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]]
[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.