in great
respect for the personal character of Mr. Elliott, yet I
should be unwilling to place entire dependance in an affair
of such manifest importance, upon a judgment biased and
prejudiced as his is known to be in every thing that regards
the Indians. To act with due prudence, he participates in and
feels too keenly the grievous wrongs they have suffered.
Should you, therefore, perceive the smallest indication to
depart from the line so strongly marked by his excellency for
the government of the Indian officers, you will, without
creating suspicion of an intention of controlling their
measures, offer friendly advice, and even have recourse to
written protests to deter them from persevering in any act
that may have a tendency to irritate and expose the two
nations to endless controversy. All this you of course will do
as coming from yourself, and you will be very regular in
reporting circumstantially every occurrence that may come to
your knowledge, to enable me to conform strictly with the
instructions of the commander-in-chief.

_Colonel Baynes[33] to Brigadier Brock, at Fort George_.

QUEBEC, March 4, 1811.

Sir James desires me to tell you that he had fully intended
writing to you himself by this day's post, but, from the
arrival of the January mail and the departure of the Halifax
courier to-morrow, he finds himself so much occupied that he
has deputed me to explain to you the cause of his not
announcing to you by his own pen the resolution he finds
himself under the necessity of adopting, of returning to
England early in the summer. I think it probable that he will
leave this by the July fleet; indeed, the extremely weak and
debilitated state of his health will not admit of his
deferring his departure longer, lest it might involve him in
inconveniences attendant upon an equinoctial or fall passage.
It is with the deepest regret I observe that his strength is
visibly sinking under his disease, although the latter does
not appear to have increased in violence; on the contrary, for
this fortnight past he seems in better spirits and to suffer
less pain: the first probably arises from the prospect of his
being speedily relieved from the weight and anxiety of his
public charge, for, with regard to himself, his mind is most
perfectly made up, and resigned t