Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/339

Rh years the French had gained great advantages by showing themselves to be far more sagacious and politic in conciliating and winning power, influence, and absolute sway over the savages than the English. The Indians were keenly observant of the difference in its full import and in all its details. The French, as has abundantly appeared, flattered, cajoled, and assimilated with them. And they were also generous, even lavish, towards few or more of the red race who represented its good or bad traits. The English took no pains to conceal their haughty and insolent contempt of the savages. They were also stingy and niggard in the bestowment of the gifts, the receiving of which the savages had come to expect in all their intercourse with the whites; for the savages were to the last degree mercenary. The very proudest of them was ready to become an importunate beggar, and would barter all his dignity for a trinket, a blanket, or a draught of fire-water. At this critical time, when the agents of England under the heavy expenses already incurred were trying to practise a penurious economy, the savages would tauntingly remind them how generous their French Father had been in clothing and arming them while they had been his allies. It was natural, too, that the tribes which had been long in contact with the whites through the fur-trade, and in alliances, should have come to depend upon the implements and conveniences of civilization, even to the extent in many cases of disusing their old bows and stone tools and skin robes. Nor could even Pontiac wean them from these flesh-pots. The French had never asked of the savages the formal cession of their territory, and had represented that the strongholds built within it did not signify a formal possession. Stoutly, too, had the savages repudiated the idea of their being under obligations of allegiance in any full sense as subjects even to the King of France: though he was their father, he was only a brother to the chiefs. Bluntly did English officers announce to them, that, being conquered, they were subjects