FOUR DAYS AT DP!TROfT. 299 



marched on Detroit, he requested of the Chief, in case 

 the place was taken, that the inhabitants should be 

 spared massacre, to which the haughty savage replied, 

 "that he despised them too much to have anything to 

 do with them.'^ The result of this attack, and the in- 

 explicable conduct of General Hull, had aroused a 

 strong feeling of disgust, and universal sympathy was 

 felt for those brave men, who, upon hearing that their 

 superior officer was surrendering without an attempt at 

 resistance, " dashed their muskets upon the ground in 

 an agony of mingled shame and indignation." 



Victories elsewhere finally obliged the British to 

 evacuate, and on the eighteenth of October, General 

 Harrison and Commodore Perry issued a proclama- 

 tion from this fort, which once more assured the people 

 of Michigan of protection. 



Passing through the test of fire and sword, Detroit 

 has gradually progressed in all those ways which go 

 to make up a great and prosperous city. Fulfilling 

 her natural destiny she has become one of the most 

 important commercial centres in the United States, 

 and as a port of entry can boast with reason of her 

 streno;th. The narrow lanes which were enclosed 

 within the pickets of Fort Ponchartrain, and trodden 

 by men in the French uniform, in English red coats 

 and in the skins of the deer and beaVer, have reached 

 out over many miles, and have become an intricate 

 maze of streets and avenues, lined with homes and 

 business houses which bear no trace of the old time 

 block house and trader's cabin. 



Here and there, where history is preserved, one finds 



a few relics of the "dead past'' embalmed in paint or 



print or labelled within the glass case of a museum; 

 15 



