University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.

An ancestor of Marmaduke Temple had, about
one hundred and twenty years before the commencement
of our tale, come to the colony of Pennsylvania,
a friend and co-religionist of its great
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. He
became the master of many thousands of acres of
uninhabited territory, and the supporter of many
a score of dependants. He lived greatly respected
for his piety, and not a little distinguished as
a sectary; was intrusted by his associates with
many important political stations; and died, just
in time to escape the knowledge of his own poverty.
It was his lot to share the fortune of most of
those who 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 the
number of his white servants or dependants, 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
that early 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 emigrant
was barely enabled to maintain his own rank, by
the weight of his personal superiority and acquirements;
but the moment that his head was laid
in the grave, his indolent, and comparatively uneducated
offspring, were compelled to yield precedency
to the more active energies of a class,
whose exertions had been stimulated by necessity.
This is a very common course of things, even in
the present state of the Union; but it was peculiarly
the fortunes of the two extremes of society, in
the peaceful and unenterprising colonies of Pennsylvania
and New-Jersey.

The posterity of Marmaduke did not escape the
common lot of those, who depended rather on
their hereditary possessions than on their own
powers; and in the third generation, they had
descended to a point, below which, in this happy
country, it is barely possible for honesty, intellect,
and sobriety, to fall. The same pride of family,
that had, by its self-satisfied indolence, conduced
to aid their fall, now became a principle to stimulate
them to endeavour to rise again. The feeling,
from being morbid, was changed 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 first began to re-ascend
the scale of society; and in this undertaking he

was not a little assisted by a marriage that he
formed, which aided greatly in furnishing the
means of educating his only son, in a rather better
manner than the low state of the common
schools in Pennsylvania could promise; or than
had been the practice in the family, for the two or
three preceding generations.

At the school where the reviving prosperity of
his father was enabled to maintain him, young
Marmaduke formed an intimacy with a youth,
whose years were about equal to his own. This
was a fortunate connexion for our judge, and paved
the way to most of his future elevation in life,
when the early inclination for each other in the
boys was matured into friendship.

There was not only great wealth, but high court
interest, amongst the connexions of Edward Effingham.
They were one of the very few families,
then resident in the colonies, who thought it a degradation
to its members to descend to the pursuits
of commerce; and who never emerged from the
privacy of their domestic life, unless to preside in
the councils of the colony, or to bear arms in her
defence. The latter had, from youth to approaching
age, been the only employment of Edward's
father. Military rank, under the crown of Great
Britain, was, sixty years ago, attained with much
longer probation, and by much more toilsome services,
than at the present time. Years were passed,
without murmuring, in the subordinate grades
of the service; and those soldiers who were stationed
in the colonies, felt, when they obtained the
command of a company, that they were entitled to
receive the greatest deference from the peaceful
occupants of the soil. Any one of our readers,
who, in a visit to the falls, has occasion to cross
the Niagara, by spending a day at Newark, may
easily observe, not only the self-importance, but

the real estimation enjoyed by the humblest representative
of the crown, even in that polar region
of royal sunshine. Such, and at no very distant
period was the respect paid to the military in these
States, where now, happily, no symbol of war is
ever seen, unless at the free and fearless voice of
their people. When, therefore, the father of Marmaduke's
friend after forty years' service, retired
with the rank of Major, maintaining in his domestic
establishment a comparative splendour, it is not
to be doubted but that he became a man of the
first consideration in his native colony—which was
that of New-York. He had served with fidelity
and courage, and, having been, according to the
custom of the provinces, entrusted with commands
much superior to those to which he was entitled by
rank, with reputation also. When Major Effingham
yielded to the claims of age, he retired with
dignity, refusing his half-pay or any other compensation
for services, that he felt he could no longer
perform. The ministry proffered to his acceptance
various civil offices, which yielded not
only honour but profit; but he declined them all,
with the chivalrous independence and loyalty that
had marked his character through life. The veteran
soon caused this act of patriotic disinterestedness
to be followed by another of private munificence,
that, however little it accorded with prudence,
was in perfect conformity with the simple
integrity of his own views. The friend of Marmaduke
was his only child; and to this son on his
marriage with a lady to whom the father was particularly
partial, the Major gave a complete conveyance
of his whole estate, consisting of moneys
in the funds, a town and country residence, sundry
valuable farms in the old parts of the colony, and
large tracts of wild land in the new;—in this manner
throwing himself upon the filial piety of his
child for his own future maintenance. Major
Effingham, in declining the liberal offers of the
British ministry, had subjected himself to the suspicion
of having attained his dotage, by all those
who throng the avenues to court patronage, even
in the remotest corners of that vast empire; but,
when he thus voluntarily stript himself of his great
personal wealth, the remainder of the community
seemed instinctively to adopt the conclusion also,
that he had reached a second childhood. This
may explain the fact of his importance rapidly declining;
and, if privacy was his object, the veteran
had soon a free indulgence of his wishes.
Whatever views the world might entertain of this
act of the Major, to himself and to his child, it
seemed no more than a natural gift by a father,
of those immunities which he could no longer enjoy
or improve, to a son, who was formed, both by
nature and education, to do both. The younger
Effingham did not object to the amount of the
donation; for he felt, that while his parent reserved a
moral control over his actions, he was relieving
himself from a fatiguing burthen: such, indeed,
was the confidence existing between them, that to
neither did it seem any thing more, than removing
money from one pocket to another.

