A friend of the author, a highly respectable and intelligent octogenarian, Samuel Woodruff, Esq., of Windsor, Connecticut, made a visit to Brant at the Grand River Settlement, in the summer of 1797, and remained with him several days, in the enjoyment of frequent and full conversations upon many subjects. Mr. Woodruff has obligingly furnished a dozen pages or more of instructive notes and memoranda of those conversations, which have been freely used. The author is likewise under obligations to Professor Marsh of Burlington College, (Vt.) a connexion, by marriage, of the Wheelock family, for several of Brant's original letters; and also to Thomas Morris, Esq., of New-York, who knew the chief well, and was several years in correspondence with him, for the same favour. Mr. Campbell has, moreover, supplied several documents of value, obtained by him after the publication of his own book.
Having, by the acquisition of these and other papers, procured all the materials that appeared to remain, or, at least, all that were accessible, while the documentary papers for the first division of the work were yet very incomplete, the author, like Botta, in his promised complete history of Italy, has been compelled to write the latter portion of the work first. In the execution of this task, he had supposed that the bulk of his labour would cease with the close of the war of the Revolution, or at most, that some fifteen or twenty pages, sketching rapidly the latter years of the life of Thayendanegea, would be all that was necessary. Far otherwise was the fact. When the author came to examine the papers of Brant, nearly all of which were connected with his career subsequent to that contest, it was found that his life and actions had been intimately associated with the Indian and Canadian politics of more than twenty years after the treaty of peace; that a succession of Indian Congresses were held by the nations of the great lakes, in all which he was one of the master spirits; that he was directly or indirectly engaged in the wars between the United States and Indians from 1789 to 1795, during which the bloody campaigns of Harmar, St. Clair, and Wayne, took place; and that he acted an important part in the affair of the North-Western posts, so long retained by Great Britain after the treaty of peace. This discovery compelled the writer to enter upon a new and altogether unexpected field of research. Many difficulties were encountered in the composition of this branch of the work, arising from various causes and circumstances. The conflicting relations of the United States, the Indians, and the Canadians, together with the peculiar and sometimes apparently equivocal position in which the Mohawk chief—the subject of the biography—stood in regard to them all; the more than diplomatic caution with which the British officers managed the double game which it suited their policy to play so long; the broken character of the written materials obtained by the author; and the necessity of supplying many links in the chain of events from circumstantial evidence and the unwritten records of Indian diplomacy; all combined to render the matters to be elucidated, exceedingly complicated, intricate, and difficult of clear explanation. But tangled as was the web, the author has endeavoured to unravel he materials, and weave them into a narrative of consistency and truth. The result of these labours is embodied in the second part of the present work; and unless the author has over-estimated both the interest and the importance of this portion of American history, the contribution now made will be most acceptable to the reader.
In addition to the matters here indicated, a pretty full account of the life of Brant, after the close of the Indian wars, is given, by no means barren either of incident or anecdote; and the whole is concluded by some interesting particulars respecting the family of the chief, giving their personal history down to the present day.
It may possibly be objected by some—those especially who are apt to form opinions without much reflection—that the author has indulged rather liberally, not only in the use of public speeches and documents, but also in the transcription of private letters. To this he would reply, that in his view, his course in that respect adds essentially to the value of the work; and had it not been for the unexpected size to which the volumes have attained, those quotations would have been made with still greater freedom. For instance, in regard to the interesting proceedings at the last Grand Council of the Six Nations held in Albany, it was the original intention of the author, long as they are, to insert them in the text; and so the matter was at first arranged. The ancient Council Fire of the Six Nations was always kept burning at Onondaga, the central nation of the confederacy. But from the time of the alliance between the Six Nations and the English, the fires of the united councils of the two powers were kindled at Albany. There, according to the Indian figure of speech, the big tree was planted, to which the chain of friendship was made fast. But with the close of the Great Council held there in the summer of 1775, that fire, which had so long been burning, was extinguished. It was the last Indian congress ever held at the ancient Dutch capital. It took place at a most important crisis, and its proceedings were both of an important and an interesting character. Nor, until now, have those proceedings ever been published entire. Indeed, it is believed that no part of them was ever in print, until very recently a portion of the manuscript was discovered, and inserted in that invaluable collection, the papers of the Massachusetts Historical Society. That manuscript, however, was very defective and incomplete, and chance alone has enabled the author to supply the deficiency. It happened, during one of his visits to the office of the Secretary of State last year, in search of documents, that he discovered, among some ancient, loose, and neglected papers, several sheets of Indian treaty proceedings, which were of themselves very imperfect. Supposing, however, that they might possibly be of use at some time, he caused them to be transcribed. Most luckily, on examining them in connexion with the publication of the Massachusetts collection, they were found exactly to supply the deficiencies of the latter. The result is, that the papers appear now for the first time entire; a portion of them, however, from their great length, having been transferred to the Appendix.
