Chapter I: HAVE already sketched a general outline of that pleasant home to which (4)

A regiment came to town about this time, the superior officers of which were younger, more gay, and less amenable to good counsel than those who used to command the troops which had formerly been placed on this station. They paid their visits at the Flats, and were received—but not as usual, cordially; neither their manners nor morals being calculated for that meridian. Part of the royal Americans or independent companies, had, at this time, possession of the fort; some of these had families—and they were, in general, persons of decent morals, and a moderate and judicious way of thinking, who, though they did not court the society of the natives, expressed no contempt for their manners or opinions. The regiment I speak of, on the contrary, turned those plain burghers into the highest ridicule, yet used every artifice to get acquainted with them. They wished, in short, to act the part of very fine gentlemen; and the gay and superficial in those days, were but too apt to take for their model the fine gentlemen of the detestable old comedies, which good taste has now very properly exploded; and at which, in every stage of society, the uncorrupted mind must have felt infinite disgust. Yet forms arrayed in gold and scarlet, and rendered more imposing by an air of command and authority, occasionally softened down into gentleness and submission; and by that noisy gaiety which youthful inexperience mistakes for happiness, and that flippant petulance, which those who knew not much of the language, and nothing at all of the world, mistook for wit, were very ensnaring. Those dangerously accomplished heroes made their appearance at a time when the English language began to be more generally understood; and when the pretensions of the merchants, commissaries, &c. to the stations they occupied, were no longer dubious. Those polished strangers now began to make a part of general society. At this crisis it was found necessary to have recourse to billets. The superior officers had generally been either received at the Flats or accommodated in a large house which the colonel had in town. The manner in which the hospitality of that family was exercised; the selection which they made of such as were fitted to associate with the young persons who dwelt under their protection, always gave a kind of tone to society, and held out a light to others.

Madame’s sister, as I before observed, was married to the respectable and intelligent magistrate, who administered justice not only to the town, but to the whole neighbourhood. In their house, also, such of the military were received, and kindly entertained, as had the sanction of their sister’s approbation. This judicious and equitable person, who, in the course of trading in early life upon the lakes, had undergone many of the hardships, and even dangers, which awaited the military in that perilous path of duty, knew well what they had to encounter in the defence of a surly and self-righted race, who were little inclined to show them common indulgence, far less gratitude. He judged equitably between both parties; and while with the most patriotic steadiness he resisted every attempt of the military to seize any thing with a high hand—he set the example himself, and used every art of persuasion to induce his countrymen to every concession that could conduce to the ease and comfort of their protectors. So far, at length, he succeeded; that when the regiment to which I allude, arrived in town, and showed in general an amiable and obliging disposition, they were quartered in different houses; the superior officers being lodged willingly by the most respectable of the inhabitants, such as not having large families, had room to accommodate them. The colonel and madame happened at the time of these arrangements, to be at New-York.

In the mean while society began to assume a new aspect; of the satellites, which, on various pretexts, official and commercial, had followed the army, several had families, and those began to mingle more frequently with the inhabitants, who were, as yet, too simple to detect the surreptitious tone of lax morals and second-hand manners which prevailed among many of those who had but very lately climbed up to the stations they held, and in whose houses the European modes and diversions were to be met with; these were not in the best style, yet even in that style they began to be relished by some young persons, with whom the power of novelty prevailed over that of habit; and in a few rare instances, the influence of the young drew the old into a faint consent to these attempted innovations; but with many the resistance was not to be overcome.

In this state of matters, one guardian genius watched over the community with unremitting vigilance. From the original settlement of the place there had been a succession of good, quiet clergymen, who came from Holland to take the command of this expatriated colony. These good men found an easy charge among a people with whom the external duties of religion were settled habits, which no one thought of dispensing with; and where the primitive state of manners, and the constant occupation of the mind in planting and defending a territory where every thing was, as it were, to be new created, was a preservation to the morals. Religion being never branded with the reproach of imputed hypocrisy, or darkened by the frown of austere bigotry, was venerated even by those who were content to glide thoughtless down the stream of time, without seriously considering whither it was conveying them, till sorrow or sickness reminded them of the great purpose for which they were indulged with the privilege of existence.

