where he had assisted at the reception and
distribution of the scalps the savages had taken from the soldiers of a
nation with which the British still pretended to be at peace; and a few
days later he reported that the Lake Indians were at last gathering, and
that when the fighting men of the various tribes joined forces, as he
had reason to believe they shortly would, the British posts would be
tolerably secure from any attacks by Wayne. [Footnote: Canadian
Archives, McKee's letters May 25 and May 30, 1794.]

Indians Serve the British as Police.

The Indians served the British, not only as a barrier, against the
Americans, but as a police for their own soldiers, to prevent their
deserting. An Englishman who visited the Lake Posts at this time
recorded with a good deal of horror the fate that befell one of a party
of deserters from the British garrison at Detroit. The commander, on
discovering that they had gone, ordered the Indians to bring them back
dead or alive. When overtaken one resisted, and was killed and scalped.
The Indians brought in his scalp and hung it outside the fort, where it
was suffered to remain, that the ominous sight might strike terror to
other discontented soldiers. [Footnote: Draper MSS. From Parliament
Library in Canada, MS. "Canadian Letters," descriptive of a tour in
Canada in 1792-93.]

Anger of the Americans over Dorchester's Speech.

The publication of Lord Dorchester's speech caused angry excitement in
the United States. Many thought it spurious; but Washington, then
President, with his usual clear-sightedness, at once recognized that it
was genuine, and accepted it as proof of Great Britain's hostile feeling
towards his country. Through the Secretary of State he wrote to the
British Minister, calling him to sharp account, not only for
Dorchester's speech but for the act of building a fort on the Miami, and
for the double-dealing of his government, which protested friendship,
with smooth duplicity, while their agents urged the savages to war. "At
the very moment when the British Ministry were forwarding assurances of
good will, does Lord Dorchester foster and encourage in the Indians
hostile dispositions towards the United States," ran the letter, "but
this speech only forebodes hostility; the intelligence which has been
received this morning is, if true, hostility itself...governor Simcoe
has gone to the foot of the Rapids of the Miami, followed by three
companies of a Brit