“The fort was then upon the main land, near the northern point of the peninsula. The Ottawas, to whom the assault was committed, prepared for a great game of ball, to which the officers of the garrison were invited. While engaged in play, one of the parties gradually inclined towards the fort, and the other pressed after them. The ball was once or twice thrown over the pickets, and the Indians were suffered to enter and procure it. Nearly all the garrison were present as spectators, and those on duty were alike unprepared, as unsuspicious. Suddenly the ball was again thrown into the fort, and all the Indians rushed after it. The rest of the tale is soon told. The troops were butchered, and the fort destroyed.”
But no one stratagem of Indian warfare is like another. We only know, that eight of the other stations were annihilated nearly at the same instant. Detroit was one of the three stations successfully defended, but not without the shedding of much blood. Pontiac himself appeared before it. And so unsuspected was his stratagem, that nothing would have prevented its triumphant execution, but for the informations of a friendly Indian woman. Pontiac had negotiated a great council to be held in the fort, to which himself and warriors were to be admitted, with rifles sawed off and hid under their blankets; by which, with the tomahawk and knife, at a concerted signal from their chieftain, they were to rise and massacre the garrison. But in consequence of the advice from the woman, the garrison were prepared. Pontiac and his warriors being rebuked, were too generously dismissed, and in return for this kindness commenced and waged a most bloody war.
Pontiac, unsuccessful in his wars against these posts, notwithstanding the great advantages he had gained, and after committing numberless and untold cruelties, (though he was not without his fits of generosity, and of what are called the noble traits of Indian character),—implacable in his hatred and resentments; finally retired to the Illinois, in the south-west, and was there assassinated by the hand of an Indian. “The memory of this great Ottawa chief,” says the document used above, and from which this account is abridged, “is still held in reverence among his countrymen. And whatever be the fate, which awaits them, his name and deeds will live in their traditionary narratives, increasing in interest, as they increase in years.”
Detroit, originally, and for ages a post for trade, and a garrison for its protection—having enjoyed and suffered alternately peace and war, with the aborigines and between rival civilized powers, for such a long series of years—has now become the beautiful and flourishing metropolis of a wide and interesting territory—a territory destined soon to make at least two of the most important states of the American Union. The city looks proudly across one of the noblest rivers of the continent, upon the territory of a great and rival power, and seems to say, though in such vicinity, in reference to her former exposure and painful vicissitudes:—“Henceforth I will sit in peace, and grow and flourish under the wing of this Confederate Republic.” And this place, but a little while ago so distant, is now brought within four days of the city of New York—the track pursued being seven hundred and fifty miles. Here, at Detroit, some of the finest steamers in North America, come and go every day, connecting it with the east, and have begun already to search out the distant west and north.
The peninsula of Michigan, lying between the lake of the same name on the west, and Huron on the east, is one of the greatest beauties of the kind in America, if not in the world. Where can be found such a tongue of land, and of so great extent, skirted by a coast of eight hundred miles, of the purest fresh-water seas, navigable for ships of any burthen? The climate mild and healthful, the country ascertained to be the best of land—with streams and rivers sufficient for all useful purposes—and the upland level, between the two great lakes, chequered with innumerable small lakes, or basins, of one, three, five, and ten miles in circumference, pure and clear as the fountains of Eden, and abounding with fish, as do the rivers. There is something in the character of these basins of water, and in the multitude of them, which imparts a charm to this region, altogether unrivalled. They are the sources of the rivers and smaller streams, which flow into either lake—themselves and their outlets pure as crystal. How many gentlemen of large estates, and noblemen of Europe, have undertaken to create artificial lakes, and fill them with fish—which after all their pains are doomed to the constant deposits of filth and collections of miasmata; and which maybe clouded by the plunge of a frog? But in the territory of Michigan is a world of lakes, created by the hand of God, of all dimensions and shapes, just fitted for the sports of fancy, of childhood, and of youth—for the relaxations of manly toil—for the occupation of leisure;—the shores of which are overhung with beautiful and wholesome shades—and the waters deep, and so clear, that the fish cannot play in their lowest beds, without betraying their motions to the observer, floating in his bark upon the surface. The common processes of nature maintain the everlasting and perfect purity of these waters, independent of the care of man. The transparency of the waters, in those upper regions, and in the great lakes, is a marvel—an incredible wonder to those, who have been accustomed only to turbid lakes and turbid rivers.
