authority to raise three additional regiments of foot, and a squadron of horse, for three years, unless peace should be sooner made with the Indians. A bill containing these provisions, was introduced into the house of representatives, but it met with great opposition there. It was objected that the nation had not the money to carry on the war, upon such a scale; that while the British held the western posts, we were not able to protect so large a frontier; that, by withdrawing from the North Western Territory, and by making the Ohio river the boundary; and, by treating with the Indians, a peace might be restored to this frontier.

Such were some of the reasons, assigned by the opposition to General Washington, in congress. They strove with all their might, to defeat the bill, for the defence of the North Western Territory.

Those who supported the measure, urged the necessity of self defence and self preservation; they presented to congress, a picture of the bleeding frontier-and they proved, that not less than fifteen hundred Kentuckians, men, women and children, who were peaceably, pursuing their avocations, had been, either slain or carried into captivity by the enemy, within the, then, last seven years; and it was not doubted, that the frontier settlements of Pennsylvania and Virginia, had suffered quite as much, within the same period of time. The measures of General Washington they said, had always been conciliatory, towards the savages. It was shown, that Harmar offered to treat with the savages in the villages of the Maumee river, but the Indians, at first, refused to treat, and then, asked for thirty days, to consider, on the subject, which was granted; This was in the summer of 1790, and at the end of the thirty days, the savages refused to give any answer, to the proposals to treat. In that same thirty days, however, while Harmar, forbore all hostilities, by the express orders of General Washington, to that effect, the Indians, in the meantime, had either killed or captured one hundred and twenty persons on our frontiers. Many of the prisoners had been roasted alive by a slow

The bill was passed and became a law. St. Clair resigned his military command, and General ANTHONY WAYNE was appointed commander-in-chief. This was in the spring of

1793.

WAYNE'S WAR.

Among the several considerations which now operated on the mind of General Washington at this trying period of our national history, which we are compelled to consider for a moment, was the poverty of the nation, loaded with debt, without much commerce, and the general poverty of the people. The people of the east, looked upon this western war, as a burden, which the western people ought to bear. Hence the duty on distilleries, owned mostly in the west, which grew out of the expenses of this Indian war. This tax, led directly to the whisky insurrection, in Western Pennsylvania. And, it need not be disguised, that the opposition to the present constitution, laid hold of every thing within their reach, to render General Washington unpopular. They pretended to fear, so large a standing army, of five thousand four hundred men! they saw too, with alarm, Mrs. Washington's levees, and the pomp of Colonel Pickering, General Knox, and other heads of Departments, with salaries of three thousand dollars a year! though the compensation was so small, that they, and their families could not live decently on it. The French revolution too, was raging, and Genet was busily engaged, in his endeavors to draw us, into the vortex of European politics. General Washington was beset on all sides; French agents and partisans, on the Atlantic border, were fomenting discontent; the British and their Indians, were desolating our western frontier, with fire and the tomahawk, and the war whoop waked the sleep of the cradle.

It was early in this year, we believe, that General Washington after appointing General Wayne and other officers to command the western army, and doing all that he had the power to do, made a tour to the Indians of Western New

York, in company with Colonel Pickering. Colonel Pickering, tarried one night at the writer's father's, while General Washington put up at a near neighbor's, a Mr. Bloom. This was in Western New York. General Washington and Colonel Pickering visited all the New York Indians, held councils with them, and delivered talks and speeches to them; some of which, we saw, among these Indians in 1828, while we were on a visit to our old friends still living in the Indian villages.

This visit was made by General Washington, to conciliate those savages, and to prevent their joining in the war, with the British Indians, as they had done all along before this period. Many New York Indians were present at St. Clair's defeat, and some of them, still went off, and fought against General Wayne, in 1794, when they were defeated, and mostly killed, on the Maumee river. In the summer of 1793, Wayne tried to treat with the Indians. Fort Massac was built, under him, to prevent an expedition against New Orleans, which GENET was planning. General Wayne sent out, in succession, Colonel Hardin, and Major Trueman with a flag of truce, medals, talks and presents to the Indians in order to make a peace with them.

