The influence of British agents was considerable, and the influence of British gold still more. Both were put in requisition; depredations on the part of the Indians were frequent; and recriminations on the part of the whites were terrible.

During this period of gloom, when our frontier settlements were bleeding at every pore, the want of sufficient power in Congress, the want of union between the States, and the want of energy in the Government, had rendered the old confederation impotent, and almost insignificant. The people generally were embarrassed. Their property, in many instances, had been seized for the use of both armies; and much of their labor been withdrawn from the peaceful occupations of husbandry, for military service.

Their commerce, small at first, was now annihilated; imported commodities were enhanced greatly in value; and articles for exportation reduced below their ordinary price. Peace found the Americans, not only destitute of the elegancies and conveniences of life, but also without means of procuring them except by anticipating their future resources. On opening their ports to foreign vessels, an immense quantity of merchandise was introduced, and many, tempted by its cheapness, were prevailed upon to purchase beyond their ability to pay.

The inducements which equal liberty and vacant lands presented to the European emigrants, it was supposed by many, would enhance the price of the latter, and without effort on their part fill their coffers; and it had not escaped their observation, that in their purchase of real estate on credit, they were essentially relieved from the pressure of pecuniary obligation by the constant depreciation of paper money. Hence, many inferred that the revolution was a real talisman, whose magic powers, by the aid of speculation alone, was capable of changing the whole nature of things. Such delusive hopes, however, were shortly dissipated, but not until a large portion of the community had been wholly ruined.

Our readers need not here be told, that distress under such a state of things was universal. Notwithstanding, however, all these untoward circumstances, Washington stood erect. In a letter to General La Fayette, he says: "However unimportant America may be considered at present, and however Britain may affect to despise her trade, there will assuredly come a day, when this country will have some weight in the scale of empire." This opinion, it will be observed, was wholly prospective. The distress which prevailed, induced the Legislatures of several States to pass relief laws, in violation of the treaty of peace, and to pass laws to prevent the collection of debts by British merchants. This was just as clearly a violation of the fourth article of the treaty, as the withholding of the western and northwestern posts by the English, was of the seventh. Whether the cause or the consequences of the latter, we are unable to determine.

Assuming, however, the treaty to have been obligatory on both, the inability of Congress to enforce its execution was too apparent. Their

control over the acts of thirteen different Legislative bodies, was not, and could not be pretended.

"It is good policy," said Washington, "at all times to place one's adversary in the wrong. Had we observed good faith, and the western posts had been withheld from us by Great Britain, we might have appealed to God and man for justice. What a misfortune it is," said he, in reply to the secretary of foreign affairs, " that the British should have so well grounded a pretext for their palpable infractions." "The distresses of individuals," said he, in another letter, "are to be alleviated by industry and frugality, and not by a relaxation of the laws, or by a sacrifice of the rights of others." This truth, it seems, then stands confessed, that debts improvidently contracted by American citizens, produced infractions of the treaty on our part, and this infraction, (whether before or afterward, is not very material to illustrate the principle,) occasioned infractions on the part of England. Of course, then, the Indian wars, and the bloody massacres that followed, were the offspring of individual improvidence. However much this improvidence was at the time to be deprecated and deplored, it pleased God, in his providence, to sanctify it for our good. The chastisements of Heaven are not unfrequently blessings in disguise.

The present Constitution of the United States, presented to the American people for their adoption, on the 12th of September, 1787, and accepted by the several States, thereafter, under which we have lived and been prospered as a nation, for more than half a century, was its first and most prominent result.

A government, more efficient than "the old Continental Congress," having been organized under the new Constitution; and Washington, the "father of his country," having been elected by acclamation, first President of the United States, on the 4th of March, 1789, great improvements in the condition and circumstances of the people were at once discoverable. Progressive industry, in a short time, repaired the losses sustained by a war of seven years' continuance; and the effect of the new Constitution on habits of thinking and acting, though silent, was soon perceivable.

