be allowed to depart unmolested on their vessels. The
officers, knowing that their communications with the east
were cut, that food was scarce, that a vigorous assault
could not fail to carry the fort, urged Gladwyn to accept
the offer, but he sternly refused. He would not abandon
Detroit while one pound of food and one pound of powder
were left in the fort. Moreover, the treacherous conduct
of Pontiac convinced him that the troops and traders as
they left the fort would be plundered and slaughtered.
He rejected Pontiac's demands, and advised him to disperse
his people and save his ammunition for hunting.

At this critical moment Detroit was undoubtedly saved by
a French Canadian. But for Jacques Baby, the grim spectre
Starvation would have stalked through the little fortress.
Baby was a prosperous trader and merchant who, with his
wife Susanne Reaume, lived on the east shore of the river,
almost opposite the fort. He had a farm of one thousand
acres, two hundred of which were under cultivation. His
trading establishment was a low-built log structure eighty
feet long by twenty wide. He owned thirty slaves--twenty
men and ten women. He seems to have treated them kindly;
at any rate, they loyally did his will. Baby agreed to
get provisions into the fort by stealth; and on a dark
night, about a week after the siege commenced, Gladwyn
had a lantern displayed on a plank fixed at the water's
edge. Baby had six canoes in readiness; in each were
stowed two quarters of beef, three hogs, and six bags of
meal. All night long these canoes plied across the
half-mile stretch of water and by daylight sufficient