The Sea Lions | Page 3

sun, and that beneath
enduring frosts, will have included in its divine forethought a sufficient
care for these bold wanderers to restore them, unharmed, to their
friends and country. In a contrary event, their names must be
transmitted to posterity as the victims to a laudable desire to enlarge the
circle of human knowledge, and with it, we trust, to increase the glory
due to God.

The Sea Lions.
Chapter I.

----"When that's gone He shall drink naught but brine."
_Tempest._
While there is less of that high polish in America that is obtained by
long intercourse with the great world, than is to be found in nearly
every European country, there is much less positive rusticity also.
There, the extremes of society are widely separated, repelling rather
than attracting each other; while among ourselves, the tendency is to
gravitate towards a common centre. Thus it is, that all things in
America become subject to a mean law that is productive of a
mediocrity which is probably much above the average of that of most
nations; possibly of all, England excepted; but which is only a
mediocrity, after all. In this way, excellence in nothing is justly
appreciated, nor is it often recognised; and the suffrages of the nation
are pretty uniformly bestowed on qualities of a secondary class.
Numbers have sway, and it is as impossible to resist them in deciding
on merit, as it is to deny their power in the ballot-boxes; time alone,
with its great curative influence, supplying the remedy that is to restore
the public mind to a healthful state, and give equally to the pretender
and to him who is worthy of renown, his proper place in the pages of
history.

The activity of American life, the rapidity and cheapness of intercourse,
and the migratory habits both have induced, leave little of rusticity and
local character in any particular sections of the country. Distinctions,
that an acute observer may detect, do certainly exist between the
eastern and the western man, between the northerner and the southerner,
the Yankee and middle states' man; the Bostonian, Manhattanese and
Philadelphian; the Tuckahoe and the Cracker; the Buckeye or
Wolverine, and the Jersey Blue. Nevertheless, the World cannot
probably produce another instance of a people who are derived from so
many different races, and who occupy so large an extent of country,
who are so homogeneous in appearance, characters and opinions. There
is no question that the institutions have had a material influence in
producing this uniformity, while they have unquestionably lowered the
standard to which opinion is submitted, by referring the decisions to the
many, instead of making the appeal to the few, as is elsewhere done.
Still, the direction is onward, and though it may take time to carve on
the social column of America that graceful and ornamental capital
which it forms the just boast of Europe to possess, when the task shall
be achieved, the work will stand on a base so broad as to secure its
upright attitude for ages.
Notwithstanding the general character of identity and homogenity that
so strongly marks the picture of American society, exceptions are to be
met with, in particular districts, that are not only distinct and
incontrovertible, but which are so peculiar as to be worthy of more than
a passing remark in our delineations of national customs. Our present
purpose leads us into one of these secluded districts, and it may be well
to commence the narrative of certain deeply interesting incidents that it
is our intention to attempt to portray, by first referring to the place and
people where and from whom the principal actors in our legend had
their origin.
Every one at all familiar with the map of America knows the position
and general form of the two islands that shelter the well-known harbour
of the great emporium of the commerce of the country. These islands
obtained their names from the Dutch, who called them Nassau and
Staten; but the English, with little respect for the ancient house whence

the first of these appellations is derived, and consulting only the
homely taste which leads them to a practical rather then to a poetical
nomenclature in all things, have since virtually dropped the name of
Nassau, altogether substituting that of Long Island in its stead.
Long Island, or the island of Nassau, extends from the mouth of the
Hudson to the eastern line of Connecticut; forming a sort of sea-wall to
protect the whole coast of the latter little territory against the waves of
the broad Atlantic. Three of the oldest New York counties, as their
names would imply, Kings, Queens, and Suffolk, are on this island.
Kings was originally peopled by the Dutch, and still possesses as many
names derived from Holland as