Meanwhile the subjugated French, still smarting under their defeat, dispatched emissaries to almost every village and council house, from the lakes to the gulf, saying that the English had formed a deliberate scheme to exterminate the entire Indian race, and with this design had already begun to hem them in with a chain of forts on one side and settlements on the other. King Louis of France, they said, had of late years been sleeping, and that, during his slumbers, the English had seized upon Canada; but that he was now awake again, and that his armies were advancing up the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi to drive out the intruders from the country of his red children. The French trading companies, and, it is said, the officers of the crown also, distributed with a liberal hand the more substantial encouragement of arms, ammunition, clothing and provisions. The fierce passions of the Indians, excited by their wrongs and encouraged by the representations of the French, were farther wrought upon by disturbing influences of another kind. A great _prophet_ arose among the Delawares, preaching the recovery of the Indian's hunting grounds from the white man, and claiming to have received a revelation direct from the Great Spirit. Vast throngs, including many from remote regions, listened spellbound by his wild eloquence. The white man was driving the Indians from their country, he said, and unless the Indians obeyed the Great Spirit, and destroyed the white man, then the latter would destroy them. This was the state of affairs among the Indians in 1761 and 1762. Everywhere was discontent, sullen hatred and dark foreboding passion. Pontiac saw his opportunity; he maintained close relations with the great Delaware prophet, and, like Philip before and Tecumseh after him, he determined to unite all the tribes he could reach or influence in a gigantic conspiracy to exterminate their common enemy, with the help of France, whom, he intended, should regain her foothold on the continent.