Though the battle of Tippecanoe, considered as a conflict from the losses on each side, would to-day be regarded only as a skirmish, yet it had a great moral influence in restraining the savages in the northwest, and, but for the meddling of the British agents, a permanent peace with the Indians could have been established. Harrison burned the prophet's town. The prophet lost caste with his people. When reproached for his falsehoods, he cunningly told them that his predictions had failed of fulfilment, because, during his incantations, his wife touched the sacred vessels and broke the charm. His followers, superstitious as they were, would not accept such a flimsy excuse and deserted him, flying to secure hiding-places where the white man could not find them. After his town was burned, the prophet took shelter among the Wyandots. The events in the northwest aroused a war spirit among the patriotic Americans, which could not be suppressed. Not only did British emissaries incite the Indians to make war, but British orders in council continued to be vigorously enforced. Insult was offered to the American flag by British cruisers, and the press of Great Britain insolently declared that the Americans "could not be kicked into a war." Forbearance ceased to be a virtue; it became cowardice. President Madison found himself the standard-bearer of his party, surrounded by irrepressible young warriors eager for fight. Like a cautious commander, he sounded a careful war note in his annual message to congress at the beginning of November, 1811. The young and ardent members of the house of representatives, who had elected Henry Clay, then thirty-four years of age, speaker, determined that indecision should no longer mark the councils of the nation. The committee on foreign relations, of which Peter B. Porter was chairman, intensified that feeling by an energetic report submitted on the 29th of November, in which, in glowing sentences, the British government was arraigned on charges of injustice, cruelty, and wrong. They said: