Chapter 13

1763.

ROUT OF CUYLER’S DETACHMENT.—FATE OF THE FOREST GARRISONS.

While perils were thickening around the garrison of Detroit, the British commander-in-chief at New York remained ignorant of its danger.  Indeed, an unwonted quiet had prevailed, of late, along the borders and about the neighboring forts.  With the opening of spring, a strong detachment had been sent up the lakes, with a supply of provisions and ammunition for the use of Detroit and the other western posts.  The boats of this convoy were now pursuing their course along the northern shore of Lake Erie; and Gladwyn’s garrison, aware of their approach, awaited their arrival with an anxiety which every day increased.

Day after day passed on, and the red cross of St.  George still floated above Detroit.  The keen-eyed watchfulness of the Indians had never abated; and woe to the soldier who showed his head above the palisades, or exposed his person before a loophole.  Strong in his delusive hope of French assistance, Pontiac had sent messengers to M.  Neyon, commandant at the Illinois, earnestly requesting that a force of regular troops might be sent to his aid; and Gladwyn, on his side, had ordered one of the vessels to Niagara, to hasten forward the expected convoy.  The schooner set sail; but on the next day, as she lay becalmed at the entrance of Lake Erie, a multitude of canoes suddenly darted out upon her from the neighboring shores.  In the prow of the foremost the Indians had placed their prisoner, Captain Campbell, with the dastardly purpose of interposing him as a screen between themselves and the fire of the English.  But the brave old man called out to the crew to do their duty, without regard to him.  Happily, at that moment a fresh breeze sprang up; the flapping sails stretched to the wind, and the schooner  bore prosperously on her course towards Niagara, leaving the savage flotilla far behind.

The fort, or rather town, of Detroit had, by this time, lost its wonted vivacity and life.  Its narrow streets were gloomy and silent.  Here and there strolled a Canadian, in red cap and gaudy sash; the weary sentinel walked to and fro before the quarters of the commandant; an officer, perhaps, passed along with rapid step and anxious face; or an Indian girl, the mate of some soldier or trader, moved silently by, in her finery of beads and vermilion.  Such an aspect as this the town must have presented on the morning of the thirtieth of May, when, at about nine o’clock, the voice of the sentinel sounded from the south-east bastion; and loud exclamations, in the direction of the river, roused Detroit from its lethargy.  Instantly the place was astir.  Soldiers, traders, and habitants, hurrying through the water-gate, thronged the canoe wharf and the narrow strand without.  The half-wild coureurs de bois, the tall and sinewy provincials, and the stately British soldiers, stood crowded together, their uniforms soiled and worn, and their faces haggard with unremitted watching.  Yet all alike wore an animated and joyous look.  The long expected convoy was full in sight.  On the farther side of the river, at some distance below the fort, a line of boats was rounding the woody projection, then called Montreal Point, their oars flashing in the sun, and the red flag of England flying from the stern of the foremost.  The toils and dangers of the garrison were  drawing to an end.  With one accord, they broke into three hearty cheers, again and again repeated, while a cannon, glancing from the bastion, sent its loud voice of defiance to the enemy, and welcome to approaching friends.  But suddenly every cheek grew pale with horror.  Dark naked figures were seen rising, with wild gesture, in the boats, while, in place of the answering salute, the distant yell of the war-whoop fell faintly on their ears.  The convoy was in the hands of the enemy.  The boats had all been taken, and the troops of the detachment slain or made captive.  Officers and men stood gazing in mournful silence, when an incident occurred which caused them to forget the general calamity in the absorbing interest of the moment.
Leaving the disappointed garrison, we will pass over to the principal victims of this deplorable misfortune.  In each of the boats, of which there were eighteen, two or more of the captured soldiers, deprived of their weapons, were compelled to act as rowers, guarded by several armed savages, while many other Indians, for the sake of farther security, followed the boats along the shore.  In the foremost, as it happened, there were four soldiers and only three Indians.  The larger of the two vessels still lay anchored in the stream, about a bow-shot from the fort, while her companion, as we have seen, had gone down to Niagara to hasten up this very re-enforcement.  As the boat came opposite this vessel, the soldier who acted as steersman conceived a daring plan of escape.  The principal Indian sat immediately in front of another of the soldiers.  The steersman called, in English, to his comrade to seize the savage and throw him overboard.  The man answered that he was not strong enough; on which the steersman directed him to change places with him, as if fatigued with rowing, a movement which would excite no suspicion on the part of their guard.  As the bold soldier stepped forward, as if to take his companion’s oar, he suddenly seized the Indian by the hair, and, griping with the other hand the girdle at his waist, lifted him by main force, and flung him into the river.  The boat rocked till the water surged over her gunwale.  The Indian held fast to his enemy’s  clothes, and, drawing himself upward as he trailed alongside, stabbed him again and again with his knife, and then dragged him overboard.  Both went down the swift current, rising and sinking; and, as some relate, perished, grappled in each other’s arms.  The two remaining Indians leaped out of the boat.  The prisoners turned, and pulled for the distant vessel, shouting aloud for aid.  The Indians on shore opened a heavy fire upon them, and many canoes paddled swiftly in pursuit.  The men strained with desperate strength.  A fate inexpressibly horrible was the alternative.  The bullets hissed thickly around their heads; one of them was soon wounded, and the light birch canoes gained on them with fearful rapidity.  Escape seemed hopeless, when the report of a cannon burst from the side of the vessel.  The ball flew close past the boat, beating the water in a line of foam, and narrowly missing the foremost canoe.  At this, the pursuers drew back in dismay; and the Indians on shore, being farther saluted by a second shot, ceased firing, and scattered among the bushes.  The prisoners soon reached the vessel, where they were greeted as men snatched from the jaws of fate; “a living monument,” writes an officer of the garrison, “that Fortune favors the brave.”

