Chapter XXIII

COLONEL SCHUYLER'S MILITARY PARTIALITY. INDIAN CHARACTER FALSELY CHARGED WITH IDLENESS

IT.

T so happened that a succession of officers, of the description mentioned in the preceding chapter, were to be ordered upon the service which I have been detailing; and whether in New York or at home, they always attached themselves particularly to this family, who, to the attractions of good breeding and easy intelligent conversation, added the power, which they preeminently possessed, of smoothing the way for their necessary intercourse with the independent and self-righted settlers, and instructing them in many things essential to promote the success of the pursuits in which they were about to engage. It was one of Aunt Schuyler's many singular merits, that, after acting for a time a distinguished part in this comparatively refined society, where few were so much admired and esteemed, she could return to the homely good sense and primitive manners of her fellow citizens at Albany, free from fastidiousness and disgust. Few indeed, without study or design, ever better understood the art of being happy, and

making others so. Being gay is another sort of thing; gaiety, as the word is understood in society, is too often assumed, artificial, and produced by such an effort, that in the midst of laughter, "the heart is indeed sad." Very different are the smiles that occasionally illume the placid countenance of cheerful tranquillity. They are the emanations of a heart at rest in the enjoyment of that sunshine of the breast, which is set forever to the restless votaries of mere amusement.

According to the laudable custom of the country they took home a child, whose mother had died in giving her birth, and whose father was a relation of the colonel's. This child's name was either Schuyler or Cuyler, I do not exactly remember which; but I remember her many years after as Mrs. Vander Poolen; when, as a comely contented looking matron, she used to pay her annual visit to her benefactress, and send her ample presents of such rural dainties as her abode afforded. I have often heard her warm in her praises; saying how useful, how modest, and how affectionate she had been; and exulting in her comfortable settlement, and the plain worth, which made her a blessing to her family. From this time to her aunt's death, above fifty years afterwards, her house was never without one, but much oftener two children, whom

1 Maria, a sister of Aunt Schuyler's husband, married Abraham Staats. They had three children, Peter, Barent and Annatje. Peter died young, and Annatje married Johannes Van der Poel.

this exemplary pair educated with parental care and kindness. And whenever one of their protégés married out of the house, which was generally at a very early age, she carried with her a female slave, born and baptized in the house, and brought up with a thorough knowledge of her duty, and an habitual attachment to her mistress; besides the usual present of the furniture of a chamber, and a piece of plate, such as a tea-pot, tankard, or some such useful matter, which was more or less valuable as the protégé was more or less beloved: for though Aunt Schuyler had great satisfaction from the characters and conduct of all her adopted, there were, no doubt, degrees of merit among them, of which she was better able to judge than if she had been their actual mother.

There was now an interval of peace, which gave these philanthropists more leisure to do good in their own way. They held a three-fold band of kindness in their hands, by which they led to the desirable purpose of mutual advantage, three very discordant elements, which were daily becoming more difficult to mingle and to rule; and which yet were the more dependent on each other for mutual comfort, from the very causes which tended to disunite them.

In the first place, the Indians began to assume that unfavorable and uncertain aspect, which it is the fate of man to wear in the first steps of his progress from that state where he is a being at once