Detroit, at night.
I passed half an hour in pleasant conversation with this lady, who had
been born, educated, and married in the very house in which she now
resided. She spoke English well and fluently, but with a foreign accent,
and her deportment was frank and easy, with that sort of graceful
courtesy which seems inherent in the French manner, or used to be so. On
parting, she presented me with a large bouquet of roses, which has
proved a great delight, and served all the purposes of a fan. Nor should
I forget that in her garden I saw the only humming-birds I have yet seen
in Canada: there were two lovely little gem-like creatures disporting
among the blossoms of the scarlet-bean. They have been this year less
numerous than usual, owing to the lateness and severity of the spring.
The day has been most intolerably hot; even on the lake there was not a
breath of air. But as the sun went down in his glory, the breeze
freshened, and the spires and towers of the city of Detroit were seen
against the western sky. The schooners at anchor, or dropping into the
river--the little canoes flitting across from side to side--the lofty
buildings,--the enormous steamers--the noisy port, and busy streets, all
bathed in the light of a sunset such as I had never seen, not even in
Italy--almost turned me giddy with excitement. I have emerged from the
solitary forests of Canada to be thrown suddenly into the midst of
crowded civilised life; and the effect for the present is a nervous
flutter of the spirits which banishes sleep and rest; though I have got
into a good hotel, (the American,) and have at last, after some
trouble, obtained good accommodation.
Detroit, June ----.
The roads by which I have at length reached this beautiful little city
were not, certainly, the smoothest and the easiest in the world; nor can
it be said of Upper Canada, as of wisdom, "that all her ways are ways of
pleasantness, and her paths are paths of peace." On the contrary, one
might have fancied oneself in the road to paradise for that matter. It
was difficult, and narrow; and foul, and steep enough to have led to the
seventh heaven; but in heaven I am not yet--
* * * * *
Since my arrival at Detroit, some malignant planet reigns in place of
that favourable and guiding star which has hitherto led me so deftly on
my way,
"Through brake, through brier,
Through mud, through mire."
Here, where I expected all would go so well, every thing goes wrong, and
cross, and contrary.
A severe attack of illness, the combined effect of heat, fatigue, and
some deleterious properties in the water at Detroit, against which
travellers should be warned, has confined me to my room for the last
three days. This _mal-a-propos_ indisposition has prevented me from
taking my passage in the great steamer which has just gone up Lake
Huron; and I must now wait here six days longer, till the next boat,
bound for Mackinaw and Chicago, comes up Lake Erie from Buffalo. What is
far worse, I have lost, for the time being, the advantage of seeing and
knowing Daniel Webster, and of hearing a display of that wonderful
eloquence which they say takes captive all ears, and hearts, and souls.
He has been making public speeches here, appealing to the people against
the money transactions of the government; and the whole city has been in
a ferment. He left Detroit two days after my arrival, to my no small
mortification. I had letters for him; and it so happens that several
others to whom I had also letters have fled from the city on summer
tours, or to escape the heat. Some have gone east, some west; some up
the lakes, some down the lakes. So I am abandoned to my own resources,
in a miserable state of languor, lassitude, and weakness.
It is not, however, the first time I have had to endure sickness and
solitude together in a strange land; and, the worst being over, we must
needs make the best of it, and send the time away as well as we can.
Of all the places I have yet seen in these far western regions, Detroit
is the most interesting. It is, moreover, a most ancient and venerable
place, dating back to the dark, immemorial ages, i.e. almost a century
and a quarter ago! and having its history and antiquities, and
traditions and heroes, and epochs of peace and war. No place in the
United States presents such a series of events interesting in
themselves, and permanently affecting, as they occurred, both its
progress and prosperity. Five times its flag has changed; three
different sovereignties have claimed its allegiance; and, since it has
been held by the United States, its government has been thrice
transferred: twice it has been besieged by the Indians, once captured in
war, and once burned to the ground: truly a long list of events for a
young city of a century old! Detroit may almost rival her old grandam
Quebec, who sits bristling defiance on the summit of her rocky height,
in warlike and tragic experience.
Can you tell me why we gave up this fine and important place to the
Americans, without leaving ourselves even a fort on the opposite shore?
Dolts and blockheads as we have been in all that concerns the partition
and management of these magnificent regions, now that we have ignorantly
and blindly ceded whole countries, and millions and millions of square
miles of land and water to our neighbours, I am told that we are likely
to quarrel and go to war about a partition line through the barren
tracts of the east! Well, let our legislators look to it! Colonel Talbot
told me that when he took a map, and pointed out to one of the English
commissioners the foolish bargain they had made, the real extent, value,
and resources of the countries ceded to the United States, the man
covered his eyes with his clenched hands, and burst into tears.
The position of Detroit is one of the finest imaginable. It is on a
strait between Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair, commanding the whole
internal commerce of these great "successive seas." Michigan, of which
it is the capital, being now received into the Union, its importance,
both as a frontier town and a place of trade, increases every day.
The origin of the city was a little palisadoed fort, erected here, in
1702, by the French under La Motte Cadillac, to defend their fur trade.
It was then called Fort Portchartrain. From this time till 1760 it
remained in possession of the French, and continued to increase slowly.
So late as 1721, Charlevoix speaks of the vast herds of buffaloes
ranging the plains west of the city. Meantime, under the protection of
the fort, the settlement and cultivation of the neighbouring districts
went on, in spite of the attacks of some of the neighbouring tribes of
Indians, particularly the Ottagamies, who, with the Iroquois, seem to
have been the only decided and irreconcilable enemies whom the French
found in this province. The capture of Quebec, and the death of Wolfe,
being followed by the cession of the whole of the French territory in
North America to the power of Great Britain, Detroit, with all the other
trading posts in the west, was given up to the English. It is curious
that the French submitted to this change of masters more easily than the
Indians, who were by no means inclined to exchange the French for the
English alliance. "Whatever may have been the cause," says Governor
Cass, "the fact is certain, that there is in the French character a
peculiar adaptation to the habits and feelings of the Indians; and to
this day the period of French domination is the era of all that is happy
in Indian reminiscences."
The conciliating manners of the French towards the Indians, and the
judgment with which they managed all their intercourse with them, has
had a permanent effect on the minds of those tribes who were in
friendship with them. At this day, if the British are generally
preferred to the Americans, the French are always preferred to either. A
Chippewa chief, addressing the American agent at the Sault S^{te.}
Marie, so late as 1826, thus fondly referred to the period of the French
dominion:--"When the Frenchmen arrived at these Falls, they came and
kissed us. They called us children; and we found them fathers. We lived
like brethren in the same lodge; and we had always wherewithal to clothe
us. They never mocked at our ceremonies, and they never molested the
places of our dead. Seven generations of men have passed away, but we
have not forgotten it. Just, very just, were they towards us!"[19]
The discontent of the Indian tribes upon the transfer of the forts and
trading posts into the possession of the British, showed itself early,
and at length gave rise to one of the most prolonged and savage of all
the Indian wars, that of Pontiac, in 1763.
[Footnote 19: Vide Historical Sketches of Michigan.]