he Senecas,
Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas, and Mohawks are not yet destroyed. I
return you thanks in their name for bringing into their country the
calumet of peace, which your predecessor received from their hands. At
the same time I congratulate you on having left under ground the
tomahawk which has so often been dyed with the blood of the French. I
must tell you, Onontio, that I am not asleep. My eyes are open, and
the sun which vouchsafes the light gives me a clear view of a great
captain at the head of a troop of soldiers, who speaks as if he were
asleep. He pretends that he does not approach this lake with any other
view than to smoke the calumet with the Onondagas. But Grangula knows
better. He sees plainly that Onontio meant to knock them on the head
if the French arms had not been so much weakened....

You must know, Onontio, that we have robbed no {101} Frenchman, save
those who supplied the Illinois and the Miamis (our enemies) with
muskets, powder, and ball.... We have conducted the English to our
lakes in order to trade with the Ottawas and the Hurons; just as the
Algonquins conducted the French to our five cantons, in order to carry
on a commerce that the English lay claim to as their right. We are
born freemen and have no dependence either upon the Onontio or the
Corlaer [the English governor]. We have power to go where we please,
to conduct whom we will to the places we resort to, and to buy and sell
where we think fit.... We fell upon the Illinois and the Miamis
because they cut down the trees of peace that served for boundaries and
came to hunt beavers upon our lands.... We have done less than the
English and French, who without any right have usurped the lands they
are now possessed of.

I give you to know, Onontio, that my voice is the voice of the five
Iroquois cantons. This is their answer. Pray incline your ear and
listen to what they represent.

The Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas, and Mohawks declare that they
buried the tomahawk in the presence of your predecessor, in the very
centre of the fort, and planted the Tree of Peace in the same place.
It was then stipulated that the fort should be used as a place of
retreat for merchants and not a refuge for soldiers. Be it known to
you, Onontio, that so great a number of soldiers, being shut up in so
small a fort, do not stifle and choke the Tree of Peace. Since it took
root so easily it would be evil {102} to stop its growth an