1690.] SCHENECTADY. 213 



session of Fort William, and was endeavoring to 

 master the whole colony. Albany was in the hands 

 of the anti-Leisler or conservative party, repre- 

 sented by a convention of which Peter Schuyler 

 was the chief. The Dutch of Schenectady for the 

 most part favored Leisler, whose emissaries had 

 been busily at work among them ; but their chief 

 magistrate, John Sander Glen, a man of courage 

 and worth, stood fast for the Albany convention, 

 and in consequence the villagers had threatened to 

 kill him. Talmage and his Connecticut militia were 

 under orders from Albany ; and therefore, like 

 Glen, they were under the popular ban. In vain 

 the magistrate and the officer entreated the people 

 to stand on their guard. They turned the advice 

 to ridicule, laughed at the idea of clanger, left both 

 their gates wide open, and placed there, it is said, 

 two snow images as mock sentinels. A French 

 account declares that the village contained eighty 

 houses, which is certainly an exaggeration. There 

 had been some festivity during the evening, but it 

 was now over ; and the primitive villagers, fathers, 

 mothers, children, and infants, lay buried in un- 

 conscious sleep. They were simple peasants and 

 rude woodsmen, but with human affections and 

 capable of human woe. 



The French and Indians stood before the open 

 gate, with its blind and dumb warder, the mock 

 sentinel of snow. Iberville went with a detach- 

 ment to find the Albany gate, and bar it against 

 the escape of fugitives ; but he missed it in the 

 gloom, and hastened back. The assailants were 



