ng in any man to build himself an ample residence, and to
announce by his mode of living that he is content with his present
means, and does not wish to increase them, at the very moment they view
the suggestions of the governor as the pink of modesty, and excessively
favourable to equal rights! I like that thought of yours about the
house, too; in order to suit the 'spirit' of the New York institutions,
it would seem that a New York landlord should build on wheels, that he
may move his abode to some new estate, when it suits the pleasure of his
tenants to buy him out."

"Do you suppose the Rensselaers would take their money, the principal of
the rent at seven per cent., and buy land with it, after their
experience of the uncertainty of such possessions among us?"

"Not they," said my uncle Ro, laughing. "No, no! they would sell the
Manor-House, and Beverwyck, for taverns; and then any one might live in
them who would pay the principal sum of the cost of a dinner; bag their
dollars, and proceed forthwith to Wall street, and commence the shaving
of notes--that occupation having been decided, as I see by the late
arrivals, to be highly honourable and praiseworthy. Hitherto they have
been nothing but drones; but, by the time they can go to the quick with
their dollars, they will become useful members of society, and be
honoured and esteemed accordingly."

What next might have been said I do not know, for just then we were
interrupted by a visit from our common banker, and the discourse was
necessarily changed.

CHAPTER III.

"O, when shall I visit the land of my birth,
The loveliest land on the face of the earth?
When shall I those scenes of affection explore,
Our forests, our fountains,
Our hamlets, our mountains,
With the pride of our mountains, the maid I adore?"

MONTGOMERY.

It was truly news for an American, who had been so long cut off from
intelligence from home, thus suddenly to be told that some of the scenes
of the middle ages--scenes connected with real wrongs and gross abuses
of human rights--were about to be enacted in his own land; that country
which boasted itself, not only to be the asylum of the oppressed, but
the conservator of the right. I was grieved at what I had heard, for,
during my travels, I had cherished a much-loved image of justice and
political excellence, that I now began to fear must be abandoned. My
uncle and myself decided at once t