Followers of the army—Inconveniences resulting from such.
TO return to the legion of commissaries, &c. These employments were at
first given to very inferior people; it was seen, however, that as the
scale of military operations and erections increased, these people were
enriching themselves both at the expense of the king and the
inhabitants, whom they frequently exasperated into insolence or
resistance, and then used that pretext to keep in their own hands the
payments to which these people were entitled. When their waggons and
slaves were pressed into the service, it was necessary to employ such
persons from the first. The colonel and the mayor, and all whom they
could influence, did all they could to alleviate an evil that could not
be prevented, and was daily aggravating disaffection. They found, as the
importance of these offices increased, it would conduce more to the
public good, by larger salaries to induce people to accept them who were
gentlemen, and had that character to support; and who, being acquainted
with the people and their language, knew best how to qualify and soften,
and where to apply—so as least to injure or irritate. Some young men
belonging to the country, were at length prevailed on to accept two or
three of these offices, which had the happiest effect in conciliating
and conquering the aversion that existed against the _regulars_.
Among the first of the natives who engaged in those difficult
employments, was one of aunt’s adopted sons, formerly mentioned; Philip
Schuyler, of the pasture, as he was called, to distinguish him from the
other nephew, who, had he lived, would have been the colonel’s heir. He
appeared merely a careless, good-humoured young man. Never was any one
so little what he seemed, with regard to ability, activity, and
ambition, art, enterprise, and perseverance, all of which he possessed
in an uncommon degree, though no man had less the appearance of these
qualities; easy, complying, and good-humoured, the conversations, full
of wisdom and sound policy, of which he had been a seemingly inattentive
witness at the Flats, only slept in his recollection, to awake in full
force, when called forth by occasion.
A shrewd and able man, who was, I think, a brigadier in the service, was
appointed quarter-master-general, with the entire superintendence of all
the boats, buildings, &c. in New-York, the Jerseys, and Canadian
frontier. He had married, when very young, a daughter of Colonel
Renssalaer. Having at the time no settled plan for the support of a
young family, he felt it incumbent on him to make some unusual exertion
for them. Colonel Schuyler and his consort, not only advised him to
accept an inferior employment in this business, but recommended him to
the Brigadier Bradstreet, who had the power of disposing of such
offices, which were daily growing in importance. They well knew that he
possessed qualities which might not only render him an useful servant to
the public, but clear his way to fortune and distinction. His perfect
command of temper, acuteness, and dispatch in business, and in the hour
of social enjoyment, easily relapsing into all that careless, frank
hilarity and indolent good-humour, which seems the peculiar privilege of
the free and disencumbered mind; active and companionable, made him a
great acquisition to any person under whom he might happen to be
employed. This the penetration of Bradstreet soon discovered; and he
became not only his secretary and deputy, but in a short time after, his
ambassador, as one might say; for before Philip Schuyler was twenty-two,
the general, as he was universally styled, sent him to England, to
negotiate some business of importance with the board of trade and
plantations. In the mean while, some other young men, natives of the
country, accepted employments in the same department, by this time
greatly extended. Averse as the country people were to the army, they
began to relish the advantage derived from the money which that body of
protectors, so much feared and detested, expended among them. This was
more considerable than might at first be imagined. Government allowed
provisions to the troops serving in America, without which they could
not indeed have proceeded through an uninhabited country; where, even in
such places as were inhabited, there were no regular markets, no
competition for supply; nothing but exorbitant prices could tempt those
people who were not poor, and found a ready market for all their produce
in the West-Indies. Now, having a regular supply of such provisions as
are furnished to the fleet, they had no occasion to lay out their money
for such things; and rather purchased the produce of the country,
liquors, &c. for which the natives took care to make them pay very high,
an evil which the Schuyler’s moderated as much as possible, though they
could not check it entirely. This provision system was a very great
though necessary evil, for it multiplied contractors, commissaries, and
store-keepers, without end. At a distance from the source of authority,
abuses increase, and redress becomes more difficult, which is, of
itself, a sufficient argument against the extension of dominion. Many of
these new comers were ambiguous characters, originally from the old
country, (as expatriated Britons fondly call their native land,) but
little known in this, and not happy specimens of that they had left.
These satellites of delegated power had all the insolence of office, and
all that avidity of gain, which a sudden rise of circumstances creates
in low and unprincipled minds; and they, from the nature of their
employment, and the difficulty of getting provisions transported from
place to place, were very frequently the medium of that intercourse
carried on between the military and the natives; and did not by any
means contribute to raise the British character in their estimation.
I dwell more minutely on all these great though necessary evils, which
invariably attend an army in its progress through a country which is the
theatre of actual war, that the reader may be led to set a just value on
the privileges of this highly favoured region, which, sitting on many
waters, sends forth her thunders through the earth: and while the
farthest extremes of east and west bend to her dominion, has not for
more than half a century heard the sound of hostility within her bounds.
Many unknown persons, who were in some way attached to the army, and
resolved to live by it in some shape, set up as traders; carried stores
suited to military consumption along with them, and finally established
themselves as merchants in Albany. Some of these proved worthy
characters, however; and intermarrying with the daughters of the
citizens, and adopting, in some degree, their sober manners, became, in
process of time, estimable members of society. Others, and, indeed, the
most part of them, rose like exhalations; and obtaining credit by dint
of address and assurance, glittered for a time; affecting showy and
expensive modes of living, and aping the manners of their patrons.
These, as soon as peace diminished the military establishment, and put
an end to that ferment and fluctuation which the actual presence of war
never fails to excite, burst like bubbles on the surface of the
subsiding waves, and astonished the Albanians with the novel spectacle
of bankruptcy and imprisonment. All this gradually wrought a change on
the face of society; yet such was the disgust which the imputed
licentiousness, foppery, and extravagance of the officers, and the
pretensions, unsupported by worth or knowledge of their apes and
followers, produced, that the young persons who first married those
ambiguous new comers, generally did so without the consent of their
parents, whose affection for their children, however, soon reconciled
them.
-------