Detroit, at night.
I passed half an hour in pleasant conversation with this lady, who had been born, educated, and married in the very house in which she now resided. She spoke English well and fluently, but with a foreign accent, and her deportment was frank and easy, with that sort of graceful courtesy which seems inherent in the French manner, or used to be so. On parting, she presented me with a large bouquet of roses, which has proved a great delight, and served all the purposes of a fan. Nor should I forget that in her garden I saw the only humming-birds I have yet seen in Canada: there were two lovely little gem-like creatures disporting among the blossoms of the scarlet-bean. They have been this year less numerous than usual, owing to the lateness and severity of the spring.
The day has been most intolerably hot; even on the lake there was not a breath of air. But as the sun went down in his glory, the breeze freshened, and the spires and towers of the city of Detroit were seen against the western sky. The schooners at anchor, or dropping into the river—the little canoes flitting across from side to side—the lofty buildings,—the enormous steamers—the noisy port, and busy streets, all bathed in the light of a sunset such as I had never seen, not even in Italy—almost turned me giddy with excitement. I have emerged from the solitary forests of Canada to be thrown suddenly into the midst of crowded civilised life; and the effect for the present is a nervous flutter of the spirits which banishes sleep and rest; though I have got into a good hotel, (the American,) and have at last, after some trouble, obtained good accommodation.
Detroit, June ——.
The roads by which I have at length reached this beautiful little city were not, certainly, the smoothest and the easiest in the world; nor can it be said of Upper Canada, as of wisdom, "that all her ways are ways of pleasantness, and her paths are paths of peace." On the contrary, one might have fancied oneself in the road to paradise for that matter. It was difficult, and narrow; and foul, and steep enough to have led to the seventh heaven; but in heaven I am not yet—
Since my arrival at Detroit, some malignant planet reigns in place of that favourable and guiding star which has hitherto led me so deftly on my way,
"Through brake, through brier,Through mud, through mire."
"Through brake, through brier,Through mud, through mire."
Here, where I expected all would go so well, every thing goes wrong, and cross, and contrary.
A severe attack of illness, the combined effect of heat, fatigue, and some deleterious properties in the water at Detroit, against which travellers should be warned, has confined me to my room for the last three days. Thismal-à-proposindisposition has prevented me from taking my passage in the great steamer which has just gone up Lake Huron; and I must now wait here six days longer, till the next boat, bound for Mackinaw and Chicago, comes up Lake Erie from Buffalo. What is far worse, I have lost, for the time being, the advantage of seeing and knowing Daniel Webster, and of hearing a display of that wonderful eloquence which they say takes captive all ears, and hearts, and souls. He has been making public speeches here, appealing to the people against the money transactions of the government; and the whole city has been in a ferment. He left Detroit two days after my arrival, to my no small mortification. I had letters for him; and it so happens that several others to whom I had also letters have fled from the city on summer tours, or to escape the heat. Some have gone east, some west; some up the lakes, some down the lakes. So I am abandoned to my own resources, in a miserable state of languor, lassitude, and weakness.
It is not, however, the first time I have had to endure sickness and solitude together in a strange land; and, the worst being over, we must needs make the best of it, and send the time away as well as we can.
Of all the places I have yet seen in these far western regions, Detroit is the most interesting. It is, moreover, a most ancient and venerable place, dating back to the dark, immemorial ages, i.e. almost a century and a quarter ago! and having its history and antiquities, and traditions and heroes, and epochs of peace and war. No place in the United States presents such a series of events interesting in themselves, and permanently affecting, as they occurred, both its progress and prosperity. Five times its flag has changed; three different sovereignties have claimed its allegiance; and, since it has been held by the United States, its government has been thrice transferred: twice it has been besieged by the Indians, once captured in war, and once burned to the ground: truly a long list of events for a young city of a century old! Detroit may almost rival her old grandam Quebec, who sits bristling defiance on the summit of her rocky height, in warlike and tragic experience.
Can you tell me why we gave up this fine and important place to the Americans, without leaving ourselves even a fort on the opposite shore? Dolts and blockheads as we have been in all that concerns the partition and management of these magnificent regions, now that we have ignorantly and blindly ceded whole countries, and millions and millions of square miles of land and water to our neighbours, I am told that we are likely to quarrel and go to war about a partition line through the barren tracts of the east! Well, let our legislators look to it! Colonel Talbot told me that when he took a map, and pointed out to one of the English commissioners the foolish bargain they had made, the real extent, value, and resources of the countries ceded to the United States, the man covered his eyes with his clenched hands, and burst into tears.
The position of Detroit is one of the finest imaginable. It is on a strait between Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair, commanding the whole internal commerce of these great "successive seas." Michigan, of which it is the capital, being now received into the Union, its importance, both as a frontier town and a place of trade, increases every day.
The origin of the city was a little palisadoed fort, erected here, in 1702, by the French under La Motte Cadillac, to defend their fur trade. It was then called Fort Portchartrain. From this time till 1760 it remained in possession of the French, and continued to increase slowly. So late as 1721, Charlevoix speaks of the vast herds of buffaloes ranging the plains west of the city. Meantime, under the protection of the fort, the settlement and cultivation of the neighbouring districts went on, in spite of the attacks of some of the neighbouring tribes of Indians, particularly the Ottagamies, who, with the Iroquois, seem to have been the only decided and irreconcilable enemies whom the French found in this province. The capture of Quebec, and the death of Wolfe, being followed by the cession of the whole of the French territory in North America to the power of Great Britain, Detroit, with all the other trading posts in the west, was given up to the English. It is curious that the French submitted to this change of masters more easily than the Indians, who were by no means inclined to exchange the French for the English alliance. "Whatever may have been the cause," says Governor Cass, "the fact is certain, that there is in the French character a peculiar adaptation to the habits and feelings of the Indians; and to this day the period of French domination is the era of all that is happy in Indian reminiscences."