The dominees, as these people called their ministers, contented themselves with preaching in a sober and moderate strain to the people; and living quietly in the retirement of their families, were little heard of but in the pulpit; and they seemed to consider a studious privacy as one of their chief duties. Domine Freylinghausen, however, was not contented with this quietude, which he seemed to consider as tending to languish into indifference. Ardent in his disposition, eloquent in his preaching, animated and zealous in his conversation, and frank and popular in his manners, he thought it his duty to awaken in every breast that slumbering spirit of devotion, which he considered as lulled by security, or drooping in the meridian of prosperity, like tender plants in the blaze of sunshine. These he endeavoured to refresh by daily exhortation, as well as by the exercise of his public duties. Though rigid in some of his notions, his life was spotless, and his concern for his people warm and affectionate. His endeavours to amend and inspire them with happier desires and aims, were considered as the labour of love, and rewarded by the warmest affection, and the most profound veneration; and what to him was of much more value, by a growing solicitude for the attainment of that higher order of excellence, which it was his delight to point out to them. But while he thus incessantly “allured to brighter worlds, and led the way,” he might, perhaps, insensibly have acquired a taste of dominion, which might make him unwilling to part with any portion of that most desirable species of power, which subjects to us, not human actions only, but the will which directs them. A vulgar ambition contents itself with power to command obedience, but the more exalted and refined ambition aims at domination over the mind. Hence the leaders of a sect, or even those who have powers to awake the dying embers of pious fervour, sway the hearts of their followers in a manner far more gratifying to them than any enjoyment to be derived from temporal power. That this desire should unconsciously gain ground in a virtuous and ardent mind, is not wonderful, when one considers how the best propensities of the human heart are flattered, by supposing that we only sway the minds of others, to incline them to the paths of peace and happiness, and derive no other advantage from this tacit sovereignty, but that of seeing those objects of affectionate solicitude grow wiser and better.

To return to the apostolic and much beloved Freylinghausen. The progress which this regiment made in the good graces of his flock, and the gradual assimilation to English manners of a very inferior standard, alarmed and grieved the good man not a little; and the intelligence he received from some of the elders of his church, who had the honour of lodging the more dissipated subalterns, did not administer much comfort to him. By this time the Anglomania was beginning to spread. A sect arose among the young people, who seemed resolved to assume a lighter style of dress and manners, and to borrow their taste, in those respects, from their new friends. This bade fair soon to undo all the good pastor’s labours. The evil was daily growing—and what, alas! could Domine Freylinghausen do but preach! This he did earnestly and even angrily, but in vain. Many were exasperated, but none reclaimed. The good domine, however, had those who shared his sorrows and resentments; the elder and wiser heads of families, and, indeed, a great majority of the primitive inhabitants, were steadfast against innovation. The colonel of the regiment, who was a man of fashion and family, and possessed talents for both good and evil purposes, was young and gay; and being lodged in the house of a very wealthy citizen, who had before, in some degree, affected the newer modes of living, so captivated him with his good breeding and affability, that he was ready to humour any scheme of diversion which the colonel and his associates proposed. Under the auspices of this gallant commander, balls began to be concerted, and a degree of flutter and frivolity to take place, which was as far from elegance as it was from the honest, artless cheerfulness of the meetings usual among them. The good domine more and more alarmed, not content with preaching, now began to prophecy; but like Cassandra, or, to speak as justly, though less poetically, like his whole fraternity, was doomed always to deliver true predictions to those who never heeded them.

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CHAP. XXXV.

Plays acted—Displeasure of the Domine.

NOW the very ultimatum of degeneracy, in the opinion of these simple good people, was approaching; for now the officers, encouraged by the success of all their projects for amusement, resolved to new fashion and enlighten those amiable novices whom their former schemes had attracted within the sphere of their influence; and, for this purpose, a private theatre was fitted up, and preparations made for acting a play. Except the Schuylers and their adopted family, there was not, perhaps, one of the natives who understood what was meant by a play. And by this time, the town, once so closely united by intermarriages and numberless other ties, which could not exist in any other state of society, were divided into two factions; one consisting almost entirely of such of the younger class, as, having a smattering of New-York education, and a little more of dress and vivacity, or, perhaps, levity, than the rest, were eager to mingle in the society, and adopt the manners of those strangers. It is but just, however, to add, that only a few of the more estimable were included in this number; these, however they might have been captivated with novelty and plausibility, were too much attached to their older relations to give them pain, by an intimacy with people to whom an impious neglect of duties the most sacred, was generally imputed, and whose manner of treating their inferiors, at that distance from the control of higher powers, was often such as to justify the imputation of cruelty, which the severity of military punishments had given rise to. The play, however, was acted in a barn, and pretty well attended, notwithstanding the good Domine’s earnest charges to the contrary. It was the Beaux Stratagem; no favourable specimen of the delicacy or morality of the British theatre; and as for the wit it contains, very little of that was level to the comprehension of the novices who were there first initiated into a knowledge of the magic of the scene, yet they “laughed consumedly,” as Scrub says, and actually did so, “because they were talking of him.” They laughed at Scrub’s gestures and appearance: and they laughed very heartily at seeing the gay young ensigns, whom they had been used to dance with, flirting fans, displaying great hoops, and with painted cheeks and coloured eyebrows, sailing about in female habiliments. This was a jest palpable and level to every understanding; and it was not only an excellent good one, but lasted a long while; for every time they looked at them when restored to their own habits, they laughed anew at the recollection of their late masquerade. “It is much,” says Falstaff, “that a lie with a grave face, and a jest with a sad brow, will do with a fellow who never had the ache in his shoulders.” One need only look back to the first rude efforts at comic humour which delighted our fathers, to know what gross and feeble jests amuse the mind, as yet a stranger to refinement. The loud and artless mirth so easily excited in a good-humoured child, the naivete of its odd questions and ignorant wonder, which delight us while associated with innocence and simplicity, would provoke the utmost disgust if we met with them where we look for intelligence and decorous observances. The simplicity of primitive manners, in what regards the petty amusements and minute attentions to which we have become accustomed, is exactly tantamount to that of childhood; it is a thing which, in our state of society, we have no idea of. Those who are, from their depressed situation, ignorant of the forms of polished life, know, at least, that such exist; and either awkwardly imitate them, or carefully avoid committing themselves, by betraying their ignorance. Here, while this simplicity, which, by the by, was no more vulgar than that of Shakspeare’s Miranda, with its concomitant purity, continued unbroken by foreign modes, it had all the charm of undesigning childhood; but when half education and ill supported pretensions took place of this sweet attraction, it assumed a very different aspect; it was no longer simplicity but vulgarity. There are things that every one feels and no one can describe, and this is one of them.

