y. (See Jefferson's Notes, "The American Pioneer," etc., etc.)

The evidence against the authenticity of the speech, outside of mere
conjectures and inuendoes, is as follows:

(1) Logan called Cresap a colonel when he was really a captain. This
inability of an Indian to discriminate accurately between these two
titles of frontier militia officers is actually solemnly brought
forward as telling against the speech.

(2) Logan accused Cresap of committing a murder which he had not
committed. But, as we have already seen, Logan had made the same
accusation in his unquestionably authentic letter, written previously;
and many whites, as well as Indians, thought as Logan did.

(3) A Col. Benj. Wilson, who was with Dunmore's army, says that "he
did not hear the charge preferred in Logan's speech against Captain
Cresap." This is mere negative evidence, valueless in any event, and
doubly so in view of Clark's statement.

(4) Mr. Neville B. Craig, in _Olden Time_, says in 1847 that
"many years before a Mr. James McKee, the brother of Mr. William
Johnson's deputy, had told him that he had seen the speech in the
handwriting of one of the Johnsons ... before it was seen by Logan."
This is a hearsay statement delivered just seventy-three years after
the event, and it is on its face so wildly improbable as not to need
further comment, at least until there is some explanation as to why
the Johnsons should have written the speech, how they could possibly
have gotten it to Logan, and why Gibson should have entered into the
conspiracy.

(5) A Benjamin Tomlinson testifies that he believes that the speech
was fabricated by Gibson; he hints, but does not frankly assert, that
Gibson was not sent after Logan, but that Girty was; and swears that
he heard the speech read three times and that the name of Cresap was
not mentioned in it.

He was said in later life to bear a good reputation; but in his
deposition he admits under oath that he was present at the Yellow
Creek murder (_Olden Time_, II., 61; the editor, by the way,
seems to call him alternately Joseph and Benjamin); and he was
therefore an unconvicted criminal, who connived at or participated in
one of the most brutal and cowardly deeds ever done on the frontier.
His statement as against Gibson's would be worthless anyhow;
fortunately his testimony as to the omission of Cresap's name from the
speech is also flatly contradicted by Clark. With the words of two
such men against his,