The conciliating manners of the French towards the Indians, and the judgment with which they managed all their intercourse with them, has had a permanent effect on the minds of those tribes who were in friendship with them. At this day, if the British are generally preferred to the Americans, the French are always preferred to either. A Chippewa chief, addressing the American agent at the Sault Ste.Marie, so late as 1826, thus fondly referred to the period of the French dominion:—"When the Frenchmen arrived at these Falls, they came and kissed us. They called us children; and we found them fathers. We lived like brethren in the same lodge; and we had always wherewithal to clothe us. They never mocked at our ceremonies, and they never molested the places of our dead. Seven generations of men have passed away, but we have not forgotten it. Just, very just, were they towards us!"[19]
The discontent of the Indian tribes upon the transfer of the forts and trading posts into the possession of the British, showed itself early, and at length gave rise to one of the most prolonged and savage of all the Indian wars, that of Pontiac, in 1763.
Of this Pontiac you have read, no doubt, in various books of travels and anecdotes of Indian chiefs. But it is one thing to read of these events by an English fireside, where the features of the scene—the forest wilds echoing to the war-whoop—the painted warriors—the very words scalping, tomahawking, bring no definite meaning to the mind, only a vague horror;—and quiteanotherthing to recall them here on the spot, arrayed in all their dread yet picturesque reality. Pontiac is the heropar excellenceof all these regions; and in all the histories of Detroit, when Detroit becomes a great capital of the west, he will figure like Caractacus or Arminius in the Roman history. The English contemporaries call him king and emperor of the Indians; but there is absolutely no sovereignty among these people. Pontiac was merely a war chief, chosen in the usual way, but exercising a more than usual influence, not by mere bravery—the universal savage virtue—but by talents of a rarer kind; a power of reflection and combination rarely met with in the character of the red warrior. Pontiac was a man of genius, and would have ruled his fellow-men under any circumstances, and in any country. He formed a project similar to that which Tecumseh entertained fifty years later. He united all the north-western tribes of Ottawas, Chippewas, and Pottowottomies, in one great confederacy against the British, "the dogs in red coats;" and had very nearly caused the overthrow, at least the temporary overthrow of our power. He had planned a simultaneous attack on all the trading posts in the possession of the English, and so far succeeded that ten of these forts were surprised about the same time, and all the English soldiers and traders massacred, while the French were spared. Before any tidings of these horrors and outrages could reach Detroit, Pontiac was here in friendly guise, and all his measures admirably arranged for taking this fort also by stratagem, and murdering every Englishman within it. All had been lost, if a poor Indian woman, who had received much kindness from the family of the commandant (Major Gladwyn), had not revealed the danger. I do not yet quite understand why Major Gladwyn, on the discovery of Pontiac's treachery, and having him in his power, did not make him and his whole band prisoners; such a stroke would have ended, or rather it would have prevented, the war. But it must be remembered that Major Gladwyn was ignorant of the systematic plan of extermination adopted by Pontiac; the news of the massacres at the upper forts had not reached him; he knew of nothing but the attempt on himself, and from motives of humanity or magnanimity he suffered them to leave the fort and go free. No sooner were they on the outside of the palisades, than they set up the war-yell "like so many devils," as a bystander expressed it, and turned and discharged their rifles on the garrison. The war, thus savagely declared, was accompanied by all those atrocious barbarities, and turns of fate, and traits of heroism, and hair-breadth escapes, which render these Indian conflicts so exciting, so terrific, so picturesque.
Detroit was in a state of siege by the Indians for twelve months, and gallantly and successfully defended by Major Gladwyn, till relieved by General Bradstreet.
The first time I was able to go out, my good-natured landlord drove me himself in his waggon (Anglicè, gig), with as much attention and care for my comfort, as if I had been his near relation. The evening was glorious; the sky perfectly Italian—a genuine Claude Lorraine sky, that beautiful intense amber light reaching to the very zenith, while the purity and transparent loveliness of the atmospheric effects carried me back to Italy and times long past. I felt it all, as people feel things after a sharp fit of indisposition, when the nervous system, languid at once and sensitive, thrills and trembles to every breath of air. As we drove slowly and silently along, we came to a sluggish, melancholy looking rivulet, to which the man pointed with his whip. "I expect," said he, "you know all about the battle of Bloody Run?"
I was obliged to confess my ignorance, not without a slight shudder at the hateful, ominous name which sounded in my ear like an epitome of all imaginable horrors.
This was the scene of a night attack made by three hundred British upon the camp of the Indians, who were then besieging Detroit. The Indians had notice of their intention, and prepared an ambush to receive them. They had just reached the bank of this rivulet, when the Indian foe fell upon them suddenly. They fought hand to hand, bayonet and tomahawk, in the darkness of the night. Before the English could extricate themselves, seventy men and most of the officers fell and were scalped on the spot. "Them Indians," said my informant, "fought like brutes and devils" (as most men do, I thought, who fight for revenge and existence), "and they say the creek here, when morning came, ran red with blood; and so they call it the Bloody Run."
There certainly is much in a name, whatever Juliet may say, and how much in fame! There is the brook Sanguinetto, which flows into Lake Thrasymene,—the meaning and the derivation are the same, but what a difference in sound! The Sanguinetto! 'tis a word one might set to music.—The Bloody Run!pah! the very utterance pollutes one's fancy!
And in associations, too, how different, though the circumstances were not unlike! This Indian Fabius, this Pontiac, wary and brave, and unbroken by defeat, fighting for his own land against a swarm of invaders, has had no poet, no historian to immortalise him, else all this ground over which I now tread had been asclassicalas the shores of Thrasymene.
