with their men, or had we even known their position, there would probably have been no surrender at that time."

Now that all excitement, unfavorable to dispassionate judgment, has passed away, some of the early impressions, which attributed the conduct of General Hull to money, the price of treason, have been removed, and the unfortunate termination of his campaign is, by general consent, attributed to cowardice and to imbecility. He was utterly unequal to his command, and was oppressed by its duties, and responsibilities, and, at the last moment, was the victim of personal fear. Feeble efforts have, at times, been made to rescue his name from obloquy, but they have been utter failures. A military court, composed of officers of high rank and character, after an impartial and laborious investigation, pronounced him guilty of cowardice, and sentenced him to be shot. Mr. Madison, in consideration of his age and revolutionary services, remitted the penalty of death, but struck his name ignominiously from the roll of the army, which he had dishonored.

It is enough to know that he surrendered his command to an attacking force of about one third his own strength. An American needs no other fact to guide him in his judgment of this catastrophe. General Hull, among other excuses, alledges the want of ammunition and provisions as motives for surrender. Not that he was destitute; that he did not alledge, and it is known that his supplies of both were adequate to his circumstances, but that he apprehended these essential supplies would fail before the final issue. But the less he had of either, the stronger was the reason why his course should have been prompt and energetic. The worst disaster that could happen to him, after the most severe loss, would have been an unconditional surrender.

General Hull was instructed by the War Department to protect Detroit. The invasion of Canada was left to his discretion. In effect, he did neither. He crossed the river only to make an inglorious retreat-disheartening to his troops, many of whom were volunteers, burning with patriotism. When followed by the enemy and summoned to surrender, he complied with the request. He held out just long enough to increase the pompous vanity of the summoner, and provoke the resentment of his command. He commenced the retreat from the bridge of the Canards, and terminated it on the esplanade of the American fortress. Strange infatuation! A captain, in the forlorn hope of Wayne, under the walls

of Stony Point, in his elevated position of brigadier general, capitulates, without the crossing of a single bayonet, or the firing of a single shot! But yesterday, as it were, in council with the government, at the capital of his country, and fully aware of its plans and objects, posts away to his army, only to lead it into the hands of the enemy! Conduct most unaccountable! Problem unsolvable! In memory of other prouder days and gallant deeds in the life of this white-haired veteran, let the veil of oblivion, in mercy, be drawn over his campaign of 1812, and ascribe all his errors, for the sake of himself and country, to the imbecility of age.

CHAPTER VII.

General Cass returns to Detroit-Situation of the Frontier-Resigns the Command of Brigadier General -Superintendent of Indian Affairs-His Policy-Appointed Commissioner to treat with the Indians -Holds a Treaty at Greenville-Surrounded by Five Thousand Indians-Their Threats-His Intrepidity-The Treaty-Sends Reinforcements to General Brown-The Inroads of Hostile IndiansHe Disperses Them--His Pet Indians-Colonel James-Correspondence-General Cass' Rejection of British Interference in the Civil Affairs of Michigan-Treaty of Peace-Removal of his Family to Detroit-British Arrogance-Boarding of American Vessels-General Cass Remonstrates-Its Effect.

Having discharged the duty which called him to Albany, General Cass returned to Detroit. There were too many duties there to perform for him to be absent from his post any longer than absolute necessity required. Although the British garrisons were then broken up, and Tecumseh was in his grave, yet the reader must not imagine that "order reigned in Warsaw," or that the people of that Territory were now free from the calamities of war. The ill temper, and hostile propensities of the Indians to plunder, rob, and murder, were yet to be subdued. The upper country was not free. The British flag waved at Mackinaw, and the intermediate country was filled with fur traders, who believed their interests were antagonistic to the United States. American citizens, who had fled from their firesides and homes during the previous eighteen months, were now returning to behold the devastations of their property, without business, and with scanty means of support. All of the province of Canada which had been held in submission by the presence of the British soldiery, was now subject to the order of the Governor of Michigan, and to him was entrusted the enforcement of law and the protection of their rights in common with citizens on the west side of the river.

