"He was indeed!" assented the captain. "Cruelty and cowardice usually go hand in hand, and they were both prominent traits in Proctor's character. But to return. Both Snelling and Jesup, perceiving that the greater part of the British force was at Sandwich, hastened back to Hull, and, reporting that fact to him, Jesup asked for 150 men to go over and spike the enemy's guns opposite Detroit. Hull said he could not spare so many. 'Give me one hundred, then,' entreated Jesup. 'Only one hundred,' added Snelling imploringly. Hull only replied that he would consider it, and then took refuge in the fort; for at four o'clock the British battery, whose guns Snelling and Jesup had proposed to spike, began firing shot and shell upon the fort, the town, and the camp. Then all the troops except Finley's regiment, which was stationed three hundred yards northwest of the fort, were ordered within the walls, crowding it far too much for comfort."
The captain paused, and Grandma Elsie remarked that she remembered reading of some interesting occurrences given by Lossing in notes to his history of the attack upon Detroit and its fort.
"One was that during the evening a large shell fell upon the roof of a private dwelling, two stories high, and coming down through the roof and upper floor, fell upon the table around which the family were sitting, then through to the cellar, and they had just time to fly from the house when the shell exploded, tearing it to pieces."
"That was a very narrow escape for them," remarked Violet.
"Please tell us some more, grandma," begged Neddie, and Grandma Elsie kindly continued.
"There was a battery commanded by a brave soldier—Lieutenant Daliba," she said. "He stood on the ramparts during the cannonade, and when he saw the smoke or flash of the enemy's cannon he would call out to his men, 'Down!' and they would drop behind the parapet until the ball had struck.
"Near the battery was a large pear-tree which was somewhat in the way, and Colonel Mack, of the Michigan militia, ordered a young volunteer named John Miller to cut it down. He made haste to obey, seizing an axe and falling vigorously to work; but when he had cut about halfway through the trunk one of the enemy's balls struck it and nearly finished the work. The young man turned coolly toward the British and called out, 'Send us another, John Bull; you can cut faster than I can.'"
"Was the British soldier that fired it named John Bull?" queried Neddie.
"Why, that's what we call Englishmen, don't you know?" said his sister Elsie. "And we are all Brother Jonathans. Aren't we, papa?"