[1274] In Kidder's Expeditions of Captain John Lovewell, it is stated that the petition for guns, blankets, etc., of thirteen Pequakets, who were willing to enlist, was granted by the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts Bay. The date of the petition is not given. For the treaty of July 10, 1776, see Amer. Arch., 5th, i. 835; and the reply of the Micmacs to Washington, Ibid. iii. 800.—Ed.
[1275] On the 24th of May, Ethan Allen addressed a letter to several tribes of the Canadian Indians, asking their warriors to join with his warriors "like brothers, and ambush the regulars." This proceeding he reported to the General Assembly of Connecticut two days afterward. On the 2nd of June, Allen proposed to the Provincial Congress of New York an invasion of Canada, urging as one of the reasons therefor that there would be "this unspeakable advantage: that instead of turning the Canadians and Indians against us, as is wrongly suggested by many, it would unavoidably attach and connect them to our interest." From Newbury, Colonel Bayley, on the 23d of June, addressed the Northern Indians as follows: "If you have a mind to join us, I will go with any number you shall bring to our army, and you shall each have a good coat and blanket, etc., and forty shillings per month, be the time longer or shorter."
In the autumn of 1775, Arnold on his Kennebec march was joined at Sartigan by a number of Indians, to whom he offered "one Portuguese per month, two dollars bounty, their provisions, and the liberty to choose their own officers." Under this inducement they took their canoes and proceeded with the invading column.
[1276] Governor Trumbull, of Connecticut, was in correspondence with Major Brown. Fifteen days after the fall of Ticonderoga the governor wrote to the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts Bay, and, without mentioning his authority, spoke of the "iterated intelligence we receive of the plans framed by our enemies to distress us, by inroads of Canadians and savages from the Province of Quebec upon the adjacent settlements." (Stuart's Trumbull, p. 185.) In a note (Ibid. p. 186) an extract from a letter of Arnold, of the 19th, is given, in which Arnold says that there are "400 regulars at St. Johns, making all possible preparation to cross the lake, and expecting to be joined by a body of Indians, with a design of retaking Crown Point and Ticonderoga." (Cf. also, Arnold, May 23d, from Crown Point, in Jour. Cong., i. 111.) The New Hampshire Provincial Congress, on the 3d of June, 1775, had "undoubted intelligence of the attempts of the British ministry to engage the Canadians and savages in their interest, in the present controversy with America, and by actual movements in Canada." (Sparks's MSS.) On the 6th of July, 1775, Governor Trumbull wrote to General Schuyler, enclosing a statement of a person who had been in Canada, containing the assertion that Governor Carleton "directly solicited the Indians for their assistance, but on their refusal declared he would dispossess them, and give their lands to those who would." July 21, 1775, Schuyler gave Major John Brown a general letter for use in Canada, in which he said: "Reports prevail that General Carleton intends an excursion into these parts; that for that purpose he is raising a body of Canadians and Indians." (Lossing's Schuyler, i. 366.) On Aug. 15th, Brown reported that "Sir John Johnson was at Montreal with a body of about 300 Tories and some Indians, trying to persuade the Caughnawagas to take up the hatchet", etc. (Ibid. p. 380). From the foregoing we can see that Congress had some reason to believe that the English authorities were at work among the Indians. Washington was evidently not convinced of the fact until Schuyler received information of a positive character concerning the Guy Johnson conference at Montreal. On the 24th of December, 1775, he wrote to Schuyler: "The proofs you have of the ministry's intention to engage the savages are incontrovertible. We have other confirmation of it by some despatches from John Stuart, the superintendent for the southern district, which luckily fell into my hands" (Sparks's Washington, iii. p. 209). Congress had not made public its previous sources of information, but it authorized the publication of "the second paragraph in General Schuyler's letter relative to the measures taken by the ministerial agents to engage the Indians in a war with the colonies." Montgomery, at St. John's, had, in September, already met with proofs of the most convincing character, but the presence of the Mohawks there, and their opposition to the American force, does not seem to have made the impression to which it was entitled.
[1277] Secret Journals of Congress, p. 44. Sparks, in his review of the subject, says "After the sanguinary affair at the Cedars ... Congress openly changed their system" (Washington, iii. p. 497). The resolution passed May 25th. Washington was then in Philadelphia. As late as June 9th, he wrote from New York: "I have been much surprised at not receiving a more explicit account of the defeat of Colonel Bedell and his party at the Cedars. I should have thought some of the officers in command would and ought to have transmitted it immediately, but as they have not, it is probable that I should have long remained in doubt as to the event, had not the commissioners called on me to-day." The coincidence of Washington's presence in Philadelphia at the time of the passage of the resolve is more significant than the fact that a battle had been fought of which the general of the army had only just heard two weeks after that date.
[1278] The address to the people of Ireland is dated May 10, 1775, the date of the assembling of Congress. The address was agreed to July 28th. It would be hard to justify the language used, if we accept the nominal date of the instrument as the actual date of its composition. When it was issued, the atrocities committed at the Cedars were still fresh in the minds of the members.
[1279] A note on the opinions of leading men, respecting the employment of Indians, is on a later page. The index (under Indians) to B. P. Poore's Descriptive Catalogue will point to the government publications.—Ed.
[1280] Speeches; also in Niles's Principles (1876), p. 459. Cf. also Burke's Speeches, and the reference in Walpole's Last Journals, ii. 193.—Ed.
[1281] This letter of Dunmore is quoted by Dartmouth. (Am. Arch., 4th, iii. 6.) On the 23d of April, 1779, William Livingston forwarded copy to Congress. It was ordered to be printed (Almon's Remembrancer, viii. p. 278). According to Bancroft, Gage in 1774 asked Carleton his opinion about raising "a body of Canadians and Indians, and for them to form a junction with the king's forces in this province." Carleton, in reply, apparently discouraged the project, saying, "You know what sort of people they [the Indians] are" (Bancroft, vii. pp. 117, 119).
[1282] Guy Johnson was the son-in-law of Sir William Johnson, as well as his successor in office, and the Mohawks said: "The love we have for Sir William Johnson, and the obligations the whole Six Nations are under to him, must make us regard and protect every branch of his family."