The courier who took the belt to the north, offered peace to all the tribes wherever he passed ; and to Detroit, where he arrived on the last of October, he bore a
letter in the nature
of a pro
clamation, informing the inhabitants of the cession of Canada to England ; another addressed to twenty-five nations by name, and particularly to Pontiac, and a third to the commander, express ing a readiness to surrender to the English all the forts of the
The next morning Pontiac
Ohio and east of the Mississippi. 2 " the raised the
peace which his father the French had sent him," and departed with his followers, disap pointed but unrelenting. siege, accepted
The Lenapes and their allies had, in the meantime, performed their allotted work.
Ruined mills, deserted cabins, fields wav
ing with the harvest but without reapers, attested their ruthless
warfare east of the Alleghanies, while at Fort Pitt they held suc
The Virginia troops under Boquet, who had been sent out against them, barely escaped destruction. At Edge hill,
cessful siege.
on the 5th and 6th of August, 1763, stratagem alone saved him.
Taking advantage of the intrepidity of his assailants, he feigned a retreat.
The allies hurried to charge with the utmost daring,
when two companies, that had been purposely upon their flank ; others turned and
concealed,
met them in front
;
fell
and the
Indians, yielding to the irresistible shock, were routed and put
It is a singular fact, that the actors in tragic affair were not of