King of France, with whose governors they had buried the
hatchet for ever, and smoked the calumet of perpetual
peace. Fired by these wily suggestions, the high and
jealous spirit of the Indian chiefs took the alarm, and
they beheld with impatience the "Red Coat," or "Saganaw,"
[Footnote: This word thus pronounced by themselves, in
reference to the English soldiery, is, in all probability,
derived from the original English settlers in Saganaw
Bay.] usurping, as they deemed it, those possessions
which had so recently acknowledged the supremacy of the
pale flag of their ancient ally. The cause of the Indians,
and that of the Canadians, became, in some degree,
identified as one, and each felt it was the interest,
and it may be said the natural instinct, of both, to hold
communionship of purpose, and to indulge the same jealousies
and fears. Such was the state of things in 1763, the
period at which our story commences,--an epoch fruitful
in designs of hostility and treachery on the part of the
Indians, who, too crafty and too politic to manifest
their feelings by overt acts declaratory of the hatred
carefully instilled into their breasts, sought every
opportunity to compass the destruction of the English,
wherever they were most vulnerable to the effects of
stratagem. Several inferior forts situated on the Ohio
had already fallen into their hands, when they summoned
all their address and cunning to accomplish the fall of
the two important though remote posts of Detroit and
Michilimackinac. For a length of time they were baffled
by the activity and vigilance of the respective governors
of these forts, who had had too much fatal experience in