der out of sight of the original subject. Let me then resume it, and return to my objections. Of these the first and greatest is the dread of being inaccurate. Embellished facts, a mixture of truth and fiction, or what we sometimes meet with, a fictitious superstructure built on a foundation of reality, would be detestable on the score of bad taste, though no moral sense were concerned or consulted. It is walking on a river half frozen that betrays your footing every moment. By these repulsive artifices no person of real discernment is for a moment imposed upon. You do not know exactly which part of the narrative is false; but you are sure it is not all true, and therefore distrust what is genuine, where it occurs. For this reason a fiction, happily told, takes a greater hold of the mind than a narrative of facts, evidently embellished and interwoven with inventions.

I do not mean to discredit my own veracity. I certainly have no intention to relate any thing that is not true. Yet in the dim distance of near forty years, unassisted by written memorials, shall I not mistake dates, misplace facts, and omit circumstances that form essential links in the chain of narration? Thirty years since, when I expressed a wish to do what I am now about to attempt, how differently should I have executed it. A warm heart, a vivid imagination, and a tenacious memory, were then all filled with a theme which I could

not touch without kindling into an enthusiasm, sacred at once to virtue and to friendship. Venerated friend of my youth, my guide and my instructress ; are then the dregs of an enfeebled mind, the worn affections of a wounded heart, the imperfect efforts of a decaying memory, all that remain to consecrate thy remembrance, to make known thy worth, and to lay on thy tomb the offering of gratitude?

My friend's life, besides being mostly passed in unruffled peace and prosperity, affords few of those vicissitudes which astonish and amuse. It is from her re lations, to those with whom her active benevolence con nected her, that the chief interest of her story (if story it may be called) arises. This includes that of many persons, obscure indeed but for the light which her regard and beneficence reflected upon them. Yet with out these subordinate persons in the drama, the action of human life, especially such a life as hers, cannot be carried on. They can neither appear with grace, nor be omitted with propriety. Then, remote and retired as her situation was, the variety of nations and characters, of tongues and of complexions, with which her public spirit and private benevolence connected her, might appear wonderful to those unacquainted with the country and the times in which she lived; without a pretty distinct view of which my narrative would be un

intelligible. I must be excused too for dwelling, at times, on the recollection of a state of society so peculiar, so utterly dissimilar to any other that I have heard or read of, that it exhibits human nature in a new aspect, and is so far an object of rational curiosity, as well as a kind of phenomenon in the history of colonization. I forewarn the reader not to look for lucid order in the narration, or intimate connection between its parts. I have no authorities to refer to, no coeval witnesses of facts to consult. In regard to the companions of my youth, (in which several particulars relative to my friend's ancestry must necessarily be included,) I sit like the "Voice of Cona," alone on the heath; and, like him too, must muse in silence, till at intervals the "light of my soul arises," before I can call attention to "a tale of other times."

MEMOIRS OF AN AMERICAN LADY.

CHAPTER I.

Province of New-York-Origin of the Settlement at Albany-Singular Possession held by the Patron-Account of his Tenants.

It is well known that the province of New-York, anciently called Manahattos by the Indians, was originally settled by a Dutch colony, which came from Holland, I think, in the time of Charles the Second. Finding the country to their liking, they were followed by others more wealthy and better informed. Some of the early emigrants also appear to have been people respectable both from their family and character. Of these the principal were the Cuylers, the Schuylers, the Rensselaers, the Delanceys, the Cortlandts, the Tenbroeks, and the Beekmans, who have all of them been since distinguished in the late civil wars, either as persecuted loyalists or triumphant patriots. I do not precisely recollect the motives assigned for the voluntary exile of persons who were evidently in circumstances that might admit of their living in comfort at home, but am apt to think that the early settlers were those who adhered to the interest of the Stadtholder's family, a party which, during the minority of King William, was almost persecuted by the high republicans. Those who came over at a later period probably belong to the party

which opposed the Stadtholder, and which was then in its turn depressed. These persons afterwards distinguished themselves by an aversion, almost amounting to antipathy, to the British army, and indeed to all the British colonists. Their notions were mean and contracted; their manners blunt and austere; and their habits sordid and parsimonious. As the settlement began to extend they retired, and formed new establishments, afterwards called Fishkill, Esopus, &c.

To the Schuylers, Cuylers, Delanceys, Cortlandts, and a few others, this description did by no means apply. They carried about them the tokens of former affluence and respectability, such as family plate, portraits of their ancestors executed in a superior style, and great numbers of original paintings, some of which were much admired by acknowledged judges. Of these the subjects were generally taken from sacred history.

I do not recollect the exact time, but think it was during the last years of Charles the Second, that a settlement we then possessed at Surinam was exchanged for the extensive (indeed at that time boundless) province of Manahattos, which, in compliment to the then heir apparent, was called New-York. Of the part of that country then explored, the most fertile and beautiful was situated far inland, on the banks of the Hudson River. This copious and majestic stream is navigable one hundred and seventy miles from its mouth for vessels of sixty or seventy tons burthen. Near the head of it, as a kind of barrier against the natives, and a central resort for traders, the foundation was laid of a town called Oranienburgh, and afterwards by the British, Albany.

After the necessary precaution of erecting a small stockaded fort for security, a church was built in the centre of the intended town, which served in different respects as a kind of landmark. A gentleman of the name of Rensselaer was considered as in a manner lord paramount of this city. A