George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 2, 17th edition.

[420] shall be seen afar. We will shelter ourselves under it,

Chap. XVII.} 1684.

and live in unmolested peace.

At the conclusion of the treaty, each of the three offending nations gave a hatchet to be buried. ‘We bury none for ourselves,’ said the Mohawks, ‘for we have never broken the ancient chain.’

The axes were buried, and the offending tribes in noisy rapture chanted the song of peace.

‘Brother Corlaer,’ said a chief for the Onondagas

Aug 2

and Cayugas, ‘your sachem is a great sachem; and we are a small people. When the English came first to Manhattan, to Virginia, and to Maryland, they were a small people, and we were great. Because we found you a good people, we treated you kindly, and gave you land. Now, therefore, that you are great and we small, we hope you will protect us from the French. They are angry with us because we carry beaver to our brethren.’

The envoys of the Senecas soon arrived, and ex-

Aug. 5.

pressed their delight, that the tomahawk was already buried, and all evil put away from the hearts of the English sachems. On the same day, a messenger from De la Barre appeared at Albany. But his complaints were unheeded. ‘We have not wandered from our paths,’ said the Senecas. ‘But when Onondio, the sachem of Canada, threatens us with war, shall we run away? Shall we sit still in our houses? Our beaverhunters are brave men, and the beaver-hunt must be free.’ The sachems returned to nail the arms of the duke of York over their castles—a protection, as they thought, against the French—an acknowledgment, as the English deemed, of British sovereignty.

Meantime the rash and confident De la Barre, with six hundred French soldiers, four hundred Indian allies,