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expand1997 (1)
1Author:  Myers P. Hamilton (Peter Hamilton) 1812-1878Requires cookie*
 Title:  The King of the Hurons  
 Published:  1997 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: It was during a violent storm in the spring of 1708, that a French brig of war, seriously crippled, was discovered in the bay of New York, showing signals of distress, and approaching, with indirect course, to the harbor. There was, of course, not wanting a race of panic-makers in those days—progenitors, doubtless, of a similar class in our own—who at once saw in the unfortunate vessel an estray from a belligerent fleet, hovering close at hand, and ready to descend, with fatal swoop, upon the long-threatened city. Rumors, indeed, of such an armada had long been rife, and had, perhaps, accomplished their intended effect, in restraining the English colony from any vigorous efforts at the conquest of Canada—an enterprise on which more words than wadding had been wasted, but which, of course, was not to be undertaken while any peril impended over its own capital. France might thus be compared to some good dame, who watches from a distance the quarrels between her neighbors' children and her own, and contents herself with shaking a stick at the former, while in reality too indolent, or too much occupied in more important business, to fulfil any of her pantomimic threats. Certain it was, that at this period she meditated no invasion of that embryo metropolis, which reposed, in doubtful security, betwixt two rivers and a picket fence; the latter being denominated by courtesy, a wall, and stretching transversely across the town. The good ship St. Cloud, on the contrary, if aught could be judged from her zigzag movements, was approaching the city with anything but alacrity, despite the nautical adage, old, doubtless, as her day, “any port in a storm.” Driven from her course, dismasted, and a-leak, she had been tossed for weeks, cork-like, upon the waves, the very plaything of the elements, until all hope of attaining a friendly port was abandoned, and every minor consideration became merged in the instinctive desire for the preservation of life. Foremost to secure their own safety, a reckless portion of the crew had deserted by night in the only boat which had escaped destruction; and it was with no other means of safety for the lives intrusted to his care, that Captain Sill, on discovering himself near the Bay of Manhattan, resolved to seek the harbor of New York. That he anticipated no mitigated fate from his country's enemies, by reason of his disaster, was quite apparent from the anxiety depicted upon his countenance, as he paced the quarter-deck of his vessel, and looked mournfully towards the land. What unusual reason he had to deprecate the approaching calamity will appear more fully, if we descend with him into the cabin, and survey the few, but not unimportant personages, who were under his charge as passengers, and who had vainly anticipated, on leaving home, a safe and speedy voyage to the French colonial capital, Quebec.
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