SATANSTOE;
OR,
THE LITTLEPAGE MANUSCRIPTS.


A TALE OF THE COLONY.


BY
J. FENIMORE COOPER.


"The only amaranthine flower on earth
is virtue: the only treasure, truth."--SPENSER





PREFACE.

Every chronicle of manners has a certain value. When customs are connected
with principles, in their origin, development, or end, such records have
a double importance; and it is because we think we see such a connection
between the facts and incidents of the Littlepage Manuscripts, and certain
important theories of our own time, that we give the former to the world.

It is perhaps a fault of your professed historian, to refer too much to
philosophical agencies, and too little to those that are humbler. The
foundations of great events, are often remotely laid in very capricious and