1791] DEFEAT OF HARDIN. 293 mounted Kentuckians killed some ten or twelve Indians who were employed hunting for fort Vincennes and were thus under United States protection. St. Clair strongly rebuked the act without obtaining attention to his remonstrances. The meeting proposed between the Indian deputies and the United States authorities could not be held, owing to the chiefs having refused to go to fort Harmer, at the junction of the Muskingham with the Ohio, and St. Clair having declined to hold the meeting at a spot some distance up the river. The Indian offer of a boundary was not accepted, and on their part they objected to the limit assigned them by St. Clair. Fort Washington was established in 1790 where the city of Cincinnati now stands. In April of this year, Harman with 100 regular troops and 230 Kentucky volunteers marched to the Sciota. He found the Indian camp deserted. In October, having been reinforced with 320 regulars and 1,100 Kentucky and Pennsylvania volunteers and militia, he attacked the Miami Indian village, the site of the present town of Chilicotte. The Indians fled, the village was burned, and the crops were destroyed. Colonel Hardin, sent in pursuit with 150 Kentucky volunteers and 30 regulars, fell into an ambush, some six miles from the village. The Kentucky men immediately took to flight. The regular troops made a stand, and were mostly killed or wounded. The Indians followed up their success by a demonstration against Harmer's camp, upon which he commenced a retreat; but on the second day he halted and detached Hardin with sixty regulars and 300 volunteers to oppose the Indian advance. Apparently the Indians gave way until a point was reached, when they became the assailants. Hardin's force was defeated, leaving 150 dead on the field, fifty of whom were regular troops. Harmer after this second affair retreated whence he came. Another battle was fought on the 3rd of November, 1791, near Miamistown. The United States force was composed of 1,500 regulars and 800 militia. The Indians numbered some 2,000. Two attacks made by the Indians were repulsed. On their third attack, the line of the United States was broken, and the force defeated with great loss. Butler, the second in command, was killed, with the adjutant-general and the surveyor-general. The loss of the Indians was about fifty, that of the United States troops severe. The cannon and camp fell into the possession of the Indians, together with much official and private correspondence. The disaster caused serious apprehension in the frontier settlements, and public opinion throughout the states was greatly excited. The government of Canada made every exertion to bring about a peace, but the offer of mediation was persistently declined. On the part of sir Alured Clarke, then at Quebec as commander of the forces, there was the strongest possible desire to find a peaceful solution to these dangerous complications. The correspondence which had fallen into the possession of the British shewed that the same feeling prevailed with the United States' war authorities. They had written that hostilities with the British nation were by every means to be avoided, for they would retard the growth and happiness of the country. So far as influence could be exercised, without the sacrifice of what was held to be the just rights of the Indian, the most earnest efforts were made to restrain and pacify the several tribes. The history of these days establishes the prudence and forbearance of the government in Canada in this difficult duty. It was the presence of the armed expeditions that were directed to their hunting grounds which led to the resistance of the Indians. No other result, indeed, could be looked for than that they would attempt the destruction of all whom they held to be intruders. For some months they were able successfully to assert their rights as possessors of the soil. But it was a struggle in which failure was inevitable: the weak against the strong; the rude efforts of the Indian trusting to natural strength and courage, against the discipline of civilization sustained by overwhelming numbers. 1790] SIR ALURED CLARKE. 295 Hope, the lieutenant-governor, had died in 1789, but no successor to him was named until the autumn of 1790, when Dorchester was notified of the appointment of sir Alured Clarke, with the intimation that he could leave for England on Clarke's arrival. Dorchester had applied for leave the previous year, but, with the sense of duty which distinguished him, he had written to say he would give up his desire of going home if his presence was required in Quebec. Even when the notification of this appointment was made, he was asked not to avail himself of the permission then granted should circumstances suggest his continuance in Canada. The lieutenant-governor arrived on the 7th of October, and was sworn in on the following day. Little is known of the youth of sir Alured Clarke, but he is supposed to have been the son of Charles, baron of the Exchequer, his uncle being the dean of Exeter. He was born about 1745, so at this period he was about forty-six years of age. He had served in Germany in 1759 under lord Granby in the 58th regiment. In 1776, as lieutenant-colonel of the 54th, he proceeded with Howe to New York, and in the following year exchanged into the 7th Fusiliers. There is no detail of his service in the revolutionary war. is known that many of his letters are to be found in the Cornwallis papers. He may have been with him in his Carolina campaign and have served at Yorktown. In 1782 he was appointed lieutenant-governor of Jamaica, where he continued until 1790, acting