[FN] Judge Benson was only one of the Commissioners; but it is probably true that the business was confided entirely to him. In the original account of the treaty with the Caughnawagas, of May, 1796, containing the speeches written out in full on both sides, found by the author among Brant's papers, Judge Benson's signature stands alone at the close of the whole.

"I intend, for my own satisfaction, to have the whole affair, from the beginning to ending, published in the newspapers.

"Dr. Sir, I am your most humble and Obd't. Serv't Jos. Brant.

"Thomas Morris, Esq'r."

In July of the same year, Brant proceeded to the Caughnawaga country in person, accompanied by a body of Chiefs of several of the tribes, for the purpose of a thorough investigation in General Council. Such a council was convened; and the difficulties, from the reports of the speeches preserved in writing by Captain Brant, were fully discussed—and that, too, in the most amicable manner. From several intimations in these speeches, it appears that the whole difficulty had been caused "by chattering birds," and by the machinations against Captain Brant, of the old Oneida Sachem, Colonel Louis. The Council-fire was Kindled on the 8th of July. On the 9th Captain Brant was satisfied by the explanations given, and remarked "that he had pulled up a pine, and planted down beneath it the small bird that tells stories;" on the 10th, the Caughnawaga Chief replied—"Brother, we return you thanks; we also join with you to put the chattering-bird under ground from where the pine was taken up, there being a swift stream into which it will fall beneath, that will take it to the Big Sea, from whence it never can return."

The result of the Council seems to have been satisfactory on all hands. Indeed, as Brant himself wrote to a correspondent "in the States," [FN] a short time afterward, he was rather surprised that he had so little to encounter at their meeting:—"We expected they would have had a great deal to say to us; but instead of that, they said they had never accused us of themselves—that it was only from what the people of New-York said that they had inquired about the matter; and that now they hoped we would be so good as to agree to bury the whole affair under ground." To Sir John Johnson he subsequently wrote in the following terms:—"Without doubt, long before this you have received an authentic account of our business with the Caughnawagas, which has convinced you and the world of our innocence. You know that I was supposed to be a leader in that business, and how often I have been falsely accused. But upon investigation my rectitude has ever been sufficiently proved. This groundless accusation of theirs created a great expense to government as well as us, and I should expect that, after being convinced of their error, some acknowledgment should be made for the great trouble they have put us to."

[FN] The name of this correspondent it not given in the original draught of the letter preserved among Brant's papers.

But the Caughnawaga difficulties were no sooner at an end, than it was his lot to encounter others yet more nearly touching his pecuniary integrity, which annoyed him not a little. There were active spirits about him, official and unofficial, who, for reasons of their own, looked with no favorable eye upon the mission of Teyoninhokáráwen. So strongly indeed were these men opposed to the claims of the Indians, that they were led to the adoption of very unjustifiable means, not only to circumvent the negotiations of Norton, but to prostrate the power and influence of the old Chief himself. To this end, domestic dissensions were fomented, even among his own kindred, the Mohawks. The Chief was again accused of peculations; and although the grant of the Grand River territory had been notoriously made for the exclusive benefit of the Mohawk nation, yet the Senecas, and others of the Iroquois Nations, not residing in Canada, were stirred up to claim a voice in the disposition of those lands, and in the domestic relations of that nation, by virtue of their confederate league, which had never before been construed as clothing them with any such rights or powers. In furtherance of the design of prostrating Brant and thwarting the efforts of Norton in England, a Council of the Six Nations was held at Buffalo Creek, under the direction of the Seneca Chiefs, Red Jacket and the Farmer's Brother; at which all the proceedings of Brant and Norton were formally disavowed, and Brant himself deposed from the chieftainship of the Confederacy, at the head of which he had stood for more than a quarter of a century. His associate Mohawk Sachems were likewise removed, and others, taken, as Jeroboam selected his priests, from the lowest of the people, appointed in their stead. None of the Mohawk Chiefs were present at this Council, but only a few of the discontents, and of the more worthless members of the nation, who had been wrought upon by the white opponents of the principal Chief. The whole movement was illegal, according to the ancient usages of the Confederacy, in other respects. The Council was not convened at the National Council-fire, which had years before been regularly removed from Buffalo Creek to the Onondaga Village on the Grand River. Nor, aside from the fact that the Senecas, and others residing within the United States, had no right to a voice in regard to the domestic affairs or the lands of the Mohawks, was the General Confederacy properly or legally represented. Red Jacket, however, was both a ready and a willing instrument in the hands of Brant's opponents. In all the councils in which it had been the fortune of the two Chiefs to meet for the transaction of business, there had been little of cordiality between them, and much less of friendship. Yau-go-ya-wat-haw, or Red Jacket, was not a chief by birth, but had made himself such by his cunning. He was artful, eloquent, and ambitious. Aspiring to the rank of a chief, he availed himself of the superstitious dispositions of his people to attain his object. His first essay was, to dream that he was, or should be, a Chief, and that the Great Spirit was angry because his nation did not advance him to that dignity. These dreams, with the necessary variations, were repeated, until, fortunately for him, the small-pox broke out among the Senecas. He then proclaimed the loathsome infliction as a judgment of the Great Spirit, because of the ingratitude of the nation to him. The consequence, ultimately, was, that by administering flattery to some, and working upon the superstitious fears of others, he reached the goal of his ambition. Brant, however, had always, on all suitable occasions, pronounced him a coward—the greatest coward of his race. He used to say that Red Jacket was always valiant for fight with his tongue; but that, although by his eloquence he persuaded many warriors to fight, he was ever careful not to get into personal danger himself. He also asserted as a fact, that having sent others upon the war-path, he would turn to, and steal and kill their cows for his own use. [FN-1] Smarting under the contemptuous treatment of the Mohawk Chief, therefore, the eloquent demagogue of the Senecas was not backward in compassing, as he hoped, the overthrow of his enemy, if not his rival. Hence, for years antecedent to the council called clandestinely for the deposition of Brant, Red Jacket had labored, with all art and diligence, to create jealousies and distrust against him. [FN-2]