University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

There is nothing in which American Liberty, not always
as much restrained as it might be, has manifested a more
decided tendency to run riot, than in the use of names.
As for Christian names, the Heathen Mythology, the Bible,
Ancient History, and all the classics, have long since been
exhausted, and the organ of invention has been at work
with an exuberance of imagination that is really wonderful
for such a matter-of-fact people. Whence all the strange
sounds have been derived which have thus been pressed
into the service of this human nomenclature, it would
puzzle the most ingenious philologist to say. The days
of the Kates, and Dollys, and Pattys, and Bettys, have
passed away, and in their stead we hear of Lowinys,
and Orchistrys, Philenys, Alminys, Cythérys, Sarahlettys,
Amindys, Marindys, &c. &c. &c. All these last appellations
terminate properly with an a, but this unfortunate vowel,
when a final letter, being popularly pronounced like y, we
have adapted our spelling to the sound, which produces a
complete bathos to all these flights in taste.

The hero of this narrative was born fully sixty years
since, and happily before the rage for modern appellations,
though he just escaped being named after another
system which we cannot say we altogether admire; that
of using a family, for a christian name. This business of
names is a sort of science in itself and we do believe that

it is less understood and less attended to in this country
than in almost all others. When a Spaniard writes his
name as Juan de Castro y[1] Muños, we know that his father
belonged to the family of Castro and his mother to that of
Muños. The French, and Italian, and Russian woman,
&c., writes on her card Madame this or that, born so and
so; all which tells the whole history of her individuality.
Many French women, in signing their names, prefix those
of their own family to those of their husbands, a sensible
and simple usage that we are glad to see is beginning to
obtain among ourselves. The records on tomb-stones, too,
might be made much more clear and useful than they now
are, by stating distinctly who the party was, on both sides
of the house, or by father and mother; and each married
woman ought to be commemorated in some such fashion
as this: “Here lies Jane Smith, wife of John Jones,” &c.,
or, “Jane, daughter of Thomas Smith and wife of John
Jones.” We believe that, in some countries, a woman's
name is not properly considered to be changed by marriage,
but she becomes a Mrs. only in connection with the
name of her husband. Thus Jane Smith becomes Mrs.
John Jones, but not Mrs. Jane Jones. It is on this idea
we suppose that our ancestors the English—every Englishman,
as a matter of course, being every American's ancestor—thus
it is, we suppose, therefore, that our ancestors,
who pay so much more attention to such matters than we
do ourselves, in their table of courtesy, call the wife of
Lord John Russell, Lady John, and not Lady—whatever
her christian name may happen to be. We suppose, moreover,
it is on this principle that Mrs. General This, Mrs.
Dr. That, and Mrs. Senator T'other, are as inaccurate as
they are notoriously vulgar.

Mark Woolston came from a part of this great republic
where the names are still as simple, unpretending, and as
good Saxon English, as in the county of Kent itself. He
was born in the little town of Bristol, Bucks county, Pennsylvania.
This is a portion of the country that, Heaven

be praised! still retains some of the good old-fashioned
directness and simplicity. Bucks is full of Jacks, and
Bens, and Dicks, and we question if there is such a creature,
of native growth, in all that region, as an Ithusy, or
a Seneky, or a Dianthy, or an Antonizetty, or a Deidamy.[2]
The Woolstons, in particular, were a plain family, and
very unpretending in their external appearance, but of
solid and highly respectable habits around the domestic
hearth. Knowing perfectly how to spell, they never
dreamed any one would suspect them of ignorance. They
called themselves as their forefathers were called, that is
to say, Wooster, or just as Worcester is pronounced; though
a Yankee schoolmaster tried for a whole summer to persuade
our hero, when a child, that he ought to be styled
Wool-ston. This had no effect on Mark, who went on
talking of his uncles and aunts, “Josy Wooster,” and
“Tommy Wooster,” and “Peggy Wooster,” precisely as
if a New England academy did not exist on earth; or as
if Webster had not actually put Johnson under his feet!

