"Brother!-We do not wish to destroy your religion, or take it from you. We only want to enjoy

our own.

"Brother!-You say you have not come to get our land or our money, but to enlighten our minds. I will now tell you that I have been at your meetings and saw you collecting money from the meeting. I cannot tell what this money was intended for, but suppose it was for your minister; and if we should conform to your way of thinking, perhaps you may want some from us.

"Brother!-We are told that you have been preaching to white people in this place. These people are our neighbors. We are acquainted with them. We will wait a little while, and see what effect your preaching has upon them. If we find it does them good and makes them honest and less disposed to cheat Indians, we will then consider again what you have said.

"Brother!-You have now heard our answer to your talk, and this is all we have to say at present. As we are going to part, we will come and take you by the hand, and hope the Great Spirit will protect you on your journey, and return you safe to your friends."

The speech being finished, Red-Jacket and several others, intending to suit the action to the word, came forward to exchange a farewell greeting with their visitor. This however he declined, and the Indians quietly withdrew.

The civility of the old orator was in somewhat singular contrast with his obstinacy on many other occasions. A young clergyman once made a strong effort to enlighten him, through the medium of an Indian interpreter named Jack Berry*—for Red-Jack

* Jack-called himself a chief, too, though his importance was owing mainly to his speaking bad English, and to a bustling shrewdness which enabled him to play

et spoke very little of the English language. The result was discouraging. "Brother!" said Jack, at length, for the Chief," If you white people murdered the Saviour,' make it up yourselves. We had nothing to do with it. If he had come among us we should have treated him better." This was gross heathenism, truly, but it was not aggravated by insolence. The Chieftain made a sincere acknowledgement of the clergyman's kindness, and paid him some deserved compliments upon other scores.

During the last war with England, a gallant officer of the American Army,* stationed on the Niagara frontier, shewed some peculiarly gratifying attentions to Red-Jacket. The former being soon afterwards ordered to Governor's Island, the Chief came to bid him farewell. 66 Brother," said he, "I hear you are going to a place called Governor's Island. I hope you will be a Governor yourself. I am told you whites consider children a blessing. I hope you will have one thousand at least. Above all, wherever you go, I hope you will never find whiskey more than two shillings a quart."

The last of these benevolent aspirations was perhaps the highest possible evidence which Red-Jacket could give of his good will, for we are under the mortifying necessity of placing this talented Chieftain in the same class, as relates to his personal habits, with Uncas, Logan, and Pipe. In a word, he gradually became, in his latter days, a confirmed drunkard. Temptation and association proved too strong for him, and the pride of the Confederates made himself but too frequently a laughing-stock for the blackguards of Buffalo.

the factotum to some advantage. Jack made himself first marshall at the funeral of Farmer's-Brother.

* Colonel Snelling. For several of the anecdotes in the text we are under obligations to the author of " Tales of the North-West." He was present at the interview when Berry acted as Interpreter.

Unfortunately for his political as well as personal interests, he indulged his weakness to such an extent as not unfrequently to incapacitate him for the discharge of his public duties. This was an advantage which his opponents shrewdly considered, and, in 1827, they took a favorable opportunity to deprive him of his civil rank. The document issued from the Seneca council-house on this singular occasion, under date of September 15th, is too extraordinary to be omitted. The following is a literal translation, made by an intelligent American who was present.

"We, the Chiefs* of the Seneca tribe, of the Six Nations, say to you, Yaugoyawathaw, that you have a long time disturbed our councils; that you have procured some white men to assist you in sending a great number of false stories to our father the President of the United States, and induced our people to sign those falsehoods at Tonnawanta as Chiefs of our tribe, when you knew that they were not Chiefs; that you have opposed the improvement of our nation, and made divisions and disturbances among our people; that you have abused and insulted our great father the President; that you have not regarded the rules which make the Great Spirit love us, and which make his red children do good to each other; that you have a bad heart, because, in a time of great distress, when our people were starving, you took and hid the body of a deer you had killed, when your starving brothers should have shared their proportion of it with you; that the last time our father the President was fighting against the king, across the great waters, you divided us, you acted against our father the President and his officers, and advised with those who were no friends; that you have always prevented and discouraged our children from going to school,

*Several of them were soi-disant functionaries.

t A variation of Saguoaha, which is the orthography adopted by Governor Clinton.

where they could learn, and abused and lied about our people who were willing to learn, and about those who were offering to instruct them how to worship the Great Spirit in the manner Christians do; that you have always placed yourself before those who would be instructed, and have done all you could to prevent their going to schools; that you have taken goods to your own use, which were received as annuities, and which belonged to orphan children and to old people; that for the last ten years you have often said the communications of our great father to his red children were forgeries, made up at New-York by those who wanted to buy our lands; that you left your wife, because she joined the Christians and worshipped the Great Spirit as they do, knowing that she was a good woman; that we have waited for nearly ten years for you to reform, and do better; but are now discouraged, as you declare you never will receive instruction from those who wish to do us good, as our great father advises, and induce others to hold the same language.

1

"We might say a great many other things, which make you an enemy to the Great Spirit, and also to your own brothers, but we have said enough, and now renounce you as a chief, and from this time you are forbid to act as such. All of our nation will hereafter regard you as a private man; and we say to them all, that every one who shall do as you have done, if a chief, will, in like manner be disowned, and set back where he started from by his brethren.”*

Several of these charges, it is fair to presume, were dictated by party spirit, and those who subscribed the deposition cared but little about proving them, could they but prostrate their great antagonist. The signatures are twenty-six, and most of them are wellknown Anti-Pagans; though with Young-King, Pollard, and Little-Billey, who led the subscription, we

* Buffalo Emporium.

also find the names of Twenty-Canoes, Doxtaten, Two-Guns, Barefoot, and some other partizans of the fallen orator in his better days.

But Red-Jacket was not yet prepared to submit patiently to his degradation, especially when he knew so well the true motives of those who effected it. Nor was he by any means so much under the control of his bad habits as not to feel occasionally, perhaps generally, both the consciousness of his power and the sting of his shame. "It shall not be said of me," thought the old Orator, with the gleam of a fiery soul in his eye,-" It shall not be said that Saguoaha lived in insignificance and died in dishonor. Am I too feeble to revenge myself of my enemies? Am I not as I have been? In fine, he roused himself to a great effort. Representations were made to the neighboring tribes, for he knew too well the hopelessness of a movement confined to his own,—and only a month had elapsed since his deposition, when a Grand Council of the chiefs of the Six Nations assembled together at the upper council-house of the Seneca-village reservation.

The document of the Christian party was read, and then Half-Town rose, and, in behalf of the Catterau, gus (Seneca) Indians, said there was but one voice in his nation, and that was of general indignation at the contumely cast on so great a man as Red-Jacket. Several other chiefs addressed the council to the same effect. The condemned orator rose slowly, as if grieved and humiliated, but yet with his ancient air of command.

"My Brothers!"-he said, after a solemn pause,You have this day been correctly informed of an attempt to make me sit down and throw off the authority of a chief, by twenty-six misguided chiefs of my nation. You have heard the statements of my associates in council, and their explanations of the foolish charges brought against me. I have taken the legal and proper way to meet these charges. It is the only way in which I could notice them,