the
hatred carefully instilled into their breasts, sought every opportunity
to compass the destruction of the English, wherever they were most
vulnerable to the effects of stratagem. Several inferior forts situated
on the Ohio had already fallen into their hands, when they summoned all
their address and cunning to accomplish the fall of the two important
though remote posts of Detroit and Michilimackinac. For a length of
time they were baffled by the activity and vigilance of the respective
governors of these forts, who had had too much fatal experience in the
fate of their companions not to be perpetually on the alert against
their guile; but when they had at length, in some degree, succeeded in
lulling the suspicions of the English, they determined on a scheme,
suggested by a leading chief, a man of more than ordinary character,
which promised fair to rid them altogether of a race they so cordially
detested. We will not, however, mar the interest of our tale, by
anticipating, at this early stage, either the nature or the success of
a stratagem which forms the essential groundwork of our story.

While giving, for the information of the many, what, we trust, will not
be considered a too compendious outline of the Canadas, and the events
connected with them, we are led to remark, that, powerful as was the
feeling of hostility cherished by the French Canadians towards the
English when the yoke of early conquest yet hung heavily on them, this
feeling eventually died away under the mild influence of a government
that preserved to them the exercise of all their customary privileges,
and abolished all invidious distinctions between the descendants of
France and those of the mother-country. So universally, too, has this
system of conciliation been pursued, we believe we may with safety
aver, of all the numerous colonies that have succumbed to the genius
and power of England, there are none whose inhabitants entertain
stronger feelings of attachment and loyalty to her than those of
Canada; and whatever may be the transient differences,--differences
growing entirely out of circumstances and interests of a local
character, and in no way tending to impeach the acknowledged fidelity
of the mass of French Canadians,--whatever, we repeat, may be the
ephemeral differences that occasionally spring up between the governors
of those provinces and individual members of the Houses of Assembly,
they must, in no way, be construed into a gene