. Neither the British government nor the growing party in
the Colonies which was clamoring for colonial rights received
the plan with favor--the former holding that it gave the colonies
too much independence and the latter that it gave them too
little.

At about this time a Swedish naturalist, Peter Kalm, visiting Albany,
reported that "there is not a place in all the British colonies, the
Hudson Bay settlement excepted, where such quantities of furs and skins
are bought of the Indians as at Albany." Most of the houses at this time
were built of brick and stood with gable ends to the street; each house
had a garden and a _stoep_, where the family were accustomed to sit
summer evenings, the burgher with his pipe and his "vrouw" with her
knitting. Well-to-do families owned slaves, but according to Mrs. Anne
Grant, an English writer of the day who spent part of her childhood in
Albany, "it was slavery softened into a smile."

[Illustration: North Pearl St., Albany (About 1780) Looking
North from State St. to Maiden Lane

(_From an old French print in the N.Y. Public Library_)

In the left foreground is the south end of the Livingston house.
Just beyond, with two high gables facing the street, is the
Vanderheyden Palace, erected 1725. The square building at the
rear, corner of Maiden Lane, is the residence of Dr. Hunloke
Woodruff. In the right foreground (on the corner) is the Lydius
House, erected in 1657.]

It was here that the English from all the colonies, before and during
the French and Indian wars met to consult with the Indians and make
treaties with them. It was the gathering place of armies where troops
from all the colonies assembled and the objective of hostile French
forces and their Indian allies on several occasions, yet was never taken
by an enemy and never saw an armed foe. Even during the Revolutionary
War, when its strategic importance was fully recognized by both armies,
it remained immune, though at one time the objective against which
Burgoyne's unsuccessful expedition was directed.

In 1777 the English general, John Burgoyne (1722-1792), was
placed at the head of British and Hessian forces gathered for the
invasion of the Colonies from Canada and the cutting off of New
England from the rest of the Colonies. He gained possession of
Ticonderoga and Ft. Edward; but pushing on, was cut off from his
communications with Canad