put up at the King'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