288 Peter Penet among the Oneida Indians. 



from the Great King, and you must behave yourselves as a 

 people, and for that reason, the westward and all other 

 nations of Indians may come and confederate with you and 

 with us. I come not to defraud you about your lands, 

 (as your brothers the Americans have done already to you 

 these many times), but I am come here to do you good, and 

 make you sensible of what you have already done to your- 

 selves. But if you dont mind what I say to you, your 

 brothers the Americans will take all your lands away in 

 a few days : but if you will obey me you'll nourish and be 

 the happiest people in America.' 



u Brother : But now Mr. Penet informs us this spring, 

 that he was sent by the ambassador, who now resides in 

 New York, on that business. Mr. Penet, at the same time, 

 begs of us a piece of land by dream, which was granted, 

 ten miles square north of the Oneida lake, though some 

 of us remember his several speeches, and try to stop our 

 lands, but could not prevail. 



"Brother : "We therefore beg your Excellency to enquire, 

 that whether this Penet is authorized by the king of 

 France or no, to do public business to the Indians or to 

 the Oneidas only. But if these important affairs are un- 

 known to you, you will be pleased to make enquiry of the 

 ambassador, whether these things are so or not, and if he 

 is appointed by the king, and by the marquis, and then 

 what made him delay coming to us and is unknown to us, 

 and this is what made us to distrust him ; and as for the 

 agreement made between us and you, we, the chief war- 

 riors, are firmly united to all our transactions, and we are 

 sensible and very well know, that there is one authorized 

 from the king of France to act and transact with the 

 United States — that is the ambassador, and that there is 

 no other ambassador besides him that we know of. And 

 another thing we would let you know, that there is a 

 French priest 1 arrived in this place, and told us he was 



1 Father Perrot. He had gone before 1798. 



