The next year (1762) came, and found me at Albany; if not wiser, more knowing. Again I was shut up in a fort, solemn and solitary; I had no companion, and was never allowed to go out, except with my mother, and that was very seldom, indeed. All the fine forenoons I sat and sewed; and when others went to play in the evening, I was very often sent up to a large waste room, to get a long task by heart of something very grave and repulsive. In this waste room, however, lay an old tattered dictionary, Bailey’s I think, which proved a treasure to me; the very few books we had, being all religious or military. I had returned to my Milton, which I conned so industriously, that I got it almost by heart, as far as I went; yet took care to go no further than I understood. To make out this point, when any one encouraged me by speaking kindly to me, I was sure to ask the meaning of some word or phrase; and when I found people were not at all willing or able to gratify me, I at length had recourse to my waste room and tattered dictionary, which I found a perpetual fountain of knowledge. Consequently the waste room, formerly a gloomy prison, which I thought of with horror, became now the scene of all my enjoyments; and the moment I was dismissed from my task, I flew to it with anticipated delight; for there were my treasures, Milton and the ragged dictionary, which had become the light of my eyes. I studied the dictionary with indefatigable diligence; which I began now to consider as very entertaining. I was extremely sorry for the fallen angels, deeply interested in their speeches, and so well acquainted with their names, that I could have called the roll of them with all the ease imaginable. Time run on, I was eight years old, and quite uneducated, except reading and plain-work; when company came I was considered as in the way, and sent up to my waste room; but here lay my whole pleasure, for I had neither companions nor amusement. It was, however, talked of, that I should go to a convent, at Trois RiviÈres], in Canada, where several officers had sent their daughters to be educated.

The fame of Aunt Schuyler every now and then reached my ears, and sunk deep in my mind. To see her I thought was a happiness too great for me; and I was continually drawing pictures of her to myself. Meanwhile the 17th regiment arrived; and a party of them took possession of the fort. During this interim, peace had been proclaimed; and the 55th regiment were under orders for Britain.

My father, not being satisfied with the single apartment allotted to him by the new comers, removed to the town; where a friend of his, a Scotch merchant, gave him a lodging in his own house, next to that very Madame Schuyler who had been so long my daily thoughts and nightly dreams. We had not been long there when aunt heard that my father was a good, plain, upright man, without pretensions, but very well principled. She sent a married lady, the wife of her favourite nephew, who resided with her at the time, to ask us to spend the evening with her. I think I have not been on any occasion more astonished, than when, with no little awe and agitation, I came into the presence of madame. She was sitting; and filled a great chair, from which she seldom moved. Her aspect was composed, and her manner, such as was at first more calculated to inspire respect, than conciliate affection. Not having the smallest solicitude about what people thought of her, and having her mind generally occupied with matters of weighty concern, the first expression of her kindness seemed rather a lofty courtesy, than attractive affability: but she shone out by degrees; and she was sure eventually to please every one worth pleasing, her conversation was so rich, so varied, so informing; every thing she said bore such a stamp of reality: her character had such a grasp in it. Her expressions, not from art and study, but from the clear perceptions of her sound and strong mind, were powerful, distinct, and exactly adapted to the occasion. You saw her thoughts as they occurred to her mind, without the usual bias rising from either a fear to offend, or a wish to please. This was one of the secrets in which lay the singular power of her conversation. When ordinary people speak to you, your mind wanders in search of the motives that prompt their discourse, or the views and prejudices which bias it; when those who excite (and perhaps solicit) admiration talk, you are secretly asking yourself whether they mean to inform, or dazzle you. All this interior canvass vanished before the evident truth and unstudied ease of aunt’s discourse. On a nearer knowledge, too, you found she was much more intent to serve, than please you, and too much engrossed by her endeavours to do so, to stop and look round for your gratitude, which she heeded just as little as your admiration. In short, she informed, enlightened, and served you, without levying on you any tribute whatever, except the information you could give in return. I describe her appearance as it then struck me; and, once for all, her manners and conversation, as I thought of them when I was older and knew better how to distinguish and appreciate. Every thing about her was calculated to increase the impression of respect and admiration; which, from the earliest dawn of reflection, I had been taught to entertain for her. Her house was the most spacious and best furnished I had ever entered. The family pictures, and scripture paintings, were to me particularly awful and impressive. I compared them to the models which had before existed in my imagination, and was delighted or mortified, as I found they did or did not resemble them.