The father of Mark Woolston (or Wooster) was a physician,
and, for the country and age, was a well-educated
and skilful man. Mark was born in 1777, just seventy
years since; and only ten days before the surrender of
Burgoyne. A good deal of attention was paid to his instruction,
and fortunately for himself, his servitude under
the eastern pedagogue was of very short duration, and
Mark continued to speak the English language as his fathers
had spoken it before him. The difference on the
score of language, between Pennsylvania and New Jersey
and Maryland, always keeping in the counties that were
not settled by Germans or Irish, and the New England
states, and through them, New York, is really so obvious
as to deserve a passing word. In the states first named,
taverns, for instance, are still called the Dun Cow, the Indian
Queen, or the Anchor; whereas such a thing would
be hard to find, at this day, among the six millions of

people who dwell in the latter. We question if there be
such a thing as a coffee-house in all Philadelphia, though
we admit it with grief, the respectable town of Brotherly
Love has, in some respects, become infected with the spirit
of innovation. Thus it is that good old “State House
Yard” has been changed into “Independence Square.”
This certainly is not as bad as the tour de force of the
aldermen of Manhattan when they altered “Bear Market”
into “Washington Market!” for it is not a prostitution of
the name of a great man, in the first place, and there is a
direct historical allusion in the new name that everybody
can understand. Still, it is to be regretted; and we hope
this will be the last thing of the sort that will ever occur,
though we confess our confidence in Philadelphia stability
and consistency is a good deal lessened, since we have
learned, by means of a late law-suit, that there are fifty or
sixty aldermen in the place; a number of those worthies
that is quite sufficient to upset the proprieties, in Athens
itself!

Dr. Woolston had a competitor in another physician,
who lived within a mile of him, and whose name was Yardley.
Dr. Yardley was a very respectable person, had about
the same degree of talents and knowledge as his neighbour
and rival, but was much the richest man of the two. Dr.
Yardley, however, had but one child, a daughter, whereas
Dr. Woolston, with much less of means, had sons and
daughters. Mark was the oldest of the family, and it was
probably owing to this circumstance that he was so well
educated, since the expense was not yet to be shared with
that of keeping his brothers and sisters at schools of the
same character.

In 1777 an American college was little better than a
high school. It could not be called, in strictness, a grammar
school, inasmuch as all the sciences were glanced at,
if not studied; but, as respects the classics, more than
a grammar school it was not, nor that of a very high
order. It was a consequence of the light nature of the
studies, that mere boys graduated in those institutions.
Such was the case with Mark Woolston, who would have
taken his degree as a Bachelor of Arts, at Nassau Hall,
Princeton, had not an event occurred, in his sixteenth

year, which produced an entire change in his plan of life,
and nipped his academical honours in the bud.

Although it is unusual for square-rigged vessels of any
size to ascend the Delaware higher than Philadelphia, the
river is, in truth, navigable for such craft almost to Trenton
Bridge. In the year 1793, when Mark Woolston was just
sixteen, a full-rigged ship actually came up, and lay at the
end of the wharf in Burlington, the little town nearly opposite
to Bristol, where she attracted a great deal of the
attention of all the youths of the vicinity. Mark was at
home, in a vacation, and he passed half his time in and
about that ship, crossing the river in a skiff of which he
was the owner, in order to do so. From that hour young
Mark affected the sea, and all the tears of his mother and
eldest sister, the latter a pretty girl only two years his junior,
and the more sober advice of his father, could not
induce him to change his mind. A six weeks' vacation
was passed in the discussion of this subject, when the Doctor
yielded to his son's importunities, probably foreseeing he
should have his hands full to educate his other children,
and not unwilling to put this child, as early as possible, in
the way of supporting himself.

