Whisperings of coming trouble had been heard at Fort Michilimackinac by Major Etherington, the commandant, but none of so serious a nature as to prevent the presence of the soldiery at a great game of baggatiway which was to be played in a field near the fort by rival companies of Sacs and Chippewas, in honor of the King's birthday, August 4, 1763. The game is a very intricate and brilliant one, requiring great agility and skill, and the participation of a large number of players. As was most natural, the excitement of the onlookers was intense, and when an apparently stray ball flew high over the palisades of the unprotected fort (which had been silently invaded by a crowd of squaws with weapons hidden under their blankets) and at least four hundred players in hot pursuit swarmed over the stockade, nothing was thought amiss, until the cries appropriate to the game changed into the war-whoop, and a massacre began. Of the English, all were either killed or made captive, except Alexander Henry, whose narrative curdles the blood even yet. This event led to the abandonment of the southern fort and the establishment of one on the Island.[6] [Illustration SIGNATURES OF THE CHIPPEWA CHIEFS WHO, IN 1781, DEEDED THE ISLAND TO KING GEORGE III. FROM "MACKINAC," BY JOHN R. BAILEY, M.D., BREVET LIEUT.-COL. U.S.V., BY WHOSE KIND PERMISSION THEY ARE HERE REPRODUCED.] "It is now certain," writes Schoolcraft in 1834, "that the occupancy of Old Michilimackinack--the Beekwutenong of the Indians--was kept up by the British until 1774; between that date and 1780 the flag was transferred ... the principal trade went with it, the Indian intercourse likewise. Some residents lingered a few years but the place was finally abandoned, and the site is now covered with loose sand." By the Treaty of Paris, in 1783, the Island was ceded by Great Britain to the United States. Possession was, however, withheld on one pretext or another, until 1796. [Illustration FORT MACKINAC, AND THE CANNON CAPTURED BY COMMODORE PERRY.] When the second war with England began, it was natural that one of the first points to be attacked should be the fort so commandingly situated. Far from all base of supplies and all possibility of rapid communication, the oft-repeated appeals of General Hull for an effective garrison at this and other important points were totally disregarded in Washington. Only fifty-seven soldiers were in residence in Mackinac when the British forces, 1021 strong, landed before dawn on the 17th of July, 1812, on a point nearly opposite St. Ignace. By eleven o'clock Captain Roberts sent a flag of truce, and a demand of surrender to Lieutenant Porter Hanks, who had had "no intimation" that a war between the powers had been declared until that moment. After considering the futility of resistance, and a consultation with the American traders in the village, with the valor which was ever bettered by discretion, he capitulated.