NARRATIVE OF THE EXPEDITION. 67 



cherouslj taken by tlie Sac and Chippewa Indians, An extensive 

 and threatening confederation of the Avestern Indians had then 

 been mature'd, and a large body of armed warriors was then en- 

 camped around the walls of Detroit, under the leadership of 

 Pontiac, who held the garrison in close siege day and night. The 

 surrender of Canada to Great Britian, which had followed the 

 victory of General Wolfe at Quebec, was distasteful to these In- 

 dians, and they attempted the mad project of driving back beyond 

 the Alleghanies the English race ; making a simultaneous assault 

 upon all the military posts' west of that great line of demarcation, 

 and preaching and dealing out vengeance to all who had English 

 blood in their veins. Alexander Henry, a native of Albany,* 

 was one of those enterprising men who had pushed his fortunes 

 West, with an adventure of merchandise, on the first exchange of 

 posts, and he was singled out for destruction, as soon as the fort was 

 taken. He had taken refuge in the house of a Frenchman named 

 Longlade, where he was concealed in a garret by a Pawnee slave, 

 and where he hid himself under a heap of birch-bark buckets, such 

 as are employed in the Indian country, in the spring season, in 

 carrying the sap of the sugar-maple. But this temporary re- 

 prieve from the Indian knife seemed only the prelude to a series 

 of hairbreadth escapes, which impressed him as the direct inter- 

 position of Providence. At length, when the scenes of blood and 

 intoxication began to abate a little, an old Indian friend of his, 

 called Wawetum, who had once pledged his friendship, but who 

 had been absent during the massacre, sought him out, and having 

 reclaimed him by presents, in a formal council, took him into his 

 canoe and conducted the spared witness of these atrocities three 

 leagues' across the waters of Lake Huron in safety to this island. 

 To this place they were accompanied by the actors in this tra- 

 gedy to the number of three hundred and fifty fighting men,f and 

 he would now, under the protection of Wawetum, have been safe 

 from immediate peril, but that in a few days a prize of two canoes 

 of merchandise in the hands of English traders was made, amongst 

 which was a large quantity of liquor. Hereupon, Wawetum, fore- 

 seeing another carousal, and always fearful of his friend, requested 

 him to go up with him to the mountain part of the island. Hav- 



* Vide Henry's Travels, New York, 1809, 1 vol. 8vo. f Henry, p. 109. 



