1764, Nov.] EMBASSY TO THE SIIAWANOES. 223 



power. The conduct of Bradstrcet in this matter 

 was the more disgraceful, since he had heen 

 encamped for weeks almost wdthin gunshot of 

 the Wyandot villages at Sandusky, w^iere most 

 of the prisoners were detained. Bouquet, on his 

 part, though separated from this place by a journey 

 of many days, resolved to take upon himself the 

 duty which his brother officer had strangely neg- 

 lected. He sent an embassy to Sandusky, demand- 

 ing that the prisoners should be surrendered. This 

 measure was in a great degree successful. He 

 despatched messengers soon after to the principal 

 Shawanoe village, on the Scioto, distant about 

 eighty miles from his camp, to rouse the inhabi- 

 tants to a greater activity than they seemed 

 inclined to display. This w^as a fortunate step ; 

 for the Shawanoes of the Scioto, who had been 

 guilty of atrocious cruelties during the war, had 

 conceived the idea that they were excluded from 

 the general amnesty, and marked out for destruc- 

 tion. This notion had been propagated, and per- 

 haps suggested, by the French traders in their 

 villages ; and so thorough was the conviction of 

 the Shaw^anoes, that they came to the desperate 

 purpose of murdering their prisoners, and march- 

 ing, with all the w^arriors they could muster, to 

 attack the English. This plan was no sooner 

 formed than the French traders opened their stores 

 of bullets and gunpowder, and dealt them out 

 freely to the Indians. Bouquet's messengers came 

 in time to prevent the catastrophe, and relieve the 

 terrors of the Shawanoes, by the assurance that 



