from him; and making up a small pack, bade him carry it for him. The boy cheerfully takes this pack, following his father with it. The father, finding the boy willing and obedient, continues in this way; and as the boy grows stronger, so the father makes the pack in proportion larger-yet as long as the boy is able to carry the pack, he does so without grumbling. At length, however, the boy having arrived at manhood, while the father is making up the pack for him, in comes a person of an evil disposition, and learning who was the carrier of the pack, advises the father to make it heavier, for surely the son is able to carry a large pack. The father, listening rather to the bad adviser, than consulting his own judgment and the feelings of tenderness, follows the advice of the hardhearted adviser, and makes up a heavy load for his son to carry. The son, now grown up, examining the weight of the load he is to carry, addresses the parent in these words: 'Dear father, this pack is too heavy for me to carry, do pray lighten it; I am willing to do what I can, but am unable to carry this load.' The father's heart having by this time become hardened and the bad adviser calling to him,' whip him if he disobeys and refuses to carry the pack,' now in a peremptory tone orders his son to take up the pack and carry it off, or he will whip him, and already takes up a stick to beat him. 'So!' says the son, am I to be served thus, for not doing what I am unable to do! Well if entreaties avail nothing with you, father-and it is to be decided by blows, whether or not I am able to carry a pack so heavy-then I have no other choice left me, but that of resisting your unreasonable demand, by my strength; and so, by striking each other, we may see who is the strongest.'

But this doctrine, however sound, did not prove wholly effectual against the exertions of Pipe, who was continually either making movements, or taking advantage of such as occurred, to disparage the influence of his rival, and, of course, to extend and establish his own. He contradicted whatever was said,

and counteracted whatever was done by White-Eyes, until the whole system of intercourse of the Delawares with each other and with other nations, became a labrynth of inconsistencies and counterplots.

About the commencement of the war, White-Eyes, with some of his tribe, visited the Americans at Pittsburg, where they met in conference with a number of the Seneca tribe, a people particularly attached to the British interest at that time. The object of their visit probably was to ascertain and perhaps influence the politics of the Delawares; and they relied much on the power of the great confederacy to which they belonged. Not only, however, did they fail to overawe White-Eyes, politically or personally; but they could not prevent him from publicly advocating the principles he avowed. So angry were they at a speech he addressed to the meeting at Pittsburg, that they undertook to check him by hinting, in an insolent and sullen manner, that it ill became him to express himself thus independently, whose tribe were but women, and had been made such by the Five Nations-alluding to an old reproach which had often before this been used to humiliate the Delawares.

Frequently it had that effect. But White-Eyes was not of a temper to brook an insult, under any circumstances. With an air of the most haughty disdain, he sat patiently until the Senecas had done, and then rose and replied:

"I know," said he gravely, "I know well, that you consider us a conquered nation-as women-as your inferiors. You have, say you, shortened our legs, and put petticoats on us! You say you have given us a hoe and a corn-pounder, and told us to plant and pound for you-you men-you warriors! But look at me. Am I not full-grown, and have I not a warrior's dress? Aye, I am a man, and these are the arms of a man, [showing his musket]-and all that country, [waving his hand proudly in the direction of the Alleghany

river] all that country, on the other side of that water, is mine."

A more courageous address was perhaps never made to any Council of Indians. Indeed, it went so beyond the spirit of his tribe, apprehensive as they were of the indignation of the powerful people he had thus bearded, that, although many were gratified, many others were frightened, or, perhaps, at Pipe's instigation, pretended to be frightened,—out of the ranks of the Peace-party into those of the War. The Monseys took the lead in that movement, and they even humiliated themselves so much as to send word to the Five Nations that they disapproved of what White-Eyes had said. Pipe, about the same time, left off attending the councils of the Turtle tribe, which he had hitherto done regularly, probably from a conviction that his intrigues were becoming daily more manifest, and he also endeavored to circulate an impression that White-Eyes had made secret engagements with the Americans, with the view of aggrandizing himself at the expense of his country

men.

