From this time forth Mollie Brant, the handsome squaw, was Johnson’s companion. Her Indian name was Deyonwadonti, which means “many opposed to one.” She was a granddaughter of one of the Mohawk chiefs who had visited London a generation or two before, when “Quider,” or Peter Schuyler, had shown the King of Great Britain some of his American allies. Mary Brant was undoubtedly a woman of ability, and with her Johnson lived happily. She presided over Fort Johnson, and later at Johnson Hall. She became the mother of a large brood of Johnson’s “natural” children; and as “the brown Lady Johnson,” white guests and visitors always treated her with respect. With this new link to bind the Iroquois to him, the colonel’s influence was deepened far and wide throughout the Indian Confederacy. To strengthen his ascendancy over the minds of the Indians, Johnson seemed to hesitate at nothing. The dangerous journey to Detroit was duly made, and after being waited on by friendly deputies of the Ottawa Confederacy, the great council was held on the 19th of September. Here, before the representatives of many Indian nations from the four points of the compass, he made a great speech, smoked the pipe of peace in the name of their Great Father the King, and distributed the presents. The ceremonies wound up with a grand dinner and ball to the people of Detroit. The return was safely made, and home was reached October 30. During the winter of 1761, spent by Johnson in New York in pursuance of his civil duties, Dr. Cadwallader Colden, the incorrigible Tory, who was now lieutenant-governor, distinguished himself in further encroaching upon the liberties of the people, by trying to make the judiciary dependent on the Crown. Instead of the judges being appointed to hold office during good behaviour, Colden wanted them to serve at the pleasure of the king. In other words, he would, by making the king’s will the term of office, reduce the bench of judges to be the instrument of the royal prerogative. A lively discussion in the press was carried on by William Livingston, John Scott, and William Smith, as champions of the people, who contended vigourously for the principle so long regnant in the Dutch, and now prominent in the American republic,—the supremacy of the judiciary. Remembering too well how servile were the English judges who held office at the pleasure of the Plantagenets, the Stuarts, and even of Cromwell, the people of New York fought stoutly for their rights and the republican principle. When Colden desired an increase of salary for the Boston lawyer who acted as chief-justice, the Assembly flatly refused to grant it. The salary of the obnoxious Chief Justice Benjamin Pratt was finally paid out of the royal quit-rents of the province. Colden wrote to the Board of Trade prophesying the dire results of the doctrine—embodied in the preamble to the Constitution of the United States only twenty-six years later—that all authority is derived from the people.