who then owned the farm, and before the dawn of day reached the hollow which may be seen a short distance to the rear of the fort. Upon a little ridge which separates this hollow from the parade ground (and only a few paces from it) they planted a gun in the road, and anxiously awaited the approach of day. Inside the fort, all was the most perfect quiet, not a suspicion that the war bugle had been blown found a place in a single bosom, though the enemy's gun was even then pointing over them at the distance of but a few rods. The dawn appeared, and the unsuspecting garrison began to move. As Lieutenant Hanks looked out from his quarters, (the same as are now occupied by the commanding officer,) he was struck with the unusual quiet that prevailed in the town below. What could it mean? No smoke went curling gracefully upward to the sky as usual, and no hurried footsteps were in the streets. Strange! Something evidently was wrong, and summoning Lieutenant Darrow, he ordered him with two men to go down and ascertain what it might be. Accordingly this officer descended to the town, to search for the trouble. He proceeded on his way until he, too, had arrived at the distillery, when the truth flashed upon him. Under a strong guard which had been sent by Captain Roberts, the inhabitants of the place were awaiting the decision that would again make them subjects of the British crown. Darrow entered the distillery and shook hands with its inmates, but when he proposed to return to the fort, the guards proposed to make him prisoner. Taking a pistol in each hand, and demanding permission to retire, he faced the guard, and, followed by his men, walked backwards till beyond their reach, when he returned without molestation to the fort.

But Lieutenant Hanks had no need of waiting for the return of Darrow to know the truth, for the sharp report of a British gun soon told him all, and more than all, that he wished to know; and before the distant forests had ceased to reëcho the sound, or the smoke of that unwelcome sunrise gun was lost in the azure vault of heaven, a British officer, with flag in

hand, appeared and demanded a surrender, emphasizing the demand by a statement of the overwhelming numbers of the invading army and a threat of indiscriminate slaughter by the savages at the first motion toward resistance.

When the inhabitants of the town had been gathered under guard at the distillery, Messrs. Davenport, Abbot, Bostwick, Stone, and John Dousman, who were among the leading citizens, were advised to go at once to the landing and give themselves up to Colonel Dickson, who had been left at that point by Captain Roberts for that purpose. This they accordingly did. They were then urged by Colonel Dickson to petition Lieutenant Hanks to surrender the fort at once, stating that the Indians would be entirely unmanageable in case there should be any resistance. This advice they also followed.

The position in which Hanks was now placed can be easily imagined. Not having received intelligence of the declaration of war, he was wholly off his guard, and unprepared to defend himself. The British troops, though less in number than the garrison under his command, had a position which commanded the fort, and were supported by nearly a thousand Indian warriors, who had been instructed to show no mercy in case that any resistance was made. Such being the case, Lieutenant Hanks surrendered the fort without even the ceremony of a refusal, and his men were paroled and sent to Detroit.

Some blame has been attached to the conduct of Lieutenant Hanks in this transaction. It has been claimed that, to say the least, the surrender was precipitate; that some experiment of the enemy's power to take the fort was due to the honor of the American flag, and ought to have been made, and that the result would probably have shown "that an invading corps, composed of thirty regulars and a rabble of engagés and savages, with two old rusty guns of small calibre, was much less formidable than had been imagined." This seems very plausible, especially to those who are unacquainted with the savage barbarities of Indian warfare, but when it is con

sidered that the first act of resistance would probably have been the signal for the uplifting of a thousand tomahawks and the brandishing of a thousand scalping-knives, we hesitate to condemn the conduct of Lieutenant Hanks in thus promptly making the surrender.

Some one was doubtless to blame. It was an unpardonable oversight that information of the existence of war was not immediately transmitted to the fort, and thorough preparation made for its defense. It was not, perhaps, the most flattering indication of good generalship that Lieutenant Hanks should permit himself to be thus surprised. He was on the extreme frontier, surrounded by Indian nations whom he knew to be unfriendly and treacherous, and but a few miles distant from the inveterate enemies of the American flag, whose wounded pride made them as unscrupulous as the savages themselves, and he should not have allowed himself to be thus surprised. Under these unfavorable circumstances, his vigilance ought to have saved him from the humiliating necessity of surrender; but after the English had planted their guns almost beneath the shadow of the fort, and the assembled savages, with implements of death in their hands, stood ready and eager, if occasion should offer, to repeat the bloody scenes of 1763 at Old Mackinac, was it not wise in him to make a virtue of necessity and permit the English to take peaceable possession of the fort and the island? We leave the reader to judge for him

self in the premises.

When the fort had been surrendered, the next step was to assemble the citizens at the government house, and administer to them the oath of allegiance to the British crown. Most of them willingly took this oath, but Messrs. Davenport, Bostwick, Stone, Abbot, and the Dousman brothers refused to turn traitors to the country of their choice. With the exception of Michael Dousman, who was permitted to remain neutral, these men were immediately sent away with the soldiers, and were not permitted to return till after the declaration of peace.

The services of Captain Roberts and his men in thus sur

prising and capturing Fort Mackinac, were highly appreciated and liberally rewarded by the British government. Prize money to the amount of ten thousand pounds was divided among the volunteers and soldiers, and merchandise and arms distributed to the Indians. Sir William Johnson, Esq., as quoted in "Old Mackinaw," tells us that, in 1836, he "examined the list or pay-roll for this prize-money; the names of all those who participated in the taking of Fort Mackinac were there enrolled, the money was divided according to rank, and each person receipted for his individual share."

Having thus easily and cheaply succeeded in wresting from the American people their most important western military position, the English at once set about the work of strengthening themselves in their new possession. Fearing that they would not be able to hold what they had so easily gained, they hastened to construct a fortification on the crowning point of the island, which, in honor of their reigning sovereign, they dignified with the title of Fort George. The remains of this old fort, now called Fort Holmes, may still be seen, and, from its historical associations, it is a place of much interest.

CHAPTER VII.

WAR OF 1812, CONCLUDED.

DURING the progress of the war, important changes took place in the Territory of Michigan. Fort Dearborn, on the south-western extremity of Lake Michigan, was forgotten alike by the government and by General Hull, until about the middle of July, when Captain Heald, its commander, was ordered to "dismantle the fort, destroy the surplus arms and ammunition and withdraw the garrison to Detroit." But in the attempt to execute this order the displeasure of the Indians was incurred, and the whole garrison either killed or taken prisoners. Through the ignorance and cowardice of General Hull, the whole territory was finally surrendered to the English; but the disgraceful act roused such a feeling of indignation in the West, that every man's cheek burned with shame, and ten thousand men sprang to arms, eager for a sight of the foe. General Harrison was placed in command, and the tide of victory soon turned in favor of the American cause.

On the tenth day of September, 1813, Commodore Perry gained his brilliant victory on Lake Erie. This again opened the way to the territory abandoned by Hull, and Harrison pressed on to occupy it. The British army retreated before him and he entered Detroit. On the fifth of October, a decisive victory was gained over the combined British and Indian forces, known as the victory of the Thames, in which Tecumseh, the great Indian war-chief, was slain. The death of this chief broke up the alliance of the western tribes and opened the way for treaties of peace.

So far as the North-west was concerned, the war was now