Nations, lead them
quietly into the heart of Kentucky, and, by a bold move, seize some
prominent station, murder the garrison, and thus secure at once a
stronghold, from which to sally forth, spread death and desolation in
every quarter, and, if possible, depopulate the entire country. Long
and ardently did he labor in stirring up the Indians by inflammatory
speeches; till at last he succeeded in uniting a grand body for his
hellish purpose; which, on the very eve of success, as one may say, was
at last frustrated by what seemed a direct Providence, of which more
anon, and its proper place.

Previously, however, to the event just referred to, parties of Indians,
numbering from five to fifty, prowled about the frontiers, committing
at every opportunity all manner of horrid deeds, and thus rousing the
whites to defence and retaliation. One of these skirmishes has been more
particularly dwelt on, by the historians of Kentucky, than any of the
others; on account, probably, of the desperate and sanguinary struggle
for mastery between the two contending parties, and the cruel desertion,
at a time of need, of a portion of the whites; by which means the
Indians had advantage of numbers, that otherwise would have been equally
opposed. We allude to what is generally known as Estill's Defeat.

It is not our province in the present work to detail any thing not
directly connected with our story; and therefore we shall pass on, after
a cursory glance at the main facts in question. Sometime in March, a
party of Wyandots made a descent upon Estill's station, which stood near
the present site of Richmond; and having killed and scalped a young
lady, and captured a Negro slave, were induced, by the exaggerated
account which the latter gave of the force within, to an immediate
retreat; whereby, probably, the lives of the women and children, almost
the only occupants, were saved--Captain Estill himself, with his
garrison, and several new recruits, being at the time away, on a search
for these very savages, who were known by some unmistakable signs to be
in the vicinity. Word being despatched to Estill, of what had transpired
in his absence, he immediately sought out the trail of the retreating
foes, which he followed with his men, and toward night of the second day
overtook them at Hinston's Fork of Licking, where a desperate engagement
immediately ensued. At the onset, there were twenty-five Indians, and
exactly the same number of whites;