Colonel Schuyler persuades four Sachems to accompany him to
England—Their reception and return.
IT was thought advisable to bring over some of the heads of tribes to
England to attach them to that country; but to persuade the chiefs of a
free and happy people, who were intelligent, sagacious, and aware of all
probable dangers; who were strangers to all maritime concerns, and had
never beheld the ocean; to persuade such independent and high-minded
warriors to forsake the safety and enjoyments of their own country, to
encounter the perils of a long voyage, and trust themselves among entire
strangers, and this merely to bind closer an alliance with the sovereign
of a distant country, a female sovereign too; a mode of government that
must have appeared to them very incongruous. This was no common
undertaking, nor was it easy to induce these chiefs to accede to the
proposal. The principal motive for urging it was to counteract the
machinations of the French, whose emissaries in these wild regions had
even then begun to style us, in effect, a nation of shopkeepers; and to
impress the tribes dwelling in their boundaries with vast ideas of the
power and splendour of their grand monarchy, while our sovereign, they
say, ruled over a petty island, and was himself a trader. To counterwork
those suggestions, it was thought requisite to give the leaders of the
nation (who then in fact protected our people) an adequate idea of our
power, and the magnificence of our court. The chiefs at length consented
on this only condition, that their brother Philip, who never told a lie,
or spoke without thinking, should accompany them. However this
gentleman’s wisdom and integrity might qualify him for this employment,
it did not suit his placid temper, simple manners, and habits of life,
at once pastoral and patriarchal, to travel over seas, and mingle in the
bustle of a world, the customs of which were become foreign to those
primitive inhabitants of new and remote regions, was to him no pleasant
undertaking. The adventure, however, succeeded beyond his expectation;
the chiefs were pleased with the attentions paid them, and with the mild
and gracious manners of their queen, who at different times admitted
them to her presence. With the good Philip she had many conversations,
and made him some valuable presents, among which, I think, was her
picture; but this with many others was lost, in a manner which will
appear hereafter. Colonel Schuyler too was much delighted with the
courteous affability of this princess; she offered to knight him, which
he respectfully, but positively refused; and being pressed to assign his
reasons, he said he had brothers and near relations in humble
circumstances, who, already his inferiors in property, would seem as it
were depressed by his elevation; and though it should have no such
effect on her mind, it might be the means of awakening pride or vanity
in the female part of his family. He returned, however, in triumph,
having completely succeeded in his mission. The kings, as they were
called in England, came back in full health, deeply impressed with
esteem and attachment for a country which to them appeared the centre of
arts, intelligence, and wisdom; where they were treated with kindness
and respect; and neither made the objects of perpetual exhibition, nor
hurried about to be continually distracted with a succession of
splendid, and to them incomprehensible sights, the quick shifting of
which rather tends to harass minds which have enough of native strength
to reflect on what they see, without knowledge sufficient to comprehend
it. It is to this childish and injudicious mode of treating those
uncivilized beings, this mode of rather extorting from them a tribute to
our vanity, than taking the necessary pains to inform and improve them,
that the ill success of all such experiments since have been owing.
Instead of endeavouring to conciliate them by genuine kindness, and by
gradually and gently unfolding to them simple and useful truths, our
manner of treating them seems calculated to dazzle, oppress, and degrade
them with a display of our superior luxuries and refinements; which, by
the elevated and self-denying Mohawk, would be regarded as unmanly and
frivolous objects, and which the voluptuous and low-minded Otaheitean
would so far relish, that the privation would seem intolerable, when he
returned to his hogs and his cocoas. Except such as have been previously
inoculated, (a precaution which voyagers have rarely had the prudence or
humanity to take,) there is scarcely an instance of savages brought to
Europe that have not died of the small-pox; induced either by the
infection to which they are exposed from the indiscriminate crowds drawn
about them, or the alteration in their blood, which unusual diet,
liquors, close air, and heated rooms, must necessarily produce.
The presents made to these adventurous warriors were judiciously adapted
to their taste and customs. They consisted of showy habits, of which all
these people are very fond, and arms made purposely in the form of those
used in their own country. It was the fortune of the writer of these
memoirs, more than thirty years after, to see that great warrior and
faithful ally of the British crown the redoubted King Hendrick, then
sovereign of the Five Nations, splendidly arrayed in a suit of light
blue, made in an antique mode, and trimmed with broad silver lace; which
was probably an heirloom in the family, presented to his father by his
good ally and sister, the female king of England.
I cannot exactly say how long Mr. Schuyler and his companions staid in
England, but think they were nearly a year absent. In those primeval
days of the settlement, when our present rapid modes of transmitting
intelligence were unknown, in a country so detached and inland as that
at Albany, the return of these interesting travellers was like the first
lighting of lamps in a city.
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