[siebert] loyalists AND SIX NATION INDIANS 



89 



one case to the hardships of campaigning and in the other to long 

 journeys through the Indian Country, often with insufficient food. 

 In April, 1781, Dr. R. W. Causland, the regimental surgeon at Nia- 

 gara, wrote that during the two previous years and part of the third 

 he had constantly under his care the sick of the detachments of the 

 various corps at the post, namely, the 34th, 47th, 84th, and Sir John 

 Johnson's regiments, besides Captain Brant's Volunteers, that during 

 1780 the 34th Regiment alone had 245 sick, and that he was far from 

 exaggerating in saying that from 1776 to 1781 the sick at the fort had 

 amounted to more than 100 each year. 



Doubtless, all this illness, no less than the casualties in the field, 

 prevented Colonel Butler from completing his corps of Rangers; but 

 m May, 1781, the Colonel sent word to Quebec that he expected to 

 fill his ranks soon, as some of his men had gone to bring in 30 Loyalists 

 who had enlisted during the previous winter, and that he had yet to 

 hear from three other recruiting parties. Evidently Butler's expecta- 

 tions were more than fulfilled, for a little later he had asked permission 

 to add the ninth and tenth companies to his corps. That such per- 

 mission was granted appears from the fact that he was able to report, 

 July 2, 1781, that the ninth company had been completed and mustered 

 three days before. On Januray 12th, seven more refugees arrived 

 and joined the Rangers, the tenth company being filled in the following 

 September. 2 



While Butler's corps was thus attaining its maximum strength, 

 the new settlement across the Niagara was making but slow progress. 

 Late in May, 1781, Butler acknowledged the receipt of various articles 

 forwarded from Quebec for the settlers, but reported that they were 

 much in need of a blacksmith and forge and iron suitable for plow- 

 shares. He suggested that he could find the smith among his Rangers, 

 and that if Governor Haldimand would supply the forge and iron for 

 a year the settlers might be able after that to help themselves. As it 

 turned out, some of the families in the little colony were already in a 

 position to "subsist themselves" by September, and Haldimand ex- 

 pressed himself as being much gratified with the prospect that was 

 opening before the settlement. On December 17th Butler wrote 

 that the winter thus far had been so moderate that the farmers had 

 found it possible to clear the ground and prepare it for planting and 

 sowing early in the spring, and that they had in fact maintained 

 themselves since the previous September, although they had been 

 allowed only half rations from the beginning. ^ A party of refugees 



1 Haldimand Papers, B. 100, pp. 287, 359, 407; B. 101, pp. 30, 38, 114. 



^ Ibid., B. 105, pp. 215, 221; B. 101, p. 117; Cruikshank, Butler's Rangers, 97. 



* Niagara Hist. Soc, No. 17, 6, 7. 



