agree to this, we sincerely hope that Peace will still take place, and we think that the weight of our branch of the Confederacy will be able to accomplish Peace upon the reasonable line we have just mentioned, and we should be exceedingly sorry to find that this proposal should not be generally accepted by the Confederacy, if it is rejected, We must be involved in trouble in our own Country.* Brothers, We will now proceed to explain the line upon which we hope peace will be made, we know that the Lands along the Ohio are claimed by the Indians, but we propose to give up such part of these Lands, as are actually settled and improved, which settlements are to be circumscribed by a line drawn round them, and no further claims to be admitted beyond such line. N.B. The remainder of this Boundary to be explained by General Chapin, for which purpose it is the general wish of the Six Nations that General Chapin will himself proceed with this Speech to Congress. A Belt Black & White Wampum. PROPOSED BOUNDARY LINE BETWEEN UNITED STATES AND AMERICAN INDIANS. The Line proposed by the Six Nations & Lake Indians, Ottawas, Chippewas, Poutewatamies, &c. as the Boundary between the United States and American Indians and given in public Council held at Buffaloe Creek to be by him transmitted to Congress. To begin where the Ohio falls into the Mississippi, to follow the course of the Ohio to the Muskingum, to ascend that River up its most easternmost Fork to a Lake at its Head, the carrying Place between the River & the Cayahoga, & from thence to follow a direct course as marked upon Hutchin's map, till it strikes the old Pennsylvania Line, proceeding easterly on that till it is intersected by a line running Southerly, to Chenesee River, following that Line to the Forks of the Chenesee River, and down the Chenesee River till it falls into Lake Ontario. To shew the willingness of the Indian Nations to accede to a just & honorable peace they agree to except from this Boundary all places which are actually occupied, with a competent space for the accomodation of the present Settlers. They expect that no Reserves as hitherto demanded be made by the United States within this Boundary such as Presqu'Isle, Sandusky, the Miamis Towns, &c., &c., &c. Captain Brant declined all further meetings unless this Boundary was agreed to, for the purpose of Negociation. Mr. Sheehan of the Indian Department informed Colonel Simcoe that the Corn Planter and New Arrow were the persons who pointed out this Boundary. This Line was marked upon Hutchin's Map,' the explanation of it was read to Capt. Brant who said it was just. J.G.S. * Capt. Brant, in conversation with Lt. Govr. Simcoe, explained this passage by saying: "It was meant that they must be forced to leave their country.' J. G. S. 1 Thomas Hutchins, 1730-89, ensign in rangers, 1746; captain and paymaster, 60th Royal American Regiment, 1758-64; arrested in London, England, for treasonable correspondence, 1777; appointed Geographer General of the United States, 1785. He published a number of maps and topographical works. Private. FROM GEORGE HAMMOND TO LORD GRENVILLE. LANSDOWNE, near PHILADELPHIA, October 12, 1793. The disorder now raging in Philadelphia is, I believe, the most malignant in its nature, and the most extensive in its effect, of any with which the human race has ever been afflicted in any country. In the course of the last six weeks at least three thousand persons have died in Philadelphia, and the physicians appear, as yet, to be totally unacquainted either with the nature of the disease, or with the means of curing it. In one point they appear pretty well agreed, that it is not imported, but generated in the city. Of my family that remained in town, I have lost my principal servant, and two others are at this moment dead or at the point of death. Happily and unaccountably this disorder does not seem to spread in the country, and I hope that the distance (five miles) at which my wife and myself are from Philadelphia will effectually protect us from the danger of the contagion. The person to whom your Lordship alludes (in your Letter of July 25) is the gentleman to whom, in my despatch No. 19, I have represented myself as so considerably indebted. To his attention alone have I owed my knowledge of Mr. Genet's designs, and to his zeal, activity (ever at the hazard of his personal safety) and to his present (I trust sincere) attachment to the cause of order and good government, are in a great measure to be ascribed those impediments which, for the space of five weeks in the port of New York, detained the French ships of war in a state of complete impotence as to any extended operations. (Historical Manuscripts Commission, Dropmore Papers, Vol. II, pp. 443-4.) Dear Sir, FROM RICHARD CARTWRIGHT TO ISAAC TODD. KINGSTON, Oct. 14th, 1793. Your request, and the flattering reception you have given my former letter, induces me to attempt to give you some further account of the public business of the Province. The inclosed paper, containing the titles of the Bills passed during the second session of our Legislature, will show that it has not been an idle one. Some of the Acts are very well calculated for arranging the police of the country, and the one authorizing the Lieutenant Governor to appoint Commissioners is intended as a means of amicably adjusting with the Lower Province every matter of revenue in which both may be concerned. So far is very well. But, as I foresaw, the Custom House Bill was again revived and again rejected, and there are so many private views blended with this measure, that it will not be easily relinquished by its partisans. For instance, now that the members of the Lower