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 weflern limits than the limits of America itself; and they were prodigal of what they confidered as of no great importance. 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 embarrafling.

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.

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 3c00; to

every fubaltern zoco; 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, eftablishment, comprehending a popular reprefentative, agreeable to the plan of the royal governments in the other colonies, was directed as foon as the circumftances of thefe countries will admit of it; and in the mean time fuch regulations are provided, as will not fuffer a British fubje&t in thefe new fettlements to feel the leaft uneafinefs about his freedom.

That nothing might be wanting for the fecurity of new fettlers, for the ftability of the conquefts 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 reasonable, by the colonies they are intended to protect.

There was little doubt entertained, that this prudent diftribution of our new conquefts, and the wife regulations eftablished 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 moft 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 ourfelves in the most perfect fecurity; and juft at the time when we concluded the Indians to be entirely awed, and almoft 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 for

mer 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 Indians 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 themselves infinitely weaker than the English, they fupplied, as well as they could, the place of ftrength by policy, and paid a much more flattering and fyftematical 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 juft limits. Purchases, indeed, were made of the lands, and fometimes fair ones. But the Indians, confcious of the weak nefs and facility of their own character in all dealings, have often confidered a purchafe 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 government 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 alarmed, when they confidered the fituation of the places of strength we had acquired by conquest 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 resource 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 amongft the Indians, that a fcheme was formed for their entire extirpation. This scheme, so fhocking to humanity, we are unwilling to believe could ever have been countenanced by any perfons of rank and authority in America. But the Indians did not do the fame juftice to their intentions that we do; and the report of fuch a monftrous refolution had no fmall share 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 ftate the relative fituation of the Indians and Europeans, but that of the Indian nations to one another; else it will be difficult to account for the part, which many of these nations have acted upon fome late occasions.

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 confiderable of all the Indian powers of America, about the middle of the laft century, and that they retained 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 Miflifippi. They were very near driving the French out of America, and for a long time wafted 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 those 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 fierco 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 preferved 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 inha bited in the new fettled parts o Penfylvania, particularly theShawanefe 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 fhewed themfelves most active and crucl in their ravages upon our

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frontiers. They gave themselves up entirely to the French interest, and their mafters, the Iroquois, rather encouraged than restrained 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' fcattered along the Ohio, behind the Alleganey mountains; and the whole, thus compacted, formed a powerful and well united body.

Their ambition was raifed by their fuccefs in their incurfions, and by an advantageous treaty of peace, which they concluded with our colonies, fo that towards the clofe 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 progrefs; and more fearful of the growth of European than of Indian power, feem to have given no fort of oppofition to their pretenfions.

Thys a filent revolution was ac

complished in the ballance of favage empire in America. This body of Indians appears to have connected themfelves with the higher nations towards Detroit in their prefent defigns, and to have armed against us a great part of that continent. The moft 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 chaftifement, that they have attempted no motions, but keep the peace concluded with the Caroli nians with great fidelity.

WHI

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 those who might efcape;

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

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

reft,

reft, and by giving too early an alarm afforded an opportunity to part of our people to efcape with their effects. Great numbers were, nevertheless, cut off, the crops ruined, and their houses burned with all that detail of favage cruelty, with which an Indian war is always carried on, and which it is always difgufting to relate.

On this incurfion, all the frontier country of Penfylvania, Viinia, and Maryland, was immediately deferted for twenty miles inwards, and thousands of hopeful fettlements, the labour of years, at once abandoned. All the itinerant merchants, who, on the fecurity of the general peace, traded in the Indian country, were murdered, and their effects, it is faid, to the value of fome hundred thousand pounds, plundered. All the great trading towns in America felt this

blow.

What was of greater military importance, the forts, which the French had built to the fouthward of Lake Erie in very advantageous fituations, were taken. These were, Le Boeuf, Venango, and Prefqu'ifle. Though thefe forts were not in themselves very confiderable, the heads of all the navigable rivers, which run to the fouthward, are, in a good measure, commanded by them, and they alone preferved a communication between the places which we poffeffed above the lakes, and our principal poft of Fort Pitt to the fouthward.

In making themselves mafters of thefe forts, weak as they were, the Indians were obliged to make ufe of ftratagem. Whenever they attacked any of them, they perfuaded the garrison that they had cut off

all the others; they intimidated them with the number of Indians, which they faid were approaching; and upon a promife of fafety, which they commonly violated, perfuaded them to abandon their quarters. By fimilar artifices they fecured fome other forts, and particularly that of Michillimakinac, the remoteft of all our pofts, and, as I take it, the only one which we poffeffed towards Lake Superior; that of St. Mary's having been confumed by an accidental fire. After their fuccefs in these inftances, there ftill remained three pofts of confiderable strength, and important for their fituation, which it was neceffary that they should fubdue before they could expect any permanent advantage. Thefe were Detroit, between the Lakes Huron and Erie; Niagara, between the Lakes Erie and Ontario; and Fort Pitt, which checked them on the Ohio. The Indians were fenfible, that but a few links of their chain were broken, whilst these fortreffes remained; and therefore, against them they reiterated all their attempts of force and policy.

Our commander in chief, fenfible of the danger to which all our new conquefts were expofed, by the fudden breaking out of this very alarming war, fent out detachments as early as poffible to ftrengthen thofe important forts. The detachment fent to Detroit, where it had been much wanting, arrived on the 29th of July. The officer who commanded this party. captain Dalyell, having received fome intelligence, upon which he thought he had reafon to depend, concerning the fituation of the Indian army which lay near that fort, perfuaded the commander that those

favages