" covenant chain " was brightened in ancient form, but instead " of the command, " Onto Canada which Clinton had expected !

" Peace " was the to issue, injunction which fell upon the ears !

of the assembled chiefs.

The Mohawk's, and Mahicans, the representative tribes ad dressed, were disappointed. While the other tribes in the English alliance had, with the exception of a few of their warriors, ab stained from hostilities, they were seriously compromised.

They

had lost friends whose deaths were unavenged ; the axe of the

French was sticking

in the

heads of their people ; in Canada had taken up

prisons their brethren were rotting in irons ; they

the hatchet with reluctance, and would not lay it down until their friends were released and a definite proposal made guaran

"We

will still keep the teeing their protection in the future. hatchet in our hands," said the former ; " we will still keepour hands

on the cocks of our guns," said the latter.

Stone's Life

With them the question

and Times of Sir William Johnson, i, 350, 354.

OF HUDSON'S RIVER.

of peace remained an open one until the exchange of prisoners

was completed

in

June, 1750.*

the Mohawks carried the

For two or three years later

hatchet in

their

hands, the English

having neglected to call them together and remove it by a dis tribution of presents, a custom for which they had a most tena cious regard.

In the meantime, five tribes of the confederacy made peace with the French, asserting thereby not only their national in dependence but subscribing their totems to the declaration