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"Fathers, I am come to tell you your own speeches, what your own mouths
have declared.

"Fathers, you, in former days, set a silver basin before us, wherein
there was the leg of a beaver, and desired all the nations to come and
eat of it,--to eat in peace and plenty, and not to be churlish to one
another; and that if any such person should be found to be a disturber,
I here lay down by the edge of the dish a rod, which you must scourge
them with; and if your father should get foolish, in my old days, I
desire you may use it upon me as well as others.

"Now, fathers, it is you who are the disturbers in this land, by coming
and building your towns, and taking it away unknown to us, and by force.

"Fathers, we kindled a fire a long time ago at a place called Montreal,
where we desired you to stay, and not to come and intrude upon our land.
I now desire you may dispatch to that place; for be it known to you,
fathers, that this is our land, and not yours.

"Fathers, I desire you may hear me in civilness; if not, we must handle
that rod which was laid down for the use of obstreperous. If you had
come in a peaceable manner, like our brothers, the English, we would not
have been against your trading with us as they do; but to come, fathers,
and build houses upon our land, and to take it by force, is what we
cannot submit to.

"Fathers, both you and the English are white; we live in a country
between; therefore the land belongs to neither one nor the other. But
the Great Being above allowed it to be a place of residence for us; So,
fathers, I desire you to withdraw, as I have done our brothers, the
English; for I will keep you at arm's length. I lay this down as a trial
for both, to see which will have the greatest regard to it, and that
side we will stand by, and make equal sharers with us. Our brothers, the
English, have heard this, and I come now to tell it to you, for I am not
afraid to discharge you off this land."

This, he said, was the substance of what he spoke to the general, who
made this reply:

"'Now, my child, I have heard your speech; you spoke first, but it is my
time to speak now. Where is my wampum that you took away with the marks
of towns on it? This wampum I do not know, which you have discharged me
off the land with; but you need not put yourself to the trouble of
speaking, for I will not hear you. I am not afraid of flies or
mosquitoes, for Indians are such