The deprivation of State Legislatures, in the new Constitution, of power to make laws impairing the obligation of contracts, or to make anything other than gold and silver a lawful tender in the payment of debts, removed at once an impression, before then too common, that the people, in case of an emergency, could rely on partial legislation for relief. change in the public sentiment consequently followed; people in embarrassed circumstances, instead of looking to Government for assistance, sought relief by their own personal exertions; and industry and economy were its happy result. Order succeeded to confusion, general prosperity accompanied order, and the mandates of law were heard and obeyed. Peace having in some measure been restored; the Government having been reorganized, and vested with adequate powers for its own preservation, measures were speedily adopted, to repel British and savage aggressions.

Pacific means having been exhausted, the United States government resolved to make the Indian tribes, northwest of the Ohio, feel the effect of their arms. General Harmar, a gallant officer of considerable experience, who had been appointed under the old Congress commander-inchief, was now placed at the head of the army.

It consisted of three hundred and twenty regular troops; detachments of militia from Pensylvania and Virginia, increased its whole number to one thousand four hundred and fifty-three. Insignificant as it may now appear, it was then an imposing force. General Harmar commenced his march on the 30th of September, 1790, from Fort Washington, (now Cincinnati,) to attack the Miami towns on the south side of the Maumee, at the junction of its head-branches. After a march of seventeen days, he reached the great Miami village, which had been set on fire by the Indians; and not finding the enemy, divided his forces, and was cut up and defeated in detail by Little Turtle, the celebrated Miami warrior; and returned to Fort Washington on the 14th of December, after sustaining a loss of seventy-three out of three hundred and twenty of the regular troops, and a hundred and twenty of the militia.

The expedition of General Harmar, though frequently said to be victorious, because he passed through some Indian villages, destroying their miserable dwellings, their crops, and their provisions, failed wholly of its object. The red man was still in arms, the Northwestern Territory was battle-ground, and the confederated tribes, from Lake Erie and Lake Michigan, from the Illinois, the Wabash, and the Miami, were in the field; Little Turtle, himself a host, was at their head; and the struggle between the white and red man was again to be renewed.

An additional force having, in 1791, been raised, Major General St. Clair, who had previously been appointed Governor of the Northwestern The olive-branch and the Territory, was vested with its command.

sword being now united, and an army of two thousand regular troops having been collected at Fort Washington, they were joined by a large number of militia, and on or about the 1st of October, commenced their march. The object of the expedition was the same as in the preceding year-that is, the Miami towns upon the Maumee of the lake. General St. Clair, though a "veteran of the revolution, and possessed of both talents and experience," was old and infirm. The trying scenes of war, and especially a war with barbarians, amid interminable forests, required sleepless energy, inexhaustible activity, and enduring-toil; qualities, which rarely survive the period of youth and middle-age, and generally participate with the physical powers in their decline; and when to other sources of debility disease is added, what else than disaster can be expected?

When General St. Clair commenced his march, he was so affected by the gout as to be unable to walk, and could neither mount nor dismount his horse without assistance. His troops, having been enlisted for six montas only, (it being supposed that the war would terminate, as a matter

