Territory could not be the genuine subject of contention in these thinly peopled forests, where the ocean and the pole were the only limits of their otherwise boundless domain. The consequence attached to the authority of chiefs, who, as such, possessed no more property than others, and had not the power to command a single vassal for their own personal benefit, was not such as to be the object of those wars. Their chief privilege was that of being first in every dangerous enterprise. They were loved and honoured, but never, that I have heard of, traduced, envied, or removed from their painful pre-eminence. The only way in which these wars can be accounted for, is, first, from the general depravity of our nature, and from a singularly deep feeling of injury, and a high sense of national honour. They were not the hasty out-breakings of savage fury, but were commenced in the most solemn and deliberate manner, and not without a prelude of remonstrances from the aggrieved party, and attempts to sooth and conciliate from the other. This digression must not be considered as altogether from the purpose. To return to the Indians, whose history has its use in illustrating that of mankind: they now became fully sensible of the importance they derived from the increased wealth and undefended state of the settlement. They discovered, too, that they held the balance between the interior settlements of France and England, which, though still distant from each other, were daily approximating. The Mohawks, though always brave and always faithful, felt a very allowable repugnance to expose the lives of their warriors in defence of those who made no effort to defend themselves; who were neither protected by the arms of their sovereign, nor by their own courage. They came down to hold a solemn congress, at which the heads of the Schuyler and Cuyler families assisted; and where it was agreed that hostilities should be delayed for the present—the hostile nations pacified by concessions and presents, and means adopted to put the settlement into a state of defence against future aggressions.