The commerce of America, in 1793, was already flourishing,
and Philadelphia was then much the most important
place in the country. Its East India trade, in particular,
was very large and growing, and Dr. Woolston knew
that fortunes were rapidly made by many engaged in it.
After turning the thing well over in his mind, he determined
to consult Mark's inclinations, and to make a sailor
of him. He had a cousin married to the sister of an East
India, or rather of a Canton ship-master, and to this person
the father applied for advice and assistance. Captain
Crutchely very willingly consented to receive Mark in his
own vessel, the Rancocus, and promised “to make a man
and an officer of him.”

The very day Mark first saw the ocean he was sixteen
years old. He had got his height, five feet eleven, and
was strong for his years, and active. In fact, it would not
have been easy to find a lad every way so well adapted
to his new calling, as young Mark Woolston. The
three years of his college life, if they had not made him

a Newton, or a Bacon, had done him no harm, filling his
mind with the germs of ideas that were destined afterwards
to become extremely useful to him. The young
man was already, indeed, a sort of factotum, being clever
and handy at so many things and in so many different
ways, as early to attract the attention of the officers. Long
before the vessel reached the capes, he was at home in
her, from her truck to her keelson, and Captain Crutchely
remarked to his chief mate, the day they got to sea, that
“young Mark Woolston was likely to turn up a trump.”

As for Mark himself, he did not lose sight of the land,
for the first time in his life, altogether without regrets.
He had a good deal of feeling in connection with his parents,
and his brothers and sisters; but, as it is our aim to
conceal nothing which ought to be revealed, we must add
there was still another who filled his thoughts more than
all the rest united. This person was Bridget Yardley,
the only child of his father's most formidable professional
competitor.

The two physicians were obliged to keep up a sickly
intercourse, not intending a pun. They were too often
called in to consult together, to maintain an open war.
While the heads of their respective families occasionally
met, therefore, at the bed-side of their patients, the families
themselves had no direct communications. It is true, that
Mrs. Woolston and Mrs. Yardley were occasionally to be
seen seated at the same tea-table, taking their hyson in
company, for the recent trade with China had expelled the
bohea from most of the better parlours of the country;
nevertheless, these good ladies could not get to be cordial
with each other. They themselves had a difference on
religious points, that was almost as bitter as the differences
of opinions between their husbands on the subject of alteratives.
In that distant day, homœopathy, and allopathy,
and hydropathy, and all the opathies, were nearly unknown;
but men could wrangle and abuse each other on medical
points, just as well and as bitterly then, as they do now.
Religion, too, quite as often failed to bear its proper fruits,
in 1793, as it proves barren in these, our own times. On
this subject of religion, we have one word to say, and that
is, simply, that it never was a meet matter for self-gratulation

and boasting. Here we have the Americo-Anglican
church, just as it has finished a blast of trumpets, through
the medium of numberless periodicals and a thousand letters
from its confiding if not confident clergy, in honour
of its quiet, and harmony, and superior polity, suspended
on the very brink of the precipice of separation, if not of
schism, and all because it has pleased certain ultra-sublimated
divines in the other hemisphere, to write a parcel
of tracts that nobody understands, themselves included.
How many even of the ministers of the altar fall, at the
very moment they are beginning to fancy themselves saints,
and are ready to thank God they are “not like the publicans!”

Both Mrs. Woolston and Mrs. Yardley were what is
called `pious;' that is, each said her prayers, each went
to her particular church, and very particular churches
they were; each fancied she had a sufficiency of saving
faith, but neither was charitable enough to think, in a very
friendly temper, of the other. This difference of religious
opinion, added to the rival reputations of their husbands,
made these ladies anything but good neighbours, and, as
has been intimated, years had passed since either had entered
the door of the other.

