vorably impressed. On the
twelfth of March, Colonel Thomas Proctor, as the agent and
representative of the United States government, was sent forward to the
Seneca towns. His instructions from the secretary of war were, to induce
the Cornplanter and as many of the other chiefs of the Senecas as
possible, to go with him as messengers of peace to the Miami and Wabash
Indians. They were first to repair to Sandusky on Lake Erie, and there
hold a conference with the Delaware and Wyandot tribes who were inclined
to be friendly. Later they were to go directly to the Miami village at
Kekionga, there to assemble the Miami confederates, and induce them to
go to Fort Washington at Cincinnati, and enter into a treaty of peace
with General St. Clair.

On the twenty-seventh of April, Proctor arrived at Buffalo Creek, six
miles from Fort Erie, situated on the north side of the lake, and
twenty-five miles distant from Fort Niagara on the south shore of Lake
Ontario. Both posts were held by the British. Here he found the Farmer's
Brother, Red Jacket, and practically all of the Iroquois chieftains
under the influence of the British officers. The Farmer's Brother, "was
fully regimented as a colonel, red faced with blue, as belonging to some
royal regiment, and equipped with a pair of the best epaulets." The
Indians had practically given up hunting and were being directly fed and
supported out of the English store-houses. From the very beginning, Red
Jacket and the Farmer's Brother questioned his credentials. Proctor
learned from a French trader, that about seven days prior to his
arrival, Colonel Butler of the British Indian department and Joseph
Brant had been in the village. They had told the Senecas to pay no
attention to Proctor's talk, and to give him no aid in going to the
Miamis, for they would all be killed.

In two or three days Proctor succeeded in getting the Indians into a
council. He argued that it was the duty of all men, red or white, to
warn the Miamis to discontinue their thefts and murders, before a
decisive blow should be "levelled at them" by the United States. The
lives of hundreds of their fellow men might thus be saved. He invited
them to bring forward any gentleman of veracity to examine his papers,
or to hear his speeches. In answer to this, Red Jacket proposed that the
council fire be removed to Fort Niagara, so that all proceedings might
take place under the eyes of the British counsellors. Proctor would not
a