The greatest length of the Michigan territory, from south-east to north-west, is 500 miles, and the number of square miles both of land and water is estimated at 150,000. The country was then chiefly in the possession of the Indians, and the white population amounted by the previous census to about 5,000. It includes two peninsulas of unequal size, in addition to which are numerous islands, constituent parts of the territory. The most important of these is Michilimakinack, already described. This island, while in the former possession of the British, was the general rendezvous of the North-West traders and the Indians they supplied. Here the outfits were furnished for the countries of Lake Michigan and the Mississippi, Lake Superior and the North-West; and here the returns of furs were collected and embarked for Montreal. Detroit, the chief town of the territory, is situated on the right bank of the strait, 10 miles below Lake St. Clair and 28 miles above Lake Erie. It then contained above two hundred houses, many of brick, and upwards of 1,200 inhabitants. In the rear of the fort was an extensive common, skirted by boundless and almost impenetrable forests. We learn from Morse's American Geography, on the acknowledged authority of Governor Hull, that Fort Detroit, in 1810, was a regular work of an oblong figure, "covering about an acre of ground. The parapets were about twenty feet in height, built of earth and sods, with four bastions, the whole surrounded with pallisadoes, a deep ditch, and glacis. It stood immediately back of the town, and had strength to withstand a regular siege, but did not command the river." And as the American government had been for some time secretly preparing for war, it may be safely inferred, that in the meanwhile this fort had been rather strengthened than permitted to fall to decay; and that it was at least as tenable in 1812 as when Governor Hull, two years before, gave the preceding description of its defences. The town of Detroit is in lat. 42° 15' north, and long. 82° 33' west.
About the year 1763, Detroit, then indeed the far west, and containing a garrison of 300 men, was nearly captured by stratagem by Pontiac, the celebrated Indian chief of that day, who waged war against the British, and whose alliance, before the capture of Quebec by Wolfe, in 1759, was anxiously courted by both the French and English.[53]
FOOTNOTES:
[51] The 49th British regiment assisted at the reduction of this fort in July, 1759.
[52] James' Military Occurrences of the late War between Great Britain and the United States, 2 vols. London, 1818.
[53] For a description of the deeds of Pontiac, or Pondiac, as she spells his name, see Mrs. Grant's "Memoirs of an American Lady," vol. ii.
CHAPTER VIII.
The discussions which had been so long pending between Great Britain and the United States, assumed, during the winter of 1811-12, a very serious aspect. But many did not believe that the latter power was inclined to proceed to extremities; while others, who foresaw that it only awaited a favorable moment to invade the Canadas, which were supposed ripe for revolt and would therefore fall an easy conquest, were prepared to expect what soon after followed, a declaration of war against Great Britain.
As this was not the first time that the American government had proceeded to menaces, and as the northern and eastern states were known to be averse to hostilities, the British ministry were deluded into a belief that peace would yet be maintained. Mr. Foster, the English minister at Washington, seems to have partaken of this delusion, for it does not appear that he had taken any precautionary measures to convey to the governor of the British North American Provinces the earliest intelligence of the declaration of war on the 18th June, 1812; and, had it not been for the prudent foresight of some British merchants at New York, it is possible that the first intimation would have been received from the mouths of the American cannon. To Upper Canada Mr. Foster sent no notice whatever of the war, and Major-General Brock was left to learn it officially through the circuitous and dilatory channel of the governor-general. Happily, individual diligence made up for this unpardonable neglect; and the war was known by private expresses at Montreal, in Lower, and at Fort George, in Upper Canada, on the 24th of June, or in six days after its declaration at Washington.