cerely but we know there is always a great number who wish to get rich; they never have enough; look! we do not want to be rich, and take away what others have.” "The white people think we have no brains in our heads; that they are big, and we a little handful; but remember, when you hunt for a rattlesnake you cannot find it, and perhaps it will bite you before you see it." When the war of Pontiac came, this saying might have been justly remembered.

At length, having concluded a pretty definite peace, Post returned toward Philadelphia, setting out upon the 9th of September; and, after the greatest sufferings and perils from French scouts and Indians, reached the settlements uninjured.

At Easton, meantime, had been gathering another great council, at which were present "the eight United Nations, (the Iroquois,) and their confederates; " with all of whom, during October, peace was concluded. Of the particulars of this treaty we know nothing; from a note in Burk's "History of Virginia," we find, that the Iroquois were very angry at the prominence of Teedyuscung; but further than this, and that peace was made, and notice of it sent to the western Indians, we hear not a word of this final peace-making. With the messengers to the West, Post was sent back, within five weeks after his return. He followed after General Forbes, from whom he received messages to the various tribes, with which he once more sought their chiefs; and was again very instrumental in preventing any junction of the Indians with the French. Indeed, but for Post's mission, there would in all probability have been gathered a strong force of western savages to waylay Forbes and defend Fort Du Quesne ; in which case, so adverse was the season and the way, so wearied the men, and so badly managed the whole business, that there would have been great danger of a second "Braddock's field"; so that our humble Moravian friend played no unimportant part in securing to his British Majesty again the key to western America.

With the fall of Fort Du Quesne, all direct contest between the French and British in the West ceased. From that time Canada was the only scene of operations, though garrisons for a while remained in the forts on French Creek. In 1759, Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Niagara, and at length Quebec

* Vol. III. p. 239.

itself, yielded to the English; and, on the 8th of September, 1760, Montreal, Detroit, and all Canada, were given up by Vaudreuil, the French governor.

But the French had not been the only dwellers in western America; and, when they were gone, the colonists still saw before them clouds of dark and jealous warriors. Indeed, no sooner were the Delawares quiet in the north, than the Cherokees, who had been assisting Virginia against her foes, were roused to war by the thoughtless and cruel conduct of the frontier men, who shot several of that tribe, because they took some horses which they found running at large in the woods. The ill-feeling bred by this act was eagerly fostered by the French in Louisiana; and, while Amherst and Wolfe were pushing the war into Canada, the frontiers of Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia, were writhing under the horrors of Indian invasion. This Cherokee war continued through 1760, and into 1761, but was terminated in the summer of the last-named year by Colonel Grant. We should be glad to enter somewhat at large into the events of it, as then came forward two of the most remarkable chiefs of that day, the Great Warrior, and the Little Carpenter (Attakullakulla); but our limits will not permit this, and we must refer our readers to the second volume of Thatcher's "Indian Biography."

Along the frontiers of Pennsylvania and northern Virginia, the old plantations had been, one by one, reoccupied since 1758, and settlers were slowly pushing further into the Indian country, and traders were once more bearing their burdens over the mountains, and finding a way into the wigwams of the natives, who rested, watching silently, but narrowly, the course of their English defenders and allies. For it was, professedly, in the character of defenders, that Braddock and Forbes had come into the West; and, while every British finger itched for the lands as well as the furs of the wild men, with mistaken hypocrisy they would have persuaded them that the treasure and the life of England had been given to preserve her old allies, the Six Nations, and their dependents, the Delawares and Shawanese, from French aggression. But the savages knew whom they had to deal with, and looked at every step of the cultivator with jealousy and hate.

* Sparks's Franklin, Vol. IV. p. 328. - Post's Journals show how full of jealousy the Indians were; see there also Forbes's letter, sent by him.

In 1760, the Ohio Company once more prepared to pursue their old plan, and sent to England for such orders and instructions to the Virginia government as would enable them to do so.* During the summer of that year, also, General Monkton, by a treaty at Fort Pitt, obtained leave to build posts within the wild lands, each post having ground enough about it whereon to raise corn and vegetables for the use of the garrison. Nor, if we can credit one writer, were the settlements of the Ohio Company, and the forts, the only inroads upon the hunting-grounds of the savages; for he says, that in 1757, by the books of the Secretary of Virginia, three millions of acres had been granted west of the mountains. Indeed, we know that in 1758 she tried by law to encourage settlements in the West; and the report of John Blair, . Clerk of the Virginia Council, in 1768 or 1769, states, that most of the grants beyond the mountains were made before August, 1754. At any rate, it is clear that the Indians early began to murmur; for, in 1762, Bouquet issued his proclamation from Fort Pitt, saying that the treaty of Easton, in 1758, secured to the red men all lands west of the mountains as hunting-grounds; wherefore he forbids all settlements, and orders the arrest of the traders and settlers who were spreading discontent and fear among the Ohio Indians. §

But if the Ohio Indians were early ill-disposed to the English, much more was this the case among those lake tribes, who had known only the French, and were strongly attached to them; the Ottaways, Wyandots, and Chippeways. The first visit which they received from the British was after the surrender of Vaudreuil, when Major Robert Rogers was sent to take charge of Detroit. He left Montreal on the 13th of September, 1760, and, on the 8th of October, reached Presqu'Ile, where Bouquet then commanded. Thence he went slowly up Lake Erie, having despatched by land forty bullocks as a supply, when near or at Detroit, which place he summoned to yield itself upon the 19th of November. It was, if we mistake not,

* Sparks's Washington, Vol. II. p. 482. - Plain Facts, p. 120, where a letter from the Company, dated September 9th, 1761, is given. + Dated August 20th. Plain Facts, pp. 55, 56.

