ward became a judge in the north-western territory. At the same table sat the secretaries, while the interpreters, several officers, and a few soldiers, stood around.

An Indian council is usually one of the most imposing spectacles in savage life. It is one of the few occasions in which the warrior exercises his right of suffrage, his influence, and his talents, in a civil capacity, and the meeting is conducted with all the gravity, and all the ceremonious ostentation, with which it is possible to invest it. The matter to be considered, as well as all the details, are well digested before hand, so that the utmost decorum shall prevail, and the decision be unanimous. The chiefs and sages- the leaders and orators occupy the most conspicuous seats: behind them are arranged the younger braves, and still farther in the rear appear the women and youth, as spectators. All are equally attentive. A dead silence reigns throughout the assemblage. The great pipe, gaudily adorned with paint and feathers, is lighted, and passed from mouth to mouth, commencing with the chief highest in rank, and proceeding by regular gradation to the inferior order of braves. If two or more nations be represented, the pipe is passed from one party to the other, and salutations are courteously exchanged, before the business of the council is opened by the respective speakers. Whatever jealousy or party spirit may exist in the tribe, it is carefully excluded from this dignified assemblage, whose orderly conduct, and close attention to the proper subject before them, might be imitated with profit by some of the most enlightened bodies in christendom.

It was an alarming evidence of the temper now prevailing among them, and of the brooding storm that filled their minds, that no propriety of demeanor marked the entrance of the savages into the council-room. The usual formalities were forgotten, or purposely dispensed with, and an insulting levity substituted in their place. The chiefs and braves stalked in, with an appearance of light regard, and seated themselves promiscuously on the floor, in front of the commissioners. An air of insolence marked all their movements, and showed an intention to dictate terms, or to fix a quarrel upon the Americans.

A dread silence rested over the group: it was the silence of dread, distrust, and watchfulness-not that of respect. The eyes of the savage band gloated upon the banquet of blood that seemed already spread out before them; the pillage of the fort, and the bleeding scalps of the Americans, were almost within their grasp; while that gallant little band saw the portentous nature of the crisis, and stood ready to sell their lives as dearly as possible.

The commissioners, without noticing the disorderly conduct of the other party, or appearing to have discovered their meditated treachery, opened the council in due form. They lighted the peace-pipe, and after drawing a few whiffs, passed it to the chiefs, who received it. Colonel Clarke then arose, to explain the purpose for which the treaty was ordered. With an unembarrassed air, with the tone of one accustomed to command, and the easy assurance of perfect security and self-possession, he stated that the commissioners had been sent to offer peace to the Shawanoes; that the President had no wish to continue the war; he had no resentment to gratify; and,

that if the red men desired peace, they could have it, on liberal terms. If such be the will of the Shawanoes,' he concluded, 'let some of their wise men speak.'

A chief arose, drew up his tall person to its full height, and assuming a haughty attitude, threw his eye contemptuously over the commissioners and their small retinue, as if to measure their insignificance in comparison with his own numerous train, and then stalk ing up to the table, threw upon it two belts of wampum, of different colors the war and the peace belt.

'We come here,' he exclaimed, to offer you two pieces of wampum: they are of different colors; you know what they mean: you can take which you like!' And turning upon his heel, he resumed his

seat.

The chiefs drew themselves up, in the consciousness of having hurled defiance in the teeth of the white men. They had offered an insult to the renowned leader of the Long Knives, to which they knew it would be hard for him to submit, while they did not suppose he would dare to resent it. The council-pipe was laid aside, and those fierce wild men gazed intently on Clarke. The Americans saw that the crisis had arrived: they could no longer doubt that the Indians understood the advantage they possessed, and were disposed to use it; and a common sense of danger caused each eye to be turned on the leading commissioner. He sat undisturbed, and apparently careless, until the chief who had thrown the belts on the table had taken his seat: then, with a small cane which he held in his hand, he reached, as if playfully, toward the war-belt, entangled the end of the stick in it, drew it toward him, and then with a twitch of the cane, threw the belt into the midst of the chiefs. The effect was electric. Every man in council, of each party, sprang to his feet; the savages, with a loud exclamation of astonishment, Hugh!' the Americans in expectation of a hopeless conflict, against overwhelming numbers. Every hand grasped a weapon.

