Satanstoe | Page 2

dozen years, under cover of a spurious delicacy on the subject of exposing national ills; and it is time that they who have not been afraid to praise, when praise was merited, should not shrink from the office of censuring, when the want of timely warnings may be one cause of the most fatal evils. The great practical defect of institutions like ours, is the circumstance that "what is everybody's business, is nobody's business;" a neglect that gives to the activity of the rogue a very dangerous ascendency over the more dilatory correctives of the honest man.

CHAPTER I.
"Look you, Who comes here: a young man, and an old, in solemn talk."
As You Like it.
It is easy to foresee that this country is destined to undergo great and rapid changes. Those that more properly belong to history, history will doubtless attempt to record, and probably with the questionable veracity and prejudice that are apt to influence the labours of that particular muse; but there is little hope that any traces of American society, in its more familiar aspects, will be preserved among us, through any of the agencies usually employed for such purposes. Without a stage, in a national point of view at least, with scarcely such a thing as a book of memoirs that relates to a life passed within our own limits, and totally without light literature, to give us simulated pictures of our manners, and the opinions of the day, I see scarcely a mode by which the next generation can preserve any memorials of the distinctive usages and thoughts of this. It is true, they will have traditions of certain leading features of the colonial society, but scarcely any records; and, should the next twenty years do as much as the last, towards substituting an entirely new race for the descendants of our own immediate fathers, it is scarcely too much to predict that even these traditions will be lost in the whirl and excitement of a throng of strangers. Under all the circumstances, therefore, I have come to a determination to make an effort, however feeble it may prove, to preserve some vestiges of household life in New York, at least; while I have endeavoured to stimulate certain friends in New Jersey, and farther south, to undertake similar tasks in those sections of the country. What success will attend these last applications, is more than I can say, but, in order that the little I may do myself shall not be lost for want of support, I have made a solemn request in my will, that those who come after me will consent to continue this narrative, committing to paper their own experience, as I have here committed mine, down as low at least as my grandson, if I ever have one. Perhaps, by the end of the latter's career, they will begin to publish books in America, and the fruits of our joint family labours may be thought sufficiently matured to be laid before the world.
It is possible that which I am now about to write will be thought too homely, to relate to matters much too personal and private, to have sufficient interest for the public eye; but it must be remembered that the loftiest interests of man are made up of a collection of those that are lowly; and, that he who makes a faithful picture of only a single important scene in the events of single life, is doing something towards painting the greatest historical piece of his day. As I have said before, the leading events of my time will find their way into the pages of far more pretending works than this of mine, in some form or other, with more or less of fidelity to the truth, and real events, and real motives; while the humbler matters it will be my office to record, will be entirely overlooked by writers who aspire to enrol their names among the Tacituses of former ages. It may be well to say here, however, I shall not attempt the historical mood at all, but content myself with giving the feelings, incidents, and interests of what is purely private life, connecting them no farther with things that are of a more general nature, than is indispensable to render the narrative intelligible and accurate. With these explanations, which are made in order to prevent the person who may happen first to commence the perusal of this manuscript from throwing it into the fire, as a silly attempt to write a more silly fiction, I shall proceed at once to the commencement of my proper task.
I was born on the 3d May, 1737, on a neck of land, called Satanstoe, in the county of West Chester, and in the colony of New York; a part of