Regiments, red and blue, trumpets, drums,
banners, artillery trains, and all the din of war transformed its
peaceful streets, and brought some attaint to domestic morals hitherto
commendable; for during the next five years Albany was to be the
principal base of military operations on the continent.
[Footnote 320: _Memoirs of an American Lady_ (Mrs. Schuyler), Chap. VI.
A genuine picture of colonial life, and a charming book, though far from
being historically trustworthy. Compare the account of Albany in Kalm,
II. 102.]
Shirley had left the place, and was now on his way up the Mohawk. His
force, much smaller than at first intended, consisted of the New Jersey
regiment, which mustered five hundred men, known as the Jersey Blues,
and of the fiftieth and fifty-first regiments, called respectively
Shirley's and Pepperell's. These, though paid by the King and counted as
regulars, were in fact raw provincials, just raised in the colonies, and
wearing their gay uniforms with an awkward, unaccustomed air. How they
gloried in them may be gathered from a letter of Sergeant James Gray, of
Pepperell's, to his brother John: "I have two Holland shirts, found me
by the King, and two pair of shoes and two pair of worsted stockings; a
good silver-laced hat (the lace I could sell for four dollars); and my
clothes is as fine scarlet broadcloth as ever you did see. A sergeant
here in the King's regiment is counted as good as an ensign with you;
and one day in every week we must have our hair or wigs powdered.
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