with the Indians in their wigwams, to take to themselves Indian wives or concubines, to rear up a swarm of half-breed children, to further the interests of their employers, and to regard their seigneurs with a reverence which belonged to the most aristocratic period of the French monarchy. A small portion of these French settlers devoted themselves to husbandry, planted fruit trees which are now to be seen, and raised corn and wheat within the picket fences that enclosed their narrow farms that stood for protection under the shadow of the French forts; but, they also wore the deer-skin leggins, the red sash, the Indian turban, and the moccasin; their husbandry was marked by no thrift, and the rich soil was made to yield scarcely sufficient to supply their necessary wants. They pursued just such a course of alternate indolence and exertion in the fur trade as might have been expected from the elements of which they were composed, demicivilized in their habitudes of thought, surrounded as they were by savage associations, incorporated in intercourse and in blood with the Indians, and Looking up with a blind reverence to the seigniorial system of Canada, which had been originally imported from France and handed down from their fathers.

Besides the distinctive character of the French population at the west, which was opposed to national progress and strongly contrasted with the vigor of the New England colonies at the same time, the slow advance of the territory was founded in the policy of the fur trade. The original population of New England were "colonies of conscience," constituted of men of sturdy, republican, and independent traits of character-the French colonies of the northwest were colonies of gain and commerce. The forests were regarded, not for their agricultural resources, but for the furs in which they abounded, being the most valuable articles of traffic in the French markets. The immense chain of inland navigation that was here spread out was valued, not as a great highway of permanent national trade, but chiefly as a channel in which these furs might be for a time transported to their places of shipment. The early political, and in consequence, the commercial power of the country was vested in the men of rank, the seigneurs of Canada and of France, who were themselves the partners in these several fur companies, and whose object it was to reap the greatest temporary rewards from the prosecution of the traffic. The whole domain was, in fact, viewed, not with the eye of patriots, desiring to establish for themselves and for their posterity in all coming time, a free and permanent empire upon the soil, but with the motives of monopolists, regardless of the weal of the people, striving to secure the greatest temporary profits from the labors of others, and thereby to aggrandize themselves. In consequence of this spirit no schools were founded. The French missionaries, who were the agents of the state as well as the church, being Roman Catholics, felt no interest in the general diffusion of popular intelligence; and the natural result of all this was, that the physical force of that ignorant population, composed of French Canadians, the fur traders, the peasantry, and the wandering half-breeds, was confined within the channels of this traffic, presenting a form of character similar to that of a colony of sailors. The capital necessary to carry on the fur trade, which, in its system of operation, was similar to the whale fishery, as it is now conducted in this country, was engrossed in the hands of the more opulent merchants, who acted as agents for the French government; and the mass of peltries which were transported from time to time through the lakes along the channel of the

Ottawas river, or across the portage of Niagara Falls to Montreal and Quebec, poured the bulk of the profits into the hands of the stockholders, or what La Hontan terms the "farmers of the beaver skins," and left just enough in the hands of the traders for a scanty support. A particular account of the North American fur trade we reserve for a future paper.

In exact keeping with this spirit was the policy of the old French laws The "Coutume de Paris," or the "Customs of Paris," adopted by the French for the government of the west, was nothing less than a liberalized feudal system; and, as it was here administered, its necessary result was to cripple the energies of the French colonists by prescribing the size of their farms, and seems to have been expressly designed to check agriculture by its system of granting lands. Surely that government must have valued these western lands at a higher price than the visions of our western speculators have ever imagined, to have been so coy in their distribution. Grants, indeed, were sometimes, although seldom, made by the seigneur, but in what tracts, and under what conditions? We have before us the first grant that was made at Detroit, by Antoine de la Motthe Cadillac, its founder, to Francois Fafard De Lorme, in 1706; and, although it conveyed but thirty-two acres, it is burdened with fines and encumbrances which a feudal lord of the dark ages would have scarcely bound upon his vassal. We would here mention some of its principal conditions, premising that the grant was made under a special commission from Louis XIV. to the seigneur, who is termed in the record the "Lord of Bouaget, Mont Desert, and commandant for the king at Detroit," investing him with the power to make grants of land in that seigniory to whomsoever he might think proper. And in the first place the grantee was bound to pay to the seigneur, in his "castle and principal manor" on the 20th of March of each year, the sum of five livres quit-rent, and " for other rights" whereof he had divested himself, the sum of ten livres in peltry, and when a current money should be established, he was bound to pay that sum in money, forever. He was also obliged to clear and improve the ceded tract within three months from the date of the grant, on pain of forfeiture. He was bound to plant or help to plant a long maypole at the door of the principal manor, on the 1st of May in each year, or to pay three livres in money or good peltry. He was bound to grind his grain at the mill of the seigneur, and to pay therefor. He was obliged to inform the seigneur of the sale of his property, and the right was reserved to the seigneur to purchase it himself at the offered price. The grantee had no power to cede, transfer, or sell it, but with the consent of the grantor; and, if this consent was obtained, he was himself subjected to the personal charges and the fees for the right of alienation. For the next ten years after the grant was made, no locksmith, blacksmith, armorer, or brewer, was permitted to work at his trade upon the land without the permission of the grantor. All the timber required for the construction of fortifications, boats, or other vessels, was reserved. The goods imported by the grantee were not permitted to be sold upon the land except by established residents of the place, and the grantee was also prohibited from the selling of brandy to the Indians on pain of confiscation of the spirit sold or the goods for which it was exchanged.* These were some of the conditions and fines imposed on a tract which, under our

