[CRUIKSHANK] GENERAL HULL’S INVASION OF CANADA IN 1812 217 
deserted their homes in a sudden panic and began to build blockhouses 
for protection. On May 23rd Hull arrived, having with him forty 
recruits for the First United States Infantry at Detroit, and reviewed 
the troops in company with Governor Meigs, who formally transferred 
the command in a short speech, in which he congratulated them at their 
good fortune in being led by such an able and experienced soldier, and 
announced that a second army would at once be organized in Kentucky 
to follow and support them. Hull replied in a high-flown and inflam- 
matory address, which must have sounded strangely like an echo of 
some recent speeches in Congress. 
“On marching through a wilderness memorable for savage bar- 
barity,” he said, “ you will remember the causes by which that barbarity 
has been heretofore excited. In viewing the ground stained by the 
blood of your fellow citizens, it will be impossible to suppress the feel- 
ings of indignation. Passing by the ruins of a fortress erected in our 
territory by a foreign nation in times of profound peace, and for the 
express purpose of exciting the savages to hostility, and supplying them 
with the means of conducting a barbarous war, must remind you of 
that system of oppression and injustice which that nation has con- 
tinually practised, and which the spirit of an indignant people can no 
longer endure.” + 
Before beginning his march, he determined to despatch a confiden- 
tial agent to the principal Indian villages along the route with messages 
announcing his movement through their territory with a strong force. 
For this mission, Governor Meigs had selected Brigadier-General Robert 
Lucas, who was entrusted with despatches to the Indian agents and an 
address to be delivered to the chiefs and warriors of the Wyandots, 
Delawares, Miamis, Ottawas, Pottawatomies, Chippawas, and Shawnees 
in Ohio and Michigan. He was instructed to tell them that General 
Hull, advancing with a numerous army, came with an olive branch in 
one hand and a sword in the other, and that “those of them that 
accepted the one should enjoy protection, peace and happiness, and those 
that preferred the other should experience all the punishment his power- 
ful hand could inflict,” and that if any acts of hostility were committed 
by them, they would forfeit their lands, their annuities, and possibly 
their lives? On his arrival at Upper Sandusky he assembled the 
Wyandots and delivered his speech, to which they replied in a friendly 


McAfee, History of the War in the Western Country, p. 51; Brown, 
Northwestern Campaign. 
* Lucas to James Foster, Nov. 4th, 1812. Printed in Iowa Journal of 
History and Politics, July, 1906. 
