l feeling of
disaffection towards the English crown.

In proportion also as the Canadians have felt and acknowledged the
beneficent effects arising from a change of rulers, so have the Indian
tribes been gradually weaned from their first fierce principle of
hostility, until they have subsequently become as much distinguished by
their attachment to, as they were three quarters of a century ago
remarkable for their untameable aversion for, every thing that bore the
English name, or assumed the English character. Indeed, the hatred
which they bore to the original colonists has been continued to their
descendants, the subjects of the United States; and the same spirit of
union subsisted between the natives and British troops, and people of
Canada, during the late American war, that at an earlier period of the
history of that country prevailed so powerfully to the disadvantage of
England.

And now we have explained a course of events which were in some measure
necessary to the full understanding of the country by the majority of
our readers, we shall, in furtherance of the same object, proceed to
sketch a few of the most prominent scenes more immediately before us.

The fort of Detroit, as it was originally constructed by the French,
stands in the middle of a common, or description of small prairie,
bounded by woods, which, though now partially thinned in their
outskirts, were at that period untouched by the hand of civilisation.
Erected at a distance of about half a mile from the banks of the river,
which at that particular point are high and precipitous, it stood then
just far enough from the woods that swept round it in a semicircular
form to be secure from the rifle of the Indian; while from its
batteries it commanded a range of country on every hand, which no enemy
unsupported by cannon could traverse with impunity. Immediately in the
rear, and on the skirt of the wood, the French had constructed a sort
of bomb-proof, possibly intended to serve as a cover to the workmen
originally employed in clearing the woods, but long since suffered to
fall into decay. Without the fortification rose a strong and triple
line of pickets, each of about two feet and a half in circumference,
and so fitted into each other as to leave no other interstices than
those which were perforated for the discharge of musketry. They were
formed of the hardest and most knotted pines that could be procured;
the sharp points of which were seasoned by