Mr. Hardinge heard my proposition, at first, as a piece of pleasantry;
but Grace expressing a strong desire to see a large town, or what was
thought a large town in this country, in 1799, and Lucy looking
wistful, though she remained silent under an apprehension her father
could not afford the expense of such a journey, which her imagination
rendered a great deal more formidable than it actually proved to be,
the excellent divine finally acquiesced. The expense was disposed of
in a very simple manner. The journey, both ways, would be made in the
Wallingford; and Mr. Hardinge was not so unnecessarily scrupulous as
to refuse passages for himself and children in the sloop, which never
exacted passage-money from any who went to or from the farm. Food was
so cheap, too, as to be a matter of no consideration; and, being
entitled legally to receive that at Clawbonny, it made no great
difference whether it were taken on board the vessel, or in the
house. Then there was a Mrs. Bradfort in New York, a widow lady of
easy fortune, who was a cousin-german of Mr. Hardinge's--his father's
sister's daughter--and with her he always staid in his own annual
visits to attend the convention of the Church--I beg pardon, of the
Protestant Episcopal Church, as it is now _de rigueur_ to say; I
wonder some ultra does not introduce the manifest improvement into the
Apostles' Creed of saying, "I believe in the Holy Protestant Episcopal
Catholic Church, &c.
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