[FN] Letter of Washington to the Committee of Congress, Jan. 12,1779.
But, notwithstanding the untoward result of General McIntosh's expedition, the Indian branch of the service opened auspiciously the present year elsewhere, and first in a region yet deeper in the west than Fort Laurens. Colonel Hamilton, the British Lieutenant-Governor of Detroit—a rough, bad-tempered, and cruel officer, who had signalised himself by the exertion of a malignant influence over the Indians—and had provoked them to take up the hatchet against the Americans by every possible means—instigating them to deeds of blood by large rewards—had projected a powerful Indian expedition against the Virginia frontier, to be executed early in the Spring. [FN-1] With this design, at the close of the preceding Autumn, Hamilton left Detroit, and took post at St. Vincents, on the Wabash, in order to act earlier and more efficiently immediately after the breaking up of Winter. But his purpose was most happily defeated by a blow from a direction which he did not anticipate. Colonel Clarke, who was yet with a small force in command of Kaskaskias, having learned, in February, that Hamilton had weakened himself by despatching many of his Indians in different directions to annoy the frontiers of the States, formed the bold resolution of attacking him in his quarters. After a difficult movement by land and water, at the head of one hundred and thirty men, Clarke suddenly arrived before St. Vincents. The town at once submitted; and on the following day, Colonel Hamilton and the garrison surrendered themselves prisoners of war. It was the good fortune of Colonel Clarke also to intercept and capture a valuable convoy of provisions and stores, coming to St. Vincents from Detroit. Hamilton was transferred to Virginia, where the Council of the Commonwealth instituted an inquiry into the inhuman conduct imputed to him, and his confinement in irons, on a diet of bread and water, was recommended. [FN-2] The plans of the enemy were not a little disconcerted by this small, though brilliant affair; and peace with several of the Indian tribes in that direction was the immediate consequence.
[FN-1] Should any one doubt the propriety of speaking thus harshly in history of this Colonel Hamilton, let him read the "Narrative of the capture and treatment of John Dodge, by the British at Detroit," published in Almon's Remembrancer, vol. vi. pp. 73-81.
[FN-2] Ramsay.
In the mean time, and before this disaster befell the Detroit expedition, some bold winter emprise was projected by Joseph Brant, which—in consequence, probably, of the capture of Hamilton—miscarried, or rather was not attempted to be put in execution. It does not appear what the measure was upon which Brant was meditating; but on the 1st of January, Colonel Van Dyck, then in command of Fort Schuyler, wrote to General Clinton, "that the Oneidas had just received information that the enemy seemed determined to strike some capital blow during the winter." In addition to an application from the Quiquoga Indians to join them in the expedition, Colonel Van Dyck stated that "one of the principal Oneida warriors had received a private letter from Joseph Brant, inviting him to join the Six Nations with his adherents, that he might avoid the danger to which his tribe was exposed." [FN]
[FN] Papers of General James Clinton.
There is reason to suppose that a part of Brant's project was to strike a blow upon the Oneidas themselves, unless they could be seduced from their neutrality—amounting, as it did, almost to an alliance with the United States. [FN] But this faithful tribe were neither to be coaxed nor driven from the stand they had maintained since the beginning of the controversy. On the 16th and 17th of January, the Oneidas and Tuscaroras held a council, to deliberate upon the invitations of the Quiquogas and Captain Brant, the result of which they communicated to Colonel Van Dyck on the following day. They informed that efficient officer, that after giving permission to any of their tribe, who desired to join the enemy, to withdraw, there was a unanimous resolution of the council "to stand by each other in defence of their lives and liberty, against any enemy that might be disposed to attack them;" and to the late message of the Quiquogas, they unanimously agreed to return the following answer, viz: "That as they had ever behaved themselves in a quiet, and peaceable manner toward the confederacy, they could not conceive that their conduct could be considered reprehensible by them. They likewise put them in mind of their long and unwearied efforts to prevent the Six Nations involving themselves in the calamities of war, and that they had exerted themselves so far as by their influence to relieve, from close confinement, some of their people whom the fortune of war had put into the hands of their enemies. But that they now utterly despaired of ever being able to effect a reconciliation between the Confederacy and the United States; and that the only hope they had of them was, that some of them would, in time, abandon the cause thus imprudently espoused; that they would never violate their alliance with the American States; and though they would not be the aggressors, or wantonly provoke any tribe to war, yet that they should henceforth be on their guard against any enemy whatever."