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guard of Indians. The boats were kept close to the shore, along which marched a large detachment of warriors, rifle in hand, ready instantly to shoot down any one who should make the slightest attempt at escape.

The poor creatures who were killed were scalped, and their bloody trophies of barbarian victory were borne along on poles as banners. It was this captured fleet of batteaux which the sentinel had descried ascending the river. Terrible was the disappointment of the starving garrison when they heard, from the boats in the distance, and from the escort on the shore, the exultant yells and the defiant war whoop, which told them that the boats, with all their precious cargoes, had fallen into the hands of their foes.

When the line of boats was directly opposite the town, four soldiers, in one of the boats, choosing rather to die by the rifle than by torture, which they knew to be the fate for which they were reserved, resolved upon an utterly desperate attempt to escape. Suddenly they changed the course of the boat towards the western shore, where the armed vessels were at anchor. The river was here about three-quarters of a mile in width. With frantic shouts they called upon the crew to come to their help. The movement was so sudden, and so rapidly was the boat driven out into the stream, by the energies of despair, that the Indian guard leaped overboard and swam ashore. One of them dragged one of the soldiers with him, and both were drowned. The Indians in the other boats fired upon the fugitives, but did not dare to pursue them, in consequence of the cannonade with which they were assailed from the armed schooner. These heroic men soon reached the vessel. One only of the three was wounded.

The Indians, alarmed by this escape, immediately landed all the boats, and transferred their cargoes to the shore. Then these human demons scalped and roasted their victims. The shrieks

of the sufferers, under the dreadful torture, was borne across the water to the garrison, causing every bosom to burn with the desire for vengeance.

A few days after these appalling events, an armed vessel was sent from Niagara with supplies, and with a reinforcement of about fifty troops on board. Early in the month of June the vessel entered the mouth of the river. A large detachment of Indians was sent down the river, from the siege of Detroit, to

intercept the vessel. In the darkness of the night they embarked in a fleet of canoes, and silently they descended the swift current of the stream.

The wind having died away, the vessel dropped anchor near the head of a small island called Fighting Island. The captain of the vessel ordered his men to lie concealed, with guns loaded and primed. The small cannon, also, which he had on board, was charged almost to the muzzle with grape shot. The Indians were suffered to approach close to the vessel, when the signal was given by the stroke of a hammer upon the mast, and the little vessel itself quivered with the explosion which ensued. It seemed suddenly to be converted into a volcano in violent eruption. The nearest canoes were almost blown out of the water. The men all took sure, though hasty aim, and scarcely a bullet failed of accomplishing its deadly mission. The slaughter of the Indians, crowded together in their frail canoes, must have been terrible. How great their loss was never known. The panic-stricken warriors paddled away with the utmost speed.

The next morning the vessel dropped a little farther down the river, where she was detained six days for want of wind. On the thirteenth of June a fair breeze came in from the south, and on the thirteenth of the month the blessed relief reached the halffamished garrison in safety. There were now three armed vessels lying at anchor before the fort, in the broad and rapid river. Pontiac was anxious to destroy them. He was fully conscious that he could not capture them.

With the skill of an European engineer he commenced building far up the river several immense fire rafts which, laden with combustibles, would be almost like solid islands on fire floating down against the vessels. Several such attempts were made, but they were thwarted by English energy and skill. The following extract from a letter dated Detroit, July 6, 1763, gives one a vivid idea of the condition of the English settlement and garrison during the siege.

"We have been besieged here two months by six hundred Indians. We have been upon the watch night and day, from the commanding officer to the lowest soldier, since the 8th of May. We have not had our clothes off, nor slept a night since the siege began. We shall continue so till we have a reinforcement. Then we hope to give a good account of the savages. Their camp lies about

[graphic][subsumed][merged small]

a mile and a half from the fort. That is the nearest they choose

to come now.

"For the first two or three days we were attacked by three or four hundred of them. But we gave them so warm a reception that they do not care for coming to see us, though they now and then get behind a barn or a house and fire at us at three or four hundred yards distance. Day before yesterday we killed a chief and three others, and wounded some more. Yesterday we went up with our sloop and battered their cabins in such a manner that they are glad to keep farther off."

The next day, the 9th of July, another letter was written, from which we make the following extracts. It is composed in a peculiar style of forced mirth and irony:

"You have, long ago, heard of our pleasant situation! But the storm is blown over. Was it not very agreeable to hear, every day, of their cutting and carving, boiling and eating our companions? To see every day dead bodies, floating down the river, mangled and disfigured? But Britons, you know, never shrink. We always appeared gay to spite the rascals. They boiled and ate Sir Robert Devers. And we are informed by Mr. Panly, who escaped the other day from one of the stations, which was surprised at the breaking out of the war, and which he commanded, that he had seen an Indian have the skin of Captain Robertson's arm for a tobacco pouch.

"Three days ago a party of us went to demolish a breast-work which the Indians had made. We finished our work and were returning home. But the fort, espying a party of Indians following us as if they intended to attack us, we were ordered back, and making our dispositions, we advanced briskly. Our front was fired upon warmly, and we returned the fire for about five minutes. In the meantime Captain Hopkins, with about twenty men, filed off to the left; and about twenty French volunteers filed off to the right, and got between the Indians and their camp fires.

"The savages immediately fled, and we returned, as was prudent; for a sentry, whom I had placed, informed me that he saw a body of the Indians coming down from the woods. Our party, being but about eighty, was not able to cope with their united bands. In short, we beat them handsomely, and yet did not much hurt to them, for they ran extremely well. We only killed their leader and wounded three others. One of them fired at me

at the distance of fifteen or twenty paces.

But I suppose my

terrible visage made him tremble. I think I shot him."

The leader who was killed was one of the prominent chiefs of the Ottawas. It is said that both of the English commissioners, Major Campbell and Major McDougall, were, it would seem perfidiously, detained by Pontiac. There may have been some explanation of this which has not been transmitted to us. A direct act of treachery of that kind was not in character with Pontiac.

One of the Ottawa tribe, in revenge for the death of his chief, fell upon Major Campbell and murdered him. "The brutal assassin," writes Mr. B. B. Thatcher, "fled to Saginaw, apprehensive of the vengeance of Pontiac. And it is but justice to the memory of that chieftain to say, that he was indignant at the atrocious act, and that he used every possible exertion to apprehend the murderer."

On the 26th of June a detachment, of three hundred regular troops, arrived from Niagara. They came in strong, well-armed vessels, which the savages could not venture to attack from their frail birch canoes.

Apprehensive that Pontiac, in view of such an accession of strength to the garrison, might immediately raise the siege, and escape with his warriors unpunished, arrangements were made to attack him that very night. But Pontiac proved himself decidedly a more able captain than the English leader.

He immediately sent all the women and children away, apparently broke up his camp, and stationed his whole force of warriors in ambush upon the route which he knew the garrison must take to attack his camp. It is astonishing that the English, after all their past experience, could again be caught in such a trap. With singular infatuation they pressed heedlessly along in the darkness till they came to a bridge, which crossed quite a wide brook, which, since that time, has been not inappropriately called Bloody Run. Very high grass and dense thickets were on both sides of the sluggish stream. Here the warriors were concealed, every one with his rifle in hand, ready to take deadly aim at any who might be crossing the bridge.

The thoughtless troops, two hundred in number, were crossing the bridge, hastening forward to catch the savages before they could have time to escape. Suddenly a volley of musketry was

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