They related many particulars of the catastrophe which had befallen them and their companions.  Lieutenant Cuyler had left Fort Niagara as early as the thirteenth of May, and embarked from Fort Schlosser, just above the falls, with ninety-six men and a plentiful supply of provisions and ammunition.  Day after day he had coasted the northern shore of Lake Erie, and seen neither friend nor foe amid those lonely forests and waters, until, on the twenty-eighth of the month, he landed at Point Pelée, not far from the mouth of the River Detroit.  The boats were drawn on the beach, and the party prepared to encamp.  A man and a boy went to gather firewood at a short distance from the spot, when an Indian leaped out of the woods, seized the boy by the hair, and tomahawked him.  The man ran into camp with the alarm.  Cuyler immediately formed his soldiers into a semicircle before the boats.  He had scarcely done so when the enemy opened their fire.  For an instant, there was a hot blaze of musketry on both sides; then the Indians broke out of the woods in a body, and rushed fiercely upon the centre of the line, which gave way in every part; the men flinging down their guns, running in a blind panic to the boats, and struggling with ill-directed efforts to shove them into the water.  Five were set afloat, and pushed off from the shore, crowded with the terrified soldiers.  Cuyler, seeing himself, as he says, deserted by his men, waded up to his neck in the lake, and climbed into one of the retreating boats.  The Indians, on their part, pushing two more afloat, went in pursuit of the fugitives, three boat-loads of whom allowed themselves to be recaptured without resistance; but the remaining two, in one of which was Cuyler himself, made their escape.  They rowed all night, and landed in the morning upon a small island.  Between thirty and forty men, some of whom were wounded, were crowded in these two boats; the rest, about sixty in number, being killed or taken.  Cuyler now made for Sandusky, which, on his arrival, he found burnt to the ground.  Immediately leaving the spot, he rowed along the south shore to Presqu’ Isle, from whence he proceeded to Niagara and reported his loss to Major Wilkins, the commanding officer.
 