Clarke alone was unawed. The expression of his countenance changed to a ferocious sternness, and his eye flashed, but otherwise he was unmoved. A bitter smile was slightly perceptible upon his compressed lips, as he gazed upon that savage band, whose hundred eyes were bent fiercely and in horrid exultation upon him, as they stood like a pack of wolves at bay, thirsting for blood, and ready to rush upon him, whenever one bolder than the rest should commence the attack. It was one of those moments of indecision, when the slightest weight thrown into either scale will make it preponderate; a moment in which a bold man, conversant with the secret springs of human action, may seize upon the minds of all around him, and sway them at his will. Such a man was the intrepid Virginian. He spoke, and there was no man bold enough to gainsay him none that could return the fierce glance of his eye. Raising his arm, and waving his hand toward the door, he exclaimed: 'Dogs! you may go!' Indians hesitated for a moment, and then rushed tumultuously out of the council-room.

The

The decision of Clarke, on that occasion, saved himself and his companions from massacre. The plan of the savages had been artfully laid: he had read it in their features and conduct, as plainly as

if it had been written upon a scroll before him. He met it in a manner which was unexpected; the crisis was brought on sooner than was intended; and upon a principle similar to that by which, when a line of battle is broken, the dismayed troops fly, before order can be restored, the new and sudden turn given to these proceedings by the energy of Clarke, confounded the Indians, and before the broken thread of their scheme of treachery could be reunited, they were panic-struck. They had come prepared to brow-beat, to humble, and then to destroy: they looked for remonstrance, and altercation; for the luxury of drawing the toils gradually around their victims; of beholding their agony and degradation, and of bringing on the final catastrophe by an appointed signal, when the scheme should be ripe. They expected to see on our part great caution, a skilful playing off, and an unwillingness to take offence, which were to be gradually goaded into alarm, irritation, and submission. The cool contempt with which their first insult was thrown back in their teeth surprised them, and they were foiled by the self-possession of one man. They had no Tecumthe among them, no master-spirit, to change the plan, so as to adapt it to a new exigency; and those braves, who in many a battle had shown themselves to be men of true valor, quailed before the moral superiority which assumed the vantage ground of a position they could not comprehend, and therefore feared to assail.

The Indians met immediately around their own council-fire, and engaged in an animated discussion. Accustomed to a cautious warfare, they did not suppose a man of Colonel Clarke's known sagacity would venture upon a display of mere gasconade, or assume any ground that he was not able to maintain; and they therefore attributed his conduct to a consciousness of strength. They knew him to be a consummate warrior; gave him the credit of having judiciously measured his own power with that of his adversary; and suspected that a powerful reinforcement was at hand. Perhaps at that moment, when intent upon their own scheme, and thrown off their guard by imagined security, they had neglected the ordinary precautions that form a prominent feature in their system of tactics: they might be surrounded by a concealed force, ready to rush upon them at a signal from the fort. In their eagerness to entrap a foe, they might have blindly become entangled in a snare set for themselves. So fully were they convinced that such was the relative position of the two parties, and so urgent did they consider the necessity for immediate conciliation, that they appointed a delegation to wait on Clarke, and express their willingness to accept peace on his own terms. The council reassembled, and a treaty was signed, under the dictation of the American commissioners. Such was the remarkable result of the intrepidity and presence of mind of GEORGE ROGERS CLARKE.

PERSECUTION.

RIPE persecution, like the plant
Whose nascence Mocha boasted,

Some bitter fruit produced, whose worth
Was never known, till ROASTED.

408

Saint Maur.

SAINT

MAUR.

THE following lines were suggested by an incident narrated in the мs. journal of a friend, to whom the story, as here described, was related, while the journalist was detained by an accident to his post-chaise, some years since, upon that thoroughfare of Parisian fashion, the avenue to the Bois de Boulogne,' within half a league of the gates of Paris, and in sight of the Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile.' If the writer's memory serves him, the name of the assassin, as well as the fact of the victim's surviving the death-blow long enough to have revealed its object, had it not paralyzed his utterance, are both authentic.

Ir was a day of joy, that day when first

Boulogne's dark woods lay stretch'd before my eyes,
And my mind knew the dreams it long had nursed
In secret, would become realities.

Visions of Pleasure, such as Paris offers

The lightsome heart that joys in well-filled coffers,
Became to Fancy's eye each moment clearer,
As wheels, with rapid motion, brought me nearer.
These waking dreams of youth are pleasant things,
When the mind soars aloft on its own wings;
The present and the past alike forgot,
And for a time sunk in the future lot.

But axles break - and visions fade away;

Matter wears out, why should not mind decay?
In faithless wheels I put too firm a trust,
And with them my dream-castles fell

to dust!

