Page:History of the Ojibway Nation.djvu/454

444

In the year 1768, Waub-o-jeeg visited Sir William Johnson at Johnson Hall, near Johnstown, New York, who alludes to it in a letter in these words: "Since I wrote the chief of the Chippewaes, one of the most powerful nations, to the westward, arrived. As he is a man of much influence, and can bring some thousands into the field, I took Mass., and wrote a letter to General Washington asking for a pass to go unmolested, and in it used this language: "I love North America, it is my native country, and that of my family, and I intend to spend the evening of my days in it." At this time he was in secret correspondence with Howe, the British General. By order of Washington, General Sullivan called upon him. He told Sullivan that he went from New York City to Stone Arabia, N.Y., where he tarried ten days, that then he went to Kent to visit a brother. After calling upon the President of Dartmouth College, he alleged that he visited his father at Pennicook, and from thence to Newburgh and Portsmouth. General Sullivan reported after examination: "I would advise, lest some blame might be laid upon your Excellency, in future, not to give him any other permit, but let him avail himself of those he has; and should he prove a traitor, let the blame rest upon those who enlarged him." After this, he returned to Philadelphia, and was there at the time of the Declaration of Independence, but his actions were so suspicious that he was ordered to be arrested. He managed to escape, and in a letter from General Howe on Staten Island to Lord George Germaine, dated August 6, 1776, are these words: "Major Rogers having escaped to us from Philadelphia, is empowered to raise a battalion of rangers, which I hope may be useful in the course of the campaign." With the Queen's American Rangers, of which corps he was Lt. Colonel, he destroyed much property in West Chester Co., N.Y., and annoyed the inhabitants.

In his journal under date of October 21, 1770, writes: "Lord Stirling, who was before in this vicinity with his brigade, had formed an enterprise against Major Robert Rogers' corps. The old Indian hunter, in the last French war, who had now engaged in the British service with his corps, lay on the outpost of the British army, near Marroneck. The enterprise was conducted with good address, and if the Americans had known exactly how Rogers' corps lay they would probably have killed, or taken the whole. As it was, thirty-six prisoners, sixty muskets, and some other articles were taken. The Major conformably to his former general conduct, escaped with the rest of the corps." The American troops were under the command of Colonel Haslet of Delaware and chiefly from Maryland and Virginia. Haslet wrote: "The party we fell in with was Colonel Rogers', the late worthless Major. On the first fire, he skulked off in the dark."

The next year Rogers returned to England, and soon died.