lavished abuse and calumny on the objects of their jealousy, and spared no falsehood which ingenious malice and self-interest could suggest. They gave out that the English were bent on the ruin of the tribes, and to that end were stirring them up to mutual hostility. They insisted that, though the armies of France had been delayed so long, they were nevertheless on their way, and that the bayonets of the white-coated warriors would soon glitter among the forests of the Mississippi. Forged letters were sent to Pontiac, signed by the King of France, exhorting him to stand his ground but a few weeks longer, and all would then be well. To give the better coloring to their falsehoods, some of these incendiaries assumed the uniform of French officers, and palmed themselves off upon their credulous auditors as ambassadors from the king. Many of the principal traders distributed among the warriors supplies of arms and ammunition, in some instances given gratuitously, and in others sold on credit, with the understanding that payment should be made from the plunder of the English.[462]
Now that the insurrection in the east was quelled, and the Delawares and Shawanoes were beaten into submission, it was thought that the English would lose no time in taking
full possession of the country, which, by the peace of 1763, had been transferred into their hands. Two principal routes would give access to the Illinois. Troops might advance from the south up the great natural highway of the Mississippi, or they might descend from the east by way of Fort Pitt and the Ohio. In either case, to meet and repel them was the determined purpose of Pontiac.
In the spring, or early summer, he had come to the Illinois and visited the commandant, Neyon, who was then still at his post. Neyon’s greeting was inauspicious. He told his visitor that he hoped he had returned at last to his senses. Pontiac laid before him a large belt of wampum. “My Father,” he said, “I come to invite you and all your allies to go with me to war against the English.” Neyon asked if he had not received his message of the last autumn, in which he told him that the French and English were thenceforth one people; but Pontiac persisted, and still urged him to take up the hatchet. Neyon at length grew angry, kicked away the wampum belt, and demanded if he could not hear what was said to him. Thus repulsed, Pontiac asked for a keg of rum. Which being given him, he caused to be carried to a neighboring Illinois village; and, with the help of this potent auxiliary, made the assembled warriors join him in the war-song.[463]
It does not appear that, on this occasion, he had any farther success in firing the hearts of the Illinois. He presently returned to his camp on the Maumee, where, by a succession of ill-tidings, he learned the humiliation of his allies, and the triumph of his enemies. Towards the close of autumn, he again left the Maumee; and, followed by four hundred warriors, journeyed westward, to visit in succession the different tribes, and gain their co-operation in his plans of final defence. Crossing over to the Wabash, he passed from village to village, among the Kickapoos, the Piankishaws, and the three tribes of the Miamis, rousing them by his imperious eloquence, and breathing into them his own fierce spirit of resistance. Thence, by rapid marches through forests and over prairies, he reached the banks of the Mississippi, and summoned the four tribes of the Illinois to a general meeting. But
these degenerate savages, beaten by the surrounding tribes for many a generation past, had lost their warlike spirit; and, though abundantly noisy and boastful, showed no zeal for fight, and entered with no zest into the schemes of the Ottawa war-chief. Pontiac had his own way of dealing with such spirits. “If you hesitate,” he exclaimed, frowning on the cowering assembly, “I will consume your tribes as the fire consumes the dry grass on the prairie.” The doubts of the Illinois vanished like the mist, and with marvellous alacrity they declared their concurrence in the views of the orator. Having secured these allies, such as they were, Pontiac departed, and hastened to Fort Chartres. St. Ange, so long tormented with embassy after embassy, and mob after mob, thought that the crowning evil was come at last, when he saw the arch-demon Pontiac enter at the gate, with four hundred warriors at his back. Arrived at the council-house, Pontiac addressed the commandant in a tone of great courtesy: “Father, we have long wished to see you, to shake hands with you, and, whilst smoking the calumet of peace, to recall the battles in which we fought together against the misguided Indians and the English dogs. I love the French, and I have come hither with my warriors to avenge their wrongs.”[464] Then followed a demand for arms, ammunition, and troops, to act in concert with the Indian warriors. St. Ange was forced to decline rendering the expected aid; but he sweetened his denial with soothing compliments, and added a few gifts, to remove any lingering bitterness. Pontiac would not be appeased. He angrily complained of such lukewarm friendship, where he had looked for ready sympathy and support. His warriors pitched their lodges about the fort, and threatening symptoms of an approaching rupture began to alarm the French.
In the mean time, Pontiac had caused his squaws to construct a belt of wampum of extraordinary size, six feet in length, and four inches wide. It was wrought from end to end with the symbols of the various tribes and villages, forty-seven in number, still leagued together in his alliance.[465] He consigned
it to an embassy of chosen warriors, directing them to carry it down the Mississippi, displaying it, in turn, at every Indian village along its banks; and exhorting the inhabitants, in his name, to watch the movements of the English, and repel any attempt they might make to ascend the river. This done, they were to repair to New Orleans, and demand from the governor, M. D’Abbadie, the aid which St. Ange had refused. The bark canoes of the embassy put out from the shore, and whirled down the current like floating leaves in autumn.
Soon after their departure, tidings came to Fort Chartres, which caused a joyous excitement among the Indians, and relieved the French garrison from any danger of an immediate rupture. In our own day, the vast distance between the great city of New Orleans and the populous state of Illinois has dwindled into insignificance beneath the magic of science; but at the date of this history, three or four months were often consumed in the upward passage, and the settlers of the lonely forest colony were sometimes cut off from all communication with the world for half a year together. The above-mentioned tidings, interesting as they were, had occupied no less time in their passage. Their import was as follows:—
Very early in the preceding spring, an English officer, Major Loftus, having arrived at New Orleans with four hundred regulars, had attempted to ascend the Mississippi, to take possession of Fort Chartres and its dependent posts. His troops were embarked in large and heavy boats. Their progress was slow; and they had reached a point not more than eighty leagues above New Orleans, when, one morning, their ears were greeted with the crack of rifles from the thickets of the western shore; and a soldier in the foremost boat fell, with a mortal wound. The troops, in dismay, sheered over towards the eastern shore; but, when fairly within gunshot, a score of rifles obscured the forest edge with smoke, and filled the nearest boat with dead and wounded men. On this, they steered for the middle of the river, where they remained for a time, exposed to a dropping fire from either bank, too distant to take effect.