He
was one of those rare characters who can be all things
to all men and yet keep an untarnished name. The Indians
loved him as a firm friend, and his home was to them
Liberty Hall. But for this man the Indian rising against
British rule would have attained greater proportions. At
the critical period he succeeded in keeping the Six
Nations loyal, save for the Senecas. This was most
important; for had the Six Nations joined in the war
against the British, it is probable that not a fort west
of Montreal would have remained standing. The line of
communication between Albany and Oswego would have been cut,
provisions and troops could not have been forwarded, and,
inevitably, both Niagara and Detroit would have fallen.
But as it was, the Pontiac War proved serious enough. It
extended as far north as Sault Ste Marie and as far south
as the borders of South Carolina and Georgia. Detroit
was cut off for months; the Indians drove the British
from all other points on the Great Lakes west of Lake
Ontario; for a time they triumphantly pushed their
war-parties, plundering and burning and murdering, from
the Mississippi to the frontiers of New York. During the
year 1763 more British lives were lost in America than
in the memorable year of 1759, the year of the siege of
Quebec and the world-famous battle of the Plains of Abraham.
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