sides and shrouds in every quarter, the captain, having determined not to fall into their hands alive, ordered the gunner to set fire to the magazine, and blow up all together. A Huron chief who understood English, instantly communicated this order to the Indians, when they disengaged themselves from the vessel as fast as possible, and fled from her in great fright, to a considerable distance.

The schooner then proceeded to Detroit, and arrived on the third day of September, and thus the garrison was saved from certain destruction. Silver medals, descriptive of the event, were ordered to be struck and presented to each of the survivors of the crew. (1)

About the first of June, the scalping parties perpetrated several murders in the vicinity of Fort Pitt. Upon receipt of this intelligence, Governor Hamilton, with the assistance of the provincial commissioners, immediately reinforced the garrison at Augusta, and sent out small parties to protect the frontiers. As the first attack was not immediately followed up by the Indians, the government was willing to believe it to have been the effect of some private resentments, rather than of a general combination for war, But such hopes were dissipated by inroads upon the settled parts of the province, and the flight of the inhabitants to the interior. The whole country west of Shippensburg became the prey of the fierce barbarians. They set fire to houses, barns, corn, hay, and every thing that was combustible. (2) The wretched inhabitants whom they surprised at night, at their meals, or in the labors of the fields, were massacred with the utmost cruelty and barbarity; and those who fled were scarce more happy. Overwhelmned by sorrow, without shelter, or means of tranportation, their tardy flight was impeded by fainting women and weeping children. The inhabitants of Shippensburg and Carlisle now become the barrier towns, and opened their hearts and their houses to their afflicted brethren. In the towns, every stable and hovel was crowded with miserable refugees, (3) who, having lost their houses, their cattle, and their harvest, were reduced from independence and happiness to beggary and despair. The streets were filled with people; the men, distracted by grief for their losses, and the desire of revenge, more poignantly excited by the disconsolate females and bereaved children, who wailed around them. In the woods, for some miles, on both

(1) Holmes' Annals, II. p. 122.-Drake's Indian Biography, Book V. p. 33. (2) Pennsylvania Gazette, July 28th.—Hist. Cumberland co., p. 141-42. (3) On the 25th July, 1763, there were in Shippensburg, 1,384 of poor, distressed back inhabitants, viz: men 301, women 345, children 738; many of whom whre obliged to lie in barns, stables, cellars, and under old leaky sheds,

sides of the Susquehanna river, many families, with their cattle, sought shelter, being unable to find it in towns.

The citizens of Philadel

Large sums were collected

phia hastened to contribute to their relief. by subscription from individuals and associations in the city, and in all the counties in the province, and judiciously applied for the relief of the sufferers.

After the first panic had passed away, the frontier settlers associated themselves together, and, under the care of divisions of the regular troops and militia, succeeded in collecting and saving the remnant of their crops. (1)

The Indians had already surrounded Fort Pitt, and cut off all communication from it, even by message. Though they had no cannon, nor understood the methods of regular siege, yet with incredible boldness, they posted themselves under the banks of both rivers by the walls of the fort, and continued as it were buried there, from day to day, with astonishing patience, pouring in an incessant storm of musketry and fire arrows; hoping at length, by famine, by fire, or by harrassing the garrison, to carry their point.

Captain Ecuyer, who commanded there, though he wanted several necessaries for sustaining the siege: and the fortifications had been damaged by the floods, took all the precautions that art and judgment could suggest for the repair of the place, and repulsing the enemy. His garrison, joined by the inhabitants, and surviving traders who had taken refuge there, seconded his efforts with resolution. Their situation was alarming, being remote from all immediate assistance, and having to deal with an enemy from whom they had no mercy to expect.

General Amherst, the Commander-in-chief, not being able to provide in time for the safety of the remote posts, bent his chief attention to the relief of Detroit, Niagara and Fort Pitt. The communication with the two former, was chiefly by water, from the province of New York, and it was on this account, the more easy to throw succor into them.— It was on this account that Captain Dalyell was dispatched for the relief of Detroit, an account of which has before been given.(2)

Fort Pitt remained all this while in a most critical situation. account could be obtained from the garrison, nor any relief sent to it, but by a long and tedious march of near two hundred miles beyond the

No

(1) Gordon's Hist. Penna, p. 93, 89-6.

settlements, and through those dangerous passes, where the fate of Braddock and others, still rises to the imagination.

Colonel Bouquet was appointed to march to the relief of Fort Pitt, with a large quantity of military stores and provisions, escorted by the shattered remains of the forty-second and seventy-seventh regiments, lately returned in a dismal condition from the West Indies, and far from being recovered of their fatigues at the siege of Havana. General Amherst, having at that time, no other troops to spare, was obliged to employ them in a service, which would have required men of the strongest constitution and vigor.

Early orders had been given to prepare a convoy of provisions on the frontiers of Pennsylvania, but such was the universal terror and consternation of the inhabitants, that when Col. Bouquet arrived at Carlisle, nothing had yet been done. A great number of the plantations had been plundered and burnt by the savages; many of the mills were destroyed, and the full ripe crops stood waving in the field, ready for the sickle, but the reapers were not to be found!

The greatest part of the county of Cumberland, through which the army had to pass, was deserted, and the roads were covered with distressed families, flying from their settlements, and destitute of all the necessaries of life.

In the midst of that general confusion, the supplies necessary for the expedition, became very precarious, nor was it less difficult to procure horses and carriages, for the use of the troops.

