LETTER XXXIII.
Description of the District of Malden.—Establishment of a new British Post there.—Island of Bois Blanc.—Difference between the British and Americans respecting the Right of Possession.—Block Houses, how constructed.—Captain E—’s Farm.—Indians.—Description of Detroit River, and the Country bordering upon it.—Town of Detroit.—Head Quarters of the American Army.—Officers of the Western Army.—Unsuccessful Attempt of the Americans to impress upon the Minds of the Indians an Idea of their Consequence.—Of the Country round Detroit.—Doubts concerning our Route back to Philadelphia.—Determine to go by Presqu’ Isle.—Departure from Detroit.
Malden, October.
MALDEN is a district of considerable extent, situated on the eastern side of Detroit River, about eighteen miles below the town of Detroit. At the lower end of the district there are but few houses, and these stand very widely asunder; but at the upper end, bordering upon the river, and adjoining to the new British post that has been established since the evacuation of Detroit, a little town has been laid out, which already contains more than twenty houses, and is rapidly increasing. Hither several of the traders have removed who formerly resided at Detroit. This little town has as yet received no particular name, neither has the new post, but they merely go under the name of the new British post and town near the island of Bois Blanc, an island in the river near two miles in length, and half a mile in breadth, that lies opposite to Malden.
DETROIT.
When the evacuation of Detroit was first talked of, the island was looked to as an eligible situation for the new post, and orders were sent to purchase it from the Indians, and to take possession of it in the name of his Britannic Majesty. Accordingly a party of troops went down for that purpose from Detroit; they erected a small block house on the northern extremity of it, and left a serjeant’s guard there for its defence. Preparations were afterwards making for building a fort on it; but in the mean time a warm remonstrance against such proceedings came from the government of the United States[[14]], who insisted upon it that the island was not within the limits of the British dominions. The point, it was found, would admit of some dispute, and as it could not be determined immediately, the plan of building the fort was relinquished for the time. The block house on the island, however, still remains guarded, and possession will be kept of it until the matter in dispute be adjudged by the commissioners appointed, pursuant to the late treaty, for the purpose of determining the exact boundaries of the British dominions in this part of the continent, which were by no means clearly ascertained by the definitive treaty of peace between the States and Great Britain.
[14]. Notwithstanding that the government of the United States has thought it incumbent upon itself to remonstrate against our taking possession of this island, and thus to dispute every inch of ground respecting the right to which there could be the smallest doubt, yet the generality of the people of the States affect to talk of every such step as idle and unnecessary, inasmuch as they are fully persuaded, in their own minds, that all the British dominions in North America must, sooner or later, become a part of their empire. Thus Mr. Imlay, in his account of the north-western territory: “It is certain, that as the country has been more opened in America, and thereby the rays of the sun have acted more powerfully upon the earth, these benefits have tended greatly to soften the winter season; so that peopling Canada, for which we are much obliged to you, is a double advantage to us. First, it is settling and populating a country that must, sooner or later, from the natural order of things, become a part of our empire; and secondly, it is immediately meliorating the climate of the northern states,” &c.
The greatest empires that have ever appeared on the face of the globe have dissolved in the course of time, and no one acquainted with history will, I take it for granted, presume to say that the extended empire of Britain, all powerful as it is at present, is so much more closely knit together than any other empire ever was before it, that it can never fall asunder; Canada, I therefore suppose, may, with revolving years, be disjointed from the mother country, as well as her other colonies; but whenever that period shall arrive, which I trust is far distant, I am humbly of opinion that it will not form an additional knot in that extensive union of states which at present subsist on the continent of North America; indeed, were the British dominions in North America to be dissevered from the other members of the empire the ensuing year, I am still tempted to imagine that they would not become linked with the present federal American states, and for the following reasons:
First, because the constitution of the federal states, which is the bond that holds them together, is not calculated for such a large territory as that which the present states, together with such an addition, would constitute.