King George and his ministers evidently feared that, unless kept busy defending their homes, the hardy settlers of Western Virginia and Tennessee would aid their brother colonists in the East. In order to prevent them from so doing, deliberate and pitiless plans were made to incite the Indians against the western settlers. Indians were invited to Detroit from as far west and south as Arkansas, and gathered here by thousands. They were feasted, clothed and furnished with guns, scalping-knives, and tomahawks. Blankets, shirts, scarlet cloth and other things were given. The value of the requisitions for this post in a single year reached hundreds of thousands of dollars. The writer has personally seen the original record of the supplying of "sixteen gross of red-handled scalping-knives." Fully equipped, they set forth on their forays, returning with men, women, and children as prisoners, and with many scalps. The expedition which perpetrated the "Massacre of Wyoming" was equipped at this post, as was also the expedition of Captain Bird against Kentucky at a cost of over $300,000. The writer has an original account book of that period giving the names and pay per diem of the French who as guides and interpreters accompanied the English and Indians on some of their raids. The noted Daniel Boone was brought as a prisoner to Detroit after one of these expeditions. After the return of each party the guns of the fort were fired, the prisoners and scalps were counted and recorded, and again the Indians were feasted and given presents.

It was during these days that Col. A.S. De Peyster was in command at Detroit, but he was not in full sympathy with such savage warfare. It will be remembered that it was to him that Burns, while in his sick-chamber, dedicated his last poem, on "Life," beginning:

"My honored Colonel, deep I feel Your interest in the poet's weal," etc.

De Peyster himself could turn a bit of society verse. On one occasion he addressed the following lines to the wife of Lieutenant Pool England, then at Detroit:

"Accept, fair Ann, I do beseech, This tempting gift, a clingstone peach, The finest fruit I culled from three, Which you may safely take from me. Should Pool request to share the favor, Eat you the peach, give him the flavor; Which surely he can't take amiss, When 't is so heightened by your kiss."

COL. ARENT SCHUYLER DE PEYSTER.

The English officers then at Detroit did not have an easy life. There were resident rebel Americans who made much trouble—some of whom were sent away and others fined. American prisoners, too, were brought here. Some were compelled to work in the streets, in ball and chain, and others were forced to cut wood on Belle Isle.

At last Detroit and the West were yielded by treaty to the United States, but on one pretext or another they were not actually surrendered until July 11, 1796. On that day Fort Lernoult for the first time displayed the Stars and Stripes.[5]

[EVACUATION DAY TABLET ON FORT STREET ENTRANCE OF POST-OFFICE.]