James Fenimore Cooper's Five Novels

by James Fenimore Cooper

  “A perfectly satisfactory explanation; a most commendable ambition on your part, and a certain symptom that the peace is not to be disturbed; for Gage would never permit such an arrangement, had he any active operations in his eye.”

  “Why, there I think you are more than half right; these yankees have been talking, and resolving, and approbating their resolves, as they call it, these ten years past, and what does it all amount to? To be sure, things grow worse and worse every day—but Jonathan is an enigma to me. Now you know when we were in the cavalry together—God forgive me the suicide I committed in exchanging into the foot, which I never should have done, could I have found in all England such a thing as an easy goer, or a safe leaper—but then, if the commons took offence at a new tax, or a stagnation in business, why they got together in mobs, and burnt a house or two, frightened a magistrate, and perhaps hustled a constable; then in we came at a hand gallop, flourished our swords, and scattered the ragged devils to the four winds; when the courts did the rest, leaving us a cheap victory at the expense of a little wind, which was amply compensated by an increased appetite for dinner. But here it is altogether a different sort of thing.”

  “And what are the most alarming symptoms, just now, in the colonies?” asked major Lincoln, with a sensible interest in the subject.

  “They refuse their natural aliment to uphold what they call their principles; the women abjure tea, and the men abandon their fisheries! There has been hardly such a thing as even a wild-duck brought into the market this spring, in consequence of the Port-Bill, and yet they grow more stubborn every day. If it should come to blows, however, thank God we are strong enough to open a passage for ourselves to any part of the continent where provisions may be plentier; and I hear more troops are already on the way.”

  “If it should come to blows, which heaven forbid, we shall be besieged where we now are.”

  “Besieged!” exclaimed Polwarth, in evident alarm; “if I thought there was the least prospect of such a calamity I would sell out to-morrow. It is bad enough now; our mess-table is never decently covered, but if there should come a siege ’twould be absolute starvation.—No, no, Leo, their minute men, and their long-tailed rabble, would hardly think of besieging four thousand British soldiers with a fleet to back them. Four thousand! If the regiments I hear named are actually on the way, there will be eight thousand of us—as good men as ever wore—

  “Light-infantry jackets,” interrupted Lionel. “But the regiments are certainly coming; Clinton, Burgoyne, and Howe, had an audience to take leave, on the same day with myself. The service is exceedingly in favour with the king, and our reception, of course, was most gracious; though I thought the eye of royalty looked on me as if it remembered one or two of my juvenile votes in the house, on the subject of these unhappy dissensions.”

  “You voted against the Port-Bill,” said Polwarth, “out of regard to me?”

  “No, there I joined the ministry. The conduct of the people of Boston had provoked the measure, and there were hardly two minds in parliament on that question.”

  “Ah! major Lincoln, you are a happy man,” said the captain; “a seat in Parliament at five-and-twenty! I must think that I should prefer just such an occupation to all others—the very name is taking; a seat! you have two members for your borough: who fills the second?”

  “Say nothing on that subject, I entreat you,” whispered Lionel, pressing the arm of the other, as he rose; “’tis not filled by him who should occupy it, as you know—shall we descend to the common? there are many friends that I could wish to see before the bell calls us to church.”

  “Yes, this is a church-going, or rather meeting-going place; for most of the good people forswear the use of the word church as we abjure the supremacy of the Pope,” returned Polwarth, following in his companion’s foot-steps; “I never think of attending any of their schism-shops, for I would any day rather stand sentinel over a baggage-wagon, than stand up to hear one of their prayers. I can do very well at the king’s chapel, as they call it; for when I am once comfortably fixed on my knees, I make out as well as my lord archbishop of Canterbury; though it has always been matter of surprise to me, how any man can find breath to go through their work of a morning.”

  They descended the hill, as Lionel replied, and their forms were soon blended with those of twenty others who wore scarlet, on the common.

