Page:Lacrosse- The National Game of Canada (New Edition).djvu/80

Rh had been a firm ally of the French. As a tangible proof of his sincerity he saved Rogers and his men from an impending onslaught of 400 Detroit Indians. Arriving at Detroit, where the news of the capitulation had preceded him, Rogers demanded its surrender, and "the fleur de lys was lowered from the flag-staff, and the cross of St. George rose aloft in its place, while seven hundred Indian warriors, lately the active allies of France, greeted the sight with a burst of triumphant yells," The forts Miami, Ouatanon, Michillimackinac, St. Marie, Green Bay and St. Joseph were next severally surrendered, and the capitulation was complete.

England had now an opportunity of making her dominion permanently secure by a policy of conciliation and probity, but the same blunders of government, the same absolute lawlessness and unrestrained individual liberty to abuse the natives, which hastened the decline of French rule, alienated the favor of the Indian from the English, and deprived them of moral and physical authority.

It must be borne in mind that the chain of forts extending from Lake Michigan to Niagara were built by the French under the pretence that they