As they have called Tecumseh the Indian Napoleon, they might style Pontiac the Indian Alexander—I do not mean him of Russia, but the Greek. Here, for instance, is a touch of magnanimity quite in theAlexander-the-greatstyle. Pontiac, before the commencement of the war, had provided for the safety of a British officer, Major Rogers by name, who was afterwards employed to relieve Detroit, when besieged by the Indians. On this occasion he sent Pontiac a present of a bottle of brandy, to show he had not forgotten his former obligations to him. Those who were around the Indian warrior when the present arrived, particularly some Frenchmen, warned him not to taste it, as it might be poisoned. Pontiac instantly took a draught from it, saying, as he put the bottle to his lips, that "it was notin the powerof Major Rogers to hurt him who had so lately saved his life." I think this story is no unworthy pendant to that of Alexander and his physician.
But what avails it all! who knows or cares about Pontiac and his Ottawas?
"Vain was the chief's, the warrior's pride!He had no poet—and he died!"
"Vain was the chief's, the warrior's pride!He had no poet—and he died!"
If I dwell on these horrid and obscure conflicts, it is partly to amuse the languid idle hours of convalescence, partly to inspire you with some interest for the localities around me:—and I may as well, while the pen is in my hand, give you the conclusion of the story.
Pontiac carried on the war with so much talent, courage, and resources, that the British government found it necessary to send a considerable force against him. General Bradstreet came up here with three thousand men, wasting the lands of the Miami and Wyandot Indians, "burning their villages, and destroying their corn-fields;" and I pray you to observe that in all the accounts of our expeditions against the Indians, as well as those of the Americans under General Wayne and General Harrison, mention is made of the destruction of corn-fields (plantations of Indian corn) to a great extent, which show thatsomeattention must have been paid to agriculture, even by these wild hunting tribes. I find mention also of a very interesting and beautiful tradition connected with these regions. To the east of the Detroit territory, there was settled from ancient times a band of Wyandots or Hurons, who were called the neutral nation; they never took part in the wars and conflicts of the other tribes. They had two principal villages, which were like the cities of refuge among the Israelites; whoever fled there from an enemy found a secure and inviolable sanctuary. If two enemies from tribes long at deadly variance met there, they were friends while standing on that consecrated ground. To what circumstances this extraordinary institution owed its existence is not known. It was destroyed after the arrival of the French in the country—not by them, but by some national and internal feud.
But to return to Pontiac. With all his talents, he could not maintain a standing or permanent army, such a thing being contrary to all the Indian usages, and quite incompatible with their mode of life. His warriors fell away from him every season, and departed to their hunting grounds to provide food for their families. The British pressed forward, took possession of their whole country, and the tribes were obliged to beg for peace. Pontiac disdained to take any part in these negotiations, and retired to the Illinois, where he was murdered, from some motive of private animosity, by a Peoria Indian. The Ottawas, Chippewas, and Pottowottomies, who had been allied under his command, thought it incumbent on them to avenge his death, and nearly exterminated the whole nation of the Peorias—and this was the life and the fall of Pontiac.
The name of this great chief is commemorated in that of a flourishing village, or rising town, about twenty miles west of Detroit, which is calledPontiac, as one of the townships in Upper Canada is styledTecumseh: thus literally illustrating those beautiful lines in Mrs. Sigourney's poem on Indian names:—
"Their memory liveth on your hills,Their baptism on your shore;Your everlasting rivers speakTheir dialect of yore!"
"Their memory liveth on your hills,Their baptism on your shore;Your everlasting rivers speakTheir dialect of yore!"
For rivers, bearing their old Indian names, we have here the Miami, the Huron, the Sandusky: but most of the points of land, rivers, islands, &c., bear the French appellations, as Point Pelée, River au Glaize, River des Canards, Gros-Isle, &c.
Themélangeof proper names in this immediate neighbourhood is sufficiently curious. Here we have Pontiac, Romeo, Ypsilanti, and Byron, all within no great distance of each other.
Long after the time of Pontiac, Detroit and all the country round it became the scene of even more horrid and unnatural conflicts between the Americans and British, during the war of the revolution, in which the Indians were engaged against the Americans. When peace was proclaimed, and the independence of the United States recognised by Great Britain, this savage war on the frontiers still continued, and mutual aggressions and injuries have left bitter feelings rankling on both sides. Let us hope that in another generation they may be effaced. For myself, I cannot contemplate the possibility of another war between the English and Americans without a mingled disgust and terror, as something cruel, unnatural, fratricidal. Have we not the same ancestry, the same father-land, the same language? "Though to drain our blood from out their being were an aim," they cannot do it! The ruffian refuse of the two nations—the most ignorant, common-minded, and vulgar among them, may hate each other, and give each other nicknames—but every year diminishes the number of such; and while the two governments are shaking hands across the Atlantic, it were indeed supremely ridiculous if they were to go to cuffs across the Detroit and Niagara!
When the intolerable heat of the day has subsided, I sometimes take a languid stroll through the streets of the city, not unamused, not altogether unobserving, though unable to profit much by what I see and hear. There are many new houses building, and many new streets laid out. In the principal street, called the Jefferson Avenue, there are rows of large and handsome brick houses; the others are generally of wood, painted white, with bright green doors and windows. The footway in many of the streets is, like that of Toronto, of planks, which for my own part I like better than the burning brick or stonepavé. The crowd of emigrants constantly pouring through this little city on their way to the back settlements of the west, and the number of steamers, brigs, and schooners always passing up and down the lakes, occasion a perpetual bustle, variety, and animation on the shores and in the streets. Forty-two steamers touch at the port. In one of the Detroit papers (there are five or six published here either daily or weekly) I found a long column, headedMarine Intelligence, giving an account of the arrival and departure of the shipping. Last year the profits of the steam-boats averaged seventy or eighty per cent., one with another: this year it is supposed that many will lose. There are several boats which ply regularly between Detroit and some of the new-born cities on the south shore of Lake Erie—Sandusky, Cleveland, Port Clinton, Monroe, &c. The navigation of the Detroit river is generally open from the beginning of April to the end of November. In the depth of winter they pass and repass from the British to the American shore on the ice.