General Cass fully appreciated the responsibility of his position, and, with the wisdom of a statesman, set himself to work. How long hostilities would continue, or how they would end, or whether the Canadas, or any portion thereof, would become part and parcel of Michigan, were questions not easily answered. It was sufficiently obvious, however, to his active and cultivated mind, that the end of the war would find the Stars and Stripes waving over the peninsula of Michigan, at least, if not over all the lands

west to the Mississippi. But to accomplish this it was necessary to quell public fear and restore public confidence; to induce the citizens to feel that their houses were safe from the tomahawk and knife of the savage, their lives free of jeopardy from the assassin and the incendiary, and their business pursuits protected by the sleepless vigilance of the law. As in all his previous undertakings, so in this, he calmly surveyed the ground, and determined what the exigencies of the times required him to do.

Impressed with the conviction that such extensive military and civil powers should not be vested in the same person, General Cass now tendered to the President his resignation of the commission of brigadier general in the army. This was accepted, but the acceptance was accompanied with the express requirement, by the President, that he should take charge of the defense of the Territory, in his capacity as Governor.

The seat of the war, on the north-west frontier, was, about this period, transferred to the eastern part of Upper Canada, and the line of Niagara river, between the two lakes, Erie and Ontario, became the theater of operations. General Brown took the command, and the principal portion of the military forces at or near Detroit were ordered to march thither. Michigan was left with only one company of regular soldiers for her defense, consisting of twenty-seven men. With such an inadequate force, and the local militia, General Cass, the Governor, was left to defend the Territory against the hostile Indians, who were constantly hovering around Detroit.

While Detroit was in this defenseless condition, a war party of Indians issued from the forest which skirted the town, and marked their irruption by one of those deeds of blood which have made the history of that frontier a record of trials and sufferings without a parallel in the progress of society. As the strength of the war party was unknown, it is difficult to find words to describe the alarm which prevailed among the inhabitants. But General Cass was not to be dismayed by Indian whoops or the discharge of Indian rifles. His ears were familiar to such sounds. Although destitute of disciplined troops, enough of the inhabitants responded to his call, and, supplying the place of numbers and experience. with their energy, he drove the foe from the settlement to his native haunts in the forest, after a short but sharp conflict. He well recollects the terror inspired by his return, as the scalp hallo

was raised by some of his friendly Indian hunters to indicate the success of the party, and broke the silence of the twilight with that terrific sound, which, once heard, is never forgotten, and which tells the tale of blood before the bleeding trophies and the victors present themselves. Whether this signal was from friend. or foe, the helpless women and children, whose husbands and fathers had gone out to defend them, had no means of knowing; and many of them, in the terrible uncertainty, took to their canoes and fled for safety to the Canadian shore. Happily, the return of their friends removed all apprehension, and secured their safety. Such incidents are characteristic of frontier life, and when they shall have been hallowed by time and traditional associations, they will constitute the romance of Indian history.

As Governor of the Territory, General Cass was, ex-officio, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and it became his prerogative and duty to advise with the government on this subject. He early had an impression that it was the policy of the government, as a means of pacification, to purchase the possessory rights of the Indians in those extensive tracts of land over which they were continually roaming; to limit their hunting grounds to a narrower compass; to teach them agriculture and mechanics, and give them school-houses and churches. This, to his mind, appeared to be the only feasible mode of acquiring their friendship, and, by circumscribing their field of operations, controlling their warlike movements, and putting an end to their manifold and constant depredations. At the same time, emigration and settlement, by the whites, would be encouraged back from the frontier posts, and communities of settlements planted that would ultimately ripen into states. The French and the English had hitherto pursued a different policy. All that they sought to obtain was a sufficient foothold for the mere purpose of temporary traffic, relying upon whiskey and tawdry presents for the preservation of amity; and if the voyageurs and traders extended the time of their residence, it was because thrift and a supply of the necessaries of life followed their otherwise aimless occupation. The great pecuniary advantages flowing from this traffic was enjoyed by the individuals or companies, as the case might be, in whose employment these agents were, at their homes in other lands. This, to the far-seeing mind of General Cass, was not the policy for the United States to adopt. He would have his government treat with these