House are to have ten shillings per diem, to be paid by their respective Counties, during their attendance, the Speaker thinks he ought to have a handsome salary; and how is the money to be raised without exciting public clamour? Besides, two or three appointments in this department, with a good salary annexed, would afford a very comfortable 1M. de Noailles. provision for some of the members; and, for so young a country, I assure you, we are beginning to have a wonderful acuteness in making discoveries of this kind. The Marriage Act was necessary, and is useful as far as it goes, but it is defective in omitting to make provision for the marriages of Dissenters; and every effort will be made at the next meeting of the Legislature to put this business on a more liberal footing. Amendments to that effect were only withdrawn on the most positive assurances that representations would be made at home relative to the propriety of relaxing in this particular. Indeed, the caution with which every thing relative to the Church or Dissenters is guarded in the Act of Parliament which establishes our constitution, and the zeal and tenaciousness of the Executive Government in this country on this head, has always astonished me. When a particular system has been long adopted and acted upon, some evil may perhaps result from a change, although in its principles it may be neither liberal nor just, and at all events there is the bugbear innovation to guard the abuse; but to make this abuse an essential principle, and where a new Government is to be formed, as in the present case, among a people composed of every religious denomination, and nineteen-twentieths of whom are of persuasions different from the Church of England to attempt to give that Church the same exclusive political advantages that it possesses in Great Britain, and which are even there the cause of so much clamour, appears to me to be as impolitic as it is unjust. In the present time one would expect better things from Ministers. That these remarks may not be imputed to prejudice, I think it necessary to mention that I am one of the small number of churchmen in the country. For my part, I assure you I begin to be disgusted with politics. On the division of the Province, as we had no previous establishments in our way, I fondly imagined that we were to sit down cordially together to form regulations solely for the public good; but a little experience convinced me that those were the visions of a novice, and I found our Executive Government disposed to calculate their measures as much with a view to patronage and private endowment as the prosperity of the province. In this I doubt not they will be sufficiently successful, from the interested complaisance of some of our legislators, and the ignorance of more, who are incapable of foreseeing the consequences of their concessions. But such policy is as shortsighted as it is illiberal; and however little it may be noticed at present, if persisted in and pushed very far will unquestionably be sowing the seeds of civil discord, and perhaps laying the foundations of future revolutions. For though almost everybody is now too much taken up with providing the means of subsistence to have leisure for canvassing public measures, yet as we advance in population and improvement they will become objects of more general attention, and in sound policy ought to be so calculated as not to furnish cause of disgust to the real patriot, or pretext for clamour to the pretended one. In the course of our proceedings I have found how completely the spirit of that part of the Act might be evaded which professes to make the Legislative Council entirely independent, by giving the members their seats for life. It is only to compose the majority of it-as has in fact been done-of Executive Councillors and officers of the Government dependent for their salaries on the good pleasure of the Governor. The Governor is at present at Toronto, where he has laid out a town plot, which he has called York, and where I am told he intends to pass the winter in his canvas house, for there is yet no other built, nor preparations for any; his regiment is also to hut themselves there. This situation for a capital unites many advantages, as it will contribute to the more speedy settling of the vacant lands on both sides of it, and be a means of sooner uniting the settlements above the Bay of Kenty and below the head of Lake Ontario, and also as it lays at the entrance of a communication into Lake Huron by Lake La Claye, which may bye-and-bye be found practicable and useful. But, notwithstanding this, he does not scruple to say that he has his eye still fixed on the River Tranche; and though he may for awhile put up with the Town of York and the River Humber, he seems to be satisfied with nothing less than another Thames and a second London. You will smile perhaps when I tell you that even at York a town lot is to be granted in the front street only on condition that you shall build a house of not less than forty-seven feet front, two stories high, and after a certain order of architecture. In the second street they may be somewhat less in front, but the two stories and the mode of architecture are indispensable; and it is only in the back streets and alleys that the tinkers and tailors will be allowed to consult their taste and circumstances in the structure of their habitations, upon lots of one-tenth of an acre. Seriously, our good Governor is a little wild in his projects, and seems to imagine that he can in two or three years put the country into a situation that it is impossible it can arrive at in a century; and I fear that a great deal of expence will by this