The garrison at Detroit was commanded by Major Gladwin, a young British officer, who had taken an active part in the war with the French, and had been at Detroit for nearly a year. He had eight officers and one hundred and twenty men in his command; and besides the Canadian residents, whose white cottages lined either bank of the river, there were about forty fur traders at the settlement. The original stockade had been several times enlarged since Cadillac’s day, once recently during the three years of English occupation. It contained about a hundred small houses, a well-built group of barracks, a council house, and a church. Three rows of pickets, twenty-five feet high, with large gateways surmounted by blockhouses for observation and defence, had taken the place of the original twelve-foot fence. Within each gateway, which was closed at sunset, was a small wicket, through which one person could enter at a time. This was kept open until nine o’clock. The fort was protected by three small cannon, one carrying three-pound balls, the other two six-pounders; but these guns were badly mounted and better calculated to terrify the Indians than to render much actual assistance. Far more effective were the two small vessels, the _Beaver_ and the _Gladwin_, which lay anchored in the stream. At a council on the 27th of April, 1763, Pontiac inflamed the minds of his hearers by reporting a vision vouchsafed to him by the Great Spirit, who asked him why the Indians suffered these English,--“these dogs dressed in red,”--to dwell among them. The first step of his plan, as he unfolded it to his warriors, was to spy out the land. On May-day, 1760, forty men of the Ottawa tribe, purporting to have returned from their winter hunting-grounds, went to the fort and asked permission to dance the calumet dance before the English officers. They were admitted, and while thirty of them danced, the remaining ten strolled about and noted every detail of the defence, all retiring at the close without rousing any suspicion in the minds of their hosts.