Part 24

Sir Henry Moore, the last British governor of New-York that I remember, came up this summer to see Albany, and the ornament of Albany—aunt Schuyler; he brought Lady Moore and his daughter with him. They resided for some time at General Schuyler’s, I call him so by anticipation; for sure I am, had any gifted seer foretold then what was to happen, he would have been ready to answer, “Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?” Sir Harry, like many of his predecessors, was a mere show governor, and old Cadwallader Colden, the lieutenant governor, continued to do the business, and enjoy the power in its most essential branches, such as giving patents for lands, &c. Sir Harry, in the meantime, had never thought of business in his life: he was honourable, as far as a man could be so, who always spent more than he had; he was, however, gay, good natured, and well bred, affable and courteous in a very high degree, and if the business of a governor was merely to keep the governed in good humour, no one was fitter for that office than he, the more so, as he had sense enough to know two things of great importance to be known: one was, that a person of tried wisdom and good experience like Colden, was fitter to transact the business of the province, than any dependent of his own; the other, that he was totally unfit to manage it himself. The government house was the scene of frequent festivities and weekly concerts, Sir Henry being very musical, and Lady Moore peculiarly fitted for doing the honours of a drawing-room or entertainment. They were too fashionable, and too much hurried to find time for particular friendships, and too good natured and well bred to make invidious distinctions, so that, without gaining very much either of esteem or affection, they pleased every one in the circle around them; and this general civility of theirs, in the storm which was about to arise, had its use. In the beginning, before the tempest broke loose in all its fury, it was like oil poured on agitated waters, which produces a temporary calm immediately round the ship. As yet the storm only muttered at a distance, but madame was disturbed by anxious presages. In her case,

“Old experience actually did attain To something like prophetic strain.”

But it was not new to her to prophecy in vain. I, for my part, was charmed with the manners of these exalted visitors of aunt’s, and not a little proud of their attention to her, not knowing that they showed pretty much the same attention to every one.

While I was dancing on air with the thoughts of going to live at the Flats, of the beauties of Clarendon, and many other delights which I had created to myself, an event took place that plunged us all in sorrow; it was the death of the lovely child Catalina, who was the object of much fondness to us all, for my parents, bating the allowance to be made for enthusiasm, were as fond of her as I was. Madame had set her heart very much on this engaging creature; she mustered up all her fortitude to support the parents of her departed favourite, but suffered much notwithstanding. Here began my acquaintance with sorrow. We went, however, to the Flats in autumn. Our family consisted of a negro girl, and a soldier, who had followed my father’s fortunes from Scotland, and stuck to him through every change. We did not mean to farm, but had merely the garden, orchard, and enclosure for hay, two cows, a horse for my father, and a colt, which, to my great delight, was given me as a present. Many sources of comfort and amusement were now cut off from madame; her nephew and his lively and accomplished wife had left her; Dr. Ogilvie was removed to New-York, and had a successor no way calculated to supply his place. This year she had lost her brother-in-law Cornelius Cuyler,[23] whose sound sense and intelligence made his society of consequence to her, independent of the great esteem and affection she had for him. The army, among whom she always found persons of information and good breeding, in whose conversation she could take pleasure which might be truly called such, were gone. Nothing could compensate, in her opinion, for the privation of that enjoyment; she read, but then the people about her had so little taste for reading, that she had not her wonted pleasure in that, for want of some one with whom she could discuss the topics suggested by her studies. It was in this poverty of society, such as she was accustomed to enjoy, that she took a fancy to converse much with me, to regret my want of education, and to take a particular interest in my employments and mental improvement. That I might more entirely profit by her attention, she requested my parents to let me pass the winter with her: this invitation they gladly complied with.

