1764.] HIS FRENCH ALLIES. 261 



resolved to invoke all his resources, and bend all 

 his energies to defend this last citadel.^ 



He was not left to contend unaided. The fur- 

 trading French, living at the settlements on the 

 Mississippi, scattered about the forts of Ouatanon, 

 Vincennes, and Miami, or domesticated among the 

 Indians of the Eivers Illinois and Wabash, dreaded 

 the English as dangerous competitors in their voca 

 tion, and were eager to bar them from the country. 

 They lavished abuse and calumny on the objects of 

 their jealousy, and spared no falsehood which ingen 

 ious malice and self-interest could suggest. They 

 gave out that the English were bent on the ruin of 

 the tribes, and to that end were stirring them up to 

 mutual hostility. They insisted that, though the 

 armies of France had been delayed so long, they 



1 By the following extract from an official paper, signed by Captain 

 Grant, and forwarded from Detroit, it appears that Pontiac still retained, 

 or professed to retain, his original designs against the garrison of Detroit. 

 The paper has no date, but was apparentl}' written in the autumn of 

 1764. By a note appended to it, we are told that the Baptiste Campau 

 referred to was one of those who had acted as Pontiac's secretaries during 

 the summer of 1763 : — 



" On Tuesday last Mr. Jadeau told me, in the presence of Col. Gladwin 

 & Lieut. Hay of the 6th Regiment, that one Lesperance, a Frenchman, 

 on his way to the Illinois, he saw a letter with the Ottawas, at the Miamee 

 River, he is sure wrote by one Baptist Campau (a deserter from the set- 

 tlement of Detroit), & signed by Pontiac, from the Illinois, setting forth 

 that there were five hundred English coming to the Illinois, & that they, 

 the Ottawas, must have patience ; that he, Pontiac, was not to return until 

 he had defeated the English, and then he would come with an army from 

 the Illinois to take Detroit, which he desired they might publish to all 

 the nations about. That powder & ball was in as great plenty as water. 

 That the French Commissary La Cleff had sold above forty thousand 

 weight of powder to the inhabitants, that the English if they came there 

 might not have it. 



" There was another letter on the subject sent to an inhabitant of 

 Detroit, but he can't tell in whose hands it is." » 



