CHAPTER I.

“Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and
She said—Thou wert my daughter; and thy father
Was duke of Milan; and his only heir
A princess;—no worse issued.”
Tempest.

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My uncle Ro and myself had been travelling together in
the East, and had been absent from home fully five years,
when we reached Paris. For eighteen months neither of us
had seen a line from America, when we drove through the
barriers, on our way from Egypt, via Algiers, Marseilles,
and Lyons. Not once, in all that time, had we crossed our
own track, in a way to enable us to pick up a straggling
letter; and all our previous precautions to have the epistles
meet us at different bankers in Italy, Turkey, and Malta,
were thrown away.

My uncle was an old traveller—I might almost say, an
old resident—in Europe; for he had passed no less than
twenty years of his fifty-nine off the American continent.
A bachelor, with nothing to do but to take care of a very
ample estate, which was rapidly increasing in value by
the enormous growth of the town of New York, and with
tastes early formed by travelling, it was natural he should
seek those regions where he most enjoyed himself. Hugh
Roger Littlepage was born in 1786—the second son of my
grandfather, Mordaunt Littlepage, and of Ursula Malbone,
his wife. My own father, Malbone Littlepage, was the eldest
child of that connexion; and he would have inherited
the property of Ravensnest, in virtue of his birthright, had

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he survived his own parents; but, dying young, I stepped
into what would otherwise have been his succession, in my
eighteenth year. My uncle Ro, however, had got both
Satanstoe and Lilacsbush; two country-houses and farms,
which, while they did not aspire to the dignity of being
estates, were likely to prove more valuable, in the long run,
than the broad acres which were intended for the patrimony
of the elder brother. My grandfather was affluent; for not
only had the fortune of the Littlepages centred in him, but
so did that of the Mordaunts, the wealthier family of the
two, together with some exceedingly liberal bequests from
a certain Col. Dirck Follock, or Van Valkenburgh; who,
though only a very distant connexion, chose to make my
great-grandmother's, or Anneke Mordaunt's, descendants
his heirs. We all had enough; my aunts having handsome
legacies, in the way of bonds and mortgages, on an estate
called Mooseridge, in addition to some lots in town; while
my own sister, Martha, had a clear fifty thousand dollars in
money. I had town-lots, also, which were becoming productive;
and a special minority of seven years had made
an accumulation of cash that was well vested in New York
State stock, and which promised well for the future. I say
a “special” minority; for both my father and grandfather,
in placing, the one, myself and a portion of the property,
and the other the remainder of my estate, under the guardianship
and ward of my uncle, had made a provision that
I was not to come into possession until I had completed my
twenty-fifth year.

I left college at twenty; and my uncle Ro, for so Martha
and myself always called him, and so he was always
called by some twenty cousins, the offspring of our three
aunts;—but my uncle Ro, when I was done with college,
proposed to finish my education by travelling. As this was
only too agreeable to a young man, away we went, just
after the pressure of the great panic of 1836-7 was over,
and our “lots” were in tolerable security, and our stocks
safe. In America it requires almost as much vigilance to
take care of property, as it does industry to acquire it.

Mr. Hugh Roger Littlepage—by the way, I bore the same
name, though I was always called Hugh, while my uncle
went by the different appellations of Roger, Ro, and Hodge,

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among his familiars, as circumstances had rendered the
associations sentimental, affectionate, or manly—Mr. Hugh
Roger Littlepage, Senior, then, had a system of his own, in
the way of aiding the scales to fall from American eyes, by
means of seeing more clearly than one does, or can, at
home, let him belong where he may, and in clearing the
specks of provincialism from off the diamond of republican
water. He had already seen enough to ascertain that while
“our country,” as this blessed nation is very apt on all
occasions, appropriate or not, to be called by all who belong
to it, as well as by a good many who do not, could teach a
great deal to the old world, there was a possibility—just a
possibility, remark, is my word—that it might also learn a
little. With a view, therefore, of acquiring knowledge seriatim,
as it might be, he was for beginning with the hornbook,
and going on regularly up to the belles-lettres and
mathematics. The manner in which this was effected deserves
a notice.

Most American travellers land in England, the country
farthest advanced in material civilization; then proceed to
Italy, and perhaps to Greece, leaving Germany, and the less
attractive regions of the north, to come in at the end of the
chapter. My uncle's theory was to follow the order of time,
and to begin with the ancients and end with the moderns;
though, in adopting such a rule, he admitted he somewhat
lessened the pleasure of the novice; since an American,
fresh from the fresher fields of the western continent, might
very well find delight in memorials of the past, more especially
in England, which pall on his taste, and appear insignificant,
after he has become familiar with the Temple of
Neptune, the Parthenon, or what is left of it, and the Coliseum.
I make no doubt that I lost a great deal of passing
happiness in this way, by beginning at the beginning, or by
beginning in Italy, and travelling north.

Such was our course, however; and, landing at Leghorn,
we did the peninsula effectually in a twelvemonth; thence
passed through Spain up to Paris, and proceeded on to Moscow
and the Baltic, reaching England from Hamburg.
When we had got through with the British isles, the antiquities
of which seemed flat and uninteresting to me, after
having seen those that were so much more antique, we

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returned to Paris, in order that I might become a man of the
world, if possible, by rubbing off the provincial specks that
had unavoidably adhered to the American diamond while in
its obscurity.

My uncle Ro was fond of Paris, and he had actually
become the owner of a small hotel in the faubourg, in which
he retained a handsome furnished apartment for his own
use. The remainder of the house was let to permanent
tenants; but the whole of the first floor, and of the entresol,
remained in his hands. As a special favour, he would allow
some American family to occupy even his own apartment—
or rather appartement, for the words are not exactly synonymous—
when he intended to be absent for a term exceeding
six months, using the money thus obtained in keeping
the furniture in repair, and his handsome suite of rooms,
including a salon, salle à manger, ante-chambre, cabinet,
several chambres à coucher, and a boudoir—yes, a male
boudoir! for so he affected to call it—in a condition to
please even his fastidiousness.

On our arrival from England, we remained an entire season
at Paris, all that time rubbing the specks off the diamond,
when my uncle suddenly took it into his head that we ought
to see the East. He had never been further than Greece,
himself; and he now took a fancy to be my companion in
such an excursion. We were gone two years and a half,
visiting Greece, Constantinople, Asia Minor, the Holy Land,
Petra, the Red Sea, Egypt quite to the second cataracts, and
nearly the whole of Barbary. The latter region we threw
in, by way of seeing something out of the common track.
But so many hats and travelling-caps are to be met with,
now-a-days, among the turbans, that a well-mannered Christian
may get along almost anywhere without being spit
upon. This is a great inducement for travelling generally,
and ought to be so especially to an American, who, on the
whole, incurs rather more risk now of suffering this humiliation
at home, than he would even in Algiers. But the
animus is everything in morals.

We had, then, been absent two years and a half from
Paris, and had not seen a paper or received a letter from
America in eighteen months, when we drove through the
barrier. Even the letters and papers received or seen

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previously to this last term, were of a private nature, and contained
nothing of a general character. The “twenty millions” —
it was only the other day they were called the
“twelve millions” — but, the “twenty millions,” we knew,
had been looking up amazingly after the temporary depression
of the moneyed crisis it had gone through; and the
bankers had paid our drafts with confidence, and without
extra charges, during the whole time we had been absent.
It is true, Uncle Ro, as an experienced traveller, went well
fortified in the way of credit—a precaution by no means
unnecessary with Americans, after the cry that had been
raised against us in the old world.

And here I wish to say one thing plainly, before I write
another line. As for falling into the narrow, self-adulatory,
provincial feeling of the American who has never left his
mother's apron-string, and which causes him to swallow,
open-mouthed, all the nonsense that is uttered to the world
in the columns of newspapers, or in the pages of your yearling
travellers, who go on “excursions” before they are
half instructed in the social usages and the distinctive features
of their own country, I hope I shall be just as far
removed from such a weakness, in any passing remark that
may flow from my pen, as from the crime of confounding
principles and denying facts in a way to do discredit to the
land of my birth and that of my ancestors. I have lived
long enough in the “world,” not meaning thereby the southeast
corner of the north-west township of Connecticut, to
understand that we are a vast way behind older nations, in
thought as well as deed, in many things; while, on the opposite
hand, they are a vast way behind us in others. I see no
patriotism in concealing a wholesome truth; and least of all
shall I be influenced by the puerility of a desire to hide
anything of this nature, because I cannot communicate it
to my countrymen without communicating it to the rest of
the world. If England or France had acted on this narrow
principle, where would have been their Shakspeares, their
Sheridans, their Beaumonts and Fletchers, and their Molieres!
No, no! great national truths are not to be treated
as the gossiping surmises of village crones. He who reads
what I write, therefore, must expect to find what I think of
matters and things, and not exactly what he may happen to

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think on the same subjects. Any one is at liberty to compare
opinions with me; but I ask the privilege of possessing
some small liberty of conscience in what is, far and near,
proclaimed to be the only free country on the earth. By
“far and near,” I mean from the St. Croix to the Rio
Grande, and from Cape Cod to the entrance of St. Juan de
Fuca; and a pretty farm it makes, the “interval” that lies
between these limits! One may call it “far and near”
without the imputation of obscurity, or that of vanity.

Our tour was completed, in spite of all annoyances; and
here we were again, within the walls of magnificent Paris!
The postilions had been told to drive to the hotel, in the rue
St. Dominique; and we sat down to dinner, an hour after
our arrival, under our own roof. My uncle's tenant had
left the apartment a month before, according to agreement;
and the porter and his wife had engaged a cook, set the
rooms in order, and prepared everything for our arrival.

“It must be owned, Hugh,” said my uncle, as he finished
his soup that day, “one may live quite comfortably in Paris,
if he possess the savoir vivre. Nevertheless, I have a
strong desire to get a taste of native air. One may say and
think what he pleases about the Paris pleasures, and the
Paris cuisine, and all that sort of things; but “home is
home, be it ever so homely.” A `d'Inde aux truffes' is capital
eating; so is a turkey with cranberry sauce. I sometimes
think I could fancy even a pumpkin pie, though there
is not a fragment of the rock of Plymouth in the granite of
my frame.”

“I have always told you, sir, that America is a capital
eating and drinking country, let it want civilization in
other matters, as much as it may.”