Footnote 23:

This estimable character had for the space of forty years (which included very important and critical conjunctures) been chief magistrate of Albany, and its district. A situation calculated to demand the utmost integrity and impartiality, and to exercise all the powers of a mind acute, vigilant, and comprehensive. The less he was amenable to the control and direction of his superiors, the more liable was he to the animadversions of his fellow citizens, had he in the least departed from that rectitude which made him the object of their confidence and veneration. He administered justice, not so much in conformity to written laws, as to that rule of equity within his own breast, the application of which was directed by sound sense, improved by experience. I do by no means insinuate, that he either neglected or disobeyed those laws, by which in all doubtful cases, he was certainly guided; but that the uncorrupted state of public morals, and the entire confidence which his fellow citizens reposed in his probity, rendered appeals to the law for the most part superfluous. I have heard that the family of the Cuylers was originally a German one of high rank. Whether this can or cannot be ascertained, is of little consequence. The sterling worth of their immediate ancestor, and his long and faithful services to the public, reflect more honour on his descendants than any length of pedigree.

The winter at the Flats was sufficiently melancholy, and rendered less agreeable by some unpleasant neighbours we had. These were a family from New-England, who had been preparing to occupy lands near those occupied by my father. They had been the summer before recommended to aunt’s generous humanity, as honest people, who merely wanted a shelter in a room in her empty house, till they should build a temporary hut on those new lands which they were about to inhabit. When we came, the time permitted to them had long elapsed, but my father, who was exceedingly humane, indulged them with a fortnight more after our arrival, on the pretence of the sickness of a child; and there they sat, and would not remove for the winter, unless coercion had been used for that purpose. We lived on the road side. There was at that time a perpetual emigration going on from the provinces of New England to our back settlements. Our acquaintance with the family who kept possession beside us, and with many of even the better sort, who came to bargain with my father about his lands, gave us more insight than we wished into the prevalent character of those people, whom we found conceited, litigious, and selfish beyond measure. My father was told that the only safe way to avoid being overreached by them in a bargain, was to give them a kind of tacit permission to sit down on his lands, and take his chance of settling with them when they were brought into some degree of cultivation; for if one did bargain with them, the custom was to have it three years free for clearing, at the end of which, the rents or purchase money was paid. By that time, any person who had expended much labour on land, would rather pay a reasonable price or rent for it, than be removed.

In the progress of his intercourse with these very vulgar, insolent, and truly disagreeable people, my father began to disrelish the thoughts of going up to live among them. They flocked indeed so fast, to every unoccupied spot, that their malignant and envious spirit, their hatred of subordination, and their indifference to the mother country, began to spread like a taint of infection.

These illiberal opinions, which produced manners equally illiberal, were particularly wounding to disbanded officers, and to the real patriots, who had consulted in former times the happiness of the country, by giving their zealous co-operation to the troops sent to protect it. These two classes of people began now to be branded as the slaves of arbitrary power, and all tendencies to elegance or refinement were despised as leading to aristocracy. The consequence of all this was, such an opposition of opinions, as led people of the former description to seek each other’s society exclusively. Winter was the only time that distant friends met there, and to avoid the chagrin resulting from this distempered state of society, veterans settled in the country were too apt to devote themselves to shooting and fishing, taking refuge from languor in these solitary amusements.

We had one brave and royal neighbour, however, who saw us often, and was “every inch a gentleman;” this was Pedrom, aunt’s brother-in-law, in whom lived the spirit of the Schuylers, and who was our next neighbour and cordial friend. He was now old, detached from the world, and too hard of hearing to be an easy companion; yet he had much various information, and was endeared to us by similarity of principle.

Matters were beginning to be in this state the first winter I went to live with aunt. Her friends were much dispersed; all conversation was tainted with politics, Cromwellian politics too, which of all things, she disliked. Her nephew, Courtlandt Schuyler, who had been a great Nimrod ever since he could carry a gun, and who was a man of strict honour and nice feelings, took such a melancholy view of things, and so little relished that Stamp Act, which was the exclusive subject of all conversation, that he devoted himself more and more to the chase, and seemed entirely to renounce a society which he had never greatly loved. As I shall not refer to him again, I shall only mention here, that this estimable person was taken away from the evil to come two years after, by a premature death, being killed by a fall from his horse in hunting. What sorrows were hid from his eyes by this timely escape from scenes which would have been to him peculiarly wounding!

