vigor, and I believe that more noise could not have been made by the same number of men their shouts could not be heard for the firearms; but a continual blaze was kept around the garrison without much being done until about daybreak, when our troops were drawn off to posts prepared for them about sixty or seventy yards from the fort. A loophole then could scarcely be darkened but a rifle-ball would pass through it. To have stood to their cannon would have destroyed their men without a probability of doing much service. Our situation was nearly similar. It would have been imprudent in either party to have wasted their men without some decisive stroke required it.

"Thus the attack continued until about nine o'clock on the morning of the twenty-fourth. Learning that the two prisoners they had brought in the day before had a considerable number of letters with them, I supposed it an express that we expected about this time, which I knew to be of the greatest moment to us, as we had not received one since our arrival in the country; and, not being fully acquainted with the character of our enemy, we were doubtful that those papers might be destroyed to prevent which I sent a flag (with a letter) demanding the garrison.'

may depend on such Beware of destroying that are in your pos

We include here a copy of the letter which Col. Clark addressed to the British governor: "SIR: In order to save yourself from the impending storm that now threatens you, I order you immediately to surrender yourself, with all your garrison, stores, etc. For if I am obliged to storm, you treatment as is justly due to a murderer. stores of any kind, or any papers or letters session, or hurting one house in town-for, by heavens! if you do, there shall be no mercy shown you." In answer to this bold letter, Gov. Hamilton sent this reply: "Lieut. Gov. Hamilton begs leave to acquaint Col. Clark that he and his garrison are not disposed to be awed into any action unworthy British subjects."

When this refusal was received the firing was resumed and continued until evening when a flag appeared with this proposal: "Lieut. Gov. Hamilton proposes to Col. Clark a truce for three days, during which time he promises there shall be no defensive works carried on in the garrison, on condition that Col. Clark shall observe on his part a like cessation of any defensive work;

that is, he wishes to confer with Col. Clark as soon as can be, and promises that whatever may pass between them and another person, mutually agreed upon to be present, shall remain secret until matters be finished, as he wishes that whatever the result of the conference may be, it may tend to the honor and credit of each party. If Col. Clark makes a difficulty of coming into the fort, Lieut. Gov. Hamilton will speak to him by the gate."

Col. Clark refused to discontinue the siege, and offered to meet the British officer at the church with Capt. Helm, who was then a prisoner in the fort. The meeting was had, and after much argument, terms of capitulation were agreed upon, and on the following day the garrison was surrendered, and the bold Clark took possession of the fort. Soon after, the vessel with the stores and provisions arrived in good condition, and the Americans at Vincennes were rejoicing over their exploit.

Seventy-nine prisoners, and stores to the value of $50,000 were obtained by this bold and desperate enterprise, and the whole country along the Mississippi and. the Wabash was not only secured to, but remained ever after in the peaceful possession of the Americans. Gov. Hamilton was sent to Richmond, and his men permitted to return to Detroit on parole of honor. Six were badly, and one mortally wounded on the part of the British, and only one man wounded on the part of the Americans. The gov ernor and some others were sent prisoners to Virginia, where the council ordered their confinement in jail, fettered and alone, in punishment for their abominable policy of urging barbarians to greater barbarism, as they surely had done by offering rewards for scalps, but none for prisoners, a course which naturally resulted in wholesale and cold blooded murder; the Indians driving captives within sight of the British forts and then butchering them. As this rigid confinement, however just, was not in accordance with the terms of Hamilton's surrender, Gen. Phillips protested in regard to it, and Jefferson having referred the matter to the commander-in-chief, Washington gave his opinion decidedly against it, in consequence of which the council of Virginia released the Detroit "hair buyer" from his irons.* Clark returned to Kaskaskia, where, in consequence of the competition of the tra

*Spark's Washington, vi, 315.

ders, he found himself more embarrassed from the depreciation of the paper money which had been advanced him by Virginia than he had been by the movements of the British; and where he was forced to pledge his own credit to procure what he needed, to an extent that influenced vitally his own forture and life thenceforward. After the taking of Vincennes, Detroit was undoubtedly within the reach of the enterprising Virginian, had he been but able to raise as many soldiers as were starving and idling at Forts Laurens and McIntosh. In his letter to Mr. Jefferson, he says, that with five hundred men, when he reached Illinois, or with three hundred after the conquest of Post Vincennes, he could have taken Detroit. The people of Detroit rejoiced greatly when they heard of Hamilton's capture. Gov. Henry having promised him a reinforcement, he concluded to wait for that, as his force was too small to both conquer and garrison the British forts. But the results of what was done were not unimportant; indeed of very great importance.

CHAPTER XV.

BRITISH, INDIANS AND AMERICANS.

The Struggle for the Northwest between English, Indians and Americans, continued The Americans Triumphant -Peace-The Ordinance of

1787.

DURING THE revolutionary war and for several years after, the British posts in the lake region, such as Niagara, Presque Isle, Detroit, etc., were instrumental in keeping up a disastrous border war from which the Americans cause suffered much. The pious Moravian missionaries, on the banks of the Muskingum, did not escape the hand of the English at Detroit. They were suspected of holding a secret correspondence with the congress at Philadel phia, and of contributing their influence, as well as that of their Indian congregation, to aid the American cause. Deputies were therefore sent to Niagara, and a grand council of the Iroquois was assembled, at which those Indians were urged to break up

the Indian congregation collected by the Moravians. These tribes, not wishing to have anything to do with it, sent a message to the Chippewas and Ottawas, with a belt, stating that they gave the Indian congregation into their hands "to make soup of."

In 1781, these Moravian missionaries arrived at Detroit, when they were brought before De Peyster, the commandant. A war council was held, and the council house completely filled with Indians. Capt. Pipe, an Indian chief, addressed the assembly, and told the commandant that "the English might fight the Americans if they chose; it was their cause, and not his; that they had raised a quarrel among themselves, and it was their business to fight it out. They had set him on the Americans, as the hunter sets his dog upon the game." By the side of the British commander stood another war chief, with a stick in his hand, four feet in length, strung with American scalps. This warrior followed Capt. Pipe, saying: "Now, father, here is what has been done with the hatchet you gave me. I have made the use of it that you ordered me to do, and found it sharp." Such were the scenes at Detroit that occurred frequently, from the close of the Pontiac war till the advent of the "stars and stripes." During the whole course of the revolutionary war, the savage tribes in this vicinity were instigated to commit the most atrocious cruelties against the defenseless American settlements. Every avenue was closed whereby a different influence might be introduced among them, and they were made to believe that the Americans were only seeking to possess themselves of their lands, and to drive them away from the territory they had inherited from their fathers. But at last the cause of America was triumphant, and the treaty of Versailles, in 1783, opened the way for the settlement of the northwest, but no sooner was a treaty of peace concluded, than new troubles began to arise. We have seen how, during the revolutionary war, the western outposts of Great Britain were instrumental in sending the savages against the weak settlements; and, now that the Americans had been. victorious, England refused to withdraw her troops from the garrisons in the lake region. However, by the second article of Jay's treaty, in 1794, it was provided that the British troops should be withdrawn from all the posts assigned to the United States by the

former treaty of 1783, on or before the first day of June, 1796. This matter being settled, the American people turned their attention to the northwest, with a view to its settlement; and measures were accordingly taken for its temporary government. The circumstances which had more particularly directed the public attention to the western domain was a memorial from the soldiers and officers of the Revolutionary army, presented to Gen. Washington in 1783, setting forth their claims to a portion of the public lands. One difficulty that lay in the way was that the territory northwest of the Ohio was claimed by several of the eastern states, on the ground that it was included within the limits indicated by their charter from the English crown. But, in answer to the wishes of the government and people, these states, in a patriotic spirit, surrendered their claims to this extensive territory, that it might constitute a common fund, to aid in the payment of the national debt. Many of the native tribes conveyed to the United States their rights to territory in this domain, and thus was the way prepared for the erection of the territory northwest of the Ohio. A government was formed for this extensive region, with Arthur St. Clair as governor; and, on the seventh of April, 1788, a company of forty-seven individuals landed at the site of the present town of Marietta, and there commenced the settlement of Ohio. We have seen that the western posts were still retained by the British government. This gave rise to several questions of no little interest, which excited unfriendly feelings between the two nations, and which largely governed their policy. Debts due by Americans to British subjects, the payment of which had been guarantied by the treaty, were not paid; and, on the other hand, the slaves belonging to Americans, and who had been taken away by British officers, were not restored. In consequence of these, and other unsettled matters, when Baron Steuben was sent by Gen. Washington to Sir Frederick Haldimand, at Quebec, to arrange for the occupation of these posts, with instructions to proceed to Michigan, and along the line of the lake frontier, for the purpose of taking possession of them, he was informed that they would not be given up, and was refused passports to Niagara and Detroit. In addition to the retention of the western posts by the English, a new confederacy among the savages was organizing.