S1K WILLIAM JOHNSON 219

justified Clinton's assertion: "If you deny me the
necessary supplies all my endeavors must become
fruitless. I must wash my own hands and leave
at your doors the blood of innocent people."

When the Indians under the leadership of the
French actually took the warpath, the colonists
at last a,woke to their peril. Upon call of Lieuten-
ant-Governor De Lancey, acting under instruc-
tions of the Lords of Trade, all the colonies north
of the Potomac except New Jersey sent com-
missioners to a congress at Albany in June, 1754,
to plan measures of defense and of alliance with
the Six Nations.

Albany was still a placid little Dutch town.
Mrs. Grant of Laggan in Scotland, who visited
Albany in her girlhood, wrote of it afterward with
a gentle suavity which lent glamour to the scenes
which she described. She pictures for us a little
town in which every house had its garden at the
rear and in front a shaded stoop with seats on
either side where the family gathered to enjoy the
twilight. "Each family had a cow, fed in a com-
mon pasture at the end of the town. In the
evening they returned all together, of their own ac-
cord, with their tinkling bells hung at their necks,
along the wide and grassy street, to their wonted