  Chapter V

  “For us, and for our tragedy,

  Here stooping to your clemency,

  We beg your hearing patiently.”

  Hamlet.

  * * *

  WE MUST, now, carry the reader back a century, in order to clear our tale of every appearance of ambiguity. Reginald Lincoln was a cadet of an extremely ancient and wealthy family, whose possessions were suffered to continue as appendages to a baronetcy, throughout all the changes which marked the eventful periods of the commonwealth, and the usurpation of Cromwell. He had himself, however, inherited little more than a morbid sensibility, which, even in that age, appeared to be a sort of heir-loom to his family. While still a young man he married a woman to whom he was much attached, who died in giving birth to her first child. The grief of the husband took a direction towards religion; but unhappily, instead of deriving from his researches that healing consolation, with which our faith abounds, his mind became soured by the prevalent but discordant views of the attributes of the Deity; and the result of his conversion was to leave him an ascetick puritan, and an obstinate predestinarian. That such a man, finding but little to connect him with his native country, should revolt at the impure practices of the Court of Charles, is not surprising; and accordingly, though not at all implicated in the guilt of the regicides, he departed for the religious province of Massachusetts-Bay, in the first years of the reign of that merry prince.

  It was not difficult for a man of the rank and reputed sanctity of Reginald Lincoln, to obtain both honourable and lucrative employments in the plantations; and after the first glow of his awakened ardour in behalf of spiritual matters had a little abated, he failed not to improve a due portion of his time by a commendable attention to temporal things. To the day of his death, however, he continued a gloomy, austere, and bigoted religionist, seemingly too regardless of the vanities of this world to permit his pure imagination to mingle with its dross, even while he submitted to discharge its visible duties. Notwithstanding this exaltation of mind, his son, at the decease of his father, found himself in the possession of many goodly effects; which were, questionless, the accumulations of a neglected use, during the days of his sublimated progenitor.

  Young Lionel so far followed in the steps of his worthy parent, as to continue gathering honours and riches into his lap; though, owing to an early disappointment, and the inheritance of the ‘heir-loom’ already mentioned, it was late in life before he found a partner to share his happiness. Contrary to all the usual calculations that are made on the choice of a man of self-denial, he was then united to a youthful and gay Episcopalian, who had little, besides her exquisite beauty and good blood, to recommend her. By this lady he had four children, three sons and a daughter, when he also was laid in the vault, by the side of his deceased parent. The eldest of these sons was yet a boy when he was called to the mother-country, to inherit the estates and honours of his family. The second, named Reginald, who was bred to arms, married, had a son, and lost his life in the wilds where he was required to serve, before he was five-and-twenty. The third was the maternal grandfather of Agnes Danforth; and the daughter was Mrs. Lechmere.

  The family of Lincoln, considering the shortness of their marriages, had been extremely prolific, while in the colonies, according to that wise allotment of providence, which ever seems to regulate the functions of our nature by our wants; but the instant it was reconveyed to the populous island of Britain, it entirely lost its reputation for fruitfulness. Sir Lionel lived to a good age, married, but died childless, notwithstanding wh
en his body lay in state, it was under a splendid roof, and in halls so capacious that they would have afforded comfortable shelter to the whole family of Priam.

  By this fatality it became necessary to cross the Atlantic once more, to find an heir to the wide domains of Ravenscliffe, and to one of the oldest baronetcies in the kingdom.

