your heads, that the sun may shine clear on your women and children, that those unborn may enjoy the blessings of the general peace, now so happily settled between your fathers, the English, and you, and all your younger brethren to the sun-setting.

"Children, by this belt I gather up all the bones of your deceased friends, and bury them deep in the ground, that the buds and sweet flowers of the earth may grow over them, that we may not see them any more.

"Children, with this belt I take the hatchet out of your hands, and pluck up a large tree, and bury it deep, so that it may never be found any more; and I plant the tree of peace, which all our children may sit under and smoke in peace with their fathers.

"Children, we have made a road from the sunrising to the sunsetting. I desire that you will preserve that road good and pleasant to travel upon, that we may all share the blessings of this happy union."

On the following day Pontiac spoke in behalf of the several nations assembled at the council:

"Father, we have all smoked out of this pipe of peace. It is your children's pipe, and as the war is all over, and the Great Spirit and Giver of Light, who has made the earth and everything therein, has brought us all together this day for our mutual good, to promote the good works of peace, I declare to all nations, that I have settled my peace with you before I came here, and now deliver my pipe to be sent to Sir Wm. Johnson, that he may know I have made peace, and taken the king of England for my father in the presence of all the nations now assembled, and whenever any of those nations go to visit him, they may smoke out of it with him peace. Fathers, we are obliged to you for lighting up

in

our old council fire for us, and desiring us to return to it; but we are now settled on the Miami River, [Miami of the lakes or Maumee] not far from hence; whenever you want us you will find us there ready to wait on you. The reason why I choose to stay where we are now settled, is, that we love liquor, and to be so near this as we formerly lived, our people would be always drunk, which might occasion some quarrels between the soldiers and our people. This, father, is all the reason I have for not returning to our old settlements; and where we live is so nigh this place, that when we want to drink we can easily come for it. [Gave a large

belt with wampum tied to it.]

"Father, be strong and take pity on us, your children, as our former father did. It is just the hunting season of your children. Our fathers, the French, formerly used to credit his children for powder and lead to hunt with. I request, in behalf of all the nations present, that you will speak to the traders now here to do the same. My father, once more I request that you tell your traders to give your children credit for a little powder and lead, as the support of our families depends upon it. We have told you where we live, not far from here, that whenever you want us, and let us know, we will come directly to you. [A belt.]

"Father, you have stopped up the rum barrel, when we came here, until the business of this meeting was over. As it is now finished, we request you may open the barrel, that your children may drink and be merry."

A year afterwards, Pontiac visited Sir William Johnson at Oswego, where was held, on the 23d of July, another Congress of Ottawas, Pottawattamies, Hurons and Chippewas, with ceremonials and results similar to those of the council at Detroit.

Thenceforth we have only vague memorials of Pontiac. About the year 1769, when more than usual distrust prevailed among the savages, the English traders on the Illinois were disturbed by the appearance of Pontiac on a visit to the French garrison and village on the present site of St. Louis. St. Ange, then in command of that post, was highly esteemed by Pontiac, and a citizen of St. Louis, Pierre Chouteau, who lived to a great age, was accustomed to describe the appearance of the distinguished chief on that occasion. He wore the full uniform of a French officer, the gift of Marquis of Montcalm toward the close of the French war. He remained at St. Louis for two or three days, when, hearing that a large number of Indians were assembled at Cahokia, on the opposite side of the river, and that some drinking bout or other social gathering was in progress, he told St. Ange that he would cross over to see what was going forward. St. Ange endeavored to dissuade him, reminding him of the little friendship that existed between him and the British. Pontiac's answer was, "Captain, I am a man! I know how to fight. I have always fought openly. They will not murder me; and if any one attacks me as a brave man, I am his match." He went off, was feasted, drank deeply, and, when the carousal was over, strode down the village to the adjacent woods, where he was heard to sing the medicine songs, in whose magic power he trusted as the warrant of success in all his undertakings. In the meanwhile, an English trader, named Williamson, bribed a Kaskaskia Indian with a barrel of rum, and the promise of a greater reward, if he would succeed in killing Pontiac. The assassin stole near Pontiac, in the forest, and watching his moment, glided behind him, and buried a tomahawk in his brain.

This murder roused the vengeance of all the tribes friendly to Pontiac, and the Illinois were nearly exterminated in the retributive war which was waged against them.

Pontiac was buried by his friends, the French officers and residents, with warlike honors, near the fort at St. Louis. "For a mausoleum," says his accomplished biographer, "a city has risen above the forest hero; and the race whom he hated with such burning rancor, trample with unceasing footsteps over his forgotten grave."

CHAPTER XIII.

ENGLISH NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE WESTERN TRIBES-THE CLAIM TO KENTUCKY.

THE English government, as we have seen, never failed to assert the right of the New York tribes to treat the Ohio valley as their conquest, and before the cession by France in 1763, the English claim of sovereignty rested chiefly upon a series of treaties with the chiefs of the Six Nations in 1684, in 1701, and especially on the 14th of September, 1726, by which their lands were conveyed to England, in trust, "to be protected and defended by his majesty, to and for the use of the grantors and their heirs."

At Lancaster, in 1744, however, it was sought to obtain a different and far more important concession from these Indians. Deputies from Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland met the chiefs of the Six Nations, and after a scene of debauchery in the highest degree disgraceful to its English instigators, the Indians were persuaded to give a deed "recognizing the King's right to all lands that are, or by his Majesty's appointment shall be, within the colony of Virginia."

Here was a claim to an indefinite extent of the Ohio valley by purchase, but it was very justly obnoxious to the Ohio Indians to the Delawares and Shawanese especially, whose villages were within the nominal limits of the colony of Virginia, and who indignantly denied any proprietary right in the Indians of New York.

Nevertheless, on this unsubstantial basis rested the grant