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Saguenay to Hudfon's ftreights, and all the neighbouring islands, were put under the care and infpection of the governor of Newfoundland. But the islands of St. John and Cape Breton were annexed, as their fituation required, to Nova Scotia.

The reader will obferve, and poffibly with fome furprife, that in this diftribution, much the largest, and, perhaps, the most valuable part of our conquefts, does not fall into any of these governments; that the environs of the great lakes, the fine countries on the whole courfe of the Ohio and Ouabache, and almost all that tract of Louifiana, which lies on the hither branch of the Miffifippi, are none of them comprehended in this diftribution. The government of Weft Florida extends in no part much above half a degree from the fea.

Many reasons may be [affigned for this apparent omiffion. A confideration of the Indians was, we prefume, the principal, because it might have given a fenfible alarm to that people, if they had feen us formally cantoning out their whole country into regular establishments. It was in this idea that the royal proclamation of the 7th of October 1763, ftrictly forbids any purchafes or fettlements beyond the limits of the three abovementioned governments, or any extenfion of our old colonies beyond the heads of the rivers which fall from the - weftward into the Atlantic ocean; referving exprefly all the territory behind these as an hunting ground for the Indians. The crown, how ever, retains its right of making purchafes and agreements with the Indians..

This reftraint is founded on

reafon and equity. But we cannot help obferving, that the neceffity of fuch a restraint seems to detract fomewhat from the force of thofe arguments which have been ufed to prove the value of our acquifitions on this continent. About the beginning of the war, a map of the middle fettlements was pu blifhed, in which thefe back countries were for the first time laid down with exactness. A pamphlet accompanied the map, by the fame author, who feemed perfectly well acquainted with that part of the world. In this pamphlet it was afferted, that, notwithstanding the vaft extent of territory, which even then we poffeffed in North America, the nature of the country was fuch, that useful land began to be fcarce, and that our fettlements must shortly be checked and limited by this circumftance. The great expediency, almost the abfolute neceffity, of a further extent of our territories there, was urged upon this principle; and many fchemes of trade and manufacture were grounded upon it. It is vifible, that the execution of thefe fchemes muft be, for a while at least, fufpended. However, it is not improbable that particular interefts, and, at that particular time, an intention likewife in favour of the national intereft, may have perfuaded thefe writers to reprefent the fcarcity of improveable land on the hither fide of the mountains to be much greater than in reality it is.

Another reason, we fuppofe, why no difpofition has been made of the inland country, was, that the charters of many of our old colonies give them, with very few exceptions, no other bounds to the weftward but the South Sea; and

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confequently these grants comprehended almost every thing we have conquered. Thefe charters were given when this continent was little known and little valued. They were then fcarce acquainted with any other western limits than the limits of America itself; and they were prodigal of what they confidered as of no great impor tance. The colonies fettled under royal government have, generally, been laid out much in the fame manner; and though the difficulties which arife on this quarter are not fo great as in the former, they are yet fufficiently embarraffing. Nothing can be more inconvenient, or can be attended with more abfurd confequences, than to admit the execution of the powers in those grants and distributions of territory in all their extent. But where the western boundary of each colony ought to be fettled, is a matter which must admit of great difpute, and can, to all appearance, only be finally adjufted by the interpofition of parlia

ment.

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Until thefe difficulties can be removed, it will be impoffible to think of forming any folid and advantageous fettlement in the midland countries. In the mean time, the administration in Great Britain omitted no means of improving thofe parts, which they could perfectly command. To encourage foldiers and feamen, who had ferved in the American war, to fettle there, and at the fame time to reward their fervices, lots of land were offered to the officers according to the correfpondent rank which they held in the army and the navy, 5000 acres to a field of ficer ; to every captain 3000; to

every fubaltern 2000; to every non-commiflioned officer 200; and to every private feaman and foldier 50.

This was a very ample and a very judicious encouragement, and it will, no doubt, have its effect.

But as no encouragement unconnected with the idea of liberty can be flattering to Englishmen, a civil establishment, comprehending a popular reprefentative, agreeable to the plan of the royal governments in the other colonies, was di rected as foon as the circumstances of these countries will admit of it; and in the mean time fuch regulati ons are provided, as will not fuffer a British fubject in these new settlements to feel the leaft uneafinefs about his freedom.

