Bouquet’s battles at Edgehill were small in the number of troops employed, and were fought far away in the American backwoods. They attracted little notice in England—to judge from Horace Walpole’s contemptuous reference to ‘half a dozen battles in miniature with the Indians in America’;[14] but none the less they were of vital importance. Attacking with every advantage on their side, with superiority of numbers, in summer heat, among their own woods, the Indians had been signally defeated, and among the dead were some of their best fighting chiefs. In Bouquet’s words, ‘the most warlike of the savage tribes have lost their boasted claim of being invincible in the woods;’[15] and he continued to urge the necessity of reinforcements in order to follow up the blow and carry the warfare into the enemy’s country. But the colonies did not answer, the war dragged on, and at the beginning of October Bouquet had the mortification of hearing of a British reverse at Niagara.

The date was the 14th of September, and the Indians concerned were the Senecas, who alone among the Six Nations took part in Pontiac’s rising. A small escort convoying empty wagons from the landing above the falls to the fort below was attacked and cut off; and two companies sent to their rescue from the lower landing were ambushed at the same spot, the ‘Devil’s Hole’, where the path ran by the precipice below the falls. Over 80 men were killed, including all the officers, and 20 men alone remained unhurt. Nor was this the end of disasters on the lakes. In November a strong force from Niagara, destined for Detroit, started along Lake Erie in a fleet of boats; a storm came on: the fleet was wrecked: many lives were lost: and the shattered remnant gave up the expedition and returned to Niagara. Detroit, however, was now safe. When October came, Ending of the siege of Detroit. various causes induced the Indians to desist from the siege. The approach of winter warned them to scatter in search of food: the news of Bouquet’s victory had due effect, and so had information of the coming expedition from Niagara, which had not yet miscarried. Most of all, Pontiac learnt by letter from the French commander at Fort Chartres that no help could be expected from France. Accordingly, in the middle of October, Pontiac’s allies made a truce with Gladwin, which enabled the latter to replenish his slender stock of supplies; at the end of the month Pontiac himself made overtures of peace: and the month of November found the long-beleaguered fort comparatively free of foes. In that same month Amherst Amherst succeeded by Gage. returned to England, being succeeded as commander-in-chief by General Gage, who had been Governor of Montreal.

Before Amherst left he had planned a campaign for the coming year. Colonel Bradstreet was to take a strong force along the line of the lakes, and harry the recalcitrant Indians to the south and west of that route, as far as they could be reached, while Bouquet was to advance from Fort Pitt into the centre of the Ohio valley, and bring to terms the Delawares and kindred tribes, who had infested the borders of the southern colonies.

Colonel John Bradstreet had gained high repute by his well-conceived and well-executed capture of Fort Frontenac in the year 1758— which earned warm commendation from Wolfe. He was regarded as among the best of the colonial officers, and as well fitted to carry war actively and aggressively into the enemy’s country. In this he conspicuously failed: he proved himself to be a vain and headstrong man, and was found wanting when left to act far from head quarters upon his own responsibility. In June, 1764, he started from Albany, and made his way by the old route of the Mohawk river and Oswego to Fort Niagara, encamping at Niagara in July. His force seems to have eventually numbered nearly 2,000 men, one half of whom consisted of levies from New York and New England, in addition to 300 Canadians. The latter were included in the expedition in order to disabuse the minds of the Indians of any idea that they were being supported by the French population of North America.

Before the troops left Niagara, a great conference of Indians was held there by Sir William Johnson, who arrived early in July. From all parts they came, except Pontiac’s own following and the Delawares and Shawanoes of the Ohio valley. Even the Senecas were induced by threats to make an appearance, delivered up a handful of prisoners, bound themselves over to keep peace with the English in future, and ceded in perpetuity to the Crown a strip of land four miles wide on both sides of the Niagara river. About a month passed in councils and speeches; on the 6th of August Johnson went back to Oswego, and on the 8th Bradstreet went on his way.

His instructions were explicit, to advance into the Indian territory, and, co-operating with Bouquet’s movements, to reduce the tribes to submission by presence in force. Those instructions he did not carry out. Near Presque Isle, on the 12th of August, he was met by Indians who purported to be delegates from the Delawares and Shawanoes: and, accepting their assurances, he engaged not to attack them for twenty-five days when, on his return from Detroit, they were to meet him at Sandusky, hand over prisoners, and conclude a final peace. He went on to Sandusky a few days later, where messengers of the Wyandots met him with similar protestations, and were bidden to follow him to Detroit, and there make a treaty. He then embarked for Detroit, leaving the hostile tribes unmolested and his work unaccomplished. From Sandusky he had sent an officer, Captain Morris, with orders to ascend the Maumee river to Fort Miami, no longer garrisoned, and thence to pass on to the Illinois country. Morris started on his mission, came across Pontiac on the Maumee, found war not peace, and, barely escaping with his life, reached Detroit on the 17th of September, when Bradstreet had already come and gone.

Towards the end of August Bradstreet reached Detroit. He held a council of Indians, at which the Sandusky Wyandots were present, and, having proclaimed in some sort British supremacy, thought he had put an end to the war. The substantive effect of his expedition was that he released Gladwin and his men, placing a new garrison in the fort, and sent a detachment to re-occupy the posts at Michillimackinac, Green Bay, and Sault St. Marie. He then retraced his steps to Sandusky. Here the Delawares, with whom he had made a provisional treaty at Presque Isle, were to meet him and complete their submission; and here he realized that Indian diplomacy had been cleverer than his own. Only a few emissaries came to the meeting-place with excuses for further delay, and meanwhile he received a message from General Gage strongly disapproving his action and ordering an immediate advance against the tribes, whom he had represented as brought to submission. He made no advance, loitered a while where he was, and finally came back to Niagara at the beginning of November after a disastrous storm on Lake Erie, a discredited commander, with a disappointed following.

