icers, sent to try
for peace with the western tribes, were murdered in cold blood.
Nevertheless, treaties were patched up with some of them, and a great
council was held in the fall of 1792, the Six Nations acting as
mediators, which resulted in a badly kept armistice, but in nothing of
lasting value. The next year Congress passed a general act regulating
trade and intercourse with the Indians, and Washington appointed yet
another commission to visit the northwestern tribes, more to
satisfy public opinion than with any hope of peace. Indeed, these
commissioners never succeeded in even meeting the Indians, who
rejected in advance all proposals which would not concede the Ohio as
the boundary. English influence, it was said, was at the bottom of
this demand, and there seems to be little doubt that such was the
case, for England and France were now at war, and England thereupon
had redoubled her efforts to injure the United States by every sort of
petty outrage both on sea and land. This masterly policy had perhaps
reasons for its existence which pass beyond the average understanding,
but, so far as any one can now discover, it seems to have had no
possible motive except to feed an ancient grudge and drive the country
into the arms of France. Carried on for a long time in secret,
this Indian intrigue came to the surface in a speech made by Lord
Dorchester to the western tribes, in which he prophesied a speedy
rupture with the United States and urged his hearers to continue war.
It is worth remembering that for five years, covertly or openly,
England did her best to keep an Indian war with all that it implied
alive upon our borders,--the borders of a friendly nation with whom
she was at peace.

But while Washington persistently negotiated, he as persistently
prepared to fight, not trusting overmuch either the savages or the
English. Wayne, with similar views, moved his army forward in the
autumn of 1793 to a point six miles beyond Fort Jefferson, and then
went into winter quarters. Early in the spring of 1794 he was in
motion again and advanced to St. Clair's battlefield, where he built
Fort Recovery, and where he was attacked by the Indians, whom he
repulsed after two days' fighting. He then marched in an unexpected
direction and struck the central villages at the junction of the Au
Glaize and Maumee. The surprised savages fled, and Wayne burned their
village, laid waste their extensive fields, and built Fort Defiance.
T