James Fenimore Cooper | Page 5

in his sailor rig," said afterward one of his
shipmates, "but hoisted in a wonderful deal of gibberish, according to
his own account of the cruise."
The Sterling sailed with freight in January, 1807, for the Straits of
Gibraltar. It took on board a cargo of barilla at Aguilas and Almeria,
and returned to England, reaching the Thames in May. Both going and
coming the voyage was a stormy one, and during it several of the
incidents occurred that Cooper worked up afterward into powerful
passages in his sea novels. In London the vessel lay several weeks,
discharging its cargo and taking in more, which this time consisted of
dry goods. Towards the end of July, it left London for America, and
reached Philadelphia on the 18th of September, after another long and
stormy passage of fifty-two days.
This was Cooper's introduction to sea life. During the year he had spent
in the merchant vessel he had seen a good deal of hard service. His
preparatory studies having been completed after a fashion, he now
regularly entered the navy. His commission as midshipman bears (p.
011) date the 1st of January, 1808. On the 24th of the following
February he was ordered to report to the commanding naval officer at
New York. But the records of the government give little information as
to the duties to which he was assigned during the years he remained in
its service. The knowledge we have of his movements comes mainly
from what he himself incidentally discloses in published works or
letters of a later period. The facts we learn from all sources together,
are but few. He served for a while on board the Vesuvius in 1808.

During that year it seemed as if the United States and Great Britain
were about to drift into war. Preparations of various kinds were made;
and one of the things ordered was the dispatch to Lake Ontario of a
party, of which Cooper was one, under the command of Lieutenant
Woolsey. The intention was to build a brig of sixteen guns to command
that inland water; and the port of Oswego, then a mere hamlet of some
twenty houses, was the place selected for its construction. Around it lay
a wilderness, thirty or forty miles in depth. Here the party spent the
following winter, and during it the Oneida, as the brig was called, was
finished. Early in the spring of 1809 it was launched. By that time,
however, the war-cloud had blown over, and the vessel was not then
used for the purpose for which it had been constructed. More
permanent results, however, were accomplished than the building of a
ship. The knowledge and experience which Cooper then gained was
something beyond and above what belonged to his profession. It is to
his residence on the shores of that inland sea that we owe the vivid
picture drawn of Lake Ontario in "The Pathfinder" and of the
wilderness which then surrounded it on every side.
After the completion of the Oneida, Cooper accompanied Lieutenant (p.
012) Woolsey on a visit to Niagara Falls. The navy records show that
on the 10th of June, 1809, he was left by his commander in charge of
the gunboats on Lake Champlain. They further reveal the fact that on
the 27th of September of this same year he was granted a furlough to
make a European voyage. This project for some reason was given up,
as on the 13th of November, 1809, he was ordered to the Wasp, then
under the command of Lawrence, who afterwards fell in the
engagement between the Shannon and the Chesapeake. To this officer,
like himself a native of Burlington, he was very warmly attached. The
next notice of him contained in the official records is to the effect that
on the 9th of May, 1810, permission was granted him to go on furlough
for twelve months. Whether he availed himself of it is not known. An
event soon occurred, however, that put an end to his naval career as
effectively as one had previously been put to his collegiate. An
attachment had sprung up some time before between him and a Miss
DeLancey. On the 1st of January, 1811, the couple were married at
Mamaroneck, Westchester County, New York. Cooper was then a little

more than twenty-one years old; the bride lacked very little of being
nineteen.
His wife belonged to a Huguenot family, which towards the end of the
seventeenth century had fled from France, and had finally settled in
Westchester. During the Revolutionary War the DeLanceys had taken
the side of the crown against the colonies. Several of them held
positions in the British army. John Peter DeLancey, whose daughter
Cooper had married, had been himself a captain in that service. After
the