Chapter I: HAVE already sketched a general outline of that pleasant home to which (3)

There were other children, whose names and relation to my friends I do not remember, in the house at the same time, but none that staid so long, or were so much talked of as this. There certainly never were people who received so much company, made so respectable a figure in life, and always kept so large a family about them, with so little tumult or bustle, or indeed at so moderate an expense. What their income was I cannot say; but am sure it could not have been what we should think adequate to the good they did, and the hospitality and beneficence which they practised; for the rents of lands were then of so little value, that, though they possessed a considerable estate in another part of the country, only very moderate profits could result from it; but, indeed, from the simplicity of dress, &c. it was easier; though, in that respect, too, they preserved a kind of dignity, and went beyond others in the materials, though not the form of their apparel. Yet their principal expense was a most plentiful and well ordered table, quite in the English style, which was a kind of innovation: but so many strangers frequented the houses of the three brothers, that it was necessary for them to accommodate themselves to the habits of their guests.

Peter being in his youth an extensive trader, had spent much time in Canada, among the noblesse there, and had served in the continental levies. He had a fine commanding figure, and quite the air and address of a gentleman, and was, when I knew him, an old man.

Intelligent and pleasing in a very high degree, Jeremiah had too much familiar kindness to be looked up to like his brother. Yet he also had a very good understanding, great frankness and affability, and was described by all who knew him, as the very soul of cordial friendship and warm benevolence. He married a polished and well-educated person, whose parents (French protestants) were people of the first fashion in New-York, and had given with her a good fortune, a thing very unusual in that country. They used, in the early years of their marriage, to pay a visit every winter to their connexions at New-York, who passed part of every summer with them. This connexion, as well as that with the Flats, gave an air of polish and a tincture of elegance to this family beyond others; and there were few so gay and social. This cheerfulness was supported by a large family, fourteen, I think, of very promising children. These, however, inheriting from their mother’s family a delicate constitution, died one after another as they came to maturity: one only, a daughter, lived to be married, but died after having had one son and a daughter.

I saw the mother of this large family, after out-living her own children, and a still greater number of brothers and sisters, who had all settled in life, prosperous and flourishing, when she married; I saw her a helpless, bed-ridden invalid, without any remaining tie, but a sordid, grasping son-in-law, and two grand-children, brought up at a distance from her.

With her, too, I was a great favourite, because I listened with interest to her details of early happiness, and subsequent woes and privations—all of which she described to me with great animation, and the most pathetic eloquence. How much a patient listener, who has sympathy and interest to bestow on a tale of woe, will hear! and how affecting are the respect and compassion even of an artless child, to a heart that has felt the bitterness of neglect, and known what it was to pine in solitary sadness! Many a bleak day have I walked a mile to visit this blasted tree, which the storm of calamity had stripped of every leaf! and surely in the house of sorrow the heart is made better.

From this chronicle of past times I derived much information respecting our good aunt; such as she would not have given me herself. The kindness of this generous sister-in-law was, indeed, the only light that shone on the declining days of sister Susan, as she was wont affectionately to call her. What a sad narrative would the detail of this poor woman’s sorrows afford! which, however, she did not relate in a querulous manner, for her soul was subdued by affliction, and she did not “mourn as those that had no hope.” One instance of self-accusation I must record. She used to describe the family she left as being no less happy, united, and highly prosperous, than that into which she came: if, indeed, she could be said to leave it, going, as she did, for some months every year to her mother’s house, whose darling she was, and who, being only fifteen years older than herself, was more like an elder sister, united by fond affection.

She went to New-York to lie in, at her mother’s house, of her four or five first children; her mother at the same time having children as young as hers: and thus caressed at home by a fond husband, and received with exultation by the tenderest parents; young, gay, and fortunate, her removals were only variations of felicity; but gratified in every wish, she knew not what sorrow was, nor how to receive the unwelcome stranger when it arrived. At length she went down to her father’s as usual, to lie in of her fourth child, which died when it was eight days old. She then screamed with agony, and told her mother, who tried by pious counsel to alleviate her grief, that she was the most miserable of human beings; for that no one was capable of loving their child so well as she did hers, and could not think by what sin she had provoked this affliction: finally, she clasped the dead infant to her bosom, and was not, without the utmost difficulty, persuaded to part with it; while her frantic grief outraged all decorum. “After this,” said she, “I have seen my thirteen grown-up children, and my dear and excellent husband, all carried out of this house to the grave: I have lost the worthiest and most affectionate parents, brothers, and sisters, such as few ever had; and however my heart might be pierced with sorrow, it was still more deeply pierced with a conviction of my own past impiety and ingratitude; and under all this affliction, I wept silently and alone—and my outcry or lamentation was never heard by mortal.” What a lesson was this!

