These several duties required care and involved responsibilities of no ordinary character.  They have been shared by Major H. Whiting, the Paymaster of the Northern Department, by whom the funds were exclusively paid, and John W. Edwards, Esq., of New York, who divided the half-breed fund, to both of whom I am indebted for the diligence with which they addressed themselves to the duty, and the kindness and urbanity of their manners.

So large an assemblage of red and white men probably never assembled here before, and a greater degree of joy and satisfaction was never evinced by the same number.  The Indians went away with their canoes literally loaded with all an Indian wants, from silver to a steel trap, and a practical demonstration was given which will shut their mouths forever with regard to the oft-repeated scandal of the stinginess and injustice of the American government.

Not a man was left, of any caste or shade of nativity, to utter a word to gainsay or cavil with the noble and high public manner in which these proceedings were done.  The blood-relatives of the Indian found that the two nations, actuated by a sense of their kindness and real friendship for years, had remembered them in the day of their prosperity.  The large number of Indian creditors, who had toiled and suffered and lost property in a trade which is always hazardous, were glad in seeing the ample provision for their payment.

The agents of the government also rejoiced in the happy termination of their labors, and the drum, whose roll had carried away the troops who had been present to preserve order, now converted to a symbol of peace, was never more destined to be beaten to assemble white men to march in hostility against these tribes.  They were forever our friends.  What war had not accomplished, the arts of peace certainly had.  Kindness, justice, and liberality, like the “still small voice” at Sinai, had done what the whirlwind and the tempest failed to do.

Fourteen years before, I had taken the management of these tribes in hand, to conduct their intercourse and to mould and guide their feelings, on the part of the government.  They were then poor, in a region denuded of game, and without one dollar in annuities.  They were yet smarting under the war of 1812, and all but one man, the noble Wing, or Ningwegon, hostile to the American name.  They were now at the acme of Indian hunter prosperity, with every want supplied, and a futurity of pleasing anticipation.  They were friends of the American government.  I had allied myself to the race.  I was earnest and sincere in desiring and advancing their welfare.  I was gratified with a result so auspicious to every humane and exalted wish.

     War, ye wild tribes, hath no rewards like this;
     ’tis peaceful labors that result in bliss.

29th.  Baron de Behr, Minister of Belgium, presented himself at my office.  He was cordially received, although bringing me no letter to apprize me of his official standing at Washington.  He had been to the Sault Ste. Marie, and visited the entrance into Lake Superior.  He presented me a petrifaction picked up on Drummond Island, and looked at my cabinet with interest.