But both the American statesmen and the Continental officers were so deceived by the treacherous misrepresentations of the Indians that they often greatly underestimated the numbers of the Indians on the war-path; curiously enough, their figures are frequently much more erroneous than those of the frontiersmen.

Thus the Madison MSS.

and State Department MSS.

contain statements that only a few hundred northwestern warriors were in the field at the very time that two thousand had been fitted out at Detroit to act along the Ohio and Wabash; as we learn from De Peyster's letter to Haldimand of May 17, 1780 (in the Haldimand MSS.).
41.

On July 14, 1776.