Contest in North America, by an Impartial Hand. p. 36.

nals, Vol. III. p. 187.- Plain Facts. Appendix.

§ Plain Facts, p. 56.- See Heckewelder's Narrative, p. 64.

Secret Jour

See his Journal, London, 1765. Also, his Concise Account of North

America. London. 1765.

while waiting for an answer to this summons, that he was visited by the great Ottawa chieftain, Pontiac, who demanded how the English dared enter his country; to which the answer was given, that they came, not to take the country, but to open a free way of trade, and to put out the French, who stopped their trade. This answer, together with other moderate and kindly words, spoken by Rogers, seemed to lull the rising fears of the savages, and Pontiac promised him his protection.

Beleter, meantime, who commanded at Detroit, had not yielded; nay, word was brought to Rogers on the 24th, that his messenger had been confined, and a flag-pole erected, with a wooden head upon it, to represent Britain, on which stood a crow picking the eyes out, as emblematic of the success of France. In a few days, however, the commander heard of the fate of the lower posts, and, as his Indians did not stand by him, on the 29th he yielded. Rogers remained at Detroit until December 23d, under the personal protection of Pontiac, to whose presence he probably owed his safety. From Detroit the Major went to the Maumee, and thence across the present State of Ohio to Fort Pitt; and his Journal of this overland trip is the first which we have of such an one in that region. His route was nearly that given by Hutchins, in Bouquet's "Expedition," as the common one from Sandusky to the Fork of the Ohio. It went from Fort Sandusky, where Portland now is, crossed the Huron river, then called Bald Eagle Creek, to "Mohickon John's Town," upon what we know as Mohican Creek, the northern branch of White Woman's River, and thence crossed to Beaver's Town, a Delaware town on the west side of the "Maskongam Creek," opposite "a fine river," which, from Hutchins's map, we presume was Sandy Creek. At Beaver's Town were one hundred and eighty warriors, and not less than three thousand acres of cleared land. From there the track went up Sandy Creek and across to the Big Beaver, and up the Ohio, through Logstown, to Fort Pitt, which place Rogers reached January 23d, 1760, precisely one month having passed while he was upon the way.

In the spring of the year following Rogers's visit (1761), Alexander Henry, an English trader, went to Missillimacanac

* Thomas Hutchins, afterwards Geographer of the United States, was, in 1764, assistant engineer on Bouquet's expedition.

for purposes of business, and he found everywhere the strongest feeling against the English, who had done nothing by word or act to conciliate the Indians. Even then there were threats of reprisals and war. Having, by means of a Canadian dress, managed to reach Missilimacanac in safety, he was there discovered, and was waited on by an Indian chief, who was, in the opinion of Thatcher, Pontiac himself. This chief, after conveying to him the idea, that their French father would soon awake and utterly destroy his enemies, continued ;

"Englishman! Although you have conquered the French, you have not yet conquered us! We are not your slaves! These lakes, these woods, these mountains, were left to us by our ancestors. They are our inheritance, and we will part with them to none. Your nation supposes that we, like the white people, cannot live without bread, and pork, and beef. But you ought to know that He, the Great Spirit and Master of Life, has provided food for us upon these broad lakes and in these mountains."

He then spoke of the fact, that no treaty had been made with them, no presents sent them; and while he announced their intention to allow Henry to trade unmolested, and to regard him as a brother, he declared, that with his king the red men were still at war. *

Such were the feelings of the northwestern savages immediately after the English took possession of their lands; and these feelings were in all probability fostered and increased by the Canadians and French. Distrust of the British was general; and, as the war between France and England still went on in other lands, there was hope among the Canadians, perhaps, that the French power might be restored in America. However this may have been, it is clear, that disaffection spread rapidly in the West, though of the details of the years from 1759 to 1763 we know hardly any thing.

Upon the 10th of February, 1763, the treaty of Paris was concluded, and peace between the European powers restored. Then once more men began to think seriously of the West. Pamphlets were published upon the advantages of settlements on the Ohio. Colonel Mercer was chosen to represent the old Company in England, and try to have their affairs made

* Travels of Alexander Henry in Canada, from 1760 to 1776. New York. 1809.- Thatcher's Indian Biography, Vol. II. pp. 75, et seq. Thatcher's Indian Biography, Vol. II. p. 86.