This once loved and much respected woman have I seen sitting in her bed, where she had been long confined, neglected by all those whom she had known in her better days, excepting aunt Schuyler, who unwieldy and unfit for visiting as she was, came out two or three times in the year to see her, and constantly sent her kindly tokens of remembrance. Had she been more careful to preserve her independence, and had she accommodated herself more to the plain manners of the people she lived among, she might, in her adversity, have met with more attention; but too conscious of her attainments, lively, regardless, and perhaps vain, and confident of being surrounded and admired by a band of kinsfolk, she was at no pains to conciliate others; she had, too, some expensive habits, which, when the tide of prosperity ebbed, could meet with little indulgence among a people who never entertained an idea of living beyond their circumstances.

Thus, even among those unpolished people, one might learn how severely the insolence of prosperity can be avenged upon us, even by those we have despised and slighted—and who, perhaps, were very much our inferiors in every respect; though both humanity and good sense should prevent our mortifying them, by showing ourselves sensible of that circumstance.

This year was a fatal one to the families of the three brothers. Jeremiah, impatient of the uneasiness caused by a wen upon his neck, submitted to undergo an operation, which being unskilfully performed, ended fatally, to the unspeakable grief of his brothers and of aunt, who was particularly attached to him, and often dwelt on the recollection of his singularly compassionate disposition, the generous openness of his temper, and peculiar warmth of his affections. He, indeed, was “taken away from the evil to come;” for of his large family, one after the other went off, in consequence of the weakness of their lungs, which withstood none of the ordinary diseases of small-pox, measles, &c. till in a few years there was not one remaining.

These were melancholy inroads on the peace of her who might truly be said to “watch and weep, and pray for all;” for nothing could exceed our good aunt’s care and tenderness for this feeble family, who seemed flowers which merely bloomed to wither in their prime; for they were, as is often the case with those who inherit such disorders, beautiful, with quickness of comprehension, and abilities beyond their age.

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CHAP. XXX.

Death of Philip Schuyler—Account of his family, and of the society at
the Flats.

ANOTHER very heavy sorrow followed the death of Jeremiah; Peter, being the eldest brother, his son, as I formerly mentioned, was considered and educated as heir to the colonel. It was Peter’s house that stood next to the colonel’s; their dwellings being arranged according to their ages, the youth was not in the least estranged from his own family (who were half a mile off,) by his residence at his uncle’s, and was peculiarly endeared to all the families, (who regarded him as the future head of their house,) by his gentle manners and excellent qualities. With all these personal advantages which distinguished that comely race, and which give grace and attraction to the unfolding blossoms of virtue, at an early age he was sent to a kind of college, then established in New-Jersey—and he was there instructed as far, as in that place, he could be. He soon formed an attachment for a lady still younger than himself, but so well brought up, and so respectably connected, that his friends were greatly pleased with the marriage, early as it was, and his father, with the highest satisfaction, received the young couple into the house. There they were the delight and ornament of the family, and lived amongst them as a common blessing. The first year of their marriage a daughter was born to them, whom they named Cornelia; and the next, a son, whom they called Peter. The following year, which was the same that deprived them of their brother Jeremiah, proved fatal to a great many children and young people, in consequence of an endemial disease which every now and then used to appear in the country, and made great havoc. It was called the purple or spotted fever, and was probably of the putrid kind: be that as it may, it proved fatal to this interesting young couple. Peter, who had lost his wife but a short time before, was entirely overwhelmed by this stroke: a hardness of hearing, which had been gradually increasing before, deprived him of the consolations he might have derived from society. He encouraged his second son to marry; shut himself up for the most part in his own apartment; and became, in effect, one of those lay-brothers I have formerly described. Yet, when time had blunted the edge of this keen affliction, many years after, when he lived at the Flats, he used to visit us; and though he did not hear well, he conversed with great spirit, and was full of anecdote and information. Meanwhile, madame did not sink under this calamity, though she felt it as much as her husband, but supported him, and exerted herself to extract consolation from performing the duties of a mother to the infant who was now become the representative of the family. Little Peter was accordingly brought home, and succeeded to all that care and affection of which his father had formerly been the object, while Cornelia was taken home to Jersey, to the family of her maternal grandfather, who was a distinguished person in that district. There she was exceedingly well-educated, became an elegant and very pleasing young woman, and was happily and most respectably married before I left the country, as was her brother very soon after. They are still living; and Peter, adhering to what might be called eventually the safer side during the war with the mother country, succeeded undisturbed to his uncle’s inheritance.

All these new cares and sorrows did not in the least abate the hospitality, the popularity, or the public spirit of these truly great minds. Their dwelling, though in some measure become a house of mourning, was still the rendezvous of the wise and worthy, the refuge of the stranger, and an academy for deep and sound thinking, taste, intelligence, and moral beauty. There the plans for the public good were digested by the rulers of the province, who came, under the pretext of a summer excursion for mere amusement. There the operations of the army, and the treaties of peace or alliance with various nations, were arranged; for there the legislators of the state, and the leaders of the war, were received, and mixed serious and important counsels with convivial cheerfulness, and domestic ease and familiarity. It is not to be conceived how essential a point of union, a barrier against license, and a focus, in which the rays of intellect and intelligence were concentrated, (such as in this family,) were to unite the jarring elements of which the community was composed, and to suggest to those who had power without experience, the means of mingling in due proportions its various materials for the public utility. Still, though the details of family happiness were abridged, the spirit that produced it continued to exist, and to find new objects of interest. A mind, elevated by the consciousness of its own powers, and enlarged by the habitual exercise of them, for the great purpose of promoting the good of others, yields to the pressure of calamity, but sinks not under it, particularly when habituated, like these exalted characters, to look through the long vista of futurity, towards the final accomplishment of the designs of providence. Like a diligent gardener, who, when his promising young plants are blasted in full strength and beauty, though he feels extremely for their loss, does not sit down in idle chagrin, but redoubles his efforts to train up their successors to the same degree of excellence. Considering the large family she (madame) always had about her, of which she was the guiding star as well as the informing soul, and the innocent cheerfulness which she encouraged and enjoyed; considering, too, the number of interesting guests whom she received, and that complete union of minds, which made her enter so intimately into all the colonel’s pursuits, it may be wondered how she found time for solid and improved reading; because people whose time is so much occupied in business and society, are apt to relax with amusing trifles of the desultory kind, when they have odd half hours to bestow on literary amusements. But her strong and indefatigable mind never loosened its grasp; ever intent on the useful and the noble, she found little leisure for what are indeed the greatest objects of feeble characters. After the middle of life she went little out; her household, long since arranged by certain general rules, went regularly on, because every domestic knew exactly the duties of his or her place, and dreaded losing it, as the greatest possible misfortune. She had always with her some young person, who was unto her as a daughter—who was her friend and companion, and bred up in such a manner as to qualify her for being such; and one of whose duties it was to inspect the state of the household, and “report progress” with regard to the operations going on in the various departments; for no one better understood or more justly estimated the duties of housewifery. Thus, those young females who had the happiness of being bred under her auspices, very soon became qualified to assist her instead of encroaching much on her time. The example and conversation of the family in which they lived, was to them a perpetual school for useful knowledge, and manners easy and dignified, though natural and artless. They were not indeed embellished, but then they were not deformed by affectation, pretensions, or defective imitation of fashionable models of nature. They were not indeed bred up “to dance, to dress, to roll the eye, or troll the tongue;” yet they were not lectured into unnatural gravity or frozen reserve. I have seen those of them who were lovely, gay and animated, though in the words of an old familiar lyric,

“Without disguise or art, like flowers they grace the wild,
Their sweets they did impart, whene’er they spoke or smil’d.”

Two of those to whom this description particularly applies, still live, and still retain not only evident traces of beauty, but that unstudied grace and dignity which is the result of conscious worth and honour, habituated to receive the tribute of general respect. This is the privilege of minds which are always in their own place, and neither stoop to solicit applause from their inferiors, nor strive to rise to a fancied equality with those whom nature or fortune have placed beyond them.

