first who raised a corps in the interior of the province of New York; which was not only done by his personal influence, but occasioned him a considerable expense, though the regiment was paid by the province, the province also furnishing arms and military stores; their service being, like that of all provincials, limited to the summer half year.1

The governor and chief commander came up to Albany to view and approve the preparations making for this interior war, and to meet the congress of Indian sachems; who on that occasion, renewed their solemn league with their brother the great king. Colonel Schuyler, being then the person they most looked up to and confided in, was their proxy on this occasion in ratifying an engagement to which they ever adhered with singular fidelity. And mutual presents brightened the chain of amity, to use their own figurative language.

The common and the barn, at the Flats, were

1 After the treaty of Utrecht, 1713, there was peace between England and France about thirty years, during which time their American colonies enjoyed repose. In the meantime the French of Canada built Fort St. Frederick at Crown Point on Lake Champlain, and made other preparations for future hostilities. About 1743, during the war of the Austrian Succession, so called, the colonies were again in arms. Fort St. Frederick was a standing menace to New York and New England, and they organized an army for its capture. Col. Philip Schuyler, commanding the Albany militia, took part in the military preparations for the expedition. His cousin, Col. Peter Schuyler of New Jersey, and not his father, who had been dead several years, commanded a regiment, and was required to defend the frontiers of his state and of Pennsylvania.

fully occupied, and the hospitable mansion, as was usual on all public occasions, overflowed. There the general, his aid-de-camps, the sachems, and the principal officers of the colonel's regiment, were received; and those who could not find room there of the next class, were accommodated by Peter and Jeremiah. On the common was an Indian encampment: and the barn and orchard were full of the provincials. All these last brought as usual their own food; but were supplied by this liberal family with every production of the garden, dairy, and orchard. While the colonel's judgment was exercised in the necessary regulations for this untried warfare, Mrs. Schuyler, by the calm fortitude she displayed in this trying exigence, by the good sense and good breeding with which she accommodated her numerous and various guests, and by those judicious attentions to family concerns, which, producing order and regularity through every department without visible bustle and anxiety, enable the mistress of a family to add grace and ease to hospitality, showed herself worthy of her distinguished lot.

Chapter XX

A REFRACTORY WARRIOR - THE SPIRIT PER

VADING THE NEW ENGLAND PROVINCES

WHILE

HILE these preparations were going on, the general [Gov. Shirley] was making every effort of the neighborhood to urge those who had promised assistance, to come forward with their allotted quotas.

On the other side of the river, not very far from the Flats, lived a person whom I shall not name; though his conduct was so peculiar and characteristic of the times, that his anti-heroism is on that sole account worth mentioning. This person lived in great security and abundance, in a place like an earthly paradise, and scarcely knew what it was to have an ungratified wish, having had considerable wealth left to him; and from the simple and domestic habits of his life, had formed no desires beyond it, unless indeed it were the desire of being

1 The courage, ability and energy of Gov. Shirley were not eminently appreciated in New York. Yet his acts are abundantly recorded in the volumes of the documentary history of that colony. He has found an ardent vindicator in Samuel G. Drake, in the "Particular History of the French and Indian War" (1870), in which his civil and military services are set forth advantageously, and he is characterized as one of the ablest of the colonial governors.

thought a brave man, which seemed his greatest ambition he was strong, robust, and an excellent marksman; talked loud, looked fierce, and always expressed the utmost scorn and detestation of cowardice. The colonel applied to him, that his name, and the names of such adherents as he could bring, might be set down in the list of those who were to bring their quota, against a given time, for the general defence; with the request he complied. When the rendezvous came on, this talking warrior had changed his mind, and absolutely refused to appear; the general sent for him, and warmly expostulated on his breach of promise; the bad example, and the disarrangement of plan which it occasioned: the culprit spoke in a high tone, saying, very truly "that the general was possessed of no legal means of coercion; that every one went or staid as they chose; and that his change of opinion on that subject rendered him liable to no penalty whatever." Tired of this sophistry, the enraged general had recourse to club law; and seizing a cudgel, belabored this recreant knight most manfully; while several Indian sachems, and many of his own countrymen and friends, coolly stood by; for the colonel's noted common was the scene of his assault. Our poor neighbor (as he long after became) suffered this dreadful bastinado, unaided and unpitied; and this example, and the subsequent contempt under which he labored (for he was ever after styled captain, and he did not refuse the title), was said to

have an excellent effect in preventing such retrograde motions in subsequent campaigns.1 The provincial troops, aided by the faithful Mohawks, performed their duty with great spirit and perseverance. They were, indeed, very superior to the ignorant, obstinate, and mean-souled beings, who, in after times, brought the very name of provincial troops into discredit; and were actuated by no single motive but that of avoiding the legal penalty then affixed to disobedience, and enjoying the pay and provisions allotted to them by the province or the mother country, I cannot exactly say which. Afterwards, when the refuse of mankind were selected, like Falstaff's soldiers, and raised much in the same way, the New York troops still maintained their respectability. This superiority might, without reproaching others, be in some measure accounted for from incidental causes. The four New England provinces were much earlier

1 Above thirty years after, when the writer of these pages lived with her family at the Flats, the hero of this little tale used very frequently to visit her father, a veteran officer; and being a great talker, war and politics were his incessant topics. There was no campaign or expedition proposed but what he censured and decided on; proposing methods of his own, by which they might have been much better conducted; in short Parolles with his drum was a mere type of our neighbor. Her father long wondered how kindly he took to him, and how a person of so much wealth and eloquence should dwell so obscurely, and shun all the duties of public life; till at length we discovered that he still loved to talk arrogantly of war and public affairs, and pitched upon him for a listener, as the only person he could suppose ignorant of his disgrace. Such is human nature ! and so incurable is human vanity!!—Mrs. Grant.