88 The Winning of the West 



in after life recorded their memories of the Indian 

 wars, tell with interminable repetition stories, grew- 

 some in their blood-thirstiness, and as monotonous 

 in theme as they are varied in detail : how such 

 and such a settler was captured by two Indians, and, 

 watching his chance, fell on his captors when they 

 sat down to dinner and slew them "with a squaw- 

 axe"; how another man was treacherously attacked 

 by two Indians who had pretended to be peaceful 

 traders, and how, though wounded, he killed them 

 both; how two or three cabins were surprised by 

 the savages and all the inhabitants slain; or how 

 a flotilla of flatboats was taken and destroyed while 

 moored to the bank of the Ohio; and so on without 

 end. 19 



The United States authorities vainly sought 

 peace ; while the British instigated the tribes to war, 

 and the savages themselves never thought of ceas- 

 ing their hostilities. The frontiersmen also wished 

 war, and regarded the British and Indians with an 

 equal hatred. They knew that the presence of the 

 British in the Lake Posts meant Indian war; they 

 knew that the Indians would war on them, whether 

 they behaved well or ill, until the tribes suffered 

 some signal overthrow; and they coveted the In- 

 dian lands with a desire as simple as it was brutal. 

 Nor were land hunger and revenge the only motives 

 that stirred them to aggression ; meaner feelings 



19 Draper MSS., Major McCully to Captain Biddle, Pitts- 

 burg, May 5, 1792; B. Netherland to Evan Shelby, July 5, 

 1793, etc., etc. Also Kentucky "Gazette," Sept. i, 1792; 

 Charleston "Gazette," July 22, 1791, etc. 