There are some excellent shops in the town, a theatre, and a great number of taverns and gaming-houses:—also a great number of booksellers' shops; and I read in the papers long lists of books, newly arrived and unpacked, which the public are invited to inspect.
Wishing to borrow some books, to while away the long solitary hours in which I amobligedto rest, I asked for a circulating library, and was directed to the only one in the place. I had to ascend a steep staircase—so disgustingly dirty, that it was necessary to draw my drapery carefully around me to escape pollution. On entering a large room, unfurnished except with book shelves, I found several men sitting or rather sprawling upon chairs, and reading the newspapers. The collection of books was small; but they were not of a common or vulgar description. I found some of the best modern publications in French and English. The man—gentleman I should say, for all are gentlemen here—who stood behind the counter, neither moved his hat from his head, nor bowed on my entrance, nor showed any officious anxiety to serve or oblige; but, with this want of whatweEnglish consider due courtesy, there was no deficiency of real civility—far from it. When I inquired on what terms I might have some books to read, this gentleman desired I would take any books I pleased, and not think about payment or deposit. I remonstrated, and represented that I was a stranger at an inn—that my stay was uncertain, &c.; and the reply was, that from a lady and a stranger he could not think of receiving remuneration: and then gave himself some trouble to look out the books I wished for, which I took away with me. He did not even ask the name of the hotel at which I was staying; and when I returned the books, persisted in declining all payment from "a lady and a stranger."
Whatever attention and politeness may be tendered to me, in either character, as a lady or as a stranger, I am always glad to receive from any one, in any shape. In the present instance, I could indeed have dispensed with theform: a pecuniary obligation, small or large, not being much to my taste; but what was meant for courtesy, I accepted courteously—and so the matter ended.
Nations differ in their idea of good manners, as they do on the subject of beauty—a far less conventional thing. But there exists luckily a standard for each, in reference to which we cannot err, and to which the progress of civilisation will, it is to be hoped, bring us all nearer and nearer still. For the type of perfection in physical beauty we go to Greece, and for that of politeness we go to the gospel. As it is written in a charming little book I have just bought here,—"He who should embody and manifest the virtues taught in Christ's sermon on the Mount, would, though he had never seen a drawing-room, nor ever heard of the artificial usages of society, commend himself to all nations, the most refined as well as the most simple."[20]
If you look upon the map, you will find that the Detroit River, so called, is rather a strait or channel about thirty miles in length, and in breadth from one to two or three miles, dividing the British from the American shore. Through this channel all the waters of the upper lakes, Michigan, Superior, and Huron, come pouring down on their way to the ocean. Here, at Detroit, the breadth of the river does not exceed a mile. A pretty little steamer, gaily painted, with streamers flying, and shaded by an awning, is continually passing and repassing from shore to shore. I have sometimes sat in this ferry-boat for a couple of hours together, pleased to remain still, and enjoy, without exertion, the cool air, the sparkling redundant waters, and green islands:—amused, meantime, by the variety and conversation of the passengers, English emigrants, and French Canadians; brisk Americans; dark, sad-looking Indians folded in their blankets; farmers, storekeepers, speculators in wheat; artisans; trim girls with black eyes and short petticoats, speaking a Normanpatois, and bringing baskets of fruit to the Detroit market; over-dressed, long-waisted, damsels of the city, attended by their beaux, going to make merry on the opposite shore. The passage is not of more than ten minutes duration, yet there is a tavern bar on the lower deck, and a constant demand for cigars, liquors, and mint julep—by themenonly, I pray you to observe, and the Americans chiefly; I never saw the French peasants ask for drink.
Yesterday and to-day I have passed some hours straying or driving about on the British shore.
I hardly know how to convey to you an idea of the difference between the two shores; it will appear to you as incredible as it is to me incomprehensible. Our shore is said to be the most fertile, and has been the longest settled; but to float between them (as I did to-day in a little canoe made of a hollow tree, and paddled by a half-breed imp of a boy)—to behold on one side a city, with its towers and spires and animated population, with villas and handsome houses stretching along the shore, and a hundred vessels or more, gigantic steamers, brigs, schooners, crowding the port, loading and unloading; all the bustle, in short, of prosperity and commerce;—and, on the other side, a little straggling hamlet, one schooner, one little wretched steam-boat, some windmills, a catholic chapel or two, a supine ignorant peasantry, all the symptoms of apathy, indolence, mistrust, hopelessness!—can I, can anyone, help wondering at the difference, and asking whence it arises? There must be a cause for it surely—but what is it? Does it lie in past or in present—in natural or accidental circumstances?—in the institutions of the government, or the character of the people? Is it remediable? is it a necessity? is it a mystery? what and whence is it?—Can you tell? or can you send some of our colonial officials across the Atlantic to behold and solve the difficulty?
The little hamlet opposite to Detroit is called Richmond. I, was sitting there to-day on the grassy bank above the river resting in the shade of a tree, and speculating on all these things, when an old French Canadian stopped near me to arrange something about his cart. We entered forthwith into conversation; and though I had some difficulty in making out hispatois, he understood my French, and we got on very well. If you would see the two extremes of manner brought into near comparison, you should turn from a Yankee storekeeper to a French Canadian! It was quite curious to find in this remote region such a perfect specimen of an old-fashioned Norman peasant—all bows, courtesy, and good-humour. He was carrying a cart-load of cherries to Sandwich, and when I begged for a ride, the little old man bowed and smiled, and poured forth a voluble speech, in which the wordsenchanté! honneur!andmadame!were all I could understand; but these were enough. I mounted the cart, seated myself in an old chair surrounded with baskets heaped with ripe cherries, lovely as those of Shenstone—
"Scattering like blooming maid their glances round,And must be bought, though penury betide!"
