English would receive him very kindly. Then Daniel interrupted me, and said to Shingas, "Do not believe him, he tells nothing but idle lying stories. Wherefore did the English hire one thousand two hundred Indians[1] to kill us." I protested it was false; he said, G—d d—n[2] you for a fool; did you not see the woman lying [in] the road that was killed by the Indians, that the English hired? I said, "Brother do consider how many thousand Indians the French have hired to kill the English, and how many they have killed along the frontiers." Then Daniel said, "D—n you, why do not you and the French fight on the sea? You come here only to cheat the poor Indians, and take their land from them." Then Shingas told him to be still; for he did not know what he said. We arrived at Kushkushkee before night, and I informed Pisquetumen of Daniel's behaviour, at which he appeared sorry.
29th.—I dined with Shingas; he told me, though the English had set a great price on his head, he had never thought to revenge himself, but was always very kind to any prisoners that were brought in;[3] and that he assured the Governor, he would do all in his power to bring about an established peace, and wished he could be certain of the English being in earnest.
Then seven chiefs present said, when the Governor
sends the next messenger, let him send two or three white men, at least, to confirm the thing, and not send such a man as Daniel; they did not understand him; he always
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- ↑ Meaning the Cherokees.—[C. T.?]
- ↑ Some of the first English speech, that the Indians learn from the traders, is swearing.—[C. T.?]
- ↑ Heckewelder testifies that Shingas, though a dreaded foe in battle, was never known to treat prisoners cruelly. See his Indian Nations, Historical Society of Pennsylvania Memoirs (Philadelphia, 1876), xii, pp. 269, 270.—Ed.
