Wayne had brought peace by the sword. It was the first time the border had been quiet for over a generation; and for fifteen years the quiet lasted unbroken. The credit belongs to Wayne and his army, and to the Government which stood behind both. Because it thus finally stood behind them we can forgive its manifold shortcomings and vacillations, its futile efforts to beg a peace, and its reluctance to go to war. We can forgive all this; but we should not forget it. Americans need to keep in mind the fact that as a nation they have erred far more often in not being willing enough to fight than in being too willing. Once roused, they have always been dangerous and hard-fighting foes; but they have been over-difficult to rouse. Their educated classes, in particular, need to be perpetually reminded that, though it is an evil thing to brave a conflict needlessly, or to bully and bluster, it is an even worse thing to flinch from a fight for which there is legitimate provocation, or to live in supine, slothful, unprepared ease, helpless to avenge an injury. The Misconduct of the British. The conduct of the Americans in the years which closed with Wayne's treaty did not shine very brightly; but the conduct of the British was black, indeed. On the Northwestern frontier they behaved in a way which can scarcely be too harshly stigmatized. This does not apply to the British civil and military officers at the Lake Posts; for they were merely doing their duty as they saw it, and were fronting their foes bravely, while with loyal zeal they strove to carry out what they understood to be the policy of their superiors. The ultimate responsibility rested with these superiors, the Crown's high advisers, and the King and Parliament they represented. Their treatment both of the Indians, whom they professed to protect, and of the Americans, with whom they professed to be friendly, forms one of the darkest pages in the annals of the British in America. Yet they have been much less severely blamed for their behaviour in this matter, than for far more excusable offences. American historians, for example, usually condemn them without stint because in 1814 the army of Ross and Cockburn burned and looted the public buildings of Washington; but by rights they should keep all their condemnation for their own country, so far as the taking of Washington is concerned; for the sin of burning a few public buildings is as nothing compared with the cowardly infamy of which the politicians of the stripe of Jefferson and Madison, and the people whom they represented, were guilty in not making ready, by sea and land, to protect their Capital and in not exacting full revenge for its destruction. These facts may with advantage be pondered by those men of the present day who are either so ignorant or of such lukewarm patriotism that they do not wish to see the United States keep prepared for war and show herself willing and able to adopt a vigorous foreign