every side, killing one man and wounding another. The night of the twenty-third, they reconnoitred the fort, and after midnight sought a conference. "Brother, the commanding officer," said Turtle's Heart, a principal warrior of the Delawares, "all your posts and strong places, from this backwards, are burnt and cut off. Your fort, fifty miles down [meaning Ligonier], is likewise destroyed before now. This is the only one you have left in our country. We have prevailed with six different nations of Indians, that are ready to attack you, to forbear till we came and warned you to go home. They have further agreed to permit you and your people to pass safe to the inhabitants. Therefore, brother, we desire that you may set off to-morrow, as great numbers of Indians are coming here, and after two days we shall not be able to do any thing with them for you.' In reply to this second summons, the commander warned the Indians of their danger from three English armies, on their march to the frontier of Virginia, to Fort Pitt, and to the north-west. 1763. July. A schooner, with a re-enforcement of sixty men, reached Detroit in June; at daybreak of the twentyninth of July, the garrison was gladdened by the appearance of Dalyell, an aide-de-camp to Amherst, with a detachment of two hundred and sixty men. They had entered the river in the evening, and came up under cover of the night. After but one day's rest, Dalyell proposed a midnight sally. He was cautioned that they were on their guard; but the express instructions of Amherst were on his side. Gladwin reluctantly yielded; and, half an hour before three o'clock on the last morning of July, Dalyell marched out with two hundred and forty-seven chosen men, while two boats followed along shore to protect the party and bring off the wounded and dead. They proceeded in double file, along the great road by the river side, for a mile and a half, then, forming into platoons, they advanced a half mile further, when they suddenly received, from the breastworks of the Indians, a destructive fire, which threw them into confusion. The party which made the sally could escape being surrounded only by an inglorious retreat. Twenty of the English were killed, and forty-two wounded; leaving to a peaceful rivulet the name of The Bloody Run. Dalyell himself fell while attempting to bring off the wounded; his scalp became one more ornament to the red man's wigwam. This victory encouraged the confederates; two hundred recruits joined the forces of Pontiac, and the siege of Detroit was kept up by bands exceeding a thousand men. Once more the Delawares gathered around Fort Pitt, accompanied by the Shawnees. The chiefs, in the name of their tribes and of the north-western Indians, for a third time summoned the garrison to retire. "Brothers," said they, "you have towns and places of your own. You know this is our country. All the nations over the lakes are soon to be on their way to the forks of the Ohio. Here is the wampum. If you return quietly home to your wise men, this is the furthest they will go. If not, see what will be the consequence; so we desire that you do remove off.” The next day, Ecuyer gave his answer: "You 1763. suffered the French to settle in the heart of your country; why would you turn us out of it now? I will not abandon this post; I have warriors, provisions, and ammunition in plenty to defend it three years against all the Indians in the woods. Go home to your towns, and take care of your women and children." July. No sooner was this answer received than the united forces of the Delawares, Shawnees, Wyandots, and Mingoes beset and attacked the fort. With incredible boldness, they took post under the banks of both rivers, close to the fort, where, digging holes, they kept up an incessant discharge of musketry and threw fire arrows. Though the English were under cover, they killed one and wounded seven. Ecuyer himself was struck on the leg by an arrow. This continued through the last day of July, when they suddenly vanished. Bouquet was at that time making his way to relieve Fort Pitt and re-enforce Detroit, with about five hundred men, chiefly Highlanders; driving a hundred beeves and twice that number of sheep, with powder, flour, and provisions on pack-horses and in wagons drawn by oxen. Between Carlisle and Bedford, they passed the ruins of mills, deserted cabins, fields ripe for the harvest, but without a reaper. 