lped
and horses were stolen. The Shawnees and Delawares held
British prisoners whom they refused to surrender. By
Amherst's orders presents were withheld. Until they
surrendered all prisoners and showed a proper spirit
towards the British he would suppress all gifts, in the
belief that 'a due observance of this alone will soon
produce more than can ever be expected from bribing them.'
The reply of the Shawnees and Delawares to his orders
was stealing horses and terrorizing traders. Sir William
Johnson and his assistant in office, George Croghan,
warned Amherst of the danger he was running in rousing
the hatred of the savages. Croghan in a letter to Bouquet
said: 'I do not approve of General Amherst's plan of
distressing them too much, as in my opinion they will
not consider consequences if too much distressed, tho'
Sir Jeffery thinks they will.' Although warnings were
pouring in upon him, Amherst was of the opinion that
there was 'no necessity for any more at the several posts
than are just enough to keep up the communication, there
being nothing to fear from the Indians in our present
circumstances.' To Sir William Johnson he wrote that it
was 'not in the power of the Indians to effect anything
of consequence.'

In the spring of 1763 the war-cloud was about to burst;
but in remote New York the commander-in-chief failed to
grasp the situation, and turned a deaf ear to those who
warned him that an Indian war with all its horrors was
inevitable. These vague rumours, as Amherst regarded
them, of an imminent general rising of the western tribes,
took more definite form as the spring advanced. Towards
the end of March Lieutenant Edward Jenkins, the commandant
of Fort Ouiatanon, learned that the French traders had
been telling the Indians that the British would 'all be
prisoners in a short time.' But what caused most alarm
was information from Fort Miami of a plot for the capture
of the forts and the slaughter of the garrisons. A war-belt
was received by the Indians residing near the fort, and
with it came the request that they should hold themselves
in readiness to attack the British. Robert Holmes, the
commandant of Fort Miami, managed to secure the 'bloody
belt' and sent it to Gladwyn, [Footnote: Gladwyn's illness
in 1761 proved so severe that he had to take a journey
to England to recuperate; but he was back in Detroit as
commandant in August 1762.] who in turn sent it to Amherst.

News had now reached the Ohio