a
young girl of the village of Boxford, who, after his death, wrote some
untutored verses to commemorate his fate. They are entitled, _A Mournful
Elegy on Mr. Jonathan Frye_, and begin thus:

"Assist, ye muses, help my quill,
Whilst floods of tears does down distil;
Not from mine eyes alone, but all
That hears the sad and doleful fall
Of that young student, Mr. Frye,
Who in his blooming youth did die.
Fighting for his dear country's good,
He lost his life and precious blood.
His father's only son was he;
His mother loved him tenderly;
And all that knew him loved him well;
For in bright parts he did excel
Most of his age; for he was young,--
Just entering on twenty-one;
A comely youth, and pious too;
This I affirm, for him I knew."

She then describes her lover's brave deeds, and sad but heroic death,
alone in a howling wilderness; condoles with the bereaved parents,
exhorts them to resignation, and touches modestly on her own sorrow.

In more recent times the fate of Lovewell and his companions has
inspired several poetical attempts, which need not be dwelt upon.
Lovewell's Fight, as Dr. Palfrey observes, was long as famous in New
England as Chevy Chase on the Scottish Border.

CHAPTER XII.

1712.

THE OUTAGAMIES AT DETROIT.

The West and the Fur-trade.--New York and Canada.--Indian
Population.--The Firebrands of the West.--Detroit in 1712.--Dangerous
Visitors.--Suspense.--Timely Succors.--The Outagamies attacked: their
Desperate Position.--Overtures.--Wavering Allies.--Conduct of
Dubuisson.--Escape of the Outagamies.--Pursuit and Attack.--Victory and
Carnage.

We have seen that the Peace of Utrecht was followed by a threefold
conflict for ascendency in America,--the conflict for Acadia, the
conflict for northern New England, and the conflict for the Great West;
which last could not be said to take at once an international character,
being essentially a competition for the fur-trade. Only one of the
English colonies took an active part in it,--the province of New York.
Alone among her sister communities she had a natural thoroughfare to the
West, not comparable, however, with that of Canada, to whose people the
St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes, and their tributary waters were a
continual invitation to the vast interior.

Virginia and Pennsylvania were not yet serious rivals in the fur-trade;
and New England, the most active of the Br