Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (Vol 1 1904).djvu/229

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1758]
Post's Journals
223

sit still and consider: they strike you again, then, my brothers, you say, it is time, and you will rise up to defend yourselves. Now, my brothers, this is exactly the case between the French and English. Consider farther, my brothers, what a great number of our poor back inhabitants have been killed since the French came to the Ohio. The French are the cause of their death, and if they were not there, the English would not trouble themselves to go there. They go no where to war, but where the French are. Those wicked people that set you at variance with the English, by telling you many wicked stories, are papists in French pay: besides, there are many among us, in the French service, who appear like gentlemen, and buy Irish papist servants, and promise them great rewards to run away to you and strengthen you against the English, by making them appear as black as devils."

This day arrived here two hundred French and Indians, on their way to fort Duquesne. They staid all night. In the middle of the night king Beaver's daughter died, on which a great many guns were fired in the town.

5th.—It made a general stop in my journey. The French said to their Children, they should catch me privately, or get my scalp. The commander wanted to examine me, as he was going to fort Duquesne. When they told me of it, I said, as he was going to fort Duquesne, he might enquire about me there: I had nothing at all to say, or do with the French: they would tell them every particular they wanted to know in the fort. They all came into the house where I was, as if they would see a new creature.

In the afternoon there came six Indians, and brought three German prisoners, and two scalps of the Catabaws.

As Daniel blamed the English, that they never paid