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Colonel Schuyler persuades four Sachems to accompany him to

England—Their reception and return.

It was thought advisable to bring over some of the heads of 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 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 shopkeepers; and to impress the tribes dwelling in their boundaries with vast ideas of the power and splendour of their grand monarchy, while our sovereign, they say, 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 (who then in fact protected our people) 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 did not suit his placid temper, simple manners, and habits of life, at once pastoral and patriarchal, to travel over seas, and mingle in the bustle of a world, the customs of which were become foreign to those primitive inhabitants of new and remote regions, was to him no pleasant undertaking. The adventure, however, succeeded beyond his expectation; the chiefs were pleased with the attentions paid them, and with the mild and gracious manners of their 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 her 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 endeavouring 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 self-denying 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, close air, and heated rooms, must necessarily produce.

The presents made to these adventurous warriors were judiciously adapted to their taste and customs. They consisted of showy habits, of which all these people are very fond, and arms made purposely in the form of those used in their own country. It was the fortune of the writer of these memoirs, more than thirty years after, to see that great warrior and faithful ally of the British crown the redoubted King Hendrick, then sovereign of the Five Nations, splendidly arrayed in a suit of light blue, made in an antique mode, and trimmed with broad silver lace; which was probably an heirloom in the family, presented to his father by his good ally and sister, the female king of England.

I cannot exactly say how long Mr. Schuyler and his companions staid in England, but think they were nearly a year absent. In those primeval days of the settlement, when our present rapid modes of transmitting intelligence were unknown, in a country so detached and inland as that at Albany, the return of these interesting travellers was like the first lighting of lamps in a city.