CHAPTER IX

AT DETROIT

 Henry missed nothing as he went on with the warriors. He saw many lodges of Indians, and some cabins occupied by French-Canadians. In places the forest had been cleared away to make fields for Indian corn, wheat and pumpkins. Many columns of smoke rose in the clear spring air, and directly ahead, where he saw a cluster of such columns, Henry knew the fort to be. Timmendiquas kept straight on, and the walls of the fort came into view.

Detroit was the most formidable fortress that Henry had yet seen. Its walls, recently enlarged, were of oak pickets, rising twenty-five feet above the ground and six inches in diameter at the smaller end. It had bastions at every corner, and four gates, over three of which were built strong blockhouses for observation and defense. The gates faced the four cardinal points of the compass, and it was the one looking towards the south that was without a blockhouse. There was a picket beside every gate. The gates were opened at sunrise and closed at sunset, but the wickets were left open until 9 o'clock at night.

This fortification, so formidable in the wilderness, was armed in a manner fitting its strength. Every blockhouse contained four six-pounders and two batteries of six large guns each, faced the river, which was only forty feet away and with very steep banks. Inside the great palisade were barracks for five hundred men, a brick store, a guard house, a hospital, a governor's house, and many other buildings. At the time of Henry's arrival about four hundred British troops were present, and many hundreds of Indian warriors. The fort was thoroughly stocked with ammunition and other supplies, and there were also many English and Canadian traders both inside and outside the palisade.

The British had begun the erection of another fort, equally powerful, at some distance from the present one, but they were not far advanced with it at that time. The increase in protective measures was due to a message that they had received from the redoubtable George Rogers Clark, the victor of Vincennes and Kaskaskia, the m