entitled by rank, with reputation also. When Major Effingham yielded
to the claims of age, he retired with dignity, refusing his half-pay
or any other compensation for services that he felt he could no longer
perform.

The ministry proffered various civil offices which yielded not only
honor but profit; but he declined them all, with the chivalrous
independence and loyalty that had marked his character through life.
The veteran soon caused this set of patriotic disinterestedness to be
followed by another of private munificence, that, however little it
accorded with prudence, was in perfect conformity with the simple
integrity of his own views.

The friend of Marmaduke was his only child; and to this son, on his
marriage with a lady to whom the father was particularly partial, the
Major gave a complete conveyance of his whole estate, consisting of
money in the funds, a town and country residence, sundry valuable
farms in the old parts of the colony, and large tracts of wild land in
the new—in this manner throwing himself upon the filial piety of his
child for his own future maintenance. Major Effingham, in declining
the liberal offers of the British ministry, had subjected himself to
the suspicion of having attained his dotage, by all those who throng
the avenues to court patronage, even in the remotest corners of that
vast empire; but, when he thus voluntarily stripped himself of his
great personal wealth, the remainder of the community seemed
instinctively to adopt the conclusion also that he had reached a
second childhood. This may explain the fact of his importance rapidly
declining; and, if privacy was his object, the veteran had soon a free
indulgence of his wishes. Whatever views the world might entertain of
this act of the Major, to himself and to his child it seemed no more