  We have planted and reared this genealogical tree, to but little purpose, if it be necessary to tell the reader, that the individual who had now become the head of his race, was the orphan son of the deceased officer. He was married, and the father of one blooming boy, when this elevation, which was not unlooked for, occurred. Leaving his wife and child behind him, Sir Lionel immediately proceeded to England, to assert his rights and to secure his possessions. As he was the nephew, and acknowledged heir of the late incumbent, he met with no opposition to the more important part of his claims. Across the character and fortunes of this gentleman, however, a dark cloud had early passed, which prevented the common eye from reading the events of his life, like those of other men, in its open and intelligible movements. After his accession to fortune and rank, but little was known of him, even by his earliest and most intimate associates. It was rumoured, it is true, that he had been detained in England, for two years, by a vexatious contention for a petty appendage to his large estates, a controversy which was, however, known to have been decided in his favour, before he was recalled to Boston by the sudden death of his wife. This calamity befell him during the period when the war of ’56 was raging in its greatest violence: a time when the energies of the colonies were directed to the assistance of the mother-country, who, according to the language of the day, was zealously endeavouring to defeat the ambitious views of the French, in this hemisphere; or, what amounted to the same thing in effect, in struggling to advance her own.

  It was an interesting period, when the mild and peaceful colonists were seen to shake off their habits of forbearance, and to enter into the strife with an alacrity and spirit that soon emulated the utmost daring of their more practised confederates. To the amazement of all who knew his fortunes, Sir Lionel Lincoln was seen to embark in many of the most desperate adventures that distinguished the war, with a hardihood that rather sought death than courted honour. He had been, like his father, trained to arms, but the regiment in which he held the commission of Lieutenant Colonel, was serving his master in the most eastern of his dominions, while the uneasy soldier was thus rushing from point to point, hazarding life, and more than once shedding his blood, in the enterprises that signalized the war in his most western.

  This dangerous career, however, was at length suddenly and mysteriously checked. By the influence of some powerful agency, that was never explained, the Baronet was induced to take his son, and embark once more for the land of their fathers, from which the former had never been known to return. For many years, all those inquiries which the laudable curiosity of the townsmen and towns-women of Mrs. Lechmere, prompted them to make, concerning the fate of her nephew, (and we leave each of our readers to determine their numbers,) were answered by that lady with the most courteous reserve; and sometimes with such exhibitions of emotion, as we have already attempted to describe in her first interview with his son. But constant dropping will wear away a stone. At first there were rumours that the Baronet had committed treason, and had been compelled to exchange Ravenscliffe for a less comfortable dwelling in the Tower of London. This report was succeeded by that of an unfortunate private marriage with one of the Princesses of the House of Brunswick; but a reference to the calendars of the day, showed that there was no lady of a suitable age disengaged, and this amour, so creditable to the provinces, was necessarily abandoned. Finally, the assertion was made with much more of the confidence of truth, that the unhappy Sir Lionel was the tenant of a private mad-house.

  The instant this rumour was circulated, a film fell from every eye, and none were so blind as not to have seen indications of insanity in the Baronet long before; and not a few were enabled to trace his legitimate right to lunacy through the hereditary bias of his race. To account for its sudden exhibition, was a more difficult task, and exercised the ingenuity of an exceedingly ingenious people, for a long period.

  The more sentimental part of the community, such as the maidens and bachelors, and those votaries of Hymen who had twice and thrice proved the solacing power of the god, did not fail to ascribe the misfortune of the Baronet to the unhappy loss of his wife; a lady to whom he was known to be most passionately attached. A few, the relicts of the good old school, under whose intellectual sway the incarnate persons of so many godless dealers in necromancy had been made to expiate for their abominations, pointed to the calamity as a merited punishment on the backslidings of a family that had once known the true faith; while a third, and by no means a small class, composed of those worthies who braved the elements in King-street, in quest of filthy lucre, did not hesitate to say, that the sudden acquisition of vast wealth had driven many a better man mad. But the time was approaching, when the apparently irresistible propensity to speculate on the fortunes of a fellow-creature was made to yield to more important considerations. The hour soon arrived when the merchant forgot his momentary interests to look keenly into the distant effects that were to succeed the movements of the day; which taught the fanatic the wholesome lesson, that providence smiled most beneficently on those who most merited, by their own efforts, its favours; and which even purged the breast of the sentimentalist of its sickly tenant, to be succeeded by the healthy and ennobling passion of love of country.

