Fired by these wily suggestions, the high and
jealous spirit of the Indian chiefs took the alarm, and
they beheld with impatience the "Red Coat," or "Saganaw,"
[Footnote: This word thus pronounced by themselves, in
reference to the English soldiery, is, in all probability,
derived from the original English settlers in Saganaw
Bay.] usurping, as they deemed it, those possessions
which had so recently acknowledged the supremacy of the
pale flag of their ancient ally. The cause of the Indians,
and that of the Canadians, became, in some degree,
identified as one, and each felt it was the interest,
and it may be said the natural instinct, of both, to hold
communionship of purpose, and to indulge the same jealousies
and fears. Such was the state of things in 1763, the
period at which our story commences,--an epoch fruitful
in designs of hostility and treachery on the part of the
Indians, who, too crafty and too politic to manifest
their feelings by overt acts declaratory of the hatred
carefully instilled into their breasts, sought every
opportunity to compass the destruction of the English,
wherever they were most vulnerable to the effects of
stratagem.
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