(AMERICAN INDIANS.) An interesting manuscript letter on relations with the French and Indians during Queen Anne's War. 2 pages, 12 x 7 1/2 inches, on one folded sheet; tape repairs and separations at folds. Albany, 21 February 1710
The author appears to be a high-ranking Albany official, possibly the mayor, Robert Livingston the Younger (1663-1725). This unsigned retained draft letter is apparently addressed to the colonial governor of New York, who was at that time Richard Ingoldesby. It discusses negotiations for the exchange of Barent Staats, captured by the French in 1709. A party of French officers and servants had arrived in Albany under a flag of truce; the correspondent requests financial relief from the colony, as "these French gentlemen & their attendants lye here at an extraordinary expence of the government." The Senecas have told interpreter Lawrence Clause their desire to "allways have a smith and Christians amongst them to keep out the French; that if we withdrew our smith or neglected to send Christians amongst them, and the French should by that means impose their people upon them, it would be our fault not theirs." The author adds that "We have severall Indians here in pay, but most part of the winter we have had two hundred to give provisions to. Yr honor is acquainted with the nature of them, and if we employ one we must keep their whole familly."
