Morris are interludes, as to time, in the Croghan diaries. Post's two journals cover the months of July to September, 1758, and October, 1758 to January, 1759. He was at first sent out, by the northern trail, in midsummer, as an official messenger to the hostiles, among whom he succeeded in securing a kind of neutrality—a venturesome expedition into the neighborhood of Fort Duquesne, whose French commandant offered a price upon his head. The second journey, in the autumn, was undertaken to carry the news of the treaty of Easton (October, 1758), and pave the way for General Forbes's advance. In the course of his journey he proceeded to the Indian towns on the Ohio and its northern tributaries, and returned to the settlements with Forbes's army.
Captain Morris accompanied Bradstreet (1764) on the latter's expedition towards Detroit. Being dispatched from Cedar Point on a mission to the French in the Illinois, Morris was arrested and maltreated at the Ottawa village at Maumee Rapids. He saw Pontiac, went to Fort Miami, narrowly escaped being burned at the stake, and finally made his escape through the woods to Detroit. His journal presents a thrilling episode in Western history.
It is our purpose, in these reprints, accurately to republish the original volumes, with all of their illustrations and other features. While seeking to reproduce the old text as closely as practicable, with its typographic and orthographic peculiarities, it has been found advisable here and there to make a few minor changes; these consist almost wholly of palpable blemishes, the result of negligent proof-reading—such as turned letters, transposed letters, slipped letters, and mis-spacings. Such corrections will be made without specific mention; in some
