Arrival of a new regiment—Domine Freylinghausen.
A regiment came to town about this time, the superior officers of which
were younger, more gay, and less amenable to good counsel than those who
used to command the troops which had formerly been placed on this
station. They paid their visits at the Flats, and were received—but not
as usual, cordially; neither their manners nor morals being calculated
for that meridian. Part of the royal Americans or independent companies,
had, at this time, possession of the fort; some of these had
families—and they were, in general, persons of decent morals, and a
moderate and judicious way of thinking, who, though they did not court
the society of the natives, expressed no contempt for their manners or
opinions. The regiment I speak of, on the contrary, turned those plain
burghers into the highest ridicule, yet used every artifice to get
acquainted with them. They wished, in short, to act the part of very
fine gentlemen; and the gay and superficial in those days, were but too
apt to take for their model the fine gentlemen of the detestable old
comedies, which good taste has now very properly exploded; and at which,
in every stage of society, the uncorrupted mind must have felt infinite
disgust. Yet forms arrayed in gold and scarlet, and rendered more
imposing by an air of command and authority, occasionally softened down
into gentleness and submission; and by that noisy gaiety which youthful
inexperience mistakes for happiness, and that flippant petulance, which
those who knew not much of the language, and nothing at all of the
world, mistook for wit, were very ensnaring. Those dangerously
accomplished heroes made their appearance at a time when the English
language began to be more generally understood; and when the pretensions
of the merchants, commissaries, &c. to the stations they occupied, were
no longer dubious. Those polished strangers now began to make a part of
general society. At this crisis it was found necessary to have recourse
to billets. The superior officers had generally been either received at
the Flats or accommodated in a large house which the colonel had in
town. The manner in which the hospitality of that family was exercised;
the selection which they made of such as were fitted to associate with
the young persons who dwelt under their protection, always gave a kind
of tone to society, and held out a light to others.
Madame’s sister, as I before observed, was married to the respectable
and intelligent magistrate, who administered justice not only to the
town, but to the whole neighbourhood. In their house, also, such of the
military were received, and kindly entertained, as had the sanction of
their sister’s approbation. This judicious and equitable person, who, in
the course of trading in early life upon the lakes, had undergone many
of the hardships, and even dangers, which awaited the military in that
perilous path of duty, knew well what they had to encounter in the
defence of a surly and self-righted race, who were little inclined to
show them common indulgence, far less gratitude. He judged equitably
between both parties; and while with the most patriotic steadiness he
resisted every attempt of the military to seize any thing with a high
hand—he set the example himself, and used every art of persuasion to
induce his countrymen to every concession that could conduce to the ease
and comfort of their protectors. So far, at length, he succeeded; that
when the regiment to which I allude, arrived in town, and showed in
general an amiable and obliging disposition, they were quartered in
different houses; the superior officers being lodged willingly by the
most respectable of the inhabitants, such as not having large families,
had room to accommodate them. The colonel and madame happened at the
time of these arrangements, to be at New-York.
In the mean while society began to assume a new aspect; of the
satellites, which, on various pretexts, official and commercial, had
followed the army, several had families, and those began to mingle more
frequently with the inhabitants, who were, as yet, too simple to detect
the surreptitious tone of lax morals and second-hand manners which
prevailed among many of those who had but very lately climbed up to the
stations they held, and in whose houses the European modes and
diversions were to be met with; these were not in the best style, yet
even in that style they began to be relished by some young persons, with
whom the power of novelty prevailed over that of habit; and in a few
rare instances, the influence of the young drew the old into a faint
consent to these attempted innovations; but with many the resistance was
not to be overcome.
In this state of matters, one guardian genius watched over the community
with unremitting vigilance. From the original settlement of the place
there had been a succession of good, quiet clergymen, who came from
Holland to take the command of this expatriated colony. These good men
found an easy charge among a people with whom the external duties of
religion were settled habits, which no one thought of dispensing with;
and where the primitive state of manners, and the constant occupation of
the mind in planting and defending a territory where every thing was, as
it were, to be new created, was a preservation to the morals. Religion
being never branded with the reproach of imputed hypocrisy, or darkened
by the frown of austere bigotry, was venerated even by those who were
content to glide thoughtless down the stream of time, without seriously
considering whither it was conveying them, till sorrow or sickness
reminded them of the great purpose for which they were indulged with the
privilege of existence.