“Capital for eating and drinking, Hugh, if you can keep
clear of the grease, in the first place, and find a real cook,
in the second. There is as much difference between the
cookery of New England, for instance, and that of the
Middle States, barring the Dutch, as there is between that
of England and Germany. The cookery of the Middle
States, and of the Southern States, too, though that savours
a little of the West Indies—but the cookery of the Middle
States is English, in its best sense; meaning the hearty,
substantial, savoury dishes of the English in their true

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domestic life, with their roast-beef underdone, their beefsteaks
done to a turn, their chops full of gravy, their mutton-broth,
legs-of-mutton, et id omne genus. We have some capital
things of our own, too; such as canvass-backs, reedbirds,
sheepshead, shad, and blackfish. The difference between
New England and the Middle States is still quite observable,
though in my younger days it was patent. I suppose
the cause has been the more provincial origin, and the more
provincial habits, of our neighbours. By George! Hugh,
one could fancy clam-soup just now, eh!”

“Clam-soup, sir, well made, is one of the most delicious
soups in the world. If the cooks of Paris could get hold
of the dish, it would set them up for a whole season.”

“What is `crême de Bavière,' and all such nick-nacks,
boy, to a good plateful of clam-soup? Well made, as you
say—made as a cook of Jennings' used to make it, thirty
years since. Did I ever mention that fellow's soup to you
before, Hugh?”

“Often, sir. I have tested very excellent clam-soup,
however, that he never saw. Of course you mean soup just
flavoured by the little hard-clam—none of your vulgar potage
à la soft-clam?”

“Soft-clams be hanged! they are not made for gentlemen
to eat. Of course I mean the hard-clam, and the small
clam, too—


Here 's your fine clams,
As white as snow;
On Rockaway
These clams do grow.
The cries of New York are quite going out, like everything
else at home that is twenty years old. Shall I send you
some of this eternal poulet à la Marengo? I wish it were
honest American boiled fowl, with a delicate bit of shoatpork
alongside of it. I feel amazingly homeish this evening,
Hugh!”

“It is quite natural, my dear uncle Ro; and I own to the
`soft impeachment' myself. Here have we both been absent
from our native land five years, and half that time
almost without hearing from it. We know that Jacob”—
this was a free negro who served my uncle, a relic of the

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old domestic system of the colonies, whose name would
have been Jaaf, or Yop, thirty years before—“has gone to
our banker's for letters and papers; and that naturally
draws our thoughts to the other side of the Atlantic. I dare
say we shall both feel relieved at breakfast to-morrow, when
we shall have read our respective despatches.”

“Come, let us take a glass of wine together, in the good
old York fashion, Hugh. Your father and I, when boys,
never thought of wetting our lips with the half-glass of Madeira
that fell to our share, without saying, `Good health,
Mall!' `Good health, Hodge!”'

“With all my heart, uncle Ro. The custom was getting
to be a little obsolete even before I left home; but it is
almost an American custom, by sticking to us longer than
to most people.”

“Henri!”

This was my uncle's maitre d'hotel, whom he had kept
at board-wages the whole time of our absence, in order to
make sure of his ease, quiet, taste, skill, and honesty, on
his return.

“Monsieur!”

“I dare say”—my uncle spoke French exceedingly well
for a foreigner; but it is better to translate what he said as
we go—“I dare say this glass of vin de Bourgogne is very
good; it looks good, and it came from a wine-merchant on
whom I can rely; but Mons. Hugh and I are going to drink
together, à l'Amèricaine, and I dare say you will let us
have a glass of Madeira, though it is somewhat late in the
dinner to take it.”

“Tres volontiers, Messieurs—it is my happiness to oblige
you.”

Uncle Ro and I took the Madeira together; but I cannot
say much in favour of its quality.

“What a capital thing is a good Newtown pippin!” exclaimed
my uncle, after eating a while in silence. “They
talk a great deal about their poire beurrée, here at Paris;
but, to my fancy, it will not compare with the Newtowners
we grow at Satanstoe, where, by the way, the fruit is rather
better, I think, than that one finds across the river, at Newtown
itself.”

“They are capital apples, sir; and your orchard at

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Satanstoe is one of the best I know, or rather what is left of
it; for I believe a portion of your trees are in what is now
a suburb of Dibbletonborough?”

“Yes, blast that place! I wish I had never parted with
a foot of the old neck, though I did rather make money by
the sale. But money is no compensation for the affections.”

“Rather make money, my dear sir! Pray, may I ask
what Satanstoe was valued at, when you got it from my
grandfather?”

“Pretty well up, Hugh; for it was, and indeed is, a first-rate
farm. Including sedges and salt-meadows, you will
remember that there are quite five hundred acres of it, altogether.”

“Which you inherited in 1829?”

“Of course; that was the year of my father's death.
Why, the place was thought to be worth about thirty thousand
dollars at that time; but land was rather low in Westchester
in 1829.”

“And you sold two hundred acres, including the point,
the harbour, and a good deal of the sedges, for the moderate
modicum of one hundred and ten thousand, cash. A tolerable
sale, sir!”

“No, not cash. I got only eighty thousand down, while
thirty thousand were secured by mortgage.”

“Which mortgage you hold yet, I dare say, if the truth
were told, covering the whole city of Dibbletonborough.
A city ought to be good security for thirty thousand dollars?”

“It is not, nevertheless, in this case. The speculators
who bought of me in 1835 laid out their town, built a hotel,
a wharf, and a warehouse, and then had an auction. They
sold four hundred lots, each twenty-five feet by a hundred,
regulation size, you see, at an average of two hundred and
fifty dollars, receiving one-half, or fifty thousand dollars,
down, and leaving the balance on mortgage. Soon after
this, the bubble burst, and the best lot at Dibbletonborough
would not bring, under the hammer, twenty dollars. The
hotel and the warehouse stand alone in their glory, and will
thus stand until they fall, which will not be a thousand years
hence, I rather think.”

“And what is the condition of the town-plot?”

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“Bad enough. The landmarks are disappearing; and it
would cost any man who should attempt it, the value of his
lot, to hire a surveyor to find his twenty-five by a hundred.”

“But your mortgage is good?”

“Ay, good in one sense; but it would puzzle a Philadelphia
lawyer to foreclose it. Why, the equitable interests in
that town-plot, people the place of themselves. I ordered
my agent to commence buying up the rights, as the shortest
process of getting rid of them; and he told me in the very
last letter I received, that he had succeeded in purchasing
the titles to three hundred and seventeen of the lots, at an
average price of ten dollars. The remainder, I suppose,
will have to be absorbed.”

“Absorbed! That is a process I never heard of, as applied
to land.”

“There is a good deal of it done, notwithstanding, in
America. It is merely including within your own possession,
adjacent land for which no claimant appears. What
can I do? No owners are to be found; and then my mortgage
is always a title. A possession of twenty years under
a mortgage is as good as a deed in fee-simple, with full
covenants of warranty, barring minors and femmes covert.”

“You did better by Lilacsbush?”

“Ah, that was a clean transaction, and has left no draw-backs.
Lilacsbush being on the island of Manhattan, one
is sure there will be a town there, some day or other. It
is true, the property lies quite eight miles from the City
Hall; nevertheless, it has a value, and can always be sold
at something near it. Then the plan of New York is made
and recorded, and one can find his lots. Nor can any man
say when the town will not reach Kingsbridge.”

“You got a round price for the Bush, too, I have heard,
sir?”

“I got three hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, in
hard cash. I would give no credit, and have every dollar
of the money, at this moment, in good six per cent. stock
of the States of New York and Ohio.”

“Which some persons in this part of the world would
fancy to be no very secure investment.”

“More fools they. America is a glorious country, after
all, Hugh; and it is a pride and a satisfaction to belong to

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it. Look back at it, as I can remember it, a nation spit
upon by all the rest of Christendom—”

“You must at least own, my dear sir,” I put in, somewhat
pertly, perhaps, “the example might tempt other people;
for, if ever there was a nation that is assiduously spitting
on itself, it is our own beloved land.”

“True, it has that nasty custom in excess, and it grows
worse instead of better, as the influence of the better mannered
and better educated diminishes; but this is a spot on
the sun—a mere flaw in the diamond, that friction will take
out. But what a country—what a glorious country, in
truth, it is! You have now done the civilized parts of the
old world pretty thoroughly, my dear boy, and must be persuaded,
yourself, of the superiority of your native land.”

“I remember you have always used this language, uncle
Ro; yet have you passed nearly one-half of your time out
of that glorious country, since you have reached man's
estate.”

“The mere consequence of accidents and tastes. I do
not mean that America is a country for a bachelor, to begin
with; the means of amusement for those who have no domestic
hearths, are too limited for the bachelor. Nor do I
mean that society in America, in its ordinary meaning, is
in any way as well-ordered, as tasteful, as well-mannered,
as agreeable, or as instructive and useful, as society in
almost any European country I know. I have never supposed
that the man of leisure, apart from the affections,
could ever enjoy himself half as much at home, as he may
enjoy himself in this part of the world; and I am willing
to admit that, intellectually, most gentlemen in a great European
capital live as much in one day, as they would live
in a week in such places as New York, and Philadelphia,
and Baltimore.”

“You do not include Boston, I perceive, sir.”

“Of Boston I say nothing. They take the mind hard,
there, and we had better let such a state of things alone. But
as respects a man or woman of leisure, a man or woman
of taste, a man or woman of refinement generally, I am
willing enough to admit that, cœteris paribus, each can find
far more enjoyment in Europe than in America. But the
philosopher, the philanthropist, the political economist—in

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a word, the patriot, may well exult in such elements of profound
national superiority as may be found in America.”

“I hope these elements are not so profound but they can
be due up at need, uncle Ro?”

“There will be little difficulty in doing that, my boy.
Look at the equality of the laws, to begin with. They are
made on the principles of natural justice, and are intended
for the benefit of society—for the poor as well as the rich.”

“Are they also intended for the rich as well as the poor?”

“Well, I will grant you a slight blemish is beginning to
appear, in that particular. It is a failing incidental to humanity,
and we must not expect perfection. There is certainly
a slight disposition to legislate for numbers, in order
to obtain support at the polls, which has made the relation
of debtor and creditor a little insecure, possibly; but prudence
can easily get along with that. It is erring on the
right side, is it not, to favour the poor instead of the rich,
if either is to be preferred?”

“Justice would favour neither, but treat all alike. I have
always heard that the tyranny of numbers was the worst
tyranny in the world.”

“Perhaps it is, where there is actually tyranny, and for
a very obvious reason. One tyrant is sooner satisfied than
a million, and has even a greater sense of responsibility. I
can easily conceive that the Czar himself, if disposed to be
a tyrant, which I am far from thinking to be the case with
Nicholas, might hesitate about doing that, under his undivided
responsibility, which one of our majorities would do,
without even being conscious of the oppression it exercised,
or caring at all about it. But, on the whole, we do little of
the last, and not in the least enough to counterbalance the
immense advantages of the system.”

“I have heard very discreet men say that the worst symptom
of our system is the gradual decay of justice among
us. The judges have lost most of their influence, and the
jurors are getting to be law-makers, as well as law-breakers.”

“There is a good deal of truth in that, I will acknowledge,
also; and you hear it asked constantly, in a case of
any interest, not which party is in the right, but who is on
the jury. But I contend for no perfection; all I say is, that

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the country is a glorious country, and that you and I have
every reason to be proud that old Hugh Roger, our predecessor
and namesake, saw fit to transplant himself into it, a
century and a half since.”

“I dare say now, uncle Ro, it would strike most Europeans
as singular that a man should be proud of having
been born an American—Manhattanese, as you and I both
were.”

“All that may be true, for there have been calculated
attempts to bring us into discredit of late, by harping on the
failure of certain States to pay the interest on their debts.
But all that is easily answered, and more so by you and me
as New Yorkers. There is not a nation in Europe that
would pay its interest, if those who are taxed to do so had
the control of these taxes, and the power to say whether
they were to be levied or not.”

“I do not see how that mends the matter. These countries
tell us that such is the effect of your system there,
while we are too honest to allow such a system to exist in
this part of the world.”

“Pooh! all gammon, that. They prevent the existence
of our system for very different reasons, and they coerce
the payment of the interest on their debts that they may
borrow more. This business of repudiation, as it is called,
however, has been miserably misrepresented; and there is
no answering a falsehood by an argument. No American
State has repudiated its debt, that I know of, though several
have been unable to meet their engagements as they have
fallen due.”

“Unable, uncle Ro?”

“Yes, unable—that is the precise word. Take Pennsylvania,
for instance; that is one of the richest communities
in the civilized world; its coal and iron alone would make
any country affluent, and a portion of its agricultural population
is one of the most affluent I know of. Nevertheless,
Pennsylvania, owing to a concurrence of events, could not
pay the interest on her debt for two years and a half, though
she is doing it now, and will doubtless continue to do it.
The sudden breaking down of that colossal moneyed institution,
the soi-disant Bank of the United States, after it ceased
to be in reality a bank of the government, brought about

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such a state of the circulation as rendered payment, by any
of the ordinary means known to government, impossible.
I know what I say, and repeat impossible. It is well known
that many persons, accustomed to affluence, had to carry
their plate to the mint, in order to obtain money to go to
market. Then something may be attributed to the institutions,
without disparaging a people's honesty. Our institutions
are popular, just as those of France are the reverse;
and the people, they who were on the spot—the home creditor,
with his account unpaid, and with his friends and
relatives in the legislature, and present to aid him, contended
for his own money, before any should be sent abroad.”

“Was that exactly right, sir?”

“Certainly not; it was exactly wrong, but very particularly
natural. Do you suppose the King of France would
not take the money for his civil list, if circumstances should
compel the country to suspend on the debt for a year or
two, or the ministers their salaries? My word for it, each
and all of them would prefer themselves as creditors, and
act accordingly. Every one of these countries has suspended
in some form or other, and in many instances balanced
the account with the sponge. Their clamour against
us is altogether calculated with a view to political effect.”

“Still, I wish Pennsylvania, for instance, had continued
to pay, at every hazard.”

“It is well enough to wish, Hugh; but it is wishing for
an impossibility. Then you and I, as New Yorkers, have
nothing to do with the debt of Pennsylvania, no more than
London would have to do with the debt of Dublin or Quebec.
We have always paid our interest, and, what is more,
paid it more honestly, if honesty be the point, than even
England has paid hers. When our banks suspended, the
State paid its interest in as much paper as would buy the
specie in open market; whereas England made paper legal
tender, and paid the interest on her debt in it for something
like five-and-twenty years, and, that, too, when her paper
was at a large discount. I knew of one American who
held near a million of dollars in the English debt, on which
he had to take unconvertible paper for the interest for a long
series of years. No, no! this is all gammon, Hugh, and
is not to be regarded as making us a whit worse than our

[figure description] Page 021.[end figure description]

neighbours. The equality of our laws is the fact in which
I glory!”

“If the rich stood as fair a chance as the poor, untle
Ro.”

“There is a screw loose there, I must confess; but it
amounts to no great matter.”

“Then the late bankrupt law?”

“Ay, that was an infernal procedure—that much I will
acknowledge, too. It was special legislation enacted to pay
particular debts, and the law was repealed as soon as it had
done its duty. That is a much darker spot in our history
than what is called repudiation, though perfectly honest men
voted for it.”

“Did you ever hear of a farce they got up about it at
New York, just after we sailed?”

“Never; what was it, Hugh? though American plays
are pretty much all farces.”

“This was a little better than common, and, on the
whole, really clever. It is the old story of Faust, in which
a young spendthrift sells himself, soul and body, to the
devil. On a certain evening, as he is making merry with
a set of wild companions, his creditor arrives, and, insisting
on seeing the master, is admitted by the servant. He
comes on, club-footed and behorned, as usual, and betailed,
too, I believe; but Tom is not to be scared by trifles. He
insists on his guest's being seated, on his taking a glass of
wine, and then on Dick's finishing his song. But, though
the rest of the company had signed no bonds to Satan, they
had certain outstanding book-debts, which made them excessively
uncomfortable; and the odour of brimstone being
rather strong, Tom arose, approached his guest, and desired
to know the nature of the particular business he had mentioned
to his servant. `This bond, sir,' said Satan, significantly.
`This bond? what of it, pray? It seems all right.'
`Is not that your signature?' `I admit it.' `Signed in
your blood?' `A conceit of your own; I told you at the
time that ink was just as good in law.' `It is past due,
seven minutes and fourteen seconds.' `So it is, I declare!
but what of that?' `I demand payment.' `Nonsense!
no one thinks of paying now-a-days. Why, even Pennsylvania
and Maryland don't pay.' `I insist on payment.'

[figure description] Page 022.[end figure description]

`Oh! you do, do you?' Tom draws a paper from his
pocket, and adds, magnificently, `There, then, if you 're so
urgent—there is a discharge under the new bankrupt law,
signed Smith Thompson.' This knocked the devil into a
cocked-hat at once.”

My uncle laughed heartily at my story; but, instead of
taking the matter as I had fancied he might, it made him
think better of the country than ever.

“Well, Hugh, we have wit among us, it must be confessed,”
he cried, with the tears running down his cheeks,
“if we have some rascally laws, and some rascals to administer
them. But here comes Jacob with his letters and
papers—I declare, the fellow has a large basket-full.”

Jacob, a highly respectable black, and the great-grandson
of an old negro named Jaaf, or Yop, who was then living
on my own estate at Ravensnest, had just then entered, with
the porter and himself lugging in the basket in question.
There were several hundred newspapers, and quite a hundred
letters. The sight brought home and America clearly
and vividly before us; and, having nearly finished the dessert,
we rose to look at the packages. It was no small task
to sort our mail, there being so many letters and packages
to be divided.

“Here are some newspapers I never saw before,” said
my uncle, as he tumbled over the pile; “`The Guardian
of the Soil'—that must have something to do with Oregon.”

“I dare say it has, sir. Here are at least a dozen letters
from my sister.”

“Ay, your sister is single, and can still think of her brother;
but mine are married, and one letter a-year would be
a great deal. This is my dear old mother's hand, however;
that is something. Ursula Malbone would never forget her
child. Well, bon soir, Hugh. Each of us has enough to
do for one evening.”

“Au revoir, sir. We shall meet at ten to-morrow, when
we can compare our news, and exchange gossip.”

CHAPTER II.

“Why droops my lord, like over-ripen'd corn,
Hanging the head at Ceres' plenteous load?”
King Henry VI.

[figure description] Page 023.[end figure description]

I did not get into my bed that night until two, nor was I
out of it until half-past nine. It was near eleven when
Jacob came to tell me his master was in the salle à manger, and ready to eat his breakfast. I hastened up stairs, sleeping
in the entresol, and was at table with my uncle in three
minutes. I observed, on entering, that he was very grave,
and I now perceived that a couple of letters, and several
American newspapers, lay near him. His “Good morrow,
Hugh,” was kind and affectionate as usual, but I fancied it
sad.

“No bad news from home, I hope, sir!” I exclaimed,
under the first impulse of feeling. “Martha's last letter is
of quite recent date, and she writes very cheerfully. I know
that my grandmother was perfectly well, six weeks since.”

“I know the same, Hugh, for I have a letter from herself,
written with her own blessed hand. My mother is in
excellent health for a woman of fourscore; but she naturally
wishes to see us, and you in particular. Grandchildren
are ever the pets with grandmothers.”

“I am glad to hear all this, sir; for I was really afraid,
on entering the room, that you had received some unpleasant
news.”

“And is all your news pleasant, after so long a silence?”

“Nothing that is disagreeable, I do assure you. Patt
writes in charming spirits, and I dare say is in blooming
beauty by this time, though she tells me that she is generally
thought rather plain. That is impossible; for you
know when we left her, at fifteen, she had every promise of
great beauty.”

“As you say, it is impossible that Martha Littlepage
should be anything but handsome; for fifteen is an age
when, in America, one may safely predict the woman's

[figure description] Page 024.[end figure description]

appearance. Your sister is preparing for you an agreeable
surprise. I have heard old persons say that she was very
like my mother at the same time of life; and Dus Malbone
was a sort of toast once in the forest.”

“I dare say it is all as you think; more especially as
there are several allusions to a certain Harry Beekman in
ner letters, at which I should feel flattered, were I in Mr.
Harry's place. Do you happen to know anything of such
a family as the Beekmans, sir?”

My uncle looked up in a little surprise at this question.
A thorough New Yorker by birth, associations, alliances
and feelings, he held all the old names of the colony and
State in profound respect; and I had often heard him sneer
at the manner in which the new-comers of my day, who
had appeared among us to blossom like the rose, scattered
their odours through the land. It was but a natural thing
that a community which had grown in population, in half a
century, from half a million to two millions and a half, and
that as much by immigration from adjoining communities
as by natural increase, should undergo some change of feeling
in this respect; but, on the other hand, it was just as
natural that the true New Yorker should not.

“Of course you know, Hugh, that it is an ancient and
respected name among us,” answered my uncle, after he
had given me the look of surprise I have already mentioned.
“There is a branch of the Beekmans, or Bakemans, as we
used to call them, settled near Satanstoe; and I dare say
that your sister, in her frequent visits to my mother, has
met with them. The association would be but natural; and
the other feeling to which you allude is, I dare say, but
natural to the association, though I cannot say I ever experienced
it.”

