them the most valuable tracts for some petty confideration. They affected great friendship for them; and, while confcious of their own weakness, were careful not to provoke hoftilities; and they, filently and infenfibly, established themselves to the weft. CHAP CHAP. II. Account of the Five Nations, or Mohawk Indians.Building of the Fort at Albany.-John and Philip Schuyler. ON N the Mohawk River, about forty miles: distant from Albany, there fubfifted a confederacy of Indian tribes, of a very diffe rent character from those mentioned in thepreceding chapter; too fagacious to be de ceived, and too powerful to be eradicated. These were the once renowned five nations, whom any one, who remembers them while they were a people, will hesitate to call favages. Were they favages who had fixed habitations; who cultivated rich fields; who built caftles, (for so they called their not incommodious wooden houses, furrounded with palifadoes;) who planted maize and beans, and fhewed confiderable ingenuity in conftructing and adorning their canoes, canoes, arms, and clothing? They who had wife though unwritten laws, and conducted their wars, treaties, and alliances with deep and found policy; they whofe eloquence was bold, nervous, and animated; whose language was fonorous, mufical, and expreffive; who poffeffed generous and elevated fentiments, heroic fortitude, and unstained probity: Were thefe indeed favages? The difference "Of fcent the headlong lionefs between is not greater than that of the Mohawks in point of civility and capacity, from other American tribes, among whom, indeed,. exifted a far greater diverfity of character,. language, &c. than Europeans feem to be aware of. This little tribute to the me-. mory of a people who have been, while it. foothes the penfive recollections of the writer, is not fo foreign to the fubject as it may at first appear. So much of the peace. and fafety of this infant, community depended on the friendship and alliance of thefe thefe generous tribes; and to conciliate and retain their affections fo much addrefs was neceffary, that common characters were unequal to the task. Minds liberal and upright, like thofe I am about to defcribe, could alone excite that efteem, and preferve that confidence, which were effential towards retaining the friendship of thofe valuable allies. From the time of the great rebellion, fo many English refugees frequented Holland, that the language and manners of our country became familiar at the Hague, particularly among the Stadtholder's party. When the province of New York fell under the British dominion, it became neceffary that every body fhould learn our language, as all public bufinefs was carried on in the English tongue, which they did the more willingly, as, after the revolution, the acceffion of the Stadtholder to the English crown very much reconciled them to our government Still, however, the English was a kind of court language; little fpoken, and imperfectly understood in the interior. Habituated terior. Those who brought with them the French and English languages foon acquired a fway over their lefs enlightened fellow fettlers. Of this number were the Schuy lers and Cuylers, two families among whom intellect of the fuperior kind feemed an inheritance, and whofe intelligence and liberality of mind, fortified by well-grounded principle, carried them far beyond the petty and narrow views of the reft. at home to centre all wisdom and all happinefs in commercial advantages, they would have been very ill calculated to lay the foundation of an infant ftate in a country that afforded plenty and content, as the reward of industry, but where the very nature of the territory, as well as the ftate of fociety, precluded great pecuniary acquifitions. Their object here was taming favage nature, and making the boundless wild fubfervient to agricultural purpofes. Commercial pursuits were a diftant profpect; and before they became of confequence, rural habits had greatly changed the character of thefe republicans. But the commercial fpirit, |