nous council of Matthew Elliott and the other
British agents who had so often deceived their race, may not easily be
divined. Brant had been bribed, Little Turtle and the Blue Jacket basely
deserted in the hour of defeat, and two English treaties negotiated
without a line in either to the advantage of the red man, but
notwithstanding all these facts, both Tecumseh and the Prophet were now
in full and constant communication with Malden, Canada.

Rapid strides were made by the brothers in the closing months of 1810.
Not only were the village chiefs and sachems shorn of all their old-time
authority, and the power of determination lodged in the hands of the
warriors, but the belt of union circulated by the Prophet among the
tribes "to confine the great water and prevent it from overflowing
them," brought many accessions both to the confederacy and to the
Shawnee influence. It was reported that when this belt was exhibited to
Elliott and he saw that so many tribes had united against the United
States that he danced with joy. About the first of November, Tecumseh
himself arrived at Malden on a visit to the British agency. He remained
there until some time after the twenty-fourth of December. The nature of
his conferences with Elliott may be inferentially arrived at from the
following. An Indian council had, during the preceding autumn, been
convened at Brownstown, near Detroit. A resolution had there been
entered into to prevent the sale of any more lands to the United States
and this step had been taken at the suggestion of Elliott. According to
the report of the Wea chiefs, the British agent had informed the tribes
that England and France had now made peace, and would soon unite their
arms "to dispossess the Americans of the lands they had taken from the
Indians." The Shawnee land doctrine had become popular. "The Indians,"
writes Harrison, "appear to be more uneasy and dissatisfied than I ever
before saw them, and I believe that the Prophet's principle, that their
land should be considered common property, is either openly avowed or
secretly favored by all the tribes west of the Wabash." The tribes of
the Lakes looked upon the Wabash as the land of promise. The Winnebagoes
were already present in considerable numbers at the Prophet's Town, and
the Wyandots had formed a camp in close proximity to that place. The Six
Nations were reported to be in motion and demanding the privilege of
settling in the Wabash valley. Could all