APPENDIX C. 331 



sixty chosen men, should go to the Fort to ask for a grand council from 

 the English commander, and that they should have arms concealed under 

 their blankets. That the remainder of the village should follow them 

 armed with tomahawks, daggers, and knives, concealed imder their 

 blankets, and should enter the Fort, and walk about in such a manner as 

 not to excite suspicion, whilst the others held council with the Com- 

 mander. The Ottawa women were also to be furnished with short guns and 

 other offensive weapons concealed under their blankets. They were to 

 go into the back streets in the Fort. They were then to wait for the 

 signal agreed upon, which was the cry of death, which the Grand Chief 

 was to give, on which they should altogether strike upon the English, 

 taking care not to hurt any of the French inhabiting the Fort." 



The author of the diary, unlike other contemporary writers, states 

 that tlie plot was disclosed to Gladwjm by a man of the Ottawa tribe, and 

 not by an Ojibwa girl. He says, however, that on the day after the fail- 

 ure of the design Ponliac sent to the Pottawattamie village in order to 

 seize an Ojibwa girl whom he suspected of having betrayed him. 



"Pondiac ordered four Indians to take her and bring her before him ; 

 these men, naturally inclined to disorder, were not long in obeying their 

 chief; they crossed the river immediately in front of their village, and 

 passed into the Fort naked, having nothing but their breech-clouts on and 

 their knives in their hands, and crying all the way that their plan had 

 been "defeated, which induced the French people of the Fort, who knew 

 nothing of the designs of the Indians, to suspect that some bad design 

 was going forward, either against themselves or the English. They 

 arrived at the Pottawattamie village, and in fact found the woman, who 

 was far from thinking of them ; nevertheless they seized her, and obliged 

 her to march before them, uttering cries of joy in the manner they do 

 when they hold a victim in their clutches on whom they are going to 

 exercise their cruelty : they made her enter the Fort, and took her before 

 the Commandant, as if to confront her with him, and asked him if it was 

 not from her he had learnt their design ; but they were no better satisfied 

 than if they had kept themselves quiet. They obtained from that Officer 

 bread and beer for themselves, and for her. They then led her to their 

 chief in the village." 



The diary leaves us in the dark as to the treatment wiiich the girl 

 received ; but there is a tradition among the Canadians that Pontiac, with 

 his own hand, gave her a severe beating with a species of racket, such as 

 the Indians use in their ball-play. An old Indian told Henry Conner, for- 

 merly United States interpreter at Detroit, that she survived her punish- 

 ment, and lived for many years ; but at length, contracting intemperate 

 habits, she fell, when intoxicated, into a kettle of boiling maple sap, and 

 ■was so severely scalded that she died in consequence. 



The outbreak of hostilities, the attack on the fort, and the detention 

 of Campbell and McDougal are related at great length, and with all the 

 minuteness of an eye-witness. The substance of the narrative is incor- 

 porated in the body of the w^ork. The diary is very long, detailing the 



