n into your hands?

GENERAL. We ask no concessions of you, warrior; we wish to see you
sensible of the delusions into which foreign nations have plunged you.
We wish to see you our friend.

INDIAN. Your friend? Call back the times which we passed in liberty and
happiness, when in the tranquil enjoyment of unrestrained freedom we
roved through our forests, and only knew the bears as our enemy; call
back our council fires, our fathers and pious priests; call back our
brothers, wives and children, which cruel white men have
destroyed.--Your friend? You came with the silver smile of peace, and we
received you into our cabins; we hunted for you, toiled for you; our
wives and daughters cherished and protected you; but when your numbers
increased, you rose like wolves upon us, fired our dwellings, drove off
our cattle, sent us in tribes to the wilderness, to seek for shelter;
and now you ask me, while naked and a prisoner, to be your friend!

GENERAL. We have not done this, deluded man; your pretended advocates,
over the great waters, have told you this tale.

INDIAN. Alas! it is a true one; I feel it here; 'tis no fiction: I was
the chief of a great and daring tribe, which smiled on death with
indifference and contempt; my cabin was the seat of hospitality and of
love; I was first in council, and first in the field; my prosperity
increased, my prospects brightened; but the white man came, and all was
blasted.

GENERAL. What has been done, was the result of war.

INDIAN. Wherefore wage war against us? Was not your territory
sufficiently ample, but did you sigh for our possessions? Were you not
satisfied with taking our land from us, but would you hunt the lords of
the soil into the den of the otter? Why drive to desperation a free and
liberal people? Think you I would be your enemy unless urged by powerful
wrongs? No, white man, no! the Great Spirit whom we worship, is also the
God whom you adore; for friends we cheerfully lay down our lives; but
against foes, our lives are staked with desperation. Had I taken you
prisoner, death should have been your portion; death in cruel torments.
Then why spare me? why spare the man whose knife was whetted against
your life?

GENERAL. To show, by contrast, the difference of our principles. You
would strike down the captive who implores your protection: we tender
life and liberty to the prisoner, who asks himself for death.

INDIAN. Is this your vengeance?

GENERAL. It is. The G