In this story is developed the principle upon which war was waged among the Iroquois. Revenge for a great injury was the cause of the beginnings of strife. Then subjugation for the sake of peace, like the Romans of old, and the Iroquois have been justly called the “Romans of America.” There was something in their proud and dignified bearing, in their national policy, and their warlike exploits, like the people who extended their arms into every civilized and uncivilized land. In the words of the poet, who has given metrical beauty to their legends, and added his own to their lofty enthusiasm: “Roman remains in Britain, with their double lines of circumvallation, and the Druidic circles of moss-covered stones, are objects, not more interesting to the antiquary than the mighty tumuli of the west; and the ruins of walled towns in the wilds of Wisconsin. What are a few mouldering abbeys and falling turrets, compared with the colossal remains of empires in Central America? Poet and historian have lavished their descriptive skill on the burial rites of Alaric, whose bones repose in the sandy bed of the Busentinus, but not less imposing was the funeral of Blackbird, the Ohama Chief, who was inhumed bestriding his war-horse in a hill sepulchre that overlooks the Missouri. “Red Jacket sitting in tears on a fallen oak, viewing the cleared fields of the white man, after a fruitless hunt for game in and around the haunts of his youth, was a nobler spectacle of sorrow than even Marius reclining amid the ruins of Carthage.” And Jefferson says: “Before we condemn the Indian of this continent as wanting genius, we must consider that letters had not yet been introduced among them. If the Indian at this time is compared with Europeans north of the Alps, when the Roman arms and arts first crossed the mountains, the comparison would be very unequal, because Europe at that time was swarming with numbers; because numbers produce emulation and multiply chances of improvement, and one improvement begets another. Yet I may safely ask, how many great poets—how many able mathematicians—how many great inventors in arts and sciences had Europe north of the Alps then produced? And it was sixteen centuries after this before a Newton could be found.” The manner in which the legend represents the Indian warrior meeting death at the stake is the manner in which every Indian warrior died. No refinement or duration of torture could extort from him a groan. The faith of the Christian martyr supports him in the hour of trial; but the Indian excels him in defying his tormentors, with only his own dauntless spirit to sustain him; he will die, too, rather than surrender, though he knows he will fall into the hands of those who, looking upon him as a fallen foe, will be merciful.