Departure from Albany—Origin of the state of Vermont.
AFTER quitting the Flats we were to stay some days at madame’s, till we
should make a circular visit, and take leave. Having lulled my
disappointment with regard to Clarendon, and filled all my dreams with
images of Clydesdale and Tweedale, and every other vale or dale that
were the haunts of the pastoral muse in Scotland, I grew pretty well
reconciled to my approaching journey, thinking I should meet piety and
literature in every cottage, and poetry and music in every recess, among
the sublime scenery of my native mountains. At any rate, I was sure I
should hear the larks sing, and see the early primrose deck the woods,
and daisies enamel the meadows; on all which privileges I had been
taught to set the due value; yet I wondered very much how it was that I
could enjoy nothing with such gay visions opening before me: my heart, I
supposed, was honester than my imagination, for it refused to take
pleasure in any thing, which was a state of mind so new to me that I
could not understand it. Every where I was caressed, and none of these
caresses gave me pleasure; at length the sad day came that I was to take
the last farewell of my first best friend, who had often in vain urged
my parents to leave me till they should decide whether to stay or
return. About this they did not hesitate; nor, though they had, could I
have divested myself of the desire now waked in my mind, of seeing once
more my native land, which I merely loved upon trust, not having the
faintest recollection of it.
Madame embraced me tenderly with many tears, at parting; and I felt a
kind of prelusive anguish, as if I had anticipated the sorrows that
awaited: I do not mean now the painful vicissitudes of after life, but
merely the cruel disappointment that I felt in finding the scenery and
its inhabitants so different from the Elysian vales and Arcadian swains
that I had imagined.
When we came away, by an odd coincidence, aunt’s nephew Peter was just
about to be married to a very fine young creature, whom his relations
did not, for some reason that I do not remember, think suitable; while,
at the very same time, her niece, Miss W. had captivated the son of a
rich but avaricious man, who would not consent to his marrying her,
unless aunt gave a fortune with her; which being an unusual demand, she
did not choose to comply with. I was the proud and happy confidant of
both these lovers; and before we left New-York we heard that each had
married without waiting for the withheld consent. And thus for once
madame was left without a protégée, but still she had her sister W., and
soon acquired a new set of children, the orphan sons of her nephew,
Cortlandt Schuyler, who continued under her care for the remainder of
her life.
My voyage down the river, which was, by contrary winds, protracted to a
whole week, would have been very pleasant, could any thing have pleased
me. I was at least soothed by the extreme beauty of many scenes on the
banks of this fine stream, which I was fated never more to behold.
Nothing could exceed the soft grateful verdure that met the eye on every
side as we approached New-York. It was in the beginning of May; the
great orchards which rose on every slope were all in bloom, and the
woods of poplar beyond them, had their sprouting foliage tinged with a
lighter shade of the freshest green. Staten Island rose gradual from the
sea, in which it seemed to float, and was so covered with innumerable
fruit-trees in full blossom, that it looked like some enchanted forest.
I shall not attempt to describe a place so well known as New-York, but
merely content myself with saying that I was charmed with the air of
easy gaiety and social kindness that seemed to prevail every where among
the people, and the cheerful animated appearance of the place
altogether. Here I fed the painful longings of my mind, which already
began to turn impatiently towards madame, by conversing with young
people whom I had met at her house on their summer excursions. These
were most desirous to please and amuse me; and, though I knew little of
good breeding, I had good nature enough to try to seem pleased, but, in
fact, I enjoyed nothing, though I saw there was much to enjoy, had my
mind been tuned as usual to social delight. Fatigued with the kindness
of others, and my own simulation, I tried to forget my sorrows in sleep;
but night, that was wont to bring peace and silence in her train, had no
such companions here. The spirit of discord had broken loose. The
fermentation was begun that was not yet ended. And at midnight, bands of
intoxicated electors, who were then choosing a member for the assembly,
came thundering to the doors, demanding a vote for their favoured
candidate. An hour after, another party equally vociferous, and not more
sober, alarmed us, by insisting on our giving our votes for their
favourite competitor. This was mere play; but before we embarked, there
was a kind of prelusive skirmish, that strongly marked the spirit of the
times. These new patriots had taken it in their heads that Lieutenant
Governor Colden sent home intelligence of their proceedings, or in some
other way betrayed them, as they thought, to government. In one of these
fits of excess and fury, which are so often the result of popular
elections, they went to his house, drew out his coach, and set fire to
it. This was the night before we embarked, after a week’s stay in
New-York.
