James Fenimore Cooper

The Pioneers James Fenimore Cooper

An ancestor of Marmaduke Temple had, about one hundred and twenty years before thecommencement of our tale, come to the colony of Pennsylvania, a friend and co-religionist of itsgreat patron. Old Marmaduke, for this formidable prenomen was a kind of appellative to the race, brought with him, to that asylum of the persecuted an abundance of the good things of this life. Hebecame the master of many thousands of acres of uninhabited territory, and the supporter of many ascore of dependents. He lived greatly respected for his piety, and not a little distinguished as asectary; was intrusted by his associates with many important political stations; and died just in timeto escape the knowledge of his own poverty. It was his lot to share the fortune of most of thosewho brought wealth with them into the new settlements of the middle colonies. The consequence of an emigrant into these provinces was generally to be ascertained by thenumber of his white servants or dependents, and the nature of the public situations that he held. Taking this rule as a guide, the ancestor of our Judge must have been a man of no little note. It is, however, a subject of curious inquiry at the present day, to look into the brief records of thatearly period, and observe how regular, and with few exceptions how inevitable, were the gradations, on the one hand, of the masters to poverty, and on the other, of their servants to wealth. Accustomed to ease, and unequal to the struggles incident to an infant society, the affluent emigrantwas barely enabled to maintain his own rank by the weight of his personal superiority andacquirements; but, the moment that his head was laid in the grave, his indolent and comparativelyuneducated offspring were compelled to yield precedency to the more active energies of a classwhose exertions had been stimulated by necessity. This is a very common course of things, even inthe present state of the Union; but it was peculiarly the fortunes of the two extremes of society, inthe peaceful and unenterprising colonies of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, The posterity of Marmaduke did not escape the common lot of those who depend rather on theirhereditary possessions than on their own powers; and in the third generation they had descended toa point below which, in this happy country, it is barely possible for honesty, intellect and sobriety tofall. The same pride of family that had, by its self-satisfied indolence, conduced to aid their fail, nowbecame a principle to stimulate them to endeavor to rise again. The feeling, from being morbid, waschanged to a healthful and active desire to emulate the character, the condition, and, peradventure, the wealth of their ancestors also. It was the father of our new acquaintance, the Judge, who firstbegan to reascend in the scale of society; and in this undertaking he was not a little assisted by amarriage, which aided in furnishing the means of educating his only son in a rather better mannerthan the low state of the common schools of Pennsylvania could promise; or than had been thepractice in the family for the two or three preceding generati