Between the hostile French in Canada and the little frontier city on the Hudson roamed the tribes of the Iroquois confederacy, upon whose friendship and fealty in large measure hung the destiny of the English possessions. The stockade, thirteen feet high, would have been of little account if that living bulwark of savage allies had yielded to the arms or the bribes of the French. That the bulwark did not yield, that the fealty of the Indians was won and, through every peril, kept unbroken, was owing to the sagacity and honorable dealing of the government and burghers of Albany. _The House of Peace_—this is the name which the Mohawk sachem, at one of the council-fires, gave to the Albany of those olden days, and, in the graphic phrase of his Indian oratory, he pictured at a stroke its political value and place in history; for there, by repeated formal treaties and habitual friendly intercourse, were riveted the “Covenant Chains” which made the confederation of the Six Nations the guardians of the feeble province. There is a scene in _The History of New York_, by William Dunlap, which is illustrative. The date is 1746 and the central figure is the celebrated Col. William Johnson, Indian agent, whom George II. made a “baronet of Great Britain.” “When the Indians came near the town of Albany on the 8th of August, Mr. Johnson put himself at the head of the Mohawks, dressed and painted as an Indian war-captain. The Indians followed him painted for war. As they passed the fort, they saluted by a running fire, which the governor answered by cannon. The chiefs were afterwards received in the fort-hall and treated to wine. A good deal of private manœuvring with the individual sachems was found necessary to make them declare for war with France before a public council was held. The Iroquois took to the 23d of the month for deliberation, and then answered, the governor being present.” During the French wars, Albany, from a military point of view, was probably the most animated spot on the continent. It was the storehouse for munitions of war and the rendezvous for the troops. English regulars and provincial militia swarmed in and about the city. After the unsuccessful campaigns of 1756 and 1757, the town was filled with refugees, reciting the slaughter of the garrison at Fort William Henry, and the murder and havoc wrought by the Indians in pay of the French. Hundreds of loyal Indians, with their squaws and papooses, encamped under the stockade. The houses and barns were filled with wounded soldiers brought from the seat of war. In the pauses of the campaigns, notwithstanding the horrible rumors and actual disasters, the “dangerously accomplished” English officers made merry life in old Albany, picturesque details of which are given in that charming chronicle of colonial days, _Memoirs of an American Lady_ (Mrs. Philip Schuyler), by Mrs. Grant of Laggan.