tering into
bonds for their proper conduct. This created a class of duties for the
agents, on the line of the Canada frontiers, which was at all times
onerous. To carry on the trade at all, the old and experienced "servants
of the N.W.," as they were called, were necessary, and it was sometimes
essential to take out the license in the names of American boys, or
persons by no means competent, by their experience in this trade, to
conduct the business, which was, in fact, still in the hands of the old
employees.

It was a false theory, from the start, that ardent spirits was one of
the articles necessary to trade. Congress entertained an opinion of its
injuriousness to the character of the Indians, and passed laws excluding
it. This constituted another class of duties of the agents who were
entrusted with their execution, and required them to "search packages,"
and to judge of the probabilities of all persons applying for licenses
keeping the laws.

To expect that this mixed body of foreigners would exert any very
favorable political influence on the mass of Indian minds in the
north-west, was indulging a hope not very likely to be fulfilled. They
were employed to glean the Indian lodges of furs, and expected to make
good returns to their employers at Michilimackinack; and, if they kept
the ground of neutrality with respect to governments, it was considered
as exempting them from censure.

The great body of the Indians in the upper lakes, and throughout the
north-west, extending to the sources of the Mississippi, were averse to
the American rule. Many of them had been embodied to fight against the
Americans, who were successively met by ambuscade, surprise, or
otherwise, as at Chicago, at Michilimackinack, Brownstown, River Raisin,
Maumee, Fort Harrison, and other places. They had been assembled in
large bodies, by the delusive prophesyings of Elksatawa, and by the not
less delusive promises of the agents of the British Indian Department,
on the lines, that the Americans were to be driven back to the line of
the Illinois, if not of the Ohio--an old and very popular idea with the
lake Indians from early days.

The lake Indians had suffered severely from the war, chiefly from the
camp fevers and irregularities. They had finally been defeated--their
great war captain killed, their false prophet driven from the Wabash
into Canada; and, to crown the whole, were themselves abandoned, one and
all, by their allies, at the tr