D’Abbadie replied in a feeble voice, endeavoring to allay their vindictive jealousy of the English, and promising to give them all that should be necessary to supply their immediate wants. The council then adjourned until the following day; but, in the mean time, the wasted strength of the governor gave way beneath a renewed attack of his disorder; and, before the appointed hour arrived, he had breathed his last, hurried to a premature death by the anguish of mortified pride and patriotism. M. Aubry, his successor, presided in his place, and received the savage embassy. The orator, after the solemn custom of his people, addressed him in a speech of condolence, expressing his deep regret for D’Abbadie’s untimely fate.[472] A chief of the Miamis then rose to speak, with a scowling brow, and words of bitterness and reproach. “Since we last sat on these seats, our ears have heard strange words. When the English told us that they had conquered you, we always thought that they lied; but now we have learned that they spoke the truth. We have learned that you, whom we
have loved and served so well, have given the lands that we dwell upon to your enemies and ours. We have learned that the English have forbidden you to send traders to our villages to supply our wants; and that you, whom we thought so great and brave, have obeyed their commands like women, leaving us to starve and die in misery. We now tell you, once for all, that our lands are our own; and we tell you, moreover, that we can live without your aid, and hunt, and fish, and fight, as our fathers did before us. All that we ask of you is this: that you give us back the guns, the powder, the hatchets, and the knives which we have worn out in fighting your battles. As for you,” he exclaimed, turning to the English officers, who were present as on the preceding day,—“as for you, our hearts burn with rage when we think of the ruin you have brought on us.” Aubry returned but a weak answer to the cutting attack of the Indian speaker. He assured the ambassadors that the French still retained their former love for the Indians, that the English meant them no harm, and that, as all the world were now at peace, it behooved them also to take hold of the chain of friendship. A few presents were then distributed, but with no apparent effect. The features of the Indians still retained their sullen scowl; and on the morrow their canoes were ascending the Mississippi on their homeward voyage.[473]
Chapter XXX.
1765.
RUIN OF THE INDIAN CAUSE.
The repulse of Loftus, and rumors of the fierce temper of the Indians who guarded the Mississippi, convinced the commander-in-chief that to reach the Illinois by the southern route was an enterprise of no easy accomplishment. Yet, at the same time, he felt the strong necessity of a speedy military occupation of the country; since, while the fleur de lis floated over a single garrison in the ceded territory, it would be impossible to disabuse the Indians of the phantom hope of French assistance, to which they clung with infatuated tenacity. The embers of the Indian war would never be quenched until England had enforced all her claims over her defeated rival. Gage determined to despatch a force from the eastward, by way of Fort Pitt and the Ohio; a route now laid open by the late success of Bouquet, and the submission of the Delawares and Shawanoes.
To prepare a way for the passage of the troops, Sir William Johnson’s deputy, George Croghan, was ordered to proceed in advance, to reason with the Indians as far as they were capable of reasoning; to soften their antipathy to the English, to expose the falsehoods of the French, and to distribute presents among the tribes by way of propitiation.[474] The mission was a critical one; but, so far as regarded the Indians, Croghan was well fitted to discharge it. He had been for years a trader among the western tribes, over whom he had gained much influence by a certain vigor of character, joined to a wary and sagacious policy, concealed beneath a bluff demeanor. Lieutenant Fraser, a young officer of education and intelligence, was associated with him. He spoke French, and, in other respects also, supplied qualifications in which his rugged colleague was wanting. They set out for Fort Pitt in February, 1765; and after traversing inhospitable mountains, and valleys clogged with snow, reached their destination at about
the same time that Pontiac’s ambassadors were entering New Orleans, to hold their council with the French.
A few days later, an incident occurred, which afterwards, through the carousals of many a winter evening, supplied an absorbing topic of anecdote and boast to the braggadocio heroes of the border. A train of pack-horses, bearing the gifts which Croghan was to bestow upon the Indians, followed him towards Fort Pitt, a few days’ journey in the rear of his party. Under the same escort came several companies of traders, who, believing that the long suspended commerce with the Indians was about to be reopened, were hastening to Fort Pitt with a great quantity of goods, eager to throw them into the market the moment the prohibition should be removed. There is reason to believe that Croghan had an interest in these goods, and that, under pretence of giving presents, he meant to open a clandestine trade.[475] The Paxton men, and their kindred spirits of the border, saw the proceeding with sinister eyes. In their view, the traders were about to make a barter of the blood of the people; to place in the hands of murdering savages the means of renewing the devastation to which the reeking frontier bore frightful witness. Once possessed with this idea, they troubled themselves with no more inquiries; and, having tried remonstrances in vain, they adopted a summary mode of doing themselves justice. At the head of the enterprise was a man whose name had been connected with more praiseworthy exploits, James Smith, already mentioned as leading a party of independent riflemen, for the defence of the borders, during the bloody autumn of 1763. He now mustered his old associates, made them resume their Indian disguise, and led them to their work with characteristic energy and address.
The government agents and traders were in the act of passing the verge of the frontiers. Their united trains amounted to seventy pack-horses, carrying goods to the value of more than four thousand pounds; while others, to the