That night, while the garrison watched with sleepless apprehension, the entire Ottawa village was removed to the west side of the river. "We will be near them," said Pontiac. The position taken by the Indians was just above the mouth of Parent's creek.
During the night a Canadian, named Desnoyers, came down the river in a canoe, and landing at the water gate, informed the garrison that two English officers, Sir Robert Davers and Captain Robertson, had been murdered on Lake St. Clair, and that Pontiac had been reinforced by the whole war strength of the Ojibways. If the Indians had prior to this, as it is claimed, a force of from six hundred to two thousand, these accessions would make them quite formidable.
Every Englishman in the fort, whether trader or soldier, was now ordered under arms. No man lay down to sleep, and the commander walked the ramparts all night. Not till the blush of dawn tinged the eastern sky did the fierce savages, yelling with infernal power, come bounding naked to the assault.
The soldiers looked from their loopholes, thinking to see their assailants gathering for a rush against the feeble barrier. But in this they were agreeably disappointed. For though their clamors filled the air, and their guns blazed thick and hot, while the bullets pelted the fort with leaden hail, yet very few were visible. Some were sheltered behind barns and fences, some skulked among bushes, others lay flat in hollows of the ground while those who could find no shelter were leaping about with the agility of monkeys, to render it impossible for the marksmen at the fort to hit them. Each had filled his mouth with bullets, for the convenience of loading, and each was charging and firing without suspending these swift movements for a moment.
At the end of six hours the assailants grew weary and withdrew. It was found that only five men had been wounded in the fort, while the cautious enemy had sustained but trifling loss.
Gladwyn, believing the affair ended, dispatched La Butte, a neutral interpreter, accompanied by two old Canadians, Chapeton and Godefroy, to open negotiations. Many other Canadian inhabitants took this opportunity of leaving the place.
Pontiac received the three ambassadors politely, and heard their offers of peace with seeming acquiescence. He, however, stepped aside to talk the matter over with the other chiefs, after which Pontiac declared that, out of their earnest desire for a lasting treaty, they wished to hold council with their English fathers themselves, and they were especially desirous that Major Campbell, the veteran officer, second in command at the fort, should visit their camp.