rule by which to judge of many others. In the first
place, my great-grandfather Mordaunt, the 'patentee,' as he was called,
first let the mill-lot to the grandfather of this Seneca, the tenant
then being quite a young man. In order to obtain settlers, in that early
day, it was necessary to give them great advantages, for there was
vastly more land than there were people to work it. The first lease,
therefore, was granted on highly advantageous terms to that Jason
Newcome, whom I can just remember. He had two characters; the one, and
the true, which set him down as a covetous, envious, narrow-minded
provincial, who was full of cant and roguery. Some traditions exist
among us of his having been detected in stealing timber, and in various
other frauds. In public he is one of those virtuous and hard-working
pioneers who have transmitted to their descendants all their claims,
those that are supposed to be moral, as well as those that are known to
be legal. This flummery may do for elderly ladies, who affect snuff and
bohea, and for some men who have minds of the same calibre, but they are
not circumstances to influence such legislators and executives as are
fit to be legislators and executives. Not a great while before my
father's marriage, the said Jason still living and in possession, the
lease expired, and a new one was granted for three lives, or twenty-one
years certain, of which one of the lives is still running. That lease
was granted, on terms highly favourable to the tenant, sixty years
since, old Newcome, luckily for himself and his posterity, having named
this long-lived son as one of his three lives. Now Seneky, God bless
him! is known to lease a few of the lots that have fallen to his share
of the property for more money than is required to meet all your rent on
the whole. Such, in effect, has been the fact with that mill-lot for the
last thirty years, or even longer; and the circumstance of the great
length of time so excellent a bargain has existed, is used as an
argument why the Newcomes ought to have a deed of the property for a
nominal price; or, indeed, for no price at all, if the tenants could
have their wishes."

"I am afraid there is nothing unnatural in thus perverting principles;
half mankind appear to me really to get a great many of their notions
_dessus dessous_."

"Half is a small proportion; as you will find, my boy, when you grow
older. But was it not an impudent proposal of Seneca, when he wis