Pitt, full of his characteristic energy, holding a court on Mr. Scott, one of Governor Penn's justices, for refusing to obey his proclamation of the 17th of September.

On the 4th of December he reached his home at Williamsburgh, Virginia, and under the same notice we learn that, in his treaty with the Indians, they agreed to deliver up all white prisoners, with the horses and other plunder taken from the inhabitants. They also promised not to hunt south of the Ohio, and not to molest any travelers upon that river. (1 Vol. 4th series, Amer. Archives, 1170.)

After the return of Lord Dunmore to his palace at Williamsburgh, congratulatory addresses were showered upon him from various quarters, for his successful campaign against the Indians; to all which he returned modest and sensible answers. As a specimen of the estimation in which he was held by the people of Virginia, the following resolution was passed by the members of the convention, on the 25th March, 1775, then sitting at Richmond, and composed of the best men in the colony, viz:

"Resolved, unanimously, that the most cordial thanks of the people of the colony are a tribute justly due to our worthy Governor, Lord Dunmore, for his truly noble, wise and spirited conduct, on the late expedition against our Indian enemy; a conduct which at once evinces his excellency's attention to the true interests of this colony, and a zeal in the executive department which no dangers can divert, or difficulties hinder, from achieving the most important services to the people, who have the happiness to live under his administration."

A vote of thanks was also passed to the officers and soldiers of the expedition: (Amer. Arch. vol. 2, page 170 and 301, &c.) Before the close of that year, we find him driven forth from the loyal colony of Virginia, and the people in arms against him, while he is equally inveterate against them. They were both acting from correct and honorable principles; he for the king, his master, whose

sovereignty and interest he was sworn to support and defend; and they for the protection of their own rights and liberties, which were in danger of being wrested from them. The result is well known to history. Subsequent events proved, that through the agency of Connolly, the arch mover of mischief, attempts were made to organize a confederacy, composed of tories and Indians, to invade the colony of Virginia, on the north and west, while the Brittish troops attacked them on the sea-board, placing them between two fires. The attempt failed; and being driven from his strong hold, near Norfolk, by General Lewis, his former friend and companion, he shortly after left the coast, and proceeded to Florida, where he was employed by the king, and appointed Governor of New Providence island. We find him engaged in the year 1781, in an enterprise with the Creek Indians, persuading them to attack the Americans. (Arch. Am., vol. 5.) When or where he died is to us unknown, but that he ranked among the most able, enterprising, and energetic of the colonial governors at the period of the revolution, there can be no doubt. Twenty years after this period, when the setlers of the Ohio company took possession of their lands at the mouth of the Big Hockhocking, the outlines of Dunmore's camping ground were easily distinguished. A tract containing several acres had the appearance of an old clearing, grown up with stout saplings. In plowing their fields for several years after, mementos of the former occupants were often found, consisting of hatchets, gun barrels, knives, swords and bullets, brought to light in the upturned furrow. In one place, several hundred leaden bullets were discovered, lying in a heap, as if they had been buried in a keg or box. A tolerably perfect sword is now to be seen in the museum of the University, at Athens, Ohio, which was found on the west side of the river, near the roots of a fallen tree.

From the year 1774, to 1794, the Indians, especially the Shawanees, carried on a continual warfare with the settlers

on the frontiers, from the falls of the Ohio to Fort Pitt. It is true, there were several treaties made with the different tribes, within this time, and there were short intervals of what was called peace, but there was no year in which depredations were not committed on the lives and property of the whites.

1775.

In the spring of this year, Fort Randolph was built by troops from Virginia, at the mouth of the Great Kenawha, under the command of Captain Arbuckle. In September of this year, commissioners appointed by Congress met at Fort Pitt, to treat with the western Indians. Arthur St. Clair, at that time Prothonotary of Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, was one of the commissioners.

CHAPTER VI.

Transactions at Pittsburgh in 1776, 1777 and 1778 during the war. - Colonel Morgan, Indian agent.- His character.-Moravian Indians friendly to United States. Commissioners meet to treat with the western tribes.-Difficulties. Report of Mr. Wilson, the messenger sent to visit their towns. Letter of Colonel Morgan to John Hancock, President of Congress. - Indian murder, near Washington, Pa.—Transactions at Fort Pitt.-Letter of Captain Arbuckle.-Speech of Colonel Morgan to the Shawanees. - Delawares arrive at Fort Pitt.-Thirty large boats built for the transport of troops, &c.-Indian banditti.-Letter of Captain Morehead.-Indian letter.Proceedings at Fort Pitt-Price of provisions.-Letter to the toriesStrength of the western tribes.-Fort McIntosh.-Boundary of Delawares, &c. &c.-Extracts from the Journals of Colonel George Morgan, kept at Fort Pitt, in the years 1776, 1777 and 1778.

COLONEL MORGAN was appointed Indian agent for the middle department, the head quarters of which office were at Pittsburgh, by Congress, in April, 1776. He was a man of unwearied activity, great perseverance, and familiar with the Indian manners and habits; having for several years had charge of a trading post in the Illinois, after that country was given up by the French, owned by a commercial house in Philadelphia. His frank manners, soldierly bearing, generosity, and, above all, his strict honesty in all his dealings with them, won their fullest confidence; and no white man was ever more highly esteemed than was Colonel Morgan, by all the savages who had any intercourse with him. He was a native of Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania, and, at the time of his appointment, held the post of colonel in the army of the United States. Such extracts as will throw any light on the history of that period in the west, and the condition and feelings of the Indians and frontier inhabitants towards each other, will be copied.

It had early been the settled policy of Congress, and which was continued through this unnatural contest between the mother country and the colonies, to persuade the Indians to remain neutral, and not take up the hatchet on either side. It was a war in which they had no concern, and they were desired to keep quiet. The British government, however, pursued a very different course, and urged them, on all occasions, to side with them, and assist in subduing their rebellious children. For this purpose, they supplied them with arms and ammunition, and paid them a bounty on scalps: one of the most cruel and inhuman kinds of traffic ever entered into by a civilized people.

The main object of all the treaties with the Indians by the United States, during the war, was to keep them quiet, and persuade them not to molest the border inhabitants. For this purpose, they received many presents, at the close of these treaties, of clothing, blankets, &c., but little or no ammunition or arms.

The British, on the other hand, supplied them with all these articles, in four fold quantities, for the purpose of attaching them to their interests; while the Congress, from their poverty, and their absolute inability to furnish them with foreign goods in large amounts, rather sunk in the estimation of the Indians. They had the shrewdness to perceive the poverty of the United States when compared with the wealth and grandeur of their old father, the king of Great Britain; and during the whole contest acted either openly or covertly on that side. A large portion of the Delaware Indians, in addition to all those who had been converted to Christianity by the agency of the Moravian missionaries, continued to be steadfast in their friendship to the Americans, and on all occasions these Christian Indians sent timely notice, if in their power, of the marching of war parties to attack the border inhabitants of Pennsylvania and Virginia.

These friendly acts were, no doubt, promoted by the kind