That nothing might be wanting for the fecurity of new fettlers, for the ftability of the conquests we had made, and for awing as well as protecting the Indian nations, a regular military establishment alfo was formed for this country and for our Weft India iflands, confifting of 10,000 men, divided into twenty battalions. For the prefent thefe troops are maintained by Great Britain. When a more calm and fettled feafon comes on, they are to be paid, as is reafonable, by the colonies they are intended to protect.

There was little doubt entertained, that this prudent distribution of our new conquefts, and the wife regulations established for them, could not fail to draw both from them and from all our old fettlements thofe advantages, on the profpect of which we began the war, and to fecure which was the capital object in the peace. But our principal and most fanguine hope lay in that

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entire fecurity, which our establishments were to enjoy from all moleftation of the Indians, fince French intrigues could no longer be employed to feduce, or French force to fupport, them.

Unhappily, however, we were difappointed in this expectation. Our danger arofe from that very quarter, in which we imagined ourselves in the most perfect fecu `rity; and just at the time when we concluded the Indians to be entirely awed, and almost fubjected by our power, they fuddenly fell upon the frontiers of our moft valuable fettlements, and upon all our out-lying forts, with fuch unanimity in the defign, and with fuch favage fury in the attack, as we had not experienced, even in the hottest times of any former war,

When the Indian nations faw the French power, as it were, annihilated in North America, they began to imagine that they ought to have made greater and earlier efforts in their favour. The In dians had not been for a long time fo jealous of them as they were of

us.

The French feemed more intent on trade than fettlement. Finding themfelves infinitely weaker than the English, they fupplied, as well as they could, the place of trength by policy, and paid a much more flattering and fyftema tical attention to the Indians than we had ever done. Our fuperiority in this war rendered our regard to this people ftill lefs, which had always been too little. Decorums,which are as neceffary at least in dealing with barbarous as with civilifed nations, were neglected. The ufual prefents were omitted. Contrary to the royal intentions

and the faith of treaties, fettlements were attempted beyond our just limits. Purchases, indeed, were made of the lands, and fometimes fair ones. But the indians, conscious of the weakness and facility of their own character in all deal, ings, have often confidered a pur. chafe and an invafion much as the fame thing. They expect that our reafon will rather aid, than take advantage of, their imbecility; and that we will not fuffer them, even when they are willing, to do thofe things which must end in their ruin when done. Our go. vernment has always confidered Indian affairs in this light, and has ever been as careful as poffible to prevent fuch private acquifitions.

The Indians were further alarm, ed, when they confidered the fitua tion of the places of strength we had acquired by conqueft and by treaty in their country. We poffeffed a chain of forts upon the fouth of Lake Erie, which fecured all the communications with the Ohio and the Miffifippi. We poffeffed the Detroit which fecures the communication of higher and lower America. We had drawn a chain of forts round the beft hunting country they had left; and this circumftance became of the more ferious concern to them, as fuch ground became every day more fcarce, not only from the gradual extending of our fettlements, but from their own bad œconomy of this fingle refource of favage life. They knew befides, that as no part of America was more neceffary to them, fo none was more defirable or defired for the purposes of an European eftablishment; and they beheld in every little garrison the germ of a future colony,

In the midst of thefe apprehenfions a report was fpread amongt the Indians, that a fcheme was formed for their entire extirpation. This scheme, so shocking to humanity, we are unwilling to believe could ever have been countenanced by any perfons of rank and autho rity in America. But the Indians did not do the fame juftice to their intentions that we do; and the report of fuch a monstrous refolution had no fmall fhare in urging them to a renewal of hoftilities.

The Indians on the Ohio took the lead in this war. In treating of American affairs, it is neceffary not only to state the relative fituation of the Indians and Europeans, but that of the Indian nations to one another; elfe it will be difficult to account for the part, which many of these nations have acted upon fome late occafions.

