A QUESTION AND AN ANSWER. [To TER EDITOR OP THE
" 8rscrercat."]
fiut,—I heartily agree with you that to establish the historical accuracy of the " Message to the Six Nations," which you printed in your issue of the 20th ult., would not in the least prejudice the Quakers of the present day. Whatever may have been the vagaries of the Pennsylvanian Brethren in 1758, their doings can by no means cancel our indebtedness to Quakerism, or diminish the respect and admiration which are due to those who still maintain, with reasoned courage and consistency, the high ideals of the Society of Friends. Meanwhile, I have been making search among the Abercromby Papers, and find that Sir William Johnson's covering letter, which had hitherto escaped my notice, is calculated to throw considerable light upon the situation, and proves that he, at least, accepted Scquareesere's report as accurate, and was disposed to treat it seriously enough. Sir William writes :-
" You will see Sir in my other Letter of this Date that I have hinted at the Confusion which may arise in Indian Affairs by the party Spirit which rages in Pennsylvania being introduced in the Indian Negotiations. I am well informed the Quakers have a very considerable private Fund of their own for treating with the Indians, that they hold private and separate Meetings with them, and are pushing a System of their own, which none but themselves know the Bottom of. This I apprehend is in itself illegal, and will I am persuaded not only confound but perhaps render ineffectual what the Governor and his Council may plan and propose. . . . What extra- ordinary Steps the Quakers have taken, a Paper I transmitted you last Winter to send my Lord Loudoun very evidently shows, and I think it of so interesting a Nature, that lest it should have escaped your Memory, I will herewith send you another Copy. How far such Messages and Declarations may tend to obstruct His Majesty's Service, and fatally wound the success of His Arms, I huinbly submit to your Judgment, but at the same time I must beg Leave to declare to you, that if these Sort of Negotiations with the Six Nations are permitted with Impunity to be privately carried on, without my Knowledge or Concurrence, I cannot answer for the Consequences, nor carry on the Service which His Majesty hath been pleased to commit to my Care'and Attention. The Affair appears to me in a Light- of the utmost Moment, especially at this Juncture, and I thought it my indispensable Duty to lay it before your Excellency His Majesty's Commander in chief, as I conceive it comes with great Propriety within the Reach of your immediate Power, for I am sensible Govr. Denny is by far too weak to give any effectual Check or Controll to these Interferings of the Quakers.'. That Abercromby shared the views of Johnson is witnessed by the fact that he despatched a transcript of the " Message " to Brigadier-General Forbes, who was in charge of military affairs at Philadelphia. Beyond this I can find no reference to the matter, but, as his protracted negotiations with the Pennsylvanian Assembly for the embodiment and maintenance of a contingent of Provisional. Irregulars to take part in the expedition against Fort Duquesne had been successfully concluded, just a week earlier, Forbes doubtless deemed it politic to let the matter drop.
These facts dispose of Mr. Harvey's statement that the Message to the Indians " does not seem to have been considered worthy of notice by the military authorities to whom it was sent." As to his complaint that I have gravely misrepresented his position, ascribing to him "an attitude of base passivity," that is another matter. If I have wronged him, I apologize. At the same time, I am free to say that, in defining it afresh, Mr. Harvey only seems to me to darken counsel, and to make it still more difficult to realize what his position actually is.
I have read with interest Mitis Margaret E. Hirst's letter, in which she seeks to clear up various matters with regard to Quaker policy in Pennsylvania, the question of the Abercromby document among the rest. May I suggest that in describing the Message as " what an Indian, through an interpreter, reported that Quakers, through an interpreter, said at an Indian conference," she probably exaggerated the services of that useful functionary, who figures largely, it is true, in Indian affairs. Granted—this merely for the sake of argument— that the tale which it unfolds is genuine, we may assume that, in the first instance, the Message was delivered through an interpreter— a man of Quaker choosing, whose integrity was, therefore, well assured. But when Sequareesere reported what had passed to Johnson, and later formally rehearsed the story in presence of three independent witnesses, he spoke to men who understood the language of the Tuscavoras, and could directly follow what was said. On this showing, Montour, who figures in the document as interpreter, was in all likelihood responsible merely for the translation of the Message as it has come down to us ; while here again we may be sure that Claus and Johnson had satisfied themselves that his translation was substantially correct. The " Friendly Association" mentioned by Miss Hirst may well be that described above in John- son's letter, and, if so, we can understand why it was looked upon with disfavour by the Government and military authorities. Miss Hirst appears to stumble over Sequareesere, whose name she prints within inverted commas. I can assure her that the description given of that chief by Captain Wraxall is reliable throughout. If she will consult a curious pamphlet entitled An Account of Conferences held and treaties made between Major General Sir William Johnson Bart. and the Chief Sachems and Warriors of the Indian Nations in North America, she will find this Sequareesere representing his particular nation at a meeting of the Mohawks, Oneidas, and Tus- cavoras held at Fort Johnson in December, 1755. Surely Miss Hirst is labouring under a misapprehension when she asserts that the document containing the message to the Indians states that Sequareesere conducted the peace negotiations for the Six Nations and the Delawares. I can find no trace of such a claim. That Tedyuscung was the prime mover in arranging with the Pennsyl- vanians for the great Congress held at Easton no one can dispute. That his influence with the Indian communities was all that it pro- fessed to be is a point on which the Abercromby Papers might possibly afford some interesting light. In a letter by Sir William Johnson, in which he explains his reasons for so far discountenancing the Easton Conference, the writer tells us not a little of the doings and pretensions of that enterprising chief.
It only remains to add that Mr. Duff has kindly given me authority to transmit for your inspection Sir William Johnson's copy of the " Message," and with it the originals of the various other documents to which I have made reference above.—I am, Sir, &c., D. G. Banno2r.
[With Mr. Barron's interesting and courteous letter this corre- spondence must cease. It only remains for us to say that the documents forwarded for our inspection bear the strongest possible proofs, both as regards paper and calligraphy, of their authenticity, an authenticity which, needless to say, we never doubted. The excellent paper, the neat and clear writing, and the stately English offer remarkable proof with what gentlemanlike deliberation our armies fought in the eighteenth century. When one thinks what "Fort Johnson " must have been like in 1755, one is amazed at the repose of the documents therein indited. Probably only the Staff officer wore a large wig.—En. Spectator.]
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