on, descending from the northern
wilderness, connected it with the lakes and streams that formed the
thoroughfare to Canada; while the Mohawk, flowing from the west, was a
liquid pathway to the forest homes of the Five Nations. Before the war
was over, a little girl, Anne MacVicar, daughter of a Highland officer,
was left at Albany by her father, and spent several years there in the
house of Mrs. Schuyler, aunt of General Schuyler of the Revolution. Long
after, married and middle-aged, she wrote down her recollections of the
place,--the fort on the hill behind; the great street, grassy and broad,
that descended thence to the river, with market, guardhouse, town hall,
and two churches in the middle, and rows of quaint Dutch-built houses on
both sides, each detached from its neighbors, each with its well,
garden, and green, and its great overshadowing tree. Before every house
was a capacious porch, with seats where the people gathered in the
summer twilight; old men at one door, matrons at another, young men and
girls mingling at a third; while the cows with their tinkling bells came
from the common at the end of the town, each stopping to be milked at
the door of its owner; and children, porringer in hand, sat on the
steps, watching the process and waiting their evening meal.

Such was the quiet picture painted on the memory of Anne MacVicar, and
reproduced by the pen of Mrs. Ann Grant.[320] The patriarchal,
semi-rural town had other aspects, not so pleasing. The men were mainly
engaged in the fur-trade, sometimes legally with the Five Nations, and
sometimes illegally with the Indians of Canada,--an occupation which by
no means tends to soften the character. The Albany Dutch traders were a
rude, hard race, loving money, and not always scrupulous as to the means
of getting it. Coming events, too, were soon to have their effect on
this secluded community. Regiments, red and blue, trumpets, drums,
banners, artillery trains, and all the din of war transformed its
peaceful streets, and brought some attaint to domestic morals hitherto
commendable; for during the next five years Albany was to be the
principal base of military operations on the continent.

[Footnote 320: _Memoirs of an American Lady_ (Mrs. Schuyler), Chap. VI.
A genuine picture of colonial life, and a charming book, though far from
being historically trustworthy. Compare the account of Albany in Kalm,
II. 102.]

Shirley had left the place, and was now on his w