"Scattering like blooming maid their glances round,And must be bought, though penury betide!"
No occasion, however, to risk penury here; for after permission asked, and granted with a pleasant smile and a hundredth removal of the ragged hat, I failed not to profit by my situation, and dipped my hand pretty frequently into these tempting baskets. When the French penetrated into these regions a century ago, they brought with them not only their national courtesy, but some of their finest national fruits,—plums, cherries, apples, pears, of the best quality—excellent grapes, too, I am told—and all these are now grown in such abundance as to be almost valueless. For his cart-load of cherries my old man expected a sum not exceeding two shillings.
Sandwich is about two miles below Detroit. It is the chief place in the Western District, the county town; yet the population does not much exceed four hundred.
I had to regret much the absence of Mr. Prince, the great proprietor of the place, and a distinguished member of our house of assembly, both for ability and eloquence; but I saw sufficient to convince me that Sandwich makes no progress. The appearance of the place and people, so different from all I had left on the opposite side of the river, made me melancholy, or rather thoughtful. What can be the reason that all flourishesthere, and all languisheshere?
Amherstberg, another village about ten miles farther, contains about six hundred inhabitants, has a good harbour, and all natural capabilities; but here also no progress is making. There is a wretched little useless fort, commanding, or rathernotcommanding, the entrance to the Detroit river on our side, and memorable in the history of the last American war as Fort Malden. There are here a few idle soldiers, detached from the garrison at Toronto; and it is said that even these will be removed. In case of an attack or sudden outbreak, all this exposed and important line of shore is absolutely without defence.[21]
I am hardly competent to give an opinion either way, but it seemeth to me, in my simple wit, that this is a case in which the government of the Crown, always supposing it to be wisely and paternally administered, must be preferable to the interposition of the colonial legislature, seeing that the interests of the colonists and settlers, and those of the Indians, are brought into perpetual collision, and that the colonists can scarcely be trusted to decide in their own case. As it is, the poor Indian seems hardly destined to meet withjusticeeither from the legislative or executive power.
I believe that Sir Francis Head entertained an enthusiastic admiration for the Indian character, and was sincerely interested in the welfare of this fated people. It was his deliberate conviction that there was no salvation for them but in their removal as far as possible from the influence and dominion of the white settlers; and in this I agree with his Excellency; but seeing that the Indians are not virtually British subjects, no measure should be adopted, even for their supposed benefit, without their acquiescence. They are quite capable of judging for themselves in every case in which their interests are concerned. The fault of our executive is, that we acknowledge the Indians ourallies, yet treat them, as well as call them, ourchildren. They acknowledged in our government afather; they never acknowledged any master but the "Great Master of Life," and the rooted idea, or rather instinct of personal and political independence in which every Indian is born or reared, no earthly power can obliterate from his soul. One of the early missionaries expresses himself on this point with greatnaïveté. "The Indians," he says, "are convinced that every man is born free; that no one has a right to make any attempt upon his personal liberty, and that nothing can make him amends for its loss." He proceeds—"We have even had much pains to undeceive those converted to Christianity on this head, and to make them understand that in consequence of the corruption of our nature, which is the effect of sin, an unrestrained liberty of doing evil differs little from the necessity of doing it, considering the strength of the inclination which carries us to it; and that the law which restrains us brings us nearer to our first liberty in seeming to deprive us of it."
That a man, because he has the free use of his will and his limbs, must therefore necessarily do evil, is a doctrine which the Indian can never be brought to understand. He is too polite to contradict us, but he insists that it was made for the pale-faces, who, it may be, are naturally inclined to all evil; but has nothing to do with the red skins, whom the Great Spirit created free. "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty;"—but about liberty there may be as many differing notions as about charity.
Of the number here I can form no exact idea; they say there are about two hundred. At present they are busied in preparations for their voyage up Lake Huron to the Great Manitoolin Island to receive their annual presents, and one fleet of canoes has already departed.
My business here being not to dream, but to observe, and this morning being Sunday morning, I crept forth to attend the different church services merely as a spectator. I went first to the Roman Catholic church, called the Cathedral, and the largest and oldest in the place. The Catholic congregation is by far the most numerous here, and is composed chiefly of the lower classes and the descendants of the French settlers. On entering the porch, I found a board suspended with written regulations, to the effect that all Christians, of whatever denomination, were welcome to enter; but it was requested that all would observe the outward ceremonial, and that all gentlemen (tous les messieurs) would lay aside their pipes and cigars, take off their hats, and wipe their shoes. The interior of the church was similar to that of many other provincial Roman Catholic churches, exhibiting the usual assortment of wax tapers, gilding, artificial flowers, and daubed Madonnas. The music and singing were not good. In the course of the service, the officiating priest walked up and down the aisles, flinging about the holy water on either side, with a silver-handled brush. I had my share, though unworthy of this sprinkling, and then left the church, where the heat and the smell of incense,et cetera, were too overpowering. On the steps, and in the open space before the door, there was a crowd of peasants, all talking French—laughing, smoking, tobacco chewing,et cetera, et cetera. One or two were kneeling in the porch. Thence I went to the Methodist chapel, where I found a small congregation of the lower classes. A very ill-looking man, in comparison to whom Liston's Mawworm were no caricature, was holding forth in a most whining and lugubrious tone; the poor people around joined in sobs and ejaculations, which soon became howling, raving, and crying. In the midst of this woful assembly I observed a little boy who was grinning furtively, kicking his heels, and sliding bits of apple from his pocket into his mouth. Not being able to endure this with proper seriousness, I left the place.
