St. Clair and Wayne 125 



of Great Britain never deliberately intended to break 

 faith, and never fully realized the awful nature of 

 the Indian warfare for which they were in part re- 

 sponsible; they thought very little of the matter at 

 all in the years which saw the beginning of their 

 stupendous struggle with France. But the acts of 

 their obscure agents on the far interior frontier were 

 rendered necessary and inevitable by their policy. 

 To encourage the Indians to hold their own against 

 the Americans, and to keep back the settlers, meant 

 to encourage a war of savagery against the border 

 vanguard of white civilization ; and such a war was 

 sure to teem with fearful deeds. Moreover, where 

 the interests of the British Crown were so mani- 

 fold it was idle to expect that the Crown's advisers 

 would treat as of much weight the welfare of the 

 scarcely-known tribes whom their agents had urged 

 to enter a contest which was hopeless except for 

 British assistance. The British statesmen were en- 

 gaged in gigantic schemes of warfare and diplo- 

 macy; and to them the Indians and the frontiers- 

 men alike were pawns on a great chessboard, to be 

 sacrificed whenever' necessary. When the British 

 authorities deemed it likely that there would be war 

 with America, the tribes were- incited to take up the 

 hatchet; when there seemed a chance of peace with 

 America the deeds of the tribes were disowned; 

 and peace was finally assured by a cynical abandon- 

 ment of their red allies. In short, the British, while 

 professing peace with the Americans, treacherously 

 incited the Indians to war against them; and, when 



