word manor is frequently
used. There are many manors in New York, though all political and judicial
rights have ceased.
 
7 The manumission of the slaves in New York has been gradual. When public
opinion became strong in their favour, then grew up a custom of buying the
services of a slave, for six or eight years, with a condition to liberate him at
the end of the period. Then the law provided that all born after a certain day
should be free, the males, at twenty-eight, and the females at twenty-five.
After this the owner was obliged to cause his servants to be taught to read and
write before they reached the age of eighteen, and, finally, the few that
remained were all unconditionally liberated in 1826, or after the publication of
this tale. It was quite usual for men more or less connected with the quakers,
who never held slaves, to adopt the first expedient.
 
8 In America the term Yankee is of local meaning. It is thought to be derived
from the manner in which the Indians of New England pronounced the word English
or Yengeese. New York being originally a Dutch province, the term of course was
not known there, and further south different dialects among the natives,
themselves, probably produced a different pronunciation. Marmaduke and his
cousin being Pennsylvanians by birth were not Yankees in the American sense of
the word.
 
9 People who clear land by the acre or job, are thus called.
 
10 It is possible that, the reader may start at this declaration of Benjamin,
but those who have lived in the new settlements of America, are too much
accustomed to hear of these European exploits, to doubt it.
 
11 The divines of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, commonly
call other denominations Dissenters, though there never was an established
church in their own country!
 
12 His enemy.
 
13 The Susquehannah means crooked river, hannah, or hannock, meant river, in
many of the native dialects. Thus we find Rappehannock, as far south as
Virginia.
 
14 Before the revolution each province had its own money of account, though
neither coined any but copper pieces. In New York the Spanish dollar was divided
into eight shillings, each of the value of a fraction more than sixpence
sterling. At present the Union has provided a decimal system, and coins to
represent it.
 
15
The author has no better apology for interrupting the interest of a work of
fiction by these desultory dialogues, than that they have reference to facts. In
reviewing his work, after so many years, he is compelled to confess it