as butchered, after a formal surrender
upon terms which guaranteed them protection. This wholesale and
vindictive barbarity, while it betrayed the spirit which filled the
savages, had the still farther effect of encouraging them in a warfare
which had so far gratified very equally their appetites for blood and
booty. In addition to this natural effect, the result of their own wild
passions, there were other influences, from without, at work among them.
Certain French emissaries had crept into their towns and were busily
engaged, with bribes and arguments, in stimulating them to continued
warfare. This, in all probability, was the secret influence, which, over
all, kept them from listening, as well to their own fears, as to the
urgent suggestions of the British authorities, for peace. Hitherto, the
Cherokees had given no ear to the temptations of the French, whom they
considered a frivolous people, and whose professions of faith they were
very likely to have regarded with distrust. But the labors of their
emissaries at this juncture, harmonizing with the temper of the nation,
were necessarily more than usually successful. One of these emissaries,
Louis Latinac, an officer of considerable talent, proved an able
instigator to mischief. He persuaded them, against the better reason of
their older chiefs, to the rejection of every overture for peace. Their
successes at Fort Loudon were, perhaps, sufficient arguments for the
continuance of war, but there were others not less potent. The king of
France was now to be their ally in place of him of Great Britain. The
one "great father" was no less able than the other to minister to their
appetites and necessities. His arms and ammunition replaced those which
had been withdrawn by the latter; and we may suppose that the liberality
of the new allies was such as to admit of very favorable comparison
and contrast with that which they had experienced at the hands of
the British. Their very excesses in the war were favorable to its
continuance; as they might very well doubt the binding force of treaties
between parties, the bad faith of whom had been written so terribly
in blood. At a great meeting of the nation, at which Louis Latinac was
present, he, with something of their own manner, seizing suddenly upon a
hatchet, struck it violently into a block of wood, exclaiming, as he did
so, "Who is the warrior that will take this up for the king of France?"
Salouee, a young chief of Estatoee,