1760-1763.] • CONSPIRACIES. 181 



to be general ; and Niagara, Fort Pitt, and other 

 posts, were to share the fate of Detroit. Campbell 

 instantly despatched messengers to Sir Jeffrey 

 Amherst, and the commanding officers of the dif- 

 ferent forts ; and, by this timely discovery, the 

 conspiracy was nipped in the bud. During the 

 following summer, 1762, another similar design 

 was detected and suppressed. They proved to be 

 the precursors of a tempest. When, early in 1763, 

 it was announced to the tribes that the King of 

 France had ceded all their country to the King 

 of England, without even asking their leave, a 

 ferment of indignation at once became apparent 

 among them ; ^ and, within a few weeks, a plot 

 was matured, such as was never, before or since, 

 conceived or executed by a Xorth- American Indian. 

 It was determined to attack all the English forts 

 upon the same day ; then, having destroyed their 

 garrisons, to turn upon the defenceless frontier, 

 and ravage and lay waste the settlements, until, as 



You on Your Guard and to send to Oswego, and all the Posts on that 

 communication, they Expect to be Joined by the Nations that are Come 

 from the Xorth by Toronto." 



1 Letter, Geo. Croghan to Sir J. Amherst, Fort Pitt, April 30, 1763, 

 MS. Amherst replies characteristically, " Whatever idle notions they 

 may entertain in regard to the cessions made by the French Crown can be 

 of very little consequence." 



Croghan, Sir William Johnson's deputy, and a man of experience, had 

 for some time been anxious as to the results of the arrogant policy of Am- 

 herst. On March 19th he ^vrote to Colonel Bouquet : "How they {the 

 Indians) may behave I can't pretend to say, but I do not approve of Gen^- 

 Amherst's plan of distressing them too much, as in my opinion they will 

 not consider consequences if too much distrest, tho' Sir Jeffrey thinks they 

 will." 



Croghan urges the same views, with emphasis, in other letters ; but 

 Amherst was deaf to all persuasion. 