1763. Aug. On the second day of August, the troops and convoy arrived at Ligonier, whose commander could give no intelligence of the enemy. All the expresses for the previous month had been killed or forced to return. Leaving the wagons at Ligonier, Bouquet, on the fourth, proceeded with the troops and about three hundred and fifty pack-horses. At one o'clock on the fifth, the savages, who had been at Fort Pitt, attacked the advance-guard; but two companies of Highlanders drove them from their ambuscade. When the pursuit ceased, the savages returned. Again the Highlanders charged with fixed bayonets; but as soon as the savages were driven from one post they appeared in another, and at last were in such numbers as to surround the English, who would have been utterly routed and cut to pieces but for the cool behavior of the troops and the excellent conduct of the officers. Night intervened, during which the English remained on Edge Hill, a ridge a mile to the east of Bushy Run, commodious for a camp except for the total want of water. All that night hope cheered the red men. Morning dawned only to show the English party that they were beleaguered on every side. They could not advance to give battle, for then their convoy and their wounded men would have fallen a prey to the enemy; if they remained quiet, they would be picked off one by one. With happy sagacity, Bouquet feigned a retreat. The red men hurried to charge with the utmost daring, when two companies, that had lain hid, fell upon their flank; others turned and met them in front; and the Indians were routed and put to flight. But Bouquet in the two actions lost, in killed and wounded, about one fourth of his men, and almost all his horses, so that he was obliged to destroy his stores. At night, the English encamped at Bushy Run, and in four days more they arrived at Pittsburg. Before news of this last conflict with the red men could reach New York, the wrath of Amherst against "the bloody villains" had burst all bounds; and he became himself a man of blood. "As to accommodation with the savages, I will have none," said he, "until they have felt our just revenge. I would have every measure that can be fallen upon for their destruction taken.” "Whoever kills Pontiac, the chief ringleader of mischief, shall receive from me a reward of one hundred pounds; " and of this he bade the commander at Detroit make public proclamation. He deemed the Indians not only unfit to be allies and unworthy of being respected as enemies, "but as the vilest race of beings that ever infested the earth, and whose riddance from it must be esteemed a meritorious act, for the good of mankind. You will, therefore," such were his instructions to the officers engaged in the war, "take no prisoners, but put to death all that fall into your hands." 1763. Sept. Had this spirit prevailed, the war would have been continued by an endless series of alternate murders, in which the more experienced Indian excelled the white man. The Senecas, against whom Amherst had specially directed unsparing hostilities, lay in ambush for one of his convoys about three miles below Niagara Falls; and, on its passing over the carrying-place, fell upon it with such suddenness and vigor that but eight wounded men escaped with their lives, while seventy-two were victims to the scalping-knife. The first effective measures towards a general pacification proceeded from the French in Illinois. De Neyon, the French officer at Fort Chartres, sent belts and messages and peace-pipes to all parts of the continent, exhorting the many nations of savages to bury the hatchet, and take the English by the hand, for a representative of the king of France would be seen among them nevermore. CHAPTER VIII. THE TREASURY ENTER A MINUTE FOR AN AMERICAN STAMPTAX. MINISTRY OF GRENVILLE AND BEDFORD. MAY-SEPTEMBER, 1763. 1763. May. THE savage warfare was relentlessly raging, when the young statesman, to whom the forms of office had referred the subject of the colonies, was devising plans for organizing governments in the newly acquired territories. Of an Irish family, and an Irish as well as an English peer, Shelburne naturally inclined to limit the legislative authority of the parliament of Great Britain over the outlying dominions of the crown. The world gave him credit for great abilities; he had just been proposed to supersede Egremont in the department of state, and, except the lawyers who had been raised to the peerage, he was the best speaker in the house of lords. June. For the eastern boundary of New England, Shelburne hesitated between the Penobscot and the St. Croix; on the north-east, he adopted the crest of the watershed dividing the streams tributary to the St. Lawrence River from those flowing into the Bay of Fundy, or the Atlantic Ocean, or the Gulf of St. Lawrence, south of Cape Rosières, designating the line on a map, which is still preserved. At the south, the boundary of Georgia was extended to its present limit. Of Canada, General Murray proposed to make a military colony, and to include within it the lands on the Ohio and the lakes, in order to overawe the older colonies. Shelburne, in a more liberal spirit, desired to restrict that province by a line drawn from the intersection of the parallel of forty-five degrees north with the St. Lawrence to the east end of Lake Nipising. This advice was rejected by Egre |