liberality, and the singular beauty of the district, to continue. His trade with the Five Nations was very much for their advantage; he supplying them on more equitable terms than any trader, and not indulging the excesses in regard to strong liquors which others were too easily induced to do. The castle contained the store in which all goods were laid up, which were meant for the Indian traffic, and all the peltry received in exchange. The hall was his summer residence, and the place round which his greatest improvements were made. Here this singular man lived like a little sovereign; kept an excellent table for strangers, and officers, whom the course of their duty now frequently led into these wilds, and by confiding entirely on the Indians, and treating them with unvaried truth and justice, without ever yielding to solicitation what he had once refused, he taught them to repose entire confidence in him; he, in his turn became attached to them, wore in winter almost entirely their dress and ornaments, and contracted a kind of alliance with them; for becoming a widower in the prime of life, he connected himself with an Indian maiden, daughter to a sachem, who possessed an uncommonly agreeable person, and good understanding: and whether ever formally married to him according to our usage, or not, contrived to live with him in great union and affection all his life. So perfect was his dependence on those people, whom his fortitude and other manly virtues had attached to

him, that when they returned from their summer excursions, and exchanged the last year's furs for fire-arms, etc., they used to pass a few days at the castle; when his family and most of his domestics were down at the hall. There they were all liberally entertained by their friend; and five hundred of them have been known, for nights together, after drinking pretty freely, to lie around him on the floor, while he was the only white person in a house containing great quantities of everything that was to them valuable or desirable. While Sir William thus united in his mode of life, the calm urbanity of a liberal and extensive trader, with the splendid hospitality, the numerous attendance, and the plain though dignified manners of an ancient baron, the female part of his family were educated in a manner so entirely dissimilar from that of all other young people of their sex and station, that as a matter of curiosity, it is worthy a recital. These two young ladies inherited, in a great measure, the personal advantages and strength of understanding, for which their father was so distinguished. Their mother dying when they were young, bequeathed the care of them to a friend. This friend was the widow of an officer who had fallen in battle; I am not sure whether she was devout, and shunned the world for fear of its pollutions, or romantic, and despised its selfish bustling spirit; but so it was, that she seemed utterly to forget it, and devoted herself to her fair pupils. To these she taught

VOL. II. 2

needle-work of the most elegant and ingenious kinds, reading and writing; thus quietly passed their childhood; their monitress not taking the smallest concern in family management, nor indeed the least interest in any worldly thing but themselves; far less did she inquire about the fashions or diversions which prevailed in a world she had renounced and from which she seemed to wish her pupils to remain for ever estranged. Never was anything so uniform as their dress; their occupations, and the general tenor of their lives. In the morning they rose early, read their Prayer-Book, I believe, but certainly their Bible, fed their birds, tended their flowers, and breakfasted; then were employed some hours with unwearied perseverance, at fine needlework, for the ornamental parts of dress, which were the fashion of the day, without knowing to what use they were to be put, as they never wore them; and had not at the age of sixteen ever seen a lady, excepting each other and their governess; they then read, as long as they chose, the voluminous romances of the last century; of which their friend had an ample collection, or Rollin's ancient history, the only books they had ever seen; after dinner they, regularly in summer, took a long walk; or an excursion in the sledge, in winter, with their friend and then returned and resumed their wonted occupations, with the sole variation of a stroll in the garden in summer, and a game at chess, or shuttlecock, in winter. Their dress was to the

full as simple and uniform as everything else; they wore wrappers of the finest chintz, and green silk petticoats; and this the whole year round without variation. Their hair, which was long and beautiful, was tied behind with a simple ribbon; a large calash shaded each from the sun, and in winter they had long scarlet mantles that covered them from head to foot. Their father did not live with them, but visited them every day in their apartment. This innocent and uniform life they led, till the death of their monitress; which happened when the eldest was not quite seventeen. On some future occasion I shall satisfy the curiosity which this short but faithful account of these amiable recluses has possibly excited.'

1 These ladies married officers, who in succession lived as aid-decamps with their father. Their manners soon grew easy; they readily acquired the habits of society, and made excellent wives. — Mrs. Grant.

I

Chapter IV

GENERAL ABERCROMBIE-DEATH OF

LORD HOWE

MUST now return to Albany, and to the projected expedition.

General Abercrombie, who commanded on the northern lakes, was a brave and able man, though rather too much attached to the military schools of those days, to accommodate himself to the desultory and uncertain warfare of the woods, where sagacity, ready presence of mind, joined with the utmost caution, and condescension of opinion to our Indian allies, was of infinitely more consequence than rules and tactics, which were mere shackles and incumbrances in this contention, with difficulties and perplexities more harassing than mere danger. Indeed when an ambuscade or sudden onset was followed by defeat, here (as in Braddock's case) the result reminded one of the rout of Absalom's army; where, we are told, the wood devoured more than the sword. The general was a frequent guest with Madame, when the nature of his command would permit him to relax from the duties that occupied him. He had his men encamped below Albany, in that great field which I have formerly described,