X. 1763. to avow. BOOK of the Six Nations, for the purpose of ratifying former treaties, and with the hope of conciliating thoroughly and fixing the friendship of these confederated tribes. At this conference, a warm dispute arose on account of certain lands which a chief of the Delaware tribe, allied to the Six Nations, complained that some English settler had usurped in consequence of a fraudulent conveyance. Though a seeming accommodation of the dispute was effected at the time, yet was it justly apprehended from various symptoms in the conduct of the Indians, that their minds were not satisfied, and that they secretly nourished more resentment than they chose openly Meanwhile new causes of offence continued to present themselves to men inflamed with jealousy and predisposed to quarrel. The King of Britain had issued a proclamation confining all future purchases of lands from the Indians to certain royal commissioners charged with the administration of Indian affairs. This proceeding, which was probably intended to render the growth of the colonies tributary to the royal revenue, as well as to obviate the frequent causes of quarrel supplied by the transactions of private adventurers with the Indians, obtained very little regard in America. Perhaps the only method by which the more equitable and pacific of its purposes could have been accomplished, would have been to commit the absolute and exclusive power of treating with the Indians for additional lands, to the assembly of each respective province. Purchases of land continued to be made by private individuals and the Indians, sometimes the dupes of their own rashness and the knavery of their customers in these transactions, invariably dissipated the price of their alienated lands in excesses of debauchery and riot, which were followed by the most stinging sensations of rage, remorse, and mortification. Unhappily in the midst of these ferments, and aided by their influence, a report was circulated among the Indians that the English had formed a scheme for their entire extirpation. This report, though totally destitute of foundation,1 obtained 1 The only circumstance with which I am acquainted, correspondent even in the slightest degree with this report, is the protestation uttered, about six or seven years before, by some exasperated fanatics in Pennsylvania, that the extirpation of the Indians was a sacrifice due to the glory of God and the security of the christian colonists of America. See Appendix III. post. VI. general credit, and concurring with the other causes of sus- CHAP. picion and irritation, united a powerful confederacy of Indian tribes in the purpose of revenging their past wrongs, 1763. and defeating, by anticipating, the supposed impending blow. The Indians inhabiting the shores of the Ohio, and especially the Shawanese and Delawares, took the lead in this enterprise; and having engaged the tribes in the vicinity of Detroit, the greater number of the tribes on the same side of the Mississippi, and the Senecas, one of the tribes of the Six Nations, to co-operate in their design, they determined to make a sudden, general, and simultaneous assault on the British frontiers. By the indefatigable exertions of Sir William Johnson, the other tribes of the Six Nations were restrained, though with great difficulty, from plunging into this hostile enterprise, which seemed the last effort of the Indian race to hold at least divided empire with the European colonists of America. The Cherokees also, faithful to their late treaty of peace, abstained from interposition in the war. It was the purpose of the allied and hostile Indians, in order to destroy at one blow both the colonists and their means of subsistence, that the work of destruction should commence in the season of harvest of the present year. Their plan of operation was concerted and matured with consummate craft, and secrecy. At the appointed time, a furious incursion was made upon the provinces of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. The precipitancy of some of the Indian warriors defeated in part the more methodical and considerate mischief of the rest, and communicating an earlier alarm than had been intended, enabled a number of the colonists to escape with their effects. Great numbers, however, were massacred, and their dwellings and other property desolated with all the circumstances of horror and cruelty attending Indian warfare. In the general alarm and consternation created by this fierce and unexpected attack, the frontiers of the three provinces by which it was sustained, were immediately deserted to the extent of twenty miles inwards; and multitudes of flourishing settlements, the fruit of many years of hard labour, were abandoned to hostile rage and spoil. The itinerant merchants, at the same time, who, on the security of the general peace, had repaired to X. 1763. BOOK trade in the Indian country, were all murdered, and their effects, to the value of several hundred thousand pounds, made the prey of the savages. All the great trading towns in America were sufferers from this blow. But what, in a military view, was regarded as of much greater significance, was the capture by the Indians of the forts Le Bœuf, Venango, and Presque Isle. These places derived their importance rather from local position than from their fortifications, which were feeble and incomplete. Situated to the southward of Lake Erie, they commanded the heads of all the navigable rivers in this region, and were subservient, indeed absolutely requisite, to the communication between Pittsburg, the lakes, and the northern garrisons. Inconsiderable in point of