  Followers of the army—Inconveniences resulting from such. To return to the legion of commissaries, &c. These employments were at first given to very inferior people; it was seen, however, that as the scale of military operations and erections increased, these people were enriching themselves both at the expense of the king and the inhabitants, whom they frequently exasperated into insolence or resistance, and then used that pretext to keep in their own hands the payments to which these people were entitled. When their waggons and slaves were pressed into the service, it was necessary to employ such persons from the first. The colonel and the mayor, and all whom they could influence, did all they could to alleviate an evil that could not be prevented, and was daily aggravating disaffection. They found, as the importance of these offices increased, it would conduce more to the public good, by larger salaries to induce people to accept them who were gentlemen, and had that character to support; and who, being acquainted with the people and their language, knew best how to qualify and soften, and where to apply—so as least to injure or irritate. Some young men belonging to the country, were at length prevailed on to accept two or three of these offices, which had the happiest effect in conciliating and conquering the aversion that existed against the regulars. Among the first of the natives who engaged in those difficult employments, was one of aunt’s adopted sons, formerly mentioned; Philip Schuyler, of the pasture, as he was called, to distinguish him from the other nephew, who, had he lived, would have been the colonel’s heir. He appeared merely a careless, good-humoured young man. Never was any one so little what he seemed, with regard to ability, activity, and ambition, art, enterprise, and perseverance, all of which he possessed in an uncommon degree, though no man had less the appearance of these qualities; easy, complying, and good-humoured, the conversations, full of wisdom and sound policy, of which he had been a seemingly inattentive witness at the Flats, only slept in his recollection, to awake in full force, when called forth by occasion. A shrewd and able man, who was, I think, a brigadier in the service, was appointed quarter-master-general, with the entire superintendence of all the boats, buildings, &c. in New-York, the Jerseys, and Canadian frontier. He had married, when very young, a daughter of Colonel Renssalaer. Having at the time no settled plan for the support of a young family, he felt it incumbent on him to make some unusual exertion for them. Colonel Schuyler and his consort, not only advised him to accept an inferior employment in this business, but recommended him to the Brigadier Bradstreet, who had the power of disposing of such offices, which were daily growing in importance. They well knew that he possessed qualities which might not only render him an useful servant to the public, but clear his way to fortune and distinction. His perfect command of temper, acuteness, and dispatch in business, and in the hour of social enjoyment, easily relapsing into all that careless, frank hilarity and indolent good-humour, which seems the peculiar privilege of the free and disencumbered mind; active and companionable, made him a great acquisition to any person under whom he might happen to be employed. This the penetration of Bradstreet soon discovered; and he became not only his secretary and deputy, but in a short time after, his ambassador, as one might say; for before Philip Schuyler was twenty-two, the general, as he was universally styled, sent him to England, to negotiate some business of importance with the board of trade and plantations. In the mean while, some other young men, natives of the country, accepted employments in the same department, by this time greatly extended. Averse as the country people were to the army, they began to relish the advantage derived from the money which that body of protectors, so much feared and detested, expended among them. This was more considerable than might at first be imagined. Government allowed provisions to the troops serving in America, without which they could not indeed have proceeded through an uninhabited country; where, even in such places as were inhabited, there were no regular markets, no competition for supply; nothing but exorbitant prices could tempt those people who were not poor, and found a ready market for all their produce in the West-Indies. Now, having a regular supply of such provisions as are furnished to the fleet, they had no occasion to lay out their money for such things; and rather purchased the produce of the country, liquors, &c. for which the natives took care to make them pay very high, an evil which the Schuyler’s moderated as much as possible, though they could not check it entirely. This provision system was a very great though necessary evil, for it multiplied contractors, commissaries, and store-keepers, without end. At a distance from the source of authority, abuses increase, and redress becomes more difficult, which is, of itself, a sufficient argument against the extension of dominion. Many of these new comers were ambiguous characters, originally from the old country, (as expatriated Britons fondly call their native land,) but little known in this, and not happy specimens of that they had left. These satellites of delegated power had all the insolence of office, and all that avidity of gain, which a sudden rise of circumstances creates in low and unprincipled minds; and they, from the nature of their employment, and the difficulty of getting provisions transported from place to place, were very frequently the medium of that intercourse carried on between the military and the natives; and did not by any means contribute to raise the British character in their estimation. I dwell more minutely on all these great though necessary evils, which invariably attend an army in its progress through a country which is the theatre of actual war, that the reader may be led to set a just value on the privileges of this highly favoured region, which, sitting on many waters, sends forth her thunders through the earth: and while the farthest extremes of east and west bend to her dominion, has not for more than half a century heard the sound of hostility within her bounds. Many unknown persons, who were in some way attached to the army, and resolved to live by it in some shape, set up as traders; carried stores suited to military consumption along with them, and finally established themselves as merchants in Albany. Some of these proved worthy characters, however; and intermarrying with the daughters of the citizens, and adopting, in some degree, their sober manners, became, in process of time, estimable members of society. Others, and, indeed, the most part of them, rose like exhalations; and obtaining credit by dint of address and assurance, glittered for a time; affecting showy and expensive modes of living, and aping the manners of their patrons. These, as soon as peace diminished the military establishment, and put an end to that ferment and fluctuation which the actual presence of war never fails to excite, burst like bubbles on the surface of the subsiding waves, and astonished the Albanians with the novel spectacle of bankruptcy and imprisonment. All this gradually wrought a change on the face of society; yet such was the disgust which the imputed licentiousness, foppery, and extravagance of the officers, and the pretensions, unsupported by worth or knowledge of their apes and followers, produced, that the young persons who first married those ambiguous new comers, generally did so without the consent of their parents, whose affection for their children, however, soon reconciled them. |
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