physical, and the use of strong liquors in a moral sense, as two plagues which we had introduced among them, for which our arts, our friendship, and even our religion, were a very inadequate recompense. ------- CHAP. XXXIII. Followers of the army—Inconveniences resulting from such. TO return to the legion of commissaries, &c. These employments were at first given to very inferior people; it was seen, however, that as the scale of military operations and erections increased, these people were enriching themselves both at the expense of the king and the inhabitants, whom they frequently exasperated into insolence or resistance, and then used that pretext to keep in their own hands the payments to which these people were entitled. When their waggons and slaves were pressed into the service, it was necessary to employ such persons from the first. The colonel and the mayor, and all whom they could influence, did all they could to alleviate an evil that could not be prevented, and was daily aggravating disaffection. They found, as the importance of these offices increased, it would conduce more to the public good, by larger salaries to induce people to accept them who were gentlemen, and had that character to support; and who, being acquainted with the people and their language, knew best how to qualify and soften, and where to apply—so as least to injure or irritate. Some young men belonging to the country, were at length prevailed on to accept two or three of these offices, which had the happiest effect in conciliating and conquering the aversion that existed against the _regulars_. Among the first of the natives who engaged in those difficult employments, was one of aunt’s adopted sons, formerly mentioned; Philip Schuyler, of the pasture, as he was called, to distinguish him from the other nephew, who, had he lived, would have been the colonel’s heir. He appeared merely a careless, good-humoured young man. Never was any one so little what he seemed, with regard to ability, activity, and ambition, art, enterprise, and perseverance, all of which he possessed in an uncommon degree, though no man had less the appearance of these qualities; easy, complying, and good-humoured, the conversations, full of wisdom and sound policy, of which he had been a seemingly inattentive witness at the Flats, only slept in his recollection, to awake in full force, when called forth by occasion.