ar a Potawatomi chief informed Harrison that he was
present when a message from the British agent was delivered to the
Prophet, "telling him that the time had arrived for taking up arms, and
inviting him to send a party to Malden to receive the necessary
supplies." A statement made by Captain Benjamin Parke of the light
dragoons of Vincennes, to the Governor on the thirteenth of September,
was to the effect that the Indians of the Wabash and the Illinois had
recently visited Elliott at Malden; "that they are now returning from
thence with a larger supply of goods than is known ever to have been
distributed to them before; that rifles or fusees are given to those who
are unarmed, and powder and lead to all." A similar communication made
by the Hon. Waller Taylor, a judge of the supreme court of the
Territory, stated that, "The spirit of hostility manifested by the
Prophet and his followers (who, it is said, are daily increasing); the
thefts and murders committed within a few months past, and the unusual
quantities of arms, ammunition, etc., which not only these, but the
Indians generally have received from the British agent at Fort Malden,
strongly evidence a disposition to commence war as soon as a fit
opportunity occurs."

In this same month of September, Touissant Dubois, a French-Canadian
agent of the Governor's, reported to him that all the Indians along the
Wabash had been, or were then, on a visit to the British agency. "He
(Dubois) has been in the Indian trade thirty years and has never known,
as he thinks, more than one-fourth as many goods given to the Indians as
they are now distributing. He examined the share of one man (not a
chief) and found that he had received an elegant rifle, 25 pounds of
powder, 50 of lead, 3 blankets, 3 strouds of cloth, 10 shirts, and
several other articles. He says that every Indian is furnished with a
gun (either rifle or fusil), and an abundance of ammunition. A trader of
this country was lately at the King's stores at Malden. He saw 150 kegs
of powder (supposed to contain about 60 pounds each), and he was told
that the quantity of goods for the Indian Department which had been sent
over this year exceeded that of common years by twenty thousand pounds
sterling. It is impossible to ascribe this profusion to any other motive
than that of instigating the Indians to take up the tomahawk. It cannot
be to secure their trade, for all the peltries collected on the waters
of the Wabash in