212 THE THREE WAR-PARTIES. [1690. 



Canadian named Gignieres, who had gone with 

 nine Indians to reconnoitre, now returned to say 

 that he had been within sight of Schenectady, and 

 had seen nobody. Their purpose had been to 

 postpone the attack till two o'clock in the morn- 

 ing ; but the situation was intolerable, and the 

 limit of human endurance was reached. They 

 could not make fires, and they must move on or 

 perish. Guided by the frightened squaws, they 

 crossed the Mohawk on the ice, toiling through 

 the drifts amid the whirling snow that swept down 

 the valley of the darkened stream, till about eleven 

 o'clock they descried through the storm the snow- 

 beplasterecl palisades of the devoted village. Such 

 was their plight that some of them afterwards 

 declared that they would all have surrendered if 

 an enemy had appeared to summon them. 1 



Schenectady was the farthest outpost of the col- 

 ony of New York. Westward lay the Mohawk 

 forests ; and Orange, or Albany, was fifteen miles or 

 more towards the south-east. The village was oblong 

 in form, and enclosed by a palisade which had two 

 gates, one towards Albany and the other towards 

 the Mohawks. There was a blockhouse near the 

 eastern gate, occupied by eight or nine Connecticut 

 militia men under Lieutenant Talmage. There were 

 also about thirty friendly Mohawks in the place, on 

 a visit. The inhabitants, who were all Dutch, were 

 in a state of discord and confusion. The revolu- 

 tion in England had produced a revolution in New 

 York. The demagogue Jacob Leisler had got pos- 



i Colden, 114 (ed. 1717), 