If madame’s comforts in society were diminished, her domestic satisfactions were not less so. By the time I came to live with her, Mariamat and Dianamat were almost superannuated, and had lost, in a great measure, the restraining power they used to exercise over their respective offspring. Their woolly heads were snow white, and they were become so feeble, that they sat each in her great chair, at the opposite side of the fire; their wonted jealousy was now embittered to rancour, and their love of tobacco greater than ever. They were arrived at that happy period of ease and indolence, which left them at full liberty to smoke and scold the whole day long; this they did with such unwearied perseverance, and in a manner so ludicrous, that to us young people they were a perpetual comedy.

Sorely now did aunt lament the promise she had kept so faithfully, never to sell any of the Colonel’s negroes. There was so little to do for fourteen persons, except the business they created for each other, and it was so impossible to keep them from too freely sharing the plenty of her liberal house, that idleness and abundance literally began to corrupt them.

All these privations and uneasinesses will in some measure account for such a person as madame taking such pleasure in the society of an overgrown child. But then she was glad to escape from dark prospects and cross politics, to the amusement derived from the innocent cheerfulness natural to that time of life. A passion for reading, and a very comprehensive memory too, had furnished my mind with more variety of knowledge, than fell to the lot of those, who, living in large families, and sharing the amusements of childhood, were not, like me, driven to that only resource. All this will help to account for a degree of confidence and favour daily increasing, which ended in my being admitted to sleep in a little bed beside her, which never happened to any other. In the winter nights, our conversation often encroached on the earlier hours of morning. The future appeared to her dubious and cheerless, which was one reason, I suppose, that her active mind turned solely on retrospection. She saw that I listened with delighted attention to the tales of other times, which no one could recount so well. These, too, were doubly interesting, as, like the sociable angel’s conversation with our first father, they related to the origin and formation of all I saw around me; they afforded food for reflection, to which I was very early addicted, and hourly increased my veneration for her whom I already considered as my polar star. The great love I had for her first gave interest to her details; and again, the nature of these details increased my esteem for the narrator. Thus passed this winter of felicity, which so much enlarged my stock of ideas, that in looking back upon it, I thought I had lived three years in one.

CHAP. LV.

Return to the Flats.

SUMMER came, and with it visitors, as usual, to madame, from New-York and other places; among whom, I remember, were her nieces, Mrs. L. and Mrs. C. I went to the Flats, and was, as usual, kept very close to my needle-work; but though there was no variety to amuse me, summer slid by very fast. My mind was continually occupied with aunt, and all the passages of her life. My greatest pleasure was to read over again the books I had read to her, and recollect her observations upon them. I often got up and went out to the door to look at places where particular things had happened. She spent the winter’s nights in retrospections of her past life; and I spent the summer days in retrospections of these winter nights. But these were not my only pleasures. The banks of the river and the opposite scenery delighted me; and, adopting all aunt’s tastes and attachments, I made myself believe I was very fond of Pedrom and Susannah Muet, as the widow of Jeremiah was called. My attention to them excited their kindness; and the borrowed sentiment, on my part, soon became a real one. These old friends were very amusing. But then I had numberless young friends, who shared my attention, and were, in their own way, very amusing too. These were the objects of my earliest cares in the morning, and my needless solicitude all day. I had marked down in a list between thirty and forty nests of various kinds of birds. It was an extreme dry summer, and I saw the parent birds, whom I diligently watched, often panting with heat, and, as I thought, fatigued. After all I had heard and seen of aunt, I thought it incumbent on me to be good and kind to some being that needed my assistance. To my fellow-creatures, my power did not extend; therefore I wisely resolved to adapt my mode of beneficence to the sphere of action assigned to me, and decided upon the judicious scheme of assisting all these birds to feed their young. My confederate Marian, (our negro girl,) entered heartily into this plan; and it was the business of the morning, before tasks commenced, to slaughter innumerable insects, and gather quantities of cherries and other fruit for that purpose. Portions of this provision we laid beside every nest, and then applauded ourselves for saving the poor birds fatigue. This, from a pursuit, became a passion. Every spare moment was devoted to it, and every hour made new discoveries of the nature and habits of our winged friends, which we considered as amply recompensing our labours.