Very different was the feeling of the children. Anne
Woolston, the oldest sister of Mark, and Bridget Yardley,
were nearly of an age, and they were not only school-mates,
but fast friends. To give their mothers their due, they
did not lessen this intimacy by hints, or intimations of any
sort, but let the girls obey their own tastes, as if satisfied
it was quite sufficient for “professors of religion” to hate
in their own persons, without entailing the feeling on posterity.
Anne and Bridget consequently became warm
friends, the two sweet, pretty young things both believing,
in the simplicity of their hearts, that the very circumstance
which in truth caused the alienation, not to say the hostility
of the elder members of their respective families, viz. professional
identity, was an additional reason why they should
love each other so much the more. The girls were about
two and three years the juniors of Mark, but well grown
for their time of life, and frank and affectionate as innocence
and warm hearts could make them. Each was more

than pretty, though it was in styles so very different, as
scarcely to produce any of that other sort of rivalry, which
is so apt to occur even in the gentler sex. Anne had
bloom, and features, and fine teeth, and, a charm that is
so very common in America, a good mouth; but Bridget
had all these added to expression. Nothing could be more
soft, gentle and feminine, than Bridget Yardley's countenance,
in its ordinary state of rest; or more spirited, laughing,
buoyant or pitying than it became, as the different
passions or feelings were excited in her young bosom. As
Mark was often sent to see his sister home, in her frequent
visits to the madam's house, where the two girls held most
of their intercourse, he was naturally enough admitted into
their association. The connection commenced by Mark's
agreeing to be Bridget's brother, as well as Anne's. This
was generous, at least; for Bridget was an only child, and
it was no more than right to repair the wrongs of fortune
in this particular. The charming young thing declared
that she would “rather have Mark Woolston for her brother
than any other boy in Bristol; and that it was delightful to
have the same person for a brother as Anne!” Notwithstanding
this flight in the romantic, Bridget Yardley was
as natural as it was possible for a female in a reasonably
civilized condition of society to be. There was a vast
deal of excellent, feminine self-devotion in her temperament,
but not a particle of the exaggerated, in either sentiment
or feeling. True as steel in all her impulses and
opinions, in adopting Mark for a brother she merely yielded
to a strong natural sympathy, without understanding its
tendency or its origin. She would talk by the hour, with
Anne, touching their brother, and what they must make
him do, and where he must go with them, and in what
they could oblige him most. The real sister was less active
than her friend, in mind and body, and she listened to all
these schemes and notions with a quiet submission that
was not entirely free from wonder.

The result of all this intercourse was to awaken a feeling
between Mark and Bridget, that was far more profound
than might have been thought in breasts so young, and
which coloured their future lives. Mark first became
conscious of the strength of this feeling when he lost sight

of the Capes, and fancied the dear little Bucks county girl
he had left behind him, talking with his sister of his own
absence and risks. But Mark had too much of the true
spirit of a sailor in him, to pine, or neglect his duty; and,
long ere the ship had doubled the Cape of Good Hope, he
had become an active and handy lad aloft. When the ship
reached the China seas, he actually took his trick at the
helm.

As was usual in that day, the voyage of the Rancocus
lasted about a twelvemonth. If John Chinaman were only
one-half as active as Jonathan Restless, it might be disposed
of in about one-fourth less time; but teas are not
transported along the canals of the Celestial Empire with
anything like the rapidity with which wheat was sent to
market over the rough roads of the Great Republic, in the
age of which we are writing.

When Mark Woolston re-appeared in Bristol, after the
arrival of the Rancocus below had been known there
about twenty-four hours, he was the envy of all the lads in
the place, and the admiration of most of the girls. There
he was, a tall, straight, active, well-made, well-grown and
decidedly handsome lad of seventeen, who had doubled
the Cape of Good Hope, seen foreign parts, and had a real
India handkerchief hanging out of each pocket of a blue
round-about of superfine cloth, besides one around his half-open
well-formed throat, that was carelessly tied in a true
sailor knot! The questions he had to answer, and did
answer, about whales, Chinese feet, and “mountain waves!”
Although Bristol lies on a navigable river, up and down
which frigates had actually been seen to pass in the revolution,
it was but little that its people knew of the ocean.
Most of the worthy inhabitants of the place actually fancied
that the waves of the sea were as high as mountains, though
their notions of the last were not very precise, there being
no elevations in that part of the country fit even for a windmill.

