depredations in the Illinois country had gone unpunished.
Like all savages, he had nothing but contempt for a government that did
not promptly revenge its wrongs. But when, on approaching the town, he
observed the great military array, and saw bodies of armed men and
mounted riflemen moving to and fro, his resolution was shaken and he
experienced a more wholesome respect for his adversary's strength.
"Heedless of futurity," says Harrison, "it is only by placing the danger
before his eyes, that a savage is to be controlled. Even the gallant
Tecumseh is not insensible to an argument of this kind. No courtier
could be more complaisant, than he was upon his last visit. To have
heard him, one would have supposed that he came here for the purpose of
complimenting me. This wonderful metamorphosis in manner was entirely
produced by the gleaming and clanging of arms; by the frowns of a
considerable body of hunting shirt men, who accidentally lined a road by
which he approached to the council house."

The body of savages again melted away, and the Miami chieftains who had
accompanied the expedition returned to their homes. On the fifth of
August, Tecumseh, with a retinue of twenty chiefs, including the famous
Potawatomi, Shaubena, passed down the Wabash to visit the nations of the
south and more firmly cement the bonds of his confederacy. The day
before he departed he called on the Governor and labored hard to
convince him that he had no object in view other than to unite the
tribes in a league of peace. After visiting the Creeks and Choctaws, he
was to pass through the land of the Osages and return by the Missouri
river. Before his return, the last hope of the red man was to be forever
crushed, and the old dream of Pontiac forever dispelled.

The Governor has paid a just and worthy tribute to his savage foe. In a
letter of August seventh, 1811, he writes to the department of war as
follows: "The implicit confidence and respect which the followers of
Tecumseh pay to him is really astonishing, and more than any other
circumstance bespeaks him one of those uncommon geniuses, which spring
up occasionally to produce revolutions and overturn the established
order of things. If it were not for the vicinity of the United States,
he would perhaps be the founder of an empire that would rival in glory
that of Mexico or Peru. No difficulties deter him. His activity and
industry supply the want of letters. For four years he has been in
con