“You will still adhere to your asseverations of never
having been the victim of Cupid, I find, sir.”

“Hugh, Hugh! let us trifle no more. There is news
from home that has almost broken my heart.”

I sat gazing at my uncle in wonder and alarm, while he
placed both his hands on his face, as if to exclude this
wicked world, and all it contained, from his sight. I did
not speak, for I saw that the old gentleman was really
affected, but waited his pleasure to communicate more. My

[figure description] Page 025.[end figure description]

impatience was soon relieved, however, as the hands were
removed, and I once more caught a view of my uncle's
handsome, but clouded countenance.

“May I ask the nature of this news?” I then ventured to
inquire.

“You may, and I shall now tell you. It is proper, indeed,
that you should hear all, and understand it all; for
you have a direct interest in the matter, and a large portion
of your property is dependent on the result. Had not the
manor troubles, as they were called, been spoken of before
we left home?”

“Certainly, though not to any great extent. We saw
something of it in the papers, I remember, just before we
went to Russia; and I recollect you mentioned it as a discreditable
affair to the State, though likely to lead to no very
important result.”

“So I then thought; but that hope has been delusive.
There were some reasons why a population like ours should
chafe under the situation of the estate of the late Patroon,
that I thought natural, though unjustifiable; for it is unhappily
too much a law of humanity to do that which is wrong,
more especially in matters connected with the pocket.”

“I do not exactly understand your allusion, sir.”

“It is easily explained. The Van Rensselaer property
is, in the first place, of great extent—the manor, as it is
still called and once was, spreading east and west eight-and-forty
miles, and north and south twenty-four. With a few
immaterial exceptions, including the sites of three or four
towns, three of which are cities containing respectively six,
twenty and forty thousand souls, this large surface was the
property of a single individual. Since his death, it has
become the property of two, subject to the conditions of the
leases, of which by far the greater portion are what are
called durable.”

“I have heard all this, of course, sir, and know something
of it myself. But what is a durable lease? for I believe
we have none of that nature at Ravensnest.”

“No; your leases are all for three lives, and most of
them renewals at that. There are two sorts of `durable
leases,' as we term them, in use among the landlords of
New York. Both give the tenant a permanent interest

[figure description] Page 026.[end figure description]

being leases for ever, reserving an annual rent, with the
right to distrain, and covenants of re-entry. But one class
of these leases gives the tenant a right at any time to demand
a deed in fee-simple, on the payment of a stipulated
sum; while the other gives him no such privilege. Thus
one class of these leases is called `a durable lease with a
clause of redemption;' while the other is a simple `durable
lease.”'

“And are there any new difficulties in relation to the
manor rents?”

“Far worse than that; the contagion has spread, until
the greatest ills that have been predicted from democratic
institutions, by their worst enemies, seriously menace the
country. I am afraid, Hugh, I shall not be able to call
New York, any longer, an exception to the evil example of
a neighbourhood, or the country itself a glorious country.”

“This is so serious, sir, that, were it not that your looks
denote the contrary, I might be disposed to doubt your
words.”

“I fear my words are only too true. Dunning has written
me a long account of his own, made out with the precision
of a lawyer; and, in addition, he has sent me divers
papers, some of which openly contend for what is substantially
a new division of property, and what in effect would
be agrarian laws.”

“Surely, my dear uncle, you cannot seriously apprehend
anything of that nature from our order-loving, law-loving,
property-loving Americans!”

“Your last description may contain the secret of the
whole movement. The love of property may be so strong
as to induce them to do a great many things they ought not
to do. I certainly do not apprehend that any direct attempt
is about to be made, in New York, to divide its property;
nor do I fear any open, declared agrarian statute; for what
I apprehend is to come through indirect and gradual innovations
on the right, that will be made to assume the delusive
aspect of justice and equal rights, and thus undermine
the principles of the people, before they are aware of the
danger themselves. In order that you may not only understand
me, but may understand facts that are of the last
importance to your own pocket, I will first tell you what

[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]

has been done, and then tell you what I fear is to follow.
The first difficulty—or, rather, the first difficulty of recent
occurrence—arose at the death of the late Patroon. I say
of recent occurrence, since Dunning writes me that, during
the administration of John Jay, an attempt to resist the
payment of rent was made on the manor of the Livingstons;
but he put it down instanter.”

“Yes, I should rather think that roguery would not be
apt to prosper, while the execution of the laws was entrusted
to such a man. The age of such politicians, however,
seems to have ended among us.”

“It did not prosper. Governor Jay met the pretension
as we all know such a man would meet it; and the matter
died away, and has been nearly forgotten. It is worthy of
remark, that he PUT THE EVIL DOWN. But this is not the
age of John Jays. To proceed to my narrative: When the
late Patroon died, there was due to him a sum of something
like two hundred thousand dollars of back-rents, and of
which he had made a special disposition in his will, vesting
the money in trustees for a certain purpose. It was the
attempt to collect this money which first gave rise to dissatisfaction.
Those who had been debtors so long, were
reluctant to pay. In casting round for the means to escape
from the payment of their just debts, these men, feeling the
power that numbers ever give over right in America, combined
to resist with others who again had in view a project
to get rid of the rents altogether. Out of this combination
grew what have been called the `manor troubles.' Men
appeared in a sort of mock-Indian dress, calico shirts
thrown over their other clothes, and with a species of calico
masks on their faces, who resisted the bailiffs' processes,
and completely prevented the collection of rents. These
men were armed, mostly with rifles; and it was finally
found necessary to call out a strong body of the militia, in
order to protect the civil officers in the execution of their
duties.”

“All this occurred before we went to the East. I had
supposed those anti-renters, as they were called, had been
effectually put down.”

“In appearance they were. But the very governor who
called the militia into the field, referred the subject of the

[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]

`griefs' of the tenants to the legislature, as if they were
actually aggrieved citizens, when in truth it was the landlords,
or the Rensselaers, for at that time the `troubles' were
confined to their property, who were the aggrieved parties.
This false step has done an incalculable amount of mischief,
if it do not prove the entering wedge to rive asunder the
institutions of the State.”

“It is extraordinary, when such things occur, that any
man can mistake his duty. Why were the tenants thus
spoken of, while nothing was said beyond what the law
compelled in favour of the landlords?”

“I can see no reason but the fact that the Rensselaers
were only two, and that the disaffected tenants were probably
two thousand. With all the cry of aristocracy, and
feudality, and nobility, neither of the Rensselaers, by the
letter of the law, has one particle more of political power,
or political right, than his own coachman or footman, if the
last be a white man; while, in practice, he is in many things
getting to be less protected.”

“Then you think, sir, that this matter has gained force
from the circumstance that so many votes depend on it?”

“Out of all question. Its success depends on the violations
of principles that we have been so long taught to hold
sacred, that nothing short of the over-ruling and corrupting
influence of politics would dare to assail them. If there
were a landlord to each farm, as well as a tenant, universal
indifference would prevail as to the griefs of the tenants;
and if two to one tenant, universal indignation at their
impudence.”

“Of what particular griefs do the tenants complain?”

“You mean the Rensselaer tenants, I suppose? Why,
they complain of such covenants as they can, though their
deepest affliction is to be found in the fact that they do not
own other men's lands. The Patroon had quarter sales on
many of his farms—those that were let in the last century.”

“Well, what of that? A bargain to allow of quarter
sales is just as fair as any other bargain.”

“It is fairer, in fact, than most bargains, when you come
to analyze it, since there is a very good reason why it should
accompany a perpetual lease. Is it to be supposed that a
landlord has no interest in the character and habits of his

[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]

tenants? He has the closest interest in it possible, and no
prudent man should let his lands without holding some sort
of control over the assignment of leases. Now, there are
but two modes of doing this; either by holding over the
tenant a power through his interests, or a direct veto dependent
solely on the landlord's will.”

“The last would be apt to raise a pretty cry of tyranny
and feudality in America!”

“Pretty cries on such subjects are very easily raised in
America. More people join in them than understand what
they mean. Nevertheless, it is quite as just, when two men
bargain, that he who owns every right in the land before
the bargain is made, should retain this right over his property,
which he consents to part with only with limitations,
as that he should grant it to another. These men, in their
clamour, forget that, until their leases were obtained, they
had no right in their lands at all, and that what they have
got is through those very leases of which they complain;
take away the leases, and they would have no rights remaining.
Now, on what principle can honest men pretend
that they have rights beyond the leases? On the supposition,
even, that the bargains are hard, what have governors
and legislators to do with thrusting themselves in between
parties so situated, as special umpires? I should object to
such umpires, moreover, on the general and controlling
principle that must govern all righteous arbitration—your
governors and legislators are not impartial; they are political
or party men, one may say, without exception; and
such umpires, when votes are in the question, are to be
sorely distrusted. I would as soon trust my interests to the
decision of feed counsel, as trust them to such judges.”

“I wonder the really impartial and upright portion of the
community do not rise in their might, and put this thing
down—rip it up, root and branch, and cast it away, at
once.”

“That is the weak point of our system, which has a hundred
strong points, while it has this besetting vice. Our
laws are not only made, but they are administered, on the
supposition that there are both honesty and intelligence
enough in the body of the community to see them well
made, and well administered. But the sad reality shows

[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]

that good men are commonly passive, until abuses become
intolerable; it being the designing rogue and manager who
is usually the most active. Vigilant philanthropists do exist,
I will allow; but it is in such small numbers as to effect
little on the whole, and nothing at all when opposed by the
zeal of a mercenary opposition. No, no—little is ever to
be expected, in a political sense, from the activity of virtue;
while a great deal may be looked for from the activity of
vice.”

“You do not take a very favourable view of humanity,
sir.”

“I speak of the world as I have found it in both hemispheres,
or, as your neighbour the magistrate 'Squire New-come
has it, the `four hemispheres.' Our representation is,
at the best, but an average of the qualities of the whole
community, somewhat lessened by the fact that men of real
merit have taken a disgust at a state of things that is not
very tempting to their habits or tastes. As for a quarter
sale, I can see no more hardship in it than there is in paying
the rent itself; and, by giving the landlord this check
on the transfer of his lands, he compels a compromise that
maintains what is just. The tenant is not obliged to sell,
and he makes his conditions accordingly, when he has a
good tenant to offer in his stead. When he offers a bad
tenant, he ought to pay for it.”

“Many persons with us would think it very aristocratic,”
I cried, laughingly, “that a landlord should have it in his
power to say, I will not accept this or that substitute for
yourself.”

