, and if these were the
emotions experienced in a civilized community, made fully aware of the
coming event, what must have been the impression produced on the
superstitious mind of the savage, wholly unenlightened in the ways of
science? From that day, the power of the savage Prophet was secure until
the spell of his magic was forever broken by Harrison's soldiers at
Tippecanoe.

It is not certain at what precise period in his career, whether in 1806
or 1807, or later, the Prophet was tempted by British gold and British
overtures. President Jefferson once wrote to John Adams as follows: "I
thought there was little danger in his making proselytes from the habits
and comforts they had learned from the whites, to the hardships and
privations of savagism, and no great harm if he did. But his followers
increased until the British thought him worth corrupting, and found him
corruptible." Neither is it certain at what precise period Tecumseh put
his brother-priest behind him and assumed the lead. That he had
cunningly pretended to have great respect and reverence while the
Prophet was practicing on the superstition of the tribes; that he took
no steps to stop the inquisitions which were destroying the influence of
the chiefs and medicine men; that he stood ready at the opportune moment
to push the brother-priest into the back-ground and form a confederacy
with himself as the recognized head, will not now admit of controversy.

In 1806 Tecumseh was about thirty-eight years of age, a finished
athlete, a renowned hunter, and of great reputation as a bold and
fearless orator. Probably no red man ever born had a better knowledge of
the various treaties that had been consummated between the races. "For
all those qualities which elevate man far above his race; for talent,
tact, skill, bravery as a warrior; for high-minded, honorable and
chivalrous bearing as a man; in fine, for all those elements of
greatness which place him a long way above his fellows in savage life,
the name and fame of Tecumseh will go down to posterity in the west, as
one of the most celebrated of the aborigines of this continent." This is
the estimate of Judge Law, of Vincennes.

In his youth he had been under the tutelage of his elder brother,
Cheeseekau, who taught him "a love for the truth, a contempt of
everything mean and sordid, and the practice of those cardinal Indian
virtues, courage in battle and fortitude in suffering." In one of the
early Shawne