Page:Historic towns of the middle states (IA historictownsofm02powe).pdf/58

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18
Albany

held. The Iroquois took to the 23d of the month for deliberation, and then answered, the governor being present."

During the French wars, Albany, from a military point of view, was probably the most animated spot on the continent. It was the storehouse for munitions of war and the rendezvous for the troops. English regulars and provincial militia swarmed in and about the city. After the unsuccessful campaigns of 1756 and 1757, the town was filled with refugees, reciting the slaughter of the garrison at Fort William Henry, and the murder and havoc wrought by the Indians in pay of the French. Hundreds of loyal Indians, with their squaws and papooses, encamped under the stockade. The houses and barns were filled with wounded soldiers brought from the seat of war. In the pauses of the campaigns, notwithstanding the horrible rumors and actual disasters, the "dangerously accomplished" English officers made merry life in old Albany, picturesque details of which are given in that charming chronicle of colonial days, Memoirs of an American Lady (Mrs. Philip Schuyler), by Mrs. Grant of Laggan.

In the opening of the campaign of 1758 there