advertiser
October 30, 1844

Though dismissed in the New York Commercial Advertiser (and a day later in the New York Spectator, July 12, 1845) as a "small man," Gansevoort had been identified three months earlier by a Richmond, Virginia correspondent of the New York Herald (March 15, 1845) as

"the tall democratic spouter, par excellence."

How big was Herman Melville's big brother, Gansevoort?  Huge, according to the published tribute by family friend William E. Cramer:

"His figure was majestic--some might say colossal...."

Quoting from Cramer's memorial in the Washington Daily Union (June 13, 1846), Hershel Parker observes "there is no record of Gansevoort's height other than this word 'colossal'" (Herman Melville: A Biography, V1.426). Likewise, the obituary in the Albany Argus seemed bent on maximizing Gansevoort's stature, physical or otherwise, with subtly heightening references to his "large" mind and "elevated nature" (as reprinted in the Vermont Gazette, June 9, 1846)

majestic, colossal, large, elevated...

but really, was Gansevoort all that tall?  Taller than 5'9" or so Herman, tall as their "imposing" maternal grandfather Peter Gansevoort, legendarily "gigantic in frame, six feet and four like Washington"?

Peter Gansevoort
1794 by Gilbert Stuart via Wikimedia Commons

I'm thinking not.  Probably not.  For one thing, we already have Gansevoort Melville on record joking about himself as a relatively short person, under six feet tall.  In 1844 Gansevoort's fiery campaign speeches on behalf of Polk and the Democrats won him fame and dubious glory as "Orator of the Human Race."  One of Gansevoort's crowd-pleasing anecdotes rehearsed his encounter down south with a strapping backwoodsman. The humor of the thing lies in the contrast between the robust Tennessean and the slightly-built speaker:

On one occasion, after I had addressed a large popular assemblage, a sturdy frontier's man, who was about six feet high, without a superfluous ounce of flesh upon his stalwart frame, one of your men who never turn their backs on either friend or foe, and who looked as if he could whip his weight in wild cats, (laughter) strode up to me and grasped my hand with an iron energy that gets up reminded me forcibly of a vice, and suddenly withdrawing his grasp, slapped me on the back with tremendous force, sung out--"Old horse--I love you!" (Roars of laughter, repeated again and again.)

In other words, Gansevoort Melville meets Davy Crockett. The point of the story, and the ensuing "roars of laughter," are incomprehensible to me if Gansevoort looked about equal in size and strength to his hulking "six feet high" admirer. The vice-grip, the hearty smack on the back, the astonishing exclamation of support ("Old horse--I love you!") are mainly astonishing, and comical, because of the supposed incongruity in their physical appearances.

New York Herald, November 5, 1844

Corroborating evidence for Gansevoort's shorter-than-we-knew height exists in the form of two negative, not to say nasty remarks by admittedly biased critics in the Whig press. For all their politically motivated harshness, the following squibs independently attest to Gansevoort Melville's noticeably short stature, assuming (particularly in the case of no. 2, below) that "small" means "short in height" as well as more generally "unimpressive' or "insignificant."

1. From the Louisville Daily Journal (September 13, 1844):

“If all the potatoes in Ireland were as small as that chap, the Irish people would starve to death,” said a gentleman on Wednesday evening after hearing Mr. Melville’s speech. 

Here the reference plainly is to physical size. Again the point of the joke is Gansevoort's presumed shortness of stature. Were he a tall man, the joke would instantly self-destruct. As slander of a genuinely big man it won't work either, since the lie would have been obvious and too easily exposed.

2. From the New York Commercial Advertiser (July 11, 1845):

The Evening Post condemns the appointment of Mr. Gansevoort Melville to the clerkship of the London legation. But the Post cannot deny that there is a degree of consistency about it. This is the day of small things in the administration of the government. Mr. Polk is a small man—most of his Cabinet members are small men—and Mr. Gansevoort Melville is a small man—very small. There is one point, however, in which he is unlike Mr. Polk. The President has a faculty of being quiet, but Mr. Gansevoort Melville though a small man, contrives at times to make a prodigious noise.

Reprinted the next day, July 12, 1845 in the New York Spectator:

New York Spectator, July 12, 1845

"Mr. Gansevoort Melville is a small man..."  Indeed, "very small," maybe smaller than James K. Polk

 already nicknamed "Napoleon of the Stump."


As a "small man" might Gansevoort Melville have displayed traits of the Small Man Syndrome?  Any sign of a Napoleon Complex?  Unimaginable when we thought him "colossal," but now perhaps worth thinking about.  Depending on their politics and sensibilities, contemporary hearers found the speeches of Gansevoort (abbreviated "Gas." and sometimes maliciously) full of stirring eloquence, or "the veriest gas" (Albany Journal, July 16, 1845).  Possibly some strain of overcompensating Napoleonic ambition inspired at least a bit of the bluster that won Gansevoort Melville his ambiguous fame as an American Anacharsis Cloots, "Orator of the Human Race."

New York Semi-Weekly Courier and Enquirer, March 23, 1844

Anacharsis Cloots

Related posts:

• Glimpse of "tall, very tall" Gansevoort Melville
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2016/02/glimpse-of-tall-very-tall-gansevoort.html

• Tall after all! Gansevoort Melville the tall democratic spouter
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2012/05/tall-after-all-gansevoort-melville-tall.html

• 1846 memorial by William Cramer https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/09/gansevoort-melville-1846-memorial-by.html