location of the Jesuit establishment, and also of the French and Indian villages as they existed in 1688.

In 1695, M. de la Motte Cadillac, afterward the founder of Detroit, commanded at this post. He thus describes the place

at the time:

"It is very important that you should know, in case you are not already informed, that this village is one of the largest in all Canada. There is a fine fort of pickets, and sixty houses that form a street in a straight line. There is a garrison of welldisciplined, chosen soldiers, consisting of about two hundred men, the best formed and most athletic to be found in this New World ; besides many other persons who are residents here during two or three months in the year. The houses are arranged along the shore of this great Lake Huron, and fish and smoked meat constitute the principal food of the inhabitants.

"The villages of the savages, in which there are six or seven thousand souls, are about a pistol-shot distant from ours. All the lands are cleared for about three leagues around their village, and perfectly well cultivated. They produce a sufficient quantity of Indian corn for the use of both the French and savage inhabitants."

In 1699, Cadillac, perceiving the importance of a fort on the Detroit, repaired to France to present the subject to the consideration of Count Pontchartrain, the Colonial Minister. He was favorably received, and authorized to establish the proposed fort at the earliest date possible. This he accomplished in 1701.

With the exception of here and there a Jesuit missionary and a few half-savage coureurs de bois, the region around Mackinac was now forsaken by the French.

A dispute soon arose between Cadillac and the Jesuits, the former insisting upon a concentration of French interests in the West, at Detroit, the latter urging the French Government to reestablish Mackinac. The Jesuits did all in their power to prevent the Indians removing to Detroit, while Cadillac held out every inducement to prevail upon them to desert their villages and settle in the vicinity of the new fort, and so far succeeded that, in

1706, as we have seen, the Jesuits became discouraged, burned down their college and chapel, and returned to Quebec. But, alarmed at this step, the Governor soon prevailed upon Father James Marest to return; and shortly after the Ottawas, who were becoming dissatisfied at Detroit, began to move back to Mackinac.

Father Marest now did all in his power to prevail upon the French Government to send M. Louvigny, a former commander, with a few soldiers, to re-establish the fort, but did not succeed until 1714, when the long-wished for garrison and commander arrived, giving new life to the settlement.

In 1721, Father Charlevoix, the historian of New France, visited Mackinac, and thus speaks of it:

"I arrived the twenty-eighth (June) at this post, which is much declined since M. de la Motte Cadillac drew to Detroit the greatest part of the savages who were settled here, and especially the Hurons. Several Ottawas have followed them; others have dispersed themselves in the isles of Castor. There is only here a middling village, where there is still a great trade for peltry, because it is the passage or the rendezvous of many of the savage nations. The fort is preserved and the house of the missionaries, who are not much employed at present, having never found much docility among the Ottawas; but the court thinks their presence necessary, in a place where one must often treat with our allies, to exercise their ministry among the French, who come hither in great numbers. I have been assured that since the settlement of Detroit and the dispersion of the savages occasioned thereby, many nations of the North, who used to bring their peltries hither, have taken the route of Hudson's Bay, by the river Bourbon, and go there to trade with the English; but M. de la Motte could by no means foresee this inconvenience, since we were then in possession of Hudson's Bay.

"The situation of Michilimackinac is very advantageous for trade. This post is between three great lakes: Lake Michigan, which is three hundred leagues in compass, without mentioning

the great bay that comes into it; Lake Huron, which is three hundred and fifty leagues in circumference, and which is triangular; and the Upper Lake, which is five hundred leagues."

From the date of Charlevoix's visit, down to 1760, when it passed forever out of the hands of the French, the records of the establishment at Mackinac are very meagre, and comparatively devoid of interest. At the last-mentioned date we find the fort on the south side of the straits, but the time of the removal to that point has not been given by any author at the writer's command. Hennepin, La Hontan, and Cadillac, whom we have already quoted, describe it as on the north side, while Charlevoix says nothing bearing upon the question. Sheldon, in his "History of Early Michigan," suggests that the removal probably took place in 1714, when the post was re-established.

A brief notice of the war which ended with a transfer of Quebec with all its dependencies, not the least among which was Mackinac, will close the chapter.

France and England being rivals in the Old World, could not be partners of the New. Had these two powers been satisfied to divide the American Continent amicably between them, the history of Columbia would have been far different from what it is now. But when they crossed the Atlantic, they brought with them their hereditary enmity, and this enmity was strengthened by new issues which were constantly arising. Each desired undivided dominion over the North and West, and at times the struggle for supremacy was desperate.

The Indians around the lakes were, almost without exception, friendly to the French, while the "Five Nations," dwelling south and east from Lake Ontario, sided with the English.

As early as 1686, English adventurers, in quest of the rich furs of the North-west, pushed up the lakes of Mackinac ; but the French, unwilling that any portion of the Indian trade should pass into the hands of their enemies, made their visits to this region too hazardous to be oft repeated.

The heart sickens in contemplating this portion of our country's history. Many a spot was stained with the blood of its unfor

tunate inhabitants. The forests were often lighted up with the conflagration of burning villages, and the stillness of the midnight hour was frequently broken by the shrill war-whoop, mingled with the shrieks of helpless women under the tomahawk or scalpingknife. And these tragic scenes were too often prompted by French or English thirst for

power.

But finally, after many years, during which, with only short intervals of peace, these scenes of blood had frequent repetitions, the British Government determined to make a powerful effort to dispossess the French colonies of this territory. Military operations, however, were at first unfavorable to the English cause. Many a red column of well-trained and well-armed regulars wavered before the rifles of the combined French and Indians, who fought concealed in thickets, or from behind a breastwork of fallen trees. But in 1759, victory turned on the side of the English, and the question was brought to a speedy and decisive issue. An English army, under the command of BrigadierGeneral Wolf, succeeded, during the night of September 12th, in gaining the Heights of Abraham, at Quebec, where, upon the following day, was gained one of the most momentous victories in the annals of history—a victory which gave to the English tongue and the institutions of a Protestant Christianity the unexplored and seemingly infinite North and West.

Though this victory was gained in September of 1759, it was not until September of 1760 that a final surrender of Canada, with all the French posts around the lakes, was made to the English, and not till September of 1761 that possession was taken of Mackinac by English troops, as mentioned by Henry in the following chapter.

CHAPTER III.

WITH

CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC.

ITH the change of jurisdiction narrated in the previous chapter, a new scene opens before us-a scene in which the red men are the principal actors. The victory on the Heights of Abraham, at Quebec, gave to England the possession of a wide extent of territory; but that territory was one massive forest, interrupted only by prairies or lakes, or an occasional Indian cleared field, of small dimensions, for maize. The emblems of power in these illimitable wastes were the occasional log forts, with picketed inclosures, which, from time to time, had been constructed by the French, but more as trading-posts than as military strongholds.

What the English had gained by force of arms, they took possession of as conquerors; and, in their eagerness to supplant the French, they were blind to danger. Some of their ports. were garrisoned by less than a score of men, and often left dependent upon the Indians for supplies, though they were so widely remote from each other that, "lost in the boundless woods, they could no more be discovered than a little fleet of canoes scattered over the whole Atlantic, too minute to be perceptible, and safe only in fair weather." But, weak as were the English, their presence alarmed the red man, for it implied a design to occupy the country which, for ages, had been his own; and the transfer of the territory around the Great Lakes from the French, who were the friends of the Indians, to the English, upon whom they had been taught to look with distrust, could not, therefore, be regarded with favor by these tawny sons of the woods. The untutored mind of the savage could