Sir Henry Moore, the last British governor of New-York that I remember, came up this summer to see Albany, and the ornament of Albany—aunt Schuyler; he brought Lady Moore and his daughter with him. They resided for some time at General Schuyler’s, I call him so by anticipation; for sure I am, had any gifted seer foretold then what was to happen, he would have been ready to answer, “Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?” Sir Harry, like many of his predecessors, was a mere show governor, and old Cadwallader Colden, the lieutenant governor, continued to do the business, and enjoy the power in its most essential branches, such as giving patents for lands, &c. Sir Harry, in the meantime, had never thought of business in his life: he was honourable, as far as a man could be so, who always spent more than he had; he was, however, gay, good natured, and well bred, affable and courteous in a very high degree, and if the business of a governor was merely to keep the governed in good humour, no one was fitter for that office than he, the more so, as he had sense enough to know two things of great importance to be known: one was, that a person of tried wisdom and good experience like Colden, was fitter to transact the business of the province, than any dependent of his own; the other, that he was totally unfit to manage it himself. The government house was the scene of frequent festivities and weekly concerts, Sir Henry being very musical, and Lady Moore peculiarly fitted for doing the honours of a drawing-room or entertainment. They were too fashionable, and too much hurried to find time for particular friendships, and too good natured and well bred to make invidious distinctions, so that, without gaining very much either of esteem or affection, they pleased every one in the circle around them; and this general civility of theirs, in the storm which was about to arise, had its use. In the beginning, before the tempest broke loose in all its fury, it was like oil poured on agitated waters, which produces a temporary calm immediately round the ship. As yet the storm only muttered at a distance, but madame was disturbed by anxious presages. In her case,
“Old experience actually did attain
To something like prophetic strain.”
But it was not new to her to prophecy in vain. I, for my part, was charmed with the manners of these exalted visitors of aunt’s, and not a little proud of their attention to her, not knowing that they showed pretty much the same attention to every one.
While I was dancing on air with the thoughts of going to live at the Flats, of the beauties of Clarendon, and many other delights which I had created to myself, an event took place that plunged us all in sorrow; it was the death of the lovely child Catalina, who was the object of much fondness to us all, for my parents, bating the allowance to be made for enthusiasm, were as fond of her as I was. Madame had set her heart very much on this engaging creature; she mustered up all her fortitude to support the parents of her departed favourite, but suffered much notwithstanding. Here began my acquaintance with sorrow. We went, however, to the Flats in autumn. Our family consisted of a negro girl, and a soldier, who had followed my father’s fortunes from Scotland, and stuck to him through every change. We did not mean to farm, but had merely the garden, orchard, and enclosure for hay, two cows, a horse for my father, and a colt, which, to my great delight, was given me as a present. Many sources of comfort and amusement were now cut off from madame; her nephew and his lively and accomplished wife had left her; Dr. Ogilvie was removed to New-York, and had a successor no way calculated to supply his place. This year she had lost her brother-in-law Cornelius Cuyler,[[23]] whose sound sense and intelligence made his society of consequence to her, independent of the great esteem and affection she had for him. The army, among whom she always found persons of information and good breeding, in whose conversation she could take pleasure which might be truly called such, were gone. Nothing could compensate, in her opinion, for the privation of that enjoyment; she read, but then the people about her had so little taste for reading, that she had not her wonted pleasure in that, for want of some one with whom she could discuss the topics suggested by her studies. It was in this poverty of society, such as she was accustomed to enjoy, that she took a fancy to converse much with me, to regret my want of education, and to take a particular interest in my employments and mental improvement. That I might more entirely profit by her attention, she requested my parents to let me pass the winter with her: this invitation they gladly complied with.
[23]. This estimable character had for the space of forty years (which included very important and critical conjunctures) been chief magistrate of Albany, and its district. A situation calculated to demand the utmost integrity and impartiality, and to exercise all the powers of a mind acute, vigilant, and comprehensive. The less he was amenable to the control and direction of his superiors, the more liable was he to the animadversions of his fellow citizens, had he in the least departed from that rectitude which made him the object of their confidence and veneration. He administered justice, not so much in conformity to written laws, as to that rule of equity within his own breast, the application of which was directed by sound sense, improved by experience. I do by no means insinuate, that he either neglected or disobeyed those laws, by which in all doubtful cases, he was certainly guided; but that the uncorrupted state of public morals, and the entire confidence which his fellow citizens reposed in his probity, rendered appeals to the law for the most part superfluous. I have heard that the family of the Cuylers was originally a German one of high rank. Whether this can or cannot be ascertained, is of little consequence. The sterling worth of their immediate ancestor, and his long and faithful services to the public, reflect more honour on his descendants than any length of pedigree.
The winter at the Flats was sufficiently melancholy, and rendered less agreeable by some unpleasant neighbours we had. These were a family from New-England, who had been preparing to occupy lands near those occupied by my father. They had been the summer before recommended to aunt’s generous humanity, as honest people, who merely wanted a shelter in a room in her empty house, till they should build a temporary hut on those new lands which they were about to inhabit. When we came, the time permitted to them had long elapsed, but my father, who was exceedingly humane, indulged them with a fortnight more after our arrival, on the pretence of the sickness of a child; and there they sat, and would not remove for the winter, unless coercion had been used for that purpose. We lived on the road side. There was at that time a perpetual emigration going on from the provinces of New England to our back settlements. Our acquaintance with the family who kept possession beside us, and with many of even the better sort, who came to bargain with my father about his lands, gave us more insight than we wished into the prevalent character of those people, whom we found conceited, litigious, and selfish beyond measure. My father was told that the only safe way to avoid being overreached by them in a bargain, was to give them a kind of tacit permission to sit down on his lands, and take his chance of settling with them when they were brought into some degree of cultivation; for if one did bargain with them, the custom was to have it three years free for clearing, at the end of which, the rents or purchase money was paid. By that time, any person who had expended much labour on land, would rather pay a reasonable price or rent for it, than be removed.
In the progress of his intercourse with these very vulgar, insolent, and truly disagreeable people, my father began to disrelish the thoughts of going up to live among them. They flocked indeed so fast, to every unoccupied spot, that their malignant and envious spirit, their hatred of subordination, and their indifference to the mother country, began to spread like a taint of infection.
These illiberal opinions, which produced manners equally illiberal, were particularly wounding to disbanded officers, and to the real patriots, who had consulted in former times the happiness of the country, by giving their zealous co-operation to the troops sent to protect it. These two classes of people began now to be branded as the slaves of arbitrary power, and all tendencies to elegance or refinement were despised as leading to aristocracy. The consequence of all this was, such an opposition of opinions, as led people of the former description to seek each other’s society exclusively. Winter was the only time that distant friends met there, and to avoid the chagrin resulting from this distempered state of society, veterans settled in the country were too apt to devote themselves to shooting and fishing, taking refuge from languor in these solitary amusements.
We had one brave and royal neighbour, however, who saw us often, and was “every inch a gentleman;” this was Pedrom, aunt’s brother-in-law, in whom lived the spirit of the Schuylers, and who was our next neighbour and cordial friend. He was now old, detached from the world, and too hard of hearing to be an easy companion; yet he had much various information, and was endeared to us by similarity of principle.