Usually the first, they were now the last to yield.

The Senecas

joined them ; the Lenapes saw all their ancient wrongs repeated and riveted upon them in the success of the English. Already

had the advanced couriers of the

the

latter penetrated

Ohio

valley ; here and there in convenient proximity forts had been erected to overawe them and protect their enemies. Every

promise which the English had made having been apparently violated, the war-belt of the Senecas invited the nations in the

French alliance to take up the hatchet in their behalf. 1 The plot was discovered in time to arrest immediate hostilities,

but not to defeat the formation of a more formidable con

spiracy.

As the tribes

felt

domination

the chain of English

drawing closer and closer around them, one among their number, Pontiac, the king of the Ottawas^ counseled, in the summer of 1762, the formation of a league to drive the English from the continent.

The great interior tribes responded.

The Senecas

movement one thousand

the Lenapes

to the

gave and Shawanoes, nine hundred ;

two hundred

;

warriors ;

the Mahicans and

Wyandots,

the Ottawa confederacy under Pontiac a num

ber equal to their

allies.

Moving

quickly to their work, one

after another, LeBoeuf,

Verrango, Presque Isle, Sandusky, St. and Michillimackinac fell into the hands of Joseph, Miami, the conspirators. save a country ; prevent the downof the British government upon this continent." Bancroft.

fall ; fall

IU I understood and was told

by them