For such children, who that hopes to grow old, would not wish? a consideration which the more polished manners of Europe teach us to banish as far as possible from our minds. We have learned to check this natural sentiment, by finding other objects for those faculties of our minds, which nature intended to bless and benefit creatures born to love us, and to enlarge our affections by exciting them. If this stream, which so naturally inclines to flow downwards, happened to be checked in its course for want of the usual channel, these adepts in the science of happiness, immediately formed a new one, and liked their canal as well as a river, because it was of their own making. To speak without a metaphor, whoever wanted a child adopted one; love produced love, and the grafted scion very often proved an ornament and defence to the supporting stock; but then the scion was generally artless and grateful. This is a part of the manners of my old friends, which I always remember with delight; more particularly as it was the invariable custom to select the child of a friend who had a numerous family. The very animals are not devoid of that mixture of affection and sagacity, which suggests a mode of supplying this great desideratum. Next to that prince of cats, the famous cat of Whittington, I would place the cat recorded by Dr. White, in his curious natural history, who, when deprived of her young, sought a parcel of deserted leverets to suckle and to fondle. What an example! The following year produced a suspension of hostilities between the provinces and the Canadians. The colonel went to New-York to attend his duty, being again chosen a member of the Colonial Assembly. Mrs. Schuyler accompanied him; and being improved both in mind and manners since her marriage, which, by giving her a more important part to act, had called forth her powers, she became the centre of a circle, by no means inelegant or uninformed; for society was there more various and more polished than in any other part of the continent, both from the mixture of settlers, formerly described, and from its being situated in a province most frequently the seat of war, and consequently forming the headquarters of the army, which, in point of the birth and education of the candidates for promotion, was on a very different footing from what it has been since. It was then a much narrower range, and the selection more attended to. Unless a man, by singular powers of talent, fought his way from the inferior rank, there was hardly an instance of a person getting even a subaltern’s commission, whose birth was not at least genteel, and who had not interest and alliances. There were not so many lucrative places under government. The wide field of adventure, since opened in the east, was scarcely known; a subaltern’s pay was more adequate to the maintenance of a gentleman; and the noblest and most respected families had no other way of providing for such younger