Excerpt: "When the colonists had acquired a mastery over the savages of the wilderness, and assisted in breaking the French power on their frontier, they began to feel their manhood stirring within them, and they tacitly agreed no longer to submit to the narrow and oppressive policy of Great Britain. Their industry and commerce were too expansive to be confined within the narrow limits of those restrictions which the Board of Trade, from time to time, had imposed, and they determined to cast off these chains. Moreover, the principles of civil and religious liberty urged them on; and, at last, the trumpet of the Revolution was sounded, as the violent result of their dissatisfactions. It was during the fourth year of this Revolution, in the year of our Lord 1778, that our tale opens in the vicinity of Lake George, near Fort Ann. In a pretty, white cottage a short distance from the fort sat two men over their wine, discussing the politics of the day. One, who is destined to be our hero, was about five and twenty years of age; he was tall and commanding; his features nicely molded and in perfect harmony; the eyes were gray, although, at a distance, one might mistake them for black, and his hair was dark-brown and curled close to his head."