at liberty their
prisoners." Butler, in his History of Kentucky, remarks that, "such a
treaty appears at this day, to be utterly beyond the advantages which
could have been claimed from Dunmore's expedition?" This is undoubtedly
a reasonable conclusion. The statement in Doddridge, that "on our part
we obtained at the treaty a cessation of hostilities and a surrender of
prisoners, and nothing more," is most probably the true version of the
terms of this peace. If an important grant of land had been obtained by
this treaty, copies of it would have been preserved in the public
archives, and references in subsequent treaties, would have been made
to it; but such seems not to have been the case. The conclusion most
be, that it was only a treaty for the cessation of hostilities and the
surrender of prisoners.

[Footnote A: Doddridge's Indian Wars.]

There have been various speculations as to the causes which induced
governor Dunmore to order the retreat of the army under general Lewis,
before the treaty was concluded. However desirous of a peace, the
presence of an additional force would only have rendered that result
more certain. It was believed by some of the officers of the army, and
the opinion has been held by several writers since, that after governor
Dunmore started on this expedition, he was advised of the strong
probability of a war between Great Britain and her colonies; and that
all his subsequent measures were shaped with a reference to making the
Indians the allies of England in the expected contest. On this
supposition, his conduct in not joining general Lewis at the mouth of
the Kanawha, in risking his own detachment in the enemy's country, and
in positively forbidding the other wing of the army from uniting with
his, at camp Charlotte, has been explained. There are certainly
plausible grounds for believing that governor Dunmore at this time, had
more at heart the interests of Great Britain than of the colonies.

Soon after the conclusion of this war, the Shawanoes, with other tribes
of the north-western Indians, took part with England in the war with
the colonies; nor did the peace of 1783 put an end to these
hostilities. The settlement of the valley of the Ohio by the whites,
was boldly and perseveringly resisted; nor was the tomahawk buried by
the Indians, until after the decisive battle at the rapids of the Miami
of the lakes, on the 20th of August, 1794. The proximity of the
Shawanoe towns to the Ohio