The latter, meanwhile, was laboring, night and day, to preserve peace among the tribes, by sending embassies, and by other energetic measures. In some places, he succeeded, but in others the manœuvres of his adversary prevailed. A message sent to the Sandusky Wyandots, in 1776, was insolently answered by a hint to the Delawares, "to keep good shoes in readiness for joining the warriors.' White-Eyes himself headed a deputation to a settlement of the same people near Detroit. They however refused to receive his peace-belts, except in presence of the British Governor at that station; and he, when they were tendered in his presence, seized them violently, cut them in pieces, threw them at the feet of the Deputies, and then told White-Eyes, that "if he set any

*Speaking, according to common custom, in the name of the nation.

value on his head, he must be gone within half an hour."

Such indefatigable efforts were made by the warparty, and by those foreigners who co-operated with them, especially in circulating reports unfavorable to the American character and cause, that White-Eyes was very near being sacrificed to the hot-headed rashness of his own followers. In March, 1778, a number of tories of infamous character, having escaped from Pittsburg, told the Indians, wherever they went, that the Americans were coming upon them from all quarters; and that now was the time, and the only time, for saving themselves, by commencing ac tive hostilities. The Delawares were filled with consternation, and, for a day or two, White-Eyes was unable to stem the torrent of popular feeling. But he recovered his influence as they recovered their composure: and well knowing that his conduct in this affair would be closely watched by his rival, he called a general council of the nation, in which he proposed to delay committing hostilities against the American people for ten days, during which time they might obtain more certain information as to the truth of the assertions of these men. Pipe, considering this a proper time for placing White-Eyes in the back-ground, construed his wise and prudent advice as though he was in the secret, and now proposed to his own council, "to declare every man an enemy to the nation, that should throw an obstacle in the way, that might tend to prevent the taking up arms instantly against the American people."

White-Eyes perceived that the blow was aimed at himself, but he parried it by immediately assembling and addressing his party by themselves: "If you will go out in this war," said he, observing the preparations of some of them, "you shall not go without me. I have taken peace measures, it is true, with the view of saving my tribe from destruction. But if you think me in the wrong, if you give more credit to runaway vagabonds than to your own friends,

H

to a man, to a warrior, to a Delaware, if you insist upon fighting the Americans,—go! and I will go with you. And I will not go like the bear-hunter, who sets his dogs upon the animal to be beaten about with his paws, while he keeps himself at a safe distance. No! I will lead you on. I will place myself in the front. I will fall with the first of you! You can do as you choose, but as for me I will not survive my nation. I will not live to bewail the miserable destruction of a brave people, who deserved, as you do, a better fate."

This spirited harangue had the desired effect. The assembly declared, with all the enthusiasm which a grave Indian council are ever willing to manifest, that they would at least wait the ten days, as he wished. Some added that they would never fight the Americans, but with him for a leader.

But Pipe and his party redoubled their efforts, and before the appointed term had expired, many of the Delawares had shaved their heads in readiness for the war-plume; and White-Eyes, though his request for delay was still attended to, was threatened with a violent death if he should say one word for the American interest. On the ninth day, vigorous preparations were made for sending out war-parties, and no news had yet arrived to abate the excitement.

At this critical juncture it happened that the German missionary, Mr. Heckewelder, with some attendants, had arrived among the Christian Delawares in the neighborhood of Goschocking, the settlement of White-Eyes, from Pittsburg. He became an eye and ear witness of the sequel of the affair, and we shall therefore avail ourselves of his narrative.

"Finding the matter so very pressing, and even not admitting of a day's delay, I consented, that after a few hours' rest and sleep, and furnished with a trusty companion and a fresh horse, I would proceed on, when between three and four o'clock in the morning, the national assistant, John Martin, having called on me for the purpose, we set out, swimming our horses across the Muskingum river, and taking a circuit