“Brothers:—When your fathers were weak and ours were strong, the Great Spirit led them to believe you were their friends; they helped you in your childlike condition. Things have changed! You have become great and strong, and we poor and weak. You are now paying us for what our fathers have done. “Brothers:—Our troubles are great indeed. This you are sensible of, and have done much to relieve us in our distress; but the chains of the white men have grown, and continue to grow tight upon us at the loss and expense of our substance. They multiply, and become too heavy for us to endure. “Brothers:—We have none (on earth) to look to for aid and protection, but you. When you forsake us, all is lost. Our wives and daughters wet their pillows with their tears, and pray the Great Spirit to keep your ears open that you may hear their cries. “Brothers:—We have but little to say; our mouths are almost closed. Our hopes are in you. Farewell.” Extract from an address to the Committee of the Four Yearly Meetings of Friends of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Genesee, by several Indian Chiefs. “When we turn our faces backward, and look over the histories of the past, we find that more than fifty winters have gone by since the Iroquois, or Six Nations, first selected the Society of Friends as their friends, upon whom they could repose confidence without fear of being betrayed. “The selection was made from the sects and denominations of those who styled themselves Christians, at the time when war had diminished the members of the Iroquois braves—when the Iroquois bowstring had been broken—when his council fires were nearly put out by the blood of his people, and the loud thundering voices of the big iron guns of the pale faces caused the ground to tremble beneath his feet, and his council house to shake to its very foundation—when oppression crushed the Iroquois, and cruelty made his heart bleed—when murder and robbery committed upon the red man, brought bounty to the spoiler committing the foul deed,—when the pale-faces, like hungry hounds, chased the red man from his hunting grounds.