I wish not to interrupt you in your attempt to clear the estate—my expenditure shall be as small as possible.
Your brother, James Cooper.
The de Lanceys were Huguenots and their loyalty to England during the Revolution made several of them British officers. Although Cooper was ever a staunch American,
this incident, with several others in his later life, seemed unfavorable to some few who were only too willing to question his loyalty.
Miss de Lancey's great grandfather, Stephen, was the first of this aristocratic Westchester-County family on American soil. He fled from Normandy on the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and in 1686 came to New York. Here his son James became chief-justice and
lieutenant-governor, and married Ann, eldest daughter of the Hon. Caleb Heathcote, lord of the manor of Scarsdale, Westchester, and whose manor house was Heathcote Hill, which their fourth son, John Peter de Lancey, Cooper's father-in-law, inherited from his mother.