In regard to the use of speeches and letters, moreover, the author, after much consideration, has adopted the plan, as far as possible, of allowing the actors in the scenes described to tell their own stories. This is a method of historical, and especially of biographical, writing, which is coming more into favour than formerly. Marshall adopts it to a considerable extent, and very effectively, in the Life of Washington. The instructive and admirable life of that noblest of England's naval warriors, Lord Collingwood, was constructed upon this plan. So, also, with Moore's Life of Byron. Taylor's Life of Cowper, one of the most useful as well as interesting lives that have been written of that most melancholy and yet most delightful of English bards, is composed almost entirely from the poet's own correspondence. Lockhart's captivating Memoirs of the peerless Scott, now in course of publication, have been constructed upon the basis of the mighty minstrel's own letters. And it is upon the same principle that the author has quoted so largely from the letters and speeches of Joseph Brant, and several of his distinguished correspondents; among whom, the reader who has only heard of "the monster Brant" as a savage once leading the Mohawks abroad upon scalping parties, will probably be surprised to learn, were numbered many gentlemen of rank and standing in Church and State, both in England and America.
An able English writer [FN] has recently opened a very interesting discussion, upon the great advantages of thus using letters and manuscripts in the composition of history. Speaking of the maxim that "history is philosophy teaching by example," he remarks:—"In morals, all depends upon circumstances. An example, whether real or fictitious, can teach us nothing, if it contains only dry facts. The mischief of a great many histories, and those of no mean account, is, that they are quite contented with giving an agreeable narration of naked facts, from which we can gather nothing beyond the facts themselves. To the chronicler, the murder of Thomas A' Becket is the murder of Becket, and it is nothing more. To what quarter, then, are we to look for the magic by which we may make the dry bones live again? We answer, unhesitatingly, to the letters of the day, if there be any. We say so, not because they will contain any elaborate description of the feelings, or expose' of the views, of the age to which they belong, but because they must be written, to a great extent, in the spirit of the age in which their writers lived. The events of the day—the writers' feelings toward their neighbours, and their neighbours' feelings toward them—their comments on the ordinary course of things around them; these are precious records for all who wish to study mankind and morals in history; for these things, and these alone, can enable us fully to appreciate the temper and spirit in which the acts commemorated in history were done. . . . It is very true that some historians profess to use letters, and that some have actually used them in a small degree; but, considering their great value, they have never been used as they deserved; and, in very many cases, their existence seems to be hardly known to historians themselves." It is in accordance with these views, that letters and speeches have been so copiously used in the present work; although it is not supposed that the correspondence of a burly chieftain of the forest, or the bluff partisan officers of a wilderness border, can in any respect be compared with Cowper's polished models of epistolary writing, or with those of Scott or Byron, or those of Lady Mary Wortley Montague, of Peter of Blois or John of Salisbury. They are nevertheless valuable in themselves, both as historical records and as illustrations of character. Of the speeches, and sketches of speeches, embodied in this work, together with the narratives given of the occasions which called them forth, it may be added that they are all memorials of a people,—once a noble race—numerous and powerful—now fast disappearing from the face of the earth—a beautiful portion of the earth—once their own! These memorials it was one of the chief purposes of the author to gather up and preserve.
[FN] London Quarterly Review, No. cxvi.—Art. on Upcott's Collection of Original Letters, Manuscripts, and State Papers.
The plan of the work, especially of the first and larger portion of it, may perhaps in some respects disappoint the reader, though, it is hoped, not unfavourably. It has been the object of the author to render it not only a local, but, to a certain extent, a brief general history of the War of the Revolution. Thus, while it is a particular history, ample in its details, of the belligerent events occurring at the west of Albany, the author has from time to time introduced brief sketches of contemporaneous events occurring in other parts of the country. By this means, bird's-eye glimpses have been presented, for the most part in the proper order of time, of all the principal military operations of the whole contest. In order, moreover, to the better understanding of the incipient revolutionary movements in the Mohawk country, (then Tryon County,) a rapid view is given of the same description of movements elsewhere. The proceedings of that county were, of course, connected with, and dependent upon, those of New England, especially of Boston—the head, and heart, and soul of the rebellion, in its origin and its earlier stages. Hence a summary review of the measures directly, though by degrees, leading to the revolt of the Colonies, has not been deemed out of place, in its proper chronological position. And as all the Indian history of the Revolutionary war at the north, the west, and the south, has been written out in full, by the incidental sketches of other events and campaigns marking the contest, the work may be considered in the three-fold view of local, general, and biographical; the whole somewhat relieved, from time to time, if not enlivened, by individual narratives—tales of captivity and suffering—of daring adventures and bold exploits.
Several weeks after the preceding pages had been stereotyped, but before any considerable progress had been made in printing the body of the work, the author was so fortunate as to obtain a large accession of valuable materials from General Peter Gansevoort, of Albany, embracing the extensive correspondence of his father, the late General Gansevoort, better known in history as "the hero of Fort Stanwix." These papers, embracing those captured by him from the British General St. Leger, have been found of great importance in the progress of the work, and will add materially to its completeness and its value.