all their actions, cheat and dissemble, drink and fight, quarrel and backbite, if they believe the great fire burns for those who do such things? If we believed what you say, we should not exchange so much good for wickedness, to please an evil spirit who would rejoice at our destruction." .. To this reasoning it was not easy to oppose any thing that would carry conviction to untutored people, who spoke from observation and the evidence of the senses; to which could only be opposed scripture texts, which avail not till they are believed; and abstract reasoning, extremely difficult to bring to the level of an unlearned understanding. Great labor and perseverance wrought on the minds of a few, who felt conviction, as far as it is to be ascribed to human agency, flow from the affectionate persuasions of those whom they visibly beheld earnest for their eternal welfare; and when a few had thus yielded,' the peace and purity of their lives, and the sublime enjoyment they seemed to derive from the prospects their faith opened into futurity, was an inducement to others to follow the same path.

1 Some of them have made such a proficiency in practical religion as ought to shame many of us, who boast the illuminating aids of our native Christianity. Not one of these Indians has been concerned in those barbarous eruptions which deluged the frontiers of our southwestern provinces with the blood of so many innocents, of every age and sex. At the commencement of these ravages, they flew into the settlements, and put themselves into the protection of government. The Indians no sooner became Christians, than they openly professed their loyalty to King George; and therefore, to contribute to their conversion was as truly politic as nobly Christian. — Mrs. Grant.

This, abstractedly from religious considerations of endless futurity, is the true and only way to civilization; and to the blending together the old and new inhabitants of these regions. National pride, rooted prejudices, ferocity and vindictive hatred, all yield before a change that new-moulds the whole soul, and furnishes men with new fears and hopes, and new motives for action.

Chapter XXVII

INDIANS ATTACHED BY CONVERSION — EXPEDITION OF MONS. BARRE-IRONICAL SKETCH OF AN INDIAN

UPO

PON the attachment the Indians had to our religion was grafted the strongest regard to our government, and the greatest fidelity to the treaties made with us. I shall insert a specimen of Indian eloquence, illustrative of this last; not that I consider it by any means so rich, impressive, or sublime as many others that I could quote, but as containing a figure of speech rarely to be met with among savage people, and supposed by us incompatible with the state of intellectual advancement to which they have attained. I mean a fine and well supported irony. About the year 1696,1 Mons. Barre, the commander of the French forces in Canada, made a kind of inroad, with a warlike

1 De la Barre made an attempt to invade the Seneca country in 1684. He crossed Lake Ontario from Fort Frontenac (Kingston) and landed in the country of the Onondagas, some distance east of Oswego. The Indian sachems visited him, and after seeing his hopeless condition with an army wasted and dying, they made him an ironical speech, as seen on page 154. He was recalled the following year. In 1696 the Count de Frontenac made war on the Onondaga nation, and destroyed their village.

design, into the precincts claimed by our Mohawk allies; the march was tedious, the French fell sick, and many of their Indians deserted them. The wily commander, finding himself unequal to the meditated attack, and that it would be unsafe to return through the lakes and woods, while in hourly danger of meeting enemies so justly provoked, sent to invite the sachems to a friendly conference: and, when they met, asserted, in an artful speech, that he and his troops had come with the sole intention of settling old grievances, and smoking the calumet of peace with them. The Indians, not imposed on by such pretences, listened patiently to his speech, and then made the answer which the reader will find in the notes.1 It is to be observed, that who

1 "Onnonthio, I honor you; and all the warriors that are with me likewise honor you. Your interpreter has finished his speech, I begin mine. My words make haste to reach your ears; hearken to them, Yonnondio. You must have believed, when you left Quebec, that the sun had burnt up all the forests which made our country so inaccessible to the French; or that the lakes had so far overflowed their banks, that they had surrounded our castles, and that it was impossible for us to get out of them. Yes, Yonnondio, surely you have dreamt so; and the curiosity of seeing so great a wonder has brought you so far. Now you are undeceived, since I and the warriors here present are come to assure you, that the Hurons, Onondagoes, and Mohawks are yet alive. I thank you in their name for bringing back into their country the calumet, which your predecessor received from their hands. It was happy for you that you left under ground that murdering hatchet, which has been so often dyed with the blood of the French. Hear, Onnonthio, I do not sleep; I have my eyes open; and the sun that enlightens me discovers to me a great captain, at the head of his soldiers, who speaks as if he were dreaming. He says that he only came to the lake to smoke out of the great calumet with the Five Nations; but Connaratego says that he sees the contrary; that it was

ever they considered as the ruling person for the time being in Canada, they styled Onnonthio; to knock them on the head, if sickness had not weakened the arms of the French. I see Onnonthio raving in a camp of sick men, whose lives the great spirit has saved by inflicting this sickness upon them. Hear, Onnonthio, our women had taken their clubs; our children and old men had carried their bows and arrows into the heart of your camp, if our warriors had not disarmed them, and kept them back, when your messenger came to our castles. It is done, and I have said it. Hear, Yonnondio, we plundered none of the French, but those who carried guns, powder, and ball to the wolf and elk tribes, because those arms might have cost us our lives. Herein we follow the example of the Jesuits, who stave all the kegs of rum brought to the castles where they are, lest the drunken Indians should knock them on the head. Our warriors have not beavers enough to pay for all those arms that they have taken; and our old men are not afraid of the war. This belt preserves my words. We carried the English into our lakes, to trade with the wolf and elk tribes, as the praying Indians brought the French to our castles, to carry on a trade, which the English say is theirs. We are born free. We neither depend on Onnonthio nor Corlaer; we may go where we please. If your allies be your slaves, use them as such; command them to receive no other but your people. This belt preserves my words. We knocked the Connecticut Indians and their confederates on the head because they had cut down the trees of peace, which were the limits of our country. They had hunted beavers on our lands, contrary to the customs of all Indians, for they have left none alive. They have killed both male and female. They brought the Sathanas into our country to take part with them, after they had formed ill designs against us; we have done less than they merited.

"Hear, once more, the words of the Five Nations. They say that when they buried the hatchet at Cardaraqui (in the presence of your predecessor), in the middle of the fort [Detroit], they planted the tree of peace in the same place, to be there carefully preserved; that instead of an abode for soldiers, that fort might be a rendezvous for merchants; that in place of arms and ammunition, only peltry and goods should enter there.

"Hear, Yonnondio, take care for the future that so great a number of soldiers as appear there do not choke the tree of peace, planted in so small a fort. It will be a great loss after having so easily taken root,