The English boats now entered the mouth of the Detroit, and on the twenty-sixth of August came within sight of the
fort and adjacent settlements. The inhabitants of the Wyandot village on the right, who, it will be remembered, had recently made a treaty of peace at Niagara, ran down to the shore, shouting, whooping, and firing their guns,—a greeting more noisy than sincere,—while the cannon of the garrison echoed salutation from the opposite shore, and cheer on cheer, deep and heartfelt, pealed welcome from the crowded ramparts.
Well might Gladwyn’s beleaguered soldiers rejoice at the approaching succor. They had been beset for more than fifteen months by their wily enemy; and though there were times when not an Indian could be seen, yet woe to the soldier who should wander into the forest in search of game, or stroll too far beyond range of the cannon. Throughout the preceding winter, they had been left in comparative quiet; but with the opening spring the Indians had resumed their pertinacious hostilities; not, however, with the same activity and vigor as during the preceding summer. The messages of Sir William Johnson, and the tidings of Bradstreet’s intended expedition, had had great effect upon their minds, and some of them had begged abjectly for peace; but still the garrison were harassed by frequent alarms, and days and nights of watchfulness were their unvarying lot. Cut off for months together from all communication with their race; pent up in an irksome imprisonment; ill supplied with provisions, and with clothing worn threadbare, they hailed with delight the prospect of a return to the world from which they had been banished so long. The army had no sooner landed than the garrison was relieved, and fresh troops substituted in their place. Bradstreet’s next care was to inquire into the conduct of the Canadian inhabitants of Detroit, and punish such of them as had given aid to the Indians. A few only were found guilty, the more culpable having fled to the Illinois on the approach of the army.
Pontiac too was gone. The great war-chief, his vengeance unslaked, and his purpose unshaken, had retired, as we have seen, to the banks of the Maumee, whence he sent a haughty defiance to the English commander. The Indian villages near Detroit were half emptied of their inhabitants, many of whom still followed the desperate fortunes of their indomitable
leader. Those who remained were, for the most part, brought by famine and misery to a sincere desire for peace, and readily obeyed the summons of Bradstreet to meet him in council.
The council was held in the open air, on the morning of the seventh of September, with all the accompaniments of military display which could inspire awe and respect among the assembled savages. The tribes, or rather fragments of tribes, represented at this meeting, were the Ottawas, Ojibwas, Pottawattamies, Miamis, Sacs, and Wyandots. The Indians of Sandusky kept imperfectly the promise they had made, the Wyandots of that place alone sending a full deputation; while the other tribes were merely represented by the Ojibwa chief Wasson. This man, who was the principal chief of his tribe, and the most prominent orator on the present occasion, rose and opened the council.
“My brother,” he said, addressing Bradstreet, “last year God forsook us. God has now opened our eyes, and we desire to be heard. It is God’s will our hearts are altered. It was God’s will you had such fine weather to come to us. It is God’s will also there should be peace and tranquillity over the face of the earth and of the waters.”
Having delivered this exordium, Wasson frankly confessed that the tribes which he represented were all justly chargeable with the war, and now deeply regretted their delinquency. It is common with Indians, when accused of acts of violence, to lay the blame upon the unbridled recklessness of their young warriors; and this excuse is often perfectly sound and valid; but since, in the case of a premeditated and long-continued war, it was glaringly inadmissible, they now reversed the usual course, and made scapegoats of the old chiefs and warriors, who, as they declared, had led the people astray by sinister counsel and bad example.[412]
Bradstreet would grant peace only on condition that they should become subjects of the King of England, and acknowledge that he held over their country a sovereignty as ample and complete as over any other part of his dominions. Nothing
could be more impolitic and absurd than this demand. The smallest attempt at an invasion of their liberties has always been regarded by the Indians with extreme jealousy, and a prominent cause of the war had been an undue assumption of authority on the part of the English. This article of the treaty, could its purport have been fully understood, might have kindled afresh the quarrel which it sought to extinguish; but happily not a savage present was able to comprehend it. Subjection and sovereignty are ideas which never enter into the mind of an Indian, and therefore his language has no words to express them. Most of the western tribes, it is true, had been accustomed to call themselves children of the King of France; but the words were a mere compliment, conveying no sense of any political relation whatever. Yet it was solely by means of this harmless metaphor that the condition in question could be explained to the assembled chiefs. Thus interpreted, it met with a ready assent; since, in their eyes, it involved no concession beyond a mere unmeaning change of forms and words. They promised, in future, to call the English king father, instead of brother; unconscious of any obligation which so trifling a change could impose, and mentally reserving a full right to make war on him or his people, whenever it should suit their convenience. When Bradstreet returned from his expedition, he boasted that he had reduced the tribes of Detroit to terms of more complete submission than any other Indians had ever before yielded; but the truth was soon detected and exposed by those conversant with Indian affairs.[413]