PHILIP SCHUYLER.

AMONG the patriots of the American revolution, who asserted the rights of their country in council, and equally vindicated its cause in the field, the name of PHILIP SCHUYLER stands preeminent. In acuteness of intellect, profound thought, indefatigable activity, exhaustless energy, pure patriotism, and persevering and intrepid public efforts, he had no superior; and it is to be regretted that the limits assigned to each portion of biography in the present work, will permit only a rapid sketch of his distinguished services.

General SCHUYLER was descended from Dutch ancestors, and born at Albany the 22d November, 1733. His paternal grandfather, Colonel Peter Schuyler, was mayor of that city, and commander of the northern militia in 1690. He was also agent of Indian affairs, and presiding member of the provincial council. John Schuyler, his father, left five children, and though as heir at law, his son. PHILIP was entitled to the real estate, he generously shared the inheritance with his brothers and sister. The Saratoga estate, of which the British army, in 1777, made such sad havoc, he inherited from his father's brother. Being deprived of his father while young, he was indebted to his mother, Cornelia Van Cortlandt Schuyler, a lady of strong and cultivated mind, for his early education, and those habits of business, and that unshaken probity, which never forsook him. At the age of sixteen, he was martyr to an hereditary gout, which confined him, while at school at New Rochelle, to his room for nearly a year. But he was still able to prosecute his studies, and to acquire in that period the use of the French language. His learning was of a solid and practical character. His favorite studies were mathematics, and the other exact sciences, and he was enabled in after life to display unusual skill in finance, and as a civil and military engineer, and in all the leading topics of political economy.

He entered the army when the French war broke out in 1755, and commanded a company in the New York levies, which attended

employed that year in rendering Fort Edward a safe depot of military stores. In 1758 his talents and activity attracted the attention of Lord Viscount Howe, who commanded at Albany the first division of the British army of four thousand men, then preparing for an expedition to Canada. Being in great difficulty in respect to supplies and the means of transportation, Lord Howe had the discernment to select and employ young SCHUYLER in the commissariat department. When it was suggested to him that he was confiding in too young a man for so important a service, he declared that he relied on the practical knowledge and activity of SCHUYLER, and was convinced that he would be enabled to surmount all obstacles. The event justified the choice. The duty was discharged with that sound judgment and calculating precision, that were so often and so signally displayed in his subsequent career. The army under the command of General Abercrombie arrived at the north end of Lake George, early in July, and when Lord Howe fell in a conflict with the French advanced guard, SCHUYLER was directed to cause the body of that lamented young nobleman to be conveyed to Albany and buried there with appropriate honors. He continued afterwards during the war to be employed in the commissary department.

After the peace of 1763, Colonel SCHUYLER (for by that title he was then known) was called into the service of the colony, in various civil employments. He was one of the commissioners appointed by the general assembly, in 1764, to manage the controversy on the part of New York, respecting the partition line between that colony and Massachusetts Bay; and he was actively engaged in that discussion in 1767, with associates and opponents of the first rank and character. In 1768, he was elected a member of the general assembly, for the city and county of Albany, and he continued a member until the colonial legislature, in April 1775, terminated its existence forever. A seat in the assembly at that day, was very important, and an evidence of character as well as influence, inasmuch as the members were few, and chosen exclusively by freeholders, and held their seats for seven years. The services which Colonel SCHUYLER rendered in that station, and the talents, zeal, and intrepidity which he displayed in asserting the constitutional rights of the colonies, and in resisting the claims of the British parliament, and of the colonial governor and council, may be considered as having laid the solid foundation for those marks of distinguished honor and confidence, which his countrymen were afterwards so prompt to bestow. The majority of that assembly were favorable to the interest of the

