g's Arms" in Albany. The town was full of
the militia of the province, breathing slaughter against the French.
Governor Clinton was there himself, a very busy man, and, by what I
could learn, very near distracted by the factiousness of his Assembly.
The Indians on both sides were on the war-path; we saw parties of them
bringing in prisoners and (what was much worse) scalps, both male and
female, for which they were paid at a fixed rate; and I assure you the
sight was not encouraging. Altogether, we could scarce have come at a
period more unsuitable for our designs; our position in the chief inn
was dreadfully conspicuous; our Albanian fubbed us off with a thousand
delays, and seemed upon the point of a retreat from his engagements;
nothing but peril appeared to environ the poor fugitives, and for some
time we drowned our concern in a very irregular course of living.

This, too, proved to be fortunate; and it's one of the remarks that fall
to be made upon our escape, how providentially our steps were conducted
to the very end. What a humiliation to the dignity of man! My
philosophy, the extraordinary genius of Ballantrae, our valour, in which
I grant that we were equal--all these might have proved insufficient
without the Divine blessing on our efforts. And how true it is, as the
Church tells us, that the Truths of Religion are, after all, quite
applicable even to daily affairs! At least, it was in the course of our
revelry that we made the acquaintance of a spirited youth by the name of
Chew. He was one of the most daring of the Indian traders, very well
acquainted with the secret paths of the wilderness, needy, dissolute,
and, by a last good fortune, in some disgrace with his family. Him we
persuaded to come to our relief; he privately provided what was needful
for our flight, and one day we slipped out of Albany, without a word to
our former friend, and embarked, a little above, in a canoe.

To the toils and perils of this journey it would require a pen more
elegant than mine to do full justice. The reader must conceive for
himself the dreadful wilderness which we had now to thread; its
thickets, swamps, precipitous rocks, impetuous rivers, and amazing
waterfalls. Among these barbarous scenes we must toil all day, now
paddling, now carrying our canoe upon our shoulders; and at night we
slept about a fire, surrounded by the howling of wolves and other
savage animals. It was our design to mount the headwaters of the Hud