* For the record of this grant we would refer our readers to the American State Papers, class viii. P. 191.

wholesome system of land policy, may be purchased for the price of fifty dollars, with the best title from the government, and that in fee simple.

The adminstration of this crude system of law, which from necessity prevailed around the posts, although exercised with mildness, was indeed nothing more than a military despotism. The commandants of the posts possessed a sort of summary authority, over which in some cases the governor-general of Canada had an appellate jurisdiction.

By that policy, agriculture was checked, general intelligence was prevented, and a people who might have strengthened the power of France in this country by the augmentation of its physical resources, were sent abroad in the thriftless and uncertain channels of the fur trade, like so many mariners, expending in a month the products of their labor for a year. And where are the monuments of French enterprise upon the lakes, from the time when La Salle first crossed them to the year 1760, the period in which the territory was conquered by England? A few dying Indians were converted and baptized by the jesuits; a few cargoes of furs were shipped from the borders of the lakes to France. The energies of the people were turned into a current of the fur trade, which added but little to the wealth of the soil; the wilderness, with its rich agricultural resources, and its arteries of inland navigation, which were designed, under the action of free enterprise, to circulate solid wealth through the country, remained a solitude. Indeed all the vestiges which have come down to us, to show that French power once existed on the soil at all, are here and there the sunken timbers of a Catholic chapel, which once bore the cross, a few patches of cultivated land enclosed by pickets, and worn out by improvident husbandry, a few orchards of pear and apple trees, a few mouldering foundations, the remains of the old French fortifications on the shores of the lakes and the Mississippi, and a few straggling Frenchmen, still retaining the gown, the sash, and the moccasin, most of them having Indian blood in their veins, and employed either as voyagers in the fur trade, travelling along the shores of the lakes in their French carts drawn by Canadian poneys, or engaged in a quiet and unenterprising spirit of husbandry, taking but little interest in the American improvements which are fast pressing upon them, mourning over the golden days of seigniorial grandeur, and the departed glory of their liege lords.

rest.

Even after the territory passed into the hands of the English, its condition was not much improved. From the time when the northwest was first settled by the French, down to the year 1760, when Major Rogers, under the direction of General Amherst, advanced across Lake Erie and took possession of Detroit, the territory had presented but little of stirring inteSituated as it was at a great distance from the border wars which raged on the line that divided the French and English, it remained in comparative peace. Bands of savages were occasionally despatched from the lake shores by French agency against the English settlements; a party of capricious savages sometimes made an attack upon the French posts, and hostile parties of the Iroquois showed themselves upon the borders of the lakes against their ancient enemies, the Algonquins; but these incursions would not have been deemed of sufficient importance to receive any permanent record, had they not been the only belligerent operations that marked the territory at this time. The colonies were mercantile colonies, and they were embarked in the silent and peaceful operations of the fur trade. But when the English gained possession of the western posts, the scene opened

with more bustling preparations; the French were conquered, and although they remained in their old settlements, protected by the capitulation of Montreal, the English, their rivals, had established themselves upon the conquered territory. The red men, the friends of the French, who had been scattered in comparative repose through the forest, now perceived a new power which they had been taught to hate, advancing upon their ancient domain. When, therefore, the Ottawa chief Pontiac, the principal sachem of the northwestern tribes, first met Rogers on the shore of Lake Erie advancing towards Detroit to tear down the standard of Bellestre, he seems to have determined to organize his tribes and come to the rescue of his ancient allies. Accordingly, the savage bands from the remotest points of the wilderness upon the whole line of the frontier-the Ottawas, the Wyandots, or Hurons, the Pottawatamies, the Chippeways, the Miamies, the Shawanese, the Winnebagoes, the Foxes, and parts of other tribes-freshly painted themselves for battle, sharpened their rusty tomahawks, kindled their camp fires, sung their war songs, danced their war dance, and flashed their scalping knives in fierce defiance in the red light. The events that followed in 1763 are now matter of history. Twelve forts, stretching along a thousand miles of the northwestern frontier, were attacked nearly at the same time; the old fortification of Michilimackinac, upon the northern part of the peninsula of Michigan, was burned to its foundations, after one of the most ghastly butcheries that disfigures the annals of Indian warfare had been perpetrated. Detroit was besieged for months by Pontiac in person, that deceptive, politic, and far-seeing, but noble savage; and this post, together with that of Niagara and Pittsburgh, were the only ones which held out. The arrival of Col. Bouquet with an English force, prevented the fleur-de-lis from again waving along the whole line of the lake frontier.