crown, and they continually checked the bold measures of the whigs in their determined opposition to the claims of the parent power. A very difficult, arduous, and responsible duty was imposed upon Colonel SCHUYLER and his leading associates, who were in the minority. It was in the closing scenes of that body, in the winter and spring of 1775, amid the expiring struggles of the ministerial party to uphold the tottering fabric of the British colonial administration, that the talents, zeal, and firmness of the minority shone with the brightest lustre. Every successive motion for several weeks, to give a legislative sanction to the proceedings of the continental congress of 1774, was negatived. But the spirit and resolution of SCHUYLER, as well as of his distinguished companions, George Clinton, Nathaniel Woodhull, Colonel Tenbroeck, and Colonel Philip Livingston, gained strength by defeat, and arose with increasing vigor suitable to the difficulties and solemnity of the crisis. On the 3d of March, eleven distinct divisions on so many different resolutions were taken and entered at large on the journals. The persevering efforts of the minority, and the energy of public opinion fairly dismayed the ministerial majority, and they were impelled, as well from a regard to their own character, as from a sense of what was loudly called for, and due to the occasion, to introduce and sustain sundry measures, which, though rather too tame and loyal for the vehement spirit of the times, yet contained an explicit condemnation of certain acts of parliament, as being public grievances, and dangerous to the rights and liberties of America.

The great scenes of the revolution were now unfolding, and the eyes of his fellow citizens were instantly turned to Colonel SCHUYLER, as one on whom their highest hopes of confidence were placed. He was elected a delegate to the continental congress which assembled in May, 1775, and he had scarcely taken his seat in that assembly, when he was appointed the third major-general of the American army. His services were now to be transferred from the cabinet to the field, and he immediately entered upon his new theatre of action, with surprising promptitude and vigor.

On the 25th of June, he was charged by General Washington with the command of the army in the province of New York, and in his first general orders announcing the command, he at once enjoined order, discipline, neatness, economy, exactness, sobriety, obedience; and that the troops must show to the world that "in contending for liberty, they abhor licentiousness-that in resisting the misrule of tyrants, they will support government honestly ad

ministered." He directed his attention specially to the northern frontiers, and called upon the commanding officer there for exact information and specific details, on every subject connected with his command. He was directed by congress, as early as the 1st of July, to repair to the forts of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, and make preparations to secure the command of the lake, and, "if practicable and expedient, to take possession of St. Johns, Montreal, and Quebec." He at once communicated vigor and rapid motion to every part of his command, and his orders upon all the details involved in preparations for the campaign were exact and specific. But the difficulties in an expedition to Canada without the materials, the equipments, and the habits of war, were clearly perceived by him, and strongly felt; and he surmounted them with a rapidity and success that no other individual could at that period have performed. Before the end of August four regiments moved down the lake from Ticonderoga, under the command of Brigadier-General Montgomery. To add to his other distresses, General SCHUYLER at that crisis was taken down with sickness, and confined in bed with a fever. He nevertheless followed his friend Montgomery, and was carried in a batteaux to the isle Au Noix, where he established his head-quarters on the 8th of September. He was there reduced to a skeleton by a complication of disorders, and was obliged in ten days to return and leave Montgomery, much to the regret of the latter, to command the Canadian expedition. "All my ambition," said that excellent man, and chivalric hero, "is to do my duty in a subordinate capacity, without the least ungenerous intention of lessening the merit so justly your due." General SCHUYLER's services were not lost on his return to Ticonderoga. They were invaluable on the all-important subject of supplies. General Montgomery declared, in his letters of the 6th and 9th of October, that SCHUYLER'S foresight and diligence after his return, had saved the expedition. So wisely and promptly did he exert his feeble health, but vigorous mind, to restore order and accelerate supplies of food and clothing to the army, then estimated at three thousand five hundred men, and occupied before St. Johns. No general had greater difficulties to contend with, than Montgomery during his short and disastrous campaign. The effort was too great for his means. There was a deficiency of specie, and military equipments of every kind, and a want of discipline, subordination, economy, and probity, in the various branches of the service. These embarrassments subdued the patience and generous temper of Montgomery, and he frequently in his letters avowed his fixed