My little story being no longer blended with the memoirs of my
benefactress, I shall not trouble the reader with the account of our
melancholy and perilous voyage. Here, too, with regret, I must close the
account of what I knew of aunt Schuyler; I heard very little of her till
the breaking out of that disastrous war which every one, whatever side
they may have taken at the time, must look back on with disgust and
horror.
To tell her history during the years that her life was prolonged to
witness scenes abhorrent to her feelings and her principles, would be a
painful task indeed; though I were better informed than I am, or wish to
be, of the transactions of those perturbed times. Of her private history
I only know, that, on the accidental death formerly mentioned, of her
nephew, Captain Cortlandt Schuyler, she took home his two eldest sons,
and kept them with her till her own death, which happened in 1778 or
1779. I know, too, that like the Roman Atticus, she kept free from the
violence and bigotry of party, and like him too, kindly and liberally
assisted those of each side, who, as the tide of success ran different
ways, were considered as unfortunate. On this subject I do not choose to
enlarge, but shall merely observe, that all the colonel’s relations were
on the republican side, while every one of her own nephews adhered to
the royal cause, to their very great loss and detriment; though some of
them have now found a home in Upper Canada, where, if they are alienated
from their native province, they have at least the consolation of
meeting many other deserving people, whom the fury of party had driven
there for refuge.[24]
Footnote 24:
Since writing the above, the author of this narrative has heard many
particulars of the latter years of her good friend, by which it
appears, that to the last her loyalty and public spirit burned with a
clear and steady flame. She was by that time too venerable as well as
respectable, to be insulted for her principles; and her opinions were
always delivered in a manner firm and calm, like her own mind, which
was too well regulated to admit the rancour of party, and too
dignified to stoop to disguise of any kind. She died full of years,
and honoured by all who could or could not appreciate her worth; for
not to esteem aunt Schuyler, was to forfeit all pretensions to
estimation.
Though unwilling to obtrude upon my reader any further particulars
irrelevant to the main story I have endeavoured to detail, he may,
perhaps, be desirous to know how the township of Clarendon was at length
disposed of. My father’s friend, Captain Munro, was engaged for himself
and his military friends, in a litigation, or I should rather say, the
provinces of New-York and Connecticut continued to dispute the right to
the boundary within the twenty mile line, till a dispute still more
serious gave spirit to the new settlers from Connecticut to rise in
arms, and expel the unfortunate loyalists from that district, which was
bounded on one side by the Green Mountain, since distinguished, like
Rome in its infancy, as a place of refuge to all the lawless and
uncontrollable spirits who had banished themselves from general society.
It was a great mortification to speculative romance and vanity, for me
to consider that the very spot which I had been used fondly to
contemplate as the future abode of peace, innocence, and all the social
virtues, that this very spot should be singled out from all others as a
refuge for the vagabonds and banditti of the continent. They were,
however, distinguished by a kind of desperate bravery and unconquerable
obstinacy. They, at one time, set the States and the mother country
equally at defiance, and set up for an independence of their own; on
this occasion they were so troublesome, and the others so tame, that the
last mentioned were fain to purchase their nominal submission by a most
disgraceful concession. There was a kind of provision made for all the
British subjects who possessed property in the alienated provinces,
provided that they had not borne arms against the Americans; these were
permitted to sell their lands, though not for their full value, but at a
limited price. My father came precisely under this description; but the
Green Mountain boys, as the irregular inhabitants of the disputed
boundaries were then called, conscious that all the lands they had
forcibly usurped were liable to this kind of claim, set up the standard
of independence. They, indeed, positively refused to confederate with
the rest, or consent to the proposed peace, unless the robbery they had
committed should be sanctioned by a law, giving them a full right to
retain, unquestioned, this violent acquisition.
It is doubtful, of three parties, who were most to blame on this
occasion. The depredators, who, in defiance of even natural equity,
seized and erected this little petulant state. The mean concession of
the other provinces, who, after permitting this one to set their
authority at defiance, soothed them into submission by a gift of what
was not theirs to bestow; or the tame acquiescence of the then ministry,
in an arrangement which deprived faithful subjects, who were at the same
time war-worn veterans, of the reward assigned them for their services.
Proud of the resemblance which their origin bore to that of ancient
Rome, they latinized the common appellation of their territory, and made
wholesome laws for its regulation. Thus begun the petty state of
Vermont, and thus ends the _history of an heiress_.
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