work; in which he was successful. "I supplied each of them with arms, ammunition, and presents in plenty; gave them a French scalping-knife, which had been used against us, and even vermilion, to be used in the flourishing way, with the dangerous French snakes, when they killed and scalped them. . . . . . They soon went to work—they killed the strolling French pedlars—turned out against the Mississippi Indians and Mobillians, and the flame raged very high. A Choctaw woman gave a French pedlar warning: he mounted his horse, but Red Shoes ran him down in about fifteen minutes, and had scalped him before the rest came up. . . . Soon after a great number of Red Shoes' women came to me with the French scalps and other trophies of war." . . . "In the next spring, 1747," he tells us "a large body of Muskohges and Chickasaws embarked on the Mississippi, and went down it to attack the French settlements. Here they burned a large village, and their leader being wounded, they in revenge killed all their prisoners; and overspread the French settlements in their fury like a dreadful whirlwind, destroying all before them, to the astonishment and terror even of those that were far remote from the skirts of the direful storm." This candid writer tells us that the French Louisianians were now in a lamentable state—but, says he, "they had no reason to complain; we were only retaliating innocent blood which they had caused to be shed by their red mercenaries!" He laments that some treacherous traders put a stop to his scheme, or they would soon have driven all the French out of Alabama.[1]
- ↑ Adair, p. 314–321.
