True to the Old Flag | Page 2

is common among
his neighbors, and is already on bad terms with many around us. I
myself am, as it were, a neutral. As an American woman, it seems to
me that the colonists have been dealt with somewhat hardly by the
English Parliament, and that the measures of the latter have been
high-handed and arbitrary. Upon the other hand, I naturally incline
toward my husband's views. He maintains that, as the king's army has
driven out the French, and gives protection to the colony, it is only fair
that the colonists should contribute to its expenses. The English ask for
no contributions toward the expense of their own country, but demand
that, at least, the expenses of the protection of the colony shall not be
charged upon the heavily taxed people at home. As to the law that the
colony shall trade only with the mother country, my husband says that
this is the rule in the colonies of Spain, France, Portugal, and the
Netherlands, and that the people here, who can obtain what land they
choose and till it without rent, should not grumble at paying this small
tax to the mother country. However it be, I fear that troubles will come,
and, this place being the head and focus of the party hostile to England,
my husband, feeling himself out of accord with all his neighbors,
saying a few loyal gentlemen like himself, is thinking much and
seriously of selling our estate here and of moving away into the new
countries of the West, where he will be free from all the disputation and
contentious talk which occupies men's time here.
"Indeed, cousin, times have sadly changed since you were staying here
with us five years ago. Then our life was a peaceful and quiet one; now
there is nothing but wrangling and strife. The dissenting clergy are, as
my husband says was the case in England before the great civil war, the
fomenters of this discontent. There are many busybodies who pass their
time in stirring up the people by violent harangues and seditious
writings; therefore everyone takes one side or the other, and there is
neither peace nor comfort in life.
"Accustomed as I have always been to living in ease and affluence, I
dread, somewhat, the thought of a life on the Indian frontier. One has
heard so many dreadful stories of Indian fights and massacres that I

tremble a little at the prospect; but I do not mention this to John, for as
other women are, like yourself, brave enough to support these dangers,
I would not appear a coward in his eyes. You will see, cousin, that, as
this prospect is before us, it is well that Harold should learn the ways of
a frontier life. Moreover, John does not like the thought of leaving him
here while we are in England; for, as he says, the boy might learn to
become a rebel in his absence; therefore, my dear cousin, we have
resolved to send him to you. An opportunity offers, in the fact that a
gentleman of our acquaintance is, with his family, going this week
West, with the intention of settling there, and he will, he tells us, go
first to Detroit, whence he will be able to send Harold forward to your
farm. The boy himself is delighted at the thought, and promises to
return an accomplished backwoodsman. John joins me in kind love to
yourself and your husband, and believe me to remain,
"Your Affectionate Cousin,
"MARY WILSON."
Four months after the date of the above letter a lad some fifteen years
old was walking with a man of middle age on the shores of Lake Huron.
Behind them was a large clearing of about a hundred acres in extent; a
comfortable house, with buildings for cattle, stood at a distance of
some three hundred yards from the lake; broad fields of yellow corn
waved brightly in the sun; and from the edge of the clearing came the
sound of a woodsman's ax, showing that the proprietor was still
enlarging the limits of his farm. Surrounding the house, at a distance of
twenty yards, was a strong stockade some seven feet in height, formed
of young trees, pointed at the upper end, squared, and fixed firmly in
the ground. The house itself, although far more spacious and
comfortable than the majority of backwood farmhouses, was built in
the usual fashion, of solid logs, and was evidently designed to resist
attack.
William Welch had settled ten years before on this spot, which was
then far removed from the nearest habitation. It would have been a very
imprudent act, under ordinary circumstances, to have established
himself in so lonely a position, so far removed from the possibility of

assistance in case