The principal entrance into the fort, which presented
four equal sides of a square, was from the forest; but,
immediately opposite to this, and behind the apartments
of the commanding officer, there was another small gate
that opened upon the lake shore; but which, since the
investment of the place, had been kept bolted and locked,
with a precaution befitting the danger to which the
garrison was exposed. Still, there were periods, even
now, when its sullen hinges were to be heard moaning on
the midnight breeze; for it served as a medium of
communication between the besieged and others who were
no less critically circumstanced than themselves.
The very day before the Indians commenced their simultaneous
attack on the several posts of the English, the only
armed vessel that had been constructed on these upper
lakes, serving chiefly as a medium of communication
between Detroit and Michilimackinac, had arrived with
despatches and letters from the former fort. A
well-concerted plan of the savages to seize her in her
passage through the narrow waters of the river Sinclair
had only been defeated by the vigilance of her commander;
but, ever since the breaking out of the war, she had been
imprisoned within the limits of the Huron.
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