But to return to our Mirandas and their theatrical heroes: the fame of their exhibitions went abroad, and opinions were formed of them no way favourable to the actors or to the audience. In this region of reality, where rigid truth was always undisguised, they had not learned to distinguish between fiction and falsehood. It was said that the officers, familiar with every vice and every disguise, had not only spent a whole night in telling lies in a counterfeited place, the reality of which had never existed, but that they were themselves a lie, and had degraded manhood, and broke through an express prohibition in Scripture, by assuming female habits; that they had not only told lies, but cursed and swore the whole night; and assumed the characters of knaves, fools, and robbers, which every wise and good man held in detestation, and no one would put on unless they felt themselves easy in them. Painting their faces, of all other things, seemed most to violate the Albanian ideas of decorum, and was looked upon as a most flagrant abomination. Great and loud was the outcry produced by it. Little skilled in sophistry, and strangers to all the arts “that make the worst appear the better reason,” the young auditors could only say, “that indeed it was very amusing; made them laugh heartily, and did harm to nobody.” So harmless, indeed, and agreeable did this entertainment appear to the new converts to fashion, that the Recruiting Officer was given out for another night, to the great annoyance of Domine Freylinghausen, who invoked heaven and earth to witness and avenge this contempt, not only of his authority, but, as he expressed it, of the source from whence it was derived. Such had been the sanctity of this good man’s life, and the laborious diligence and awful earnestness with which he inculcated the doctrines he taught, that they had produced a correspondent effect, for the most part, on the lives of his hearers, and led them to regard him as the next thing to an evangelist. Accustomed to success in all his undertakings, and to “honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,” and all that gratitude and veneration can offer to its most distinguished object, this rebellion against his authority, and contempt of his opinion, once the standard by which every one’s judgment was regulated, wounded him very deeply. The abhorrence with which he inspired the parents of the transgressors, among whom were many young men of spirit and intelligence, was the occasion of some family disagreements, a thing formerly scarcely known. Those young people, accustomed to regard their parents with implicit reverence, were unwilling to impute to them unqualified harshness, and therefore removed the blame of a conduct so unusual to their spiritual guide; “and while he thought, good easy man, full surely his greatness was a ripening, nipt his root.” Early one Monday morning, after the Domine had, on the preceding day, been peculiarly eloquent on the subject of theatrical amusements, and pernicious innovations, some unknown person left within his door a club, a pair of old shoes, a crust of black bread, and a dollar. The worthy pastor was puzzled to think what this could mean, but had it too soon explained to him. It was an emblematic message, to signify the desire entertained of his departure. The stick was to push him away, the shoes to wear on the road, and the bread and money a provision for his journey. These symbols, appear, in former days, to have been more commonly used, and better understood than at present; for instance, we find that when Robert Bruce, afterwards king of Scotland, was in a kind of honourable captivity in the court of England; when his friend, the Earl of Glocester, discovered that it was the intention of the king to imprison him in the tower, lest he should escape to Scotland and assert his rights, unwilling by word or writing to discover what had passed in council, and at the same time desirous to save his friend, he sent him a pair of gilt spurs and twelve crowns, and ordered the servant to carry them to him as returning what he had formerly borrowed from him. This mysterious gift and message was immediately understood, and proved the means of restoring Bruce, and, with him, the laws and liberty of his native kingdom. Very different, however, was the effect produced by this mal a-propos symbol of dislike. Too conscious, and too fond of popularity, the pastor languished under a sense of imaginary degradation, grew jealous, and thought every one alienated from him, because a few giddy young people were stimulated, by momentary resentments, to express disapprobation in this vague and dubious manner. Thus, insensibly, do vanity and self-opinion, mingle with our highest duties. Had the Domine, satisfied with the testimony of a good conscience, gone on in the exercise of his duty, and been above allowing little personal resentments to mingle with his zeal for what he thought right, he might have felt himself far above an insult of this kind; but he found to his cost, that “a habitation giddy and unsure hath he, that buildeth on the fickle heart” of the unsteady, wavering multitude.

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CHAP. XXXVI.

Return of madame—The Domine leaves his people—Fulfilment of his
predictions.

