Saratoga, attack upon
Late in the fall of 1745, an expedition consisting of more than 500 French and Indians and a few disaffected warriors of the Six Nations, led by M. Marin, an active French officer, invaded the upper valley of the Hudson, and by their operations spread alarm as far south as the Hudson Highlands. They came down from Montreal, and reached Crown Point on Nov. 28, intending to penetrate the valley of the Connecticut. At the suggestion of Father Piquet, the French Prefet Apostolique to Canada, who met the expedition at Crown Point, Marin determined to lead his party towards Albany and cut off the advancing English settlements. They passed up [68] Lake Champlain, crossed over to the Hudson River, destroyed a lumber-yard on the site of Fort Edward, and approached the thriving settlement of Saratoga, at the junction of Fish Creek and the Hudson. It was a scattered little village, composed mostly of the tenants of Philip Schuyler, who owned mills and a large landed estate there. Accompanied by Father Piquet, Marin, having laid waste nearly 50 miles of English settlements, fell upon the sleeping villagers at Saratoga at midnight (Nov. 28), plundered everything of value, murdered Mr. Schuyler, burned a small ungarrisoned fort near by and most of the dwellings, and made 109 men, women, and children captives. The next morning, after chanting the Te Deum in the midst of the desolation, the marauders turned their faces towards Canada with their prisoners. The fort was rebuilt, garrisoned, and called Fort Clinton; but late in 1747, unable to defend it against the French and Indians, it was burned by the English.For an account of the battles of Sept. 19, 1777, and Oct. 7, 1777, which led to the surrender of Burgoyne, see Bemis's Heights, battles of; Burgoyne, Sir John.