These messengers of peace were killed in succession, as soon as they arrived among the savages. Their medals, and speeches, sent by them, and all they had with them, were taken by the Indians who slew the bearers of them. We saw these medals and speeches in the possession of the elder Caray Maunee, principal chief of the Winnebagoes at Prairie du Chien, in July 1829.

The medal was a large one, of copper, six inches in diameter, and purported, no doubt truly, to have been made, at the expense of a gentleman of Philadelphia, and by him, sent as a token of General Washington's friendship, to the Indians. Every other effort was made by General Wayne, that summer, to bring about a peace with the savages, but all in vain, and worse than in vain. But notwithstanding all the efforts to make a peace, yet, nothing was omitted that could be done, to

prepare for a vigorous war against them. Although General Wayne promptly accepted his appointment, and entered on its arduous duties, yet, it was found no easy matter to fill up the minor appointments, even the very next in grade to the Commander-in-chief, of this army. Several were appointed to these offices who refused to accept them. It was found difficult too, to enlist soldiers for this hazardous service. Every thing moved along slowly, and the season was spent in doing very little, to any good effect. The British commander of the fort at Detroit, had erected a fort at the head of the Maumee Bay, for the purpose, it would seem, of protecting the Indians, in alliance with them. Here the Indians resorted for protection; here they sold their furs, peltries and skins, received their annuities, and, we doubt not, that they received here, also, the price paid for the scalps of our murdered countrymen.

General Wayne was not idle, but urged forward all his measures, vigorously, prudently, and in the end, effectually.

On the 5th of November 1793, congress met at Philadelphia, to whom the President said in his speech at the commencement of that session, "That the reiterated attempts which had been made to effect a pacification with the Indians, had issued only in new and outrageous proofs of persevering hostility, on the part of the tribes, with whom we were at war." He alluded to the destruction of Hardin and Trueman, while on peaceful missions, under the sanction of flags of truce; and their families were recommended to the attention of congress. Notwithstanding all these efforts of GENERAL WASHINGTON, in favor of this bleeding frontier, congress and the nation, were too much engaged with other objects to bestow much attention on this distant war.

The French revolution had turned the heads of many members of congress towards that dazzling object. They were of the opinion that mankind were all to be regenerated by it; that by some secret magic it would make mankind new beings; and that the whole world would soon become something more than its Author ever designed it to be.

The spring and summer of 1793, having been employed, by

General Wayne, in endeavoring to make peace, and in preparing for war, so that it was September, before he was ready to move forward into the heart of the Indian country. General Wayne collected his army and marched six miles north of Fort Jefferson, where he established a camp, and fortified it, and called it GREENVILLE. The town of Greenville is not

far from where this camp was. General Wayne, having made this encampment and wintered in it, early the next spring he marched forward to the ground where St. Clair had been defeated, on the 4th of November 1791, where he erected a fortification, and called it FORT RECOVERY.

Leaving this post he moved forward to the ground where Harmar had been defeated in 1790, and erected a work of defence and called it FORT WAYNE, which name the town now there, bears. It is situated at the head of the Maumee river, at the confluence of the St. Joseph's and the St. Mary's riv

ers.

On the 8th of August 1794, General Anthony Wayne with his army reached the mouth of the Auglaize, a tributary of the Maumee, forty five miles, or more below Fort Wayne, and the same distance, by his computation, above the British post, on the Maumee. Here, in the forks of these rivers, General Wayne erected a strong military work, and called it by a very appropriate name, (as he did all his posts) FORT DEFIANCE. The General fully informed himself of the strength of the enemy, and that the British and Indians, numbered only about two thousand, whereas his own regulars, were about as numerous as the enemy, besides eleven hundred mounted men, whom he had with him, from Kentucky, under the command of General Scott. This gave General Wayne a decided advantage over the enemy, as he thought, and as it proved to be. But notwithstanding his superiority, in numbers; notwithstanding the high discipline of his troops, and their patriotic ardor, for a battle; yet he offered terms of peace to the enemy and waited for the answer. The enemy wanted war, not peace; so on the 15th day of August, 1794, General Wayne left FORT DEFIANCE, and marched down the Maumee,