One of the first acts of the young man, on coming
into possession of his wealth, was to seek his
early friend, with a view to offer any assistance,
that it was now in his power to bestow.

The death of Marmaduke's father, and the consequent
division of his small estate, rendered such
an offer extremely acceptable to the young Pennsylvanian:
he felt his own powers, and saw, not
only the excellences, but the foibles in the character
of his friend. Effingham was by nature indolent,
confiding, and at times impetuous and indiscreet;
but Marmaduke was uniformly equable,
penetrating, and full of activity and enterprise.

To the latter, therefore, the assistance, or rather
connexion, that was proffered to him, seemed to
promise a mutual advantage. It was cheerfully
accepted, and the arrangement of its conditions left
entirely to the dictates of his own judgment. A
mercantile house was established in the metropolis
of pennsylvania, with the avails of Mr. Effingham's
personal property; all, or nearly all, of
which was put into the possession of Temple, who
was the only ostensible proprietor in the concern,
while in secret, the other was entitled to an equal
participation in the profits. This connexion was
thus kept private for two reasons; one of which,
in the freedom of their intercourse, was frankly
avowed to Marmaduke, while the other continued
profoundly hid in the bosom of his friend. The
last was nothing more than pride. To the descendant
of a line of soldiers, commerce, even in
that indirect manner, seemed a degrading pursuit;
and every sentiment of young Effingham was opposed
to the acknowledgment of an arrangement,
which he only reconciled to his private feelings by a
knowledge of his own motives—but an insuperable
obstacle to the disclosure existed in the prejudices
of his father.

We have already said that Major Effingham
had served as a soldier, with reputation. On one
occasion, while in command on the western frontier
of Pennsylvania, against a league of the French
and Indians, not only his glory, but the safety of
himself and his troops were jeoparded, by the
peaceful policy of that colony. To the soldier, this
was an unpardonable offence. He was fighting in
their defence only—he knew that the mild principles
of this little nation of practical christians
would be disregarded by their subtle and malignant
enemies; and he felt the injury the more
deeply, because he saw that the avowed object of

the colonists, in withholding their succours, would
only have a tendency to expose his command,
without preserving the peace. The gallant soldier
succeeded after a desperate conflict, in extricating
himself with a handful of his men, from
their murderous enemy; but he never forgave the
people who had exposed him to a danger, which
they left him to combat alone. It was in vain to
tell him, that they had no agency in his being placed
on their frontier at all; it was evidently for
their benefit that he had been so placed, and it
was their “religious duty,” so the Major always
expressed it; “it was their religious duty to have
supported him.”

At no time was the old soldier an admirer of the
peaceful disciples of Fox. Their disciplined habits,
both of mind and body, had endowed them
with great physical perfection; and the eye of the
veteran was apt to scan the fair proportions and
athletic frames of the colonists, with a look that
seemed to utter volumes of contempt for their moral
imbecility. He was also a little addicted to
the expression of a belief, that, where there was
so great an observance of the externals of religion,
there could not be much of the substance.—It is
not our task to explain what is, or ought to be the
substance of christianity, but merely to record in
this place the opinions of Major Effingham.

Knowing the sentiments of the father, in relation
to this people, it was no wonder that the son hesitated
to avow his connexion with nay, even his dependence
on the integrity of, a quaker.

It has been seen that Marmaduke deduced his
origin from the contemporaries and friends of Penn.
His father had married without the pale of the
church to which he belonged, and had, in this
manner, forfeited some of the privileges of his offspring.
Still, as young Marmaduke was educated

in a colony and society, where even the ordinary
intercourse between friends was tinctured with
the aspect of this mild religion, his habits and language
were somewhat marked by its peculiarities.
His own marriage at a future day with a lady without,
not only the pale, but the influence of this
sect of religionists, had a tendency, it is true, to
weaken his early impressions; still he retained
them, in some degree, to the hour of his death, and
was observed uniformly, when much interested or
agitated, to speak in the language of his youth—
But this is anticipating our tale.

When Marmaduke first became the partner of
young Effingham, he was quite the quaker in externals;
and it was too dangerous an experiment
for the son to think of encountering the prejudices
of the father on this subject. The connexion,
therefore, remained a profound secret to all but
those who were interested in it.

