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all marauding parties,) returned from Schenectady with an 

 account of its defenceless state. This, as might have been 

 expected, buoyed up their depressed hopes and encouraged 

 them to proceed. They reached Schenectady on the 8th of 

 February, 1690, between eleven and twelve o'clock at night. 

 Finding the gates open and the outposts unmanned, they pe- 

 netrated undiscovered into the very heart of the city. 



To prevent any resistance from the inhabitants, and thus 

 secure their total destruction, the whole number of French and 

 Indians was divided into small parties, and each Jiouse sur- 

 rounded without the knowledge of its inmates, who rested in 

 fatal security, not believing it possible for the enemy, in the 

 middle of winter, to march from Canada to their city ; nor 

 w^ere they convinced of their error until aroused from their 

 slumber by the savage yell of the Indians, who had already 

 begun the work of destruction. The Eissailants were rendered 

 desperate by their late sufferings, and with a fiendish barbari- 

 ty, practised only in savage warfare, commenced an indiscri- 



The lisping infant was torn from the fond embraces of its 

 frantic mother, and inhumanly murdered in her presence ; the 

 aged found in the number of their years no respite from death, 

 but soon fell under the stroke of the tomahawk ; nor did the 

 piercing cries of the helpless female move the compassion of 

 the Indian, who beheld in every English countenance an ene- 



To secure the destruction of those who had eluded the to- 

 mahawk, the city was fired, and all consumed, with the ex- 

 ception of five or six houses, saved through the intercession of 

 Capt. Sanders,* towards whom they had received particular 

 orders to be kind, in return for the many good offices shewn 



