29] The complaint was signed by the eight Provincial
Commissioners for the Indian Trade newly appointed by the Assembly,
including Edward Pennington, the celebrated Quaker merchant of
Philadelphia; Thomas Willing, afterward a member of the Continental
Congress, and the first president of the Bank of North America, the
earliest chartered in the country; and William Fisher, who was mayor of
Philadelphia just before the Revolution. Such formidable opposition
shows that Croghan, from being an object of pity to his creditors, had
risen to affluence as the head of a "trust."

Owing to his business methods, some of the Quakers were not well
disposed toward Croghan. At a conference with the Delawares and Six
Nations held at Easton, in 1758, one of the Quakers present wrote home
an account of the proceedings in a tone not favorable to Croghan. "He
treats them [the Indians] with liquor," wrote the Quaker, "and gives out
that he himself is an Indian.... At the close of the conference one
Nichos, a Mohawk, made a speech.... This Nichos is G. Croghan's
father-in-law."

If Croghan is to be believed, however, he was opposed to giving liquor
to the Indians. While arranging for this very conference he had written
to Secretary Richard Peters of Pennsylvania, "You'll excuse boath
writing and peper, and guess at my maining, fer I have at this minnitt
20 drunken Indians about me. I shall be ruined if ye taps are not
stopt."

Although Croghan had come to America in 1741, this letter, with its
"guess at my maining," and another in which he has "lase" for "lease,"
suggest that, if his pronunciation may be judged from his spelling, he
retained a rich Irish brogue. Certainly his Irish wit and good nature
served him well in his dealing with the Indians. He was frequently
useful in outwitting the French Indian-agents, and in maintaining the
friendship of the red men for the English as against the French. General
Bouquet, who seems to have detested Croghan, wrote to General Gage, at a
time when new powers had been conferred upon Indian-agents, "It is to be
regretted that powers of such importance should be trusted to a man
illiterate, impudent, and ill-bred." Nevertheless, within a few months,
Bouquet wrote to Gage recommending Croghan as the person most competent
to negotiate with the Western Indians for British control of the French
posts in the Illinois country--a mission upon which Croghan was wounded,
captured, and pillaged by the Indians.