The seventh article of the definitive treaty of peace between the United States and Great Britain in 1783, provided that "His Britannic Majesty," should, with all convenient speed, "withdraw all his armies, garrisons, and fleets from the said United States, and from every port, place and harbour within the same," but when demand was made upon General Frederick Haldimand, the British governor of Canada, for the important posts of Niagara, Oswego, Michillimacinac and Detroit, he refused to surrender them up, alleging that he had no explicit orders so to do, and that until he had received such commands, he conceived it to be his duty as a soldier to take no step in that direction. This action of Haldimand was cool and deliberate and received the full and entire approbation of the British cabinet. Tories, and apologists for Great Britain, have written much about a justification for this action, but there is no real justification. Lord Carmarthen, the British secretary of state, afterwards said to John Adams that English creditors had met with unlawful impediments in the collection of their debts, but the real reason why England violated her treaty he did not state. She retained the posts to control the tribes. She looked with covetous eye on the lucrative fur-trade of the northwest territory upon which the commerce of Canada was in great measure dependent, and sooner than resist the entreaties of her merchants and traders, she was willing to embroil a people of her own race and blood, in a series of long and merciless wars with murderous savages. For the fact remains, that if England had promptly surrendered up the posts; had not interfered with our negotiations for peace with the Indian tribes; had refused to encourage any confederacy, and had instructed her commanders to keep their spies and agents out of American territory, the murders on the Ohio, the slaughter of innocents, and the long, costly and bloody campaigns in the Indian country might have been avoided.