Indians have done that went out lately in force from the Glaize, with the avowed design of attacking some of the American Posts if they considered themselves equal to it, or interrupting their expected Convoys of provisions, and the Dunmore which is now in great forwardness will be ready to sail with any further information that reaches me. The gun-boats are also long since prepared as you directed, look very smart, sail and work well, and I hope will answer the purpose they were intended for, better than was expected. I am, however, concerned to add that notwithstanding the assurance given Your Excellency by Commodore Grant, there has not a single seaman entered since he received your orders, nor is there any probability of one being engaged. Though immediately on your departure I advertised for them, and held out encouragement to such Canadians as would serve on board the vessels. In answer to a letter that I wrote to Captain Doyle the beginning of this month, he mentioned that the numbers he at present has at Michillimackinac, are by no means sufficient to defend the extensive ruins of that Post if attacked, and that in his opinion an Officer and fifteen men would answer every purpose there, in case Your Excellency should find it expedient to withdraw him and any part of the present Garrison. I send you a list of all those who reside at Mackinac, during the winter, and the names of the principal traders who resort there during the Summer, which Mr. Askin has provided me with. In my opinion there is not much apprehension of that Post being attacked while we preserve our friendship with the Indians, and our alliance with Spain. The Merchants here have had several meetings on the subject of establishing a Post at the old Miamis Fort, as mentioned to you by Mr. Askin, but the plan is not in sufficient forwardness to be communicated to you. Colonel McKee left early on Sunday the 18th inst., and promised to write to me immediately on his arrival at the Foot of the Rapids. It cannot be unknown to you, that a speech, said to be addressed, on the 11th of February, 1794, to several Indian Nations, and ascribed to the Governor General of his Britannic Majesty at Quebec, has appeared in most of the public prints in the United States. With so many circumstances of authenticity, after remaining so long without contradiction, it might have justified us in inquiring from you, whether it was really delivered under British authority. Our forbearance thus to inquire is conformable with the moderation which has directed the conduct of our Government towards Great Britain; and indicates, at the same time, our hope, from the declarations of yours, that its views would prove ultimately pacific and that it would discountenance every measure of its Officers having a contrary tendency. Even now, Sir, while I entertain a firm persuasion, that in assuming this speech to be genuine, I cannot well err, I shall be ready to retract the comments I am about to make, if you shall think proper to deny its authenticity. At the very moment when the British were forwarding assurances of good will, does Lord Dorchester foster and encourage, in the Indians, hostile dispositions towards the United States. If it was part of the American character to indulge suspicion, what might not be conjectured as to the influence by which our treaty was defeated last year, from the assembling of the Deputies from almost all the Nations who were at the late General Council at the Miami, and whose enmity against us cannot be doubted? How nearly would that suspicion approach to proof, were we to recollect, that so high an Officer, as himself, would not rashly hazard this expression. "I should not be surprised, if we are at war with the United States in the course of the present year; and if we are, a line must then be drawn by the Warriors." But this speech only forbodes hostility; the intelligence which has been received this morning is, if true, hostility itself. The President of the United States has understood through channels of real confidence, that Governor Simcoe has gone to the foot of the Rapids of the Miami, followed by three companies of a British regiment, in order to build a fort there. Permit me then to ask, whether these things be so? It has been usual, for each party to a negociation, to pay such a deference to the pretensions of the other, as to keep their affairs in the same posture, until the negociation was concluded. On this principle, you complained, in your letter of the 5th June, 1792, of the jurisdiction attempted to be exercised, under the State of Vermont, within the district occupied by the troops of your King; and demanded, that our Government should suppress it, from respect to the discussion which was pending. On this principle you were assured that proper measures should be adopted. On the same principle, you renew, on the 10th of March 1794, a similar application; and are assured, that the measures of Government should correspond with its assurances. Accordingly, although the Forts, Garrisons, and Districts, to which your letters relate, are confessedly within the limits of the United States, yet have our Citizens been forbidden to interrupt you in the occupancy of them. What return then have we the right to expect? But you will not suppose that I put the impropriety of the present aggression upon the pendency of the negociation. I quote this only to shew the contrast between the temper observed on your part towards us, and on our part towards you. This possession of our acknowledged territory, has no pretext of statu quo on its side; it has no pretext at all. It is an act, the hostility of which cannot be palliated by any connection with that negociation. It is calculated to support an enemy whom we are seeking to bring to peace. A late mission of the United States to Great Britain, is an