The actors in this bold and well-executed stroke were the Wyandots, who, for some days, had lain in ambush at the mouth of the river, to intercept trading boats or parties of troops.  Seeing the fright and confusion of Cuyler’s men, they had forgotten their usual caution, and rushed upon them in the manner described.  The ammunition, provisions, and other articles, taken in this attack, formed a valuable prize; but, unfortunately, there was, among the rest, a great quantity of whiskey.  This the Indians seized, and carried to their respective camps, which, throughout the night, presented a scene of savage revelry and riot.  The liquor was poured into vessels of birch-bark, or any thing capable of containing it; and the Indians, crowding around, scooped it up in their cups and ladles, and quaffed the raw whiskey like water.  While some sat apart, wailing and moaning in maudlin drunkenness, others were maddened to the ferocity of wild beasts.  Dormant jealousies were awakened, old forgotten quarrels kindled afresh, and, had not the squaws taken the precaution of hiding all the weapons they could find before the debauch began, much blood would, no doubt, have been spilt.  As it was, the savages were not entirely without means of indulging their drunken rage.  Many were wounded, of whom two died in the morning; and several others had their noses bitten off,—a singular mode of revenge, much in vogue upon similar occasions, among the Indians of the upper lakes.  The English were gainers by this scene of riot; for late in the evening, two Indians, in all the valor and vain-glory of drunkenness, came running directly towards the fort, boasting their prowess in a loud voice; but being greeted with two rifle  bullets, they leaped into the air like a pair of wounded bucks, and fell dead on their tracks.

It will not be proper to pass over in silence the fate of the unfortunate men taken prisoners in this affair.  After night had set in, several Canadians came to the fort, bringing vague and awful reports of the scenes that had been enacted at the Indian camp.  The soldiers gathered round them, and, frozen with horror, listened to the appalling narrative.  A cloud of deep gloom sank down upon the garrison, and none could help reflecting how thin and frail a barrier protected them from a similar fate.  On the following day, and for several succeeding days, they beheld frightful confirmation of the rumors they had heard.  Naked corpses, gashed with knives and scorched with fire, floated down on the pure waters of the Detroit, whose fish came up to nibble at the clotted blood that clung to their ghastly faces.
 
Late one afternoon, at about this period of the siege, the garrison were again greeted with the dismal cry of death, and a line of naked warriors was seen issuing from the woods, which, like a wall of foliage, rose beyond the pastures in rear of the fort.  Each savage was painted black, and each bore a scalp fluttering from the end of a pole.  It was but too clear that some new disaster had befallen; and in truth, before nightfall, one La Brosse, a Canadian, came to the gate with the tidings that Fort Sandusky had been taken, and all its garrison slain or made captive.  This post had been attacked by the band of Wyandots living in its neighborhood, aided by a detachment of their brethren from Detroit.  Among the few survivors of the slaughter was the commanding officer, Ensign Paully, who had been brought prisoner to Detroit, bound hand and foot, and solaced on the passage with the expectation of being burnt alive.  On landing near the camp of Pontiac, he was surrounded by a crowd of Indians, chiefly squaws and children, who pelted him with stones, sticks, and gravel, forcing him to dance and sing, though by no means in a cheerful strain.  A worse infliction seemed in store for him, when happily an old woman, whose husband had lately died, chose to adopt him in place of the deceased warrior.  Seeing no alternative but the stake, Paully accepted the proposal; and, having been first plunged in the river, that the white blood might be washed from his veins, he was conducted to the lodge of the widow, and treated thenceforth with all the consideration due to an Ottawa warrior.

Gladwyn soon received a letter from him, through one of the Canadian inhabitants, giving a full account of the capture of Fort Sandusky.  On the sixteenth of May—such was the substance of the communication—Paully was informed that seven Indians were waiting at the gate to speak with him.  As several of the number were well known to him, he ordered them, without hesitation, to be admitted.  Arriving at his quarters, two of the treacherous visitors seated themselves on each side of the commandant, while the rest were disposed in various parts of the room.  The pipes were lighted, and the conversation began, when an Indian, who stood in the doorway, suddenly made a signal by raising his head.  Upon this, the astonished officer was instantly pounced upon and disarmed; while, at the same moment, a confused noise of shrieks and yells, the firing of guns, and the hurried tramp of feet, sounded from the area of the fort without.  It soon ceased, however, and Paully, led by his captors from the room, saw the parade ground strown with the corpses of his murdered garrison.  At nightfall, he was conducted to the margin of the lake, where several birch canoes lay in readiness; and as, amid thick darkness, the party pushed out from shore, the captive saw the fort, lately under his command, bursting on all sides into sheets of flame.

