Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (Vol 1 1904).djvu/170

164 Nations in that Country & those on the Ouabache, to acquaint them of Capt Starling's departure from Fort Pitt for the Ilinois Country.

25th—The Chiefs of the St Joseph Indians arrived and addressed themselves to Colo Campbell & me as follows,


 * We are come here to see you, altho' we are not acquainted with you, we had a Father formerly, with whom we were very well acquainted, & never differed with him, you have conquered him some time ago, & when you came here first notwithstanding your hands were all bloody, you took hold of us by the hands, & used us well, & we thought we should be happy with our Fathers, but soon an unlucky difference happened, which threw us all in confusion, where this arose we don't know but we assure you, we were the last that entered into this Quarrel, the Inds from this place solicited us often to join them, but we would not listen to them, at last they got the better of our foolish young Warriors, but we never agreed to it, we knew it would answer no end, & often told our Warriors they were fools, if they succeeded in killing the few English in this Country, they could not kill them all because we knew you to be a great People.

Fathers: you have after all that has happened, received all the several Tribes in this Country for your Children, we from St. Joseph's seem to be the last of your Children that come to you, we are no more than Wild Creatures to you Fathers in understanding therefore we request you'l forgive the past follies of our young people & receive us for your Children since you have thrown down our former Father on his back, we have been wandering in the dark like blind people, now you have dis-