MADAME now returned to town with the colonel, and finding this general disorder and division of sentiments with regard to the pastor, as well as to the adoption of new modes, endeavoured, with her usual good sense, to moderate and to heal. She was always of opinion that the increase of wealth should be accompanied with a proportionate progress in refinement and intelligence; but she had a particular dislike to peoples forsaking a respectable plainness of dress and manners, for mere imperfect imitation and inelegant finery. She knew too well the progress of society to expect, that, as it grew wealthy and numerous, it would retain its pristine purity; but then she preferred a gradual abolition of old habits, that people, as they receded from their original modes of thinking and living, might rather become simply elegant than tawdrily fine; and though she all along wished, in every possible way, to promote the comfort of the brave men to whom the country owed so much, she by no means thought an indiscriminate admission of those strangers among the youth of the place, so unpractised in the ways of the world, an advisable measure: she was particularly displeased with the person in whose house the colonel of the regiment lodged, for so entirely domesticating a showy stranger, of whose real character he knew so little.—Liberal and judicious in her views, she did not altogether approve the austerity of the Domine’s opinions, nor the vehemence of his language; and, as a Christian, she still less approved his dejection and concern at the neglect or rudeness of a few thoughtless young persons. In vain the colonel and madame soothed and cheered him with counsel and with kindness; night and day he mused on the imagined insult; nor could the joint efforts of the most respectable inhabitants prevent his heart from being corroded with the sense of imagined unkindness. At length he took the resolution of leaving those people so dear to him, to visit his friends in Holland, promising to return in a short time, whenever his health was restored, and his spirits more composed. A Dutch ship happened about this time to touch at New-York, on board of which the Domine embarked; but as the vessel belonging to Holland was not expected to return, and he did not, as he had promised, either write or return in an English ship, his congregation remained for a great while unsupplied, while his silence gave room for the most anxious and painful conjectures: these were not soon removed, for the intercourse with Holland was not frequent or direct. At length, however, the sad reality was but too well ascertained. This victim of lost popularity had appeared silent and melancholy to his ship-mates, and walked constantly on deck. At length he suddenly disappeared, leaving it doubtful whether he had fallen overboard by accident, or was prompted by despair to plunge into eternity. If this latter was the case, it must have been the consequence of a temporary fit of insanity; for no man had led a more spotless life, and no man was more beloved by all that were intimately known to him. He was, indeed, before the fatal affront, which made such an undue impression on him, considered as a blessing to the place; and his memory was so beloved, and his fate so regretted, that this, in addition to some other occurrences falling out about the same time, entirely turned the tide of opinion, and rendered the thinking as well as the violent party, more averse to innovations than ever. Had the Albanians been Catholics, they would probably have canonized M. Freylinghausen, whom they considered as a martyr to levity and innovation. He prophesied a great deal; such prophecy as ardent and comprehensive minds have delivered, without any other inspiration but that of the sound, strong intellect, which augurs the future from a comparison of the past, and a rational deduction of probable consequences. The affection that was entertained for his memory induced people to listen to the most romantic stories of his being landed on an island, and become a hermit; taken up into a ship when floating on the sea, into which he had accidentally fallen, and carried to some remote country, from which he was expected to return, fraught with experience and faith. I remember some of my earliest reveries to have been occupied by the mysterious disappearance of this hard-fated pastor.

In the mean while new events were unfolding more fully to the Albanians the characters of their lately acquired friends. Scandal of fifty years standing, must, by this time, have become almost pointless. The house where the young colonel, formerly mentioned, was billetted, and made his quarters good by every art of seductive courtesy, was occupied by a person wealthy, and somewhat vain and shallow, who had an only daughter; I am not certain, but I think she was his only child. She was young, lively, bold, conceited, and exceedingly well looking. Artless and fearless of consequences, this thoughtless creature saw every day a person who was no doubt as much pleased with her as one could be with mere youth, beauty, and kindness, animated by vivacity, and distinguished from her companions by all the embellishments which wealth could procure in that unfashioned quarter; his heart, however, was safe, as will appear from the sequel. Madame foresaw the consequences likely to result from an intimacy daily growing, where there was little prudence on the one side, and as little of that honour which should respect unsuspecting innocence on the other. She warned the family, but in vain; they considered marriage as the worst consequence that could ensue; and this they could not easily have been reconciled to, notwithstanding the family and fortune of the lover, had not his address and attentions charmed them into a kind of tacit acquiescence; for, as a Roman citizen, in the proud days of the republic, would have refused his daughter to a king, an Albanian, at one period, would rather have his daughter married to the meanest of his fellow-citizens, than to a person of the highest rank in the army, because they thought a young person, by such a marriage, was not only forever alienated from her family, but from those pure morals and plain manners, in which they considered the greatest possible happiness to exist. To return:

While these gaieties were going on, and the unhappy Domine embarking on the voyage which terminated his career, an order came for the colonel to march. This was the only commander who had ever been in town, who had not spent any time, or asked any counsel at the Flats. Meanwhile, his Calista, (for such she was,) tore her hair in frantic agonies at his departure; not that she in the least doubted of his returning soon to give a public sanction to their union, but lest he should prove a victim to the war then existing; and because, being very impetuous, and unaccustomed to control, the object of her wishes had been delayed to a future period. In a short time, things began to assume a more serious aspect; and her father came one day posting to the Flats, on his way to the lakes, seeking counsel too late, and requesting the aid of their influence to bring about a marriage, which should cover the disgrace of his family. They had little hopes of his success, yet he proceeded; and finding the colonel deaf to all his arguments, he had recourse to entreaty, and finally offered to divest himself of all but a mere subsistence, and give him such a fortune as was never heard of in that country. This, with an angel, as the fond father thought her, appeared irresistible; but no! heir to a considerable fortune in his own country, and, perhaps, inwardly despising a romp, whom he had not considered from the first as estimable, he was not to be soothed or bribed into compliance. The dejected father returned disconsolate; and the astonishment and horror this altogether novel occurrence occasioned in the town, was not to be described. Of such a circumstance there was no existing precedent; half the city were related to the fair culprit, for penitent she could hardly be called. This unexpected refusal threw the whole city into consternation. One would have thought there had been an earthquake; and all the insulted Domine’s predictions rose to remembrance, armed with avenging terrors.

Many other things occurred to justify the Domine’s caution, and the extreme reluctance which the elders of the land showed to all such associations. All this madame greatly lamented, yet could not acquit the parties concerned, whose duty it was, either to keep their daughters from that society for which their undisguised simplicity of heart unfitted them, or give them that culture and usage of life, which enables a young person to maintain a certain dignity, and to revolt at the first trespass on decorum. Her own protégés were instances of this; who, having their minds early stored with sentiments, such as would enable them truly to estimate their own value, and judge of the characters and pretensions of those who conversed with them; all conducted themselves with the utmost propriety, though daily mixing with strangers, and were solicited in marriage by the first people in the province, who thought themselves happy to select companions from such a school of intelligence and politeness, where they found beauty of the first order informed by mind, and graced by the most pleasing manners.

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CHAP. XXXVII.

Death of Colonel Schuyler.

THIS year (1757) was marked by an event that not only clouded the future life of madame, but occasioned the deepest concern to the whole province. Colonel Schuyler was scarcely sensible of the decline of life, except some attacks of the rheumatism, to which the people of that country are peculiarly subject. He enjoyed sound health and equal spirits, and had, upon the whole, from the temperance of his habits, and the singular equanimity of his mind, a more likely prospect of prolonging his happy and useful life, than falls to the lot of most people. He had, however, in very cold weather, gone to town to visit a relation, then ill of a pleurisy; and having sat awhile by the invalid, and conversed with him both on his worldly and spiritual affairs, he returned very thoughtful. On rising the next morning, he began the day, as had for many years been his custom, with singing some verses of a psalm in his closet. Madame observed that he was interrupted by a most violent fit of sneezing; this returned again a little while after, when he calmly told her that he felt the symptoms of a pleuritic attack, which had begun in the same manner with that of his friend; that the event might possibly prove fatal; but that knowing, as she did, how long a period[14] of more than common felicity had been granted to their mutual affection, and with what tranquillity he was enabled to look forward to that event which is common to all, and which would be earnestly desired if withheld; he expected of her that, whatever might happen, she would look back with gratitude, and forward with hope; and, in the mean time, honour his memory, and her own profession of faith, by continuing to live in the manner they had hitherto done, that he might have the comfort of thinking that his house might still be an asylum to the helpless and the stranger, and a desirable place of meeting to his most valued friends: this was spoken with an unaltered countenance, and in a calm and even tone. Madame, however, was alarmed: friends from all quarters poured in, with the most anxious concern for the event. By this time there was an hospital built at Albany for the troops, with a regular medical establishment. No human aid was wanting, and the composure of madame astonished every one. This, however, was founded on hope; for she never could let herself imagine the danger serious, being flattered both by the medical attendants, and the singular fortitude of the patient. He, however, continued to arrange all things for the change he expected. He left his houses in town and country, his plate, and, in short, all his effects, to his wife, at her sole disposal; his estates were finally left to the orphan son of his nephew, then a child in the family; but madame was to enjoy the rents during her life.

His negroes, for whom he had a great affection, were admitted every day to visit him; and with all the ardour of attachment peculiar to that kind-hearted race, implored heaven day and night for his recovery. The day before his death, he had them all called around his bed, and in their presence besought of madame that she would upon no account sell any of them. This request he would not have made could he have foreseen the consequences. On the fifth day of his illness he quietly breathed his last; having expressed, while he was able to articulate, the most perfect confidence, in the mercy of the God whom he had diligently served and entirely trusted; and the most tender attachment to the friends he was about to leave.

Footnote 14:

Forty years.

