Some of my readers will be ready to exclaim, “How heartless and barbarous!” and thoroughly savage, too, perhaps; but I shall only have to refer them for a parallel, to English and American history only a few years before, when young Hale was hung in an English camp for being a spy, and the gallant Major Andre in an American camp for the same reason; and no petitions or pleadings could procure for them a more honorable death. “Only permit me to be shot, and I will glory in my death,” plead the brave young man who was risking life, and honor too, in the service of his country, and whose only sin was that he dared too much for the cause he had espoused. But even Washington would not relent, and the noble youth was hung like a common felon. The simplicity of the Indian in money matters, and especially concerning the interest of sums deposited in banks, was very amusing. At one time there was ceded a tract of land including four millions of acres, for which they were to receive one hundred thousand pounds; the Indians being told that the interest of the money would be more useful than so much unproductive land, and this interest should be paid them annually. It was very difficult at first for them to comprehend the nature of a bank, and how money could be made to grow, knowing as they did that it was not placed in the earth to produce like corn. They saw that it was planted and produced a crop, but the place and the process were a great mystery. But those on whom devolved the business soon made themselves masters of the science, and knew very quick if the crop was not the full amount, though the uninitiated would sometimes ask what the prospect was in a season like that? The figure was adopted, and is still used in their language, of saying the money is planted and grows. They have planted a certain sum, and it has grown to a great amount. As few of them could count more than a hundred, it was a long time before they could reckon a hundred thousand; and their first lesson was given by filling a cask with dollars, and then another, and showing them how many casks would be required to contain the whole, and how many horses would be necessary in order to draw it. It was in the making of this treaty that Red Jacket was guilty of a duplicity which left a dark stain upon his name for ever, and sowed enmity between him and the honest Farmer’s Brother and Cornplanter, which was never entirely removed. When they heard that there was trouble about the interest of the money that had been deposited in the bank, as it might fail, Farmer’s Brother wrote a letter expressing the fears and misunderstandings of the people, addressed to the Secretary of War.