“You have asked me many times in the course of this day to take pity on you.  How have you the hearts to stand up and ask me for pity, when you have showed no pity yourselves.  When those poor disarmed and despairing men implored you to pity their condition, reminding you of your promises, and their generosity in making you presents, when you saw them afterwards submit to be plundered, you gave them not pity but the war club and scalping knife.  Did you suppose the God of white men would permit you to go unpunished?  Did you think you had got so far in the woods that no person could find you out?  Or, did you think your great father, the President, governed by a pusillanimous principle, would allow you to kill any of his people, without seeking to be revenged?

“Let this day open your eyes.  You have richly deserved death, and not a man of your nation could complain, if I should order you at this instant, to be drawn out before my door, and shot.  But a less honorable death awaits you.

“I have before told you, that your Great Father the President is as just as he is powerful; and that he seeks to take away the life of no man, without full, just, and clear proof of guilt.  For this purpose he has appointed other chiefs, whose duty it is to hear, try, and punish all offences.

“Before these judges you shall now be sent.  You will be closely examined.  You will have counsel assigned to defend your cause.  You will have every advantage that one of our own citizens could claim.  If any cause can be shown why one of you is less guilty than another it will then appear; if not, your bodies will be hung on a gallows.”

I then addressed Kewaynockwut.  “No person has accused you of murder; but you have led men who committed murder, and have thereby excited the anger of your Great Father, who is slow to forgive when any of his people, even the poorest of them, have been injured, far less when a murder has been committed.  Though I include you with those cowards who first took away the arms of our people, and then shot them—­those mean dogs who sit trembling before me—­I do not forgive you.  The blood of our citizens rests upon you.  I can neither take you by the hand, nor smoke the pipe you offer to me.  You lie under the severe censure of your Great Father, whose anger, like a dark cloud, rests upon you and your people.

“Four of the chief murderers, namely, Okwagun, Pasigwetung, Metakossiga, and Wamitegosh, yet remain inland.  Go, in order to appease his anger; take your followers with you, and bring them out.  You cannot do a more pleasing act to him and to your own nation.  For you must reflect that if these murderers are not promptly brought out, war will be immediately made against your villages, and the most signal vengeance taken.”