strength, as the captured forts were, the Indians would probably have failed to reduce them, without the aid of fraud and stratagem in addition to the influence of surprise created by sudden and unforeseen assault. Whenever they invested any of them, they assured the garrison that they had reduced all the others : intimidated them by menaces of the danger of withstanding the strength and provoking the vengeance of the additional multitudes of Indians whose near approach they announced; and upon promises of safety, which they commonly violated, induced them to abandon their post. By the same artifices, and with similar perfidy, they obtained possession of some other smaller fortresses, and especially of Michillimakinac, the remotest of all the forts that had been erected by the French and annexed to the British dominions by the conquest of Canada. There still remained, however, three fortresses, considerable alike by their strength and the commanding influence of their position, which it was necessary for the Indians to subdue, before they could expect any permanent advantage from their successes. These were Detroit, between the Lakes Huron and Erie; Niagara, between the Lakes Erie and Ontario; and Pittsburg, which overawed the regions and tribes adjacent to the Ohio. The Indians were sensible that while these fortresses continued to exist, the most important links of the chain with which they were now encompassed by the British dominion, remained unbroken; and against them, accordingly, they reiterated all their exertions of force and policy. Though the theatre of this Indian war VI. 1763. was of prodigious extent, and the various belligerent tribes CHA P. General Amherst, sensible of the danger with which his recent conquests were menaced by the explosion of this alarming war, hastily detached a numerous body of his troops to the succour of the western garrisons. Captain Dalzell, who conducted the detachment intended to reinforce the garrison of Detroit, after he had safely performed this duty,1 was deluded, by erroneous information, into the hope that he could surprise the Indian army, which was posted at the distance of three miles from the fort, and attacking it, under the cover of darkness, inflict a blow that would terminate the war in this quarter. With this view, between two and three o'clock of the morning, he set out from the fort, in quest of the Indian camp, at the head of two hundred and seventy men, having previously adopted the most judicious precautions for the secrecy and orderly disposition of the march, and (which was equally necessary in American campaigns) for preventing wounded soldiers from falling into the hands of a barbarous foe. But he had undervalued the vigilance and penetration of the Indians, who, perhaps, also derived some advantage from a friendly intelligence with the French settlers in the vicinity. Apprised of his design, they securely prepared to defeat it; and every step of his march from the fort only conducted him farther into the jaws of their dexterous ambuscade. The advance of his troops was suddenly arrested by a sharp fire in their front, which was presently followed by a similar discharge upon their rear, and then succeeded by a confounding and destructive volley from every side. It was 1 July 29th. RHODES HOUS *OXFORD* LIDDARY X. BOOK fatally manifest to the British that they were surprised by the enemy, whom they had themselves rashly undertaken to sur1763. prise; and this was all that they could discover, for, in the darkness, neither the position, nor the numbers of the Indians could be ascertained. Dalzell fell in the beginning of the affair, and his whole troop were on the brink of irreparable confusion and ruin, when Captain Grant, on whom the command now devolved, perceiving that a safe retreat, his only resource, could not be accomplished without a previous attack upon the enemy, promptly rallied the soldiers, who, steadily and resolutely obeying his orders, charged the Indians with so much spirit and success, as to repulse them on all sides, to some distance. Having thus extricated themselves from immediate peril, the British hastily regained the shelter of the fort, with the loss of seventy men killed, and forty wounded. The issue of this unfortunate affair, which deterred them from undertaking any farther offensive operations, was not yet of sufficient importance to encourage their enemies to pursue the siege of a fort so strong, and now supplied with a garrison and with provisions fully adequate to its defence. After pausing, only long enough to ascertain that the garrison were completely on their guard against stratagem and surprise, the Indians abruptly broke up their camp, and abandoned the vicinity of Detroit. Pittsburg, meanwhile, was so closely beleaguered on every side, that its communication with the country was completely suspended. Its Indian besiegers supplied, in some measure, their want of skill and of artillery, by the daring and obstinate valour of their assault. Regardless of danger, and exerting a resolution which the most accomplished veterans in European discipline could not have surpassed, they took post on the brink of the river, close to the fort, and shrouding themselves in holes which they dug, for several days together, poured in upon it an incessant storm of musketry, and of arrows tipped with fire. The scantiness of the garrison, and the meagreness of its stores, rendered the place very ill qualified to support a siege; but its defence was prolonged by the skill and spirit of the commander, Captain Ecuyer, and his troops, who, though perfectly conscious of the difficulty of maintaining the place, |