40 THE WAE ON THE BORDEKS. [1763, July. 



Bouquet replied, also in postscript : — 



" I will try to inoculate the with some 



blankets that may fall in their hands, and take care 

 not to get the disease myself. As it is a pity to 

 expose good men against them, I wish we could 

 make use of the Spanish method, to hunt them 

 with English dogs, supported by rangers and some 

 light horse, who would, I think, effectually extir- 

 pate or remove that vermin." 



Amherst rejoined : " You will do well to try to 

 inoculate the Indians by means of blankets, as well 

 as to try every other method that can serve to extir- 

 pate this execrable race. I should be very glad 

 your scheme for hunting them down by dogs could 

 take effect, but England is at too great a distance 

 to think of that at present. 



(Signed) J. A} 



1 This correspondence is among the manuscripts of the British 

 Museum, Bouquet and Haldimand Papers, No. 21,634. The first postscript 

 by Amherst is on a single leaf of foolscap, written at the top of the page, 

 and addressed on the back, — 

 " On His Majesty's Service. 

 " To Colonel Bouquet, 



" etc.*' 



Jeff. Amherst. 



The postscript seems to belong to a letter written on the first leaf of 

 the foolscap sheet, which is lost or destroyed. The other postscript by 

 Amherst has neither indorsement nor address, but that of Bouquet is 

 appended to a letter dated Carlisle, 13 July, 1763, and addressed to ''His 

 Excellency, Sir Jeffrey Amherst." It appears from a letter of Capt. 

 Ecuyer that the small-pox had lately broken out at Fort Pitt, which 

 would have favored the execution of the i)lan. We hear nothing more of 

 it ; but, in the following spring, Gershom Hicks, who had been among the 

 Indians, reported at Fort Pitt that the small-pox had been raging for some 

 time among them, and that sixty or eighty Mingoes and Delawares, 

 besides some Shawanoes, had died of it. 



The suggestion of using dogs against the Indians did not originate 



