[FN-2] Thatcher's Ind. Biography. It is due in candour to state, that the authenticity of this celebrated speech has been questioned. On the first publication of Jefferson's Notes, the relatives and friends of Cresap made a great outcry against the charge of his having murdered Logan's family. Among other arguments in his defence, it was contended that the speech attributed to Logan had, in substance and almost in words, been delivered to the General Assembly of Virginia by a sachem named Lonan, twenty years before the date assigned to it by Mr. Jefferson. The speech referred to was discovered in the travels of Robin, a Frenchman, who visited the Colonies at an early period of the war of the Revolution. The passage stands thus in the English translation of "Robin's New Travels in America:"—
"Speech of the savage Lonan, in a General Assembly, as it was sent to the Governor of Virginia, anno 1754:—
"Lonan will no longer oppose making the proposed peace with the white men. You are sensible he never knew what fear is—that he never turned his back in the day of battle. No one has more love for the white men than I have. The war we have had with them has been long and bloody on both sides. Rivers of blood have run on all parts, and yet no good has resulted therefrom to any. I once more repeat it—let us be at peace with these men. I will forget our injuries; the interest of my country demands it. I will forget—but difficult, indeed, is the task! Yes, I will forget that Major —— cruelly and inhumanly murdered, in their canoes, my wife, my children, my father, my mother, and all my kindred. This roused me to deeds of vengeance! I was cruel in despite of myself. I will die content if my country is once more at peace, But when Lonan shall be no more, who, alas! will drop a tear to the memory of Lonan?"
If the date to this speech be the true one, there is an end to the claim of Logan. But the resemblance in many manuscripts, between the figures 4 and 7, is so close as to induce a belief, (Dr. Barton's Journal of 1808 to the contrary notwithstanding) that the error may have been made by the English translator. This opinion is strengthened by the similarity between the name given by Robin,—Lonan—and Logan. The difference consists in a single letter, and might well have been the error of the Frenchman, when writing the identical story of Logan. In the course of his investigations, Mr. Jefferson was furnished with a note, written by Logan, and sent to a white settlement, attached to a war-club, by the hand of an Indian runner, Heckewelder also says the speech was authenticated by Col. Gibson, and adds:—"For my part I am convinced that it was delivered precisely as it was related to us, with this only difference, that it possessed a force and expression in the Indian language, which it is impossible to translate info our own,"
Lord Dunmore, it is believed, was sincerely desirous of peace—from motives of humanity, we are ready to believe, although writers of less charity have attributed his course to a more unworthy feeling. Peace, therefore, was the result of the council. But it will readily be conceded that the Indian warriors could not have retired to their respective tribes and homes, with any feelings of particular friendship toward the white men. On the contrary, the pain of defeat, and the loss of the warriors who fell, were causes of irritating reflection, in addition to the original and grievous wrong they had suffered at the hands of Cresap and Greathouse. The Six Nations, as a confederacy, had not taken part in the war of the Virginia border; but many of their warriors were engaged in it, especially the Cayugas, to which nation Logan belonged, and the warriors of the Six Nations colonized on the banks of the Susquehanna and its tributary the Shamokin. These, it may be reasonably inferred, returned from the contest only to brood longer over their accumulated wrongs, and in a temper not over-inclined to cultivate the most amicable relations with the Colonies. In one word, the temper of the whole Indian race, with the exception of the Oneidas, was soured by these occurrences of the year 1774;—a most unfortunate circumstance, since events were then following in rapid succession, which within a twelvemonth rendered the friendship of the nations not only desirable, but an object of vast importance.
But before the direct narrative leading to those events is resumed, it may be well to end the melancholy tale of Logan, "which can be dismissed with no relief to its gloomy colours." After the peace of Chilicothe he sank into a state of deep mental depression, declaring that life was a torment to him. He became in some measure delirious;[FN-1] went to Detroit, and there yielded himself to habits of intoxication. In the end he became a victim to the same ferocious cruelty which had already rendered him a desolate man. Not long after the treaty, a party of whites murdered him as he was returning from Detroit to his own country.[FN-2]
[FN-1] Allen's Biog. Dic.
[FN-2] Thatcher.