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 AND FIVE SACHEMS VISIT ENGLAND-THEIR RECEPTION AND RETURN

IT

T was thought advisable to bring over some of the heads of the tribes to England to attach them to that country: but to persuade the chiefs of a free and happy people, who 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 shop-keepers; and to impress the tribes dwelling in 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 those suggestions, it was thought requisite to give the leaders of the nation an adequate idea of our power, and the magnificence of our court. The chiefs at length consented, on this only condition, that their brother Philip,' who never told a lie, or spoke 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

1 This event happening nearly half a century before Mrs. Grant was born, and nearly a century before this work was written, "unassisted by written memorials," the mistake of the name of Philip for Pieter is pardonable. It was Pieter, however, the eldest son of Philip, who figured in this episode. He was the first mayor of Albany in 1686, and twenty-four years later, in 1710, conducted these natives to England, arriving there in the time of Queen Anne and the Spectator. On this occasion his full length portrait was painted, and is still preserved among his descendants at the Flats, an engraving of which is here given, and some pleasant allusions are made to

time.

in England, 1710.

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 neither made the objects of perpetual exhibition,

nor hurried about to be continually 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, this mode of rather extorting from them a tribute to our vanity, than taking the necessary pains to inform and improve them, that the ill success of all such experiments since have 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 selfdenied Mohawk, would be regarded as unmanly and frivolous objects, and which the voluptuous and low-minded Otaheitean 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 small-pox; 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,