General William Clark, from St. Louis, was associated with General Cass in this negotiation.  The great object was to lay the foundation of a permanent peace by establishing boundaries.  Day after day was assigned to this, the agents laboring with the chiefs, and making themselves familiar with Indian bark maps and drawings.  The thing pleased the Indians.  They clearly saw that it was a benevolent effort for their good, and showed a hearty mind to work in the attainment of the object.  The United States asked for no cession.  Many glowing harangues were made by the chiefs, which gave scope to their peculiar oratory, which is well worth the preserving.  Mongazid, of Fond du Lac, Lake Superior, said:  “When I heard the voice of my Great Father, coming up the Mississippi Valley calling me to this treaty, it seemed as a murmuring wind; I got up from my mat where I sat musing, and hastened to obey it.  My pathway has been clear and bright.  Truly it is a pleasant sky above our heads this day.  There is not a cloud to darken it.  I hear nothing but pleasant words.  The raven is not waiting for his prey, I hear no eagle cry—­’Come, let us go.  The feast is ready—­the Indian has killed his brother.’”

When nearly a whole month had been consumed in these negotiations, a treaty of limits was signed, which will long be remembered in the Indian reminiscences.  This was on the 19th of August (1825), vide Indian Treaties, p. 371.  It was a pleasing sight to see the explorer of the Columbia in 1806, and the writer of the proclamation of the army that invaded Canada in 1812, uniting in a task boding so much good to the tribes whose passions and trespasses on each other’s lands keep them perpetually at war.

     ’Tis war alone that gluts the Indian’s mind,
      As eating meats, inflames the tiger kind. 
      HETH.

At the close of the treaty, an experiment was made on the moral sense of the Indians, with regard to intoxicating liquors, which was evidently of too refined a character for their just appreciation.  It had been said by the tribes that the true reason for the Commissioners of the United States government speaking against the use of ardent spirits by the Indians, and refusing to give them, was not a sense of its bad effects, so much, as the fear of the expense.  To show them that the government was above such a petty principle, the Commissioners had a long row of tin camp kettles, holding several gallons each, placed on the grass, from one end of the council house to the other, and then, after some suitable remarks, each kettle was spilled out in their presence.  The thing was evidently ill relished by the Indians.  They loved the whisky better than the joke.