But Mark cared little for these interrogatories. He was
happy; happy enough, at being the object of so much attention;
happier still in the bosom of a family of which he
had always been the favourite and was now the pride; and
happiest of all when he half ravished a kiss from the blushing

cheek of Bridget Yardley. Twelve months had done
a great deal for each of the young couple. If they had not
quite made a man of Mark, they had made him manly, and
his soi-disant sister wondered that any one could be so
much improved by a sea-faring life. As for Bridget, herself,
she was just bursting into young womanhood, resentbling
the bud as its leaves of green are opening to permit
those of the deepest rose-coloured tint to be seen, before
they expand into the full-blown flower. Mark was more
than delighted, he was fascinated; and young as they were,
the month he passed at home sufficed to enable him to tell
his passion, and to obtain a half-ready, half-timid acceptance
of the offer of his hand. All this time, the parents
of these very youthful lovers were as profoundly ignorant
of what was going on, as their children were unobservant
of the height to which professional competition had carried
hostilities between their respective parents. Doctors
Woolston and Yardley no longer met even in consultations;
or, if they did meet in the house of some patient whose
patronage was of too much value to be slighted, it was only
to dispute, and sometimes absolutely to quarrel.

At the end of one short month, however, Mark was once
more summoned to his post on board the Rancocus, temporarily
putting an end to his delightful interviews with
Bridget. The lovers had made Anne their confidant, and
she, well-meaning girl, seeing no sufficient reason why the
son of one respectable physician should not be a suitable
match for the daughter of another respectable physician,
encouraged them in their vows of constancy, and pledges
to become man and wife at a future, but an early day.
To some persons all this may seem exceedingly improper,
as well as extremely precocious; but the truth compels us
to say, that its impropriety was by no means as obvious as
its precocity. The latter it certainly was, though Mark
had shot up early, and was a man at a time of life when
lads, in less genial climates, scarcely get tails to their coats;
but its impropriety must evidently be measured by the
habits of the state of society in which the parties were
brought up, and by the duties that had been inculcated.
In America, then, as now, but little heed was taken by
parents, more especially in what may be called the middle

classes, concerning the connections thus formed by their
children. So long as the parties were moral, bore good
characters, had nothing particular against them, and were
of something near the same social station, little else was
asked for; or, if more were actually required, it was usually
when it was too late, and after the young people had
got themselves too deeply in love to allow ordinary prudential
reasons to have their due force.

Mark went to sea this time, dragging after him a
“lengthening chain,” but, nevertheless, filled with hope.
His years forbade much despondency, and, while he remained
as constant as if he had been a next door neighbour,
he was buoyant, and the life of the whole crew, after
the first week out. This voyage was not direct to Canton,
like the first; but the ship took a cargo of sugar to Amsterdam,
and thence went to London, where she got a
freight for Cadiz. The war of the French Revolution
was now blazing in all the heat of its first fires, and American
bottoms were obtaining a large portion of the carrying
trade of the world. Captain Crutchely had orders to
keep the ship in Europe, making the most of her, until a
certain sum in Spanish dollars could be collected, when
he was to fill up with provisions and water, and again
make the best of his way to Canton. In obeying these
instructions, he went from port to port; and, as a sort of
consequence of having Quaker owners, turning his peaceful
character to great profit, thus giving Mark many opportunities
of seeing as much of what is called the world,
as can be found in sea-ports. Great, indeed, is the difference
between places that are merely the marts of commerce,
and those that are really political capitals of large countries!
No one can be aware of, or can fully appreciate
the many points of difference that, in reality, exist between
such places, who has not seen each, and that sufficiently
near to be familiar with both. Some places, of which
London is the most remarkable example, enjoy both characters;
and, when this occurs, the town gets to possess a
tone that is even less provincial and narrow, if possible,
than that which is to be found in a place that merely rejoices
in a court. This it is which renders Naples, insignificant
as its commerce comparatively is, superior to Vi