It would be a vain attempt to describe the sorrow of a family like his, who had all been accustomed from childhood to look up to him as the first of mankind, and the medium through which they received every earthly blessing; while the serenity of his wisdom, the sweet and gentle cast of his heartfelt piety, and the equable mildness of his temper, rendered him incapable of embittering obligations; so that his generous humanity and liberal hospitality, were adorned by all the graces that courtesy could add to kindness. The public voice was loud in its plaudits and lamentations. In the various characters of a patriot, a hero, and a saint, he was dear to all the friends of valour, humanity, and public spirit; while his fervent loyalty and unvaried attachment to the king, and the laws of that country by which his own was protected, endeared him to all the servants of government; who knew they never should meet with another equally able, or equally disposed to smooth their way in the paths of duty assigned to them.

To government this loss would have been irreparable, had not two singular and highly meritorious characters a little before this time made their appearance, and by superiority of merit and abilities, joined with integrity seldom to be met with any where, in some degree supplied the loss to the public. One of these was Sir William Johnson, the Indian superintendent, formerly mentioned; the other was Cadwallader Colder, for a very long period of years, lieutenant governor, (indeed, virtually governor,) of New-York; who, in point of political sagacity, and thorough knowledge of those he governed, was fully capable to supply that place. This shrewd and able ruler, whose origin, I believe, was not very easily traced, was said to be a Scotchman, and had raised himself solely by his merit to the station he held. In this he maintained himself by indefatigable diligence, rigid justice, and the most perfect impartiality. He neither sought to be feared nor loved, but merely to be esteemed and trusted, and thus fixed his power on the broad foundation of public utility. Successive governors, little acquainted with the country, and equally strangers to business, found it convenient to leave the management with him; who confessedly understood it better than any one else, and who had no friends but a few personal ones, and no enemies but a few public ones, who envied his station. It was very extraordinary to see a man rule so long and so steadily, where he was merely and coldly esteemed; with so few of the advantages that generally procure success in the world, without birth or alliance; he had not even the recommendation of a pleasing appearance or insinuating address. He was diminutive, and somewhat more than high-shouldered. The contrast betwixt the wealth of his mind and the poverty of his outward appearance, might remind one of Æsop, or rather of the faithful though ill-shaped herald of Ulysses:

“Eurybutes, in whose large mind alone,
Ulysses viewed the image of his own.”

Thus it was with Colden. Among the number of governors who succeeded each other in his time, if, by chance, one happened to be a man of ability, he estimated his merit at its just rate; and whatever original measure he might find it necessary to take for the public good, left the common routine of business in the hands of that tried integrity and experience in which he found them; satisfied with the state and popularity of governor, on which the other had not a wish to encroach. Colden, however, enriched his own family, in a manner, on the whole, not objectionable. He procured from the successive governors various grants of land, which, though valuable in quality, were not, from the remoteness of their situation, an object of desire to settlers; and purchased grants from many who had obtained the property of them, among which were different governors and military commanders. He allowed this mine of future wealth to lie quietly ripening to its value, till the lands near it were, in process of time, settled, and it became a desirable object to purchase or hold on lease.

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CHAP. XXXVIII.

Mrs. Schuyler’s arrangements and conduct after the colonel’s death.

THE mind of our good aunt, which had never before yielded to calamity, seemed altogether subdued by the painful separation from her husband. Never having left her consort’s bedside, or known the refreshment of a quiet sleep, during his illness, she sunk at first into a kind of torpor, which her friends willingly mistook for the effects of resignation. This was soon succeeded by the most acute sorrow, and a dangerous illness, the consequence of her mental suffering. In spring she slowly recovered, and endeavoured to find consolation in returning to the regulation of her family, and the society of her friends, for both of which she had been for some months disqualified. Her nieces, the Miss Cuylers, were a great comfort to her, from their affectionate attention, and the pleasure she took in seeing them growing up to be all that her maternal affection could wish. In the social grief of Pedrom[15] who gave all his time to her during the early part of her widowhood, she also found consolation; and whenever she was able to receive them, her friends came from all quarters to express their sympathy and their respect. The colonel’s heir and her own eldest nephew made, with one of her nieces, a part of her family; and the necessity of attending to such affairs as formerly lay within the colonel’s province, served further to occupy her mind; yet her thoughts continually recurred to that loss, which she daily felt more and more. She buried the colonel in a spot within a short distance of his own house, in which he had formerly desired to repose, that his remains might not quit a scene so dear to him; and that the place rendered sacred by his ashes, might in future be a common sepulchre to his family; that he might in death, as in life, be surrounded by the objects of his affection and beneficence. This consecrated spot, about the size of a small flower garden, was inclosed for this purpose, and a tombstone, with a suitable inscription, erected over the grave, where this excellent person’s relict proposed her ashes should mingle with his. In the mean time, though by continually speaking of her deceased friend, she passed the day without much visible agitation, she had fallen into a habit of vigilance—rarely sleeping till morning, and suffering through the silent hours from a periodical agony, for such it might be called, with which she was regularly visited. She had a confidante in this secret suffering; a decent and pious woman, who, on the death of her husband, a serjeant in the army, had been received into this family as a kind of upper domestic; and found herself so happy, and made herself so useful in teaching, reading, and needle-work to the children, that she still remained. This good woman slept in aunt’s room; and when all the family were at rest, she used to accompany her to a small distance from the tomb which contained those remains so dear to her. Madame, in the mean time, entered alone into the hallowed inclosure, and there indulged her unavailing sorrow. This she continued to do for some time, as she thought, unobserved; but being very tall, and become large as she advanced in life, her figure, arrayed in her night-clothes was very conspicuous, and was, on different occasions, observed by neighbours, who occasionally passed by at night; the consequence was, that it was rumoured that an apparition was seen every night near the colonel’s grave. This came to the ears of the people of the house, some of whom had the curiosity to watch at a distance, and saw the dreaded form appear, and, as they thought, vanish. This they carefully concealed from their revered patroness. Every one else in the house, however, heard it, and a pensive air of awe and mystery overspread the whole family. Her confidante, however, told her of it; and the consequence of this improper indulgence of sorrow greatly increased the dislike which madame had always expressed for mystery and concealment. She was unwilling to let a family, to whom she had always set such an example of self-command, know of her indulging a weakness so unsuitable to her character and time of life. At the same time, however, she was resolved not to allow the belief of a supernatural appearance to fasten on their minds: unwilling to mention the subject herself, she was forced to submit to the humiliation of having it revealed by her confidante, to quiet the minds of the children and domestics, and reconcile them to solitude and moonlight.

