The sagacity with which Mr. Hoskins had chosen the site of Judiville became every day more manifest, by the preference given to it by settlers of the mechanical orders. It was evident, in the course of the first twelve months, that it would in the end leave Babelmandel and Napoleon two dwarfs; and nothing did so much to help it forward as the judicious bargain which the far-foreseeing old man made with Mr. Bell to become preacher and teacher. For by the end of three months, the settlers at Babelmandel, seeing the turn which the emigration had taken towards Judiville, willingly assented that Mr. Bell should fulfil his agreement with Mr. Hoskins; and his renown as a great gun having been constantly spreading, many who came to settle at Napoleon or Babelmandel, set themselves down there entirely on account of the minister.

Among a batch of these was a widow lady, with two fine young men her sons, and an only daughter. They were of a genteeler class than emigrants commonly consist of, and the two sons were, for settlers, the best prepared of all I have ever met with. Mr. Cockspur, their father, had long meditated the intention of bringing his family to America, being a man of republican predilections, and he had brought up and educated his children for the purpose. There was scarcely a useful trade of which both Oliver and Bradshaw Cockspur had not some knowledge, and few mechanical tools they did not handle with dexterity. The young lady their sister was no less accomplished than her brothers; all sorts of household thrifts were as familiar to her finger-ends, as scratching to the nails of a highland-man. Besides baking and brewing, pickling and stewing, shaping and sewing, and every sort of domestical doing, she had a spinning-wheel and a loom on which she plied the flying shuttle like a destiny weaving the life of a prodigal. Nor, with all these qualifications to make themselves independent, were they unprepared with pastimes.