[FN] Count Donop died of his wounds three days after the action, at a house near the fort. A short time before his death, he said to Monsieur Duplessis, a French officer who constantly attended him in his illness, "It is finishing a noble career early. I die the victim of my ambition, and of the avarice of my sovereign."—Travels of the Marquis Chastellux.
But neither the fall of Burgoyne, nor the flight of St. Leger, relieved the border settlements beyond Albany from their apprehensions. Though in less danger of a sweeping invasion, yet the scouts and scalping parties of the Tories and Indians were continually hovering upon their outskirts; and so crafty were the foe, and so stealthy their movements, that no neighborhood, not even the most populous villages, felt themselves secure from those sudden and bloody irruptions which mark the annals of Indian warfare. Very soon after the capture of Burgoyne, there was an occurrence in the neighborhood of Albany, of a highly painful description. Previous to the commencement of the war, a militia company had been organized in the town of Berne, comprising eighty-five men, commanded by Captain Ball. On the breaking out of hostilities, the Captain, with sixty-three of his men, went over to the enemy. Thus deserted by their leader, the command of the residue of the company devolved upon the ensign, Peter Deitz. These all embraced the cause of the country, and for the safety of their settlement threw up a little picketed fort, at a place now called the Beaver Dam. Deitz was soon afterward commissioned a captain, and his brother, William Deitz, his lieutenant. On the approach of Burgoyne they marched to Saratoga, and joined the army of Gates. Here the Captain was killed by the accidental discharge of the gun of one of his own men. William Deitz immediately succeeded to the vacancy; and rendered such good service in the campaign as specially to incur the vengeance of the Tories and Indians. Availing themselves of an early opportunity to glut their hate, a party of them stole into the settlement of Berne, where they surprised and made prisoner of the Captain in his own house. They next brought him forth into the court, bound him to the gate-post, and then successively brought out his father and mother, his wife and children, and deliberately murdered them all before his eyes! The Captain was himself carried a prisoner to Niagara, where he ultimately fell a sacrifice to their cruelty. [FN-1] An instance of more cool and fiend-like barbarity does not occur in the annals of this extraordinary contest. It was only equaled by the conduct of the Tories afterward at Wyoming, and transcended by the refinement of cruelty practised by a French officer, during one of the earlier wars of the Indians, upon an unhappy prisoner among the remote tribe of the Dionondadies, as related by La Potherie. [FN-2]
[FN-1] Albany Monthly Magazine, conducted by the late Horatio G. Spafford, 1815.
[FN-2] Vide Colden's Canada, and Smith's History of New-York.
Other incidents occurred at Albany and in its neighborhood, at about the same period, which are deemed worthy of note. At the time of Sir John Johnson's flight from Johnstown, his lady had remained behind, and was removed immediately, or soon afterward, to Albany. It was in this year that Mr. John Taylor, [FN] after having performed several important confidential services under the direction of General Schuyler, was appointed a member of the Albany Council of Safety. He was a man of great shrewdness and sagacity, deliberate in the formation of his purposes, and resolute in their execution when matured. The Whigs of Albany were greatly annoyed during the whole contest by the loyalists resident among them; many of whom, it was discovered from time to time, must have been in correspondence with the enemy. The duties of the Council of Safety were consequently the more arduous, requiring sleepless vigilance and unwearied activity; together with firmness and energy in some cases, and great delicacy in others. A watchful though general surveillance was necessarily enforced over the community at large, while an eye of closer scrutiny was kept upon the character and conduct of great numbers of individuals composing that community. Mr. Taylor was in every respect equal to the station, and was singularly fortunate both in detecting and defeating the evil machinations of the adherents of the Crown.
[FN] The gentleman here referred to was much in the civil service, and occasionally as a volunteer in the military, during the war of the Revolution, and was almost constantly in public life, afterward in the councils of the State, until within a few years of his death. He was nine years Lieutenant-Governor, and for a time the acting Governor of the State; to which station he was first chosen in 1813. His life was rather useful than brilliant; but he was a sound patriot, and died the death of a Christian in 1829—aged 87.
Among his early discoveries was the important circumstance that Lady Johnson was in active and frequent correspondence with her husband, and that the facilities derived from confidential agents and her powerful connexions, enabled her to keep the enemy on either side—in New-York and Canada—correctly advised, not only of the movements and designs of each other; but likewise of the situation of American affairs. Under these circumstances Mr. Taylor proposed a resolution to the Council, directing her removal forthwith from that part of the country. The proposition was received with disfavor, and encountered much opposition in the Council. Some of the members seemed to lack the firmness necessary to adopt such a resolution, anticipating the resentment and probable vengeance of the Baronet, on hearing that his lady had been treated with any thing bordering upon harshness; while others, probably, thought the precaution either would be useless, or that it was scarce worth while thus to wage war upon a woman. Convinced, however, of the danger of her longer presence in that section of the country, Mr. Taylor urged her removal so strenuously as at length to prevail; taking upon himself the execution of the order.