Footnote 15:

The colonel’s brother Peter, so called.

Her mind was at this time roused from her own peculiar sorrows, by an alarming event, which disturbed the public tranquillity, and awakened the fears of the whole province, by laying open the western frontier. This was the taking of Oswego by the French, which fortress was the only barrier, except the valour and conduct of Sir William Johnson and his Mohawk friends, by which the town was protected on that side. The poor people, who were driven by the terror of this event from the settlements in that quarter, excited the sympathy of liberal-minded persons; and the interest which she took in their distresses, was one of the first things that roused the attention of our good aunt to her wonted beneficent exertions. General Bradstreet, who had a high respect for her understanding, and consulted her on all emergencies, had a profound reverence for the colonel’s memory, and continued his intimacy in the family. The critical situation of things at this time occasioned Lord Loudon to be sent out as commander of the forces in America. Madame received this nobleman when he visited Albany, and gave him most useful information.—He was introduced to her by General Bradstreet, whose power and consequence might be said to increase with the disasters of the country; his department was a very lucrative one, and enabled him, first, greatly to enrich himself, and, in process of time, his friend Philip Schuyler, who, from his deputy, became, in a manner, his coadjutor. Albany now swarmed with engineers, planners, architects, and boat-builders. Various military characters, since highly distinguished, whose names I do not recollect, though once familiar to me, obtained introductions to madame, who began once more to occupy her mind with public matters, and to open her house to the more respected and well known characters among the military. Her brother-in-law, whom I have so often mentioned under the affectionate appellation of Pedrom, by which he was known in the family, being within less than half an hour’s walk, spent much of his time with her, and received her company. This he was well qualified to do, being a person of a comely dignified appearance, and frank, easy manners, inferior only to his late brother in depth of reflection, and comprehension of mind.

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CHAP. XXXIX.

Mohawk Indians—The superintendent.

BY this time matters had gradually assumed a new aspect on this great continent. The settlement at Albany was no longer an insulated region, ruled and defended by the wisdom and courage diffused through the general mass of the inhabitants; but begun, in the ordinary course of things, to incorporate with the general state. The Mohawk Indians were so engaged by treaties to assist the army, in its now regular operations to the westward, that they came less frequently to visit Albany. A line of forts had, at a prodigious expense, been erected, leading from Albany to Upper Canada, by the Mohawk river, and the lakes of Ontario, Niagara, &c. Many respectable engineers were engaged constructing these; some of them I remember were Swedes, persons of a graceful appearance, polished manners, and very correct conduct.—These strangers conducted matters better than our own countrymen; being more accommodating in their manners, and better accustomed to a severe climate, and inconveniences of every kind. They were frequent guests at the Flats, were a pleasing accession to the society, and performed their duty to the public with a degree of honour and fidelity that checked abuses in others, and rescued the service they were engaged in, from the reproach which it had incurred, in consequence of those fungi of society which had at first intruded into it.