Aunt was a great manager of her time, and always contrived to create leisure hours for reading; for that kind of conversation, which is properly styled gossiping, she had the utmost contempt. Light, superficial reading, such as merely fills a blank in time, and glides over the mind without leaving an impression, was little known there; for few books crossed the Atlantic but such as were worth carrying so far for their intrinsic value. She was too much accustomed to have her mind occupied with objects of real weight and importance, to give it up to frivolous pursuits of any kind. She began the morning with reading the scriptures. They always breakfasted early, and dined two hours later than the primitive inhabitants, who always took that meal at twelve. This departure from the ancient customs was necessary in this family, to accommodate the great numbers of British as well as strangers from New-York, who were daily entertained at her liberal table. This arrangement gave her the advantage of a longer forenoon to dispose of. After breakfast she gave orders for the family details of the day, which, without a scrupulous attention to those minutiæ which fell more properly under the notice of her young friends, she always regulated in the most judicious manner, so as to prevent all appearance of hurry and confusion. There was such a rivalry among domestics, whose sole ambition was her favour, and who had been so trained up from infancy, each to their several duties, that excellence in each department was the result both of habit and emulation; while her young protégés were early taught the value and importance of good housewifery, and were sedulous in their attention to little matters of decoration and elegance, which her mind was too much engrossed to attend to; so that her household affairs, ever well regulated, went on in a mechanical kind of progress, that seemed to engage little of her attention, though her vigilant and overruling mind set every spring of action in motion. Having thus easily and speedily arranged the details of the day, she retired to read in her closet, where she generally remained till about eleven, when, being unequal to distant walks, the colonel and she, and some of her elder guests, passed some of the hotter hours among those embowering shades of her garden, in which she took great pleasure. Here was their lyceum; here questions in religion and morality, too weighty for table-talk, were leisurely and coolly discussed, and plans of policy and various utility arranged. From this retreat they adjourned to the portico; and while the colonel either retired to write, or went to give directions to his servants, she sat in this little tribunal, giving audience to new settlers, followers of the army left in hapless dependence, and others who wanted assistance or advice, or hoped she would intercede with the colonel for something more peculiarly in his way, he having great influence with the colonial government. At the usual hour, her dinner-party assembled, which was generally a large one; and here I must digress from the detail of the day to observe, that, looking up as I always did to madame with admiring veneration, and having always heard her mentioned with unqualified applause, I look often back to think what defects or faults she could possibly have to rank with the sons and daughters of imperfection, inhabiting this transitory scene of existence, well knowing, from subsequent observation of life, that error is the unavoidable portion of humanity. Yet of this truism, to which every one will readily subscribe, I can recollect no proof in my friend’s conduct, unless the luxury of her table might be produced to confirm it. Yet this, after all, was but comparative luxury. There was more choice and selection, and, perhaps, more abundance at her table, than those of the other primitive inhabitants; yet how simple were her repasts, compared to those with which the luxury of the higher ranks in this country offer to provoke the sated appetite. Her dinner-party generally consisted of some of her intimate friends or near relations; her adopted children, who were inmates for the time being; and strangers sometimes invited, merely as friendless travellers, on the score of hospitality, but often welcomed for some time as stationary visitors, on account of worth or talents, that gave value to their society; and lastly, military guests, selected with some discrimination, on account of the young friends, whom they wished not only to protect, but cultivate by an improving association. Conversation here was always rational, generally instructive, and often cheerful. The afternoon frequently brought with it a new set of guests. Tea was always drank early here; and, as I have formerly observed, was attended with so many petty luxuries of pastry, confectionary, &c. that it might well be accounted a meal by those whose early and frugal dinners had so long gone by. In Albany it was customary, after the heat of the day was past, for the young people to go in parties of three or four, in open carriages, to drink tea at an hour or two’s drive from town. The receiving and entertaining this sort of company, generally was the province of the younger part of the family; and of these parties many came, in summer evenings, to the Flats, when tea, which was very early, was over. The young people, and those who were older, took their different walks, while madame sat in her portico, engaged in what might comparatively be called light reading, essays, biography, poetry, &c. till the younger party set out on their return home, and her domestic friends rejoined her in her portico, where, in warm evenings, a slight repast was sometimes brought; but they more frequently shared the last and most truly social meal within.

Winter made little difference in her mode of occupying her time. She then always retired to her closet to read at stated periods.

In conversation she certainly took delight, and peculiarly excelled, yet did not in the least engross it, or seem to dictate. On the contrary, her thirst of knowledge was such, and she possessed such a peculiar talent for discovering the point of utility in all things, that from every one’s discourse she extracted some information, on which the light of her mind was thrown in such a direction as made it turn to account. Whenever she laid down her book she took up her knitting, which neither occupied her eyes nor attention, while it kept her fingers engaged, thus setting an example of humble diligence to her young protégés. In this employment she had a kind of tender satisfaction, as little children, reared in the family, were the only objects of her care in this respect. For those, she constantly provided a supply of hosiery till they were seven years old, and after that, transferred her attention to some younger favourite. In her earlier days, when her beloved husband could share the gaieties of society, I have been told they both had a high relish for innocent mirth, and every species of humorous pleasantry; but in my time there was a chastened gravity in her discourse, which, however, did not repulse innocent cheerfulness, though it dashed all manner of levity, and that flippancy which great familiarity sometimes encourages among young people who live much together. Had madame, with the same good sense, the same high principle, and general benevolence towards young people, lived in society, such as is to be met with in Britain, the principle upon which she acted would have led her to have encouraged, in such society, more gaiety and freedom of manners. As the regulated forms of life in Britain set bounds to the ease that accompanies good breeding and refinement, generally diffused, supplies the place of native delicacy, where that is wanting, a certain decent freedom is both safe and allowable. But amid the simplicity of primitive manners, those bounds are not so well defined. Under these circumstances, mirth is a romp, and humour a buffoon; and both must be kept within strict limits.

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CHAP. XXXI.

Family details.

