Page:Lamb - History of the city of New York - Volume 3.djvu/36

364 of distinguished men being present. They remained in the city about six weeks. A military review by the President and Secretary Knox, for their benefit, on Colonel Rutgers’s grounds, July 27, was rendered memorable by the large array of officers in full uniform. On the 2d of August the Indians were entertained with a great banquet, at which were present all the notable statesmen of the day. The Tammany Society enlivened the occasion with songs, and the Creek sachems danced. The orators of both parties made long speeches, and wine flowed freely. Washington dined several of the chiefs one day at his own table, and after the meal invited them to walk down Broadway. Curious to see the effect upon the savage mind of the large full-length portrait of himself which Trumbull had just completed for the city corporation, he led them suddenly into its presence. They stood stiff and mute with astonishment for some minutes. One of the chiefs finally advanced and touched the cold flat surface with his hand, exclaiming, "Ugh!” Each of the others slowly followed his example, and all turned away, suspicious of the art which could imprint a great soldier, dressed for battle, and standing beside his war-horse, upon a strip of canvas. Trumbull afterwards tried in vain to obtain their portraits. Knox, after some time spent in preliminaries, succeeded in negotiating the terms of a satisfactory and much-desired treaty, which, indeed, ceded to the Indians nearly all the disputed territory, and which was ratified in Federal Hall with great ceremony on the 13th of August. Washington and his suite appeared at noon of that day in the Hall of Representatives, and presently the Tammany sachems ushered in McGillivray and his chiefs, adorned with their finest feathers. The treaty was read and interpreted; and the President in a short forcible speech explained the justice of its various provisions — to each of which the Indian potentates grunted approval. McGillivray made a short speech in reply; the treaty was duly signed, Washington presented the chieftain with a string of wampum, for a memorial, with a paper of tobacco as a substitute for the ancient calumet, then came a general shaking of hands, and the ceremonies were concluded by a song of peace, in which the Creek warriors joined in their own peculiar fashion.

Early in March the legislature of New York appointed commissioners to settle, if possible, the chronic controversy with Vermont. New York had opposed the petition of Vermont for admission into the confederacy in 1776, and Congress had hesitated until the people became indignant, when the second appeal was made in 1777; again in 1787 New York had interposed a protest to defeat an application, although at that time the population of Vermont was increasing so rapidly that New York found it difficult to establish her jurisdiction in the declared rebellious