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By Root 4120 0

struck him a terrible blow with a cudgel, from which he had not recovered. The news had not only come as a great shock to Weston, it had also set the seal on a prejudice that remained with him for the rest of his life. All through his New York childhood, for reasons he never quite understood, England had seemed to claim the mother who was missing from his home. It was the war with England, also, which kept his father away, and made the other boys at school call his father a traitor. And these wounds had only partly healed when this news came that, like some ancient god who can never be satisfied, England had taken his father’s life as well. Even though he was a rational young man at Harvard when it happened, it was not so surprising that a primitive sense of aversion to England and all things English had settled in his soul.

As time passed, the scope of this aversion grew wider. While he was at Harvard, at the time of the French Revolution, it had seemed to Weston that perhaps in that country, inspired by the example of America, a new European freedom might be dawning. But as the liberal constitution for which Lafayette and his friends had hoped gave way first to the bloodbath of the Terror, and then to Napoleon’s empire, Weston had concluded that the freedoms of the New World might never be possible in the Old. Europe was too mired in ancient hatreds and rivalries between nations. The whole Continent, in Weston’s imagination, was a dangerous place, and he wanted as little to do with it as possible.

He was in excellent company. Hadn’t Washington, in his farewell address, warned the new American nation to avoid foreign entanglements? Jefferson, that standard-bearer of the European Enlightenment, and former resident of Paris, had likewise declared that America should stick to honest friendship with all nations, but entangling alliances with none. Madison agreed. Even John Quincy Adams, the great diplomat, who’d lived in countries from Russia to Portugal, said the same. Europe was trouble.

Proof of their wisdom had come a dozen years ago, when Britain and Napoleon’s empire were locked in their great struggle and the United States, bound to France by a treaty of friendship, had found itself trapped between the conflicting powers. Weston had felt first irritation as Britain, unable to tolerate America’s neutral trade with her enemy, had started to harass American shipping; then despair, as the disputes grew into a wider conflict; and then fury when, in 1812, America and Britain had once again found themselves at war.

His memories of that war were bitter. The British blockade of New York harbor had nearly ruined his trade. The fighting all along the eastern seaboard, and up in Canada, had cost tens of millions of dollars. The damn British had even burned down the president’s mansion in Washington. When the wretched business finally drew to a close after three years, and Napoleon had left the stage of history, Weston’s relief was matched by an iron determination.

Never again should America be in such a position. She must be strong, like a fortress. Strong enough to stand entirely alone. Recently, President Monroe had taken the idea even further. To make America really secure, he had declared, the whole of the western side of the Atlantic—North America, the Caribbean, South America—should be an American sphere of influence. The other nations could squabble in Europe if they liked, but not in the Americas. It was a daring claim, but Weston was in total agreement with it.

For why should Americans need the Old World across the ocean, when they had their own, huge continent on their doorstep? Mighty river systems, rich valleys, endless forests, magnificent mountains, fertile plains—a land of endless opportunities, stretching westward beyond the sunset. The freedom and wealth of a continent, thousands of miles of it, was theirs for the taking.

And it was this great truth, this grand vision, that Weston wanted to impress upon his son on their journey west.

For New York at least, and for the Master family in particular, the great