“It is just as aristocratic, and no more so, than it would
be to put it in the power of the tenant to say to the landlord,
you shall accept this or that tenant at my hands. The
covenant of the quarter sale gives each party a control in
the matter; and the result has ever been a compromise that
is perfectly fair, as it is hardly possible that the circumstance
should have been overlooked in making the bargain;
and he who knows anything of such matters, knows that
every exaction of this sort is always considered in the
rent. As for feudality, so long as the power to alienate
exists at all in the tenant, he does not hold by a feudal
tenure. He has bought himself from all such tenures by

[figure description] Page 031.[end figure description]

his covenant of quarter sale; and it only remains to say
whether, having agreed to such a bargain in order to obtain
this advantage, he should pay the stipulated price or not.”

“I understand you, sir. It is easy to come at the equity
of this matter, if one will only go back to the original facts
which colour it. The tenant had no rights at all until he
got his lease, and can have no rights which that lease does
not confer.”

“Then the cry is raised of feudal privileges, because
some of the Rensselaer tenants are obliged to find so many
days' work with their teams, or substitutes, to the landlord,
and even because they have to pay annually a pair of fat
fowls! We have seen enough of America, Hugh, to know
that most husbandmen would be delighted to have the privilege
of paying their debts in chickens and work, instead of
in money, which renders the cry only so much the more
wicked. But what is there more feudal in a tenant's thus
paying his landlord, than in a butcher's contracting to furnish
so much meat for a series of years, or a mail contractor's
agreeing to carry the mail in a four-horse coach
for a term of years, eh? No one objects to the rent in
wheat, and why should they object to the rent in chickens?
Is it because our republican farmers have got to be so aristocratic
themselves, that they do not like to be thought
poulterers? This is being aristocratic on the other side.
These dignitaries should remember that if it be plebeian to
furnish fowls, it is plebeian to receive them; and if the
tenant has to find an individual who has to submit to the
degradation of tendering a pair of fat fowls, the landlord
has to find an individual who has to submit to the degradation
of taking them, and of putting them away in the larder.
It seems to me that one is an offset to the other.”

“But, if I remember rightly, uncle Ro, these little matters
were always commuted for in money.”

“They always must lie at the option of the tenant, unless
the covenants went to forfeiture, which I never heard
that they did; for the failure to pay in kind at the time
stipulated, would only involve a payment in money afterwards.
The most surprising part of this whole transaction
is, that men among us hold the doctrine that these leasehold
estates are opposed to our institutions, when, being

[figure description] Page 032.[end figure description]

guarantied by the institutions, they in truth form a part of them.
Were it not for these very institutions, to which they are
said to be opposed, and of which they virtually form a part,
we should soon have a pretty kettle of fish between landlord
and tenant.”

“How do you make it out that they form a part of the
institutions, sir?”

“Simply because the institutions have a solemn profession
of protecting property. There is such a parade of this,
that all our constitutions declare that property shall never
be taken without due form of law; and to read one of them,
you would think the property of the citizen is held quite as
sacred as his person. Now, some of these very tenures
existed when the State institutions were framed; and, not
satisfied with this, we of New York, in common with our
sister States, solemnly prohibited ourselves, in the constitution
of the United States, from ever meddling with them!
Nevertheless, men are found hardy enough to assert that a
thing which in fact belongs to the institutions, is opposed to
them.”

“Perhaps they mean, sir, to their spirit, or to their tendency.”

“Ah! there may be some sense in that, though much
less than the declaimers fancy. The spirit of institutions
is their legitimate object; and it would be hard to prove
that a leasehold tenure, with any conditions of mere pecuniary
indebtedness whatever, is opposed to any institutions
that recognise the full rights of property. The obligation
to pay rent no more creates political dependency, than to
give credit from an ordinary shop; not so much, indeed,
more especially under such leases as those of the Rensselaers;
for the debtor on a book-debt can be sued at any
moment, whereas the tenant knows precisely when he has
to pay. There is the great absurdity of those who decry
the system as feudal and aristocratic; for they do not see
that those very leases are more favourable to the tenant than
any other.”

“I shall have to ask you to explain this to me, sir, being
too ignorant to comprehend it.”

“Why, these leases are perpetual, and the tenant cannot
be dispossessed. The longer a lease is, other things being

[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]

equal, the better it is for the tenant, all the world over. Let
us suppose two farms, the one leased for five years, and the
other for ever: Which tenant is most independent of the
political influence of his landlord, to say nothing of the impossibility
of controlling votes in this way in America, from
a variety of causes? Certainly he who has a lease for ever.
He is just as independent of his landlord, as his landlord
can be of him, with the exception that he has rent to pay.
In the latter case, he is precisely like any other debtor—
like the poor man who contracts debts with the same storekeeper
for a series of years. As for the possession of the
farm, which we are to suppose is a desirable thing for the
tenant, he of the long lease is clearly most independent,
since the other may be ejected at the end of each five years.
Nor is there the least difference as to acquiring the property
in fee, since the landlord may sell equally in either case, if
so disposed; and if NOT DISPOSED, NO HONEST MAN, UNDER
ANY SYSTEM, OUGHT TO DO ANYTHING TO COMPEL HIM SO
TO DO, either directly or indirectly; AND NO TRULY HONEST
MAN WOULD.”

I put some of the words of my uncle Ro in small capitals,
as the spirit of the times, not of the institutions, renders
such hints necessary. But, to continue our dialogue:

“I understand you now, sir, though the distinction you
make between the spirit of the institutions and their tendencies
is what I do not exactly comprehend.”

“It is very easily explained. The spirit of the institutions
is their intention; their tendencies is the natural direction
they take under the impulses of human motives, which
are always corrupt and corrupting. The `spirit' refers to
what things ought to be; the `tendencies,' to what they are,
or are becoming. The `spirit' of all political institutions is
to place a check on the natural propensities of men, to restrain
them, and keep them within due bounds; while the
tendencies follow those propensities, and are quite often in
direct opposition to the spirit. That this outcry against
leasehold tenures in America is following the tendencies of
our institutions, I am afraid is only too true; but that it is
in any manner in compliance with their spirit, I utterly
deny.”

“You will allow that institutions have their spirit, which

[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]

ought always to be respected, in order to preserve harmony?”

“Out of all question. The first great requisite of a political
system is the means of protecting itself; the second, to
check its tendencies at the point required by justice, wisdom
and good faith. In a despotism, for instance, the spirit of
the system is to maintain that one man, who is elevated
above the necessities and temptations of a nation—who is
solemnly set apart for the sole purpose of government, fortified
by dignity, and rendered impartial by position—will
rule in the manner most conducive to the true interests of
his subjects. It is just as much the theory of Russia and
Prussia that their monarchs reign not for their own good,
but for the good of those over whom they are placed, as it
is the theory in regard to the President of the United States.
We all know that the tendencies of a despotism are to abuses
of a particular character; and it is just as certain that the
tendencies of a republic, or rather of a democratic republic—
for republic of itself means but little, many republics having
had kings—but it is just as certain that the tendencies
of a democracy are to abuses of another character. Whatever
man touches, he infallibly abuses; and this more in
connection with the exercise of political power, perhaps, than
in the management of any one interest of life, though he
abuses all, even to religion. Less depends on the nominal
character of institutions, perhaps, than on their ability to
arrest their own tendencies at the point required by everything
that is just and right. Hitherto, surprisingly few
grave abuses have followed from our institutions; but this
matter looks frightfully serious; for I have not told you
half, Hugh.”

“Indeed, sir! I beg you will believe me quite equal to
hearing the worst.”

“It is true, anti-rentism did commence on the estate of
the Rensselaers, and with complaints of feudal tenures, and
of days' works, and fat fowls, backed by the extravagantly
aristocratic pretension that a `manor' tenant was so much
a privileged being, that it was beneath his dignity, as a free
man, to do that which is daily done by mail-contractors,
stage-coach owners, victuallers, and even by themselves in
their passing bargains to deliver potatoes, onions, turkeys

[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]

and pork, although they had solemnly covenanted with their
landlords to pay the fat fowls, and to give the days' works.
The feudal system has been found to extend much further,
and `troubles,' as they are called, have broken out in other
parts of the State. Resistance to process, and a cessation
of the payment of rents, has occurred on the Livingston
property, in Hardenberg—in short, in eight or ten counties
of the State. Even among the bonâ fide purchasers, on the
Holland Purchase, this resistance has been organized, and
a species of troops raised, who appear disguised and armed
wherever a levy is to be made. Several men have already
been murdered, and there is the strong probability of a civil
war.”

“In the name of what is sacred and right, what has the
government of the State been doing all this time?”

“In my poor judgment, a great deal that it ought not to
have done, and very little that it ought. You know the
state of politics at home, Hugh; how important New York
is in all national questions, and how nearly tied is her vote—
less than ten thousand majority in a canvass of near half
a million of votes. When this is the case, the least-principled
part of the voters attain an undue importance—a truth
that has been abundantly illustrated in this question. The
natural course would have been to raise an armed constabulary
force, and to have kept it in motion, as the anti-renters
have kept their `Injins' in motion, which would have
soon tired out the rebels, for rebels they are, who would thus
have had to support one army in part, and the other altogether.
Such a movement on the part of the State, well and
energetically managed, would have drawn half the `Injins'
at once from the ranks of disaffection to those of authority;
for all that most of these men want is to live easy, and to
have a parade of military movements. Instead of that, the
legislature substantially did nothing, until blood was spilt,
and the grievance had got to be not only profoundly disgraceful
for such a State and such a country, but utterly
intolerable to the well-affected of the revolted counties, as
well as to those who were kept out of the enjoyment of their
property. Then, indeed, it passed the law which ought to
have been passed the first year of the `Injin' system—a law
which renders it felony to appear armed and disguised; but

[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]

Dunning writes me this law is openly disregarded in Delaware
and Schoharie, in particular, and that bodies of `Injins,
' in full costume and armed, of a thousand men, have
appeared to prevent levies or sales. Where it will end,
Heaven knows!”

“Do you apprehend any serious civil war?”

“It is impossible to say where false principles may lead,
when they are permitted to make head and to become widely
disseminated, in a country like ours. Still, the disturbances,
as such, are utterly contemptible, and could and would be put
down by an energetic executive in ten days after he had time
to collect a force to do it with. In some particulars, the present
incumbent has behaved perfectly well; while in others,
in my judgment, he has inflicted injuries on the right that
it will require years to repair, if, indeed, they are ever repaired.”

“You surprise me, sir; and this the more especially, as
I know you are generally of the same way of thinking, on
political subjects, with the party that is now in power.”

