858

BLUNDERS 0E THE GOVERNMENT.

1812,

clared, although Colonel McArthur at the same time received word from Chillicothe, warning him, on the authority of Thomas Worfhington, then Senator from Ohio, that before the letter reached him, the declaration would have been made public. This information McArthur laid before General Hull; and when, upon reaching the Maumee, that commander proposed to place his baggage, stores, and sick on board a vessel, and send them by water to Detroit, the backwoodsman warned him of the danger, and refused to trust his own property on hoard.

Hull, however, treated the report of war as the old story which had been current through all the spring, and refused to believe it possible that the government would not give him information at the earliest moment that the measure was resolved on.

The following message from a gentleman at Detroit to his friend at Pittsburgh, gives a disinterested narrative of the then passing events:

" On Thursday morning, the 2d inst., our enemies gave us the first notice of war being declared against them. The evening preceding, an officer was seen to go with great dispatch down the opposite side of the river to Fort Maiden, and the next morning the ferry boats that went from this side were detained on the other shore, which made us suspect that affairs were not long to remain tranquil between us. Shortly after, a gentleman in this place received a message from his friend on the British side, informing him of the declaration of war.

"I will now inform you of the remissness of government in not immediately sending an express to Governor Hull, and to this important place, on an event of so much magnitude; and the consequences which have resulted from that neglect.

" It now appears to us, that war was declared on the 18th of June, and dispatches sent off the next day by the common course of mail to Cleveland, which place they reached on Monday tjie 29th, about the middle of the day; making ten days and a half to that place; when the news ought to have been received here (Detroit) before that time.

" The postmaster at Cleveland received a letter from "Washington, directing him to hire a person to go on with the dispatches to Governor Hull, who was at that time about eighty miles from this place, and he received them on the morning of the 2d inst.; making thirteen days from Washington. This information I had from the person who was hired by the postmaster at Cleveland, and who is now in this place; its correctness cannot be doubted.