------- CHAP. III. Colonel Schuyler persuades four Sachems to accompany him to England—Their reception and return. IT was thought advisable to bring over some of the heads of tribes to England to attach them to that country; but to persuade the chiefs of a free and happy people, who were intelligent, sagacious, and aware of all probable dangers; who were strangers to all maritime concerns, and had never beheld the ocean; to persuade such independent and high-minded warriors to forsake the safety and enjoyments of their own country, to encounter the perils of a long voyage, and trust themselves among entire strangers, and this merely to bind closer an alliance with the sovereign of a distant country, a female sovereign too; a mode of government that must have appeared to them very incongruous. This was no common undertaking, nor was it easy to induce these chiefs to accede to the proposal. The principal motive for urging it was to counteract the machinations of the French, whose emissaries in these wild regions had even then begun to style us, in effect, a nation of shopkeepers; and to impress the tribes dwelling in their boundaries with vast ideas of the power and splendour of their grand monarchy, while our sovereign, they say, ruled over a petty island, and was himself a trader. To counterwork those suggestions, it was thought requisite to give the leaders of the nation (who then in fact protected our people) an adequate idea of our power, and the magnificence of our court. The chiefs at length consented on this only condition, that their brother Philip, who never told a lie, or spoke without thinking, should accompany them. However this gentleman’s wisdom and integrity might qualify him for this employment, it did not suit his placid temper, simple manners, and habits of life, at once pastoral and patriarchal, to travel over seas, and mingle in the bustle of a world, the customs of which were become foreign to those primitive inhabitants of new and remote regions, was to him no pleasant undertaking. The adventure, however, succeeded beyond his expectation; the chiefs were pleased with the attentions paid them, and with the mild and gracious manners of their queen, who at different times admitted them to her presence. With the good Philip she had many conversations, and made him some valuable presents, among which, I think, was her picture; but this with many others was lost, in a manner which will appear hereafter. Colonel Schuyler too was much delighted with the courteous affability of this princess; she offered to knight him, which he respectfully, but positively refused; and being pressed to assign his reasons, he said he had brothers and near relations in humble circumstances, who, already his inferiors in property, would seem as it were depressed by his elevation; and though it should have no such