dogs, died; they could not get
much food from the British; and as winter wore on they sent envoy after
envoy to the Americans, exchanged prisoners, and agreed to make a
permanent peace in the spring. They were exasperated with the British,
who, they said, had not fulfilled a single promise they had
made. [Footnote: Brickell's Narrative.]

Their Anger with the British.

The anger of the Indians against the British was as just as it was
general. They had been lured and goaded into war by direct material aid,
and by indirect promises of armed assistance; and they were abandoned as
soon as the fortune of war went against them. Brant, the Iroquois chief,
was sorely angered by the action of the British in deserting the Indians
whom they had encouraged by such delusive hopes; and in his letter to
the British officials [Footnote: Canadian Archives, Joseph Brant to
Joseph Chew, Oct. 22, 1794; William J. Chew to J. Chew, Oct. 24, 1794.]
he reminded them of the fact that but for their interference the Indians
would have concluded "an equitable and honorable peace in June
1793"--thus offering conclusive proof that the American commissioners,
in their efforts to make peace with the Indians in that year, had been
foiled by the secret machinations of the British agents, as Wayne had
always thought. Brant blamed the British agent McKee for ever having
interfered in the Indian councils, and misled the tribes to their hurt;
and in writing to the Secretary of the Indian Office for Canada he
reminded him in plain terms of the treachery with which the British had
behaved to the Indians at the close of the Revolutionary War, and
expressed the hope that it would not be repeated; saying:[Footnote:
Canadian Archives, Brant to Joseph Chew, Feb. 24, and March 17, 1795.]
"If there is a treaty between Great Britain and the Yankees I hope our
Father the King will not forget the Indians as he did in the year '83."
When his forebodings came true and the British, in assenting to Jay's
treaty, abandoned their Indian allies, Brant again wrote to the
Secretary of the Indian Office, in repressed but bitter anger at the
conduct of the King's agents in preventing the Indians from making peace
with the Americans while they could have made it on advantageous terms,
and then in deserting them. He wrote: "This is the second time the poor
Indians have been left in the lurch & I cannot avoid lamenting that they
were prevented at a time when they had it in th