THE hospitalities of this family were so far beyond their apparent income, that all strangers were astonished at them. To account for this, it must be observed that, in the first place, there was, perhaps, scarce an instance of a family possessing such uncommonly well-trained, active, and diligent slaves as those I describe. The set that were staid servants when they married, had some of them died off by the time I knew the family; but the principal roots from whence the many branches, then flourishing, sprung, yet remained. These were two women, who had come originally from Africa while very young; they were most excellent servants, and the mothers or grandmothers of the whole set, except of one white-woolled negro-man, who, in my time, sat by the chimney and made shoes for all the rest. The great pride and happiness of those sable matrons were, to bring up their children to dexterity, diligence, and obedience. Diana being determined that Maria’s children should not excel hers in any quality which was a recommendation to favour; and Maria equally resolved that her brood, in the race of excellence, should outstrip Diana’s. Never was a more fervent competition. That of Phillis and Brunetta, in the Spectator, was a trifle to it: and it was extremely difficult to decide on their respective merits; for though Maria’s son Prince cut down wood with more dexterity and despatch than any one in the province, the mighty Cæsar, son of Diana, cut down wheat, and threshed it, better than he. His sister Betty, who, to her misfortune, was a beauty of her kind, and possessed wit equal to her beauty, was the best sempstress and laundress, by far, I have ever known; and plain, unpretending Rachael, sister to Prince, wife to Titus, alias Tyte, and head cook, dressed dinners that might have pleased Apicius. I record my old humble friends by their real names, because they allowedly stood at the head of their own class, and distinction of every kind should be respected. Besides, when the curtain drops, or, indeed, long before it falls, it is, perhaps, more creditable to have excelled in the lowest parts, than to have fallen miserably short in the higher. Of the inferior personages, in this dark drama I have been characterizing, it would be tedious to tell: suffice it, that besides filling up all the lower departments of the household, and cultivating to the highest advantage a most extensive farm, there was a thorough-bred carpenter and shoemaker, and an universal genius who made canoes, nets, and paddles, shod horses, mended implements of husbandry, managed the fishing, in itself no small department, reared hemp and tobacco, and spun both; made cider, and tended wild horses, (as they called them,) which was his province to manage and to break. For every branch of the domestic economy, there was a person allotted—educated for the purpose; and this society was kept immaculate, in the same way that the quakers preserve the rectitude of theirs, and, indeed, in the only way that any community can be preserved from corruption; when a member showed symptoms of degeneracy, he was immediately expelled, or in other words more suitable to this case, sold. Among the domestics, there was such a rapid increase, in consequence of their marrying very early, and living comfortably without care, that if they had not been detached off with the young people brought up in the house, they would have swarmed like an over-stocked bee-hive.

The prevention of crime was so much attended to in this well-regulated family, that there was very little punishment necessary; none that I ever heard of, but such as Diana and Maria inflicted on their progeny, with a view to prevent the dreaded sentence of expulsion. Notwithstanding the petty rivalry between the branches of the two original stocks, intermarriages between the Montagues and Capulets of the kitchen, which frequently took place, and the habit of living together under the same mild, though regular government, produced a general cordiality and affection among all the members of the family, who were truly ruled by the law of love; and even those who occasionally differed about trifles, had an unconscious attachment to each other, which showed itself on all emergencies. Treated themselves with care and gentleness, they were careful and kind with regard to the only inferiors and dependants they had, the domestic animals. The superior personages in the family, had always some good property to mention, or good saying to repeat of those whom they cherished into attachment, and exalted into intelligence; while they, in their turn, improved the sagacity of their subject animals, by caressing and talking to them. Let no one laugh at this; for whenever man is at ease and unsophisticated, where his native humanity is not extinguished by want or chilled by oppression, it overflows to inferior beings, and improves their instincts to a degree incredible to those who have not witnessed it. In all mountainous countries, where man is more free, more genuine, and more divided into little societies much detached from others, and much attached to each other, this cordiality of sentiment, this overflow of good will takes place. The poet says,

“Humble love, and not proud reason,
Keeps the door of heaven.”

This question must be left for divines to determine; but sure am I that humble love and not proud reason, keeps the door of earthly happiness, as far as it is attainable. I am not going, like the admirable Crichton, to make an oration in praise of ignorance; but a very high degree of refinement certainly produces a quickness of discernment, a niggard approbation, and a fastidiousness of taste, that find a thousand repulsive and disgusting qualities mingled with those that excite our admiration, and would, (were we less critical,) produce affection. Alas! that the tree should so literally impart the knowledge of good and evil; much evil and little good. It is time to return from this excursion to the point from which I set out.

The Princes and Cæsars of the Flats had as much to tell of the sagacity and attachments of the animals, as their mistress related of their own. Numberless anecdotes that delighted me in the last century, I would recount, but fear I should not find my audience of such easy belief as I was, nor so convinced of the integrity of my informers. One circumstance I must mention, because I well know it to be true. The colonel had a horse which he rode occasionally, but which oftener travelled with Mrs. Schuyler in an open carriage. At particular times, when bringing home hay or corn, they yoked Wolf, for so he was called, in a waggon; an indignity to which, for a while, he unwillingly submitted. At length, knowing resistance was vain, he had recourse to stratagem; and whenever he saw Tyte marshalling his cavalry for service, he swam over to the island, the umbrageous and tangled border of which I formerly mentioned; there he fed with fearless impunity till he saw the boat approach; whenever that happened, he plunged into the thicket, and led his followers such a chase, that they were glad to give up the pursuit. When he saw from his retreat that the work was over, and the fields bare, he very coolly returned. Being, by this time, rather old, and a favourite, the colonel allowed him to be indulged in his dislike to drudgery. The mind which is at ease, neither stung by remorse, nor goaded by ambition or other turbulent passions, nor worn with anxiety for the supply of daily wants, nor sunk into languor by stupid idleness, forms attachments and amusements, to which those exalted by culture would not stoop, and those crushed by want and care could not rise. Of this nature was the attachment to the tame animals, which the domestics appropriated to themselves, and to the little fanciful gardens where they raised herbs or plants of difficult culture, to sell and give to their friends. Each negro was indulged with his racoon, his great squirrel or muskrat, or perhaps his beaver, which he tamed and attached to himself, by daily feeding and caressing him in the farm-yard. One was sure about all such houses to find these animals, in whom their masters took the highest pleasure. All these small features of human nature must not be despised for their minuteness; to a good mind they afford consolation.

