take part at mass. This service was generally followed by prayers. During the forenoon the priests were generally engaged in visiting the sick, and consoling those who were laboring under any affliction. After noon another service was held in the church, at which all the Indians were permitted to appear in their finery, and where each, without regard to rank or age, answered the questions put by the missionary. This exercise was concluded by singing hymns, the words of which had been set to airs familiar to the savage ear. In the evening all assembled again at the church for instruction, to hear prayers, and to sing their favorite hymns. The Miamis were always highly pleased with the latter exercise.

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Aside from the character of the religious services which constituted a chief attraction in the Miami villages of Indiana while the early French missionaries were among them, the traveler's attention would first be engaged with the peculiarities of the fur trade, which, during the first quarter of the Seventeenth century, was monopolized by the French. This trade was carried on by means of the carriers, or rangers, were engaged to conduct canoes on the lakes and rivers, and to carry burdens of merchandise from Detroit to the principal Miami villages, where the traders exchanged their wares for valuable furs, which they transported to the nearest trading post affording them the most available market. This traffic was not, however, confined to those whose wealth enabled them to engage vessels, canoes, and carriers, for there were hundreds scattered through the various Indian villages of Indiana, at almost any time during the first half of the Eighteenth century, who carried their packs of merchandise and furs by means of leather straps suspended from their shoulders, or with the straps resting against their foreheads.

Rum and brandy were freely introduced by these traders, and always found a ready sale among the Miami Indians. A Frenchman, writing of the evils which resulted from the introduction of spirituous liquors among these savages, remarked: "The distribution of it is made in the usual way; that is to say, a certain number of persons have delivered to each of them a quantity sufficient to get drunk with, so that the whole

have been drunk over eight days. They begin to drink in the villages as soon as the sun is down, and every night the fields echo with the most hideous howling."

In those early days the Miami villages of the Maumee, those of the Weas about Ouiatenon, on the Wabash, and those of the Painkeshaws around Vincennes, were the central points of the fur trade in Indiana. Trading posts were established at these places and at Fort Wayne, in 1719, although for twenty years previous the French traders and missionaries had frequently visited them. A permanent mission, or church was established at the Painkeshaw village, near Vincennes, in 1749, by Father Meurin, and in the following year a small fort was erected there by order of the French government. It was in that year that a small fort was erected near the mouth of the Wabash river. These posts soon drew a large number of French traders around them, and in 1756 they had become quite important settlements, with a mixed population of French and Indian.

At this date the English became powerful competitors for the trade with the Indians in Indiana, and the surrounding country, and at the close of the Old French War, in 1759-60, when Canada and its dependencies fell into the hands of the British, this monopoly passed over to the English. Notwithstanding this change in the government of the country, the French who had settled around the principal trading posts in Indiana, with a few exceptions, swore allegience to the British government, and were permitted to occupy their lands in peace and enjoy the slight improvements which they had wrought. In the course of the year 1762, while the Indians in the Northwest seemed to be quite reconciled to the change of government, and the English traders were beginning to carry on a successful traffic with the tribes that dwelt between the lakes and the Ohio, Pontiac, the chief of the Ottawas, and the head of a loose confederacy of the Wyandotts, Pottawattomies, Chippewas, and Ottawas- tribes of the Algonquin Indians residing in Michigan and Western Canada― was secretly preparing his forces for a desperate war on the English. This great scheme was ably projected, and, to a great degree, suc

cessfully carried out. With a view to increasing the strength and numbers of his confederacy, Pontiac circulated among the different tribes the false report that the English had formed. the design of driving the Indians from the country. By this crafty policy he brought to his assistance, in the spring of 1763, nearly the whole strength of the Ottawas, Chippewas, Pottawattomies, Sacs, Foxes, Menominees, Miamis, and other Indiana tribes, the Shawanos, Wyandotts, and factions of many other tribes, and was indeed ready to strike the contemplated blow.

The attack was made on all the British forts or trading posts of the Northwest in the month of May, 1763, and the infuriated Indians, without much opposition, took possession of the posts of Michilimackinac, Green Bay, St. Joseph, Ouiatenon, Miami, Sandusky, Presque Isle, Leeboeuf, and Venango. These places, with the exception of Michilimackinac, were but slightly fortified, being merely trading posts with only a light garrison. A number of English traders, who were residing at the posts, were butchered, while not a Frenchman was injured. Some of the English escaped, others were taken prisoners, and were either burned, butchered, or afterwards released. Some of the incidents connected with this furious onset are full of horror. The massacre at Fort Michilimackinac was without a parallel, seventy Englishmen being merci. lessly slaughtered in less than half an hour.

