James Fenimore Cooper

The Pilot James Fenimore Cooper

A single glance at the map will make the reader acquainted with the position of the eastern coastof the Island of Great Britain, as connected with the shores of the opposite continent. Together theyform the boundaries of the small sea that has for ages been known to the world as the scene ofmaritime exploits, and as the great avenue through which commerce and war have conducted thefleets of the northern nations of Europe. Over this sea the islanders long asserted a jurisdiction, exceeding that which reason concedes to any power on the highway of nations, and whichfrequently led to conflicts that caused an expenditure of blood and treasure, utterly disproportionedto the advantages that can ever arise from the maintenance of a useless and abstract right. It is acrossthe waters of this disputed ocean that we shall attempt to conduct our readers, selecting a period forour incidents that has a peculiar interest for every American, not only because it was the birthday ofhis nation, but because it was also the era when reason and common sense began to take the placeof custom and feudal practices in the management of the affairs of nations. Soon after the events of the revolution had involved the kingdoms of France and Spain, and therepublics of Holland, in our quarrel, a group of laborers was collected in a field that lay exposed tothe winds of the ocean, on the north-eastern coast of England. These men were lightening their toil, and cheering the gloom of a day in December, by uttering their crude opinions on the politicalaspects of the times. The fact that England was engaged in a war with some of her dependencies onthe other side of the Atlantic had long been known to them, after the manner that faint rumors ofdistant and uninteresting events gain on the ear; but now that nations, with whom she had been usedto battle, were armed against her in the quarrel, the din of war had disturbed the quiet even of thesesecluded and illiterate rustics. The principal speakers, on the occasion, were a Scotch drover, whowas waiting the leisure of the occupant of the fields, and an Irish laborer, who had found his wayacross the Channel, and thus far over the island, in quest of employmen