Science, directed by virtue, is a god-like enlargement of the powers of human nature; and exalted rank is so necessary a finish to the fabric of society, and so invariable a result from its regular establishment, that, in respecting those whom the divine wisdom has set above us, we perform a duty such as we expect from our own inferiors, which helps to support the general order of society. But so very few, in proportion to the whole, can be enlightened by science, or exalted by situation, that a good mind draws comfort from discovering even the petty enjoyments permitted to those in the state we consider most abject and depressed.

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CHAP. XXXII.

Resources of madame—Provincial customs.

IT may appear extraordinary, with so moderate an income as could, in those days, be derived even from a considerable estate in that country, how madame found means to support that liberal hospitality which they constantly exercised. I know the utmost they could derive from their lands, and it was not much. Some money they had, but nothing adequate to the dignity, simple as it was, of their style of living, and the very large family they always drew round them. But with regard to the plenty, one might almost call it luxury, of their table, it was supplied from a variety of sources, that rendered it less expensive than could be imagined. Indians, grateful for the numerous benefits they were daily receiving from them, were constantly bringing the smaller game, and in winter and spring, loads of venison. Little money passed from one hand to another in the country; but there was constantly, as there always is in primitive abodes, before the age of calculation begins, a kindly commerce of presents. The people of New-York and Rhode-Island, several of whom were wont to pass a part of the summer with the colonel’s family, were loaded with all the productions of the farm and river. When they went home, they again never failed, at the season, to send a large supply of oysters and all other shell-fish, which at New-York abounded; besides great quantities of tropical fruit, which, from the short run between Jamaica and New-York, were there almost as plenty and cheap as in their native soil. Their farm yielded them abundantly all, that in general, a musket can supply; and the young relatives who grew up about the house, were rarely a day without bringing some supply from the wood or the stream. The negroes, whose business lay frequently in the woods, never willingly went there, or any where else, without a gun, and rarely came back empty-handed. Presents of wine, then a very usual thing to send to friends to whom you wished to show a mark of gratitude, came very often, possibly from the friends of the young people who were reared and instructed in that house of benediction; as there were no duties paid for the entrance of any commodity then, wine, rum, and sugar, were cheaper than can easily be imagined, and in cider they abounded.

The negroes of the three truly united brothers, not having home employment in winter, after preparing fuel, used to cut down trees, and carry them to an adjoining saw-mill, where, in a very short time, they made great quantities of planks, staves, &c., which is usually styled lumber, for the West-India market. And when a ship-load of their flour, lumber, and salted provisions was accumulated, some relative, for their behoof, freighted a vessel, and went out to the West-Indies with it. In this stygian schooner, the departure of which was always looked forward to with unspeakable horror, all the stubborn or otherwise unmanageable slaves were embarked, to be sold by way of punishment. This produced such salutary terror, that preparing the lading of this fatal vessel generally operated a temporary reform at least. When its cargo was discharged in the West-Indies, it took in a lading of wine, rum, sugar, coffee, chocolate, and all other West-India productions, paying for whatever fell short of the value—and returning to Albany, sold the surplus to their friends, after reserving to themselves a most liberal supply of all the articles thus imported. Thus they had not only a profusion of all the requisites for good house-keeping, but had it in their power to do what was not unusual there in wealthy families, though none carried it so far as these worthies.

In process of time, as people multiplied, when a man had eight or ten children to settle in life, and these marrying early, and all their families increasing fast, though they always were considered as equals, and each kept a neat house and decent outside, yet it might be that some of them were far less successful than others in their various efforts to support their families; but these deficiencies were supplied in a quiet and delicate way, by presents of every thing a family required, sent from all their connexions and acquaintances—which, where there was a continual sending back and forward of sausages, pigs, roasting-pieces, &c. from one house to another, excited little attention; but when aunt’s West-India cargo arrived, all the families of this description within her reach, had an ample boon sent them of her new supply.

The same liberal spirit animated her sister, a very excellent person, who was married to Cornelius Cuyler, then mayor of Albany, who had been a most successful Indian trader in his youth, and had acquired large possessions, and carried on an extensive commercial intercourse with the traders of that day, bringing from Europe quantities of those goods that best suited them, and sending back their peltry in exchange. He was not only wealthy, but hospitable, intelligent, and liberal-minded, as appeared by his attachment to the army, which was, in those days, the distinguishing feature of those who in knowledge and candour were beyond others. His wife had the same considerate and prudent generosity, which ever directed the humanity of her sister; though having a large family, she could not carry it to so great an extent.

