[crurkSHANK] GENERAL HULL’S INVASION OF CANADA IN 1812 213 
of war to remain, quiet in their villages and take no part in the quarrels 
in which they have no interest. Many of their old sachems and chiefs 
would advise this line of conduct. Their authority, however, over the 
warriors would not restrain them. They would not listen to their 
advice. An Indian is hardly considered a man until he has been en- 
gaged in war and can show trophies. This first and most ardent of 
their passions will be excited by presents most gratifying to their pride 
and vanity. Unless strong measures are taken to prevent it, we may 
consider beyond all doubt they will be influenced to follow the advice 
of their British fathers.! 
He was well aware of the great discontent existing among them 
owing to encroachments upon their, lands, and knew that the Shaw- 
nee Prophet and his brother, Tecumseh, had long been actively engaged 
in the scheme of forming a general confederacy of the Indians of the 
Northwest, with the avowed object of driving all the white settlers 
beyond the Ohio River, the boundary named in the royal proclamation 
of 1764. Detroit, he declared, was “the key of the northern country,” 
and as long as it was held by the United States the Indians would be 
kept in check. Its regular garrison at that time consisted of a single 
company of artillery and another of infantry, numbering in all less 
than one hundred men. By his advice, officers of a volunteer company 
were appointed, with authority to recruit in the vicinity, and four 
companies of militia were called into service, while at the same time 
the commanding officer was directed to construct batteries on the bank 
of the river for the protection of the town. 
Orders were given to rebuild the brig Adams, the only vessel 
of war possessed by the United States on the Upper Lakes. Hull 
strongly opposed Armstrong’s project of directing the main attack 
against Montreal unless a sufficient force for the protection of Michigan 
should be previously assembled at Detroit, which would also cut off 
all communication between the British and the Indians of the United 
States and probably prevent a general rising of those tribes. “The 
British cannot hold Upper Canada,” he added, “and that assistance 
they cannot obtain if we have an adequate force in the situation I have 
pointed out.” They might even be induced to abandon Upper Canada 
by its appearance alone and command of the lakes would thus be secured 
without the expense of building ships, although he again strongly recom- 
mended that this should be done.? 

1J, F. Clark, Campaign of 1812, pp. 414-16; Hull Memoirs, pp. 19-20. 
? Hull, to the Secretary of War, 6th March, 1812, in “Defence of Gen. 
Hull, written by himself,’ Boston, 1814; also in Canadian Archives, incom- 
plete draft. 