The most eager student of natural philosophy could not be more attentive to those objects, or more intent on making discoveries. One sad discovery we made, that mortified us exceedingly. The mocking-bird is very scarce and very shy in this northern district. A pair came, however, to our inexpressible delight, and built a nest in a very high tree in our garden. Never was joy like ours. At the imminent risk of our necks, we made shift to ascend to this lofty dwelling during the absence of the owners: birds we found none; but three eggs of a colour so equivocal, that, deciding the point whether they were green or blue, furnished matter of debate for the rest of the day. To see these treasures was delightful, and to refrain from touching them impossible. One of the young we resolved to appropriate, contrary to our general humane procedure; and the next weighty affair to be discussed, was the form and size of the cage, which was to contain this embryo warbler. The parents, however, arrived. On examining the premises, by some mysterious mode of their own, they discovered that their secret had been explored, and that profane hands had touched the objects of all their tenderness. Their plaintive cries we too well understood. That whole evening and all the next day they were busied in the orchard; while their loud lamentations, constantly reiterated, pierced us with remorse. We soon saw the garden next forsaken; and a little further examination soon convinced us that the violated eggs had been transported to another, where, however, they were not hatched; the delicate instincts which directed these creatures to form a new nest, and carry off their eggs, on finding they had been handled, did not, at the same time inform them that eggs carried away, and shaken by that motion, during the process of incubation, cannot produce any thing.

The great barn, which I formerly described, afforded scope for our observations of this nature; and here we remarked a phenomenon, that I am still at a loss to account for. In the highest part of that spacious and lofty roof, multitudes of swallows, of the martin species, made their nests. These were constructed of mud or clay, as usual, and in the ordinary course of things, lasted, with some repairs, from year to year. This summer, however, being unusually hot and dry, the nests, in great numbers, cracked and fell down on the floor, with the young ones in them. We often found them in this situation, but always found the birds in them alive and unhurt; and saw the old ones come to feed them on the floor, which they did with such eager confidence, that they often brushed so near as to touch us. Now we could no other way account for the nests always coming down with the birds unhurt in them, but by supposing that the swallows watched the fracture of the nests, and when they saw them about to fall, came round the descending fabric, and kept it in a kind of equilibrium. Of these birds we stood in such profound awe, that we never profited by the accident which put them in our power; we would not, indeed, for any consideration, have touched them, especially after the sad adventure of the mocking-birds, which hung very heavy upon our consciences. Autumn came, and aunt came at the appointed day, the anniversary of his death, to visit the tomb of her beloved consort. This ceremony always took place at that time. She concluded it with a visit to us, and an earnest request for my returning with her, and remaining the winter.

CHAP. LVI.

Melancholy presages—Turbulence of the people.

THE conversations between my father and aunt assumed a melancholy cast. Their hopes of a golden age in that country, (now that the flames of war were entirely quenched,) grew weaker. The repeal of the stamp act, occasioned excessive joy, but produced little gratitude. The youth of the town, before that news arrived, had abandoned their wonted sports, and began to amuse themselves with breaking the windows and destroying the furniture of two or three different people, who had, in succession, been suspected of being stamp-masters in embryo. My father grew fonder than ever of fishing and shooting, because birds and fish did not talk of tyranny or taxes. Sometimes we were refreshed by a visit from some of aunt’s nephews, the sons of the mayor. They always left us in great good humour, for they spoke respectfully of our dear king, and dearer country. But this sunshine was transient; they were soon succeeded by Obadiah or Zephaniah, from Hampshire or Connecticut, who came in without knocking; sat down without invitation; and lighted their pipes without ceremony; then talked of buying land; and finally, began a discourse on politics, which would have done honour to Praise God Barebones, or any of the members of his parliament. What is very singular is, that though the plain spoken and manly natives of our settlement had a general dislike to the character of these litigious and loquacious pretenders, such are the inconsistencies into which people are led by party, that they insensibly adopted many of their notions. With madame I was quite free from this plague. None of that chosen race ever entered her door. She valued time too much to devote it to a set of people whom she considered as greatly wanting in sincerity. I speak now of the Hampshire and Connecticut people. In towns and at sea-ports the old leaven had given way to that liberality which was produced by a better education, and an intercourse with strangers. Much as aunt’s loyal and patriotic feelings were hurt by the new mode of talking which prevailed, her benevolence was not cooled, nor her mode of living changed.