1763, April.] SPEECH OF PONTIAC. 203 



sioned voice ; and at every pause, deep, guttural 

 ejaculations of assent and approval responded to 

 his words. He inveighed against the arrogance, 

 rapacity, and injustice, of the English, and con- 

 trasted them with the French, whom they had 

 driven from the soil. He declared that the British 

 commandant had treated him with neglect and 

 contempt ; that the soldiers of the garrison had 

 abused the Indians ; and that one of them had 

 struck a follower of his own. He represented the 

 danger that would arise from the supremacy of 

 the English. They had expelled the French, and 

 now they only waited for a pretext to turn upon 

 the Indians and destroy them. Then, holding out 

 a broad belt of wampum, he told the council that 

 he had received it from their great father the King 

 of France, in token that he had heard the voice of 

 his red children ; that his sleep was at an end ; 

 and that his great war canoes would soon sail up 

 the St. Lawrence, to win back Canada, and wreak 

 vengeance on his enemies. The Indians and their 

 French brethren would fight once more side by 

 side, as they had always fought ; they would 

 strike the English as they had struck them many 

 moons ago, when their great army marched down 

 the Monongahela, and they had shot them from 

 their ambush, like a flock of pigeons in the 

 woods. 



Having roused in his warlike listeners their 

 native thirst for blood and vengeance, he next 

 addressed himself to their superstition, and told 

 the following tale. Its precise origin is not easy 



