286 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VOL. IV. 



Schuyler, whose enmity to the LoyaHst party was most bitter, was relieved 

 about that time by the Marquis de la Fayette in the command at Albany. 

 A number of the inhabitants who had known Walter Butler as a student 

 in that town, sympathizing with his sufferings, seized the opportunity to 

 petition for his removal to more comfortable quarters. They asserted 

 that his life would be in great danger if he remained where he was much 

 longer. He was soon afterwards removed to a private house under a 

 strong guard. The sentence of death, however, still remained suspended 

 over his head. About the end of April, 1778, he made his escape ; a 

 horse was provided for him by his friends and he rode out a free man into 

 the valley of the Mohawk, where all the roads were known to him from 

 boyhood. Although weak and greatly emaciated, he accomplished the 

 perilous journey of nearly four hundred miles to Fort Niagara in safety. 

 At the Seneca village of Canadasaga (near the present town of Geneva. 

 N.Y.) he found his father encamped with his corps of rangers swelled 

 by new recruits to upwards of 200 men. Col. Butler was preparing 

 for his descent upon Wyoming, but observing that his son was quite 

 unfit for service in the field, he despatched him to Quebec in the hope 

 that the journey would re-establish his health. He travelled swiftly. 

 On the 17th of May he arrived at Niagara; on the 4th of June he 

 laid before General Haldimand, in Quebec, a careful memorandum 

 describing the movements of the rangers and Indians, and stating his 

 father's proposals for adding two companies of French Canadians to his 

 regiment, for the purpose of counteracting the efforts of La Fayette and 

 other French officers to detach the Six Nations. 



Sir John Johnson's correspondence with his brother-in-law, Daniel 

 Claus, throws some striking and suggestive light upon the heartburnings 

 and intrigues which prevailed among the Loyalists themselves. The 

 letters of both constantly breathe a spirit of most intense hostility to 

 the Butlers. 



On the 29th of June, Johnson wrote: — "Young Butler attends at 

 Headquarters constantly, though I cannot perceive there is any great 

 notice taken of him. He says he waits orders before he can proceed up 

 the country. I should be sorry his flight should occasion the death of 

 any of our poor friends." 



Again, on the i6th of July, he said : — " I have given him (General 

 Haldimand) a very plain and honest account of Butler and his son, not 

 concealing a single circumstance of his whole conduct which has come to 

 my knowledge, and I think I can discern that a change in his opinion of 

 this great man's merit and services will surely take place, if not already 

 the case. He asked me yesterday what he would be about all this time ; 