unequivocal proof, after all that has happened, of the sincere wish of our Government to preserve peace, and a good understanding with your Nation. But our honor and safety require that an invasion shall be expelled. Let me therefore inform you, Sir, that I have it in charge from the President of the United States, to request and urge you to take immediate and effectual measures as far as in you lies, to suppress these hostile movements, to call to mind that the army of the United States, in their march against the enemy, will not be able to distinguish between them, and any other people, associated in the war; to compare these encroachments with the candour of our conduct, and the doctrines which you have maintained; and to admonish those who shall throw ob stacles in the way of negociation and tranquility, that they will be responsible for all the unhappy consequences. I have the honor to be, With respect, Sir, your most obedient servant. EDM. RANDOLPH. Mr. Hammond, Minister Plenipotentiary of His Britannic Majesty.' Sir: FROM GEORGE HAMMOND TO EDMUND RANDOLPH. PHILADELPHIA, May 22, 1794. In answer of your letter of the 20th current, which I did not receive till late in the afternoon of yesterday, it is necessary for me to premise that, whatever may be my personal opinion, with respect to the style and manner in which you have thought proper to address me, upon the present occasion, it is not my intention to offer any animadversion upon them, but to proceed with temper and candour to the examination of the subject of your letter. Though I never can acknowledge the right of this Government to require from me so categorically, as you have required it, an explanation of any measure emanating from the Governor of Canada, over whose actions I have no controul, and for whose conduct I am not responsible; I am willing to admit the authenticity of the speech to certain Indian Nations, to which you have alluded, and which you have ascribed to the Governor General of his Majesty's possessions in North America. But in order to ascertain the precise sense of the only passage of that speech, to which you have referred, and to which you have given merely a partial citation, I shall quote the passage at length. "Brethren: "Since my return, I find no appearance of a line remains, and from the manner "in which the people of the States push on, and act, and talk on this side, and from "what I learn of their conduct towards the sea, I shall not be surprised, if we are "at war with them in the course of the present year; and if so, a line must be drawn "by the Warriors."-From the context of this whole passage, it is manifest that Lord Dorchester was persuaded, that the aggression which might eventually lead to a state of hostility, had proceeded from the United States; and so far as the State of Vermont, to which I presume his Lordship principally alluded, was implicated, I am convinced that that persuasion was not ill founded. For notwithstanding the positive assurances, which I received from your predecessor on the 9th of July, 1792, in answer to my letter of the 5th of the same month, of the determination of the General Government to discourage and repress the encroachments, which the State and individuals of Vermont had committed on the territory occupied by his Majesty's garrisons, I assert with confidence, that not only 1 The following statement was published in the Gazette of the United States of 23 May, 1794, probably "by authority":-"It is reported that the British Minister here has received notice from our Government that General Wayne should have orders to oppose any armed force of whatever nation he might fall in with in his expedition. These orders, it is said, are to be given in confidence of the truth of the account that Governor Simcoe has marched three companies into our territory. This warning is a piece of courtesy, which might well be omitted, at least towards a nation whose orders to plunder us were studiously kept secret." those encroachments have never been in any manner repressed, but that recent infringements in that quarter, and on the territory in its vicinity, have been committed. Indeed, if this assertion of mine could require any corroboration, I would remark, that though the space of fifty days elapsed between my letter of the 10th of March, 1794, upon this subject, and your answer, of the 29th April, 1794, you did not attempt to deny the facts which I then stated and which I now explicitly repeat. In regard to your Declaration that "Governor Simcoe has gone to the foot of "the rapids of the Miami, followed by three companies of a British regiment, in "order to build a fort there" I have no intelligence that such an event has actually occurred. But even admitting your information to be accurate, much will depend on the place, on which you assert, that the fort is intended to be erected, and whether it be for the purpose of protecting subjects of his Majesty residing in the districts dependent on the Fort of Detroit, or preventing that fortress from being strained by the approach of the American Army; to either of which cases I imagine that the principle of the status quo, until the final arrangements of the points in discussion between the two countries shall be concluded, will strictly apply. In order, however, to correct any inaccurate information you may have received, or to avoid any ambiguity relative to this circumstance, I shall immediately transmit copies of your letter, and of this answer, as well to the Governor General of his Majesty's possessions in North America, and the Governor of Upper Canada, as to his Majesty's Ministers in England, for their respective information. Before I conclude this letter, I must be permitted to observe, that I have confined to the unrepressed and continued aggressions of the State of Vermont, alone, the persuasion of