locust trees. At this town I staid till the 16th, in the morning, to refresh my party, and procured some corn of the Indians to boil with our venison.

"On the 16th, we marched nearly an east course about nine miles, and encamped by the side of a small river.

"On the 17th, kept much the same course, crossing several rivulets and creeks. We traveled about twenty miles, and encamped by the side of a small river.22

"On the 18th, we traveled about sixteen miles an easterly course and encamped by a brook.

"The 19th, about the same general course, we crossed two considerable streams of water, and some large hills timbered with chestnut and oak, and having traveled about twenty miles, we encamped by the side of a small river, at which place were a number of Delawares hunting.23

"On the 20th, keeping still an easterly course, and having much the same traveling as the day before, we advanced on our journey about nineteen miles, which brought us to Beaver creek, where are two or three Indian houses, on the west side of the creek, and in sight of the Ohio.

"Bad weather prevented our journeying on the 21st, but the next day we prosecuted our march. Having crossed the creek, we traveled twenty miles, nearly southeast and encamped with a party of Indian hunters.

"On the 23d, we came again to the Ohio, opposite to Fort Pitt, from whence I ordered Lieut. McCormack to march the party across the country to Albany, and after tarrying there until the 26th, I came the common road to Philadelphia, from thence to New York, where, after this long fatiguing tour, I arrived February 14, 1761."

22) Nimishillen creek, perhaps. 23) Little Yellow Creek, very likely.

CHAPTER IX.

CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC.

THERE was a sullen submission to the new dominion of England through the Western wilderness. The French were subdued, and the Indians could not fail to respect the power of the British arms, but their jealousy of aggression on the one hand, or of no less unwelcome neglect on the other, still remained. Once more, as was the case ten years previously, an opportunity was afforded to the English to conciliate the natives, and avert for an indefinite period the horrors of a frontier war. It certainly behooved the colonies not to be less indulgent and considerate than the French had been. The latter had, from motives of policy, made frequent gifts to the tribes-treated their chiefs with consideration-supplied them with ammunition and clothing on reasonable terms, and by a frank and gay deportment won their good will.

If the reader will recall the interview between Rogers and Pontiac, narrated in the preceding chapter, he can readily appreciate not only the spirit of that chief, but also the dispositions of his followers. His lofty permission to Rogers, that the latter might "pass through his country unmolested," and his magnanimous protection of the detachment of Rangers from Indian attack, disclosed a proud consciousness that he was indeed "the King and Lord of the country." He was willing to recognize a slight protectorate in the English monarch, by an annual acknowledgment in furs and the style of Uncle," yet this tenure, even less substantial than the

slightest feudal relation, was not to impair the wild independence of the forest emperor.

The jealousies of the Ohio Indians were almost immediately excited by the encroachments of English emigrants. The Ohio Company was revived; Virginia multiplied her grants; traders and settlers pushed beyond the mountains, which, by the treaty of Easton, in 1758, had been fixed as the eastern limit of the Indian hunting grounds; and the savages were not slow to perceive that the professions with which both Braddock and Forbes had approached their frontier, that the English would protect the tribes from French aggression, were only intended to cover similar designs. While these apprehensions prevailed among the Delawares and Shawanese, the feeling among the Wyandots and Ottawas, as well as the more northern tribes, was even more distrustful. The parsimony of the English, as compared with the liberal and attractive gifts of the French, added to the discontent.

Soon a bitter revulsion of feeling prevailed through the entire west. The Delawares and Shawanese were irritated by the settlers from Virginia and Pennsylvania, while the more remote tribes meditated revenge for the neglect of the English, in particulars now become necessary to their comfort, and also by the frequent outrages of a lawless soldiery, who had replaced the French garrisons. There were not wanting French traders and voyagers to remind the Indians of a contrast so disadvantageous in all respects to the recent occupants, and to fan the flame of disaffection to the height

of insurrection.

As early as the spring of 1761, Alexander Henry, an English trader, went to Michillimacinac for purposes of business, and he found the strongest feeling against the English, on account of their failure by word or deed to conciliate the

Indians. Having reached his destination, though in the disguise of a Canadian, he was discovered, and an Indian chief, supposed to be Pontiac himself, addressed him as follows:

"Englishman! Although you have conquered the French, you have not yet conquered us. We are not your slaves. These lakes, these woods, these mountains, were left to us by our ancestors. They are our inheritance, and we will part with them to none. Your nation supposes that we, like the white people, cannot live without bread, pork and beef. But you ought to know that the Great Spirit and Master of Life, has provided food for us upon these broad lakes and in these mountains."

He then spoke of the fact that no treaty had been made with them, no presents sent them; and while he announced their intention to allow Henry to trade unmolested, and to regard him as a brother, he declared that with his King the red men were still at war.1

On the 10th of February, 1763, the treaty of Paris was concluded, and extensive settlements in the conquered west were projected in the colonies at the moment that a wide spread conspiracy among the Indian tribes was on the eve of explo

sion.

The soul of this secret and formidable movement was Pontiac. Of his origin there are conflicting statements-one that he was a Catawba prisoner, adopted into the Ottawa tribe; while the more prevalent opinion is, that he was the son of an Ottawa father and an Ojibwa mother. All accounts unite that he was a chief of great genius and resources, possessing qualities unsurpassed by the most distinguished of his race.

1) Perkins' Writings, ii. 223; Travels of Alexander Henry in Canada from 1760 to 1776: New York, 1809.

Bancroft styles him "the colossal chief," whose "name still hovers over the northwest, as the hero who devised and conducted a great but unavailing struggle with destiny for the independence of his race." During the series of Indian wars against the English colonies and armies, from the Acadian war in 1747 to the general league of western tribes in 1763, he appears to have exercised the influence and power of an emperor, and by this name he was sometimes known. He had fought with the French, at the head of his Indian allies, against the English, in the year 1747. He had likewise been a conspicuous commander of the Indian forces in the defence of Fort Du Quesne, and took an active part in the memorable defeat of the British and provincial army under General Braddock, in 1755.

The voice of Pontiac appealed to savage superstition. He claimed to speak by the inspiration of the Great Spirit, and his messages were received with emotions of awe from Lake Michigan to the frontiers of North Carolina. "Why, says the Great Spirit, do you suffer these dogs in the red clothing to enter your country and take the land I have given you? Drive them from it! Drive them! When you are in distress, I will help you."

Thus in the winter of 1762-3 was silently organized a league, by which the confederated Indians were to environ the feeble and scattered garrisons, and by stratagem and force, simultaneously destroy them, and sweep the exposed frontiers with an indiscriminate massacre.

The catastrophe of May, 1763, is thus dramatized in the Historical Papers of J. H. Perkins. "The unsuspecting traders journeyed from village to village: the soldiers in the forts shrunk from the sun of the early summer, and dozed away the day; the frontier settler, singing in fancied secu