of course, within the ensuing campaign,) claimed their discharge ere the march had scarcely commenced, and long previous to its termination. Notwithstanding, however, "these omens of misfortune," General St. Clair, "to satisfy the expectations of his Government and country," urged forward his disastrous march, and on the 3rd of November, reached a small tributary stream of the Wabash, about twelve yards in width. Here he encamped, and intended on the following morning to throw up a slight breastwork for his security, and as soon as the first regiment (then in pursuit of deserters,) should come up, to march against the enemy. The wily savage, however, did not wait for this junction of forces; nor did he suppose that an intrenched camp of the Americans, in the heart of the Indian settlements, would add to his own security. Anticipating, therefore, the designs of his enemy, on the 4th of November, 1791, about half an hour before sunrise, and immediately after the American troops had been dismissed from the parade, Little Turtle, at the head of about fifteen hundred warriors, advanced and commenced a furious attack upon · the militia. The latter immediately gave way, and rushing into the camp, were followed by Indians at their heels. The confusion at once became general; the commander in-chief, notwithstanding his illness, was borne upon a litter into the thickest of the fire, and gave his orders with a coolness and self-possession that deserved a better fortune. Several charges were made with effect; but in their efforts, great carnage was suffered from a concealed foe, particularly among the officers, every one of whom in the second regiment, but three, fell; and near one half of the whole army thus engaged was killed or wounded. A retreat was ordered, and a flight followed. "A precipitate one it was, in fact," said General St. Clair, in his frank, simple, and dignified dispatch to Government. The soldiers threw away their arms after the pursuit had ceased, the artillery was abandoned, and the general escaped on a pack-horse, "which could not be pricked out of a walk." The rout continued to Fort Jefferson, twenty-nine miles from the scene of action, which the remains of the army reached about sundown-the battle having ended at about half-past nine in the morning. The troops were afterward marched back to Fort Washington, in good order, where they arrived on the 8thof November. The loss of the Americans in this disastrous battle, killed and wounded, was nearly six hundred; that of the Indians fifty-six. The number of American troops engaged exceeded, in all probability, that of the enemy; and with all their gallantry, skill, and hard fighting, were inferior to the latter in efficiency.

Nothing could have been more unexpected than this disaster; the public had anticipated victory, and could not believe that an officer who had been so unfortunate could be otherwise than culpable.

In was, in fact, a second Braddock's defeat: all the baggage, and seven pieces of artillery, and about half of the whole army, including the brave and much lamented General Butler, were left on the field. General Butler was tomahawked and scalped by an Indian, who entered the camp

while the latter was in the hands of a surgeon, dressing his wounds. The behavior of the Indians was singularly daring: after discharging their arms, they rushed on with their tomahawks, exhibiting a fearlessness of danger, which astonished even those bred "amid forays and familiar with war-whoops."

The whole country was at once filled with terror. The hostile tribes, it was feared, would derive strength from their victory. The reputation of the American government was in jeopardy: the fortune of its arms was to be retrieved, and protection immediately afforded to an extensive frontier.

General St. Clair, having earnestly requested that a court-martial might sit upon his conduct, the insufficiency of officers to constitute such a court, prevented his request from being granted. The cause, however, of the failure of the expedition under his command, was referred to a committee of the House of Representatives, in Congress, by whom he was exculpated; and receiving, as he did, notwithstanding the misfortunes by which he was overwhelmed, the esteem and confidence of the president, (Washington,) he escaped the effects of popular resentment.

Congress having met in 1792, the president, without delay submitted a plan for another campaign. He proposed to augment the military force to five thousand men. It met, however, with serious opposition-the justice of the war was arraigned. The practicability of obtaining peace at less expense was urged; and an extension of the western frontier, was by many thought undesirable. At any rate, it was an idle waste of blood and treasure, to carry the war beyond the line of forts already established; and to send forth armies to be butchered in the forests, while the British were suffered to keep possession of the western and northwestern posts, from whence these Indian hostilities emanated, was preposterous in the extreme.

On the other hand, it was urged, that it was too late to inquire into its justice that the war existed-that many innocent persons were exposed to savage butchery—that the Government could not, without impeachment of its justice and humanity, recede-that it behoved them, therefore, to prepare in time for a more vigorous effort than had hitherto been madeand, that it was far better to bring the contest to a speedy close, than to protract it from year to year.

The opinion of the president finally prevailed; the bill to augment the military force became a law; and General St. Clair having resigned, Major General Wayne was appointed his successor. The law, however, presented so few inducements to enlist, that the highest military grades next to that of the commander-in-chief, were declined by many to whom they were offered; and the recruiting business advanced so slow, that the decisive expedition in contemplation, was postponed until another year. The public clamor against the war, in the meantime, was continued. If, said its opponents, the intentions of Government respecting the savages were just and humane, those intentions were unknown to the latter-that