If this maternal friend of their mutual relatives could be said to have a preference among her own and her husband’s relations, it was certainly to this family. The eldest son Philip, who bore her husband’s name, was on that and other accounts, a particular favourite, and was, I think, as much with them in childhood, as his attention to his education, which was certainly the best the province could afford, would permit.

Having become distinguished through all the northern provinces, the common people, and the inferior class of the military, had learned from the Canadians who frequented her house, to call aunt, Madame Schuyler; but by one or other of these appellations she was universally known; and a kindly custom prevailed, for those who were received into any degree of intimacy in her family, to address her as their aunt, though not in the least related. This was done oftener to her than others, because she excited more respect and affection, but it had, in some degree, the sanction of custom. The Albanians were sure to call each other aunt or cousin, as far as the most strained construction would carry those relations. To strangers they were indeed very shy at first, but extremely kind; when they not only proved themselves estimable, but by a condescension to their customs, and acquiring a smattering of their language, ceased to be strangers, then they were generally in the habit of calling each other cousin; and thus in an hour of playful or tender intimacy I have known it more than once begin: “I think you like me well enough, and I am sure I like you very well; come, why should not we be cousins? I am sure I should like very well to be your cousin, for I have no cousins of my own where I can reach them. Well, then you shall be my cousin for ever and ever.” In this uncouth language, and in this artless manner, were these leagues of amity commenced. Such an intimacy was never formed unless the object of it were a kind of favourite with the parents, who immediately commenced uncle and aunt to the new cousin. This, however, was a high privilege, only to be kept by fidelity and good conduct. If you exposed your new cousin’s faults, or repeated her minutest secrets, or by any other breach of constancy lost favour, it was as bad as refusing a challenge; you were coldly received every where, and could never regain your footing in society.

Aunt’s title, however, became current every where, and was most completely confirmed in the year 1750, when she gave with more than common solemnity, a kind of annual feast, to which the colonel’s two brothers and his sisters, aunt’s sister, Mrs. Cornelius Cuyler, and their families, with several others related to them, assembled. This was not given on a stated day, but at the time when most of these kindred could be collected. This year I have often heard my good friend commemorate, as that on which their family stock of happiness felt the first diminution. The feast was made, and attended by all the collateral branches, consisting of fifty-two, who had a claim by marriage or descent, to call the colonel and my friend uncle and aunt, besides their parents. Among these were reckoned three or four grandchildren of their brothers. At this grand gala, there could be no less than sixty persons, but many of them were doomed to meet no more; for the next year the small-pox, always peculiarly mortal here, (where it was improperly treated in the old manner,) broke out with great virulence, and raged like a plague; but none of those relatives whom Mrs. Schuyler had domesticated suffered by it; and the skill which she had acquired from the communications of the military surgeons who were wont to frequent her house, enabled her to administer advice and assistance, which essentially benefited many of the patients in whom she was particularly interested; though even her influence could not prevail on people to have recourse to inoculation. The patriarchal feast of the former year, and the humane exertions of this, made the colonel and his consort appear so much in the light of public benefactors, that all the young regarded them with a kind of filial reverence, and the addition of uncle and aunt was become confirmed and universal, and was considered as an honourary distinction. The ravages which the small-pox made this year among their Mohawk friends, was a source of deep concern to these revered philanthropists; but this was an evil not to be remedied by any ordinary means. These people being accustomed from early childhood to anoint themselves with bear’s grease, to repel the innumerable tribes of noxious insects in summer, and to exclude the extreme cold in winter, their pores are so completely shut up that the small-pox does not rise upon them, nor have they much chance of recovery from any acute disease; but, excepting the fatal infection already mentioned, they are not subject to any other but the rheumatism, unless in very rare instances. The ravages of disease this year operated on their population as a blow, which it never recovered; and they considered the small-pox in a physical, and the use of strong liquors in a moral sense, as two plagues which we had introduced among them, for which our arts, our friendship, and even our religion, were a very inadequate recompense.

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CHAP. XXXIII.

Followers of the army—Inconveniences resulting from such.

TO return to the legion of commissaries, &c. These employments were at first given to very inferior people; it was seen, however, that as the scale of military operations and erections increased, these people were enriching themselves both at the expense of the king and the inhabitants, whom they frequently exasperated into insolence or resistance, and then used that pretext to keep in their own hands the payments to which these people were entitled. When their waggons and slaves were pressed into the service, it was necessary to employ such persons from the first. The colonel and the mayor, and all whom they could influence, did all they could to alleviate an evil that could not be prevented, and was daily aggravating disaffection. They found, as the importance of these offices increased, it would conduce more to the public good, by larger salaries to induce people to accept them who were gentlemen, and had that character to support; and who, being acquainted with the people and their language, knew best how to qualify and soften, and where to apply—so as least to injure or irritate. Some young men belonging to the country, were at length prevailed on to accept two or three of these offices, which had the happiest effect in conciliating and conquering the aversion that existed against the _regulars_.

