The Chief returned by the same route, lingering a few days in New-York, where he was visited by some of the most distinguished gentlemen in the city. It has been mentioned, a few pages back, that Brant was apprehensive of some attempt upon his life in the Mohawk Valley. Indeed, he had been informed that it would be unsafe for him to traverse that section of country, lest some real or fancied wrong, connected with the war of the Revolution, should be avenged by assassination. Nor were these apprehensions groundless; for while resting in New-York, he ascertained that he had not only been pursued from the German Flats, but that the pursuer was then in the city watching for an opportunity to effect his purpose. The name of this pursuer was Dygert. Several members of his father's family had fallen in the battle of Oriskany, fifteen years before, and this man had deliberately determined to put the leader of the Indian warriors to death in revenge. Brant's lodgings were in Broadway, [FN-1] where he was visited, among others, by Colonel Willett and Colonel Morgan Lewis, both of whom he had met in the field of battle in years gone by. While in conversation with these gentlemen, he mentioned the circumstance of Dygert's pursuit, and expressed some apprehensions at the result, should he be attacked unawares. Before his remarks were concluded, glancing his quick eye to the window, he exclaimed, "there is Dygert now!" True enough, the fellow was then standing in the street, watching the motions of his intended victim. Colonel Willett immediately descended into the street, and entered into a conversation with Dygert, charging his real business upon him, which he did not deny. "Do you know," asked Willett, "that if you kill that savage, you will be hanged?" "Who," replied the ignorant German, "would hang me for killing an Indian?" "You will see," rejoined the Colonel; "if you execute your purpose, you a may depend upon it you will be hanged up immediately." This was presenting the case in a new aspect to Dygert, who, until that moment, seemed to suppose that he could kill an Indian with as much propriety in a time of peace as in war—in the streets of New-York as well as in legal battle in the woods. After deliberating a few moments, he replied to Colonel Willett that if such was the law, he would give it up and return home. [FN-2] He did so, and the Mohawk chief shortly afterward reached Niagara in safety.
[FN-1] The old wooden building where the City Hotel now stands.
[FN-2] These particulars have recently been communicated to the author in a conversation with the venerable Governor, then Colonel Lewis, and confirmed by a letter from Major Cochran, with whom Brant conversed on the subject. Indeed the hostility of the Mohawk-Germans toward all Indians, after the close of the war, was deep and universal. The author well remembers a pensioner living in the neighborhood of the village of Herkimer, named Hartmann, who, some years after the war, deliberately killed an Indian at the German Flats, moved only by his revolutionary thirst for vengeance. Hartmann, it is true, had been grievously hacked and wounded by the Indians, so that he was disabled from labor for life. He was a very ignorant man, and thought it no harm to kill an Indian at any time. Happening one day, in after years, to fall in with a son of the forest, he persuaded the savage to let him examine his rifle. The moment he obtained the weapon, he dropped slowly behind, and shot his confiding companion. He was arrested and carried to Johnstown for trial, but the investigation was so managed as to produce an acquittal. The excuse of Hartmann for the commission of the deed, was, that he saw the Indian's tobacco-pouch, which was, as he said, made of the skin of a child's hand. It was, probably, a leather glove which the Indian had found.
Independently of the proposed mediation of Captain Brant, the Government of the United States, in its great solicitude to prevent the effusion of blood, had employed a large number of messengers of peace, among whom, in addition to the fifty chiefs of the Six Nations already mentioned, were the Rev. Mr. Heckewelder, General Rufus Putnam, Colonel Hardin, Major Trueman, and a man named Freeman. The celebrated Hendrick, chief of the Stockbridge Indians, was also employed upon the same service. It is possible that Captain Brant was not well pleased at the appointment of so large a number of pacificators—very naturally preferring the honor of being the sole agent of terminating the war. It would have been no inconsiderable subject of boasting, to be enabled to say "Alone I did it!" Hence, we may reasonably infer, the tone of the annexed letter, addressed to the Secretary of War by Captain Brant on his arrival at Niagara—a fitting occasion for writing it having been furnished by the murder of Major Trueman. [FN]
[FN] Three of the messengers of peace above mentioned, Messrs. Trueman, Freeman, and Hardin, were murdered by the Indians during that season. Formerly no nations on earth were wont to respect the sacred character of "the man of peace" more than the Indians. But they had now become treacherous even to them. They pleaded, however, the example of the whites, who, they alleged, paid no attention to treaties with the Indians, but treated them as a contemptible race, and had killed several of their own messengers of peace, some of whom were chiefs.—Vide Heckewelder's History of Indian Nations, chapter xxi. President Washington, who was then at Mount Vernon, announced the death of Hardin and Trueman, together with "the harbingers of their mission," in a letter to Mr. Jefferson, Secretary of State, on the 23d of August. Everything then looked hostile at the west; added to which were rising difficulties with the Cherokees, occasioned, as was supposed, by the intrigues of Spain. "If Spain is really intriguing with the Southern Indians," said the President, "I shall entertain strong suspicions that there is a very clear understanding in all this business between the Courts of London and Madrid; and that it is calculated to check, as far as they can, the rapid increase, extension, and consequence of this country; for there cannot be a doubt of the wishes of the former, if we may judge from the conduct of its officers, to preclude any eclaircissement of ours with the Western Indians, and to embarrass our negotiations with them, any more than there is of their traders and some others, who are subject to their government, aiding and abetting them in acts of hostility."—Letter of Washington to Jefferson, August 23d, 1792.
"Captain Brant to the Secretary of War.
"Niagara, 26th July, 1792.
"Sir,