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BRARY
OF THE

NIVERSITY

CALIFORNIA

INDIANS DEFEATED BY WAYNE.

541

From the 14th to the 19th, Wayne moved cautiously down the Miami, and on the 20th a battle took place.

The Indians had advanced into a thick wood, in front of the British works, and had taken a position inaccessible to cavalry, and of very difficult access to infantry. They were formed in three lines, near enough to support each other, and greatly extended in front. On the discharge of the first rifles, the legion was instantly formed, the front ordered to advance with trailed arms, and with their bayonets to drive the enemy from their hiding places, then deliver their first fire, and press the fugitives so briskly as not to allow them time to load. So rapid was the charge, and so entirely was the enemy broken by it, that in the course of one hour they were driven more than two miles, through thick woods, and within gunshot of the British fort. General Wayne remained for three days in front of the field of battle, laying waste the houses and cornfields, above and below, and within pistol-shot of the British fort. In the conflagration, the houses and stores of Colonel McKee, an English trader, who had encouraged the savages to continue the war, were reduced to ashes. On the 28th, the army returned to Au Glaize and destroyed all the villages and corn within fifty miles of the river. The confidence which the Indians had acquired from their former victories was destroyed by this total defeat. They found themselves not only vanquished, but driven from their country, with the prospect of famine from the total destruction of their cornfields. Their calamities disposed them to peace, and a treaty was concluded in August, 1795, by General Wayne, which put an end to the Indian wars, at that period, with the United States.

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HE administrative talents of Washington were once more to be exercised for the service of his country. With great reluctance he had consented not to decline a second election, and on the 5th of March, 1793, he took the oath of office, and entered upon the second term of his administration. He had again. received the unanimous vote of the electors. Adams was re-elected to the Vice-presidency, having received seventy-seven votes of one hundred and thirty-two, the whole number. Fortunate was it for America that she possessed in the person of her chief magistrate, at this time, a man of so much wisdom, firmness, and weight of character. Hitherto the discussions and divisions which had occupied the

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Mr.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

543 attention of the President and Congress had grown out of the domestic arrangements and circumstances, and were more fitted to warn and teach, than to bring danger upon the people. But on the breaking out of the French Revolution, principles and views were developed which, without respect to time, place, or national peculiarity, were held up as perfectly new and unexceptionable models, whose universal applicability was stoutly and presumptuously asserted. The directors of that revolution required a universal assent to their favourite doctrine that the new political wisdom of the great people of France must be cordially and thankfully received, and defended with united powers against all opponents in every part of the earth.

Towards France and her revolution Washington deported himself on the great truth that every nation possessed a right to govern itself according to its own will, to change its institutions at discretion, and to transact its business through whatever agents it might think proper. But as war had just commenced between France and Great Britain, his correct, sound judgment, instantly decided that a perfect neutrality was the right, the duty, and the interest of the United States; and of this he gave public notice by a proclamation, in April, 1793. Subsequent events have proved the wisdom of this measure, though it was then reprobated by many. The war between the late enemies and friends of the United States revived revolutionary feelings in the breasts of the citizens, and enlisted the strongest passions of human nature against one, and in favour of the other. A wish for the success of France was almost universal; and many were willing to hazard the peace of their country, by taking an active part in the war in her favour. The proclamation was at variance with the feelings and the passions of a large portion of the citizens. To compel the observance of neutrality, under these circumstances, was no easy matter. Hitherto Washington had the people with him; but in this case a large proportion was on the other side. His resolution was nevertheless unshaken; and at the risk of popularity he persisted in promoting the real good of his fellow-citizens, in opposition to their own mistaken wishes and views.

The President was soon openly and violently assaulted in the public prints for the proclamation of neutrality. All governments were said to be hostile to liberty, and many insinuations were made against the administration, under the general class of those who abetted the tyranny of kings, or refused to succour a free people struggling for liberty against a combination of tyrants. These dis

positions were greatly increased by the arrival of Mr. Genet, the first minister plenipotentiary from the Republic of France to the United States. He landed April 8th, 1793, at Charleston, South Carolina, the contiguity of which to the West Indies fitted it to be a convenient resort for privateers. By the governor of the state, William Moultrie, and the citizens, he was received with ardour approaching to enthusiasm. During his stay, which was for several days, he received unequivocal proofs of the warmest attachment to his person, his country, and its cause. Encouraged by these evidences of the good wishes of the people for the success of the French Revolution, he undertook to authorize the fitting and arming of vessels in that port, enlisting men, and giving commissions to vessels to cruise and commit hostilities on nations with which the United States were at peace. The captures made by these cruisers were to be tried, condemned, and sold, under the authority of Genet, who had not yet been recognised as a public minister by the government.

Similar marks of enthusiastic attachment were lavished on Genet as he passed through the country between Charleston and Philadelphia. At Gray's Ferry, over the Schuylkill, he was met by crowds who flocked to do honour to the first ambassador of a republican allied nation. On the day after his arrival in Philadelphia, he received addresses from societies and the inhabitants, who expressed their gratitude for the aids furnished by the French nation to the United States in their late struggle for liberty and independence, and unbounded exultation at the success of the French arms. Genet's answers to these addresses were well calculated to preserve the idea of a complete fraternity between the two nations, and that their interests were the same.

After Genet had been thus accredited by the citizens of Philadelphia, he was presented to the President and received with expressions of a sincere and cordial regard for his nation. In the conversation which took place on the occasion, Mr. Genet gave the most explicit assurances that France did not wish to engage the United States in the war between his country and Great Britain.

While Mr. Genet was receiving these flattering marks of attention from the people, the British minister preferred a long catalogue of complaints against his proceedings at Charleston. This was founded on the acts already mentioned, which were calculated to make the United States instruments of hostility in the hands of France, against those with whom she was at war. These were farther aggravated by actual hostilities in the territories of the

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