Management of the Mohawks, by the influence of the Christian Indians. THE influence these converts had obtained over the minds of those most venerated for wisdom among their countrymen, was the medium through which this patriot family, in some degree, controlled the opinions of that community at large, and kept them faithful to the British interests. Every two or three years, there was a congress held, by deputies from New-York, who generally spoke to the Indians by an interpreter; went through the form of delivering presents from their brother, the great king, redressing petty grievances, smoking the calumet of peace, and delivering belts, the pledges of amity. But these were mere public forms; the real terms of this often renewed amity having been previously digested by those who far better understood the relations subsisting between the contracting parties, and the causes most likely to interrupt their union. Colonel Schuyler, though always ready to serve his country in exigencies, did not like to take upon himself any permanent responsibility, as a superintendent of Indian affairs, as it might have diminished that private influence which arose from the general veneration for his character, and from a conviction that the concern he took was voluntary and impartial; neither did he choose to sacrifice that domestic peace and leisure, which he so well knew how to turn to the best account, being convinced that by his example and influence as a private gentleman, he had it in his power to do much good of a peculiar kind, which was incompatible with the weight and bustle of public affairs, or with that hospitality, which, as they managed it, was productive of so many beneficial effects. I have already shown how, by prudent address and kind conciliation this patriotic pair soothed and attached the Indians to the British interest. As the country grew more populous, and property more abundant and more secure, the face of society in this inland region began to change. They whose quiet and orderly demeanor, devotion, and integrity, did not much require the enforcement of laws, began now to think themselves above them. To a deputed authority, the source of which lay beyond the Atlantic, they paid little deference; and from their neighbours of New Hampshire and Connecticut, who bordered on their frontiers, and served with them in the colonial wars, they had little to learn of loyalty or submission. These people they held in great contempt, both as soldiers and statesmen; and yet, from their frequent intercourse with those who talked of law and politics in their peculiar, uncouth dialect incessantly, they insensibly adopted many of their notions. There is a certain point of stable happiness at which our imperfect nature merely seems to arrive; for the very materials of which it is formed contain the seeds of its destruction: this was the case here. That peaceful and desirable equality of conditions, from which so many comforts resulted,