He also met, on one of these occasions, with the late General Philip Van Courtlandt, who had served in the New-York line, and who was one of the expedition of Sullivan and Clinton to Chemung, and thence into the Seneca country. While conversing upon the subject of the battle at Newtown, Brant inquired—"General, while you were standing by a large tree during that battle, how near to your head did a bullet come, which struck a little above you?" The General paused for a moment, and replied—"about two inches above my hat." The Chief then related the circumstances. "I had remarked your activity in the battle," said he, "and calling one of my best marksmen, pointed you out, and directed him to bring you down. He fired, and I saw you dodge your head at the instant I supposed the ball would strike. But as you did not fall, I told my warrior that he had just missed you, and lodged the ball in the tree."
Another incident may be introduced in this connexion, illustrative at once of his sagacity, his strong sense of justice, and his promptness of decision and execution. Among the border settlers west of the Hudson, opposite the Manor of Livingston, was an opulent farmer named Rose. He was an Irishman; and having no child to inherit his wealth, had sent to the Emerald Isle for a nephew, whom he had adopted. In one of Brant's hostile incursions upon the settlements, during the war of the Revolution, Rose and his nephew, with others, were taken prisoners, and marched in the direction of Niagara. During the journey, Brant took Rose aside one morning, and admonished him not to move far away from himself (Brant,) but at all times on their march to keep within call. "I have reason to believe," said the Chief, "that that nephew of yours is plotting your death. He is endeavoring to bribe one of my Indians to kill you. I shall keep an eye upon them, and if I find my suspicions true, I will execute him on the spot." The caution was observed by Rose, and no long time elapsed before Brant informed him that his suspicions were well-founded. The nephew, for the purpose of an earlier possession of his confiding uncle's estate, had agreed upon the price of his murder with the savage who was to do the deed. Having full evidence of the fact, the stern purpose of the Chief was executed upon the ingrate by his own hand, and the life of the uncle was saved. [FN]
[FN] Conversations of the author with General Morgan Lewis, of whose family connexions Rose had purchased his land.
His notions on the subject of public wars were founded, however, upon those of a savage. The reader has already seen that he was perfectly aware of the detestation in which his name was held in different parts of the United States, and particularly among the inhabitants of the Mohawk and Susquehanna countries, where some of the most revolting scenes of savage, Tory, and Indian barbarity were perpetrated during the war of the Revolution, in which he bore so prominent a part; and he always seemed particularly anxious to justify, by frank and gratuitous explanations to those who received him as friends—for he was too proud to make explanations to his enemies—the course he had taken in the commencement and conduct of that war; and his plausible statements and reasonings were well calculated to lessen the horror and execration with which the public have been too prone to regard the Indian character, in consequence of their atrocities in war.
The Indians, he said, engaged in that contest reluctantly, but from necessity. At the period of its commencement, the Americans, he said, as well as they, acknowledged the authority of the British government, and were living under its protection; that none of the inducements which led the colonies to revolt had any place with them, and that they fought against the colonies to protect their women and children, and to preserve the lands which God had given to them, and of which the British authorities threatened to deprive them unless they would join in their defence; and it is apprehended that stronger or better reasons for going to war will rarely be found, even among civilized nations.
In justification of the savages' practices of Indian warfare, his course of reasoning was somewhat like the following: That the object of each party, when engaged in war, was to destroy his enemy, or to weaken and intimidate him so much as to force him into a reasonable peace. The Indians, he said, were destitute of many of the means and implements of war which the white people possessed. They could not successfully contend with them in the open field, man to man, because they had no artillery, so indispensable to, and so destructive in, a field fight. Besides, if they could, the Indians being generally inferior in numerical force to their white enemies, would soon be subdued by an equal sacrifice of man for man; that the Indians had no forts to resort to for protection after a discomfiture in the field; no battering trains to dislodge the enemy after they had retired to theirs; and no depots or jails for securing the prisoners they might capture. The simple and necessary principle, therefore, of Indian warfare, was extermination—to destroy as many of the enemy, and save as many of themselves, as practicable; and for this purpose, to resort to ambuscades, stratagems, and every species of deception, direct or indirect, to effect their object. Brant justified taking the lives of prisoners, but disapproved the practice, so common among savages, of torturing them; and he always maintained that he had himself at different times, by great efforts, saved several, not only from torture, but death. As to taking life, he thought (and with some truth,) that in this respect there was but little practical difference between the red and white men; for the death of an Indian prisoner was as certain a consequence of his capture, as that of a white man taken by the Indians. [FN]
[FN] Conversations of Brant with General Peter B. Porter.