presence, and the evils attendant upon war and the use of ardent spirits was his constant theme. I cannot say how successful he may be in persuading them to lay aside their passion for war, but the experiment made to determine whether their refusal to drink whiskey proceeded from principle, or was only empty profession, established the former beyond all doubt. Upon the whole, Sir, I am inclined to think the influence which the Prophet has acquired will prove rather advantageous than otherwise to the United States." How vain this trust! Scarcely had the Prophet returned to his town, before he was entertaining an emissary and spy of the British government, who urged war on the United States. In the following spring of 1809, the Chippewas, Ottawas and Potawatomi were being urged by the Prophet to take up arms against the inhabitants of Vincennes, and to destroy the settlers along the Ohio, as far up as Cincinnati. Reports of these proceedings were confirmed by Michael Brouillette, an Indian trader, and by Touissant Dubois, a confidential agent of the Governor. Harrison probably averted an Indian attack, by promptly organizing two additional companies of militia and throwing them into the vicinity of Fort Knox, to guard the approaches to the capital by land and water. The Indians, however, seeing this prompt action, deserted the Prophet and returned to their homes. The Governor was not fooled a second time. The Prophet again visited him in the summer of 1809, and made the same old pretensions of peace. But the Governor forced him to admit that he had entertained the British the fall before, and that he had been invited, as he said, to join a league of the Sacs and Foxes against the whites in the early spring, and he could make no satisfactory explanation as to why he had not imparted these facts to the government, when he had been solemnly enjoined so to do. From this time on, the Prophet was regarded with a just suspicion, and Harrison diligently regarded every movement of the new faith. CHAPTER XX HARRISON'S VIGILANCE --_His personal courage and activities save the frontier capital._ The spring of 1810 opened with peril to Vincennes. The eternal vigilance of Harrison alone saved the day. The fall before had witnessed the making of the Treaty of Fort Wayne and the acquisition of the New Purchase; this had strengthened the claims of the Prophet and Tecumseh for a closer union of the tribes, and had given added force to their argument in favor of a communistic ownership of all the land. What right had the old village chiefs to dispose of the common domain without the consent of the warriors who had fought to maintain it? The Great Spirit gave the soil in common to all the tribes; what single tribe could alienate any particular portion of it?