as never fulfilled."

In the event of a renewal of hostilities between the United States and
Great Britain, it would evidently be the mission of McKee and Elliott to
brighten the bond of friendship between the Indian tribes and the king;
re-establish, so far as possible, the old savage confederacy, and use it
both as a barrier against any attempted invasion of Canada, and as a
weapon of offense against the western states and settlements. The
Shawnees were wholly in the interest of the British. The Potawatomi,
Ottawas and Chippewas who resided in the neighborhood of Detroit were,
as Harrison says, "the most perfidious of their race," and Wells
reported to Harrison, that in case of war, the Indian tribes would be
against the United States. In a letter of July eleventh, 1807, Harrison
wrote to the Department of War that a respectable trader from Detroit
had informed him "that McKee, the British Indian agent, was lately seen
to pass up the Miami of the Lake to Greenville where the Prophet
resided, and where there has been a considerable collection of Indians
for many weeks." The frontiers were generally alarmed, and in September
the Governor dispatched the interpreter, John Conner, with a talk to the
Shawnees requiring the immediate removal of the "impostor" from the
territory, and the dispersion of the warriors he had collected about
him. "The British," he writes, "could not have adopted a better plan to
effect their purpose of alienating from our government the affections of
the Indians than employing this vile instrument. It manifests at once
their inveterate rancour against us and their perfect acquaintance with
the Indian character."

But to return to the Prophet. His fame, bruited far and wide, soon
aroused the jealousy of many of the neighboring chiefs and medicine men.
They saw their power dwindling away and their authority diminishing.
They took steps to check the advancing tide of fanaticism, but were at
once adroitly met by the introduction of an inquisition into witchcraft,
which had been almost universally believed in by the tribes, but against
which the Prophet now hurled the most direful anathemas. He declared
that anyone who dealt in magic or "medicine juggleries" should never
taste of future happiness, and must be instantly put to death. His
deluded and awe-struck followers promptly began a systematic searching
out and persecution of "witches," and all under his personal direction.
The finger of the seer o