ed that from the stronger he had most to fear. Therefore in
colonial days France, in later days Great Britain, in both cases
Canada, derived more apparent profit from their employment than did
their opponent, whose more numerous white men enabled him to dispense
with the fickle and feebler aid of the aborigines.

Before the firm attitude of the note of September 9, the British
Government again procrastinated, and receded from demands which sound
policy should from the first have recognized as untenable, unless
reposing upon decisive military success and occupation. On September
19, their commissioners replied[500] that while the exclusive military
possession of the lakes would be conducive to a good understanding,
without endangering the security of the United States, it had not been
advanced as a _sine qua non_. A final proposition on the subject of
the Canadian boundaries would be made, when the Indian question was
settled. Concerning this, they were "authorized distinctly to declare
that they are instructed not to sign a treaty of peace, unless the
Indian nations are included in it, and restored to all the rights,
privileges, and territories, which they enjoyed in the year 1811," by
treaties then existing. "From this point the British plenipotentiaries
cannot depart." They were instructed further to _offer for discussion_
an article establishing Indian boundaries, within which the two
countries should bind themselves not to make acquisitions by purchase
during a term of years. To the absence of Lord Castlereagh, and
consequent private correspondence between him and his colleagues in
London, we owe the knowledge that the question of purchasing Indian
lands, and the guarantee, would no longer be insisted on; and that the
military control of the lakes was now reduced in purpose to the
retention of Forts Michilimackinac and Niagara.[501] The intention
remained, however, to insist upon the Indian provisions as just
stated.

On September 26, the American commission replied that, as thus
presented, there was no apparent difference in the purposes of the two
nations as regarded the substantial welfare of the Indians themselves.
The United States meant towards them peace, and the placing them in
the position in which they stood before the war. "The real difference
was" in the methods proposed. Great Britain "insisted on including the
Indians, as allies, in the treaty of peace between her and the United
States." But the Indi