enna, and Genoa to Florence. While it would be folly to
pretend that Mark, in his situation, obtained the most accurate
notions imaginable of all he saw and heard, in his
visits to Amsterdam, London, Cadiz, Bordeaux, Marseilles,
Leghorn, Gibraltar, and two or three other ports that might
be mentioned and to which he went, he did glean a good
deal, some of which was useful to him in after-life. He
lost no small portion of the provincial rust of home, moreover,
and began to understand the vast difference between
“seeing the world” and “going to meeting and going to
mill.”[3] In addition to these advantages, Mark was transferred
from the forecastle to the cabin before the ship
sailed for Canton. The practice of near two years had
made him a very tolerable sailor, and his previous education
made the study of navigation easy to him. In that
day there was a scarcity of officers in America, and a young
man of Mark's advantages, physical and moral, was certain
to get on rapidly, provided he only behaved well. It is
not at all surprising, therefore, that our young sailor got to
be the second-mate of the Rancocus before he had quite
completed his eighteenth year.

The voyage from London to Canton, and thence home to
Philadelphia, consumed about ten months. The Rancocus
was a fast vessel, but she could not impart her speed to the
Chinamen. It followed that Mark wanted but a few weeks
of being nineteen years old the day his ship passed Cape
May, and, what was more, he had the promise of Captain
Crutchely, of sailing with him, as his first officer, in the next
voyage. With that promise in his mind, Mark hastened
up the river to Bristol, as soon as he was clear of the vessel.

Bridget Yardley had now fairly budded, to pursue the
figure with which we commenced the description of this
blooming flower, and, if not actually expanded into perfect
womanhood, was so near it as to show beyond all question
that the promises of her childhood were to be very amply
redeemed. Mark found her in black, however; or, in
mourning for her mother. An only child, this serious loss
had thrown her more than ever in the way of Anne, the
parents on both sides winking at an association that could
do no harm, and which might prove so useful. It was
very different, however, with the young sailor. He had
not been a fortnight at home, and getting to be intimate
with the roof-tree of Doctor Yardley, before that person
saw fit to pick a quarrel with him, and to forbid him his
house. As the dispute was wholly gratuitous on the part
of the Doctor, Mark behaving with perfect propriety on the
occasion, it may be well to explain its real cause. The
fact was, that Bridget was an heiress; if not on a very
large scale, still an heiress, and, what was more, unalterably
so in right of her mother; and the thought that a son
of his competitor, Doctor Woolston, should profit by this
fact, was utterly insupportable to him. Accordingly he
quarrelled with Mark, the instant he was apprised of the
character of his attentions, and forbade him the house.
To do Mark justice, he knew nothing of Bridget's worldly
possessions. That she was beautiful, and warm-hearted,
and frank, and sweet-tempered, and feminine, and affectionate,
he both saw and felt; but beyond this he neither
saw anything, nor cared about seeing anything. The
young sailor was as profoundly ignorant that Bridget was
the actual owner of certain three per cents. that brought
twelve hundred a year, as if she did not own a `copper,'
as it was the fashion of that period to say, `cents' being then
very little, if at all, used. Nor did he know anything of
the farm she had inherited from her mother, or of the store
in town, that brought three hundred and fifty more in rent.
It is true that some allusions were made to these matters
by Doctor Yardley, in his angry comments on the Wool-ston
family generally, Anne always excepted, and in whose
favour he made a salvo, even in the height of his denunciations.
Still, Mark thought so much of that which was

really estimable and admirable in Bridget, and so little of
anything mercenary, that even after these revelations he
could not comprehend the causes of Doctor Yardley's harsh
treatment of him. During the whole scene, which was
purposely enacted in the presence of his wondering and
trembling daughter, Mark behaved perfectly well. He had
a respect for the Doctor's years, as well as for Bridget's
father, and would not retort. After waiting as long as he
conceived waiting could be of any use, he seized his hat,
and left the room with an air of resentment that Bridget
construed into the expression of an intention never to speak
to any of them again. But Mark Woolston was governed
by no such design, as the sequel will show.