We have remarked that the physical condition of the northwest was not much improved by the transfer of its dominion from France to England, and the occupation of the soil by the conquerors. The French were guarantied the enjoyment of their civil and religious rights, although English laws were partially introduced; yet few lands were permitted to be granted to the settlers. The Hudson's Bay Company, now in existence, which was chartered in 1668, and afterwards the Northwest Company, stretched their despotic dominion over the wilderness upon that track that had before been occupied by the French fur trade, and the furs which had before been shipped to France, were forwarded to China or to England, the traffic itself being prosecuted by the same general agents, and with the same system of machinery. Although Robert Rogers, the commandant of the first English detachment that had ever advanced to the western shore of the lakes, published a journal of his expedition, Alexander Henry, an English trader, who was present at the fall of Michilimackinac, gave the public. an account of the country in his journal, Jonathan Carver published his tour through the lakes at a later period, and Sir Alexander Mackenzie wrote his history of the fur trade-we have little of general interest, except that which relates to the condition of the wild tribes, their appearance, habits, and traditions. Perhaps a little more land might have been cultivated; but the general aspect of the country remained in its primitive condition: the French soldiers were however removed, and those of the English were established in their place.

Afterwards, succeeded the American revolution, while the English still held possession of the northwest. During its whole progress the borders

of the lakes were made the recruiting point, where the red men were provided with tomahawks and scalping knives, and sent out against the American border settlements and way-farers. This was more particularly the case at Detroit and the Island of Mackinaw. The principal agent in behalf of the British government for that object, was Henry Hamilton, for a time the commandant of Detroit, who despatched these savage bands to attack every straggling traveller whom they could find, men, women, or children, to collect their scalps, and to return them to the scalp mart of Detroit, where they were paid in trinkets, whiskey, and gold; and the practice continued until this scalp merchant was captured at Vincennes, by that sturdy model of courage and chivalry, George Rogers Clark, and sent in irons to Virginia. Of the particular incidents of this border war we are not anxious to give a particular account. We do not wish to paint, even if we had the power, the burning log hut, the victims of savage ferocity, the sufferings of women, and even infants at the breast, as well as vigorous backwoodsmen, shot down by Indian rifle-balls moulded by British hands, or to recount the warfare of Indians skulking through the forest with yells, which, like the groans of Ariel, were horrible enough to make the wolves howl!-a scene which was laid in the northwest from the commencement of the revolution, and continued down to the year 1795, peace having been declared at last.

New York, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Connecticut ceded the territory which they claimed northwest of the river Ohio to the United States, on condition that this territory should remain forever a common fund" for the benefit of the Union; and in 1787, a frame of government was established for it in the famous "ordinance of 1787." But the government had scarcely been organized, when a colony from Boston, with the shrewd enterprise characteristic of the Yankees, hearing of the rich lands in this quarter, advanced into the woods; and we find them in 1788, raising their log houses under the huge sycamores, upon the banks of the Muskingum, and enacting their laws, which were to be administered by Arthur St. Clair, the first governor of the northwestern territory, upon the trunks of the trees. But the English still held possession of the military posts: the Indian, who seems to have transferred his confidence from the French to the English, was around them in the woods with his rifle, jealous of their advance, and hating them as deeply as he had before done their predecessors. Their situation was any thing but comfortable, and they had good ground for anticipating another storm: this storm soon broke out in 1790, in the second Indian confederation. We do not design here to enter into an account of the border wars of the northwest, after the territory was ceded to the United States, although held in its greater part by the English. The Indians, fighting in their own way, and on a ground peculiarly adapted to their mode of warfare, always having a breastwork of trees or fallen logs to protect themselves, and backed as they were by British agency, were for a time successful. The period is pregnant with massacres, deeds of daring and bold emprise, which in Rome would have made their actors heroes, originating the campaigns of Harmar, St. Clair, and that of General Wayne, who finally succeeded in dispersing the Indians and perfecting a treaty at Greenville, by which peace was for a time established.

If no other advantage were attained by that treaty, the western posts were delivered up in 1796; a firm footing was gained for the advance of colonization to whomsoever might wish to penetrate a wilderness that had been