Soon after these tidings of the loss of Sandusky, Gladwyn’s garrison heard the scarcely less unwelcome news that the strength of their besiegers had been re-enforced by two strong bands of Ojibwas.  Pontiac’s forces in the vicinity of Detroit now amounted, according to Canadian computation, to about eight hundred and twenty warriors.  Of these, two hundred and fifty were Ottawas, commanded by himself in person; one hundred and fifty were Pottawattamies, under Ninivay; fifty were Wyandots, under Takee; two hundred were Ojibwas, under Wasson; and added to these were a hundred and seventy of the same tribe, under their chief, Sekahos.  As the warriors brought their squaws and children with them, the whole number of savages congregated about Detroit no doubt exceeded three thousand; and the neighboring  fields and meadows must have presented a picturesque and stirring scene.

The sleepless garrison, worn by fatigue and ill fare, and harassed by constant petty attacks, were yet farther saddened by the news of disaster which thickened from every quarter.  Of all the small posts scattered at intervals through the vast wilderness to the westward of Niagara and Fort Pitt, it soon appeared that Detroit alone had been able to sustain itself.  For the rest, there was but one unvaried tale of calamity and ruin.  On the fifteenth of June, a number of Pottawattamies were seen approaching the gate of the fort, bringing with them four English prisoners, who proved to be Ensign Schlosser, lately commanding at St.  Joseph’s, together with three private soldiers.  The Indians wished to exchange them for several of their own tribe, who had been for nearly two months prisoners in the fort.  After some delay, this was effected; and the garrison then learned the unhappy fate of their comrades at St.  Joseph’s.  This post stood at the mouth of the River St.  Joseph’s, near the head of Lake Michigan, a spot which had long been the site of a Roman Catholic mission.  Here, among the forests, swamps, and ocean-like waters, at an unmeasured distance from any abode of civilized man, the indefatigable Jesuits had labored more than half a century for the spiritual good of the Pottawattamies, who lived in great numbers near the margin of the lake.  As early as the year 1712, as Father Marest informs us, the mission was in a thriving state, and around it had gathered a little colony of the forest-loving Canadians.  Here, too, the French government had established a military post, whose garrison, at the period of our narrative, had been supplanted by Ensign Schlosser, with his command of fourteen men, a mere handful, in the heart of a wilderness swarming with insidious enemies.  They seem, however, to have apprehended no danger, when, on the twenty-fifth of May, early in the morning, the officer was informed that a large party of the Pottawattamies of Detroit had come to pay a visit to their relatives at St.  Joseph’s.  Presently, a chief, named Washashe, with three or four followers, came to his quarters, as if to hold a friendly “talk;” and immediately after a Canadian came in with intelligence that the fort was surrounded by Indians, who evidently had hostile intentions.  At this, Schlosser ran out of the apartment, and crossing the parade, which was full of Indians and Canadians, hastily entered the barracks.  These were also crowded with savages, very insolent and disorderly.  Calling upon his sergeant to get the men under arms, he hastened out again to the parade, and endeavored to muster the Canadians together; but while busying himself with these somewhat unwilling auxiliaries, he heard a wild cry from within the barracks.  Instantly all the Indians in the fort rushed to the gate, tomahawked the sentinel, and opened a free passage to their comrades without.  In less than two minutes, as the officer declares, the fort was plundered, eleven men were killed, and himself, with the three survivors, made prisoners, and bound fast.  They then conducted him to Detroit, where he was exchanged as we have already seen.

Three days after these tidings reached Detroit, Father Jonois, a Jesuit priest of the Ottawa mission near Michillimackinac, came to Pontiac’s camp, together with the son of Minavavana, great chief of the Ojibwas, and several other Indians.  On the following morning, he appeared at the gate of the fort, bringing a letter from Captain Etherington, commandant at Michillimackinac.  The commencement of the letter was as follows:—

“Michillimackinac, 12 June, 1763.
“Sir:

“Notwithstanding what I wrote you in my last, that all the savages were arrived, and that every thing seemed in perfect tranquillity, yet on the second instant the Chippeways, who  live in a plain near this fort, assembled to play ball, as they had done almost every day since their arrival.  They played from morning till noon; then, throwing their ball close to the gate, and observing Lieutenant Lesley and me a few paces out of it, they came behind us, seized and carried us into the woods.

