Divisions are thus uninterruptedly sowed among our Indian friends [he wrote, meaning, of course, sowed by Americans], and the minds of many altogether estranged from our interests. Such must inevitably be the consequence of our present inert and neutral proceedings in regard to them. It ill becomes me to determine how long true policy requires that the restrictions imposed upon the Indian department ought to continue; but this I will venture to assert, that each day the officers are restrained from interfering in the concerns of the Indians, each time they advise peace and withhold the accustomed supply of ammunition, their influence will diminish, till at length they lose it altogether. Nothing shows better the activity of the American officers in seeking to line the Indians up on the side of the fighting Republic than Brock's letters to his superiors. We have already seen that Brock had, as late as July 3d, little hope of keeping the Indians of the Grand River true to him because of the American influence exerted over them by active agents. And we have seen, in his counter-proclamation answering that issued by General Hull, that Brock places the employment of the Indians on the ground of territorial rights: "By what new principle," he asks, "are they to be prohibited from defending their property?" The ominous words used by General Brock in his summons to Hull to surrender have, it must be admitted, all the ring of a threat; but, for one, I do not take them to be that primarily, but rather the honest, frank words of a gentleman. In case of the sacking of Detroit Brock could not have controlled those redskins of his, and he knew it. In like circumstances what general had been able to control the Indians attached to him? In the single instance of Sir William Johnson at the fall of Fort Niagara, we find an illustration of approximate control, yet nothing in the world but the power of that great man would have answered under the circumstances. I would believe that Brock knew he could not control his Iroquois allies,[37] whether in victory or in defeat, and made a plain statement to Hull to that effect. That he told the truth I think no one can doubt after examining the situation; whether he would have told the truth if the truth had not carried a threat may be questioned. The truth usually answers a gentleman's purposes, and Brock was that to the marrow of his bones.