“Did you ever know me to support what I conceived to
be wrong, Hugh, on account of my political affinities?”
asked my uncle, a little reproachfully as to manner. “But,
let me tell you the harm that I conceive has been done by
all the governors who have had anything to do with the
subject; and that includes one of a party to which I am
opposed, and two that are not. In the first place, they have
all treated the matter as if the tenants had really some cause
of complaint; when in truth all their griefs arise from the
fact that other men will not let them have their property
just as they may want it, and in some respects on their own
terms.”

“That is certainly a grief not to be maintained by reason
in a civilized country, and in a christian community.”

“Umph! Christianity, like liberty, suffers fearfully in
human hands; one is sometimes at a loss to recognise either.
I have seen ministers of the gospel just as dogged, just as
regardless of general morality, and just as indifferent to the
right, in upholding their parties, as I ever saw laymen;
and I have seen laymen manifesting tempers, in this respect,
that properly belong to devils. But our governors have
certainly treated this matter as if the tenants actually had

[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]

griefs; when in truth their sole oppression is in being
obliged to pay rents that are merely nominal, and in not
being able to buy other men's property contrary to their
wishes, and very much at their own prices. One governor
has even been so generous as to volunteer a mode of settling
disputes with which, by the way, he has no concern,
there being courts to discharge that office, that is singularly
presuming on his part, to say the least, and which looks a
confounded sight more like aristocracy, or monarchy, than
anything connected with leasehold tenure.”

“Why, what can the man have done?”

“He has kindly taken on himself the office of doing that
for which I fancy he can find no authority in the institutions,
or in their spirit—no less than advising citizens how they
may conveniently manage their own affairs so as to get
over difficulties that he himself substantially admits, while
giving this very advice, are difficulties that the law sanctions!”

“This is a very extraordinary interference in a public
functionary; because one of the parties to a contract that is
solemnly guarantied by the law, chooses to complain of its
nature, rather than of its conditions, to pretend to throw the
weight of his even assumed authority into the scales on
either side of the question!”

“And that in a popular government, Hugh, in which it
tells so strongly against a man to render him unpopular,
that not one man in a million has the moral courage to resist
public opinion, even when he is right. You have hit the
nail on the head, boy; it is in the last degree presuming,
and what would be denounced as tyrannical in any monarch
in Europe. But he has lived in vain who has not learned
that they who make the loudest professions of a love of
liberty, have little knowledge of the quality, beyond submission
to the demands of numbers. Our executive has carried
his fatherly care even beyond this; he has actually suggested
the terms of a bargain by which he thinks the difficulty
can be settled, which, in addition to the gross assumption
of having a voice in a matter that in no manner belongs
to him, has the palpable demerit of recommending a pecuniary
compromise that is flagrantly wrong as a mere pecuniary
compromise.”

[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]

“You astonish me, sir! What is the precise nature of
his recommendation?”

“That the Rensselaers should receive such a sum from
each tenant as would produce an interest equal to the value
of the present rent. Now, in the first place, here is a citizen
who has got as much property as he wants, and who
wishes to live for other purposes than to accumulate. This
property is not only invested to his entire satisfaction, as
regards convenience, security and returns, but also in a way
that is connected with some of the best sentiments of his
nature. It is property that has descended to him through
ancestors for two centuries; property that is historically
connected with his name—on which he was born, on which
he has lived, and on which he has hoped to die; property,
in a word, that is associated with all the higher feelings of
humanity. Because some interloper, perhaps, who has purchased
an interest in one of his farms six months before,
feels an aristocratic desire not to have a landlord, and
wishes to own a farm in fee, that in fact he has no other
right to than he gets through his lease, the governor of the
great State of New York throws the weight of his official
position against the old hereditary owner of the soil, by
solemnly suggesting, in an official document that is intended
to produce an effect on public opinion, that he should sell
that which he does not wish to sell, but wishes to keep, and
that at a price which I conceive is much below its true pecuniary
value. We have liberty with a vengeance, if these
are some of its antics!”

“What makes the matter worse, is the fact that each of
the Rensselaers has a house on his estate, so placed as to be
convenient to look after his interests; which interests he is
to be at the trouble of changing, leaving him his house on
his hands, because, forsooth, one of the parties to a plain
and equitable bargain wishes to make better conditions than
he covenanted for. I wonder what his Excellency proposes
that the landlords shall do with their money when they get
it? Buy new estates, and build new houses, of which to be
dispossessed when a new set of tenants may choose to cry
out against aristocracy, and demonstrate their own love for
democracy by wishing to pull others down in order to shove
themselves into their places?”

[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

“You are right again, Hugh; but it is a besetting vice
of America to regard life as all means, and as having no
end, in a worldly point of view. I dare say men may be
found among us who regard it as highly presuming in any
man to build himself an ample residence, and to announce
by his mode of living that he is content with his present
means, and does not wish to increase them, at the very moment
they view the suggestions of the governor as the pink
of modesty, and excessively favourable to equal rights! I
like that thought of yours about the house, too; in order to
suit the `spirit' of the New York institutions, it would seem
that a New York landlord should build on wheels, that he
may move his abode to some new estate, when it suits the
pleasure of his tenants to buy him out.”

“Do you suppose the Rensselaers would take their money,
the principal of the rent at seven per cent., and buy land
with it, after their experience of the uncertainty of such
possessions among us?”

“Not they,” said my uncle Ro, laughing. “No, no!
they would sell the Manor-House, and Beverwyck, for taverns;
and then any one might live in them who would pay
the principal sum of the cost of a dinner; bag their dollars,
and proceed forthwith to Wall street, and commence the
shaving of notes—that occupation having been decided, as
I see by the late arrivals, to be highly honourable and
praiseworthy. Hitherto they have been nothing but drones;
but, by the time they can go to the quick with their dollars,
they will become useful members of society, and be honoured
and esteemed accordingly.”

What next might have been said I do not know, for just
then we were interrupted by a visit from our common
banker, and the discourse was necessarily changed.

CHAPTER III.

“O, when shall I visit the land of my birth,
The loveliest land on the face of the earth?
When shall I those scenes of affection explore,
Our forests, our fountains,
Our hamlets, our mountains,
With the pride of our mountains, the maid I adore?”
Montgomery.

[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]

It was truly news for an American, who had been so
long cut off from intelligence from home, thus suddenly to
be told that some of the scenes of the middle ages—scenes
connected with real wrongs and gross abuses of human
rights—were about to be enacted in his own land; that
country which boasted itself, not only to be the asylum
of the oppressed, but the conservator of the right. I was
grieved at what I had heard, for, during my travels, I had
cherished a much-loved image of justice and political excellence,
that I now began to fear must be abandoned. My
uncle and myself decided at once to return home, a step
that indeed was required by prudence. I was now of an
age to enter into the full possession of my own property (so
far as “new laws and new lords” would permit); and the
letters received by my late guardian, as well as certain
newspapers, communicated the unpleasant fact that a great
many of the tenants of Ravensnest had joined the association,
paid tribute for the support of “Injins,” and were getting
to be as bad as any of the rest of them, so far as
designs and schemes to plunder were concerned, though
they still paid their rents. The latter circumstance was
ascribed by our agent to the fact that many leases were
about to fall in, and it would be in my power to substitute
more honest and better disposed successors for the present
occupants of the several farms. Measures were taken accordingly
for quitting Paris as soon as possible, so that we
might reach home late in the month of May.

“If we had time, I would certainly throw in a memorial
or two to the legislature,” observed my uncle, a day or two

[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]

before we proceeded to Havre to join the packet. “I have
a strong desire to protest against the invasion of my rights
as a freeman that is connected with some of their contemplated
laws. I do not at all like the idea of being abridged
of the power of hiring a farm for the longest time I can
obtain it, which is one of the projects of some of the ultra
reformers of free and equal New York. It is wonderful,
Hugh, into what follies men precipitate themselves as soon
as they begin to run into exaggerations, whether of politics,
religion, or tastes. Here are half of the exquisite philanthropists
who see a great evil affecting the rights of human
nature in one man's hiring a farm from another for as long
a term as he can obtain it, who are at the very extreme in
their opinions on free trade! So free-trade are some of the
journals which think it a capital thing to prevent landlords
and tenants from making their own bargains, that they have
actually derided the idea of having established fares for
hackney-coaches, but that it would be better to let the parties
stand in the rain and higgle about the price, on the free-trade
principle. Some of these men are either active agents
in stimulating the legislature to rob the citizen of this very
simple control of his property, or passive lookers-on while
others do it.”

“Votes, sir, votes.”

“It is, indeed, votes, sir, votes; nothing short of votes
could reconcile these men to their own inconsistencies. As
for yourself, Hugh, it might be well to get rid of that canopied
pew—”

“Of what canopied pew? I am sure I do not understand
you.”

“Do you forget that the family-pew in St. Andrew's
Church, at Ravensnest, has a wooden canopy over it—a
relic of our colonial opinions and usages?”

“Now you mention it, I do remember a very clumsy,
and, to own the truth, a very ugly thing, that I have always
supposed was placed there, by those who built the church,
by way of ornament.”

“That ugly thing, by way of ornament, was intended for
a sort of canopy, and was by no means an uncommon distinction
in the State and colony, as recently as the close of
the last century. The church was built at the expense of

[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]

my grandfather, Gen. Littlepage, and his bosom friend and
kinsman, Col. Dirck Follock, both good Whigs and gallant
defenders of the liberty of their country. They thought it
proper that the Littlepages should have a canopied pew, and
that is the state in which they caused the building to be presented
to my father. The old work still stands; and Dunning
writes me that, among the other arguments used against
your interests, is the fact that your pew is thus distinguished
from those of the rest of the congregation.”

“It is a distinction no man would envy me, could it be
known that I have ever thought the clumsy, ill-shaped thing
a nuisance, and detestable as an ornament. I have never
even associated it in my mind with personal distinction, but
have always supposed it was erected with a view to embellish
the building, and placed over our pew as the spot where
such an excrescence would excite the least envy.”

“In all that, with one exception, you have judged quite
naturally. Forty years ago, such a thing might have been
done, and a majority of the parishioners would have seen
in it nothing out of place. But that day has gone by; and
you will discover that, on your own estate, and in the very
things created by your family and yourself, you will actually
have fewer rights of any sort, beyond those your money
will purchase, than any man around you. The simple fact
that St. Andrew's Church was built by your great-grandfather,
and by him presented to the congregation, will diminish
your claim to have a voice in its affairs with many
of the congregation.”

“This is so extraordinary, that I musk ask the reason.”

