“Bah! For a purely military reason. The future of this country is trade. England’s greatness is built up on trade.” His trick of jumping his voice on that word “trade” was very offensive to the ears.
“Pennsylvania has the right idea. Pennsylvania is prosperous. Pennsylvania doesn’t go round chopping down bee-trees and then killing the bees to get the honey. What good is this land over here if you can’t get fur from it? Settlers chop down the timber, burn it, raise measly patches of corn, live half-starved, die. That’s all.”
His crazy tirade nettled me. It was obvious I could not keep in his good books, even with Patricia as the incentive, without losing my self-respect. I told him:
“This country can never develop without settled homes. We’re building rudely now, but a hundred years from now——”
“Yah!” And his disgust burst through the thick lips in a deep howl. “Who of us will be alive a hundred years from now? Were we put on earth to slave and make fortunes for fools not yet born? Did any fools work and save up so we could take life soft and easy? You make me sick!”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Dale, to hear you say that. However, the war is here——”
“The war may be here, in Virginia, among the backwoodsmen. It is also in Dunmore’s heart, but it ain’t in the hearts of the Indians,” he passionately contradicted. “The Indians only ask to be let alone, to be allowed to trade with us. Some canting hypocrites are whining for us to civilize the Indians. Why should they be civilized? Do they want to be? Ever hear of Indians making a profit out of our civilization? Did the Conestoga Indians make a profit when they tried to live like the whites near Lancaster, and the Paxton boys killed fourteen of them, men, women and children, then broke into the Lancaster jail where the others had been placed for their safety, and butchered the rest of them?
“Did the ancient Virginia Indians prosper by civilization? I reckon if the old Powhatans could return they’d have some mighty warm things to say on that score. Why shouldn’t the Indians insist we live as they do? They were here first. The only way to help the Indian is to trade with him. And when you help him that way you’re helping yourself. That’s the only point you can ever make a red man see.
“I know the Indians. I can go into their towns now, be they Cherokee, Mingo, Shawnee or Delaware, and they’ll welcome me as a brother. They know I don’t want their land. They know I’m their true friend. They want me to make a profit when I trade with them, so I’ll come again with more rum and blankets and guns, and gay cloth for their women.”
“You have the trader’s point of view, and very naturally so,” I said.