The French, urged by Frontenac, came down the valley in 1693, destroyed the castles of the Mohawks, and started on their return with three hundred prisoners. The news created intense excitement through the whole Province of New York. Governor Fletcher hurried up from New York City, Major Peter Schuyler hastily gathered three hundred white men and three hundred savages for defence, and was joined by Major Ingoldsby from Albany with an additional force. Coming along the old trail, the French and Indians halted with their captives about six miles north of the village of Saratoga Springs, at a point near Mount McGregor at King’s Station. The battle-ground lies on the terrace, which is distinct from the foothills of the mountains, and has long been known as the “old Indian burying-ground.” On this plateau, so near the gay streets of Saratoga, the camp-fires of a thousand hostile men throwing up entrenchments flared through the night. On the following day the English sustained successfully three fierce assaults on their works, and the French, worn with the long journey, were glad to retreat in the darkness of a raging storm, as night fell on their wounded and captives. Again, during Queen Anne’s War, beginning in 1709, old Saratoga, which lies at the mouth of the Fishkill, was so seriously threatened that Major Schuyler built a fort below the mouth of the Batten Kill. In 1731, the French built Fort Frederick at Crown Point. From this stronghold, during King George’s War, which began in 1744, they swung their forces with deadly effect upon the English settlements. The forts at Saratoga were then refitted and manned, but not in time to prevent the terrible massacre of old Saratoga in 1745. History has recorded and poetry sung the woes of Wyoming and of Cherry Valley, but the silence of the virgin forest has encompassed the tragic events that occurred at Saratoga on the fatal morning of the 17th of November, thirty years before the Revolution. “Profound peace had reigned in the old wilderness for a generation, and the fertile soil had filled the smiling land with fatness. Many dwellings and fruitful farms dotted the river bank; long stables were filled with sleek cattle, and around the mills were huge piles of timber waiting the market down the river.” The scowling portholes of the old Schuyler mansion seemed to laugh between the tendrils of the creeping vines. Suddenly, in the early morning, the scene of peace and prosperity was changed to slaughter, pillage, and destruction. Philip Schuyler, the elder, was offered immunity in the midst of the fray, but he spurned safety at the expense of his neighbors, and was shot to death in his own doorway. The houses and forts were burned to the ground, the cattle killed or burned in their stalls, and only one or two inhabitants escaped to tell the tale. [Illustration: GENERAL PHILIP SCHUYLER. BRONZE STATUE IN NICHE OF SARATOGA MONUMENT, SCHUYLERVILLE, N. Y.]