2212. DETROIT, Instructions to Gen. Clark.—[continued].
Should you succeed in
the reduction of the Post, you are to promise
protection to the persons and property of the
French and American inhabitants, or of such at
least as shall not, on tender, refuse to take the
oath of fidelity to the Commonwealth. You
are to permit them to continue under the laws
and form of government under which they at
present live, only substituting the authority of
this Commonwealth in all instances in lieu of
that of his British Majesty, and exercising
yourself under that authority, till further order,
those powers which the British Commandant of
the Post, or his principal in Canada, hath used
regularly to exercise. To the Indian neighbors
you will hold out either fear or friendship, as
their disposition and your actual situation May
render most expedient.—
To General George Rogers Clark.
Ford ed., ii, 389.
(R.
Dec. 1780)
