with Commodore Perry on Lake Eric, in 1813.  The next eldest is engaged in commerce.  The eldest daughter was educated in Ireland, and the two next at Sandwich, near Detroit.  These constituted the adults; there are two sons and a daughter, still in their school-days.  All possess agreeable, easy manners and refinement.  Mrs. Johnston is a woman of excellent judgment and good sense; she is referred to on abstruse points of the Indian ceremonies and usages, so that I have in fact stumbled, as it were, on the only family in North West America who could, in Indian lore, have acted as my “guide, philosopher and friend.”

30th.  I received yesterday a second visit from Ka-ta-wa-be-da, or the Broken Tooth chief of Sandy Lake, on the Upper Mississippi, who is generally known by his French name of Breshieu, and at the close of the interview gave him a requisition on the commissary for some provisions to enable him to return to his home.  The Indians must be led by a very plain path and a friendly hand.  Feeling and preference are subsequent manifestations.  I took this occasion to state to him the objects and policy of the government by the establishment at these falls of a post and agency, placing it upon its true basis, namely, the preservation of peace upon the frontiers, and the due observance, by all parties, of the laws respecting trade and intercourse with the tribes, and securing justice both to them and to our citizens, particularly by the act for the exclusion of ardent spirits from the Indian country.  By the agency, a door was opened through which they could communicate their wishes to the President, and he was also enabled to state his mind to them.  All who opened their ears truly to the voice of their American father would be included among the recipients of his favors.  He felt kindly to all, but those only who hearkened to his council would be allowed, as he had been, to share in the usual privileges which the agency at this place secured to them.  Having drawn his provisions, and duly reflected on what was said by me, he returned to-day to bid me adieu, on his setting out to go home, and to express his thanks for my kindness and advice.  The old chief, who has long exercised his sway in the region of Sandy Lake, made a well-considered speech in reply to mine of yesterday, in which he took the ground of neutrality as between the United States and Great Britain, and averred that he had ever been the friend of the white race and of traders who came into the country, and declared himself the friend of peace.

At the conclusion of this interview, I gave him a small sea-shell from my cabinet, as a mark of my respect, and a token which would remind him of my advice.  I remembered that the Indians of the continent have always set a high value on wampum, which is made solely from sea-shells, and have attributed a kind of sacredness for this class of productions.