“In the mean time, the rest rushed into the fort, where they found their squaws, whom they had previously planted there, with their hatchets hid under their blankets, which they took, and in an instant killed Lieutenant Jamet, and fifteen rank and file, and a trader named Tracy.  They wounded two, and took the rest of the garrison prisoners, five of whom they have since killed.

“They made prisoners all the English traders, and robbed them of every thing they had; but they offered no violence to the persons or property of any of the Frenchmen.”
Captain Etherington next related some particulars of the massacre at Michillimackinac, sufficiently startling, as will soon appear.  He spoke in high terms of the character and conduct of Father Jonois, and requested that Gladwyn would send all the troops he could spare up Lake Huron, that the post might be recaptured from the Indians, and garrisoned afresh.  Gladwyn, being scarcely able to defend himself, could do nothing for the relief of his brother officer, and the Jesuit set out on his long and toilsome canoe voyage back to Michillimackinac.  The loss of this place was a very serious misfortune, for, next to Detroit, it was the most important post on the upper lakes.

The next news which came in was that of the loss of Ouatanon, a fort situated upon the Wabash, a little below the site of the present town of La Fayette.  Gladwyn received a letter from its commanding officer, Lieutenant Jenkins, informing him that, on the first of June, he and several of his men had been made prisoners by stratagem, on which the rest of the garrison had surrendered.  The Indians, however, apologized for their conduct, declaring that they acted contrary to their own inclinations, and that the surrounding tribes compelled  them to take up the hatchet.  These excuses, so consolatory to the sufferers, might probably have been founded in truth, for these savages were of a character less ferocious than many of the others, and as they were farther removed from the settlements, they had not felt to an equal degree the effects of English insolence and encroachment.

Close upon these tidings came the news that Fort Miami was taken.  This post, standing on the River Maumee, was commanded by Ensign Holmes.  And here I cannot but remark on the forlorn situation of these officers, isolated in the wilderness, hundreds of miles, in some instances, from any congenial associates, separated from every human being except the rude soldiers under their command, and the white or red savages who ranged the surrounding woods.  Holmes suspected the intention of the Indians, and was therefore on his  guard, when, on the twenty-seventh of May, a young Indian girl, who lived with him, came to tell him that a squaw lay dangerously ill in a wigwam near the fort, and urged him to come to her relief.  Having confidence in the girl, Holmes forgot his caution and followed her out of the fort.  Pitched at the edge of a meadow, hidden from view by an intervening spur of the woodland, stood a great number of Indian wigwams.  When Holmes came in sight of them, his treacherous conductress pointed out that in which the sick woman lay.  He walked on without suspicion; but, as he drew near, two guns flashed from behind the hut, and stretched him lifeless on the grass.  The shots were heard at the fort, and the sergeant rashly went out to learn the reason of the firing.  He was immediately taken prisoner, amid exulting yells and whoopings.  The soldiers in the fort climbed upon the palisades, to look out, when Godefroy, a Canadian, and two other white men, made their appearance, and summoned them to surrender; promising that, if they did so, their lives should be spared, but that otherwise they would all be killed without mercy.  The men, being in great terror, and without a leader, soon threw open the gate, and gave themselves up as prisoners.

Had detachments of Rogers’s Rangers garrisoned these posts, or had they been held by such men as the Rocky Mountain trappers of the present day, wary, skilful, and almost ignorant of fear, some of them might, perhaps, have been saved; but the soldiers of the 60th Regiment, though many of them were of provincial birth, were not suited by habits and discipline for this kind of service.

