1896-97-] BRANT IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 25r 



his friends to petty spite or even worse motives. " But here," Claus 

 wrote bitterly soon after : " Jealousy and envy, the monsters of all 

 discord and mischief, showed their heads, and the person who was left 

 there in 1775 by the Superintendent to assist the Commanding Officer 

 at that post in Indian matters was an officer of equal employ with Mr. 

 Brant, only of less importance as to Indian matters and acting in a 

 more servile line, this person having with flattery and cunning (being 

 bred and born in New England), insinuated himself into the favour of 

 Sir Guy Carleton and procuring himself thereon to the office upon the 

 strength of that, lavished immense sums without doing the least service 

 to Government since the beginning of the Rebellion, but allowed the 

 Rebels to establish themselves at Fort Stanwix in the midst of the Six 

 Nation country. This person then imagining to please Sir Guy in 

 slighting and disregarding Sir Wm. Howe, and the Superintendent, 

 besides, apprehensive Mr. Brant should do anything that would expose 

 his inactivity and willing backwardness, received him very cooly and 

 indifferently, although under Superintendent's immediate employ and 

 appointment, having nothing separate from Sir Guy, even denied him 

 the quantity of ammunition he demanded for opposing the Rebels that 

 were assembling again, and he was obliged to purchase what he could 

 get among traders out of his own pocket, and returned very much dis- 

 couraged from Niagara." 



Within a month, information of Brant's successful and alarming 

 activity among the Indians reached the ears of the New York Conven- 

 tion which promptly employed a Colonel Harper, in an attempt to 

 kidnap him. Harper went quietly with a few men to Oquaga on this 

 business but found that Brant was absent on his second visit to Niagara, 

 and the Indians residing there assured him that he intended to settle at 

 the Onondaga Castle on his return. 



Whatever disappointment Brant may have felt at Butler's treatment 

 of him, and it was no doubt keen, it did not affect his political senti- 

 ments or cause him to relinquish his design of bringing off the remainder 

 of his own tribe from the valley to which they have bequeathed their 

 name. With that intention he collected nearly 200 Indians early in the 

 spring of 1777 and advanced to Unadilla close to the border settlements 

 of New York. General Herkimer at once assembled an armed force of 

 four times that number to bar his further progress. Leaving half of his 

 party in reserve at Cherry Valley, Herkimer advanced into the Indian 

 territory with the remainder and demanded a meeting. Confident of 

 his strength, there seems little reason to doubt that he intended to kill 

 or capture Brant on this occasion and it is said, had specially detailed a 