“The reason is connected with a principle so obviously
belonging to human nature generally, and to American
nature in particular, that I wonder you ask it. It is envy.
Did that pew belong to the Newcomes, for instance, no one
would think anything of it.”

“Nevertheless, the Newcomes would make themselves
ridiculous by sitting in a pew that was distinguished from
those of their neighbours. The absurdity of the contrast
would strike every one.”

“And it is precisely because the absurdity does not exist
in your case, that your seat is envied. No one envies absurdity.
However, you will readily admit, Hugh, that a

[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]

church, and a church-yard, are the two last places in which
human distinctions ought to be exhibited. All are equal in
the eyes of Him we go to the one to worship, and all are
equal in the grave. I have ever been averse to everything
like worldly distinction in a congregation, and admire the
usage of the Romish Church in even dispensing with pews
altogether. Monuments speak to the world, and have a
general connexion with history, so that they may be tolerated
to a certain point, though notorious liars.”

“I agree with you, sir, as to the unfitness of a church for
all distinctions, and shall be happy on every account to get
rid of my canopy, though that has an historical connexion,
also. I am quite innocent of any feeling of pride while sitting
under it, though I will confess to some of shame at its
quizzical shape, when I see it has attracted the eyes of intelligent
strangers.”

“It is but natural that you should feel thus; for, while
we may miss distinctions and luxuries to which we have
ever been accustomed, they rarely excite pride in the possessor,
even while they awaken envy in the looker-on.”

“Nevertheless, I cannot see what the old pew has to do
with the rents, or my legal rights.”

“When a cause is bad, everything is pressed into it that
it is believed may serve a turn. No man who had a good
legal claim for property, would ever think of urging any
other; nor would any legislator who had sound and sufficient
reasons for his measures—reasons that could properly
justify him before God and man for his laws—have recourse
to slang to sustain him. If these anti-renters were right,
they would have no need of secret combinations, of disguises,
blood-and-thunder names, and special agents in the
legislature of the land. The right requires no false aid to
make it appear the right; but the wrong must get such support
as it can press into its service. Your pew is called
aristocratic, though it confers no political power; it is called
a patent of nobility, though it neither gives nor takes away;
and it is hated, and you with it, for the very reason that you
can sit in it and not make yourself ridiculous. I suppose
you have not examined very closely the papers I gave you
to read?”

“Enough so to ascertain that they are filled with trash.”

[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]

“Worse than trash, Hugh; with some of the loosest
principles, and most atrocious feelings, that degrade poor
human nature. Some of the reformers propose that no man
shall hold more than a thousand acres of land, while others
lay down the very intelligible and distinct principle that no
man ought to hold more than he can use. Even petitions
to that effect, I have been told, have been sent to the legislature.”

“Which has taken care not to allude to their purport,
either in debate or otherwise, as I see nothing to that effect
in the reports.”

“Ay, I dare say the slang-whangers of those honourable
bodies will studiously keep all such enormities out of sight,
as some of them doubtless hope to step into the shoes of the
present landlords, as soon as they can get the feet out of
them which are now in. But these are the projects and the
petitions in the columns of the journals, and they speak for
themselves. Among other things, they say it is nobility to
be a landlord.”

“I see by the letter of Mr. Dunning, that they have petitioned the legislature to order an inquiry into my title.
Now, we hold from the crown—”

“So much the worse, Hugh. Faugh! hold from a crown
in a republican country! I am amazed you are not ashamed
to own it. Do you not know, boy, that it has been gravely
contended in a court of justice that, in obtaining our national
independence from the King of Great Britain, the
people conquered all his previous grants, which ought to be
declared void and of none effect?”

“That is an absurdity of which I had not heard,” I answered,
laughing; “why, the people of New York, who
held all their lands under the crown, would in that case
have been conquering them for other persons! My good
grandfather and great-grandfather, both of whom actually
fought and bled in the revolution, must have been very silly
thus to expose themselves to take away their own estates, in
order to give them to a set of immigrants from New England
and other parts of the world!”

“Quite justly said, Hugh,” added my uncle, joining in
the laugh. “Nor is this half of the argument. The State,
too, in its corporate character, has been playing swindler all

[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

this time. You may not know the fact, but I as your guardian
do know, that the quit-rents reserved by the crown
when it granted the lands of Mooseridge and Ravensnest,
were claimed by the State; and that, wanting money to
save the people from taxes, it commuted with us, receiving
a certain gross sum in satisfaction of all future claims.”

“Ay, that I did not know. Can the fact be shown?”

“Certainly—it is well known to all old fellows like myself,
for it was a very general measure, and very generally
entered into by all the landholders. In our case, the
receipts are still to be found among the family-papers. In
the cases of the older estates, such as those of the Van
Rensselaers, the equity is still stronger in their favour, since
the conditions to hold the land included an obligation to
bring so many settlers from Europe within a given time;
conditions that were fulfilled at great cost, as you may suppose,
and on which, in truth, the colony had its foundation.”

“How much it tells against a people's honesty to wish
to forget such facts, in a case like this!”

“There is nothing forgotten, for the facts were probably
never known to those who prate about the conquered rights
from the crown. As you say, however, the civilization of
a community is to be measured by its consciousness of the
existence of all principles of justice, and a familiarity with
its own history. The great bulk of the population of New
York have no active desire to invade what is right in this
anti-rent struggle, having no direct interests at stake; their
crime is a passive inactivity, which allows those who are
either working for political advancement, or those who are
working to obtain other men's property, to make use of
them, through their own laws.”

“But is it not an embarrassment to such a region as that
directly around Albany, to have such tenures to the land,
and for so large a body of people to be compelled to pay
rent, in the very heart of the State, as it might be, and in
situations that render it desirable to leave enterprise as unshackled
as possible?”

“I am not prepared to admit this much, even, as a general
principle. One argument used by these anti-renters is,
for instance, that the patroons, in their leases, reserved the

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

mill-seats. Now, what if they did? Some one must own
the mill-seats; and why not the Patroon as well as another?
To give the argument any weight, not as law, not as morals,
but as mere expediency, it must be shown that the patroons
would not let these mill-seats at as low rents as any one
else; and my opinion is that they would let them at rents
of not half the amount that would be asked, were they the
property of so many individuals, scattered up and down the
country. But, admitting that so large an estate of this particular
sort has some inconveniences in that particular spot,
can there be two opinions among men of integrity about the
mode of getting rid of it? Everything has its price, and,
in a business sense, everything is entitled to its price. No
people acknowledge this more than the Americans, or
practise on it so extensively. Let the Rensselaers be tempted
by such offers as will induce them to sell, but do not let
them be invaded by that most infernal of all acts of oppression,
special legislation, in order to bully or frighten them
from the enjoyment of what is rightfully their own. If the
State think such a description of property injurious in its
heart, let the State imitate England in her conduct towards
the slave-holders—buy them out; not tax them out, and
wrong them out, and annoy them out. But, Hugh, enough
of this at present; we shall have much more than we want
of it when we get home. Among my letters, I have one
from each of my other wards.”

“`Still harping on my daughter,' sir!” I answered, laughing.
“I hope that the vivacious Miss Henrietta Coldbrooke,
and the meek Miss Anne Marston, are both perfectly well?”

“Both in excellent health, and both write charmingly. I
must really let you see the letter of Henrietta, as I do think
it is quite creditable to her: I will step into my room and
get it.”

I ought to let the reader into a secret here that will have
some connexion with what is to follow. A dead-set had
been made at me, previously to leaving home, to induce me
to marry either of three young ladies—Miss Henrietta Coldbrooke,
Miss Anne Marston, and Miss Opportunity New-come.
The advances in the cases of Miss Henrietta Coldbrooke
and Miss Anne Marston came from my uncle Ro,
who, as their guardian, had a natural interest in their making

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

what he was pleased to think might be a good connexion for
either; while the advances on account of Miss Opportunity
Newcome came from herself. Under such circumstances,
it may be well to say who these young ladies actually
were.

Miss Henrietta Coldbrooke was the daughter of an Englishman
of good family, and some estate, who had emigrated
to America and married, under the impulse of certain theories
in politics which induced him to imagine that this was
the promised land. I remember him as a disappointed and
dissatisfied widower, who was thought to be daily growing
poorer under the consequences of indiscreet investments,
and who at last got to be so very English in his wishes and
longings, as to assert that the common Muscovy was a better
bird than the canvas-back! He died, however, in time
to leave his only child an estate which, under my uncle's
excellent management, was known by me to be rather more
than one hundred and seventy-nine thousand dollars, and
which produced a nett eight thousand a-year. This made
Miss Henrietta a belle at once; but, having a prudent friend
in my grandmother, as yet she had not married a beggar.
I knew that uncle Ro went quite as far as was proper, in
his letters, in the way of hints touching myself; and my
dear, excellent, honest-hearted, straightforward old grandmother
had once let fall an expression, in one of her letters
to myself, which induced me to think that these hints had
actually awakened as much interest in the young lady's
bosom, as could well be connected with what was necessarily
nothing but curiosity.

Miss Anne Marston was also an heiress, but on a very
diminished scale. She had rather more than three thousand
a-year in buildings in town, and a pretty little sum of about
sixteen thousand dollars laid by out of its savings. She
was not an only child, however, having two brothers, each
of whom had already received as much as the sister, and
each of whom, as is very apt to be the case with the heirs of
New York merchants, was already in a fair way of getting
rid of his portion in riotous living. Nothing does a young
American so much good, under such circumstances, as to
induce him to travel. It makes or breaks at once. If a
downright fool, he is plucked by European adventurers in

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

so short a time, that the agony is soon over. If only vain
and frivolous, because young and ill-educated, the latter
being a New York endemic, but with some foundation of
native mind, he lets his whiskers grow, becomes fuzzy about
the chin, dresses better, gets to be much better mannered,
soon loses his taste for the low and vulgar indulgences of
his youth, and comes out such a gentleman as one can only
make who has entirely thrown away the precious moments
of youth. If tolerably educated in boyhood, with capacity
to build on, the chances are that the scales will fall from his
eyes very fast on landing in the old world—that his ideas
and tastes will take a new turn—that he will become what
nature intended him for, an intellectual man; and that he
will finally return home, conscious alike of the evils and
blessings, the advantages and disadvantages, of his own
system and country—a wiser, and it is to be hoped a better
man. How the experiment had succeeded with the Marstons,
neither myself nor my uncle knew; for they had paid
their visit while we were in the East, and had already returned
to America. As for Miss Anne, she had a mother
to take care of her mind and person, though I had learned
she was pretty, sensible and discreet.

