Page:Tupper family records - 1835.djvu/223

 it their first interest to spare themselves, their second, to serve their father ; a mode of conduct which was nearly resented by the more enterprising warriors of the west, who had taken up the hatchet from a strong feeling of necessity, and hatred to the encroachments of the Americans. Among these, the most distinguished was Te-cum-seh, a Shawanee chieftain, whose courage and commanding talents recommended him, early in the war, not only to the notice, but to the personal esteem, and admiration of Sir Isaac Brock.* Te-cum-seh perceived the necessity of a general Indian confederacy, as the only permanent barrier to the dominion of the States. What he had the genius to conceive, he had the talents to execute : eloquence and address, courage, penetration, and what in an Indian is more remarkable than these, undeviating temperance. Under better auspices, this Amphictyonic league might have been effected ; but after the death of his friend and patron, he found no kindred spirit with whom to act ; but stung with grief and indignation, after upbraiding, in the bitterest sarcasms,t the retreat of our forces, he engaged an American detachment of mounted riflemen, near the Moravian village, and having rushed forward, singly, to encounter their commanding officer, whom he mistook for General Harrison, he fell by a pistol ball. The exultations of the Americans on his death, afford unerring, because unintended, evidence of the dread his talents had inspired. J

own person. Te-cum-seh received it with great emotion, and begged the general to consider, that if he refrained from wearing it himself, it was from an anxiety to prevent the jealousy, which such an honour conferred on a young chieftain might excite, among the older Indian captains; but that he would send it to his family, to be preserved as an eternal memorial of his father's friendship."
 * " The general, one day, presented him with the sash he had worn on his

t " ' I compare,' said he, speaking of the author of this retreat, ' our father to a fat white dog, who, in the season of prosperity carries his tail erect on his back, but drops it betwixt its legs and flies at the approach of dauber.' On another occasion, when by way of pacifying his remonstrances with a metaphor, in the Indian manner, our commander professed his readiness to lay his bones by his side, ' Tell the dog,' said the angry warrior, ' he has too much regard for his carcass to lay his bones any where.'

X " The officer who shot him was a Colonel Johnson, who had been himself severely wounded the moment before. Te-cum-seh bore a personal enmity to General Harrison, to whom he attributed the slaughter of his family ; and had vowed that when they met, one of them should be left on the field.

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