The family with which she was then surrounded, awakened a more than common interest. Her favourite nephew, the eldest son of her much beloved sister, had, by his father’s desire, entered into partnership in a great commercial house in New-York. Smitten with the uncommon beauty of a young lady of seventeen, from Rhode-Island, he had married her without waiting for the consent of his relations. Had he lived in Albany, and connected himself with one of his fellow citizens, bred up in frugal simplicity, this step might have been easily got over. But an expensive and elegant style of living begun already to take place in New-York; which was, from the residence of the governor and commander in chief, become the seat of a little court. The lady, whom Philip had married, was of a family originally Scotch; and derived her descent at no great distance from one of the noblest families in that country.^[20] Gay, witty, and very engaging, beloved and indulged, beyond measure, by a fond husband, who was generous and good natured to excess, this young beauty became “the glass of fashion, and the mould of form.” And the house of this amiable couple was the resort of all that was gay and elegant, and the centre of attraction to strangers. The mayor, who was a person singularly judicious, and most impartial in the affection which he distributed amongst his large family, saw clearly that the young people trusted too much to the wealth he was known to possess, and had got into a very expensive style of living; which, on examining their affairs, he did not think likely to be long supported by the profits of the business in which his son was engaged. The probable consequence of a failure, he saw, would so far involve him as to injure his own family: this he prevented. Peace was daily expected; and the very existence of the business in which he was engaged, depended on the army; which his house was wont to furnish with every thing necessary. He clearly foresaw the withdrawing of this army; and that the habits of open hospitality and expensive living would remain, when the sources of their present supplies were dried up. He insisted on his son entirely quitting this line, and retiring to Albany. He loaded a ship on his own account for the West-Indies, and sent the young man as supercargo, to dispose of the lading. As house-keeping was given up in New-York, and not yet resumed in Albany, this young creature had only the option of returning to the large family she had left, or going to her father-in-law’s. Aunt Schuyler, ever generous and considerate, had every allowance to make for the high spirit and fine feelings of this inexperienced young creature; and invited her, with her little daughter, to remain with her till her husband’s return. Nothing could be more pleasing than to witness the maternal tenderness and delicate confidence, which appeared in the behaviour of madame to this new inmate; whose fine countenance seemed animated with the liveliest gratitude, and the utmost solicitude to please her revered benefactress. The child was a creature not to be seen with indifference. The beauty and understanding that appeared full blown in her mother, seemed budding with the loveliest promise in the young Catalina; a child, whom to this day, I cannot recollect without an emotion of tenderness. She was then about three years old. Besides these interesting strangers, there was a grand niece whom she had brought up. Such was her family when I first knew it. In the course of the evening, dreams began to be talked of; and every one in turn gave their opinion with regard to that wonderful mode, in which the mind acts independent of the senses, asserting its immaterial nature in a manner the most conclusive. I mused and listened, till at length the spirit of quotation (which very early began to haunt me) moved me to repeat, from Paradise Lost,

I sat silent when my bolt was shot; but so did not madame. Astonished to hear her favourite author quoted readily, by so mere a child, she attached much more importance to the circumstance than it deserved. So much, indeed, that long after she used to repeat it to strangers in my presence, by way of accounting for the great fancy she had taken to me. These partial repetitions of hers fixed this lucky quotation indelibly in my mind. Any person who has ever been in love, and has unexpectedly heard that sweetest of all music, the praise of his beloved, may judge of my sensations when madame began to talk with enthusiasm of Milton. The bard of Paradise was indeed “the dweller of my secret soul;” and it never was my fortune before to meet with any one who understood or relished him. I knew very well that the divine spirit was his Urania. But I took his invocation quite literally, and had not the smallest doubt of his being as much inspired as ever Isaiah was. This was a very hopeful opening; yet I was much too simple and humble to expect that I should excite the attention of madame. My ambition aimed at nothing higher than winning the heart of the sweet Catalina; and I thought if heaven had given me such another little sister, and enabled me to teach her, in due time, to relish Milton, I should have nothing left to ask.

Time went on; we were neighbours, and became intimate in the family. I was beloved by Catalina, caressed by her charming mother, and frequently noticed by aunt, whom I very much inclined to love, were it not that it seemed to me as if, in so doing, I should aspire too high. Yet, in my visits to her, where I had now a particular low chair in a corner assigned me, I had great enjoyment of various kinds. First, I met there with all those strangers or inhabitants who were particularly respectable for their character or conversation. Then I was witness to a thousand acts of beneficence that charmed me, I could not well say why, not having learned to analyze my feelings. Then I met with the Spectator and a few other suitable books, which I read over and over with unwearied diligence, not having the least idea of treating a book as a plaything, to be thrown away when the charm of novelty was past. I was by degrees getting into favour with aunt Schuyler, when a new arrival for awhile suspended the growing intimacy. I allude to the colonel of my father’s regiment, who had removed from Crown Point to Albany.

The colonel was a married man, whose wife, like himself, had passed her early days in a course of frivolous gaiety. They were now approaching the decline of life, and finding nothing pleasing in the retrospect nor flattering in prospect, time hung on their hands. Where nothing round them was congenial to their habits, they took a fancy to have me frequently with them as matter of amusement. They had had children, and when they died, their mutual affection died with them. They had had a fortune, and when it was spent, all their pleasures were exhausted. They were by this time drawing out the vapid dregs of a tasteless existence, without energy to make themselves feared, or those gentle and amiable qualities which attract love; yet they were not stained with gross vices, and were people of character, as the world goes.

What a new world was I entered into! from the quiet simplicity of my home, where I heard nothing but truth, and saw nothing but innocence; and from my good friend’s respectable mansion, where knowledge reflected light upon virtue, and where the hours were too few for their occupation; to be a daily witness of the manner in which these listless ghosts of departed fashion and gaiety drank up the bitter lees of misused time, fortune, and capacity. Never was lesson more impressive; and young as I was, I did not fail to mark the contrast, and draw the obvious inference. From this hopeful school I was set free the following summer (when I had entered on my ninth year) by the colonel’s return to England. They were indeed, kind to me; but the gratitude I could not but feel was a sentiment independent of attachment, and early taught me how difficult it is, nay, how painful, to disjoin esteem from gratitude.