tion affecting personal freedom. The cry for "Wilkes and Liberty" was heard in all parts of the British dominion. 1763. In the midst of the confusion, Grenville set about confirming himself in power by diligence in the pub- April. lic business. He meant well for the public service, and was certainly indefatigable. "His self-conceit," said Lord Holland afterwards, "as well as his pride and obstinacy, established him." For the joint secretary of the treasury, he selected an able and sensible lawyer, Thomas Whately. For his secretary as chancellor of the exchequer he chose Richard Jackson; and the choice is strong proof that, though he entered upon his task blindly and in ignorance of the colonies, yet his intentions were fair, for Jackson was a liberal member of the house of commons, a good lawyer, not eager to increase his affluent fortune, frank, independent, and abhorring intrigue. He was, moreover, better acquainted with the state of America, and exercised a sounder judgment on questions of colonial administration, than, perhaps, any man in England. His excellent character led Connecticut and Pennsylvania to make him their agent; and he gave the latter province even better advice than Franklin himself. He was always able to combine affection for England with uprightness and fidelity to his American employers. To a mind like Grenville's, the protective system had irresistible attractions. He saw in trade the foundation of the wealth and power of his country; and, on coming into power, he wished by regulations and restrictions to advance the commerce, which really owed its superiority to the greater liberty of England. He prepared to recharter the bank of England; to connect it still more closely with the funding system; to sustain the credit of the merchants, under the revulsion consequent on peace; to increase the public revenue, and to expend it with frugality. America, with its new acquisitions, Florida, the valley of the Mississippi, and Canada, lay invitingly before him. The enforcing of the navigation acts was peculiarly his own policy, and was the first leading feature of his administration. An American revenue was his second great object. This he combined with the purpose of so dividing the public burdens between England and America as to diminish the motive to emigrate from Great Britain and Ireland. In less than a month after Bute's retirement, Egremont asked the advice of the lords of trade on the organization of governments in the newly acquired territories, the military force to be kept up in America, and in what mode least burdensome and most palatable to the colonies they could contribute towards the support of the additional expense which must attend their civil and military establishment. 1763. May. The head of the board of trade was the Earl of Shelburne. He was at that time not quite six-andtwenty years old, had served creditably in the seven years' war as a volunteer, and, on his return, was appointed aide-de-camp to George III. While his report was waited for, Grenville, through Charles Jenkinson, began his system of retrenchment by an order to the commander in chief of the forces in Amer ica, now that the peace was made, to withdraw the allowance for victualling the regiments stationed in the cultivated parts of America. This expense was to be met in future by the colonies. CHAPTER VII. PONTIAC'S WAR. THE TRIUMVIRATE MINISTRY CONTINUED. MAY-SEPTEMBER, 1763. 1763. May. THE western territory, of which England believed itself to have come into possession, was one continuous forest, interrupted only by rocks or prairies or waters, or an Indian cleared field for maize. The English came into the illimitable waste as conquerors; and here and there in the solitudes, all the way from Niagara to the Falls of the St. Mary and the banks of the St. Joseph's, a log fort with a picketed enclosure was the emblem of their pretensions. In their haste to supplant the French, they were blind to danger; and their posts were often left dependent on the Indians for supplies. The smaller garrisons consisted only of an ensign, a sergeant, and perhaps fourteen men; and were stationed at points so remote from one another that, lost in the boundless woods, they could no more be discerned than a fleet of canoes scattered over the Atlantic, too minute to be perceptible, and safe only during fair weather. Yet, feeble as they were, their presence alarmed the red man; for it implied the design to occupy the country which for ages had been his own. His canoe could no longer quiver on the bosom of the St. Mary's, or pass into the clear waters of Lake Huron, or paddle through the strait that connects Huron and Erie, or cross to the waters of the Ohio, without passing by the British flag. By what right was that banner unfurled in the west? What claim to the red man's forest could the English derive from victories over the French? The latter seemed no more to be masters, but rather companions and friends. Enemies now appeared, arrogant in their pretensions, inso lent toward those whom they superseded, driving away their Catholic priests, and introducing the traffic in rum, which till then had been effectually prohibited. Since the French must go, no other nation should take their place. The red men must vindicate their right to their own heritage. 1763. May. The conspiracy began with the lower nations, who were the chief instigators of discontent. "The English mean to make slaves of us, by occupying so many posts in our country. We had better attempt something now, to recover our liberty, than wait till they are better established." So spoke the Senecas to the Delawares, and they to the Shawnees, and the Shawnees to the Miamis and Wyandots, whose chiefs, slain in battle by the English, were still unavenged, until, from the Niagara and the Alleghanies to the Mississippi and Lake Superior, all the nations concerted to rise and put the English to death. The plot was discovered in March by the officer in command at Miami; and, "after a long and troublesome " interview, the bloody belt, which was then in the village and was to be sent forward to the tribes on the Wabash, was obtained from the Miami chiefs. On receiving the news, Amherst prepared re-enforcements, and threatened that the mischief should recoil on the Indians themselves, and end in their destruction. But Pontiac, "the king and lord of all the north-west," a Catawba prisoner, as is said, adopted into the clan of the Ottawas, and elected their chief; respected, and in a manner adored, by all the nations around him; a man "of integrity and humanity," according to the morals of the wilderness; fertile in resources, and of an undaunted nature, persevered in the design of recovering the land of the Senecas, and all west of it, by a confederacy of Indian nations. - Of the remote north-western settlements, Detroit was the largest and the most important. The deep, majestic river, more than a half mile broad, carrying its vast flood calmly and noiselessly between the strait and well-defined banks of its channel, imparted grandeur to a country whose rising grounds and meadows, plains festooned with prolific wild vines, woodlands, brooks, and fountains, were so mingled together that nothing was left to desire. The climate was mild, and the air salubrious. Good land abounded, yielding maize, wheat, and every vegetable. The forests were a natural park, stocked with buffaloes, deer, quails, partridges, and wild turkeys. Water-fowl of delicious flavor hovered along its streams, which yielded to the angler an astonishing variety of fish, especially the white fish, the richest and most luscious of them all. Every luxury of the table might be enjoyed at the sole expense of labor. The cheerful region attracted settlers, alike white men and savages. About sixty French families occupied both banks of the river, on farms, which were about three or four acres wide upon the river, and eighty acres deep; indolent in the midst of plenty, graziers as well as tillers of the soil, and enriched by Indian traffic. The English fort, of which Gladwin was the commander, was a large stockade, about twenty feet high and twelve hundred yards in circumference, enclosing, perhaps, eighty houses. It stood within the limits of the present city, on the river bank, commanding a wide prospect for nine miles above and below. The garrison was composed of the eightieth regiment, reduced to about one hundred and twenty men and eight officers. Two armed vessels lay in the river; of artillery, there were but two six-pounders, one threepounder, and three mortars, so badly mounted as to be of no use except to inspire terror. The nation of the Pottawatomies dwelt about a mile below the fort; the Wyandots, a little lower down, on the eastern side of the strait; and five miles higher up, but on the same eastern side, the Ottawas. 1763. On the first day of May, Pontiac entered the fort with about fifty of his warriors, announcing his pur- May. pose in a few days to pay a more formal visit. He appeared on the seventh, with about three hundred warriors, armed with knives, tomahawks, and guns cut short and hid under their blankets. He was to sit down in council, and, when he should rise, was to speak with a belt white on one |