Original - North Central Michigan College Library

of Canadians, because, the Indians having resolvedon getting drunk, the chiefs wereapprehensive that they would be murderedifthey continued in the camp. LieutenantJemette and seventy soldiers had been killed;and but twenty Englishmen, including soldiers,were still alive. 54 These were all withinthe fort, together with nearly three hundredCanadians. 56These being our numbers, myself andothers proposed to Major Etherington to makean effort for regaining possession of the fortand maintaining it against the Indians. TheJesuit missionary was consulted on the project;but he discouraged us by his representations,not only of the merciless treatment which wemust expect from the Indians should theyregain their superiority, but of the littledependence which was to be placed upon ourCanadian auxiliaries. Thus the fort andprisoners remained in the hands of the Indians,though through the whole night the prisonersand whites were in actual possession, and theywere without the gates.That whole night, or the greater part of it,was passed in mutual condolence* and myfellow prisoners shared my garret. In the54Captain Etherington, in a letter to his superiorofficer at Detroit, June 12, 1763, states that sixteensoldiers and the trader Tracy were killed in the massacre,and two soldiers wounded; and that of those takenprisoners on June 2, five had since been killed. Editor.55Belonging to the canoes, etc. Author.92