The dominees, as these people called their ministers, contented
themselves with preaching in a sober and moderate strain to the people;
and living quietly in the retirement of their families, were little
heard of but in the pulpit; and they seemed to consider a studious
privacy as one of their chief duties. Domine Freylinghausen, however,
was not contented with this quietude, which he seemed to consider as
tending to languish into indifference. Ardent in his disposition,
eloquent in his preaching, animated and zealous in his conversation, and
frank and popular in his manners, he thought it his duty to awaken in
every breast that slumbering spirit of devotion, which he considered as
lulled by security, or drooping in the meridian of prosperity, like
tender plants in the blaze of sunshine. These he endeavoured to refresh
by daily exhortation, as well as by the exercise of his public duties.
Though rigid in some of his notions, his life was spotless, and his
concern for his people warm and affectionate. His endeavours to amend
and inspire them with happier desires and aims, were considered as the
labour of love, and rewarded by the warmest affection, and the most
profound veneration; and what to him was of much more value, by a
growing solicitude for the attainment of that higher order of
excellence, which it was his delight to point out to them. But while he
thus incessantly “allured to brighter worlds, and led the way,” he
might, perhaps, insensibly have acquired a taste of dominion, which
might make him unwilling to part with any portion of that most desirable
species of power, which subjects to us, not human actions only, but the
will which directs them. A vulgar ambition contents itself with power to
command obedience, but the more exalted and refined ambition aims at
domination over the mind. Hence the leaders of a sect, or even those who
have powers to awake the dying embers of pious fervour, sway the hearts
of their followers in a manner far more gratifying to them than any
enjoyment to be derived from temporal power. That this desire should
unconsciously gain ground in a virtuous and ardent mind, is not
wonderful, when one considers how the best propensities of the human
heart are flattered, by supposing that we only sway the minds of others,
to incline them to the paths of peace and happiness, and derive no other
advantage from this tacit sovereignty, but that of seeing those objects
of affectionate solicitude grow wiser and better.
To return to the apostolic and much beloved Freylinghausen. The progress
which this regiment made in the good graces of his flock, and the
gradual assimilation to English manners of a very inferior standard,
alarmed and grieved the good man not a little; and the intelligence he
received from some of the elders of his church, who had the honour of
lodging the more dissipated subalterns, did not administer much comfort
to him. By this time the Anglomania was beginning to spread. A sect
arose among the young people, who seemed resolved to assume a lighter
style of dress and manners, and to borrow their taste, in those
respects, from their new friends. This bade fair soon to undo all the
good pastor’s labours. The evil was daily growing—and what, alas! could
Domine Freylinghausen do but preach! This he did earnestly and even
angrily, but in vain. Many were exasperated, but none reclaimed. The
good domine, however, had those who shared his sorrows and resentments;
the elder and wiser heads of families, and, indeed, a great majority of
the primitive inhabitants, were steadfast against innovation. The
colonel of the regiment, who was a man of fashion and family, and
possessed talents for both good and evil purposes, was young and gay;
and being lodged in the house of a very wealthy citizen, who had before,
in some degree, affected the newer modes of living, so captivated him
with his good breeding and affability, that he was ready to humour any
scheme of diversion which the colonel and his associates proposed. Under
the auspices of this gallant commander, balls began to be concerted, and
a degree of flutter and frivolity to take place, which was as far from
elegance as it was from the honest, artless cheerfulness of the meetings
usual among them. The good domine more and more alarmed, not content
with preaching, now began to prophecy; but like Cassandra, or, to speak
as justly, though less poetically, like his whole fraternity, was doomed
always to deliver true predictions to those who never heeded them.
-------