1763, May.] THE INDIAN AND EUROPEAN. 229 



might well seem alien to a mind like his. Yet 

 Pontiac was a thorough savage, and in him stand 

 forth, in sti'ongest light and shadow, the native 

 faults and virtues of the Indian race. All children, 

 says Sii' Walter Scott, are naturally liars ; and 

 truth and honor are developments of later educa- 

 tion. Barbarism is to civilization what childhood 

 is to maturity ; and all savages, whatever may be 

 their country, their color, or their lineage, are 

 prone to treachery and deceit. The barbarous 

 ancestors of our own frank and manly race are no 

 less obnoxious to the charge than those of the cat- 

 like Bengalee ; for in this childhood of society 

 brave men and cowards are treacherous alike. 



The Indian differs widely from the European in 

 his notion of military virtue. In his view, artifice 

 is wisdom ; and he honors the skill that can circum- 

 vent, no less than the valor that can subdue, an 

 adversary. The object of war, he argues, is to 

 destroy the enemy. To accomplish this end, all 

 means are honorable ; and it is folly, not bravery, 

 to incur a needless risk. Had Pontiac ordered his 

 followers to storm the palisades of Detroit, not one 

 of them would have obeyed him. They might, 

 indeed, after their strange superstition, have rever- 

 enced him as a madman ; but, from that hour, his 

 fame as a war-chief would have sunk forever. 



Balked in his treachery, the great chief with- 

 drew to his village, enraged and mortified, yet still 

 resolved to persevere. That Gladwyn had sufi'ered 

 him to escape, was to his mind an ample proof 

 either of cowardice or ignorance. The latter sup- 



