I must beg leave to give you one instance of the situation of quarters here. When I arrived at Albany, I do not believe it was possible to have quartered Fifty men on that town, on all the Publick Houses in it, and taking a full survey of it, I found that by quartering on the Private Houses, I can, without incommoding them, in the parts of their houses, in which they live, quarter Fourteen Hundred men, and for a short time, in case of necessity, I could quarter Two thousand. I have mentioned this to show you what the situation of all the Frontier Places, in this country that are liable to attacks, must be, if quartering is likely to be kept to, on Publick Houses only.
On the 10th instant arrived the Harriet Packet which brought me the duplicates of your letters of the 9th and 11th of January, and the next day came in here His Majesty’s ship the Hampshire commanded by Captain Norbury, having under his convoy the nine additional companies of the Highlanders,[8] who had a passage of twelve weeks from Cork, and met with very bad weather; of this convoy there were missing on his arrival in this Port, the Arundal and Salisbury Transports. The last we have, since, accounts of her getting into Rhode Island.
The Troops being sickly, I have cantooned them in villages adjacent to this Port, for the sake of fresh provisions and vegetables.”
In the published histories of the time it is stated that the
“42d remained inactive in or near Albany during 1756 and that throughout the winter and spring of the following year the men were drilled and disciplined for bush fighting and markmanship, a species of warfare for which they were well fitted, being for the most part good shots and experts in the management of arms.”
From the following letters found in the Public Record Office in London the quarters for the winter of 1756-7 were probably at Schenectady. Extract from letter from Loudon to Pitt, New York, 25th April, 1757,
“The Highlanders were set in motion from Schenectady * * * they marched without tents and lay in the woods upon the snow making great fires and I do not find the troops have suffered * * * We have on that River (Mohawk) at Schenectady and up to the German Flats, the Highland Regiment upwards of a thousand men,” etc.
The second letter reads as follows, and while it is chiefly of interest in this connection because it is dated from Schenectady, it also illustrates the custom of selling commissions:
Schenectady, April 24, 1757.