334: APPENDIX C. 



"Friday, July 22d. An Abenakee Indian arrived this day, saying 

 that he aime direct from Montreal, and gave out that a large fleet of 

 French was on its way to Canada, full of troops, to dispossess the English 

 of the country. However fallacious such a story might appear, it had the 

 effect of rousing Pondiac from his inaction, and the Indians set about 

 their raft with more energy than ever. They had left off" working at it 

 since yesterday." . . . 



It is needless to continue these extracts farther. Tliose already given 

 will- convey a sufficient idea of the character of the diary. 



RE^nNISCENCES OF AGED CANADIANS. 



About the year 1824, General Cass, with the design of writing a nar- 

 rative of the siege of Detroit by Pontiac, caused inquiry to be made 

 among the aged Canadian inhabitants, many of whom could distinctly 

 remember the events of 1763. The accounts received from them were 

 committed to paper, and were placed by General Cass, with great liber- 

 ahty, in the writer's hands. They afford an interesting mass of evidence, 

 as worthy of confidence as evidence of the kind can be. With but one 

 exception, — the account of Maxwell, — they do not clash with the testi- 

 mt)ny of contemporary documents. Much caution has, however, been 

 observed in their use ; and no essential statement has been made on their 

 unsupported authority. The most prominent of these accounts are those 

 of Peltier, St. Aubin, Gouin, Meloche, Parent, and Maxwell. 



Peltier's Account. 



M. Peltier was seventeen years old at the time of Pontiac's war. His 

 narrative, though one of the longest of the collection, is imperfect, since, 

 during a great part of the siege, he was absent from Detroit in search of 

 runaway horses, belonging to his father. His recollection of the eariier 

 part of the affair is, liowever, clear and minute. He relates, with apparent 

 credulity, tlie story of the hand of the murdered Fisher protruding from 

 the earth, as if in supplication for the neglected rites of burial. He re- 

 members that, soon after the failure of Pontiac's attempt to surprise the 

 garrison, he punished, by a severe flogging, a woman named Catharine, 

 accused of having betrayed the plot. He was at Detroit during the 

 several attacks on the armed vessels, and the attempts to set them on 

 fire by means of blazing rafts. 



St. Aubin's Account. 



St. Aubin was fifteen years old at the time of the siege. It was his 

 mother who crossed over to Pontiac's village shortly before the attempt 



