[COYNE] DAVID RAMSAY AND LONG POINT 119 



posts nothing was done in this affair, but I understand he is still in 

 confinement, tho I have little expectation of its final issue in any 

 manner satisfactory to the Indians, who whenever ill disposed, are 

 well pleased with our delaying or denying justice as it serves for a 

 pretext to commit hostilities, a pretext we should never afford them." 



The Ramsay Tradition. 



The story of Ramsay s adventure with the Indians is told with 

 some variations in Tasker's book "The United Empire Loyalist 

 Settlement at Long Point, Lake Erie," from the traditions of the Maby 

 familv. 



In his narrative, Ramsay appears as an English trapper one 

 "accustomed to make yearly visits up the lakes for the purpose of 

 trading with the Indians." His brother of 17 is transformed into 

 a little nephew about ten years of age. In the adventure which 

 brought him so much notoriety, his canoe was laden with goods, 

 "and also with a considerable quantity of liquor." There were nine 

 Indians in the party which seized his canoe and stock in trade. Hav- 

 ing consumed the liquor, they resolved to burn him at the stake 

 and hold a war dance round his flaming body. He was tied with 

 his back to a tree, his arms being tied around the tree by buckskin 

 thongs. The Indian left on guard for the night followed the example 

 of his comrades by drinking copious draughts of liquor. All his 

 captors being thus disabled, the burning of the prisoner was neces- 

 sarily postponed until next day. The boy. left untied, handed Ramsay 

 a knife, with which he soon released himself and stabbed to the heart 

 the one Indian who was on guard, but who by this time was tottering 

 with the drink. The Indian's comrades in their drunken sleep were 

 easily brained with a musket. Ramsay then reloaded his canoe, 

 and proceeded with his nephew on their journey. 



Nothing is said about scalping in this story, nor about his arrest 

 and trial. This is perhaps not to be wondered at, when we learn 

 that Ramsay himself was the original narrator in occasional visits 

 to New Brunswick, where the Mabys and Peter Secord, a cousin who 

 had settled there in 1785, first heard through him of the Long Point 

 district. Tasker takes little stock in the story, which, however, 

 appears to have been handed down in the Maby family with reason- 

 able accuracy. 



Secord accompanied Ramsay on one of his trips up the great 

 lakes. As a result he and the Mabys settled in Charlotteville in 1793. 



It will be seen that the Maby tradition does not differ materially 

 from the official documents or Captain Campbell's account of the 

 killing. 



Sec. II, Sig. 9 