  It was about this period that the contest for principle between the parliament of Great Britain, and the colonies of North America, commenced, that in time led to those impor­tant results which have established a new era in political liberty, and founded a mighty empire. A brief glance at the nature of this controversy may assist in rendering many of the allusions in this legend more intelligible to some of its readers.

  The increasing wealth of the provinces had attracted the notice of the English ministry so early as the year 1765. In that year the first effort to raise a revenue which was to meet the exigencies of the empire, was attempted by the passage of a law to impose a duty on certain stamped paper, which was made necessary to give validity to contracts. This method of raising a revenue was not new in itself, nor was the imposition heavy in amount. But the Americans, not less sagacious than wary, perceived at a glance the importance of the principles involved in the admission of a right as belonging to any body to lay taxes, in which they were not represented. The question was not without its difficulties, but the direct and plain argument was clearly on the side of the colonists. Aware of the force of their reasons, and perhaps a little conscious of the strength of their numbers, they approached the subject with a spirit which betokened this consciousness, but with a coolness that denoted the firmness of their purpose. After a struggle of nearly two years, during which the law was rendered completely profitless by the unanimity among the people, as well as by a species of good-humoured violence that rendered it extremely inconvenient, and perhaps a little dangerous, to the servants of the crown to exercise their obnoxious functions, the ministry abandoned the measure. But, at the same time that the law was repealed, the parliament maintained its right to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever, by recording a resolution to that effect in its journals.*

  That an empire, whose several parts were separated by oceans, and whose interests were so often conflicting, should become unwieldy, and fall, in time, by its own weight, was an event that all wise men must have expected to arrive. But, that the Americans did not contemplate such a division at that early day, may be fairly inferred, if there were no other testimony in the matter, by the quiet and submission that pervaded the colonies the instant that the repeal of the stamp act was known. Had any desire for premature independence existed, the parliament had unwisely furnished abundant fuel to feed the flame, in the very resolution already mentioned. But, satisfied with the sol
id advantages they had secured, peaceful in their habits, and loyal in their feelings, the colonists laughed at the empty dignity of their self-constituted rulers, while they congratulated each other on their own more substantial success. If the besotted servants of the king had learned wisdom by the past, the storm would have blown over, and another age would have witnessed the events which we are about to relate. Things were hardly suffered, however, to return to their old channels again, before the ministry attempted to revive their claims by new impositions. The design to raise a revenue had been defeated in the case of the stamp act, by the refusal of the colonists to use the paper; but in the present instance, expedients were adopted, which, it was thought, would be more effective—as in the case of tea, where the duty was paid by the East-India Company in the first instance, and the exaction was to be made on the Americans, through their appetites. These new innovations on their rights, were met by the colonists with the same promptitude, but with much more of seriousness than in the former instances. All the provinces south of the Great Lakes, acted in concert on this occasion; and preparations were made to render not only their remonstrances and petitions more impressive by a unity of action, but their more serious struggles also, should an appeal to force become necessary. The tea was stored or sent back to England, in most cases, though in the town of Boston, a concurrence of circumstances led to the violent measure, on the part of the people, of throwing a large quantity of the offensive article into the sea. To punish this act, which took place in the early part of 1774, the port of Boston was closed, and different laws were enacted in parliament, which were intended to bring the people back to a sense of their dependence on the British power.

  Although the complaints of the colonists were hushed during the short interval that succeeded the suspension of the efforts of the ministry to tax them, the feelings of alienation which were engendered by the attempt, had not time to be lost before the obnoxious subject was revived in its new shape. From 1763, to the period of our tale, all the younger part of the population of the provinces had grown into manhood, but they were no longer imbued with that profound respect for the mother country which had been transmitted from their ancestors, or with that deep loyalty to the crown that usually characterizes a people who view the pageant of royalty through the medium of distance. Still, those who guided the feelings, and controlled the judgments of the Americans, were averse to a dismemberment of the empire, a measure which they continued to believe both impolitic and unnatural.