ada, sometimes alone, and sometimes in conjunction with the English colonies. During this eventful period, they often maintained a proud superiority--always an honourable resistance; and no vicissitude of fortune or visitation of calamity, could ever compel them, to descend from the elevated ground, which they occupied in their own estimation and in the opinion of the nations. Their expeditions into Canada were fequent-wherever they marched terror and desolation composed their train. "And vengeance striding from his grisly den In 1683, M. Delabarre, the Governor General of Canada, marched with an army against the cantons. He landed near Oswego, but finding himself incompetent to meet the enemy, he instituted a negotiation, and demanded a conference. On this occasion Garangula, an Onondaga chief, attended in behalf of his country, and made the celebrated reply to M. Delabarre, which I shall presently notice. The French retired from the country with disgrace. The second general expedition was undertaken in 1687, by M. Denonville, Governor General. He had treacherously seized several of their chiefs, and sent them to the gallies in France. He was at the head of an army exceeding 2000 men. He landed in Irondequoit Bay, and when near a village of the Senecas, was attacked by 500, and would have been defeated, if his Indian allies had not rallied and repulsed the enemy. After detsroying some provisions and burning some villages, he retired without any acquisition of laurels. The place on which this battle was fought, has been, * Glover's Baodicen, within a few years owned by Judge Porter, of Grand Niagara. On ploughing the land, 300 hatehcts, and upwards of 3000 pounds of old iron were found, being more than sufficient to defray the expense of clearing it. The confederates, in a year's time, compelled their enemies to make peace, and to restore their chiefs. It was with the French the only escape from destruction. Great bodies of the confederates threatened Montreal, and their canoes covered the Great Lakes. They shut up the French in forts; and would have conquered the whole of Canada, if they had understood the art of attacking fortified places. This peace was soon disturbed by the artifices of Rondiaronk, a Huron chief; and the Iroquois made an irruption on the Island of Montreal, with 1200 men, destroying every thing before them. The third and last grand expedition against the Confederates, was undertaken in 1697, by the Count De Frontenac; the ablest and bravest governor that the French ever had in Canada. He landed at Oswego, with a powerful force, and marched to the Onondaga Lake-he found their principal village burnt and abandoned. He sent 700 men to destroy the Oneida Castle, who took a few prisoners. An Onondaga chief, upwards of 100 years old, was captured in the woods, and abandoned to the fury of the French savages. After sustaining the most horrid tortures, with more than stoical fortitude, the only complaint he was heard to utter was, when one of them, actuated by compassion, or probably by rage, stabbed him repeatedly with a knife, in order to put a speedy end to his existence. "Thou ought not," said he, "to abridge my life, that thou might have time to learn to die like a man. For my own part, I die contented, because I know no meanness with which to re proach myself." After this tragedy, the Count thought it prudent to retire with his army; and he probably would have fallen a victim to his temerity, if the Senecas had not been kept at home, from a false report, that they were to be attacked at the same time by the Ottawas. After the general peace in 1762, an attempt was made by a number of the Western Indians to destroy the British colonies. The Senecas were involved in this war, but in 1764 Sir William Johnson, styling himself his Majesty's sole Agent and Superintendant of Indian affairs for the northern parts of North America, and Colonel of the Six United Nations, their allies and dependants, agreed to preliminary articles of peace with them. In this treaty, the Senecas ceded the carrying place at Niagara to Great Britain. The Confederates remained in a state of peace, until the commencement of the Revolutionary War.* On the 19th of June 1775, the Oneidas and some. other Indians, sent to the Convention of Massachusetts a speech, declaring their neutrality; stating that they could not find nor recollect in the traditions of their ancestors, a parallel case; and saying, "As we have declared for peace, we desire you would not apply to your Indian brethren in New-England for assistance. Let us Indians be all of one mind and live with one another; and you white people settle your own disputes betwixt yourselves. These good dispositions did not long continue with most of the Indian nations; all within the reach of British blandishments and presents, were prevailed upon to take up the hatchet. It is calculated, that 12,690 Indian Warriors, were * Thomas Mante's History of the Late War in North America, &c. printed London, 1772, p. 503. t2 Williams's History of Vermont, p. 440. E employed by the British during the revolutionary war, of which 1580 were Iroquois.* The influence of Sir William Johnson over the Savages, was transmitted to his son; who was most successful in alluring them into the views of Great Britain. A great war feast was made by him on the occasion, in which, according to the horrid phraseology of these barbarians, they were invited to banquet upon a Bostonian, and to drink his blood."† General Burgoyne made a speech to the Indians on the 21st of June, 1777, urging them to hostilities, and stating "his satisfaction at the general conduct of the Indian tribes, from the beginning of the troubles in America." An old Iroquois chief answered, "We have been tried and tempted by the Bostonians, but we have loved our father, and our hatchets have been sharpened on our affections. In proof of the sincerity of our professions, our whole villages able to go to war, are come forth; the old and infirm, our infants and our wives, alone remain at home." They realized their professions. The whole confederacy, except a little more than half of the Oneidas, took up arms against us. They hung like the scythe of death upon the rear of our settlements; and their deeds are inscribed with the scalping knife and the tomahawk in characters of blood, on the fields of Wyoming and Cherry Valley, and on the banks of the Mohawk. It became necessary that the confederates should receive a signal chastisement for their barbarous and cruel incursions; and accordingly general Sullivan, with an army of near five thousand men, marched into their country in the year 1779.Near Newtown, in the present county of Tioga, he defeated them, and drove them from their for 10th vol. Massachusetts Historical society, p. 120, &c. † Beisham. 2 Williams, as before quoted. tifications-he continued his march between the Cayuga and Seneca Lakes, and through their territory, as far as the Genesee River, destroying their orchards, cornfields, and forty villages—the largest of which contained one hundred and twentyeight houses. This expedition was nearly the finishing blow to savage cruelty and insolence-their habitations were destroyed-their provinces laid waste-they were driven from their country, and were compelled to take refuge under the cannon of Niagara and their hostility terminated with the. pacification with Great Britain. The Confederates were as celebrated for their eloquence, as for their military skill and political wisdom. Popular, or free governments, have in all ages, been the congenial soil of oratory. And it is indeed all important in institutions, merely advisory, where persuasion must supply the place of coercion-where there is no magistrate to execute -no military to compel-and where the only sanction of law is the controlling power of public opinion. Eloquence, being therefore considered so essential, must always be a great standard of personal merit-a certain road to popular favor, and an universal passport to public honours. These combined inducements operated with powerful force on the mind of the Indian-and there is little doubt, but that oratory was studied with as much care and application among the Confederates, as it was in the stormy democracies of the Eastern hemisphere. I do not pretend to assert that there were, as at Athens and Rome, established schools and professional teachers for the purpose: but I say, that it was an attainment to which they devoted themselves, and to which they bent the whole force of their faculties. Their models of eloquence were to be found, not in books, but in |