"And if we should be accused of neglecting the means of preventing unnecessary cruelty," observed Colonel D'Egville, "the people of the United States will do us infinite wrong. This very circumstance has been foreseen and provided against. Without the power to prevent the Indians from entering upon these expeditions, we have at least done all that experience and a thorough knowledge of their character admits, to restrain their vengeance, by the promise of head money. It has been made generally known to them that every prisoner that is brought in and delivered up shall entitle the captor to a certain sum. This promise, I have no doubt, will have the effect, not only of saving the lives of those who are attacked in their settlements, but also of checking any disposition to unnecessary outrage in the hour of conflict."
"The idea is one certainly reflecting credit on the humanity of the British authorities," returned Major Montgomerie; "but I confess I doubt its efficacy. We all know the nature of an Indian too well to hope that in the career of his vengeance, or the full flush of victory, he will waive his war trophy in consideration of a few dollars. The scalp he may bring, but seldom a living head with it."
"It is, I fear, the horrid estimation in which the scalp is held, that too frequently whets the blades of these people," observed the Commodore. "Were it not considered a trophy, more lives would be spared; but an Indian, from all I can understand, takes greater pride in exhibiting the scalp of a slain enemy, than a knight of ancient times did in displaying in his helmet the glove that had been bestowed on him as a mark of favor by his lady-love."
"After all," said the General, "necessary as it is to discourage it by every possible mark of disapprobation, I do not see, in the mere act of scalping, half the horrors usually attached to the practice. The motive must be considered. It is not the mere desire to inflict wanton torture that influences the warrior but an anxiety to possess himself of that which gives undisputed evidence of his courage and success in war. The prejudice of Europeans is strong against the custom, however, and we look upon it in a light very different, I am sure from that in which it is viewed by the Indians themselves. The burnings of prisoners, which were practised many years ago, no longer continue; and the infliction of the torture has passed away, so that, after all, Indian cruelty does not exceed that which is practised even at this day in Europe, and by a nation bearing high rank among the Catholic powers of Europe. I have numerous letters, recently received from officers of my acquaintance now serving in Spain, all of which agree in stating that the mutilations perpetrated by the Guerilla bands, on the bodies of such of the unfortunate French detachments as they succeeded in overpowering, far exceeded anything imputed to the Indians of America; and, as several of these letters are from individuals who joined the Peninsular Army from this country, in which they had passed many years, the statement may be relied on as coming from men who have had more than hearsay knowledge of both parties."
Here a tall, fine-looking black, wearing the livery of Colonel D'Egville, entering to announce that coffee was waiting for them in an adjoining room—the party rose and retired to the ladies.
[CHAPTER VII.]
Many of our readers will doubtless bear in mind the spot called Elliott's Point, at the western extremity of Lake Erie, to which we have already introduced them. At a considerable distance beyond that again (its intermediate shores washed by the silver waves of the Erie) stretches a second, called also, from the name of its proprietor, Hartley's Point. Between these two necks are three or four farms; one of which, and adjoining Hartley's, was, at the period of which we treat, occupied by an individual of whom, unfortunately for the interests of Canada, too many of the species had been suffered to take root within her soil.
This person had his residence near Hartley's Point. Unlike those however whose dwellings rose at a distance, few and far between, hemmed in by the fruits of prosperous agriculture, he appeared to have paid but little attention to the cultivation of a soil, which in every part was of exceeding fertility. A rude log hut, situated in a clearing of the forest, the imperfect work of lazy labor, was his only habitation, and here he had for years resided without its being known how he contrived to procure the necessary means of subsistence; yet, in defiance of the apparent absence of all resources, it was subject of general remark, that he not only never wanted money, but had been enabled to bestow something like an education on a son, who had, at the epoch opened by our narrative, been absent from him upwards of five years. From his frequent voyages, and the direction his canoe was seen to take, it was inferred by his immediate neighbors, that he dealt in contraband, procuring various articles on the American coast, which he subsequently disposed of in the small town of Amherstburg (one of the principal English posts) among certain subjects domiciliated there, who were suspected of no very scrupulous desire to benefit the revenue of the country. So well and so wisely however, did he cover his operations, that he had always contrived to elude detection—and, although suspicion attached to his conduct, in no instance had he openly committed himself. The man himself, tall, stout, and of a forbidding look, was of a fearless and resolute character, and if he resorted to cunning, it was because cunning alone could serve his purposes in a country, the laws of which were not openly to be defied.
For a series of years after his arrival, he had contrived to evade taking the customary oaths of allegiance; but this, eventually awakening the suspicions of the magistracy, brought him more immediately under their surveillance, when year after year, he was compelled to a renewal of the oath, for the imposition of which, it was thought, he owed more than one of those magistrates a grudge. On the breaking out of the war, he still remained in undisturbed possession of his rude dwelling, watched as well as circumstances would permit, it is true, but not so narrowly as to be traced in his various nocturnal excursions by water. Nothing could be conceived more uncouth in manner and appearance than this man—nothing more villanous than the expression of his eye. No one knew from what particular point of the United States he had come, and whether Yankee or Kentuckian, it would have puzzled one of that race of beings, so proverbial fer acumen—a Philadelphia lawyer—to have determined.