86 The Winning of the West 



count, not only for Dorchester's speech but for the 

 act of building a fort on the Miami, and for the 

 double-dealing of his government, which protested 

 friendship, with smooth duplicity, while their agents 

 urged the savages to war. "At the very moment 

 when the British Ministry were forwarding assur- 

 ances of good will, does Lord Dorchester foster 

 and encourage in the Indians hostile dispositions 

 toward the United States," ran the letter, "but this 

 speech only forebodes hostility; the intelligence 

 which has been received this morning is, if true, 

 hostility itself . . . Governor Simcoe has gone 

 to the foot of the Rapids of the Miami, followed 

 by three companies of a British regiment, in order 

 to build a fort there." The British Minister, Ham- 

 mond, in his answer said he was "willing to admit 

 the authenticity of the speech," and even the build- 

 ing of the fort; but sought to excuse both by re- 

 crimination, asserting that the Americans had 

 themselves in various ways shown hostility to Great 

 Britain. 17 In spite of this explicit admission, how- 

 ever, the British statesmen generally, both in the 

 House of Lords and the House of Commons, dis- 

 avowed the speech, though in guarded terms; 18 and 

 many Americans were actually convinced by their 

 denials. 



Throughout this period, whatever the negotiators 



11 Wait's State Papers and Publick Documents, I, 449, 451. 

 Letters of Randolph, May 20, 1794, and Hammond, May 22, 

 1794. 



18 Am. State Papers, Foreign Relations, I, Randolph to 

 Jay, Aug. 1 8, 1794. 



