hich we know
must be the result. He is impelled onward in his desperate career, by
passions which are fostered and encouraged by the whole frame of
society; and he is, very probably, stimulated by the predictions of some
fanatical leader, who promises him glory, victory and scalps.

"In this state of feeling, and with these incitements to war, the Sacs
and Foxes claimed the right of occupying a part of the country on Rock
river, even after it had been sold to citizens of the United States, and
settled by them. In 1829 and in 1830, serious difficulties resulted from
their efforts to establish themselves in that section, and frequent
collisions were the consequence. Representations were made to them, and
every effort, short of actual hostilities, used by the proper officers,
to induce them to abandon their unfounded pretensions, and to confine
themselves to their own country on the west side of the Mississippi
river. These efforts were successful, with the well disposed portion of
the tribes, but were wholly unavailing with the band known by the name
of the "British party." In 1831, their aggressions were so serious, and
the attitude they assumed, so formidable, that a considerable detachment
of the army, and of the militia of Illinois, was called into the field;
and the disaffected Indians, alarmed by the preparation for their
chastisement, agreed to reside and hunt, "upon their own lands west of
the Mississippi river," and that they would not recross this river to
the usual place of their residence, nor to any part of their old hunting
grounds east of the Mississippi, without the express permission of the
President of the United States, or the Governor of the state of
Illinois.

"This arrangement had scarcely been concluded, before a flagrant outrage
was committed, by a party of these Indians, upon a band of friendly
Menomomies, almost under the guns of Fort Crawford. Twenty-five persons
were wantonly murdered, and many wounded, while encamped in the Prairie
du Chien, and resting in fancied security upon our soil, and under our
flag. If an act like this, had been suffered to pass unnoticed and
unpunished, a war between these tribes would have been the consequence,
in which our frontiers would have been involved, and the character and
influence of the government, would have been lost in the opinion of the
Indians.

"Apprehensive, from the course of events already stated, and from other
circumstances, that the disaffec