In the Current of the Revolution 81 



drink, 30 and that now he had ended his talk to them, 

 and he wished them to speedily depart. 



Not only the prisoners, but all the other chiefs in 

 turn forthwith rose, and in language of dignified 

 submission protested their regret at having been led 

 astray by the British, and their determination thence- 

 forth to be friendly with the Americans. 



In response Clark again told them that he came 

 not as a counselor but as a warrior, not begging 

 for a truce but carrying in his right hand peace and 

 in his left hand war ; save only that to a few of their 

 worst men he intended to grant no terms whatever. 

 To those who were friendly he, too, would be a 

 friend, but if they chose war, he would call from the 

 Thirteen Council Fires 31 warriors so numerous that 



30 " Provisions and Rum. " Letter to Mason. This is much 

 the best authority for these proceedings. The "Memoir," 

 written by an old man who had squandered his energies and 

 sunk into deserved obscurity, is tedious and magniloquent, 

 and sometimes inaccurate. Moreover, Dillon has not always 

 chosen the extracts judiciously. Clark's decidedly prolix 

 speeches to the Indians are given with intolerable repetition. 

 They were well suited to the savages, drawing the causes of 

 the quarrel between the British and Americans in phrases 

 that could be understood by the Indian mind ; but their in- 

 flated hyperbole is not now interesting. They describe the 

 Americans as lighting a great council-fire, sharpening toma- 

 hawks, striking the war-post, declining to give "two bucks 

 for a blanket," as the British wanted them to, etc.; with 

 incessant allusions to the Great Spirit being angry, the roads 

 being made smooth, refusing to listen to the bad birds who 

 flew through the woods, and the like. Occasional passages 

 are fine ; but it all belongs to the study of Indians and Indian 

 oratory, rather than to the history of the Americans. 



81 In his speeches, as in those of his successors in treaty- 



