[Illustration:  HON.  GERRIT SMITH.]

During some years prior to 1850, political party issues on “Anti-slavery,” grew from mild to violent.  And famous in the annals of Cooperstown was the spirited debate, between Mr. Cooper, for colonization, and his friend, the Hon. Gerrit Smith, for immediate abolition.  This vital question of national interest was given able and exhaustive treatment by both debaters who spoke several hours while “The audience listened with riveted attention.”  At its close the two gentlemen walked arm in arm to the “Hall,” Cooper’s home, where they dined together.

From Mr. Keese comes an anecdote of Commodore Shubrick’s visit to his old shipmate at Cooperstown:  “Mr. Cooper had a raw Irishman in his employ, as a man of all work.  Sending him to the post-office one day for the mail, he told him to ask if there were any letters for Commodore Shubrick.  Pat came to the window and with great confidence called out, ‘Is there any letter for Commodore Brickbat?’ ‘Who?’ said the astonished postmaster.  The name was repeated.  A villager coming in at that time, the postmaster asked him if he knew who was visiting Mr. Cooper.  ‘Commodore Shubrick,’ was the reply.  ‘All, that’s the name!’ said Pat; ‘and sure, didn’t I come near it, though!’”

[Illustration:  WILLIAM BRANDFORD SHUBRICK.]

Possibly the sailing of Sir John Franklin in 1845 for the frozen country of the North Star led Fenimore Cooper to write “The Sea Lions,” in the winter of 1849.  When the Highlands were white, and its tree-life hoary with frost, the author could pen best his picture of a voyage to the ice-bergs, rifts, and snow-drifts, for which his two schooners, both called The Sea Lion, were launched.

In the early years of his married life Cooper made many visits to the island home of a relative, by marriage, who, off the eastern shore of Long Island, led a half-sea life that was full of attraction for the young sailor.  This gentleman only, his family and dependents, lived on Shelter Island, between which and the mainland all coming and going was by boat.  Here they had shooting, fishing, and cruising a-plenty.  The author’s thorough knowledge of these waters was the probable reason for starting his two sealers from this port in search of valuable sealing-grounds in the polar seas.  The schooners and their captains were American.  One of the sealers was owned by an old, hard-fisted miser of Puritanic pattern, whose sweet niece Mary, pretty and simply good, makes the very lovable heroine of this book.  Beneath the low porch and within the thrifty garden and great orchard of her island home, Mary’s heart had been captured by Roswell Gardner, the daring young captain of her uncle’s schooner The Sea Lion.  In the faith of the Star and the Cross the young girl worshipped with strong and childlike piety, while her lover “stood coldly by and erect with covered head,”—­a doubter, but honestly striving