288 RUIN OF THE INDIAN CAUSE. [1765. 



the east the forests would soon be filled with Eng- 

 lish traders, and beset with English troops ; while 

 in the north his own village of Detroit lay beneath 

 the guns of the victorious garrison. He might, 

 indeed, have found a partial refuge in the remoter 

 wilderness of the upper lakes ; but those dreary 

 wastes would have doomed him to a life of unambi- 

 tious exile. His resolution was taken. He deter- 

 mined to accept the peace* which he knew would 

 be proffered, to smoke the calumet with his tri- 

 umphant enemies, and patiently await his hour 

 of vengeance.^ 



The conferences at Fort Pitt concluded, Croghan 

 left that place on the fifteenth of May, and em- 

 barked on the Ohio, accompanied by several 

 Delaware and Shawanoe deputies, whom he had 

 persuaded those newly reconciled tribes to send 

 with him, for the furtherance of his mission. At 

 the mouth of the Scioto, he was met by a band of 

 Shawanoe warriors, who, in compliance with a 

 message previously sent to them, delivered into his 

 hands seven intriguing Frenchmen, who for some 

 time past had lived in their villages. Thence he 

 pursued his voyage smoothly and prosperously, 

 until, on the eighth of June, he reached a spot a 

 little below the mouth of the Wabash. Here he 

 landed with his party ; when suddenly the hideous 

 war-whoop, the explosion of musketry, and the 

 whistling of arrows greeted him from the covert of 

 the neighboring thickets. His men fell thick about 



1 One of St. Ange's letters to Aubry contains views of the designs 

 and motives of Pontiac similar to those expressed above. 



