the real extent, value, and resources of the countries ceded to the United States, the man covered his eyes with his clenched hands, and burst into tears.

The position of Detroit is one of the finest imaginable. It is on a strait between Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair, commanding the whole internal commerce of these great "successive seas." Michi. gan, of which it is the capital, being now received into the Union, its importance, both as a frontier town and a place of trade, increases every day.

The origin of the city was a little palisadoed fort, erected here in 1702 by the French under La Motte Cadillac, to defend their fur-trade. It was then called Fort Portchartrain. From this time till 1760 it remained in possession of the French, and contin. ued to increase slowly. So late as 1721, Charlevoix speaks of the vast herds of buffalos ranging the plains west of the city. Meantime, under the protection of the fort, the settlement and cultivation of the neighbouring districts went on in spite of the attacks of some of the neighbouring tribes of Indians, particularly the Ottagamies, who, with the Iroquois, seem to have been the only decided and irreconcila. ble enemies whom the French found in this province. The capture of Quebec and the death of Wolfe being followed by the cession of the whole of the French territory in North America to the power of Great Britain, Detroit, with all the other trading posts in the west, was given up to the English. It is curious that the French submitted to this change of masters more easily than the Indians, who were by no means inclined to exchange the French for the

English alliance. "Whatever may have been the cause," says Governor Cass, "the fact is certain, that there is in the French character a peculiar adaptation to the habits and feelings of the Indians, and to this day the period of French domination is the era of all that is happy in Indian reminiscences."

The conciliating manners of the French towards the Indians, and the judgment with which they managed all their intercourse with them, has had a permanent effect on the minds of those tribes who were in friendship with them. At this day, if the British are generally preferred to the Americans, the French are always preferred to either. A Chippewa chief addressing the American agent, at the Sault St. Marie, so late as 1826, thus fondly referred to the period of the French dominion :-" When the Frenchmen arrived at these Falls, they came and kissed us. They called us children, and we found them fathers. We lived like brethren in the same lodge, and we had always wherewithal to clothe us. They never mocked at our ceremonies, and they never molested the places of our dead. Seven generations of men have passed away, but we have not forgotten it. Just, very just, were they towards us !"*

The discontent of the Indian tribes upon the transfer of the forts and trading posts into the possession of the British, showed itself early, and at length gave rise to one of the most prolonged and savage of all the Indian wars, that of Pontiac, in 1763.

* Vide Historical Sketches of Michigan.

Of this Pontiac you have read, no doubt, in various books of travels and anecdotes of Indian chiefs.* But it is one thing to read of these events by an English fireside, where the features of the scene--the forest wilds echoing to the war-whoop-the painted war. riors-the very words scalping, tomahawk, bring no definite meaning to the mind, only a vague hor. ror; and quite another thing to recall them here on the spot, arrayed in all their dread yet picturesque reality. Pontiac is the hero par excellence of all these regions; and in all the histories of Detroit, when Detroit becomes a great capital of the west, he will figure like Caractacus or Arminius in the Ro. man history. The English cotemporaries call him king and emperor of the Indians; but there is absolutely no sovereignty among these people. Pontiac was merely a war chief, chosen in the usual way, but exercising a more than usual influence, not by mere bravery-the universal savage virtue-but by talents of a rarer kind; a power of reflection and combination rarely met with in the character of the red warrior. Pontiac was a man of genius, and would have ruled his fellow-men under any circum. stances, and in any country. He formed a project similar to that which Tecumseh cntertained fifty years later. He united all the north-western tribes of Ottawas, Chippewas, and Pottowatamies, in one great confederacy against the British, "the dogs in red coats;" and had very nearly caused the over. throw, at least the temporary overthrow, of our pow.

There is a Life of Pontiac in Thatcher's Indian Biography.

er. He had planned a simultaneous attack on all the trading posts in the possession of the English, and BO far succeeded that ten of these forts were sur prised about the same time, and all the English soldiers and traders massacred, while the French were spared. Before any tidings of these horrors and outrages could reach Detroit, Pontiac was here in friendly guise, and all his measures admirably ar. ranged for taking this fort also by stratagem, and murdering every Englishman within it. All had been lost, if a poor Indian woman, who had received much kindness from the family of the commandant, (Major Gladwyn,) had not revealed the danger. I do not yet quite understand why Major Gladwyn, on the discovery of Pontiac's treachery, and having him in his power, did not make him and his whole band prisoners; such a stroke would have ended, or rather it would have prevented, the war. But it must be remembered that Major Gladwyn was ignorant of the systematic plan of extermination adopted by Pontiac; the news of the massacres at the upper forts had not reached him; he knew of nothing but the attempt on himself, and from motives of humanity he suffered them to leave the fort and go free. No sooner were they on the outside of the palisades, than they set up the war-yell, "like so many devils,” as a bystander expressed it, and turned and dis. charged their rifles on the garrison. The war, thus savagely declared, was accompanied by all those atrocious barbarities, and turns of fate, and traits of heroism, and hair-breadth escapes, which render these

Indian conflicts so exciting, so terrific, so pictu. resque.*

Detroit was in a state of siege by the Indians for twelve months, and gallantly and successfully defended by Major Gladwyn, till relieved by General Bradstreet.

The first time I was able to go out, my good. natured landlord drove me himself in his wagon, (Anglicé, gig,) with as much attention and care for my comfort as if I had been his near relation. The evening was glorious; the sky perfectly Italian-a genuine Claude Lorraine sky, that beautiful intense amber light reaching to the very zenith, while the purity and transparent loveliness of the atmospheric effects carried me back to Italy and times long past. I felt it all, as people feel things after a sharp fit of indisposition, when the nervous system, languid at once and sensitive, thrills and trembles to every breath of air. As we drove slowly and silently

The following extract from a cotemporary letter given in the Life of Pontiac is at least very graphic.

"DETROIT, July 9, 1763. "You have heard long ago of our pleasant situation, but the storm is blown over. Was it not very agreeable to hear every day of their cutting, carving, boiling, and eating our compa. nions? to see every day dead bodies floating down the river, mangled and disfigured? But Britons, you know, never shrink; we always appeared gay, to spite the rascals. They boiled and ate Sir Robert Devers, and we are informed by Mr. Pauly, who escaped the other day from one of the stations surprised at the breaking out of the war, and commanded by him. self, that he had seen an Indian have the skin of Captain Robertson's arm for a tobacco pouch."