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Hamilton, Philip de Jean, justice of peace for Detroit, and William Lamothe, captain of volunteers, whom he had made prisoners. The Board reported that Hamilton had incited the Indians to perpetrate their accustomed cruelties on the defenceless inhabitants of the United States-had at the time of his captivity sent considerable detachments of Indians against the frontiers-had appointed a great council of them, to meet him and concert the operations of the ensuing campaign—had given standing rewards for scalps, and had treated American prisoners with cruelty. They also reported, that it appeared that De Jean was the willing and cordial instrument of Hamilton, and that Lamothe was captain of the volunteer scalping parties of Indians and Tories, who went out from time to time, under general orders to spare neither men, women, nor children. They therefore considering them as fit objects on which to begin the work of retaliation-advised the governor to put them in irons confine them in the dungeon of the public jail -debar them the use of pen, ink and paper, and exclude them from all converse, except with their keeper.

Colonel Goose Van Schaick, with fifty-five men, marched from Fort Schuyler to the Onandago settlements, and burned the whole, consisting of about fifty houses, together with a large quantity of provisions. Horses, and stock of every kind, were killed. The arms and ammunition of the Indians were either destroyed or brought off, and their settlements were laid waste. Twelve Indians were killed, and thirty-four made prisoners. This expedition was performed in less than six days, and without the loss of a single man.

A particular detail of the devastation of property-of the distress of great numbers who escaped, only by fleeing to the woods, where they subsisted without covering, on the spontaneous productions of the earth-and of the barbarous murders which were committed on persons of every age and sex, would be sufficient to freeze every breast with horror.

In sundry expeditions which had been carried on against the Indians, ample vengeance had been taken on some of them, but these partial successes produced no lasting benefit. The

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few who escaped, had it in their power to make thousands miserable. For the permanent security of the frontier inhabitants, it was resolved in the year 1779, to carry a decisive expedition into the Indian country. A considerable body of continental troops was selected for this purpose, and put under the command of General Sullivan. The Indians who formed the confederacy of the six nations, commonly called the Mohawks, were the objects of this expedition. They inhabited that immense and fertile tract of country, which lies between New England, the Middle States, and the province of Canada. They had been advised by Congress, and they had promised to observe neutrality in the war, but they soon departed from this line of conduct. The Oneidas and a few others were friends to the Americans, but a great majority took part decidedly against them. Overcome by the presents and promises of Sir John Johnson and other British agents, and their own native appetite for depredation, they invaded the frontiers, carrying slaughter and devastation wherever they went. From the vicinity of their settlements, to the inhabited parts of the United States, they facilitated the inroads of the more remote Indians. Much was therefore expected from their expulsion. When General Sullivan was on his way to the Indian country he was joined by the American general, Clinton, with upwards of one thousand The latter made his way down the Susquehanna by a singular contrivance. The stream of water in that river was too low to float his batteaux. To remedy this inconvenience, he raised with great industry a dam across the mouth of Lake Otsego, which is one of the sources of the river Susquehanna. The lake being constantly supplied by springs soon rose to the height of the dam. General Clinton having got his batteaux ready, opened a passage through the dam for the water to flow. This raised the river so high that he was enabled to embark all his troops and to float them down to Tioga. By this exertion they soon joined Sullivan. The Indians on hearing of the expedition projected against them, acted with firmness. They collected their strength, took possession of proper ground, and fortified it with judgment. General Sullivan attacked them in

men.

their works. They stood a cannonade for more than two hours, but then gave way. This engagement proved decisive: after the trenches were forced, the Indians fled without making any attempt to rally. They were pursued for some miles but without effect. The consternation occasioned among them by this defeat was so great, that they gave up all ideas of farther resistance. As the Americans advanced into their settlements, the Indians retreated before them, without throwing any obstructions in their way. General Sullivan penetrated into the heart of the country inhabited by the Mohawks, and spread desolation everywhere. Many settlements in the form of towns were destroyed, besides detached habitations. All their fields of corn, and whatever was in a state of cultivation, underwent the same fate. Scarcely a house was left standing, nor was an Indian to be seen.

In about three months from his setting out, Sullivan reached Easton in Pennsylvania, and soon after rejoined the army.

The Indians, by this decisive expedition, being made to feel in the most sensible manner, those calamities they were wont to inflict on others, became cautious and timid. The sufferings they had undergone, and the dread of a repetition of them, in case of their provoking the resentment of the Americans, damped the ardour of their warriors from making incursions into the American settlements. The frontiers, though not res tored to perfect tranquillity, experienced an exemption from a great proportion of the calamities in which they had been lately involved.

Though these good consequences resulted from this expedition, yet about the time of its commencement, and before its termination, several detached parties of Indians distressed different settlements in the United States. A party of sixty Indians, and twenty-seven white men, under Brandt, attacked the Minisink settlement, and burnt ten houses, twelve barns, a fort and two mills, and carried off much plunder, together with several prisoners. The militia from Goshen and the vicinity, to the amount of one hundred and forty-nine, collected and pursued them, but with so little caution that, on the 23d of

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July, they were surprised and defeated. In August, General Williamson and Colonel Pickens, of South Carolina, entered the Indian country adjacent to the frontier of their state, burned and destroyed the corn of eight towns, and insisted upon the Indians removing immediately from their late habitations into more remote settlements.

In the same month, Colonel Broadhead engaged in a successful expedition against the Mingo, Munsey, and Seneca Indians. He left Pittsburg with six hundred and five men, and was gone about five weeks, in which time he penetrated about two hundred miles from the fort, destroyed a number of Indian huts and about five hundred acres of corn.*

O sooner was the departure of the French fleet known and confirmed, than Sir Henry Clinton committed the command of the royal army in New York to Lieutenant-General Kniphausen, and embarked for the southward, with four flank battalions, twelve regiments, and a corps British, Hessian and provincial, a powerful detachment of artillery, two hundred and fifty cavalry, together with an ample supply of military stores and provisions. Vice-Admiral Arbuthnot, with a suitable naval force, undertook to convey the troops to the place of their destination. The whole sailed from New York. After a tedious and dangerous passage, in which part of their ordnance, most of their artillery, and all their cavalry horses were lost, the fleet arrived at Tybee, in Georgia. In a few days, the transports, with the army on board, sailed