ple to be sensible that servitude, hopeless, endless servitude, could exist with so little servility and fear on the one side, and so little harshness or even sternness of authority on the other. In Europe, the footing on which service is placed in consequence of the corruptions of society, hardens the heart, destroys confidence, and embitters life. The deceit and venality of servants not absolutely dishonest, put it out of one's power to love or trust them. And if, in hopes of having people attached to us who will neither betray our confidence nor corrupt our children, we are at pains to rear them from childhood, and give them a religious and moral education; after all our labor, others of their own class may seduce them away to those who can afford to pay higher for their services. This is not the case in a few remote districts, from which surrounding mountains seem to exclude the contagion of the world; there some traces of fidelity and affection among domestics still remain. But it must be remarked that, in those very districts, it is usual to treat inferiors with courtesy and kindness, and to consider those domestics who marry out of the family as holding a kind of relation to it, and still claiming protection. In short, the corruption of that class of people is, doubtless, to be attributed to the example of their superiors. But how severely are those superiors punished? Why this general indifference about home? why are the household gods, why is the sacred hearth so wantonly abandoned? Alas! the charm of home is destroyed, since our children, educated in distant seminaries, are strangers in the paternal mansion; and our servants, like mere machines, move on their mercenary track without feeling or exciting one kind or generous sentiment. Home, thus despoiled of all its charms, is no longer the scene of any enjoyments but such as wealth can purchase. At the same time we feel there a nameless cold privation, and, conscious that money can procure the same enjoyments with more variety elsewhere, we substitute these futile and evanescent pleasures for the perennial spring of calm satisfaction, "without o'erflowing full," which is fed by the exercise of the kindly affections; and soon indeed must those stagnate, where there are not proper objects to excite them. I have been forced into this painful digression by unavoidable comparisons.

Amidst all this mild and really tender indulgence to their

negroes, these colonists had not the smallest scruple of conscience with regard to the right by which they held them in subjection. Had that been the case, their singular humanity would have been incompatible with continued injustice. But the truth is, that of law the generality of those people knew little; and of philosophy, nothing at all. They sought their code of morality in the Bible, and imagined that they there found this hapless race condemned to perpetual slavery; and thought nothing remained for them but to lighten the chains of their fellow Christians, after having made them such. I neither "extenuate," nor "set down in malice," but merely record the fact. At the same time it is but justice to record, also, a singular instance of moral delicacy distinguishing this settlement from every other in the like circumstances; though, from their simple and kindly modes of life, they were from infancy in habits of familiarity with their negroes, yet being early taught that nature had placed between them a barrier, which it was in a high degree criminal and disgraceful to pass, they considered a mixture of such distinct races with abhorrence, as a violation of her laws. This greatly conduced to the preservation of family happiness and concord. An ambiguous race, which the law does not acknowledge, and who (if they have any moral sense, must be as much ashamed of their parents as these last are of them) are certainly a dangerous, because degraded part of the community. How much more so must be those unfortunate beings who stand in the predicament of the bat in the fable, whom both birds and beasts disowned? I am sorry to say that the progress of the British army, when it arrived, might be traced by a spurious and ambiguous race of this kind. But of a mulatto born before their arrival, I only remember a single instance; and from the regret and wonder it occasioned, considered it as singular. Colonel Schuyler, of whom I am to speak, had a relation so weak and defective in capacity, that he never was intrusted with any thing of his own, and lived an idle bachelor about the family. In process of time, a favorite negro-woman, to the great offence and scandal of the family, bore a child to him, whose color gave testimony to the relation. The boy was carefully educated; and when he grew up, a farm was allotted to him well stocked and fertile, but "in depth of woods embraced," about two miles back from the family-seat.

A destitute white woman, who had somehow wandered from the older colonies, was induced to marry him; and all the branches of the family thought it incumbent on them, now and then, to pay a quiet visit to Chalk, (for so, for some unknown reason, they always called him.) I have been in Chalk's house myself, and a most comfortable abode it was; but I considered him as a mysterious and anomalous being.

I have dwelt the longer on this singular instance of slavery, existing devoid of its attendant horrors, because the fidelity and affection resulting from a bond of union so early formed between master and servant contributed so very much to the safety of individuals, as well as to the general comfort of society, as will hereafter appear.

CHAPTER VIII.

Education and early Habits of the Albanians described.

