their unruly pupil, they would have exercised a little more forbearance in his case. Be this as it may, the father accepted the son's version of the affair and, after a heated controversy with the college authorities, took him home.
The United States already afforded a refuge for the political exiles of Europe, and was beginning also to attract the attention of distinguished foreign visitors; and many of these found their way as guests to Otsego hall. Talleyrand was among them, and almost every nationality of Europe was represented either among the permanent settlers of the town or among its transient sojourners. Young Cooper, however, did not linger long at home, and, as the merchant marine offered the surest stepping-stone to a commission in the navy (the school at Annapolis not being yet established), a berth was secured for him on board the ship “Sterling,” of Wiseasset, Me., John Johnston master. She sailed from New York with a cargo of flour, bound for Cowes and a market, in the autumn of 1806, about the time when Cooper should have been taking his degree with the rest of his classmates at Yale. He shipped as a sailor before the mast, and, although his social position was well known to the captain, he was never admitted to the cabin. A stormy voyage of forty days made a sailor of him before the “Sterling” reached London. During her stay there, Cooper made good use of his time, and visited everything that was accessible to a young man in sailor's dress, in and about the city. The “Sterling” sailed for the straits of Gibraltar in January, 1807, and, taking on board a return cargo, went back to London, where she remained several weeks. In July she cleared for home, and reached Philadelphia after a voyage of fifty-two days.
According to the requirements of the time, Cooper was now qualified to be a midshipman; his commission was issued 1 Jan., 1808, and he reported for duty to the commandant at New York, 24 Feb. Apparently war with Great Britain was imminent, and preparations were made in anticipation of immediate hostilities. Cooper served for a while on the “Vesuvius,” and in the autumn was ordered to Oswego, N. Y., with a construction-party, to build a brig for service on Lake Ontario. Early in the spring of 1809 the vessel was launched, but by that time peaceful counsels had prevailed, and war was postponed for three years. All these experiences tended to develop the future novelist. Many incidents of the stormy North Atlantic voyages appear in his sea novels, while the long winter on the shore of Ontario gave him glimpses of border life in a new aspect, and his duties in the ship-yard made him familiar with every detail of naval construction. After a visit to Niagara, he was left in charge of the gun-boat flotilla on Lake Champlain, where he remained during the summer, and on 13 Nov., 1809, was ordered to the “Wasp,” under command of Capt. James Lawrence. Nearly two years passed, of which there is but scant record; but during this period he had become engaged to a daughter of John Peter De Lancey, of Westchester county, N. Y., and they were married on 1 Jan., 1811. Here again fate placed him under influences that shaped his future career. The De Lanceys were tories during the revolutionary war, and the family traditions naturally supplemented the teaching of the English tutor. Cooper's own patriotism was staunch, but the associations of his life were such that, to a generation that looked with suspicion upon everything English, his motives often seemed questionable. The marriage was happy in every respect. In deference to the wishes of his wife, he resigned his commission in the navy on 6 May, 1811. After a temporary residence in Westchester county, he went to Cooperstown and began a house, which was left unfinished and was burned in 1823. Again, out of consideration for his wife's preferences, he returned to Westchester county, where he remained until after his first literary success in 1821-'2. In the mean time his parents had died, his father in 1809 and his mother in 1817; six children, five daughters, and a son had been born to him; and his time had been given to the cultivation and improvement of his estate in Scarsdale, known as the Angevine farm. A second son, Paul, was born after his removal to New York city.
He was now thirty years old, and seemed no nearer to a literary life than he had been when he first donned his midshipman's uniform. One day he was reading an English novel to his wife, and casually remarked, as many another has done under like circumstances, “I believe I could write a better story myself.” Encouraged by her, he made the attempt, with what ultimate success the world knows. “Precaution,” a novel in two volumes, was published anonymously in an inferior manner in New York in 1820. Of this first novel it need only be said that it dealt with high life in England, a subject with which the author was personally unfamiliar, save through the pages of fiction. The book was republished in better editions, both in this country and in England; and it is noteworthy that the English reviewers gave it a fairly favorable reception without suspecting its American origin. This venture can scarcely be said to have enabled him to taste the sweets of authorship, but it had the effect of stimulating the desire to write. Its modest success was such that Charles Wilkes and other friends urged him to try some familiar theme. “If,” they urged, “he could so well dramatize affairs of which he was totally ignorant, why should not the sea and the frontier afford far more congenial themes?” The story of a spy, related by John Jay years before, recurred to his memory, and the surroundings of his home — Westchester county, the debatable ground of both armies during almost the whole revolutionary period — furnished a convenient stage. “The Spy” was the result, and during the winter of 1821-'2 the American public awoke to the fact that it possessed a novelist of its own. The success of this book, which was unprecedented at the time in the meagre annals of American literature, determined Cooper's career; but, leaving his subsequent writings for consideration by themselves, the story of his life is here continued, independently of his authorship.
In 1823 he was living in New York. There, on 5 Aug., his youngest child, Fenimore, died, and Cooper himself was shortly afterward seriously ill. By 1826 his popularity had reached its zenith with the publication of the “Last of the Mohicans.” Until this time he had always signed his name James Cooper; but, in April, 1826, the legislature passed an act changing the family name to Fenimore-Cooper, in compliance with the request of his grandmother, who wished thus to perpetuate her own family name. At first Cooper attempted to preserve the compound surname by using the hyphen, but he soon abandoned it altogether. With fame had arisen envy and uncharitableness at home and abroad. English reviewers at once claimed him as a native, and stigmatized him as a renegade. His birthplace was, with much show of authority, fixed in the Isle of Man, and for many years the matter was seriously in dispute,
