During the year 1807 Tecumthe’s influence was increased by the “Chesapeake” excitement, which caused the Governor-general of Canada to intrigue among the Indians for aid in case of war. Probably their increase of influence led the Prophet and his brother, in May or June, 1808, to establish themselves on Tippecanoe Creek, the central point of Indian strategy and politics. Vincennes lay one hundred and fifty miles below, barely four-and-twenty hours down the stream of the Wabash; Fort Dearborn, or Chicago, was a hundred miles to the northwest; Fort Wayne the same distance to the northeast; and excepting a short portage, the Tippecanoe Indians could paddle their canoes to Malden and Detroit in one direction, or to any part of the waters of the Ohio and Mississippi in the other. At the mouth of Tippecanoe Creek the reformers laid out a village that realized Jefferson’s wish, for the Indians there drank no whiskey, and avowed themselves to be tillers of the soil. Their professions seemed honest. In August, 1808, the Prophet came to Vincennes and passed two weeks with Governor Harrison, who was surprised to find that no temptation could overcome the temperance of the Prophet’s followers. The speech then made in the public talk with the governor remains the only record of the Prophet’s words, and of the character he wished to pretend, if not to adopt. “I told all the redskins,” he said to Harrison, “that the way they were in was not good, and that they ought to abandon it; that we ought to consider ourselves as one man, but we ought to live agreeable to our several customs,--the red people after their mode, and the white people after theirs; particularly that they should not drink whiskey; that it was not made for them, but the white people, who alone know how to use it; and that it is the cause of all the mischiefs which the Indians suffer.... Determine to listen to nothing that is had; do not take up the tomahawk, should it be offered by the British or by the Long-knives; do not meddle with anything that does not belong to you, but mind your own business, and cultivate the ground, that your women and your children may have enough to live on. I now inform you that it is our intention to live in peace with our father and his children forever.” Whatever want of confidence Harrison felt in these professions of peace, he recorded his great surprise at finding the temperance to be real; and every one who visited the settlement at Tippecanoe bore witness to the tillage, which seemed to guarantee a peaceful intent; for if war had been in Tecumthe’s mind, he would not have placed town, crops, and stock within easy reach of destruction.