d. Mr. Schuyler had the utmost
difficulty to prevent both his own men and the Mohawks, who were then in
Albany, and perfectly devoted to his service, from firing upon
Milborne's party, which consisted of an inconsiderable number. Under
these circumstances, he thought proper to retreat, and soon after
departed from Albany. A second expedition in the Spring proved more
successful, for he gained possession of the city and fort. No sooner was
he in possession of the garrison, than most of the principal members
absconded, upon which, their effects were arbitrarily seized and
confiscated, which so highly exasperated the sufferers, that their
posterity, for a long time, hurled their bitterest invectives against
Leisler and his adherents.

It was during these intestine troubles and the threatened Indian wars,
that Governor Leisler's daughter was in Salem out of the way of danger.
The New Englanders were keeping up a petty warfare with the Owenagungas,
Ourages and Penocooks. Between these and the Schakook Indians, there
was a friendly communication, and the same was suspected of the Mohawks,
among whom some of the Owenagungas had taken sanctuary. This led to
conferences between commissioners from Boston, Plymouth, Connecticut and
other places, for it was essential to the peace of the English colonists
to preserve peace and general amnesty with the powerful Five Nations,
and hold them as allies against the hostile French in Canada and the
Indians of the east.

Colonel Henry Sloughter had been commissioned governor of New York,
January 4, 1689; but he did not arrive to take possession until 1691,
over two years after his commission, when the vessel bearing the new
governor, _The Beaver_, arrived in the harbor.

Fair historians have acquitted Mr. Leisler of any blame in what others
have been pleased to call his usurpation. He was a man not wholly
without ambition, yet he was honest and did what he thought right. He
had much of the stubbornness as well as honesty of the Netherlands in
his composition, and believing himself in the right, determined to
persist in it. Jacob Milborne, his English son-in-law, was the more
ambitious of the two, and had guided and directed the affair. Leisler
was sitting in his house when informed by Milborne that a vessel called
_The Beaver_ had arrived, bearing Colonel Sloughter, who purported to
have a governor's commission.

"Then we will greet him as our governor," said the honest Leisler.

"Wai