"Now, your very blood is white; your tomahawks have no edges; your bows and arrows were buried with your fathers. Oh! Muscogees, brethren of my mother, brush from your eyelids the sleep of slavery; once more strike for vengeance—once more for your country. The spirits of the mighty dead complain. Their tears drop from the skies. Let the white man perish.
"They seize your land; they corrupt your women; they trample on the ashes of your dead. Back, whence they came, upon a trail of blood, must they be driven.
"Back! back, ay, into the great waters whose accursed waves brought them to our shores.
"Burn their dwellings! destroy their stock! Slay their wives and children! The red-man owns the country, and the pale-face must never enjoy it.
"War! war! War forever! War upon the living! War upon the dead! Dig their very corpses from the grave. Our country must give no rest to a white man's bones.
"This is the will of the Great Spirit, revealed to my brother, his familiar, the Prophet of the Lakes. He sends me to you.
"All the tribes of the North are dancing the war-dance. Two mighty warriors across the seas will send us arms.
"Tecumseh will soon return to his country. My prophets shall tarry with you. They will stand between you and the bullets of your enemies. When the white men approach you, the yawning earth shall swallow them up.
"Soon shall you see my arm of fire stretched athwart the sky. I will stamp my foot at Tippecanoe, and the very earth shall shake."
It appears that the wily orator had been informed by the British that a comet was shortly to appear; and the earthquake, of 1811, had commenced as he came through Kentucky; so that, when the arm of fire was actually stretched forth, and the earth did shake under old Tippecanoe, his auditors attributed it to Tecumseh's supernatural powers, and immediately took up arms.