THE foundations, both of friendship and still tenderer attachments, were here laid very early by an institution which I always thought had been peculiar to Albany, till I found, in Dr. Moore's View of Society on the Continent, an account of a similar custom subsisting in Geneva. The children of the town were all divided into companies, as they called them, from five or six years of age, till they became marriageable. How those companies first originated, or what were their exact regulations, I cannot say; though I, belonging to none, occasionally mixed with several, yet always as a stranger, notwithstanding that I spoke their current language fluently. Every company contained as many boys as girls. But I do not know that there was any limited number; only this I recollect, that a boy and girl of each company, who were older, cleverer, or had some other pre-eminence above the rest, were called heads of the company, and, as such, were obeyed by the others. Whether they were voted in, or attained their pre-eminence by a tacit acknowledgment of their superiority, I know not; but however it was attained, it was never disputed. The company of little children had also their heads.

All the children of the same age were not in one company; there were at least three or four of equal ages, who had a strong rivalry with each other; and children of different ages, in the same family, belonged to different companies. Wherever there is human nature there will be a degree of emulation, strife, and a desire to lower others, that we may exalt ourselves. Dispassionate as my friends comparatively were, and bred up in the highest attainable candor and innocence, they regarded the company most in competition with their own with a degree of jealous animosity. Each company, at a certain time of the year, went in a body to gather a particular kind of berries, to the hill. It was a sort of annual festival, attended with religious punctuality. Every company had a uniform for this purpose; that is to say, very pretty light baskets made by the Indians, with lids and handles, which hung over the arm, and were adorned with various colors. One company would never allow the least degree of taste to the other in this instance; and was sure to vent its whole stock of spleen in decrying the rival baskets. Nor would they ever admit that the rival company gathered near so much fruit on these excursions as they did. The parents of these children seemed very much to encourage this manner of marshalling and dividing themselves. Every child was permitted to entertain the whole company on its birthday, and once besides, during winter and spring. The master and mistress of the family always were bound to go from home on these occasions, while some old domestic was left to attend and watch over them, with an ample provision of tea, chocolate, preserved and dried fruits, nuts, and cakes of various kinds, to which was added cider or a syllabub; for these young friends met at four, and did not part till nine or ten, and amused themselves with the utmost gayety and freedom in any way their fancy dictated. I speak from hearsay; for no person that does not belong to the company is ever admitted to these meetings; other children or young people visit occasionally, and are civilly treated, but they admit of no intimacies beyond their company. The consequence of these exclusive and early intimacies was, that, grown up, it was reckoned a sort of apostacy to marry out of one's company, and indeed it did not often happen. The girls, from the example of their mothers, rather than any compulsion, very early be

came notable and industrious, being constantly employed in knitting stockings, and making clothes for the family and slaves: they even made all the boys' clothes. This was the more necessary, as all articles of clothing were extremely dear. Though all the necessaries of life, and some luxuries, abounded, money, as yet, was a scarce commodity. This industry was the more to be admired, as children were here indulged to a degree that, in our vitiated state of society, would have rendered them good for nothing. But there, where ambition, vanity, and the more turbulent passions were scarcely awakened; where pride, founded on birth, or any external pre-eminence, was hardly known; and where the affections flourished fair and vigorous, unchecked by the thorns and thistles with which our minds are cursed in a more advanced state of refinement, affection restrained parents from keeping their children at a distance, and inflicting harsh punishments. But then they did not treat them like apes or parrots, by teaching them to talk with borrowed words and ideas, and afterwards gratifying their own vanity by exhibiting these premature wonders to company, or repeating their sayings. They were tenderly cherished, and early taught that they owed all their enjoyments to the Divine Source of beneficence, to whom they were finally accountable for their actions; for the rest, they were very much left to nature, and permitted to range about at full liberty in their earliest years, covered in summer with some slight and cheap garb, which merely kept the sun from them, and in winter with some warm habit, in which convenience only was consulted. Their dress of ceremony was never put on but when their company were assembled. They were extremely fond of their children; but, luckily for the latter, never dreamed of being vain of their immature wit and parts, which accounts, in some measure, for the great scarcity of coxcombs among them. The children returned the fondness of their parents with such tender affection, that they feared giving them pain as much as ours do punishment, and very rarely wounded their feelings by neglect, or rude answers. Yet the boys were often wilful and giddy at a certain age, the girls being sooner tamed and domesticated.

These youths were apt, whenever they could carry a gun, (which they did at a very early period,) to follow some fa