It is well known that a confederacy of favage tribes, whofe principal refidence is now to the fouth-east of Lake Ontario, and who were known by the name of the Iroquois, or Five Nations, made themselves the most confider able of all the Indian powers of America, about the middle of the laft century, and that they retain ed their dominion and fuperiority through the greater part of the prefent. They entirely fubdued all the nations upon three of the great lakes, and upon all the rivers which fall into the Milifippi: They were very near driving the French out of America, and for a long time wasted their colony of Canada with a moft cruel war. But having fuffered fome repulfes in that war, becoming perhaps jealous of the growing power of the English, and finding among

the Indian nations nothing that was capable or willing to give them any difturbance, they fell gradually into more quiet difpofi. tions, and began to enjoy the fruit of that fovereignty they had fo long and fo earnestly contended for.

The hiftorians of our colonies reprefent this people as originally of very pure and fevere manners. But they were corrupted by an intercourfe with thofe nations, by whofe debauchery they were enabled to conquer them. Luxury, of which there may be a fpecies even among favages, by degrees enervated the fierce virtue of the Iroquois, and weakened their empire, as it has done that of fo many others. Their numbers, which their frequent wars in fome degree leffened, were yet more diminished in time of peace; and the renown of their name, rather than their real power, for fome time preserved that high and haughty authority, which they for a long time continued to exercife over a great part of America.

During this latter period fome of the Indian nations, who inhabited in the new fettled parts of Penfylvania, particularly the Shawanefe and Delawars, who lived upon the rivers Delawar and Sufquehanna, retired, as the cultivation of the country advanced, back upon the Ohio, and feated themfelves there; but they changed their ancient feats, with the approbation and confent of the Iroquois, whofe fubjects they had been, and ftill continued to be, after this migration.

At the beginning of the late war, thefe were the Indians who thewed themfelves most active and cruel in their ravages upon our

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frontiers.

frontiers. They gave themselves up entirely to the French intereft, and their masters, the Iroquois, rather encouraged than reftrained them. By degrees they attained a practice and a reputation in arms, which made them formidable. And having obferved that the favages never have become confiderable but by an incorporation of several of their nations into one, they confederated with the other tribes, that had been scattered along the Ohio, behind the Alleganey moun ́ ́tains; and the whole, thus compacted, formed a powerful and well united body.

Their ambition was raised by their fuccefs in their incurfions, and by an advantageous treaty of peace, which they concluded with our colonies, fo that towards the close of the war, they fet up as an independent people. The league of the Iroquois, or Five Nations, was not, perhaps, able to prevent their progress; and more fearful of the growth of European than of Indian power, feem to have given no fort of oppofition to their pretenfions.

Thus a filent revolution was ac

complished in the ballance of favage empire in America. This body of Indians appears to have connected themselves with the higher nations towards Detroit in their prefent defigns, and to have armed against us a great part of that continent. The most temperate and confiderable part of the Iroquois have been, thought not without much difficulty, kept out of these hoftilities by the indefatigable pains of Sir William Johnfon, who has always exerted his influence on this people for the good of his country. One only of thefe nations, (the Senecas) it is faid, have departed from their neutrality. Our colonies must have been in the most imminent danger of being deftroyed, if the favages on this continent had been unanimous in their attack upon us. Fortunately, not only the Five Nations have continued inactive, but the powerful nation of the Cherokees have still fuch an impreffion of their late chastisement, that they have attempted no motions, but keep the peace concluded with the Carolinians with great fidelity.

CHAP. VI.

Plan of the Indian war. Frontiers of the middle fettlements wafted. Forts taken. Indians repulse our troops at Detroit. They attack Fort Pitt. March of colonel Bouquet. Battle of Bufby Run. Indians defeated. Fort Pitt relieved. Engagement near Niagara.

W HEN the Indians had refolved upon hoftilities, their fcheme was to make a general and fudden attack upon all our frontier fettlements in the time of harveft; to deftroy all the men they met; to cut off their provifions from thofe who might escape;

and thus to ftrike at the root of the war, the fubfiftence, in their very entrance upon action.

This plan was not injudicioufly conceived; but the precipitancy of fome of their warriors defeated in part the more methodical and confiderate mifchief of the

rest,

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