I agree in opinion with you, that so wretched is the organization and discipline of the American army, that at this moment much might be effected against them; but as the government at home could derive no substantial advantage from any disgrace we might inflict on them, whilst the more important concerns of the country are committed in Europe, I again request you will steadily pursue that policy which shall appear to you best calculated to promote the dwindling away of such a force by its own inefficient means.

I shall receive with much satisfaction Colonel Proctor’s report of having saved the garrison of Fort Wayne from the inhuman fury of the Indians.  I am particularly anxious that class of beings should be restrained and controlled as much as possible, whilst there exists a pretence of implicating the national character in their cruelties.

* * * * *

The following letter not only explains the impolicy of obeying Sir George Prevost’s provisional orders for the evacuation of Detroit and the Michigan territory, but also ably deprecates any abandonment of our Indian allies.  With such leaders as its author and Tecumseh, what might not have been done in this war to obtain the security and regeneration of this much injured people?  But alas! these “kindred spirits” lived not long enough to plead their cause, and in the negociations for peace their interests were shamefully overlooked or cruelly forgotten;[92] although, in the first American war, the Indians had also, with few exceptions, taken part with Great Britain against the colonists in their contest for independence.  It is true that their mode of warfare is abhorrent to Europeans, as differing from the more honorable slaughter of civilized enemies; but Sir Isaac Brock proved that they were to be restrained, and Tecumseh was as humane as he was brave.  Moreover, we should not condemn their previous excesses without remembering the many injuries they had received.  They knew from sad experience that they could place no faith in the whites, who had long considered them as legal prey, and too often treated them as the brute animals of the forest.  Expelled from the coasts, and dispossessed of their hunting grounds, they had been gradually driven westward, until they had too much cause to apprehend that the cupidity of their invaders would be satisfied only with their utter extermination.  “The red men are melting,” to borrow the expressive metaphor of a celebrated Miami chief of the last century, “like snow before the sun.”  Indeed, it is melancholy to reflect, that the aborigines of both continents of America have, from their first intercourse with Europeans or their descendants, experienced nothing but fraud, spoliation, cruelty, and ingratitude.

Major-General Brock to Sir George Prevost.

    YORK, September 28, 1812.