e former.
This, however, was a capital mistake, inasmuch as the _spirit_ of the
institutions is to be found in the laws, which prohibit and punish all
sorts of trespasses, and which are enacted expressly to curb the
_tendencies_ of human nature! No, no, as my uncle Ro says, nothing can
be less alike, sometimes, than the _spirit_ of institutions and their
_tendencies_.

I was surprised to find nearly as many females as men had collected at
the Little Nest on this occasion. As for the Injins, after escorting Mr.
Warren as far as the village, as if significantly to admonish him of
their presence, they had quietly released him, permitting him to go
where he pleased. Mary had no difficulty in finding him, and I saw her
at his side, apparently in conversation with Opportunity and her
brother, Seneca, as soon as I moved down the road, after securing the
horse. The Injins themselves kept a little aloof, having my uncle in
their very centre; not as a prisoner, for it was clear no one suspected
his character, but as a pedlar. The watches were out again, and near
half of the whole gang seemed busy in trading, though I thought that
some among them were anxious and distrustful.

It was a singular spectacle to see men who were raising the cry of
"aristocracy" against those who happened to be richer than themselves,
while they did not possess a single privilege or power that,
substantially, was not equally shared by every other man in the country,
thus openly arrayed in defiance of law, and thus violently trampling the
law under their feet. What made the spectacle more painful was the
certainty that was obtained by their very actions on the ground, that no
small portion of these Injins were mere boys, led on by artful and
knavish men, and who considered the whole thing as a joke. When the laws
fall so much into disrepute as to be the subjects of jokes of this sort,
it is time to inquire into their mode of administration. Does any one
believe that fifty landlords could have thus flown into the face of a
recent enactment, and committed felony openly, and under circumstances
that had rendered their intentions no secret, for a time long enough to
enable the authorities to collect a force sufficient to repress them? My
own opinion is, that had Mr. Stephen Rensselaer, and Mr. William
Rensselaer, and Mr. Harry Livingston, and Mr. John Hunter, and Mr.
Daniel Livingston, and Mr. Hugh Littlepage, and fifty more that I could
name, been caught