I then went into the Baptist church, on the opposite side of the road. It is one of the largest in the town, plain in appearance, but the interior handsome, and in good taste. The congregation was not crowded, but composed of most respectable, serious, well-dressed people. As I entered, the preacher was holding forth on the unpardonable sin, very incoherently and unintelligibly, but, on closing his sermon, he commenced a prayer; and I have seldom listened to one more eloquently fervent. Both the sermon and prayer were extemporaneous. He prayed for all people, nations, orders and conditions of men throughout the world, including the king of Great Britain: but the prayer for the president of the United States seemed to me a little original, and admirably calculated to suit the two parties who are at present divided on the merits of that gentleman. The suppliant besought the Almighty, that "if Mr. Van Buren were a good man, he might be made better; and if a bad man, he might be speedily regenerated."
I was still in time for the Episcopal church, a very spacious and handsome building, though "somewhat Gothic." On entering, I perceived at one glance that the Episcopal church is here, as at New York, thefashionablechurch of the place. It was crowded in every part: the women well dressed—but, as at New York, too much dressed, too fine for good taste and real fashion. I was handed immediately to the "strangers' pew," a book put into my hand, and it was whispered to me that the bishop would preach. Our English idea of the exterior of a bishop is an old gentleman in a wig and lawn sleeves, both equallyde rigueur; I was therefore childishly surprised to find in the Bishop of Michigan a young man of very elegant appearance, wearing his own fine hair, and in a plain black silk gown. The sermon was on the well-worn subject of charity as it consists ingiving—the least and lowest it may be of all the branches of charity, though indeed that depends on what we give, and how we give it. We may give our heart, our soul, our time, our health, our life, as well as our money; and the greatest of these, as well as the least, is still but charity. At home I have often thought that when people gave money they gave counters; here, when people give money they are really charitable—they give a portion of their time and their existence, both of which are devoted to money-making.
On closing his sermon, which was short and unexceptionable, the bishop leaned forward over the pulpit, and commenced an extemporaneous address to his congregation. I have often had occasion in the United States to admire the ready, graceful fluency of their extemporaneous speakers and preachers, and I have never heard anything more eloquent and more elegant than this address; it was in perfect good taste, besides being very much to the purpose. He spoke in behalf of the domestic missions of his diocese. I understood that the missions hitherto supported in the back settlements are, in consequence of the extreme pressure of the times, likely to be withdrawn, and the new, thinly-peopled districts thus left without any ministry whatever. He called on the people to give their aid towards sustaining these domestic missionaries, at least for a time, and said, among other things, that if each individual of the Episcopal church in the United States subscribed one cent. per week for a year, it would amount to more than 300,000 dollars. This address was responded to by a subscription on the spot of above 400 dollars—a large sum for a small town, suffering, like all other places, from the present commercial difficulties.
July 18.
This evening the Thomas Jefferson arrived in the river from Buffalo, and starts early to-morrow morning for Chicago. I hastened to secure a passage as far as the island of Mackinaw: when once there, I must trust to Providence for some opportunity of going up Lake Huron to the Sault Ste. Marie to visits my friends the MacMurrays; or down the lake to the Great Manitoolin Island, where the annual distribution of presents to the Indians is to take place under the auspices of the governor. If both these plans—wild plans they are, I am told—should fail, I have only to retrace my way and come down the lake, as I went up, in a steamer; but this were horridly tedious and prosaic, and Ihopebetter things. Soevviva la speranza!and Westward Ho!
On board the Jefferson, River St. Clair, July 19.
This morning I came down early to the steam-boat, attended by acortègeof amiable people, who had heard of my sojourn at Detroit too late to be of any solace or service to me, but had seized this last and only opportunity of showing politeness and good-will. The sister of the governor, two other ladies, and a gentleman, came on board with me at that early hour, and remained on deck till the paddles were in motion. The talk was so pleasant, I could not but regret that I had not seen some of these kind people earlier, or might hope to see more of them; but it was too late. Time and steam wait neither for man nor woman: all expressions of hope and regret on both sides were cut short by the parting signal, which the great bell swung out from on high; all compliments and questions "fumbled up into a loose adieu;" and these new friendly faces—seen but for a moment, then to be lost, yet not quite forgotten—were soon left far behind.
The morning was most lovely and auspicious; blazing hot though, and scarce a breath of air; and the magnificent machine, admirably appointed in all respects, gaily painted and gilt, with flags waving, glided over the dazzling waters with an easy, stately motion.
I had suffered so much at Detroit, that as it disappeared and melted away in the bright southern haze like a vision, I turned from it with a sense of relief, put the past out of my mind, and resigned myself to the present—like a wise woman—or wiser child.
The captain told me that last season he had never gone up the lakes with less than four or five hundred passengers. This year, fortunately for my individual comfort, the case is greatly altered: we have not more than one hundred and eighty passengers, consequently an abundance of accommodation, and air, and space—inestimable blessings in this sultry weather, and in the enjoyment of which I did not sympathise in the lamentations of the good-natured captain as much as I ought to have done.
We passed a large and beautifully green island, formerly called Snake Island, from the immense number of rattlesnakes which infested it. These were destroyed by turning large herds of swine upon it, and it is now, in compliment to its last conquerors and possessors, the swinish multitude, called Hog Island. This was the scene of some most horrid Indian atrocities during the Pontiac war. A large party of British prisoners, surprised while they were coming up to relieve Detroit, were brought over here, and, almost within sight of their friends in the fort, put to death with all the unutterable accompaniments of savage ferocity.
I have been told that since this war the custom of torturing persons to death has fallen gradually into disuse among the Indian tribes of these regions, and even along the whole frontier of the States an instance has not been known within these forty years.