as governor in 1789. In July, 1791, he was appointed colonel of the 60th foot and received the rank of major-general. It was at this date he was named lieutenant-governor of Quebec.t # [Can. Arch., Q. 45.2, p. 516, 7th July, 1790.] + From Clarke's distinguished position, which entailed upon him the duty of inaugurating constitutional government in the dominion, a few words may be given to his subsequent career. In August, 1794, he proceeded to Gibraltar. In 1795 he was sent with reinforcements to India. It had been arranged that he was to co-operate with admiral Elphinstone, afterwards lord Keith, in the attack on Capetown, Cape of Good Hope. On the 14th of September the colony capitulated, and Clarke proceeded with the reinforcements to Bengal. He The census was again taken in 1790, but with little provision to assure correctness. The total population of the province of Quebec proper, independently of the U. E. loyalist settlements on the Saint Lawrence westward from lake Saint Francis, is given at 129,311 souls. The cities of Quebec and Montreal were not taken into account. Without including them, the district of Quebec is set forth as containing 47,465 souls; the district of Three Rivers, 15,958 souls, embracing the town of Three Rivers returned as containing 1,213 inhabitants. The population of the district of Montreal is given as 65,885. Adding 15,000 for the two cities of Montreal and Quebec, the total population would then have amounted to about 146,000. In the public documents of the day and in the debates on the Canada bill the number given is 150,000; if the census of 1790 be accepted, it may be assumed that this statement is approximately correct. The episode of Nootka sound, which took place in 1790, served as the commanding officer of this presidency until 1798, when he became commander-in-chief of India, and in this capacity accompanied sir John Shore to Lucknow. He continued in his post until 1801, under the marquis Wellesley, when he returned home. He was frequently employed after this date on boards of general officers. Finally, he received the dignity of field marshal, and died in 1832 at the age of eighty-seven. * There is difficulty in reconciling these figures with the official census taken under the direction of the government in 1784 and reported to the home government. The details of the census I have given [ante., p. 204.] There is no official account of the census of 1790. The figures we possess are taken from the modern census returns of 1870-71, vol. IV., p. 76. We are there informed (p. xiii.) that they were "Found in the Archives of the Court House, Montreal." The compilers arbitrarily, and I conceive unwarrantably, estimated the population of the two cities on the proportion of the previous and following census : Quebec at 14,000, Montreal at 18,000. Let us apply the test invoked. No census is given between 1784 and 1825, an interval of forty-one years. The comparison stands :— Montreal.. 1784 ..6,479... ... 6,491.... 1825 31,516 . 22, 101 It must be kept in view that thirty-five years had elapsed since the passage of the Canada act, and the impulse had been communicated by forty-one years of peace and active commercial development, to a great extent aided by the 1789] NOOTKA SOUND. 297 created anxiety in Canada, from the probability that a war with Spain would induce the United States to attempt with an armed force the seizure of the western posts, an act which would have led to war. The facts briefly stated are that Spain claimed by previous discovery the entire territory on the northern Pacific along the coast of California to the Russian possessions. In 1789, a Spanish ship-of-war finding some British vessels trading in Nootka sound, an inlet of Vancouver island, seized them on the ground of committing a breach of the Spanish navigation laws. The vessels were the property of a company established to trade between the western coast and China. Two vessels had been fitted out under the command of a lieutenant progress made in the settlement of Upper Canada. At this date the population of the last named, was, 158,293, of Lower Canada, 479,288. The actual total increase of the population of the cities in the forty-one years since 1784 was:— Montreal.. Quebec. · 31,516 - 6,479 = 25,037 Yet the compilers of the census ask us to believe that between 1784 and 1790, six years, these two cities increased in population half of this total; in other words, that in six years the population of Montreal increased to threefold and Quebec to two and a half its former amount, as follows: Such a statement requires no argument to confute it. For my part I look upon the census of 1790 as unreliable. It appears to have been a calculated approximation, rather than an authentic document. There is a mandement from bishop Hubert [Mandements, vol. II., p. 396] by which the priests are called upon annually to send the census of the parishes in conformity with a form which was enclosed. It was accompanied by a letter to the archiprêtre, 22nd December, 1789, in which the bishop states his repugnance to undertake the duty, that he troubled the curés unwillingly, but it was important not to disoblige the government so full of consideration for them and their religion, and that the governor had it much at heart. It might be performed during a religious ceremony in January, parce que la quête de l'enfant Jésus qui se fait en Janvier donne une grande facilité pour remplir le premier tableau, et que ceux des années suivantes pourront être remplis d'un trait de plume en ajoutant ou retranchant sur le nombre du premier duquel chacun peut garder une note par-devers soi." 66 |