Chapter XXIX

MADAME'S ADOPTED CHILDREN-SISTER SUSAN

EARS passed away in this manner, varied only

YEA

by the extension of that protection and education which they gave to a succession of nephews and nieces of the colonel or Mrs. Schuyler. These they did not take from mere compassion, as all their relations were in easy circumstances; but influenced by various considerations, such as, in some cases, the death of the mother of the children, or perhaps the father; in others, where their nieces or nephews married very early, and lived in the houses of their respective parents, while their young family increased before they had a settled home; or in instances where, from the remote situations. in which the parents lived, they could not so easily educate them. Indeed the difficulty of getting a suitable education for children, whose parents were ambitious for their improvement, was great; and a family so well regulated as hers, and frequented by such society, was in itself an academy, both for the best morals and manners. When people have children born to them, they must submit to the ordinary lot of humanity; and if they have not the happiness of meeting with many good qualities

to cultivate and rejoice over, there is nothing left for them but to exert themselves to the utmost to reform and ameliorate what will admit of improvement. They must carefully weed and prop; if the soil produce a crop both feeble and redundant, affection will blind them, to many defects; imperious duty will stimulate them, and hope, soothing, however deceitful, will support them. But when people have the privilege, as in this case, of choosing a child, they are fairly entitled to select the most promising. This selection I understood always to have been left to Aunt Schuyler; and it appeared, by the event, to have been generally a happy one. Fifteen, either nephews or nieces, or the children of such, who had been under her care, all lived to grow up and go out into the world: all acted their parts so as to do credit to the instruction they had received, and the example they looked up to. Besides these, they had many whom they brought for two or three years to their house to reside; either because the family they came from was at the time crowded with younger children, or because they were at a time of life when a year or two spent in such society as was there assembled, might not only form their manners, but give a bias to their future. character.

About the year 1730, they brought home a nephew of the colonel's, whose father having a large family, and having, to the best of my recollection,

lost his wife, entirely gave over the boy to the protection of his relation. This boy was his uncle's god-son, and called Philip1 after him. He was a great favorite in the family; for though apparently thoughtless and giddy, he had a very good temper, and quick parts; and was upon the whole an ingenious, lively, and amusing child. He was a very great favorite, and continued to be so in some measure, when he grew up.

There were other children, whose names and relation to my friends I do not remember, in the house at the same time; but none that staid so long, or were so much talked of as this. There certainly never were people who received so much company, made so respectable a figure in life, and always kept so large a family about them with so little tumult or bustle, or indeed at so moderate an expense. What their income was I cannot say;

but am sure it could not have been what we should think adequate to the good they did, and the hospitality and beneficence which they practised: for the rents of land were then of so little value, that though they possessed a considerable estate in another part of the country, only very moderate profits could result from it; but, indeed, from the simplicity of dress, etc., it was easier; though in that respect, too, they preserved a kind of dignity, and went beyond others in the materials, though

1 Colonel Schuyler's sister Gertrude married Johannes Lansing, and had a large family. It was her son Philip here referred to.

not the form of their apparel. Yet their principal expense was a most plentiful and well ordered table, quite in the English style: which was a kind of innovation but so many strangers frequented the houses of the three brothers, that it was necessary to accommodate themselves to the habit of their guests.

Peter being in his youth an extensive trader, had spent much time in Canada, among the noblesse there; and had served in the continental levies. He had a fine commanding figure, and quite the air and address of a gentleman, and was, when I knew him, an old man.

Intelligent and pleasing in a very high degree, Jeremiah had too much familiar kindness to be looked up to like his brother. Yet he also had a very good understanding, great frankness and affability, and was described by all who knew him, as the very soul of cordial friendship and warm benevolence. He married a polished and well educated person, whose parents (French protestants) were people of the first fashion in New York, and had given with her a good fortune, a thing very unusual in that country. They used in the early years of their marriage, to pay a visit every winter to their connections at New York, who passed part of every summer with them. This connection, as well as that with the Flats, gave an air of polish, and a tincture of elegance to this family beyond others; and there were few so gay and social.

This cheerfulness was supported by a large family, fourteen, I think, of very promising children. These, however, inheriting from their mother's family a delicate constitution, died one after another as they came to maturity: one only, a daughter, lived to be married; but died after having had one son and one daughter.1

I saw the mother of this large family, after outliving her own children, and a still greater number of brothers and sisters, who had all settled in life, prosperous and flourishing, when she married; I saw her a helpless bed-ridden invalid; without any remaining tie, but a sordid grasping son-in-law, and two grandchildren, brought up at a distance from her.

With her, too, I was a great favorite, because I listened with interest to her details of early happiand subsequent woes and privations; all of which she described to me with great animation, and the most pathetic eloquence. How much a patient listener, who has sympathy and interest to bestow on a tale of wo, will hear! and how affecting is the respect and compassion even of an artless child, to a heart that has felt the bitterness of neglect, and known what it was to pine in solitary sadness! Many a bleak day have I walked a mile to visit this blasted tree, which the storm of calamity had stripped of every leaf! and surely in the house of sorrow the heart is made better.

1 Three of Jeremiah Schuyler's daughters were married, but died before their mother, leaving small families.