Among the first of the natives who engaged in those difficult employments, was one of aunt’s adopted sons, formerly mentioned; Philip Schuyler, of the pasture, as he was called, to distinguish him from the other nephew, who, had he lived, would have been the colonel’s heir. He appeared merely a careless, good-humoured young man. Never was any one so little what he seemed, with regard to ability, activity, and ambition, art, enterprise, and perseverance, all of which he possessed in an uncommon degree, though no man had less the appearance of these qualities; easy, complying, and good-humoured, the conversations, full of wisdom and sound policy, of which he had been a seemingly inattentive witness at the Flats, only slept in his recollection, to awake in full force, when called forth by occasion.

A shrewd and able man, who was, I think, a brigadier in the service, was appointed quarter-master-general, with the entire superintendence of all the boats, buildings, &c. in New-York, the Jerseys, and Canadian frontier. He had married, when very young, a daughter of Colonel Renssalaer. Having at the time no settled plan for the support of a young family, he felt it incumbent on him to make some unusual exertion for them. Colonel Schuyler and his consort, not only advised him to accept an inferior employment in this business, but recommended him to the Brigadier Bradstreet, who had the power of disposing of such offices, which were daily growing in importance. They well knew that he possessed qualities which might not only render him an useful servant to the public, but clear his way to fortune and distinction. His perfect command of temper, acuteness, and dispatch in business, and in the hour of social enjoyment, easily relapsing into all that careless, frank hilarity and indolent good-humour, which seems the peculiar privilege of the free and disencumbered mind; active and companionable, made him a great acquisition to any person under whom he might happen to be employed. This the penetration of Bradstreet soon discovered; and he became not only his secretary and deputy, but in a short time after, his ambassador, as one might say; for before Philip Schuyler was twenty-two, the general, as he was universally styled, sent him to England, to negotiate some business of importance with the board of trade and plantations. In the mean while, some other young men, natives of the country, accepted employments in the same department, by this time greatly extended. Averse as the country people were to the army, they began to relish the advantage derived from the money which that body of protectors, so much feared and detested, expended among them. This was more considerable than might at first be imagined. Government allowed provisions to the troops serving in America, without which they could not indeed have proceeded through an uninhabited country; where, even in such places as were inhabited, there were no regular markets, no competition for supply; nothing but exorbitant prices could tempt those people who were not poor, and found a ready market for all their produce in the West-Indies. Now, having a regular supply of such provisions as are furnished to the fleet, they had no occasion to lay out their money for such things; and rather purchased the produce of the country, liquors, &c. for which the natives took care to make them pay very high, an evil which the Schuyler’s moderated as much as possible, though they could not check it entirely. This provision system was a very great though necessary evil, for it multiplied contractors, commissaries, and store-keepers, without end. At a distance from the source of authority, abuses increase, and redress becomes more difficult, which is, of itself, a sufficient argument against the extension of dominion. Many of these new comers were ambiguous characters, originally from the old country, (as expatriated Britons fondly call their native land,) but little known in this, and not happy specimens of that they had left. These satellites of delegated power had all the insolence of office, and all that avidity of gain, which a sudden rise of circumstances creates in low and unprincipled minds; and they, from the nature of their employment, and the difficulty of getting provisions transported from place to place, were very frequently the medium of that intercourse carried on between the military and the natives; and did not by any means contribute to raise the British character in their estimation.

I dwell more minutely on all these great though necessary evils, which invariably attend an army in its progress through a country which is the theatre of actual war, that the reader may be led to set a just value on the privileges of this highly favoured region, which, sitting on many waters, sends forth her thunders through the earth: and while the farthest extremes of east and west bend to her dominion, has not for more than half a century heard the sound of hostility within her bounds. Many unknown persons, who were in some way attached to the army, and resolved to live by it in some shape, set up as traders; carried stores suited to military consumption along with them, and finally established themselves as merchants in Albany. Some of these proved worthy characters, however; and intermarrying with the daughters of the citizens, and adopting, in some degree, their sober manners, became, in process of time, estimable members of society. Others, and, indeed, the most part of them, rose like exhalations; and obtaining credit by dint of address and assurance, glittered for a time; affecting showy and expensive modes of living, and aping the manners of their patrons. These, as soon as peace diminished the military establishment, and put an end to that ferment and fluctuation which the actual presence of war never fails to excite, burst like bubbles on the surface of the subsiding waves, and astonished the Albanians with the novel spectacle of bankruptcy and imprisonment. All this gradually wrought a change on the face of society; yet such was the disgust which the imputed licentiousness, foppery, and extravagance of the officers, and the pretensions, unsupported by worth or knowledge of their apes and followers, produced, that the young persons who first married those ambiguous new comers, generally did so without the consent of their parents, whose affection for their children, however, soon reconciled them.

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CHAP. XXXIV.

Arrival of a new regiment—Domine Freylinghausen.