This war or outbreak was the result of French misrepresentation. The French were jealous of the English, and, smarting under their own defeats, goaded the Indians to desperation by designing falsehoods and promises which they never intended to fulfill.

The siege of Detroit was conducted by Pontiac himself; but this post, as also Fort Pitt, withstood the storm of Indian vengeance until the forces of Colonel Bradstreet on the one hand, and Colonel Bouquette on the other, brought relief to the tired garrisons. The British army penetrated the Indian country, and forced the savages to a treaty of peace, and on the fifth of December, 1764, a cessation of hostilities was. proclaimed.

From this date until 1774, the Indians who occupied the country northwest of the Ohio river remained at peace with the English, although in the meantime many English colonists, contrary to the proclamation of the king, the provisions of the treaty, and the earnest remonstrances of the Indians, continued to make settlements on Indian lands.

Near the close of the year 1764, General Gage, Commanderin-Chief of the British forces in North America, being convinced of the peaceful intent of the Indian tribes of Indiana and Illinois, issued a proclamation to the French inhabitants then residing in the territory, extending to them the same rights and privileges enjoyed by the French under the treaty of Paris, in Canada, and on the ninth of July, 1765, M. de St. Ange, who was at that time the French commandant at Fort Charters, in Illinois, evacuated that post and retired with his little garrison to St. Louis. A detachment of English troops then took possession of the evacuated post, and Captain Sterling, the British commandant, established his headquarters there. Nearly all of the French inhabitants of the villages of Illinois took the oath of allegiance to the government of Great Britain, and continued in the peaceful enjoyment of their ancient possessions, a few only removing to the western bank of the Mississippi, where the authority of France was still in force, although the country had passed into the hands of the Spaniards.

When the British extended dominion over the territory of Indiana by placing garrisons at the various trading posts in 1764-5, the total number of French families within its limits did not probably exceed eighty or ninety at Vincennes, about fourteen at Fort Ouiatenon, on the Wabash, and nine or ten at the confluence of the St. Joseph and St. Mary's rivers, near the Twightwee village. At Detroit and in the vicinity of that post, there were about one thousand French residents, men, women and children. The remainder of the French population in the Northwest resided principally at Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Prairie du Rocher, and in the vicinity of these villages; and the whole French population, northwest of the Ohio, at that time did not exceed three thousand souls.

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The colonial policy of Great Britain, which was adopted immediately after the treaty of Paris, was not calculated to facilitate the settlement of the fertile country west of the Alleghany mountains. The king's proclamation, issued almost immediately after the signing of the treaty, prohibited his subjects from "making any purchases or settlements whatever, or taking possession of any of the lands beyond the source of any of the rivers which fall into the Atlantic ocean from the west or northwest." In pursuance of this policy the government rejected the urgent offers of various wealthy and enterprising individuals to establish English colonies in the West. However we hear of nothing that disturbed the peaceful pursuits of the French settlements in Indiana, until a proclamation of General Gage, in 1772, declared thatWhereas, many persons, contrary to the positive orders of the king upon the subject, have undertaken to make settlements beyond the boundaries fixed by the treaties made with the Indian nations, which boundaries ought to serve as a barrier between the whites and said nations, and a great number of persons have established themselves, particularly on the river Ouabache, where they lead a wandering life, without government, and without laws, interrupting the free course of trade, destroying the game, and causing infinite disturbance in the country, which occasions considerable injury to the affairs of the king as well as to those of the Indians, His Majesty has been pleased to order, and by these presents, orders are given in the name of the king, to all those who have established themselves on lands upon the Ouabache, whether at St. Vincent [Vincennes] or elsewhere, to quit those countries instantly and without delay, and to retire at their choice into some one of the colonies of His Majesty, where they will be received and treated as the other subjects of His Majesty."

The principal inhabitants of Post Vincennes replied to this official document on the fourteenth of September of the same year, stating that their possessions were held by "sacred titles," that the French settlement of that place was of 66 seventy years standing," and that their "land had been