A pious missionary in the Mohawk country.
In a council held between their relations and madame, it was decided that both Cortlandt and Cornelius should try their fortune in arms. Cortlandt was made an ensign in an old regiment, and went over to Ireland. Cornelius, a year after, got a commission in the fifty-fifth, then commanded by that singularly worthy and benevolent character, Sir Adolphus Oughton. The mayor was highly respected for his wisdom; yet his purchasing a commission for so mere a boy, and laying out for it a sum of money which appeared large in a country where people contrived to do very well with wonderfully little of that article, astonished all his countrymen. Conscious, however, of his son’s military genius, and well knowing that the vivacity that filled his grave kinsman with apprehension, was merely a lambent flame of youthful gaiety, which would blaze without scorching, he fearlessly launched him into a profession in which he hoped to see him attain merited distinction; while the excellent patroness of all these young people had the satisfaction of seeing every one brought up under her auspices, (and, by this time, they were not a few,) do honour to her instructions, and fill up their different stations in a manner the most creditable and prosperous; and she was often surrounded by the children of those who had engaged her earliest cares.
Burning of the house at the Flats—Madame’s removal—Journey of the author.
IT was at this time, when she was in the very acme of her reputation, and her name never mentioned without some added epithet of respect or affection, that her house, so long the receptacle of all that was good or intelligent, and the asylum of all that was helpless and unfortunate, was entirely consumed before her eyes.
In the summer of this year, as General Bradstreet was riding by the Flats one day, and proposing to call on madame, he saw her sitting in a great chair, under the little avenue of cherry-trees that led from her house to the road. All the way as he approached, he saw smoke, and at last flames, bursting out from the top of her house. He was afraid to alarm her suddenly; but when he told her, she heard it with the utmost composure; pointed out the likeliest means to check the fire; and ordered the neighbours to be summoned, and the most valuable goods first removed, without ever attempting to go over the house herself, when she knew she could be of no service; but with the most admirable presence of mind, she sat still with a placid countenance, regulating and ordering every thing in the most judicious manner, and with as much composure as if she had nothing to lose. When evening came, of that once happy mansion not a single beam was left, and the scorched brick walls were all that remained to mark where it had stood.