Meantime an express arrived with the afflicting news of the loss of a captain and twenty men of the 55th regiment. The name of this lamented officer was Dalziel, of the Carnwath family. Colonel Beckwith had sent for a reinforcement. This Major Duncan hesitated to send, till better informed as to the mode of conveyance. Captain Dalziel volunteered going. I cannot exactly say how they proceeded; but, after having penetrated through the woods till they were in sight of Detroit, they were discovered and attacked by a party of Indians, and made their way with the utmost difficulty, after the loss of their commander and the third part of their number.

Major Duncan’s comprehensive mind took in every thing that had any tendency to advance the general good, and cement old alliances. He saw none of the Hurons, whose territories lay far above Ontario, but those tribes whose course of hunting or fishing led them to his boundaries, were always kindly treated. He often made them presents of ammunition or provision, and did every thing in his power to conciliate them. Upon hearing of the outrage which the Hurons^[21] had been guilty of, the heads of the tribe, with whom the major had cultivated the greatest intimacy, came to assure him of their good wishes, and hearty co-operation. He invited them to come with their tribe to celebrate the birth-day of their new king (his present majesty) which occurred a few days after, and there solemnly renew, with the usual ceremonies, the league offensive and defensive made between their fathers and the late king. They came accordingly in their best arms and dresses, and assisted at a review, and at a kind of feast given on the occasion, on the outside of the fort. The chief and his brother, who were two fine noble looking men, were invited to dine with the major and officers. When they arrived, and were seated, the major called for a glass of wine to drink his sovereign’s health; this was no sooner done, than the sachem’s brother fell lifeless on the floor. They thought it was a fainting fit, and made use of the usual applications to recover him, which, to their extreme surprise, proved ineffectual. His brother looked steadily on while all those means were using; but when convinced of their inefficacy, sat down, drew his mantle over his face, sobbed aloud, and burst into tears. This was an additional wonder. Through the traces of Indian recollection no person had been known to fall suddenly dead without any visible cause, nor any warrior to shed tears. After a pause of deep silence, which no one felt inclined to break, the sachem rose with a collected and dignified air, and thus addressed the witnesses of this affecting incident: “Generous English, misjudge me not; though you have seen me for once a child, in the day of battle you will see a man, who will make the Hurons weep blood. I was never thus before. But to me my brother was all. Had he died in battle, no look of mine would change. His nation would honour him, but his foes should lament him. I see sorrow in your countenances; and I know you were not the cause of my brother’s death. Why, indeed, should you take away a life that was devoted to you? Generous English, ye mourn for my brother, and I will fight your battles.” This assurance of his confidence was very necessary to quiet the minds of his friends; and the concern of the officers was much aggravated by the suspicious circumstances attending his death so immediately after the drinking of the wine they had given him. The major ordered this lamented warrior to be interred with great ceremony. A solemn procession, mournful music, the firing of cannon, and all other military honours, evinced his sympathy for the living, and his respect for the dead; and the result of this sad event, in the end, rather tended to strengthen the attachment of those Indians to the British cause.

I have given this singular occurrence a place in these memoirs, as it serves to illustrate the calm good sense and steady confidence which made a part of the Indian character, and added value to their friendship, when once it was fairly attained.

The fifty-fifth, which had been under orders to return home, felt a severe disappointment in being, for two years more, confined to their sylvan fortresses. These, however, they embellished, and rendered comfortable, with gardens and farm grounds, that, to reside in them, could no longer be accounted a penance. Yet, during the Indian war, they were, from motives of necessary caution, confined to very narrow limits; which, to those accustomed to pursue their sports with all that wild liberty and wide excursion peculiar to savage hunters, was a hardship of which we can have no idea. Restrained from this unbounded license, fishing became their next favourite pursuit, to which the lakes and rivers on which these forts were built, afforded great facility. Tempted by the abundance and excellence of the productions of these copious waters, they were led to endanger their health by their assiduity in this amusement. Agues, the disease of all new establishments, became frequent among them, and were aggravated by the home sickness. To this they were more peculiarly liable, as the regiment, just newly raised before they embarked for America, had quitted the bosom of their families, without passing through the gradation of boarding-schools and academies, as is usual in other countries.

