nd, and had been with Nelson
at Copenhagen.

On July 11, 1812, General William Hull, commander of the American
army of the north-west, invaded Canada and occupied Sandwich, a
small town almost directly opposite Detroit. On the following day
he issued a proclamation with the intent of detaching Canadians
from their allegiance. In this proclamation he protested against
the employment of Indians as combatants, although the persistent
endeavours of the Americans to win the Indians over to their cause
must have been known to him. The words of the proclamation are as
follows:

If the barbarous and savage policy of Great Britain
be pursued, and the savages let loose to murder our
citizens, and butcher our women and children, this
war will be a war of extermination. The first stroke
of the tomahawk, the first attempt with the
scalping-knife, will be the signal for one indiscriminate
scene of desolation! No white man found fighting by
the side of an Indian will be taken prisoner; instant
destruction will be his lot.

To this Brock replied:

This inconsistent and unjustifiable threat of refusing
quarter, for such a cause as being found in arms with
a brother sufferer in defence of invaded rights, must
be exercised with the certain assurance of retaliation,
not only in the limited operation of war in this part
of the King's Dominions, but in every quarter of the
globe. For the national character of Britain is not
less distinguished for humanity than strict retributive
justice, which will consider the execution of this
inhuman threat as deliberate murder, for which every
subject of the offending power must make expiation.

Tecumseh, with the aid of the British agents, had assembled six
hundred warriors on Bois Blanc Island, and his scouts were soon
out watching the movements of the enemy in the surrounding country.
The only way of communication open to the Americans who were
advancing towards Detroit was along the west side of the Detroit
river by a road which passed through Brownstown from the river
Raisin. This road was kept under the strictest surveillance by the
Indians. On August 5 the scouts reported that Major Van Horne, with
two hundred cavalry of Hull's army, was on his way from Detroit to
meet Captain Brush, who was near the Raisin with a company of Ohio
volunteers, bringing official dispatches and provisions for Hull
at Sandwich. On receiving this new