"Father!—I have said, you may perhaps think me a fool, for thus thoughtlessly rushing on your enemy! Do not believe this, Father. Think not that I want sense to convince me, that although you now pretend to keep up a perpetual enmity to the Long-Knives, you may, before long, conclude a peace with them.
"Father! You say you love your children, the Indians.—This you have often told them; and indeed it is your interest to say so to them, that you may have them at your service.
"But, Father! Who of us can believe that you can love a people of a different colour from your own, better than those who have a white skin, like yourselves?
"Father! Pay attention to what I am going to say. While you, Father, are setting me [FN] on your enemy, much in the same manner as a hunter sets his dog on the game; while I am in the act of rushing on that enemy of yours, with the bloody destructive weapon you gave me, I may, perchance, happen to look back to the place from whence you started me, and what shall I see? Perhaps, I may see my father shaking hands with the Long-Knives; yes, with those very people he now calls his enemies. I may then see him laugh at my folly for having obeyed his orders; and yet I am now risking my life at his command!—Father! keep what I have said in remembrance."
[FN] Meaning his nation.
"Now, Father! here is what has been done with the hatchet you gave me," [handing the stick with the scalps on it] "I have done with the hatchet what you ordered me to do, and found it sharp. Nevertheless, I did not do all that I might have done. No, I did not. My heart failed within me. I felt compassion for your enemy. Innocence [FN] had no part in your quarrels; therefore I distinguished—I spared. I took some live flesh, [FN-2] which, while I was bringing to you, I spied one of your large canoes, on which I put it for you. In a few days you will receive this flesh, and find that the skin is of the same color with your own."
[FN-1] Meaning women and children.
[FN-2] Prisoners.