there is no other instance where a considerable town and prosperous settlement has arisen and flourished, in peace and safety, in the midst of nations disposed and often provoked to hostility, at a distance from the protection of ships, and from the only fortified city, which, always weakly garrisoned, was little fitted to awe and protect the whole province. Let it be remembered that the distance from New York to Albany is 170 miles; and that in the intermediate space, at the period of which I speak, there was not one town or fortified place. The shadow of a palisadoed fort, which then existed at Albany, was occupied by a single independent company, who did duty, but were dispersed through the town, working at various trades: so scarce, indeed, were artisans in this community, that a tradesman might in these days ask any wages he chose.

*

To return to this settlement, which evidently owed its security to the wisdom of its leaders, who always acted on the simple maxim that honesty is the best policy; several miles north from Albany a considerable possession, called the Flats, was inhabited by Colonel Philip Schuyler, one of the most enlightened men in the province. This being a frontier, he would have found it a very dangerous situation had he not been a person of singular worth, fortitude, and wisdom. If I were not afraid of tiring my reader with a detail of occurrences which, taking place before the birth of my friend, might seem irrelevant to the present purpose, I could relate many instances, almost incredible, of the power of mind displayed by this gentleman in governing the uninstructed, without coercion or legal right. He possessed this species of power in no common degree; his influence, with that of his brother, John Schuyler, was exerted to conciliate the wandering tribes of Indians; and by fair traffic, (for he too was a trader,) and by fair liberal dealing, they attained their object. They also strengthened the league already formed with the five Mohawk nations, by procuring for them some assistance against their enemies, the Onondagoes of the Lakes.

Queen Anne had by this time succeeded the Stadtholder.

* It may be worth noting, that Captain Massey, who commanded this non-effective company for many years, was the father of Mrs. Lennox, an estimable character, well known for her literary productions, and for being the friend and protégée of Doctor Johnson.

The gigantic ambition of Lewis the Fourteenth actuated the remotest parts of his extensive dominions; and the encroaching spirit of that restless nation began to discover itself in hostilities to the infant colony. A motive for this could scarce be discovered, since they possessed already much more territory than they were able to occupy, the limits of which were undefined. But the province of New York was a frontier; and, as such, a kind of barrier to the southern colonies. It began also to compete for a share of the fur-trade, then very considerable, before the beavers were driven back from their original haunts. In short, the province daily rose in importance; and being in a great measure protected by the Mohawk tribes, the policy of courting their alliance, and of impressing their minds with an exalted idea of the power and grandeur of the British empire, became obvious. I cannot recollect the name of the governor at this time; but whoever he was, he, as well as the succeeding ones, visited the settlement at Albany, to observe its wise regulations and growing prosperity, and to learn maxims of sound policy from those whose interests and happiness were daily promoted by the practice of it.

CHAPTER III.

Colonel Schuyler persuades four Sachems to accompany him to England. ―Their Reception and Return.

It was thought advisable to send over some of the heads of the tribes to England to attach them to that country: but to persuade such of them as were intelligent, sagacious, and aware of all probable dangers; who were strangers to all the maritime concerns, and had never beheld the ocean; to persuade such independent and high-minded warriors to forsake the safety and enjoyments of their own country, to encounter the perils of a long voyage, and trust themselves among entire strangers, and this merely to bind closer an alliance with the sovereign of a distant country—a female sovereign too; a mode of government that must have appeared to them very incongruous; this was no common undertaking, nor was it

easy to induce these chiefs to accede to the proposal. The principal motive for urging it was, to counteract the machinations of the French, whose emissaries in these wild regions had even then begun to style us, in effect, a nation of shopkeepers; and to impress the tribes dwelling within their boundaries with vast ideas of the power and splendor of their Grand Monarque, while our sovereign, they said, ruled over a petty island, and was himself a trader. To counterwork such suggestions, it was thought requisite to give the leaders of the nation (who then in fact protected our people) an adequate idea of our power, and of the magnificence of our court. The chiefs at length consented, on this condition only, that their brother Philip, who never had been known to tell a lie, or to speak without thinking, should accompany them.

