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.
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