the British commander at the battle of Bunker's
Hill, it is highly probable that there would have been
none of that carnage in the British ranks which made of
the victory a virtual defeat. It was said that Burgoyne's
early successes were largely due to the skill with which
he used his Loyalist auxiliaries. And in the latter part
of the war, it must be confessed that the successes of
the Loyalist troops far outshone those of the British
regulars. In the Carolinas Tarleton's Loyal Cavalry swept
everything before them, until their defeat at the Cowpens
by Daniel Morgan. In southern New York Governor Tryon's
levies carried fire and sword up the Hudson, into 'Indigo
Connecticut,' and over into New Jersey. Along the northern
frontier, the Loyalist forces commanded by Sir John
Johnson and Colonel Butler made repeated incursions into
the Mohawk, Schoharie, and Wyoming valleys and, in each
case, after leaving a trail of desolation behind them,
they withdrew to the Canadian border in good order. The
trouble was that, owing to the stupidity and incapacity
of Lord George Germain, the British minister who was more
than any other man responsible for the misconduct of the
American War, these expeditions were not made part of a
properly concerted plan; and so they sank into the category
of isolated raids.

From the point of view of Canadian history, the most
interesting of these expeditions were those conducted by
Sir John Johnson and Colonel Butler. They were carried
on with the Canadian border as their base-line. It was
by the men who were engaged in them that Upper Canada
was at first largely settled; and for a century and a
quarter there have been levelled against these men by
American and even by English writers charges of barbarism
and inhumanity about which Canadians in particular are
interested to know the truth.

Most of Johnson's and Butler's men came from central or
northern New York. To explain how this came about it is
necessary to make an excursion into previous history. In
1738 there had come out to America a young Irishman of
good family named William Johnson. The famous naval hero,
Sir Peter Warren, who was an uncle of Johnson, had large
tracts of land in the Mohawk valley, in northern New
York. These estates he employed his nephew in administering;
and, when he died, he bequeathed them to him. In the
meantime William Johnson had begun to improve his
opportunities. He had built up a prosperous trade with
the