The loss of Presqu’ Isle will close this catalogue of calamity.  Rumors of it first reached Detroit on the twentieth of June, and, two days after, the garrison heard those dismal cries  announcing scalps and prisoners, which, of late, had grown mournfully familiar to their ears.  Indians were seen passing in numbers along the opposite bank of the river, leading several English prisoners, who proved to be Ensign Christie, the commanding officer at Presqu’ Isle, with those of his soldiers who survived.

On the third of June, Christie, then safely ensconced in the fort which he commanded, had written as follows to his superior officer, Lieutenant Gordon, at Venango: “This morning Lieutenant Cuyler of Queen’s Company of Rangers came here, and gave me the following melancholy account of his whole party being cut off by a large body of Indians at the mouth of the Detroit River.” Here follows the story of Cuyler’s disaster, and Christie closes as follows: “I have sent to Niagara a letter to the Major, desiring some more ammunition and provisions, and have kept six men of Lieutenant Cuyler’s, as I expect a visit from the hell-hounds.  I have ordered everybody here to move into the blockhouse, and shall be ready for them, come when they will.”

Fort Presqu’ Isle stood on the southern shore of Lake Erie, at the site of the present town of Erie.  It was an important post to be commanded by an Ensign, for it controlled the communication between the lake and Fort Pitt; but the blockhouse, to which Christie alludes, was supposed to make it impregnable against Indians.  This blockhouse, a very large and strong one, stood at an angle of the fort, and was built of massive logs, with the projecting upper story usual in such structures, by means of which a vertical fire could be had upon the heads of assailants, through openings in the projecting part of the floor, like the machicoulis of a mediæval castle.  It had also a kind of bastion, from which one or more of its walls could be covered by a flank fire.  The roof was of shingles, and might easily be set on fire; but at the top was a sentry-box or look-out, from which water could be thrown.  On one side was the lake, and on the other a small stream which entered it.  Unfortunately, the bank of this stream rose in a high steep ridge within forty yards of the blockhouse, thus affording a cover to assailants, while the bank of the lake offered them similar advantages on another side.