CHAPTER VII.
REMARKABLE INSTANCE OF CAPITAL CRIME.
We will not detain the reader any longer at Detroit, except to notice a remarkable instance of capital crime. On the 26th of July, during our stay at Detroit, S. G. S. received the sentence of death, from the proper tribunal, for the murder of his wife, under circumstances, aggravated by brutality and savageness, too painful for recital; and in the contemplation of which humanity shudders. The wretched man’s own children were the principal witnesses, on whose testimony he had been convicted. In telling the story of their mother’s dreadful end, they brought their father to the gallows. In the progress of the trial, a history of savage violence was disclosed, such, we would fain believe, as rarely passes upon the records of crime. What demon of hell can be more fatal to human happiness, and to the souls of men, than ardent spirits? The children, a son and two daughters, of adult years, testified abundantly to the natural amiableness and affectionate kindness, in the conjugal and parental relations, not only of the mother, but also of their father, in his sober moments. But when intoxicated, he seemed possessed of the furies of a more abandoned world.
As the murderer entered the place of judgment, and was conducted to the bar to receive the sentence of the law, I observed in him a noble human form, erect, manly, and dignified; of large but well proportioned stature; bearing a face and head not less expressive, than the most perfect beau ideal of the Roman; with a countenance divinely fitted for the play of virtue, of every parental and conjugal affection; and an eye beaming out a soul, which might well be imagined to have been once susceptible of the love and worship of the Eternal One—all—all marred and spoiled by the demon of intemperance; and now, alas! allied to murder of the most diabolical cast. Rarely is seen among the sons of men a more commanding human form, or a countenance more fitly set to intelligence and virtue—made, all would say, to love and be honoured. But now what change, by the debasements of brutal appetite, and the unprovoked indulgence and instigation of a fatal passion! By what a fearful career of vice and crime, had he come to this! “What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!” But when debased and ruined by vice, how like a fiend, in shape so unbefitting such a spirit! And yet, who could see the fiendly stamp upon this poor and wretched man? For he wept—he sobbed! His inmost soul heaved with anguish! he bore the marks of contrition. As a man, and such a man—if we could forget his crime—he was to be respected; as being in a condition of suffering, he was to be pitied; and as seeming the image of repentance, heaven might forgive what man could not.
It was an awful hour, when he approached the bar even of this earthly tribunal, anticipating well his doom. For a jury of his country, as he knew, had set their seal upon it. As he entered this now awful chamber of justice, he cast his eye around upon the expecting throng, whose presence and gaze could only be a mockery of his condition;—and with the greatest possible effort for self-possession, braced his muscular energies to support his manly frame, while trembling under the tempest of passion, which agitated his soul. But the moment he was seated, all his firmness dissolved into the weakness of a child;—and he wept;—he sobbed aloud. A silence reigned through the crowd, and a thrill of sympathy seemed to penetrate every heart.
The court, unaccustomed in that land to such an office, felt themselves in a new and an awful condition, with a fellow-being arraigned at their bar, charged and convicted of a most atrocious—and in its circumstances, an unparalleled crime, and his doom suspended at that moment on their lips. Their emotions were too evident to be mistaken, and in the highest degree honourable to their hearts. “S. G. S.”—the name in full being pronounced by the court, broke the awful silence of the place,—“have you any thing to say, why the judgment of the court should not now be pronounced?” The prisoner rose convulsed, and with faltering voice, and in broken accents, replied: “Nothing, if it please the court, except what I have already communicated”—and resumed his seat. Upon which a very appropriate, eloquent, and impressive address was made by the court to the prisoner, setting forth the fact and nature of the crime, of which he stood convicted; appealing to his own knowledge for the fairness of his trial; and to his own consciousness of the justice of his doom; commending him to heaven for that clemency, which he could no longer ask of men;—and then the awful sentence was pronounced. “And may God Almighty,” said the judge, with that subdued emphasis and touching pathos, which became the responsibility of his office, and the nature of the occasion—“may God Almighty have mercy on your soul.”