, who had acted wholly out of
my jurisdiction and influence, to vindicate themselves. J.W. Edmonds,
Esq., and Maj. John Garland, who had been chief actors in the matter,
did so. But it seemed like talking against a whirlwind. The whole action
of this offer, on the Michigan Indians, _was to postpone, by their own
consent_, the payment of the half annuity in coin one year.

The Grand River Indians declined to come to Mackinack, the place
specially named in the treaty, to receive their half annuity, in
consequence of which, it was not practicable to send it to them till the
next spring. I paid it myself on the 5th of June, 1848, in silver. Yet
the rumor of gross injustice to the Indians only gained force as it
spread. The Grand River memorialists made "nuts" of it, and General Jim
Wilson wielded it for my benefit, in his classical stump speeches in New
Hampshire. I had carefully shielded my Indians from a cent's loss, yet
my name was pitched into the general condemnation, like the thirteenth
biscuit in a baker's dozen. Nothing rolls up so fast as a lie, when once
afloat.[86]

[Footnote 86: Harris felt disobliged by my independence of action
respecting the "goods offer." He had, in fact, been overreached by a
noted commercial house, who dealt heavily in Indian goods in New York,
who sold him the goods on credit; but who actually collected the
_specie_ from the western land offices, on public drafts, before the
year expired. He vented this pique officially, by suspending my report
of Oct. 18th, 1837, on the debt claims against the Indians, finally
_assumed_ powers in relation to them, directly subversive of the
principles of the treaty of March 28th, 1836, which had been negotiated
by me, and referred them for revision to a more supple agent of his
wishes at New York, who had been one of the efficient actors in the
"goods offer" at Green Bay, Wisconsin, as above detailed.]

CHAPTER LXIII.

Missions--Hard times, consequent on over-speculation--Question of the
rise of the lakes--Scientific theory--Trip to Washington--Trip to Lake
Superior and the Straits of St. Mary--John Tanner--Indian improvements
north of Michilimackinack--Great cave--Isle Nabiquon--Superstitious
ideas of the Indians connected with females--Scotch
royals--McKenzie--Climate of the United States--Foreign coins and
natural history--Antique fort in Adams County, Ohio--Royal Society of
Northern Antiquaries--Statistics of lands purchased from the
Indians