However this gentleman's wisdom and integrity might qualify him for this employment, it by no means suited his placid temper, simple manners, and habits of life, at once pastoral and patriarchal, to travel over seas, visit courts, and mingle in the bustle of a world, the customs of which were become foreign to those primitive inhabitants of new and remote regions. The adventure, however, succeeded beyond his expectation; the chiefs were pleased with the attention paid them, and with the mild and gracious manners of the queen, who at different times admitted them to her presence. With the good Philip she had many conversations, and made him some valuable presents, among which, I think, was her picture; but this, with many others, was lost, in a manner which will appear hereafter. Colonel Schuyler, too, was much delighted with the courteous affability of this princess; she offered to knight him, which he respectfully, but positively refused: and being pressed to assign his reasons, he said he had brothers and near relations in humble circumstances, who, already his inferiors in property, would seem as it were depressed by his elevation; and though it should have no such effect on his mind, it might be the means of awakening pride or vanity in the female part of his family. He returned, however, in triumph, having completely succeeded in his mission. The kings, as they were called in England, came back in full health, deeply impressed with esteem and attachment for a country which to them appeared the centre of arts, intelligence, and wisdom; where they were treated with

kindness and respect; and were neither made the objects of perpetual exhibition, nor hurried about and distracted with a succession of splendid, and to them incomprehensible sights, the quick shifting of which rather tends to harass minds which have enough of native strength to reflect on what they see, without knowledge sufficient to comprehend it. It is to this childish and injudicious mode of treating those uncivilized beings; to this mode of rather extorting from them a tribute to our vanity, than of taking the necessary pains to inform and improve them, that the ill-success of all subsequent experiments of this kind has been owing. Instead of endeavoring to conciliate them by genuine kindness, and by gradually and gently unfolding to them simple and useful truths, our manner of treating them seems calculated to dazzle, oppress, and degrade them with a display of our superior luxuries and refinements; which, by the elevated and self-denied Mohawk, would be regarded as unmanly and frivolous objects, and which the voluptuous and low-minded Otaheitan would so far relish, that the privation would seem intolerable, when he returned to his hogs and his cocoas. Except such as have been previously inoculated, a precaution which voyagers have rarely had the prudence or humanity to take, there is scarcely an instance of savages brought to Europe that have not died of the smallpox; induced either by the infection to which they are exposed from the indiscriminate crowds drawn about them, or the alteration in their blood, which unusual diet, liquors, close air, and heated rooms, must necessarily produce.

The presents made to these adventurous warriors were judiciously adapted to their taste and customs. They consisted of showy habits, of which all these people are very fond, and of arms made purposely in the form of those used in their own country. It was the fortune of the writer of these memoirs, more than thirty years after, to see that great warrior and faithful ally of the British crown, the redoubted King Hendrick, then sovereign of the five nations, splendidly arrayed in a suit of light blue, made in an antique mode, and trimmed with broad silver lace; which was probably an heir-loom in the family, presented to his father by his good ally, and sister. the female king of England.

I cannot exactly say how long Colonel Schuyler and his

companions stayed in England, but I think they were nearly a year absent. In those primeval days of the settlement, when our present rapid modes of transmitting intelligence were unknown, in a country so detached and inland as that at Albany, the return of these interesting travellers was like the first lighting of lamps in a city.

CHAPTER IV.

Return of Colonel Schuyler and the Sachems to the interior.-Literary acquisitions.-Distinguishes and instructs his favorite niece.-Manners of the Settlers.

THIS sagacious and intelligent patriot thus brought to the foot of the British throne the high-spirited rulers of the boundless wild, who, alike heedless of the power and splendor of distant monarchs, were accustomed to say with Fingal, "sufficient for me is the desert, with all its deer and woods." It may easily be supposed that such a mind as Philip's was equally fitted to acquire and to communicate intelligence. He who had conversed with Addison, Marlborough, and Godolphin, who had gratified the curiosity of Oxford and Bolingbroke, of Arbuthnot and of Gay, with accounts of nature in her pristine garb, and of her children in their primitive simplicity; he who could do all this, no doubt received ample returns of various information from those best qualified to give it; he was, besides, a diligent observer. Here he improved a taste for literature, native to him, for it had not yet taken root in this uncultivated soil. He brought home the Spectator and the tragedy of Cato, Windsor Forest, Young's poem on the Last Day, and in short all the works, then published, of that constellation of wits which distinguished the last female reign. Nay more, and better, he brought Paradise Lost; which in after-times afforded such delight to some branches of his family, that to them

"Paradise (indeed) seemed opened in the wild."

But to return to our sachems, from whom we have too long digressed when they arrived at Albany, they did not, as