What an unspeakable blessing to the inhabitants were the parish schools of the north, and how much humble worth and laborious diligence has been found among their teachers. In those lowly seminaries, boys not only attained the rudiments of learning, but the principles of loyalty and genuine religion, with the abatement of a small tincture of idolatry, of which their household gods were the only objects. Never, surely, was a mode of education so calculated to cherish attachment to those tutelar deities. Even the laird’s son had often a mile or two to walk to his day school; a neighbouring tenant’s son carried the basket which contained his simple dinner; and still as they went along they were joined by other fellow travellers in the paths of learning. How cordial were those intimacies, formed in the early period of life, and of the day while nature smiled around in dewy freshness! How gladdening to the kind and artless heart were these early walks through the wild varieties of a romantic country, and among the peaceful cottages of simple peasants, from whence the incense of praise, “in sounds by distance made more sweet,” rose on the morning breeze!^[22] How cheering was the mid-day sport, amid their native burns and braes, without the confinement of a formal play-ground! How delightful the evening walk homeward, animated by the consciousness of being about to meet all that was dearest to the artless and affectionate mind! Thus the constitution was improved with the understanding; and they carried abroad into active life, the rigid fibre of the robust and hardy frame, and the warm and fond affections of the heart, uncorrupted and true to its first attachments. Never sure were youth’s first glowing feelings more alive than in the minds of those young soldiers. From school they were hurried into the greatest fatigues and hardships, and the horrors of the most sanguinary war; and from thence transported to the depth of those central forests, where they formed to themselves a little world, whose greatest charm was the cherished recollection of the simple and endeared scenes of their childhood, and of the beloved relations whom they had left behind, and to whom they languished to return. They had not gone through the ordeal of the world, and could not cheer their exile by retracing its ways, its fashions, or its amusements. It is this domestic education, that unbroken series of home joys and tender remembrances, that render the natives of the north so faithful to their filial and fraternal duties and so attached to a bleak and rugged region, excelled in genial warmth of climate and fertility of soil, in every country to which the spirit of adventure leads them.

I was now restored to my niche at Aunt Schuyler’s and not a little delighted with the importance which, in this eventful crisis, seemed to attach to her opinions. The times were too agitated to admit of her paying much attention to me; but I, who took the deepest interest in what was going on, and heard of nothing, abroad or at home, but Indians, and sieges, and campaigns, was doubly awake to all the conversation I heard at home.

The expedition proceeded under General Bradstreet, while my father, recommended to his attention by madame, held some temporary employment about mustering the troops. My friend had now the satisfaction of seeing her plans succeed in different instances.

Philip, since known by the title of General Schuyler, whom I have repeatedly mentioned, had now, in pursuance of the mode she pointed out to him, attained to wealth and power, both of which were rapidly increasing. His brother Cortlandt, (the handsome savage,) who had, by her advice, gone into the army, had returned from Ireland, the commander of a company, and married to a very pleasing and estimable woman, whose perpetual vivacity and good humour threw a ray of light over the habitual reserve of her husband, who was amiable in domestic life, though cold and distant in his manner. They settled near the general, and paid a degree of attention to madame, that showed the filial tie remained in full force.

The colonel, as he was then called, had built a house near Albany, in the English taste, comparatively magnificent, where his family resided, and where he carried on the business of his department. Thirty miles or more above Albany, in the direction of the Flats, and near the far-famed Saratoga, which was to be the scene of his future triumph, he had another establishment. It was here that the colonel’s political and economical genius had full scope. He had always the command of a great number of those workmen who were employed in public buildings, &c. Those were always in constant pay—it being necessary to engage them in that manner; and were, from the change of seasons, the shutting of the ice, and other circumstances, months unemployed. All these seasons, when public business was interrupted, the workmen were employed in constructing squares of buildings in the nature of barracks, for the purpose of lodging artisans and labourers of all kinds. Having previously obtained a large tract of very fertile lands from the crown, on which he built a spacious and convenient house; he constructed those barracks at a distance, not only as a nursery for the arts which he meant to encourage, but as the materials of a future colony, which he meant to plant out around him. He had here a number of negroes well acquainted with felling of trees and managing saw-mills, of which he erected several. And while these were employed in carrying on a very advantageous trade of deals and lumber, which were floated down on rafts to New-York, they were at the same time clearing the ground for the colony the colonel was preparing to establish.

This new settlement was an asylum for every one who wanted bread and a home: from the variety of employments regularly distributed, every artisan and every labourer found here lodging and occupation; some hundreds of people, indeed, were employed at once. Those who were in winter engaged at the saw-mills, were in summer equally busied at a large and productive fishery. The artisans got lodging and firing for two or three years, at first, besides being well paid for every thing they did. Flax was raised and dressed, and finally spun and made into linen there; and as artisans were very scarce in the country, every one sent linen to weave, flax to dress, &c. to the colonel’s colony. He paid them liberally; and having always abundance of money in his hands, could afford to be the loser at first, to be amply repaid in the end. It is inconceivable what dexterity, address, and deep policy were exhibited in the management of this new settlement; the growth of which was rapid beyond belief. Every mechanic ended in being a farmer, that is, a profitable tenant to the owner of the soil; and new recruits of artisans from the north of Ireland chiefly supplied their place, nourished with the golden dews which this sagacious projector could so easily command. The rapid increase and advantageous result of this establishment were astonishing. It is impossible for my imperfect recollection to do justice to the capacity displayed in these regulations. But I have thus endeavoured to trace to its original source that wealth and power which became, afterwards, the means of supporting an aggression so formidable.