When the fallen chieftain entered the presence of General Street as a prisoner he thus addressed him: "You have taken me prisoner with all my warriors. I am much grieved, for I expected if I did not defeat you to hold out much longer and give you more trouble before I surrendered. I tried hard to bring you into ambush, but your last general understands Indian fighting. The first one was not so wise. When I saw I could not beat you by Indian fighting, I determined to rush on you and fight you face to face. I fought hard, but your guns were well aimed. The bullets flew like birds in the air, and whizzed by our ears like wind through the trees in winter. My warriors fell around me; it began to look dismal. I saw my evil day at hand. The sun rose dim on us in the morning and at night it sank in a dark cloud, and looked like a ball of fire. That was the last sun that shone on Black Hawk. His heart is dead and no longer beats quick in his bosom. He is now a prisoner to the white man; they will do with him as they wish. But he can stand torture and is not afraid of death. He is no coward. Black Hawk is an Indian. "He has done nothing for which an Indian ought to be ashamed. He has fought for his countrymen, the squaws and pappooses, against white men, who came year after year to cheat him and take away their lands. You know the cause of our making war. It is known to all white men. They ought to be ashamed of it. The white men despise the Indians and drive them from their homes. But the Indians are not deceitful. The white men speak bad of the Indian and look at him spitefully. But the Indian does not tell lies; Indians do not steal. "An Indian who is as bad as the white men could not live in our nation; he would be put to death and eaten up by the wolves. The white men are bad schoolmasters; they carry false looks and deal in false actions; they smile in the face of the poor Indian to cheat him; they shake them by the hand to gain their confidence, to make them drunk, to deceive them. We told them to let us alone and keep away from us; but they followed on, and beset our path as they coiled themselves among us, like a snake. They poisoned us by their touch. We were not safe. We lived in danger. We were becoming like them, hypocrites and liars, adulterers, lazy drones--all talkers and no workers.