n to risk a
general engagement. With this purpose he sailed on the 9th of September,
with his small squadron wretchedly manned, and the next day encountered
the enemy. For some time the fate of the battle poised in favor of the
British, as the principal American ship, the Lawrence, struck her
colours; but a sudden breeze turned the scale against them, and the
whole of their squadron was compelled to surrender, after a desperate
engagement of upwards of three hours. Captain Barclay was dangerously
wounded; Captain Finnis, of the Queen Charlotte, killed; and every
commander and officer second in command was either killed or wounded.

Major-General Proctor's army was deprived, by this disastrous defeat, of
every prospect of obtaining its necessary supplies through Lake Erie,
and a speedy retreat towards the head of Lake Ontario became inevitable.
Stung with grief and indignation, Tecumseh at first refused to agree to
the measure, and in a council of war held at Amherstburg on the 18th of
September, he thus delivered his sentiments against it:

Father, listen to your children! You have them now all before
you.

The war before this, our British father gave the hatchet to
his red children, when our old chiefs were alive. They are now
dead. In that war our father was thrown on his back by the
Americans, and our father took them by the hand without our
knowledge; and we are afraid that our father will do so again
at this time.

The summer before last, when I came forward with my red
brethren, and was ready to take up the hatchet in favor of our
British father, we were told not to be in a hurry,--that he
had not yet determined to fight the Americans.

Listen! When war was declared, our father stood up and gave
us the tomahawk, and told us that he was then ready to strike
the Americans; that he wanted our assistance; and that he
would certainly get us hack our lands, which the Americans had
taken from us.

Listen! You told us, at that time, to bring forward our
families to this place, and we did so; and you promised to
take care of them, and that they should want for nothing,
while the men would go and fight the enemy; that we need not
trouble ourselves about the enemy's garrisons; that we knew
nothing about them, and that our father would attend to that
part of the contest. You also told your red children that you
would t