er, Rogers and his men in their whaleboats appeared before
the little palisaded town of Detroit. They found the French commander,
Beletre, in surly humor and seeking to stir up the neighboring Wyandots
and Potawatomi against them. But the attempt failed, and there was
nothing for Beletre to do but yield. The French soldiery marched out of
the fort, laid down their arms, and were sent off as prisoners down the
river. The fleur-de-lis, which for more than half a century had floated
over the village, was hauled down, and, to the accompaniment of cheers,
the British ensign was run up. The red men looked on with amazement
at this display of English authority and marveled how the conquerors
forbore to slay their vanquished enemies on the spot.

Detroit in 1760 was a picturesque, lively, and rapidly growing frontier
town. The central portions of the settlement, lying within the bounds of
the present city, contained ninety or a hundred small houses, chiefly
of wood and roofed with bark or thatch. A well-built range of
barracks afforded quarters for the soldiery, and there were two public
buildings--a council house and a little church. The whole was surrounded
by a square palisade twenty-five feet high, with a wooden bastion at
each corner and a blockhouse over each gateway. A broad passageway, the
chemin du ronde, lay next to the palisade, and on little narrow streets
at the center the houses were grouped closely together.

Above and below the fort the banks of the river were lined on both
sides, for a distance of eight or nine miles, with little rectangular
farms, so laid out as to give each a water-landing. On each farm was
a cottage, with a garden and orchard, surrounded by a fence of rounded
pickets; and the countryside rang with the shouts and laughter of a
prosperous and happy peasantry. Within the limits of the settlement were
villages of Ottawas, Potawatomi, and Wyandots, with whose inhabitants
the French lived on free and easy terms. "The joyous sparkling of the
bright blue water," writes Parkman; "the green luxuriance of the woods;
the white dwellings, looking out from the foliage; and in the distance
the Indian wigwams curling their smoke against the sky--all were mingled
in one broad scene of wild and rural beauty."

At the coming of the English the French residents were given an
opportunity to withdraw. Few, however, did so, and from the gossipy
correspondence of the pleasure-loving Colonel Campbell, who for some