They came, as Rogers tells us in another book,[6] on an embassy from Pontiac, and were immediately followed by that chief himself. Pontiac’s personality seems to have impressed the white backwoodsman, though he had seen and known all sorts and conditions of North American Indians. ‘I had several conferences with him,’ he writes, ‘in which he discovered great strength of judgement and a thirst after knowledge.’ Pontiac took up the position of being ‘King and Lord of the country’, and challenged Rogers and his men as intruders into his land; but he intimated that he would be prepared to live peaceably with the English, as a subordinate not a conquered potentate; and the result of the meeting was that the Rangers were supplied with fresh provisions and were escorted in safety on their way, instead of being obstructed and attacked, as had been contemplated, at the entrance of the Detroit river. On the 12th of November Rogers set out again; on the 19th he sent on an officer in advance with a letter to Belêtre, the French commander at Detroit, informing him of the capitulation of Montreal and calling upon him to deliver up the fort. On the 29th of November the English force landed half a mile below the fort, and on the same day the French garrison laid down their arms. Seven hundred Indians were present; and, when they saw the French colours hauled down and the English flag take their place, unstable as water and ever siding at the moment with the stronger party, they shouted that ‘they would always for the future fight for a nation thus favoured by Him that made the world’.[7] [Sidenote: Detroit.] There were at the time, Rogers tells us,[8] about 2,500 French Canadians settled in the neighbourhood of Detroit. The dwelling-houses, near 300 in number, extended on both sides of the river for about eight miles. The land was good for grazing and for agriculture, and there was a ‘very large and lucrative’ trade with the Indians. [Sidenote: Return of Rogers.] [Sidenote: Michillimackinac occupied by the English.] Having sent the French garrison down to Philadelphia, and established an English garrison in its place, Rogers sent a small party to take over Fort Miami on the Maumee river, and set out himself with another detachment for Michillimackinac. But it was now the middle of December; floating ice made navigation of Lake Huron dangerous; after a vain attempt to reach Michillimackinac he returned to Detroit on the 21st of December; and, marching overland to the Ohio and to Philadelphia, he finally reached New York on the 14th of February, 1761. In the autumn of that year a detachment of Royal Americans took possession of Michillimackinac. [Sidenote: Indian discontent.]