If Bradstreet had any excuse for failure, it was that he did not know the temper of the Western Indians, and had not before his eyes perpetual evidence of their ferocity and their guile. Bouquet knew them well, and great was his indignation at the other commander’s ignorance or folly. After the relief of Fort Pitt in the preceding Bouquet’s operations. autumn he had gone back to Philadelphia, and throughout the spring and summer of 1764 was busy with preparations for a new campaign. On the 18th of September he was back at Fort Pitt, ready for a westward advance, with a strong force suitable for the work which lay before him. He had with him 500 regulars, mostly the seasoned men who had fought at Edgehill. Pennsylvania, roused at last to the necessity of vigorous action, had sent 1,000 men to join the expedition; and, though of these last a considerable number deserted on the route to Fort Pitt, 700 remained and were supplemented by over 200 Virginians. In the first days of October the advance from Fort Pitt began, the troops crossed the Ohio, followed its banks in a north-westerly direction to the Beaver Creek, crossed that river, and, marching westward through the forests, reached in the middle of the month the valley of the Muskingum river, near a deserted Indian village known as Tuscarawa or Tuscaroras. Bouquet was now within striking distance of the Delawares and the other Indian tribes who had so long terrorized the borderlands of the southern colonies. Near Tuscarawa Indian deputies met him, and were ordered—as a preliminary to peace—to deliver up within twelve days all the prisoners in their hands.

The spot fixed for the purpose was the junction of the two main branches of the Muskingum, forty miles distant to the south-west, forty miles nearer the centre of the Indians’ homes. To that place the troops marched on, strong in their own efficiency and in the personality of their leader, although news had come that Bradstreet, who was to threaten the Indians from Sandusky, was retreating homewards to Niagara. At the Forks of the Muskingum an encampment was made, and there at length, at the beginning of November, the red men brought back their captives. The work was fully done: north to Sandusky, and to the Shawano villages far to the west, Bouquet’s messengers were sent; the Indians saw the white men in their midst ready to strike hard, and they accepted the inevitable. The tribes which could not at the time make full restoration gave hostages of their chiefs, and hostages too were taken for the future consummation of peace, the exact terms of which were left to be decided and were shortly after arranged by Sir William Johnson. With these pledges of obedience, and with the restored captives, Bouquet retraced his steps, and reached Fort Pitt again on the 28th of November.

He had achieved a great victory, bloodless but complete; and at length the colonies realized what he had done. A vote of thanks to him was passed by the Pennsylvanian Assembly in no grudging terms. The Virginians, too, thanked him, but with rare meanness tried to burden him with the pay of the Virginian volunteers, who had served in the late expedition. This charge Pennsylvania took upon itself, more liberal than the sister colony; and the Imperial Government showed itself not unmindful of services rendered, for, foreigner as he was, Bouquet was promoted to be a brigadier-general in the British army. He was appointed to command the troops in Florida, and His death. died at Pensacola in September, 1765, leaving behind him the memory of a most competent soldier, and a loyal, honourable man.

Beyond the scene of Bouquet’s operations—further still to the west—lay the Illinois country and the settlements on the eastern bank of the Mississippi. Ceded to Great Britain by the Treaty of 1763, they were still without visible sign of British sovereignty; and, when the year 1764 closed, Pontiac’s name and influence was all powerful among the Indians of these regions, while the French flag still flew at Fort Chartres. By the treaty, the navigation of the Mississippi was left open to both French and English; and in the spring of 1764 an English officer from Florida had been dispatched to ascend the river from New Orleans, and take over the ceded forts. The officer in question—Major Loftus—started towards the end of February, and, after making his way for some distance up-stream, was attacked by Indians and forced to retrace his steps. Whether or not the attack was instigated by the French, it is certain that Loftus received little help or encouragement from the French commander at New Orleans, and it is equally certain that trading jealousy threw every obstacle in the way of the English advance into the Mississippi valley. It was not until the British occupation of Fort Chartres. autumn of 1765 that 100 Highlanders of the 42nd Regiment made their way safely down the Ohio, and finally took Fort Chartres into British keeping.

The way had been opened earlier in the year by Croghan, one of Sir William Johnson’s officers, who in the summer months went westward down the Ohio to remind the tribes of the pledges given to Bouquet, and to quicken their fulfilment. He reached the confluence of the Wabash river, and a few miles lower down was attacked by a band of savages, who afterwards veered round to peace and conducted him, half guest, half prisoner, to Vincennes and Ouatanon, the posts on the Wabash. Near Ouatanon he met Pontiac, was followed by him to Detroit, where it was arranged that a final meeting to conclude a final peace should be held at Oswego in the coming year. The meeting took place in July, 1766, under the unrivalled guidance of Sir William Johnson, and with it came the end of the Indian war.

The one hope for the confederate Indians had been help from the French. Slowly and reluctantly they had been driven to the conclusion that such help would not be forthcoming, and that for France the sun had set in the far west of North America. Pontiac himself gave in his submission to the English; he took their King for his father, and, when he was killed in an Indian brawl on the Mississippi in 1769, the red men’s vision of independence or of sovereignty in their native backwoods faded away. The two leading white races in North America, French and English, had fought it out; there followed the Indian rising against the victors; and soon was to come the almost equally inevitable struggle between the British colonists, set free from dread of Frenchman or of Indian, and the dominating motherland of their race.