under Major-General Harrison, the evacuation of Detroit, Amherst- burg, &c. became unavoidable. Te-cum-seli at first refused to consent to any retrogade movement, and taunted the British com- mander, Proctor, with promoting the destruction of the Indians ; but he was finally prevailed upon to accompany the troops with his warriors. They retreated along the banks of the river Thames, and were pursued and overtaken near the Moravian village, eighty miles from Sandwich, by Harrison, with about three thousand men. When compelled to give battle, on the 5th of October, Major-General Proctor could only muster about six hundred regulars, and rather more than the same number of Indians. The former were posted in single files in two lines, their left resting on the river, their right on a narrow swamp, beyond which were the Indians, reaching obliquely backwards to a second and much broader swamp, so that neither flank of the allies could be easily turned. The enemy commenced the attack with a regiment of mounted riflemen, the elite of their army, formed into two divisions of five hundred men each, one of which charged the regulars with great impetuosity, while the latter advanced with a company of foot against the Indians. The regulars, dissatisfied by fancied or real neglect, and dispirited by long continued exposure and privation, made but a very feeble resistance ; their ranks were pierced and broken, and being placed between two fires, they immediately surrendered, with the trifling loss of twelve killed and twenty-two wounded. But " the contest with the Indians on the left was more obstinate. They reserved their fire, till the heads of the columns, and the front line on foot, had approached within a few paces of their position. A very destructive fire was then commenced by them, about the time the firing ceased between the British and first battalion. Colonel Johnson finding his advanced guard, composing the head of his column, nearly all cut down by the first fire, and himself severely wounded, immediately ordered his columns to dismount and come up in line before the enemy, the ground which they occu- pied being unfavorable for operations on horseback. The line was promptly formed on foot, and a fierce conflict was then maintained, for seven or eight minutes, with considerable execution on both sides ; but the Indians had not sufficient firmness to sustain very long a fire which was close, and warm, and severely destructive. They gave way and fled through the brush into the outer swamp, not however before they had learnt the total discomfiture of their allies, and had lost by the fall of Te-cum-seh, a chief in whom
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