Lord Dorchester, that they were indicative of an existing hostile disposition in the United States against Great Britain, and might ultimately produce an actual state of war on their part. If I had been desirous of recurring to other sources of disquietude, I might from the allusion of his Lordship to the conduct of this Government towards "The sea," have deduced other motives of apprehension, on which, from the solicitude you evince to establish a "contrast between the temper observed on your part towards us, and on our part towards you," I might have conceived myself justified in dilating. I might have adverted to the privateers originally fitted out at Charleston, at the commencement of the present hostilities, and which were allowed to depart from that port, not only with the consent, but under the express permission of the Governor of South Carolina. I might have adverted to the prizes made by those privateers, of which the legality was in some measure admitted, by the refusal of this Government to restore such as were made antecedently to the 5th of June, 1793. I might have adverted to the permission granted by this Government to the Commanders of the French ships of war, and of privateers, to dispose of their prizes by sale, in ports of the United States. I might have adverted to the two privateers, le Petit Democrat (now la Cornelia) and le Carmagnol, both of which were illegally fitted out in the river Delaware, and which in consequence of my remonstrances, and of the assurances I received, I concluded would have been dismantled; but which have remained during the whole winter in the port of New-York armed, and now are, as I am informed, in a condition to proceed immediately to sea. I might have adverted to the conduct which this Government has observed towards the Powers combined against France in the enforcement of the embargo. For while the vessels of the former are subject to the restrictions of that measure, those three weeks had elapsed subsequently to the imposition of the embargo, though they were chiefly laden with articles, "calculated to support an enemy whom we are seeking S.C.-17 to bring to peace." I might have adverted to the uniformly unfriendly treatment which his Majesty's ships of war, and Officers in his Majesty's service have since the commencement of the present hostilities experienced in the American ports; and lastly, I might have adverted to the unparalleled insult, which has been recently offered at Newport, Rhode Island, (not by a lawless collection of the people) but by the Governor and Council of the State, to the British flag, in the violent measures pursued towards his Majesty's sloop of war Nautilus, and the forcible detention of the Officers by whom she was commanded. I have, however, forborne to expatiate upon these points, because I am not disposed to consider them, as I have before stated, as necessary elucidations of the immediate object of your letter, and much less to urge them in their present form, as general topics of recrimination. I have the honor to be, With the greatest respect, Sir, your most obedient humble servant. GEORGE HAMMOND.1 My Dear Sir: FROM R. G. ENGLAND TO J. G. SIMCOE. DETROIT, May 20th, 1794. Early this morning the "Ottawa" arrived here after landing at the mouth of the Miamis Bay Lieut. Pilkington and his artificers. Nothing has occurred since my letter to you yesterday. The "Nancy" has been delayed to give the merchants an opportunity of answering the letters they received by the "Ottawa." The "Chippawa" is under orders for Fort Erie, and will sail early on Sunday morning when I will again write to you. I hear McKee is detained by contrary winds at the mouth of this river, but is determined to proceed with oars this night, if the wind is not favorable, perhaps the arrival of the "Ottawa" and the expectation of letters by her assisted his delay. You have of course heard of his late appointment and commission. Lord Dorchester's Military Secretary writes to me saying that His Lordship hopes measures are taken to establish the Post on the Miamis, that he directed in his letter to you. The Cannon ordered by Your Excellency for that Post will be sent whenever Lieut. Pilkington or Lieut. Adye says Turtle Island is in a situation to receive them previous to their removal up to the Fort. In consequence of the number of artificers brought by Lieut. Pilkington, I propose sending on Sunday next a fresh supply of provisions, and will probably try on that occasion, the large gun-boat, taking out her gun for the trip. 1 Hammond, George, 1763-1853, matriculated at Oxford, 16th March, 1783. He accompanied David Hartley to Paris as his Secretary, in which office he showed much ability and he acquired an intimate knowledge of the French language. He received the degree of B.A. in 1784, was elected a Fellow of Merton College in 1787, and became an M.A. in 1788. In the same year he was made British chargé d'affaires at Vienna where he remained until September 1790, when he was transferred to Copenhagen and before the end of that year to Madrid. In August, 1791, at the age of twenty-eight, he was appointed the first British Minister plenipotentiary to the United States. In 1793, he was married to a lady of Philadelphia, the daughter of Andrew Allen, a noted loyalist. Notwithstanding the controversies in which they were engaged, both Thomas Jefferson and his successor as Secretary of State, Edmund Randolph, spoke well of him. He was obliged to spend his honeymoon in strenuous efforts to obtain an assurance from the cabinet of the United States that the sale of arms and ammunition would not be permitted to the French republic as long as war with Great Britain continued. In 1795, he was appointed Under Secretary of Foreign Affairs and became very intimate with Lord Grenville and George Canning by whom he was highly esteemed. |