The Virginia Gazette

WILLIAMSBURG. MAY 22.

By advice from the frontiers, we learn that the British commandant at Detroit, Mr. Hamilton, came down this spring with a party of regulars, Canadians and savages, and retook the post of St. Vincents, on the Wabash, garrisoned by a small detachment from the Illinois: That the brave and gallant Col. Clarke, considering himself as reduced by this event, to the alternative of hazarding every thing on one desperate effort, or of abandoning our Western acquisitions determined to march with his whole force, consisting of about 120 men, including some militia of the place, and make a vigorous attack on the enemy. The arrangements he made for this purpose were as judicious as the enterprise itself was heroic and arduous; he found Mr. Hamilton with his party in the fort, which he immediately besieged, so closely and vigorously that in eighteen hours the whole were made prisoners. A scalping party of Indians, which Mr. Hamilton had sent out, returned to the fort soon after the surrender of it to the American arms, with the savage trophies of their success; and instantly suffered the vengeance due to their outrages on humanity; Col. Clarke has sent in Governour Hamilton, Monsieur Dechang, judge of the court at Detroit, and a Capt. Lamotte, with about 25 prisoners They were when last heard of at New London, in Bedford county. The express which Col. Clarke sent with the particulars of this expedition, was murdered by the savages on his way, and the despatches destroyed : It is also said, that a very large quantity of goods brought from Detroit, for the purpose of rewarding the barbarities of their Indian allies, was taken at the same time by Col. Clarke.

A letter from the Capt. commandant at Detroit to Governour Hamilton has been intercepted, which complains that since the departure of the latter, the inhabitants were all getting traitorous hearts.