306 DEATH OF PONTIAC. [1766. 



fast the chain of friendship ; and the conncils 

 closed on the thirty-first, with a bountiful distribu- 

 tion of presents to Pontiac and his followers.^ 



Thus ended this memorable meeting, in which 

 Pontiac sealed his submission to the English, and 

 renounced for ever the bold design by which he had 

 trusted to avert or retard the ruin of his race. Plis 

 hope of seeing the empire of France restored in 

 America was scattered to the winds, and with it 

 vanished every rational scheme of resistance to 

 English encroachment. Nothing now remained 

 but to stand an idle spectator, while, in the north 

 and in the south, the tide of British power rolled 

 westward in resistless might ; while the fragments 

 of the rival empire, which he would fain have set 

 up as a barrier against the flood, lay scattered a 

 miserable wreck ; and while the remnant of his 

 people melted away or fled for refuge to remoter 

 deserts. For them the prospects of the future 

 were as clear as they w^ere calamitous. Destruc- 

 tion or civilization — between these lay their choice ; 

 and few who knew them could doubt which alter- 

 native, they would embrace. 



Pontiac, his canoe laden with the gifts of his 

 enemy, steered homeward for the Maumee ; and in 

 this vicinity he spent the following winter, pitching 

 his lodge in the forest with his wives and children, 



1 MS. Minutes of Proceedings at a Congress with Pontiac and Chiefs of 

 the Ottawas, Pottawattamies, Hurons, and Chippewais ; begun at Oswego, 

 Tuesday, July 23, 1766. 



A copy of this document is preserved in the office of the secretary 

 of state at Albany, among the papers procured in London by Mr. Brod- 

 head. 



