1650.] IROQUOIS CRAFT. 435 



the Huron s and the Neutrals, were probably supe- 

 rior in numbers to the Iroquois. Either one of 

 these, with union and leadership, could have held 

 its ground against them, and the two united could 

 easily have crippled them beyond the power of 

 doing mischief. But these so-called nations were 

 mere aggregations of villages and families, with 

 nothing that deserved to be called a government. 

 They were very liable to panics, because the part 

 attacked by an enemy could never rely with confi- 

 dence on prompt succor from the rest ; and when 

 once broken, they could not be rallied, because they 

 had no centre around which to gather. The Iro- 

 quois, on the other hand, had an organization with 

 which the ideas and habits of several generations 

 were interwoven, and they had also sagacious lead- 

 ers for peace and war. They discussed all ques- 

 tions of policy with the coolest deliberation, and 

 knew how to turn to profit even imperfections in 

 their plan of government which seemed to promise 

 only weakness and discord. Thus, any nation, 

 or any large town, of their confederacy, could 

 make a separate war or a separate peace with a 

 foreign nation, or any part of it. Some member 

 of the league, as, for example, the Cayugas, would 

 make a covenant of friendship with the enemy, and, 

 while the infatuated victims were thus lulled into a 

 delusive security, the war-parties of the other na- 

 tions, often joined by the Cayuga warriors, would 

 overwhelm them by a sudden onset. But it was not 

 by their craft, nor by their organization, — which 

 for military purposes was wretchedly feeble, — 