I woke and heard the rude postillion, wroth
At such mishap, breathe forth that filthy oath
Which travellers oft in France are doomed to hear,
And which sounds strangely to a modest ear :
That oath which once upon a time, (I learn
The anecdote from laughter-loving Sterne,)
When stubborn mules refused to go- an abbess,
Divided vainly with a blushing novice:
The word whose virtue mules declin'd to feel,
Could scarce avail to mend a broken wheel:
And Monsieur Jean was, spite of swearing, fain
To lift his crazy vehicle again,

As best he might; with the wild hope to win
The gates of Paris ere the night set in.

The steeds were disengaged. I said:
'Behold, my friend, yon mansion painted red,
Which peeps out from behind its woody screen,
Like a young bride, that blushes to be seen:
Go seek its door; from its in-dwellers ask
What aid is needed to assist thy task.'

The man of jack-boots, jockey-cap, and whip,
On the lone house threw a quick glance of fear;

A strange convulsion twisted his thin lip,

And his shrugged shoulder mounted to his ear:
'That house, pardieu, will yield no help to-day;
Its hearth is cold, its tenants far away:

Some at the gallies drag a galling chain,
Others in dungeon dark and cold remain;

For some, (more happy) the saw-dust was spread
Within that box, which holds the sever'd head,

When the sharp blade 'neath which poor Louis knelt,

Gives to a knave the stroke a king hath felt:

And even if some ruffian were within,

To ope the portal of this den of sin,

Not mine the hand, nor mine the voice, I swear,

To press the latch, or ask assistance there!'

'You make me curious' 'Then, Sir, listen further

That house is stain'd by many a foul murther:

VOL. XVI.

And could its walls of dusky red but speak,
They'd tell you blood had sprinkled them last week.
There were two brothers, born of the same mother,
The one a strong and handsome lad; the other,
And the elder, small, and pale, and thin,

But with an eye that showed he had within

A burning spirit, to its strength awake,

Whose settled purpose man nor God could shake.

Such spirits ever find or force their way

Through this our world, where courage bears the sway;
Where the weak bends before the stronger will,

And mind o'er matter proves victorious still.
'T was said these brothers came of lofty birth,
A thing of small account now on this earth,
Since Time hath proved, over and o'er again,
That kings and nobles bleed, like common men;
And that the blood which fills their veins of blue,
Is like the beggar's of the same red hue.

'But to return: nor rich nor poor were they,
And yet dependant on laborious day:
Theirs was that middle station, oft the best
For him who 'd keep a peaceful, virtuous breast.
Yet little virtue was there in Saint Maur,

Unless 't were courage that was running o'er;
Vicious himself, he spared no pains t' entice
Others to enter in the road to vice;

And the first heart o'er which his blight had pass'd;
Was his young brother's victim first and last.
To rob a miser, or defraud his heir,

To bring to ruin a confiding fair,

And where hope bloom'd, to plant the thorn despair,
Such were St. Maur's secret, sole delight;
His thought by day, perchance his dream by night;
For when a man gives heart and soul to schemes
Of guilt like these, they taint his very dreams.
Oft in this mansion would the brothers meet,
To hatch their wicked plots of dark deceit;
For 'mong the desperate and deluded band
That herded here, were men of heart and hand;
And St. Maur's plans were such, he felt not loth
To give a sad employment unto both.

'One eve the brothers met, as wont to do,
And hand press'd hand, and smile to smile replied;
Each brow was smooth- unwrinkled, to the view,
Nor seem'd there aught that either wished to hide.
They spoke together long and low; the tone
Of little interest, and no ear had known,
From the soft sound, their converse of that kind
Which stirs the heart, or deeply moves the mind.
They ceased at last: the younger turn'd him round,
When lo! his brother struck him to the ground!
Above the collar-bone fell the sharp dagger-stroke,
And though he lived awhile, the victim never spoke!'

Such was the tale that my postillion told,
As with slow pace the broken carriage rolled
Toward the wide-famous city. The dark story wrought
On my imagination, and its workings brought

The following links of scarce connected thought:
"T was but a single stab-nor can we know
What hidden motive led to this sure blow;
Their bond had been, community of crime,
And like all other bonds, the hand of Time,
Or strong Necessity, will strain and break it,
However strong the makers strive to make it.
Perchance young Abel was a weaker brother,
Prompt to reveal the tale of mutual guilt:
And thus the modern Cain was forced to smother
This revelation in the blood he spilt.
Perchance the glory of an ancient name
54