gratitude of every man of taste in the country, by placing church-towers of
a proper comparative breadth, dignity and proportions, before the eyes of
its population. The diminutive meanness of American church-towers, has been
an eye-sore to every _intelligent_, travelled American, since the country
was settled.--EDITOR.]

[Footnote 4: The site of the present City Hotel.--ED.]

[Footnote 5: Now, de Lancey Street.--ED.]

[Footnote 6: This patroon must have been Jeremiah Van Rensselaer, who lived
to be a bachelor of forty before he married. If there be no anachrenism,
this gentleman married Miss Van Cortlandt, one of the seven daughters
of Stephanus Van Cortlandt, who was proprietor of the great manor of
Cortlandt, West Chester county, and who, in his day, was the principal
personage of the colony. The seven daughters of this Colonel Van Cortlandt,
by marrying into the families of de Lancey, Bayard, Van Rensellaer,
Beekman, M'Gregor--Skinner, &c. &c. brought together a connection that was
long felt in the political affairs of New York. The Schuylers were related
through a previous marriage, and many of the Long Island and other families
of weight by other alliances. This connection formed the court party, which
was resisted by an opposition led by the Livingstons, Morris, and other
names of _their_ connection. This old bachelor, Jeremiah Van Rensellaer,
believing he would never marry, alienated, in behalf of his next brother
and anticipated heir, the Greenbush and Claverack estates,--portions of
those vast possessions which, in our day, and principally through the
culpable apathy, or miserable demagogueism of those who have been entrusted
with the care of the public weal, have been the pretext for violating
some of the plainest laws of morality that God has communicated to
man.--EDITOR.]