part in our wars.  He said he was a small boy at the taking of old Mackinac (1763).  The French wished him to take up the war-club, but he refused.  The English afterwards thanked him for this, and requested him to raise the tomahawk in their favor, but he refused.  The Americans afterwards thanked him for this refusal, but they did not ask him to go to war.  “They all talked of peace,” he said, “but still, though they talk of peace, the Sioux continue to make war upon us.  Very lately they killed three people.”

The neutral policy which this chief so early unfolded, I have found quite characteristic of his oratory, though his political feelings are known to be decidedly favorable to the British government.

Omeeshug, widow of Ningotook, of Leech Lake, presented a memorandum given by me to her late husband, during my attendance at the treaty of Prairie du Chien, in 1825, claiming a medal for her infant son, in exchange for a British medal which had been given up.  On inquiry, the medal surrendered originally belonged to Waukimmenas, a prior husband, by whom she also had a son named Tinnegans (Shoulder Blade), now a man grown, and an active and promising Indian.  I decided the latter to be the rightful heir, and intrusted a new medal of the second size to Mr. Roussain, to be delivered to him on his arrival at Leech Lake, with the customary formalities.

Iauwind announced himself as having arrived yesterday, with twenty-eight followers belonging to the band of Fond du Lac.  He had, it appeared, visited Drummond Island, and took occasion in his speech to intimate that he had not been very favorably received.  Before closing, he ran very nearly through the catalogue of Indian wants, and trusted his “American father” would supply them.  He concluded by presenting a pipe.  I informed him that he had not visited Drummond’s in ignorance of my wishes on the subject, and that if he did not receive the presents he expected from me, he could not mistake the cause of their being withheld.

The Red Devil came to take leave, as he had sent his canoe to the head of the rapids, and was ready to embark.  He made a very earnest and vehement speech, in which he once more depicted the misery of his condition, and begged earnestly that I would consider the forlorn and impoverished situation of himself and his young men.  He presented a pipe.  I told him it was contrary to the commands of his great father, the President, that presents should be given to any of his red children who disregarded his wishes so much as to continue their visits to foreign agencies.  That such visits were very injurious to them both in a moral and economical point of view.  That they thereby neglected their hunting and gardens, contracted diseases, and never failed to indulge in the most immoderate use of strong drink.  That to procure the latter, they would sell their presents, pawn their ornaments, &c., and, I verily believed, were their hands and feet loose, they would pawn them, so as to be forever after incapable of doing anything towards their own subsistence.  I told him that if, under such circumstances, I should give him, or any other Indian, provisions to carry them home, they must not construe it into any approbation of their late conduct, but must ascribe it wholly to feelings of pity and commiseration for their situation, &c.