After his visit from Cuyler, Christie, whose garrison now  consisted of twenty-seven men, prepared for a stubborn defence.  The doors of the blockhouse, and the sentry-box at the top, were lined to make them bullet-proof; the angles of the roof were covered with green turf as a protection against fire-arrows, and gutters of bark were laid in such a manner that streams of water could be sent to every part.  His expectation of a “visit from the hell-hounds” proved to be perfectly well founded.  About two hundred of them had left Detroit expressly for this object.  At early dawn on the fifteenth of June, they were first discovered stealthily crossing the mouth of the little stream, where the bateaux were drawn up, and crawling under cover of the banks of the lake and of the adjacent saw-pits.  When the sun rose, they showed themselves, and began their customary yelling.  Christie, with a very unnecessary reluctance to begin the fray, ordered his men not to fire till the Indians had set the example.  The consequence was, that they were close to the blockhouse before they received the fire of the garrison; and many of them sprang into the ditch, whence, being well sheltered, they fired at the loopholes, and amused themselves by throwing stones and handfuls of gravel, or, what was more to the purpose, fire-balls of pitch.  Some got into the fort and sheltered themselves behind the bakery and other buildings, whence they kept up a brisk fire; while others pulled down a small outhouse of plank, of which they made a movable breastwork, and approached under cover of it by pushing it before them.  At the same time, great numbers of them lay close behind the ridges by the stream, keeping up a rattling fire into every loophole, and shooting burning arrows against the roof and sides of the blockhouse.  Some were extinguished with water, while many dropped out harmless after burning a small hole.  The Indians now rolled logs to the top of the ridges, where they made three strong breastworks, from behind which they could discharge their shot and throw their fireworks with greater effect.  Sometimes they would try to dart across the intervening space and shelter themselves with their companions in the ditch, but all who attempted it were killed or wounded.  And now the hard-beset little garrison could see them throwing up earth and stones behind the nearest breastwork.  Their implacable foes were undermining the blockhouse.  There was little  time to reflect on this new danger; for another, more imminent, soon threatened them.  The barrels of water, always kept in the building, were nearly emptied in extinguishing the frequent fires; and though there was a well close at hand, in the parade ground, it was death to approach it.  The only resource was to dig a subterranean passage to it.  The floor was torn up; and while some of the men fired their heated muskets from the loopholes, the rest labored stoutly at this cheerless task.  Before it was half finished, the roof was on fire again, and all the water that remained was poured down to extinguish it.  In a few moments, the cry of fire was again raised, when a soldier, at imminent risk of his life, tore off the burning shingles and averted the danger.
By this time it was evening.  The garrison had had not a moment’s rest since the sun rose.  Darkness brought little relief, for guns flashed all night from the Indian intrenchments.  In the morning, however, there was a respite.  The Indians were ominously quiet, being employed, it seems, in pushing their subterranean approaches, and preparing fresh means for firing the blockhouse.  In the afternoon the attack began again.  They set fire to the house of the commanding officer, which stood close at hand, and which they had reached by means of their trenches.  The pine logs blazed fiercely, and the wind blew the flame against the bastion of the blockhouse, which scorched, blackened, and at last took fire; but the garrison had by this time dug a passage to the well, and, half stifled as they were, they plied their water-buckets with such good will that the fire was subdued, while the blazing house soon sank to a glowing pile of embers.  The men, who had behaved throughout with great spirit, were now, in the words of their officer, “exhausted to the greatest extremity;” yet they still kept up their forlorn defence, toiling and fighting without pause within the wooden walls of their dim prison, where the close and heated air was thick with the smoke of gunpowder.  The firing on both sides lasted through the rest of the day, and did not cease till midnight, at which hour a voice was heard to call out, in French, from the enemy’s intrenchments, warning the garrison that farther resistance would be useless, since preparations were made for setting the blockhouse on fire, above and below at once.  Christie demanded if  there were any among them who spoke English; upon which, a man in the Indian dress came out from behind the breastwork.  He was a soldier, who, having been made prisoner early in the French war, had since lived among the savages, and now espoused their cause, fighting with them against his own countrymen.  He said that if they yielded, their lives should be spared; but if they fought longer, they must all be burnt alive.  Christie told them to wait till morning for his answer.  They assented, and suspended their fire.  Christie now asked his men, if we may believe the testimony of two of them, “whether they chose to give up the blockhouse, or remain in it and be burnt alive?” They replied that they would stay as long as they could bear the heat, and then fight their way through.  A third witness, Edward Smyth, apparently a corporal, testifies that all but two of them were for holding out.  He says that when his opinion was asked, he replied that, having but one life to lose, he would be governed by the rest; but that at the same time he reminded them of the recent treachery at Detroit, and of the butchery at Fort William Henry, adding that, in his belief, they themselves could expect no better usage.

When morning came, Christie sent out two soldiers as if to treat with the enemy, but, in reality, as he says, to learn the truth of what they had told him respecting their preparations to burn the blockhouse.  On reaching the breastwork, the soldiers made a signal, by which their officer saw that his worst fears were well founded.  In pursuance of their orders, they then demanded that two of the principal chiefs should meet with Christie midway between the breastwork and the blockhouse.  The chiefs appeared accordingly; and Christie, going out, yielded up the blockhouse; having first stipulated that the lives of all the garrison should be spared, and that they might retire unmolested to the nearest post.  The soldiers, pale and haggard, like men who had passed through a fiery ordeal, now issued from their scorched and bullet-pierced stronghold.  A scene of plunder instantly began.  Benjamin Gray, a Scotch soldier, who had just been employed, on Christie’s order, in carrying presents to the Indians, seeing the confusion, and hearing a scream from a sergeant’s wife, the only woman in the garrison, sprang off into the woods and succeeded in making his way to Fort Pitt with news of the disaster.  It is needless to say that no faith was kept with the rest, and they had good cause to be thankful that they were not butchered on the spot.  After being detained for some time in the neighborhood, they were carried prisoners to Detroit, where Christie soon after made his escape, and gained the fort in safety.

After Presqu’ Isle was taken, the neighboring posts of Le Bœuf and Venango shared its fate; while farther southward, at the forks of the Ohio, a host of Delaware and Shawanoe warriors were gathering around Fort Pitt, and blood and havoc reigned along the whole frontier.