The Indians served the British, not only as a barrier, against the Americans, but as a police for their own soldiers, to prevent their deserting.  An Englishman who visited the Lake Posts at this time recorded with a good deal of horror the fate that befell one of a party of deserters from the British garrison at Detroit.  The commander, on discovering that they had gone, ordered the Indians to bring them back dead or alive.  When overtaken one resisted, and was killed and scalped.  The Indians brought in his scalp and hung it outside the fort, where it was suffered to remain, that the ominous sight might strike terror to other discontented soldiers. [Footnote:  Draper MSS.  From Parliament Library in Canada, Ms.  “Canadian Letters,” descriptive of a tour in Canada in 1792-93.]

    Anger of the Americans over Dorchester’s Speech.

The publication of Lord Dorchester’s speech caused angry excitement in the United States.  Many thought it spurious; but Washington, then President, with his usual clear-sightedness, at once recognized that it was genuine, and accepted it as proof of Great Britain’s hostile feeling towards his country.  Through the Secretary of State he wrote to the British Minister, calling him to sharp account, not only for Dorchester’s speech but for the act of building a fort on the Miami, and for the double-dealing of his government, which protested friendship, with smooth duplicity, while their agents urged the savages to war.  “At the very moment when the British Ministry were forwarding assurances of good will, does Lord Dorchester foster and encourage in the Indians hostile dispositions towards the United States,” ran the letter, “but this speech only forebodes hostility; the intelligence which has been received this morning is, if true, hostility itself...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.”  The British Minister, Hammond, in his answer said he was “willing to admit the authenticity of the speech,” and even the building of the fort; but sought to excuse both by recrimination, asserting that the Americans had themselves in various ways shown hostility to Great Britain. [Footnote:  Wait’s State Papers and Publick Documents, I., 449, 451.  Letters of Randolph, May 20, 1794, and Hammond, May 22, 1794.] In spite of this explicit admission, however, the British statesmen generally, both in the House of Lords and the House of Commons, disavowed the speech, though in guarded terms; [Footnote:  Am.  State Papers, Foreign Relations, I., Randolph to Jay, Aug. 18, 1794.] and many Americans were actually convinced by their denials.

  Severity of the Indian Ravages. 
  Raids and Counter-raids.