Miss Opportunity Newcome was a belle of Ravensnest,
a village on my own property; a rural beauty, and of rural
education, virtues, manners and habits. As Ravensnest was
not particularly advanced in civilization, or, to make use of
the common language of the country, was not a very “aristocratic
place,” I shall not dwell on her accomplishments,
which did well enough for Ravensnest, but would not essentially
ornament my manuscript.

Opportunity was the daughter of Ovid, who was the son
of Jason, of the house of Newcome. In using the term
“house,” I adopt it understandingly; for the family had
dwelt in the same tenement, a leasehold property of which
the fee was in myself, and the dwelling had been associated
with the name of Newcome from time immemorial; that is,
for about eighty years. All that time had a Newcome been
the tenant of the mill, tavern, store and farm, that lay nearest
the village of Ravensnest, or Little Nest, as it was commonly
called; and it may not be impertinent to the moral
of my narrative if I add that, for all that time, and for

[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

something longer, had I and my ancestors been the landlords.
I beg the reader to bear this last fact in mind, as
there will soon be occasion to show that there was a strong
disposition in certain persons to forget it.

As I have said, Opportunity was the daughter of Ovid.
There was also a brother, who was named Seneca, or
Seneky, as he always pronounced it himself, the son of
Ovid, the son of Jason, the first of the name at Ravensnest.
This Seneca was a lawyer, in the sense of a license granted
by the Justices of the Supreme Court, as well as by the
Court of Common Pleas, in and for the county of Washington.
As there had been a sort of hereditary education
among the Newcomes for three generations, beginning with
Jason, and ending with Seneca; and, as the latter was at
the bar, I had occasionally been thrown into the society of
both brother and sister. The latter, indeed, used to be fond
of visiting the Nest, as my house was familiarly called,
Ravensnest being its true name, whence those of the “patent”
and village; and as Opportunity had early manifested
a partiality for my dear old grandmother, and not less dear
young sister, who occasionally passed a few weeks with me
during the vacations, more especially in the autumns, I had
many occasions of being brought within the influence of her
charms—opportunities that, I feel bound to state, Opportunity
did not neglect. I have understood that her mother,
who bore the same name, had taught Ovid the art of love
by a very similar demonstration, and had triumphed. That
lady was still living, and may be termed Opportunity the
Great, while the daughter can be styled Opportunity the
Less. There was very little difference between my own
years and those of the young lady; and, as I had last
passed through the fiery ordeal at the sinister age of twenty,
there was not much danger in encountering the risk anew,
now I was five years older. But I must return to my uncle
and the letter of Miss Henrietta Coldbrooke.

“Here it is, Hugh,” cried my guardian, gaily; “and a
capital letter it is! I wish I could read the whole of it to
you; but the two girls made me promise never to show their
letters to any one, which could mean only you, before they
would promise to write anything to me beyond commonplaces.
Now, I get their sentiments freely and naturally

[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]

and the correspondence is a source of much pleasure to me.
I think, however, I might venture just to give you one
extract.”

“You had better not, sir; there would be a sort of
treachery in it, that I confess I would rather not be accessary
to. If Miss Coldbrooke do not wish me to read what
she writes, she can hardly wish that you should read any
of it to me.”

Uncle Ro glanced at me, and I fancied he seemed dissatisfied
with my nonchalance. He read the letter through to
himself, however, laughing here, smiling there, then muttering
“capital!” “good!” “charming girl!” “worthy of
Hannah More!” &c. &c., as if just to provoke my curiosity.
But I had no desire to read “Hannah More,” as any young
fellow of five-and-twenty can very well imagine, and I stood
it all with the indifference of a stoic. My guardian had to
knock under, and put the letters in his writing-desk.

“Well, the giris will be glad to see us,” he said, after a
moment of reflection, “and not a little surprised. In my
very last letter to my mother, I sent them word that we
should not be home until October; and now we shall see
them as early as June, at least.”

“Patt will be delighted, I make no doubt. As for the
other two young ladies, they have so many friends and
relations to care for, that I fancy our movements give them
no great concern.”

“Then you do both injustice, as their letters would prove.
They take the liveliest interest in our proceedings, and
speak of my return as if they look for it with the greatest
expectation and joy.”

I made my uncle Ro a somewhat saucy answer; but fairdealing
compels me to record it.

“I dare say they do, sir,” was my reply; “but what
young lady does not look with `expectation and joy' for the
return of a friend, who is known to have a long purse,
from Paris!”

“Well, Hugh, you deserve neither of those dear girls;
and, if I can help it, you shall have neither.”

“Thank 'ee, sir!”

“Poh! this is worse than silly—it is rude. I dare say
neither would accept you, were you to offer to-morrow.”

[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

“I trust not, sir, for her own sake. It would be a singularly
palpable demonstration were either to accept a man
she barely knew, and whom she had not seen since she was
fifteen.”

Uncle Ro laughed, but I could see he was confoundedly
vexed; and, as I loved him with all my heart, though I did
not love match-making, I turned the discourse, in a pleasant
way, on our approaching departure.

“I 'll tell you what I 'll do, Hugh,” cried my uncle, who
was a good deal of a boy in some things, for the reason, I
suppose, that he was an old bachelor; “I 'll just have wrong
names entered on board the packet, and we 'll surprise all
our friends. Neither Jacob nor your man will betray us,
we know; and, for that matter, we can send them both
home by the way of England. Each of us has trunks in
London to be looked after, and let the two fellows go by the
way of Liverpool. That is a good thought, and occurred
most happily.”

“With all my heart, sir. My fellow is of no more use to
me at sea than an automaton would be, and I shall be glad
to get rid of his rueful countenance. He is a capital servant
on terrâ firma, but a perfect Niobe on the briny main.”

The thing was agreed on; and, a day or two afterwards,
both our body-servants, that is to say, Jacob the black and
Hubert the German, were on their way to England. My
uncle let his apartment again, for he always maintained I
should wish to bring my bride to pass a winter in it; and
we proceeded to Havre in a sort of incognito. There was
little danger of our being known on board the packet, and
we had previously ascertained that there was not an acquaintance
of either in the ship. There was a strong family
resemblance between my uncle and myself, and we passed
for father and son in the ship, as old Mr. Davidson and
young Mr. Davidson, of Maryland—or Myr-r-land, as it is
Doric to call that State. We had no concern in this part
of the deception, unless abstaining from calling my supposed
father “uncle,” as one would naturally do in strange
society, can be so considered.

The passage itself—by the way, I wish all landsmen
would be as accurate as I am here, and understand that a
“voyage” means “out” and “home,” or “thence” and

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“back again,” while a “passage” means from place to
place—but our passage was pregnant with no events worth
recording. We had the usual amount of good and bad
weather, the usual amount of eating and drinking, and the
usual amount of ennui. The latter circumstance, perhaps,
contributed to the digesting of a further scheme of my
uncle's, which it is now necessary to state.

A re-perusal of his letters and papers had induced him to
think the anti-rent movement a thing of more gravity, even,
than he had first supposed. The combination on the part
of the tenants, we learned also from an intelligent New
Yorker who was a fellow-passenger, extended much further
than our accounts had given us reason to believe; and it
was deemed decidedly dangerous for landlords, in many
cases, to be seen on their own estates. Insult, personal degradation,
or injury, and even death, it was thought, might
be the consequences, in many cases. The blood actually
spilled had had the effect to check the more violent demonstrations,
it is true; but the latent determination to achieve
their purposes was easily to be traced among the tenants,
in the face of all their tardy professions of moderation, and
a desire for nothing but what was right. In this case, what
was right was the letter and spirit of the contracts; and
nothing was plainer than the fact that these were not what
was wanted.

Professions pass for nothing, with the experienced, when
connected with a practice that flatly contradicts them. It
was only too apparent to all who chose to look into the matter,
and that by evidence which could not mislead, that the
great body of the tenants in various counties of New York
were bent on obtaining interests in their farms that were not
conveyed by their leases, without the consent of their landlords,
and insomuch that they were bent on doing that which
should be discountenanced by every honest man in the community.
The very fact that they supported, or in any manner
connived at, the so-called “Injin” system, spoke all that
was necessary as to their motives; and, when we come to
consider that these “Injins” had already proceeded to the
extremity of shedding blood, it was sufficiently plain that
things must soon reach a crisis.

My uncle Roger and myself reflected on all these matters

[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

calmly, and decided on our course, I trust, with prudence.
As that decision has proved to be pregnant with consequences
that are likely to affect my future life, I shall now
briefly give an outline of what induced us to adopt it.

It was all-important for us to visit Ravensnest in person,
while it might be hazardous to do so openly. The Nest
house stood in the very centre of the estate, and, ignorant
as we were of the temper of the tenants, it might be indiscreet
to let our presence be known; and circumstances
favoured our projects of concealment. We were not expected
to reach the country at all until autumn, or “fall,”
as that season of the year is poetically called in America;
and this gave us the means of reaching the property unexpectedly,
and, as we hoped, undetected. Our arrangement,
then, was very simple, and will be best related in the course
of the narrative.

The packet had a reasonably short passage, as we were
twenty-nine days from land to land. It was on a pleasant afternoon
in May when the hummock-like heights of Navesink
were first seen from the deck; and, an hour later, we came
in sight of the tower-resembling sails of the coasters which
were congregating in the neighbourhood of the low point
of land that is so very appropriately called Sandy Hook.
The light-houses rose out of the water soon after, and objects
on the shore of New Jersey next came gradually out of the
misty back-ground, until we got near enough to be boarded,
first by the pilot, and next by the news-boat; the first preceding
the last for a wonder, news usually being far more
active, in this good republic, than watchfulness to prevent
evil. My uncle Ro gave the crew of this news-boat a thorough
scrutiny, and, finding no one on board her whom he
had ever before seen, he bargained for a passage up to town.

We put our feet on the Battery just as the clocks of New
York were striking eight. A custom-house officer had examined
our carpet-bags and permitted them to pass, and we
had disburthened ourselves of the effects in the ship, by desiring
the captain to attend to them. Each of us had a
town-house, but neither would go near his dwelling; mine
being only kept up in winter, for the use of my sister and
an aunt who kindly took charge of her during the season,
while my uncle's was opened principally for his mother.

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

At that season, we had reason to think neither was tenanted
but by one or two old family servants; and it was our cue
also to avoid them. But “Jack Dunning,” as my uncle
always called him, was rather more of a friend than of an
agent; and he had a bachelor establishment in Chamber
Street that was precisely the place we wanted. Thither,
then, we proceeded, taking the route by Greenwich Street,
fearful of meeting some one in Broadway by whom we
might be recognised.