For a few years, Marmaduke directed the commercial
operations of his house with a prudence
and sagacity, that afforded rich returns for the labour
and hazard incurred. He married the lady
we have mentioned, who was the mother of Elizabeth,
and the visits of his friend were becoming
more frequent; and there was a speedy prospect
of removing the veil from their intercourse, as
its advantages became each hour more apparent
to Mr. Effingham, when the troubles that preceded
the war of the revolution, extended themselves to
an alarming degree.

Educated in the most dependent loyalty by his
father, Mr. Effingham had, from the commencement
of the disputes between the colonists and the
crown, warmly maintained, what he believed to
be, the just prerogatives of his prince; while, on
the other hand, the clear head and independent
mind of Temple had induced him to espouse the

cause of the people. Both might have been influenced
by early impressions; for, if the son of the
loyal and gallant soldier bowed in implicit obedience
to the will of his sovereign, the descendant of
the persecuted follower of Penn, looked back, with
a little bitterness, to the unmerited wrongs that had
been heaped upon his ancestors.

This difference in opinion had long been a subject
of amicable dispute between them, but, latterly,
the contest was getting to be too important
to admit of trivial discussions on the part of Marmaduke,
whose acute discernment was already
catching faint glimmerings of the important events
that were in embryo. The sparks of dissention
soon kindled into a blaze; and the colonies, or
rather, as they quickly declared themselves, the
states, became a scene of strife and bloodshed
for years.

A short time before the battle of Lexington,
Mr. Effingham, already a widower, transmitted to
Marmaduke for safe keeping, all his valuable effects
and papers; and left the colony without his
father. The war had, however, scarcely commenced
in earnest, when he re-appeared in New-York,
wearing the livery of his king, and in a
short time, he took the field at the head of a provincial
corps. In the mean time, Marmaduke had
completely committed himself in the cause, as it
was then called, of the rebellion: of course all intercourse
between the friends ceased—on the part
of Col. Effingham, it was unsought, and on that of
Marmaduke, there was a cautious reserve. It
soon became necessary for the latter to abandon
the capital of Philadelphia; but he had taken the
precaution to remove to the interior the whole of
his effects, beyond the reach of the royal forces,
including the papers of his friend also. There he
continued serving his country during the struggle,

in various civil capacities, and always with dignity
and usefulness. While, however, he discharged
his functions with credit and fidelity, Marmaduke
never seemed to lose sight of his own interests;
for, when the estates of the adherents of the crown
fell under the hammer, by the acts of confiscation,
he appeared in New-York, and became the purchaser
of extensive possessions, at, comparatively,
very low prices.

It is true that Marmaduke, by thus purchasing
estates that had been wrested by violence from
others, rendered himself obnoxious to the censures
of that sect, which, at the same time that it discards
its children from a full participation in the
family union, seems ever unwilling to abandon
them entirely to the world. But either his success,
or the frequency of the transgression in others,
soon wiped off this slight stain from his character:
and although there were a few, who, dissatisfied
with their own fortunes, or conscious of their
own demerits would make dark hints concerning
the sudden prosperity of the unportioned quaker,
yet his services and possibly his wealth, soon
drove the recollection of these vague conjectures
from men's minds.

When the war was ended, and the independence
of the states acknowledged, Mr. Temple turned
his attention from the pursuit of commerce, which
was then fluctuating and uncertain, to the settlement
of those tracts of land which he had purchased.
Aided by a good deal of money, and directed
by the suggestions of a strong and practical reason,
his enterprises throve to a degree, that the climate
and rugged face of the country which he selected,
would seem to forbid. His property increased
in a tenfold ratio, and he was already to be ranked
among the most wealthy and important of his
countrymen. To inherit this wealth, he had but

one child—the daughter whom we have introduced
to the reader, and whom he was now conveying
from school to preside over a household that had
too long wanted a mistress.

When the district in which his estates lay, had
become sufficiently populous to be set off as a county.
Mr. Temple had, according to the custom of
the new settlements, been selected to fill its highest
judicial station. This might make a Templar
smile, but in addition to the apology of necessity,
there is ever a dignity in talents and experience,
that is commonly sufficient, in any station, for the
protection of its possessor; and Marmaduke, more
fortunate in his native clearness of mind, than the
judge of king Charles, not only decided right, but
was generally able to give a very good reason for
it. At all events, such was the universal practice
of the country and the times; and Judge Temple,
so far from ranking among the lowest of his judicial
contemporaries in the courts of the new counties,
felt himself, and was unanimously acknowledged
to be, among the first.

We shall here close this brief explanation of the
history and character of some of our personages,
leaving them in future to speak and act for themselves.