114 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



some time on the Upper Lakes, he returned to the Mohawk, where he 

 was soon joined by his brother George from Scotland. "Having the 

 assistance of this lad," Ramsay states, "I thought of trading with the 

 Indians on my own account, and for that purpose purchased a large 

 battoe at Skennectity, and procured credit to the amount of 150 

 pounds York currency's worth of goods." With these he proceeded 

 via Wood Creek, Oswego and Lake Ontario to Niagara. He adds: 

 "Carried my battoe and goods across the portage to Lake Erie; from 

 thence to the river Sold Year" (which is Ramsay or Campbell's 

 phonetic transformation of Chaudière) "or Kettle Creek, and proceed- 

 ed up that river for sixty miles, where we met tribes of different 

 nations of Indians encamped for the purpose of hunting, and informed 

 them of my intention of residing among them during the winter, and 

 erected a sufficient house of logs." Here he bartered goods for furs 

 until towards January, 1772, when trouble began with some Ojibwas, 

 Mississagas and Ottawas. He was compelled to furnish them rum, 

 his life was threatened, his goods plundered, and at last his hut was 

 attacked by night. He killed and scalped three Ottawas, according 

 to his own story, the other Indians having departed previous to the 

 attack. One of those scalped was a woman. When the ice broke up, 

 he and his brother, a boy of seventeen, put his furs and other goods, 

 chiefîy deerskins, into the bateau, and set out for Niagara by way of 

 Lake Erie. At Long Point he was forced by the ice to go ashore and 

 camp. Some days afterwards Indians came to the same place and at 

 once began to quarrel with him, chiefly over rum, which he was com- 

 pelled to furnish them. They threatened his life, and actually seized 

 and pinioned him, tying his arms behind his back and his hands up 

 to his neck, and making him sit by the fire. To make a long story 

 short, Ramsay, in the end, got the better of his assailants. His brother 

 had been able to help him in the struggle, owing to the fact that he 

 had been less carefully watched. It is easy to imagine the effect of 

 the rum as a factor in the battle. Ramsay killed his guard and four 

 other Indians, including a boy, scalped them, and got away with his 

 brother. At Fort Erie he told the commanding officer about the 

 Indians he had killed. The officer put him under arrest and sent him 

 to Niagara where he was imprisoned. The Indians gathered at 

 Niagara in great numbers, demanded his surrender, and threatened 

 to burn the fort. "They became at last so clamorous," says Campbell, 

 "that the Governor sent a party, unknown to the Indians, to Mont- 

 real with David, where he was fifteen months in prison; and as no 

 proof could be brought against him in a regular trial, and everybody 

 knew he acted in self defence only, he was liberated. And what is 