Leaving the channel of the river and the cluster of islands at its entrance, we stretched northward across Lake St. Clair. This beautiful lake, though three times the size of the Lake of Geneva, is a mere pond compared with the enormous seas in its neighbourhood. About one o'clock we entered the river St. Clair, (which, like the Detroit, is rather a strait or channel than a river,) forming the communication between Lake St. Clair and Lake Huron. Ascending this beautiful river, we had, on the right, part of the western district of Upper Canada, and on the left the Michigan territory. The shores on either side, though low and bounded always by the line of forest, were broken into bays and little promontories, or diversified by islands, richly wooded, and of every variety of form. The bateaux of the Canadians, or the canoes of the Indians, were perpetually seen gliding among these winding channels, or shooting across the river from side to side, as if playing at hide-and-seek among the leafy recesses. Now and then a beautiful schooner, with white sails, relieved against the green masses of foliage, passed us, gracefully curtseying and sidling along. Innumerable flocks of wild fowl were disporting among the reedy islets, and here and there the great black loon was seen diving and dipping, or skimming over the waters. As usual, the British coast is here the most beautiful and fertile, and the American coast the best settled and cleared. Along the former I see a few isolated log-shanties, and groups of Indian lodges; along the latter, several extensive clearings, and some hamlets and rising villages. The facility afforded by the American steam-boats for the transport of goods and sale of produce, &c., is one reason of this. There is a boat, for instance, which leaves Detroit every morning for Fort Gratiot, stopping at the intermediate "landings." We are now moored at a place called "Palmer's Landing," for the purpose of taking in wood for the Lake voyage. This process has already occupied two hours, and is to detain us two more, though there are fourteen men employed in flinging logs into the wood-hold. Meantime I have been sketching and lounging about the little hamlet, where there is a good grocery-store, a sawing-mill worked by steam, and about twenty houses.
I was amused at Detroit to find the phraseology of the people imbued with metaphors taken from the most familiar mode of locomotion. "Will you take in wood?" signifies, will you take refreshment? "Is your steam up?" means, are you ready? The common phrase, "go ahead," has I suppose, the same derivation. A witty friend of mine once wrote to me not to be lightly alarmed at the political and social ferments in America, nor mistake thewhizzing of the safety-valves for the bursting of the boilers!
But all this time I have not yet introduced you to my companions on board; and one of these great American steamers is really a little world, a little social system in itself, where a near observer of faces and manners may find endless subjects of observation, amusement, and interest. At the other end of the vessel we have about one hundred emigrants on their way to the Illinois and the settlements to the west of Lake Michigan. Among them I find a large party of Germans and Norwegians, with their wives and families, a very respectable, orderly community, consisting of some farmers and some artisans, having with them a large quantity of stock and utensils—just the sort of people best calculated to improve and enrich their adopted country, wherever that may be. Then we have twenty or thirty poor ragged Irish emigrants, with good-natured faces, and strong arms and willing hearts. Men are smoking, women nursing, washing, sewing; children squalling and rolling about.
The ladies' saloon and upper deck exhibit a very different scene; there are about twenty ladies and children in the cabin and state-rooms, which are beautifully furnished and carpeted with draperies of blue silk, &c. On the upper deck, shaded by an awning, we have sofas, rocking-chairs, and people lounging up and down; some reading, some chattering, some sleeping: there are missionaries and missionaries' wives, and officers on their way to the garrisons on the Indian frontier; and settlers, and traders, and some few nondescripts—like myself.
Also among the passengers I find the Bishop of Michigan. The governor's sister, Miss Mason, introduced us at starting, and bespoke his good offices for me. His conversation has been a great resource and interest for me during the long day. He is still a young man, who began life as a lawyer, and afterwards from a real vocation adopted his present profession: his talents and popularity have placed him in the rank he now holds. He is on his way to visit the missions and churches in the back settlements, and at Green Bay. His diocese, he tells me, extends about eight hundred miles in length and four hundred in breadth. And then if you think of the scattered population, thesortof population, the immensity of this spiritual charge, and the amount of labour and responsibility it necessarily brings with it, are enough to astound one. The amount of power is great in proportion; and the extensive moral influence exercised by such a man as this Bishop of Michigan struck me very much. In conversing with him and the missionaries on the spiritual and moral condition of his diocese, and these newly settled regions in general, I learned many things which interested me; and there was one thing discussed which especially surprised me. It was said that two thirds of the misery which came under the immediate notice of a popular clergyman, and to which he was called to minister, arose from the infelicity of the conjugal relations; there was no question here of open immorality and discord, but simply of infelicity and unfitness. The same thing has been brought before me in every country, every society in which I have been a sojourner and an observer; but I did not look to find it so broadly placed before me here in America, where the state of morals, as regards the two sexes, is comparatively pure; where the marriages are early, where conditions are equal, where the means of subsistence are abundant, where the women are much petted and considered by the men—too much so.
For a result then so universal, there must be a cause or causes as universal, not depending on any particular customs, manners, or religion, or political institutions. And what are these causes? I cannot understand why an evil everywhere acknowledged and felt is not remedied somewhere, or discussed by some one, with a view to a remedy;—but no, it is like putting one's hand into the fire, only to touch upon it; it is the universal bruise, the putrefying sore, on which you must not lay a finger, or your patient (that is, society) cries out and resists, and, like a sick baby, scratches and kicks its physician.
Strange, and passing strange, that the relation between the two sexes, the passion of love in short, should not be taken into deeper consideration by our teachers and our legislators. People educate and legislate as if there was no such thing in the world; but ask the priest, ask the physician—letthemreveal the amount of moral and physical results from this one cause. Must love be always discussed in blank verse, as if it were a thing to be played in tragedies or sung in songs—a subject for pretty poems and wicked novels, and had nothing to do with the prosaic current of our every-day existence, our moral welfare and eternal salvation? Must love be ever treated with profaneness, as a mere illusion? or with coarseness, as a mere impulse? or with fear, as a mere disease? or with shame, as a mere weakness? or with levity, as a mere accident? Whereas, it is a great mystery and a great necessity, lying at the foundation of human existence, morality, and happiness; mysterious, universal, inevitable as death. Why then should love be treated less seriously than death? It is as serious a thing. Love and Death, the alpha and omega of human life, the author and finisher of existence, the two points on which God's universe turns; which He, our Father and Creator, has placed beyond our arbitration—beyond the reach of that election and free will which He has left us in all other things!
