The soldiers who escaped to the Beaver told the story of the ill-fated convoy.  On May 13 Lieutenant Abraham Cuyler, totally ignorant of the outbreak of hostilities at Detroit, had left Fort Schlosser with ninety-six men in ten bateaux.  They had journeyed in leisurely fashion along the northern shore of Lake Erie, and by the 28th had reached Point Pelee, about thirty miles from the Detroit river.  Here a landing was made, and while tents were being pitched a band of painted savages suddenly darted out of the forest and attacked a man and a boy who were gathering wood.  The man escaped, but the boy was tomahawked and scalped.  Cuyler drew up his men in front of the boats, and a sharp musketry fire followed between the Indians, who were sheltered by a thick wood, and the white men on the exposed shore.  The raiders were Wyandots from Detroit, the most courageous and intelligent savages in the region.  Seeing that Cuyler’s men were panic-stricken, they broke from their cover, with unusual boldness for Indians, and made a mad charge.  The soldiers, completely unnerved by the savage yells and hurtling tomahawks, threw down their arms and dashed in confusion to the boats.  Five they succeeded in pushing off, and into these they tumbled without weapons of defence.  Cuyler himself was left behind wounded; but he waded out, and was taken aboard under a brisk fire from the shore.  The Indians then launched two of the abandoned boats, rushed in pursuit of the fleeing soldiers, speedily captured three of the boats, and brought them ashore in triumph.  The two others, in one of which was Cuyler, hoisted sail and escaped.  The Indians, as we have seen, brought the captured boats and their prisoners to Detroit.  Cuyler had directed his course to Sandusky, but finding the blockhouse there burnt to the ground, he had rowed eastward to Presqu’isle, and then hastened to Niagara to report the disaster.

The siege of Detroit went on.  Towards the middle of June, Jacques Baby brought word to the commandant that the Gladwyn was returning from the Niagara with supplies and men, and that the Indians were making preparations to capture her.  A few miles below Detroit lay Fighting Island; between it and the east shore, Turkey Island.  Here the savages had erected a breastwork, so carefully concealed that it would be difficult even for the keenest eyes to detect its presence.  The vessel would have to pass within easy range of this barricade; and it was the plan of the Indians to dart out in their canoes as the schooner worked up-stream, seize her, and slay her crew.  On learning this news Gladwyn ordered cannon to be fired to notify the captain that the fort still held out, and sent a messenger to meet the vessel with word of the plot.  It happened that the Gladwyn was well manned and prepared for battle.  On board was Cuyler with twenty-two survivors of the ill-starred convoy, besides twenty-eight men of Captain Hopkins’s company.  To deceive the Indians as to the number