By the advice of the Schuylers, there was now on the Mohawk river a superintendent of Indian affairs; the importance of which began to be fully understood. He was regularly appointed, and paid by government. This was the justly celebrated Sir William Johnson, who held an office difficult both to execute and define. He might indeed be called the tribune of the five nations; whose claims he asserted, whose rights he protected, and over whose minds he possessed a greater sway than any other individual had ever attained. He was indeed calculated to conciliate and retain the affections of this brave people; possessing in common with them many of those peculiarities of mind and manners, that distinguished them from others. He was an uncommonly tall, well made man: with a fine countenance; which, however, had rather an expression of dignified sedateness, approaching to melancholy. He appeared to be taciturn, never wasting words on matters of no importance: but highly eloquent when the occasion called forth his powers. He possessed intuitive sagacity, and the most entire command of temper, and of countenance. He did by no means lose sight of his own interest, but on the contrary raised himself to power and wealth, in an open and active manner; not disdaining any honourable means of benefiting himself: but at the same time the bad policy, as well as meanness of sacrificing respectability to snatching at petty present advantages, were so obvious to him, that he laid the foundation of his future prosperity on the broad and deep basis of honourable dealing, accompanied by the most vigilant attention to the objects he had in view; acting so as, without the least departure from integrity on the one hand, or inattention to his affairs on the other, to conduct himself in such a manner, as gave an air of magnanimity to his character, that made him the object of universal confidence. He purchased from the Indians (having the grant confirmed by his sovereign) a large and fertile tract of land upon the Mohawk river; where having cleared and cultivated the ground, he built two spacious and convenient places of residence: known afterwards by the names of Johnson castle, and Johnson hall. The first was on a fine eminence, stockaded round, and slightly fortified; the last was built on the side of the river, on a most fertile and delightful plain, surrounded with an ample and well cultivated domain: and that again encircled by European settlers; who had first come there as architects, or workmen, and had been induced by Sir William’s liberality, and the singular beauty of the district, to continue. His trade with the five nations was very much for their advantage; he supplying them on more equitable terms than any trader, and not indulging the excesses in regard to strong liquors, which others were too easily induced to do.—The castle contained the store in which all goods were laid up, which were meant for the Indian traffic, and all the peltry received in exchange. The hall was his summer residence, and the place round which his greatest improvements were made. Here this singular man lived like a little sovereign; kept an excellent table for strangers, and officers, whom the course of their duty now frequently led into these wilds, and by confiding entirely on the Indians, and treating them with unvaried truth and justice, without ever yielding to solicitation what he had once refused, he taught them to repose entire confidence in him: he, in his turn, became attached to them, wore in winter almost entirely their dress and ornaments, and contracted a kind of alliance with them; for becoming a widower in the prime of life, he connected himself with an Indian maiden, daughter to a sachem, who possessed an uncommonly agreeable person, and good understanding; and whether ever formally married to him according to our usage, or not, contrived to live with him in great union and affection all his life. So perfect was his dependence on those people, whom his fortitude and other manly virtues had attached to him, that when they returned from their summer excursions, and exchanged the last year’s furs for fire-arms, &c. they used to pass a few days at the castle; when his family and most of his domestics were down at the hall. There they were all liberally entertained by their friend; and five hundred of them have been known, for nights together, after drinking pretty freely, to lie around him on the floor, while he was the only white person in a house containing great quantities of every thing that was to them valuable, or desirable.

While Sir William thus united in his mode of life the calm urbanity of a liberal and extensive trader, with the splendid hospitality, the numerous attendance, and the plain though dignified manners of an ancient baron, the female part of his family were educated in a manner so entirely dissimilar from that of all other young people of their sex and station, that as a matter of curiosity, it is worthy a recital. These two young ladies inherited, in a great measure, the personal advantages and strength of understanding for which their father was so distinguished. Their mother dying when they were young, bequeathed the care of them to a friend. This friend was the widow of an officer who had fallen in battle. I am not sure whether she was devout, and shunned the world for fear of its pollutions, or romantic, and despised its selfish bustling spirit; but so it was, that she seemed utterly to forget it, and devoted herself to her fair pupils. To these she taught needle-work of the most elegant and ingenious kinds, reading and writing. Thus quietly passed their childhood; their monitress not taking the smallest concern in family management, nor, indeed, the least interest in any worldly thing but themselves; far less did she inquire about the fashions or diversions which prevailed in a world she had renounced, and from which she seemed to wish her pupils to remain for ever estranged. Never was any thing so uniform as their dress, their occupations, and the general tenor of their lives. In the morning they rose early, read their prayer-book, I believe, but certainly their bible, fed their birds, tended their flowers, and breakfasted; then were employed for some hours with unwearied perseverance, at fine needle-work, for the ornamental parts of dress, which were the fashion of the day, without knowing to what use they were to be put, as they never wore them; and had not at the age of sixteen ever seen a lady, excepting each other and their governess; they then read, as long as they chose, the voluminous romances of the last century, of which their friend had an ample collection, or Rollin’s Ancient History, the only books they had ever seen; after dinner, they regularly in summer took a long walk; or an excursion in the sleigh, in winter, with their friend, and then returned and resumed their wonted occupations, with the sole variation of a stroll in the garden in summer, and a game at chess or shuttle-cock in winter. Their dress was full as simple and uniform as every thing else; they wore wrappers of the finest chintz, and green silk petticoats—and this the whole year round without variation. Their hair, which was long and beautiful, was tied behind with a simple ribbon; a large calash shaded each from the sun, and in winter they had long scarlet mantles that covered them from head to foot. Their father did not live with them, but visited them every day in their apartment. This innocent and uniform life they led, till the death of their monitress, which happened when the eldest was not quite seventeen. On some future occasion I shall satisfy the curiosity which this short but faithful account of these amiable recluses has possibly excited.[16]

Footnote 16: