an) among the northern tribes, was no
longer a term of derision, or uncertainty of character. The military
post established at these ancient falls, where the power of France was
first revealed as early as 1652; the numerous journeys I had made into
the interior, often in company with the highest civil and military
functionaries; the presents annually issued; the firm basis of a
commissariat for all visiting and indigent Indians; the mechanics
employed for their benefit; the control exercised over the fur traders,
and the general effects of American opinions and manners; had placed the
agency in the very highest point of view. It was a frontier agency, in
immediate juxtaposition with Canada and Hudson's Bay, fifteen hundred
miles of whose boundary closed upon them, separated only by the chain of
lakes and rivers. Questions of national policy frequently came up, and
tended much to augment the interest, which grew out of the national
intercourse.

I had now attained that position of repose and quiet which were so
congenial to my mind. The influence I exercised; the respect I enjoyed,
both as an officer and as a scientific and literary man: every
circumstance, in fact, that can add to the enjoyment of a man of
moderate desires, seeking to run no political race, was calculated to
insure my happiness. And I was happy. No part of my life had so
completely all the elements of entire contentment, as my residence at
the wild and picturesque homestead of Elmwood. I removed my family to
this spot in October, having now a little daughter to enlarge my family
circle, and take away, in a measure, the solitariness effected by the
loss of my son, William Henry.

I resumed my Indian researches with twofold interest. The public duties
of an agent for Indian affairs, if an industrious man, leave him a good
deal of leisure on his hands, and, in a position so remote as this, if a
man have no inclination for studies or belles lettres, he must often be
puzzled to employ his leisure. I amused myself by passing from one
literary study to another, and this is ever refreshing to the mind,
which tires of one thing. Thus, such amusements as the _Appeal of
Pontiac, Rise of the West_, and the _Man of Bronze_, found place among
graver matters. In this manner, a man without literary society may amuse
and instruct himself.

_Nov. 1st_. I have been elected a member of the Legislative Council of
the territory--an office not solicited, and which is not d