behaved well to the captives when they were in his power; nor is there any direct evidence that he himself paid out money for scalps.  But scalps were certainly bought and paid for at Detroit; [Footnote:  See the “American Pioneer,” I., 292, for a very curious account of an Indian, who by dividing a large scalp into two got fifty dollars for each half at Detroit.] and the commandant himself was accustomed to receive them with formal solemnity at the councils held to greet the war parties when they returned from successful raids. [Footnote:  Haldimand MSS; passim; also Heckewelder, etc.] The only way to keep the friendship of the Indians was continually to give them presents; these presents were naturally given to the most successful warriors; and the scalps were the only safe proofs of a warrior’s success.  Doubtless the commandant and the higher British officers generally treated the Americans humanely when they were brought into contact with them; and it is not likely that they knew, or were willing to know, exactly what the savages did in all cases.  But they at least connived at the measures of their subordinates.  These were hardened, embittered, men who paid for the zeal of their Indian allies accordingly as they received tangible proof thereof; in other words, they hired them to murder non-combatants as well as soldiers, and paid for each life, of any sort, that was taken.  The fault lay primarily with the British Government, and with those of its advisers who, like Hamilton, advocated the employment of the savages.  They thereby became participants in the crimes committed; and it was idle folly for them to prate about having bidden the savages be merciful.  The sin consisted in having let them loose on the borders; once they were let loose it was absolutely impossible to control them.  Moreover, the British sinned against knowledge; for some of their highest and most trusted officers on the frontier had written those in supreme command, relating the cruelties practised by the Indians upon the defenceless, and urging that they should not be made allies, but rather that their neutrality only should be secured. [Footnote:  E. g. in Haldimand MSS.  Lieut.-Gov.  Abbott to General Carleton, June 8, 1778.] The average American backwoodsman was quite as brutal and inconsiderate a victor as the average British officer; in fact, he was in all likelihood the less humane of the two; but the Englishman deliberately made the deeds of the savage his own.  Making all allowance for the strait in which the British found themselves, and admitting that much can be said against their accusers, the fact remains that they urged on hordes of savages to slaughter men, women, and children along the entire frontier; and for this there must ever rest a dark stain on their national history.