Death must come, and love must come; but the state in which they find us?—whether blinded, astonished, and frightened, and ignorant, or, like reasonable creatures, guarded, prepared, and fit to manage our own feelings?—this, I suppose, depends on ourselves; and for want of such self-management and self-knowledge, look at the evils that ensue!—hasty, improvident, unsuitable marriages; repining, diseased, or vicious celibacy; irretrievable infamy; cureless insanity:—the death that comes early, and the love that comes late, reversing the primal laws of our nature.
It is of little consequence how unequal the conventional difference of rank, as in Germany—how equal the condition, station, and means, as in America,—if there be inequality between the sexes; and if the sentiment which attracts and unites them to each other, and the contracts and relations springing out of this sentiment, be not equally well understood by both, equally sacred with both, equally binding on both.
At Detroit I had purchased Miss Sedgwick's tale of "The Rich Poor Man and the Poor Rich Man," and this sent away two hours delightfully, as we were gliding over the expanse of Lake St. Clair. Those who glanced on my book while I was reading always smiled—a significant sympathising smile, very expressive of that unenvious, affectionate homage and admiration which this genuine American writer inspires among her countrymen. I do not think I ever mentioned her name to any of them, that the countenance did not light up with pleasure and gratified pride. I have also a sensible little book, called "Three Experiments in Living," written by Mrs. Lee, of Boston: it must be popular, andtrueto life and nature, for the edition I bought is the tenth. I have also another book to which I must introduce you more particularly—"The Travels and Adventures of Alexander Henry." Did you ever hear of such a man? No. Listen then, and perpend.
This Mr. Henry was a fur-trader who journeyed over these lake regions about seventy years ago, and is quoted as first-rate authority in more recent books of travels. His book, which was lent to me at Toronto, struck me so much as to have had some influence in directing the course of my present tour. Plain, unaffected, telling what he has to tell in few and simple words, and without comment—the internal evidence of truth—the natural sensibility and power of fancy, betrayed rather than displayed—render not only the narrative, but the man himself, his personal character, unspeakably interesting. Wild as are the tales of his hairbreadth escapes, I never heard the slightest impeachment of his veracity. He was living at Montreal so late as 1810 or 1811, when a friend of mine saw him, and described him to me as a very old man past eighty, with white hair, and still hale-looking and cheerful, so that his hard and adventurous life, and the horrors he had witnessed and suffered, had in no respect impaired his spirits or his constitution. His book has been long out of print. I had the greatest difficulty in procuring the loan of a copy, after sending to Montreal, Quebec, and New York, in vain. Mr. Henry is to be my travelling companion. I do not know how he might have figured as a squire of dames when living, but I assure you that being dead he makes a very respectable hero of epic or romance. He is the Ulysses of these parts; and to cruise among the shores, rocks, and islands of Lake Huron without Henry's travels, were like coasting Calabria and Sicily without the Odyssey in your head or hand,—only here you have the island of Mackinaw instead of the island of Circe; the land of the Ottawas instead of the shores of the Lotophagi; cannibal Chippewas, instead of man-eating Læstrigons. Pontiac figures as Polypheme; and Wa,wa,tam plays the part of good king Alcinous. I can find no type for the women, as Henry does not tell us his adventures among the squaws; but no doubt he might have found both Calypsos and Nausicaas, and even a Penelope, among them.
July 20.
Before I went down to my rest yesterday evening, I beheld a strange and beautiful scene. The night was coming on; the moon had risen round and full, like an enormous globe of fire; we were still in the channel of the river, when, to the right, I saw a crowd of Indians on a projecting point of land. They were encamping for the night, some hauling up their canoes, some building up their wigwams: there were numerous fires blazing amid the thick foliage, and the dusky figures of the Indians were seen glancing to and fro; and I heard loud laughs and shouts as our huge steamer swept past them. In another moment we turned a point, and all was dark: the whole had vanished like a scene in a melodrama. I rubbed my eyes, and began to think I was already dreaming.
At the entrance of the river St. Clair, the Americans have a fort and garrison (Fort Gratiot), and a lighthouse, which we passed in the night. On the opposite side we have no station; so that, in case of any misunderstanding between the two nations, it would be in the power of the Americans to shut the entrance of Lake Huron upon us.
At seven this morning, when I went on deck, we had advanced about one hundred miles into Lake Huron. We were coasting along the south shore, about four miles from the land, while, on the other side, we had about two hundred miles of opensea, and the same expanse before us. Soon after, we had to pass the entrance of Sagginaw Bay. Here we lost sight of land for the first time. Sagginaw Bay, I should suppose, is as large as the Gulf of Genoa; it runs seventy or eighty miles up into the land, and is as famous for storms as the Bay of Biscay. Here, if there be a capful of wind, or a cupful of sea, one is sure to have the benefit of it; for even in the finest weather there is a considerable swell. We were about three hours crossing from the Pointe Aux Barques to Cape Thunder; and during this time a number of my companions were puthors de combat.
All this part of Michigan is unsettled, and is said to be sandy and barren. Along the whole horizon was nothing visible but the dark omnipresent pine-forest. The Sagginaw Indians, whose hunting-grounds extend along the shore, are, I believe, a tribe of Ottawas. I should add, that the Americans have built a lighthouse on a little island near Thunder Bay. A situation more terrific in its solitude you cannot imagine than that of the keeper of this lonely tower, among rocks, tempests, and savages. All their provisions come from a distance of at least one hundred miles, and a long course of stormy weather, which sometimes occurs, would place them in danger of starvation.