Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (Vol 1 1904).djvu/301



The journal of Captain Thomas Morris is notable from two points of view. First, because of its rarity—the volume in which it is found, Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (London, printed for James Ridgway, 1791), being a treasure much prized by the collector of valuable Americana. In the second place, the journal is of importance to historical students because of the light it throws upon conditions in the West at this critical moment (1766), and the proof it furnishes that Pontiac's influence was still paramount among the Western Indians, that Bradstreet had been completely duped, and that native hostility to British sovereignty over the Western tribes was deep-seated, and would take many years wholly to uproot.

Incidentally, also, the journal possesses considerable dramatic interest. Dealing with a single episode, told in the first person by the chief participant, and he a person of literary tastes, the thrilling incidents—repeated escapes from torture and death, the flight through the woods, and the final refuge at Detroit—all depicted graphically, yet simply, hold one's attention unflagging to the end. The side touches are in keeping with the principal incidents: the contrast between the author's situation and his calm enjoyment of Shakespeare's tragedy, so curiously preserved for him from the loot of some English officer's baggage; the appearance of the white charger that had borne its master Braddock to sudden death in the Monongahela Valley nine years before; the