In their political and social procedures, in public discourse, and in the etiquette of councils, no denizens of European courts were more truly bond-slaves to etiquette and custom than these forest senators. In certain outward phases of life—especially noticed by the man of hats, boots, and clean underclothing—the Indian seems to be a child of freedom, untutored and unsophisticated. In reality he is a slave compared to the enlightened and civilized man. He is by heredity, training, and environment fettered almost beyond hope. His mind can move out of predestined grooves only after long education, when a new God, new conceptions, induced power of abstract reasoning, and an entirely new mental outlook are given him. First of all, the savage needs a right idea of the Maker of the universe and of the laws by which the creation is governed; and then only does his mental freedom begin. So far from being free from prescribed form, he is less at liberty than a Chinese or Hindu. His adherence to ceremonial runs into bigotry. The calumet must be smoked. The opening speech must be on approved models. The wampum belts are as indispensable in a treaty as are seals and signatures in a Berlin conference or a Paris treaty. To challenge tradition, to step out of routine, to think for himself, and to act according to conviction, is more dangerous and costly to him than to one who has lived under the codes of civilization. To gain his almost invincible influence over these red republicans of the woods, Johnson, like his previous exemplars, had to let patience have her perfect work. He had to stoop to them in order to lift them up. He even learned to outdo them in ostentation of etiquette, in rigid adherence to form, in close attention to long speeches without interruption, in convincing eloquence, in prolixity when it was necessary to subdue the red man’s brain and flesh by the power of the tongue, and in shine and glitter of outward display. Like a shrewd strategist, this typical Irishman knew when to exercise his native gift of garrulity in talking against time, and when also to condense into fiery sentences the message of the hour.