Another military highway west of the town led to Coote's Paradise (Hamilton) and thence to New London on the Thames, thus opening up an inland way to Lake Erie. Settlers were slowly hewing out homes for themselves in these remote districts. [1] Translation.--"The _curés_ will not fail to take the opportunity afforded by this festival to make their parishioners realize the obligations they owe to heaven for having placed them under the empire and protection of His Brittanic Majesty, and to exhort them anew to maintain themselves in it with fidelity and gratitude." {53} CHAPTER VI MILITARY POSTS It was in the year 1796 that England had given up possession to the Americans of Forts Michilimackinac, Miami, Detroit, Niagara, and Oswego, and now at the beginning of the nineteenth century Kingston, York, Fort George, Fort Chippawa, Fort Erie, and Amherstburg were the chief military posts. The very names of the forts take one back to very stirring days in the country, and a glance at their history shows that this new province of Upper Canada had been once the scene of many a struggle for supremacy between the French, the English, and the Indian. Michilimackinac, or Mackinaw, the island which lies in the strait between Lakes Huron and Michigan, had been for more than a century the resort of North-West traders, where furs were collected and shipped for Montreal. In 1671 it had been a Jesuit mission, and stories of treachery and massacre hover round its shores. Fort Miami was in the heart of the Indian country on the Maumee River about fifteen miles from Lake Erie, into which the river flows. Lord Dorchester had ordered the reconstruction of the fort, a step to which the United States had {54} objected, deeming it an invasion of their territory. Both the 8th and the 53rd Regiments had been stationed there during the war with the colonies. Fort Detroit, on the river of the same name, situated about twenty-eight miles above Lake Erie and ten miles below Lake St. Clair, had had a most exciting history. The strait was the key to the upper lakes, and gave Canada the readiest access to the Mississippi. Five times its flag had changed in the century since it was founded by La Mothe Cadillac. Twice it was besieged by Indians, once burned to the ground. In the last days of the eighteenth century it was surrounded by a flourishing little town, with a mixed French and English population. [Sidenote: Fort Niagara]