and fully glutted my revenge. I am glad that there is a prospect of peace, on account of the nation; but I beg you will not entertain a thought that any thing I have said proceeds from fear! Logan disdains the thought. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? No one. of my blood in the veins one. a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one. Of this production, Jefferson says: "I may challenge the whole orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, and of any more eminent orator, if Europe has furnished any more eminent, to produce a single passage, superior to the speech of Logan, a Mingo chief, to Lord Dunmore when governor of Virginia." It was cited in refutation of the hypothesis, that the soil and climate of America tended to impair the vigor, mental and bodily, of the human race. Elsewhere he styles it a "morsel of eloquence." Certainly no specimen of the kind has been more widely circulated, or highly appreciated. At the subsequent conference at Camp Charlotte, Logan did not attend, and the Mingoes were not parties to the peace there concluded, although their pledge to observe a peace had been communicated to Lord Dunmore. Little is known of this treaty, except that the Shawanese agreed not to hunt south of the Ohio, nor molest travelers. A strong block-house, strengthened with pickets, was erected at the mouth of the Kenawha, and a hundred men left as its garrison. Fort Dunmore or Pittsburgh, received a few troopsalso Fort Fincastle at Wheeling. Lord Dunmore was to have returned to Pittsburgh in the spring, to meet the Indians, and form a definite peace, but the Revolutionary movements prevented. The army, which numbered about 2500 men, returned to Fort Gower, and thence proceeded to Western Virginia, where they were disbanded. Of the future fate of Logan, we shall repeat all the evidence within our reach. Heckewelder, in a letter to Jefferson, thus speaks of him after the close of the war: "His expressions from time to time, denoted a deep melancholy. Life (said he) had become a torment to him: he knew no more what pleasure was; he thought it had been better if he had never existed. Report further states, that he became in some measure delirious, declared he would kill himself, went to Detroit, and on his way between that place and Miamis, was murdered. In October, 1781, (while as prisoner on my way to Detroit,) I was shown the spot where this should have happened." Mr. Benjamin Sharp, in 1842 a resident of Warren county, Missouri, communicated to the "American Pioneer," a narrative of the capture of two of his sisters, with their husbands and families, by a band of British and Indians, at Riddle's station, on the Licking in Kentucky, some time in 1778. They were taken prisoners to Canada, but afterwards returned in safety at the close of the Revolutionary War. Mr. Sharp proceeds: "The celebrated Logan was with this party: my brother-in-law, Captain John Dunkin, an intelligent man, had several conversations with him on this trip. He said Logan spoke both English and French: he told Captain Dunkin that he knew he had two souls, the one good and the other bad; when the good soul had the ascendant, he was kind and humane; and when the bad soul ruled, he was perfectly savage, and delighted in nothing but blood and carnage. The account that Captain Dunkin gave of his death, was, that his brother-in-law killed him as they returned home from a council held at Detroit, on account of some misusage he had given his sister at the council.” Henry C. Brush, Esq., of Tiffin, Seneca county, has stated on the authority of Good Hunter, an aged and familiar acquaintance of Logan, that his last years were truly melancholy. He wandered about from tribe to tribe, a solitary and lonely man; dejected and broken hearted by the loss. of his friends, and the decay of his tribe, he resorted to the stimulus of strong drink, to drown his sorrow. He was at last murdered in Michigan, near Detroit. He was, at the time, sitting with his blanket over his head, before a camp fire, his elbow resting on his knees, and his head upon his hands, buried in profound reflection, when an Indian, who had taken some offence, stole behind him, and buried his tomahawk in his brains. Thus closed the mournful episode of the sorrows, the vengeance and the fate of Logan. Although his motive was personal-the paroxysm of private grief,-and therefore not so imposing as the patriotic impulse of a Pontiac or a Tecumseh, yet the appeal to our sympathies is irresistible; while the genius of Logan has irradiated the history of his race in the annals of the New World. CHAPTER XVII. THE RELATION OF THE WESTERN TRIBES TO THE REVOLUTIONARY CONTEST. THERE is no passage in the history of the struggle between England and her American colonies, which suggests more impressively the special guidance and aid of Providence, than the relations of the Indian tribes. One familiar with the border wars of 1755 and 1763, would immediately anticipate a third combination of all the tribes against the inhabitants. of the American frontier; and if so, while the Atlantic campaigns exhausted the resources of the colonies, the most disastrous consequences were more than probable. There can be no doubt that the British agents, even prior to the battle of Lexington, urged the Indians to side with them, and assist in subduing their rebellious children. The first mention of the subject is in the address of the Massachusetts Congress to the Iroquois, in April, 1775, in which they say, that they hear the British are exciting the savages against the colonies, and they ask the Six Nations to aid the Americans or be neutral; and in June following, when James Wood visited the Western tribes, and invited them to a council, which he did under the direction of the Virginia House of Burgesses, he found that Governor Carleton had already offered the alliance of England.1 1 It is not surprising that both parties should estimate highly 1) Perkins' Western Annals, p. 153. American Archives, fourth series, iv., p. 110. the military power of the savages, and their ability to turn the impending scale of the contest. At the Revolutionary period, Col. George Morgan supposed that the Indians of New York, Ohio, and the vicinity of the Lakes, could bring 10,000 warriors into the field, and if a general confederacy had been organized, the concurrence of attack--by the savage hordes on one side and the British armies on the other-might have been decisive of the result. In their efforts to secure an Indian alliance, the English had many advantages. Although Sir William Johnson died suddenly in June, 1774, his son-in-law, Col Guy Johnson, had succeeded him as Superintendent. His influence, and that of Sir William's son and heir, John Johnson, were hostile to the colonies, and with them coöperated the celebrated Joseph Brant. Such powerful advocacy was seconded by liberal presents, and the English emissaries practiced with equal success the artful tactics by which the French effected the powerful combination of 1755, the first fruits of which was the defeat of Braddock. On the other hand, the Americans were poor and distressed to provide means for the army Washington, and the Indians were prompt to perceive the disadvantageous contrast. Besides, the Americans were the immediate aggressors on the hunting domains of the savages, and their expulsion, with English aid, seemed practicable and in all respects desirable. of The battle of Lexington was fought on the 20th of June, 1775. In July, of that year, Col. Guy Johnson held a Congress at Oswego with thirteen hundred and forty warriors, and thenceforth all the Six Nations, except the Oneidas and Tuscaroras, were in close alliance with the British. Joseph Brant, at the head of his fierce Mohawks, was foremost in the league. |