means be thrown away, which, under the management of a less sanguine temper, would have been productive of solid benefit to the colony. For example, how useful might the Rangers have been, had they been employed on the service for which they were ostensibly raised, of opening roads and building bridges between the different settled parts of the country; but this is a business that the inhabitants are left to do of themselves as well as they can, and the only piece of work of this kind that these folks, who were "to level mountains and make valleys rise," have been employed in at all, is in cutting a road from the head of Lake Ontario to the River Tranche, where there is not a single inhabitant, and in this duty there is at present a captain and one hundred men. But while I am thus free in my strictures, I must also say that the Governor merits very great praise for his indefatigable industry in exploring in person the communication between the different parts of the country. Last winter he went to Detroit on snow shoes; early this spring he coasted the Lake from Niagara to Toronto; he has now gone to look into Lake Huron by the way of Lake La Claye, and next winter we expect a visit from him here by way of the Bay of Kenty. You will, before now, have been informed that the American Commissioners have failed in the purpose of their embassy to make peace with the Indians, who would not agree to meet them at all, unless they would previously consent to make the River Ohio the boundary between them and the United States. This is much to be regretted, from motives of humanity as well as the political consequences that may attend it, by making the Government of the States more urgent for the delivery of the posts, in orde to overawe the Indians, and whenever this happens it will make a material change in the situation of the two Canadas, certainly not to their advantage. (From the Life and Letters of the Hon. Richard Cartwright, pp. 51-6.) Sir, FROM LORD DORCHESTER TO J. G. SIMCOE. QUEBEC, 17th October, 1793. Major General Clarke has communicated to me your letter of the 19th of last month, with its enclosures. Extracts sent to Lt. Col. England, 6th Decr. The observations which you make on the extortions the Officers and Seamen are subjected to from the present mode of payment, is well worthy of attention, and I shall be glad to have a particular report of their nature and extent. You will therefore be pleased to direct the Senior Officers on each of the Lakes to state fully to you the abuses with their Opinion of the proper Mode to prevent them in future, and should the Troops be liable to these extortions, the Officers commanding Corps should likewise be called upon to give a similar statement, that the evil may be amply set forth, more effectually to obviate these and all other practices injurious to the Military Departments, and these Reports you will transmit to me with such Observations as you may think the case may require. All this inspection and control belongs of course to you, as the Officer commanding the Troops in Upper Canada, and your Situation as such not being liable to fluctuate as formerly, I consider as of no small advantage to the King's Service. What Military Authority a Civil Lieutenant Governor might have or the Eldest Counsellor, who eventually came to the Command of the Province is defined by the King's Regulations, and I do not see how those Regulations can be altered without detriment to His Service. I am with regard, &c. DORCHESTER. Colonel Simcoe. FROM J. G. SIMCOE TO HENRY DUNDAS. No. 19. UPPER CANADA, York, Sir, I do myself the honor of acquainting you that I am returned from exploring the Communications between this Place and Lake Huron. I have ascertained by a Route hitherto unknown but to some Indian Hunters, that there is an easy Portage between York and the Waters which fall into Lake Huron of not more than thirty miles in extent, and through a Country perfectly calculated for agricultural Purposes.-The Communication then proceeds to a narrow but deep River, into a small Lake called by the Indians Shan. y.ong, and by the French Aux Claies, for the space of Forty Miles to a portage of five miles: which I am credibly informed, may easily be made practicable, to a River that without any Material Rapids flows into Matchadash, now Gloucester Bay- the route by land without making use of this River is computed to be less than seventeen miles. I passed down the River, by which the Waters of the Lake Shan. y. ong empty themselves into Gloucester Bay, and found a few Portages & Rapids which are capable, if necessary of being much improved & surmounted without difficulty in large Canoes; such as are used in carrying on the internal trade from Montreal to Lake Superior. On my arrival at Gloucester Bay, I proceeded without delay to inspect the Harbour of Pennatangashene which lays in its entrance. A gale of wind prevented my perfectly attaining this Object, but under the shelter of the Islands I went sufficiently close to satisfy myself, The Engineer and Surveyor, who accompanied me, that it was a safe and commodious Harbour, and capable of containing Vessels of as great Burthen as can be supposed to sail upon Lake Huron. It also appeared to us that there were many good roadsteads or Havens on the Southern side of Gloucester Bay. The wind continuing, & it being hazardous to remain at Gloucester Bay as our Provisions began to fail I returned with difficulty to York. I have directed the Surveyor early in the next Spring to ascertain the precise distance of the several Routs which I have done myself the honor of detailing to you, and hope to compleat the Military Street or Road the ensuing Autumn-The im |