the village, indicated an intention of their
speedily deserting it.[32]

Shortly after Cornstalk and two other chiefs, made their appearance at
camp Charlotte, and entered into a negotiation which soon terminated
in an agreement to forbear all farther hostilities against each
other,--to give up the prisoners then held by them, and to attend at
Pittsburgh, with as many of the Indian chiefs as could be prevailed on
to meet the commissioners from Virginia, in the ensuing summer, where
a treaty was to be concluded and ratified--Dunmore requiring hostages,
to guarantee the performance of those stipulations, on the part of the
Indians.

If in the battle at Point Pleasant, Cornstalk manifested the bravery
and generalship of a mighty captain; in the negotiations at camp
Charlotte, he displayed the skill of a statesman, joined to powers
of oratory, rarely, if ever surpassed. With the most patriotic
devotion to his country, and in a strain of most commanding eloquence,
he recapitulated the accumulated wrongs, which had oppressed their
fathers, and which were oppressing them. Sketching in lively
colours, the once happy and powerful condition of the Indians, he
placed in striking contrast, their present fallen fortunes and
unhappy destiny. Exclaiming against the perfidiousness of the
whites, and the dishonesty of the traders, he proposed as the basis
of a treaty, that no persons should be permitted to carry on a
commerce with the Natives, for individual profit; but that [138]
their white brother should send them such articles as they needed,
by the hands of honest men, who were to exchange them at a fair price,
for their skins and furs; and that no spirit of any kind should be
sent among them, as from the "fire water" of the whites, proceeded
evil to the Indians.[33]

This truly great man, is said to have been opposed to the war from its
commencement; and to have proposed on the eve of the battle at Point
Pleasant, to send in a flag, and make overtures for peace; but this
proposal was overruled by the general voice of the chiefs. When a
council was first held after the defeat of the Indians, Cornstalk,
reminding them of their late ill success, and that the Long Knives
were still pressing on them, asked what should be then done. But no
one answered. Rising again, he proposed that the women and children
should be all killed; and that the warriors should go out and fight,
until they too were slain. Still no one answered. Then, sa