The commander found that, instead of expecting such supplies from a miserable people, he himself, was called by the voice of humanity, to bestow on them some share of his own provisions, to relieve their present exigency. However, in eighteen days after his arrival at Carlisle,(1) by the prudent measures which he pursued, joined to his knowledge of

(1) Col. Bouquet wrote Gov. Hamilton, from Carlisle, July 3d, 1763. SIR-1 am sorry to acquaint you that our posts at Presque Isle, Le Boeuf and Venango, are cut off, and the garrison massacred, except one officer and seven men, who have escaped from Le Boeuf. Fort Pitt was briskly attacked the 22d June-had only a few men killed and wounded; and dispersed the enemy. Fort Ligonier has likewise stood a vigorous attack, by means of some men who reinforced that small garrison from the militia of Bedford. The Indians expect a strong reinforcement to make new attempts on these two posts.

If the measures, I had the honor to recommend to you in my letters of yes. terday, are not immediately put into execution, 1 foresee the ruin of the part of the province on this side of the Susquehanna; and as York county would be covered by Cumberland, I think they ought to join in assisting to build some posts, and saving the harvest. It would not be less necessary to send immediately arms and ammunition to be distributed to the inhabitants to de

the country, and the diligence of the persons he employed, the convoy and carriages were procured with the assistance of the interior parts of the country, and the army proceeded.

Their march did not abate the fears of the dejected inhabitants. They knew the strength and ferocity of the enemy. They remembered the former defects even of our best troops, and were full of diffidence and apprehensions on beholding the small number and sickly state of the regulars employed in this expedition. Without the least hopes, therefore, of success, they seemed only to wait for the fatal event, which they dreaded, to abandon all the country beyond the Susquehanna.

In such despondency of mind, it is not surprising, that, though their whole was at stake, and depended entirely upon the exertions of this little army, none of them offered to assist in the defence of the country, by joining the expedition; in which they would have been of infinite service, being in general well acquainted with the woods, and excellent marksmen.

It cannot be contested that the defeat of the regular troops on this occasion, would have left the province of Pennsylvania in particular exposed to the most imminent danger, from a victorious, daring and barbarous enemy; for, excepting the frontier people of Cumberland county, the bulk of its industrious inhabitants was composed of merchants, tradesmen and farmers, unaccustomed to arms, and without a militia law.

The legislature ordered, indeed, seven hundred men to be raised for the protection of the frontiers during the harvest; but what dependence could be placed in raw troops, newly raised and undisciplined? Under so many discouraging circumstances, the Colonel, deprived of all assistance from the provinces, and having none to expect from the General, who had sent him the last man who could be removed from the hospitals, had nothing else to trust to, but about five hundred soldiers of approved courage and resolution indeed, but infirm, and entire strangers to the woods, and to this new kind of war. A number of them were even so weak, as not to be able to march, and sixty were carried in wagons to reinforce the garrisons of the small posts on the road.

Meanwhile, Fort Ligonier, situated beyond the Allegheny mountains, was in the greatest danger of falling into the hands of the enemy, before the army could reach it. The stockade being very bad, and the garrison extremely weak, they had attacked it vigorously, but had been repulsed by the bravery and good conduct of Lieut. Blane, who commanded there.

The preservation of that post was of the utmost consequence, on ac

count of its situation and the quantity of military stores it contained, which, if the enemy could have got possession of, would have enabled them to continue their attack upon Fort Pitt, and reduced the army to the greatest straights. For an object of that importance, every risk was to be run; and the Colonel determined to send through the woods, with proper guides, a party of thirty men to join that garrison. They succeeded by forced marches in that hazardous attempt, not having been discovered by the enemy till they came within sight of the fort, into which they threw themselves, after receiving some running shot.

Previous to that reinforcement of regulars, twenty volunteers, all good woodsmen, had been sent to Fort Ligonier by Capt. Ourry, who commanded at Fort Bedford, another very considerable magazine of provisions and military stores, the principal and central post between Carlisle and Fort Pitt, being about one hundred miles distant from each. This fort was also in a ruinous condition, and very weakly garrisoned, although the two small intermediate posts, at the crossing of the Juniata and Stony creek, had been abandoned to strengthen it.

Here the distressed families, scattered for twelve or fifteen miles around, fled for protection, leaving most of their effects a prey to the savages.

All the necessary precautions were taken by the commanding officer to prevent surprise, and repel open force, as also to render ineffectual the enemy's fire arrows. He armed all the fighting men, who formed two companies of volunteers, and did duty with the garrison till the arrival of two companies of light infantry, detached as soon as possible from Col. Bouquet's little army.

These two magazines being secured, the Colonel advanced to the remotest verge of our settlements, where he could receive no sort of intelligence of number, positions, or motions of the enemy. Not even at Fort Bedford, where he arrived with his whole convoy on the 25th of July, for though the Indians did not attempt to attack the fort, they had by this time killed, scalped, and taken eighteen prisoners in that neighborhood, and their skulking parties were so spread, that at last no express could escape them. This want of intelligence, was a very embarrassing circumstance in the conduct of a campaign in America. The Indians had better intelligence, and no sooner were they informed of the march of the army, than they broke up the siege of Fort Pitt, and took a route by which they knew the enemy was to proceed, resolved to take advantageous opportunity of an attack on the march.

In this uncertainty of intelligence under which the Colonel labored,