"FROM THE WINDOWS OF THE MAIL COACH" A SCOTSMAN LOOKS AT NEW YORK STATE IN I 8 11 Edited by David H. Wallace ON A BRIGHT SEPTEMBER SUNDAY in 1810 a restless Scotsman named J. B. Dunlop sailed down the Firth of Clyde past his native Ayrshire shore, bound for America. As the familiar scenes slipped out of sight, melancholy thoughts crowded into his mind and overflowed onto the pages of his journal: "Farewell, sweet Fairfield, dear mansion of happyness; ye hedge bound parks thro which my hasty steps have often traversed and stained with the scarlet drops of the sleaky partridge; ye variegated woods where I have strolled away to many pleasing hours to the melodious notes of the mavis and your other warbling tenants; ye dearest of friends, whom Memory shall rank in the uppermost shelf of her repository and affection place in the core of my heart. Farewell! Soon must the favorableness of the wind, tho light, pleasing to all on board but myself, hide the brown topped woods which encircle your abode behind the curvature of Nature's arc." 264