lish merchants.

Brant was impatient, but Dorchester, like Lord Sidney, proceeded
cautiously. On March 22, 1787, Sir John Johnson, the British Indian
superintendent wrote to Brant, expressing his happiness that things had
turned out prosperously in the Indian country, and saying that he hoped
that the chief's measures might have the effect of preventing the
Americans from encroaching on the Indian lands. "I hope," he writes, "in
all your decisions you will conduct yourselves with prudence and
moderation, having always an eye to the friendship that has so long
subsisted between you and the King's subjects, upon whom you alone can
and ought to depend. You have no reason to fear any breach of promise on
the part of the King. Is he not every year giving you fresh proofs of
his friendship? What greater could you expect than is now about to be
performed, by giving an ample compensation for your losses, which is yet
withheld from us, his subjects? Do not suffer bad men or evil advisors
to lead you astray; everything that is reasonable and consistent with
the friendship that ought to be preserved between us, will be done for
you all. Do not suffer an idea to hold a place in your mind, that it
will be for your interests to sit still and see the Americans attempt
the posts. It is for your sakes chiefly, if not entirely that we hold
them. If you become indifferent about them, they may perhaps be given
up; what security would you then have? You would be left at the mercy of
a people whose blood calls aloud for revenge." On May 29th of the same
year, Major Matthews of the English army, who had been assigned to the
command of the king's forces at Detroit, communicated with Brant from
Fort Niagara, expressing the views of Dorchester as follows: "In the
future his Lordship wishes them (the Indians) to act as is best for
their interests; he cannot begin a war with the Americans, because some
of their people encroach and make depredations upon parts of the Indian
country; but they must see it is his Lordship's intention to defend the
posts; and while these are preserved, the Indians must find great
security therefrom, and consequently the Americans greater difficulty in
taking possession of their lands; but should they once become masters of
the posts, they will surround the Indians, and accomplish their purposes
with little trouble. From a consideration of all which, it therefore
remains with the Indians to decide what is most for their