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HISTORY OF DETROIT 71 and bayonet from British armories.” Wayne’s loss in killed and wounded was one hundred and thirty-three men. In September, the Americans moved farther into the wilds, and to Fort Wayne. In August of 1795, at a council called by Wayne at which eleven hundred Indians were present, a satisfactory treaty of peace was signed, the savages becoming convinced that the English were no longer in a position of supreme power.
The nations represented were Wyandots, Delawares, Shawnees, Ottawas, Chippewas, Pottawatamies, Miamis, Weas, Kickapoos, Piankeshaws, Kaskaskias and Ell River Indians. By this treaty the Indians ceded twenty-five thousand miles of territory within the United States, besides sixteen separate tracts, including lands and forts. In consideration of this cession the Indians received from the United States $20,000 in presents, and an annual allowance equal to $9,500, to be distributed equally among the tribes, parties to the treaty. Many of the Indians who had been so severely punished by General Wayne fled to Detroit for protection and there were gathered, in the fall of 1795, fully three thousand savages.
During Wayne’s operations against the English, John Jay who had been sent as special messenger to England, was arranging another treaty by which the eastern boundary of the United States was fixed; for the payment of claims for illegal captures during the Revolutionary war, and for the surrender by the British of Detroit and other posts in the northwest, on or before June 1, 1796. An order for the evacuation of Detroit, signed by George Beckwith, adjutant general at Quebec, and dated June 2, 1796, was delivered to the American secretary of war, James McHenry. Under the terms of the order, a captain and fifty men of th^ Queens Rangers were to re- main at the poet as a guard of the fort and public buildings until the troops of the United States should arrive.
This occurred on July 11th of that year when Captain Porter, an officer under Colonel Hamtramck, formally took possession of Detroit in the name of the United States; and at noon of that day the flag of Great Britain was hauled down and that of the Union hoisted in its place. General Wayne arrived in Detroit during the latter part of August. 1796, remaining there until November 14th, when he went to Presque Isle, now Erie, Pennsylvania, where he died December 14, 1796. Lanman in his “Red Book of Michigan” states positively that the retiring garrison of English troops, to show their spite against the Americans, locked the gates of the fort, broke the windows in the bar- racks, and filled the wells with stones.
Simon Girty, the renegade whose fame was achieved through his cruelty to the whites and leadership of the savages, was, according to tradition, among the last of the implac- able enemies of the Americans to leave Detroit. Upon the approach of the American forces he forced his horse into the river and at the risk of his life swam the river with her. As he ascended the bank on the other side, he shook his fist at Detroit and in no choice language cursed the newcomers and everything American.
The treaties made with Great Britain displeased France, which was then at war with Spain, and on August 19, 1796, these two nations formed an offensive and defensive alliance, undoubtedly for the pur-
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