the lands, and promise never to
consummate any more purchases, without the consent of all the tribes,
that he would be the faithful ally of the Americans and assist them in
all their wars with the British. "He said he knew the latter were always
urging the Indians to war for their own advantage, and not to benefit
his countrymen; and here he clapped his hands, and imitated a person who
halloos at a dog, to set him to fight with another, thereby insinuating
that the British thus endeavored to set the Indians on the Americans."
He said further that he had rather be a friend of the Seventeen Fires,
but if they would not accede to his demands that he would be forced to
join the English. The memory of Wayne, the commanding figure and
dauntless courage of the present Governor, had had their effect;
compared to the vile and sneaking agents of the British government, who,
in the security of their forts, had formerly offered bounties for
American scalps, and urged the Indians to a predatory warfare, the
American leaders stood out in bold relief as both men and warriors.
Tecumseh recognized this, but the die was cast and his purposes were
unchangeable. Stripped of all its savage propensities, the heart of the
Shawnee was really of heroic mould. Concerning that great principle of
the survival of the fittest, he knew nothing; of the onrushing forces of
civilization and progress he had no just comprehension; but as the
rising sun of the new republic appeared, he saw the light of his race
fading into obscurity, and patriotically resolved to stand on his lands
and resist to the last. Misinformed, misguided, he sought an alliance
with the British to stem the tide; instead of delaying, this but
accelerated the decline of the tribes. Tecumseh, when it was too late,
discovered that the promises of the British agents were false, and soon
after his death the feeling engendered against the tribes, on account of
their alliance with the English and the many atrocities they had
committed, drove them beyond the Mississippi. But he who fights for his
native land and from devotion to principle, however wrong, must always
be entitled to the respect of the brave.

If coolness and courage had had their effect on the one hand, the candor
and honesty of his adversary, when met face to face, had also moved the
Governor. In after years, in an address before the Historical Society of
Ohio, Harrison said: "I think it probable that Tecumseh possessed more
i