Colonel Henry Bouquet. From the original painting owned by Henry M. Fisher Esq, and George Harrison Fisher, Esq., Alverthorpe, Pa. THE CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC, I. 11. The sudden withholding of these supplies was, therefore, a grievous calamity. Want, suffering, and death were the consequences; and this cause alone would have been enough to produce general discontent. But, unhappily, other grievances were superadded.1 1 Extract from a MS. letter - Sir W. Johnson to Governor Colden, Dec. 24, 1763. "I shall not take upon me to point out the Originall Parsimony &c. to wh the first defection of the Indians can with justice & certainty be attributed, but only observe, as I did in a former letter, that the Indians (whose friendship was never cultivated by the English with that attention, expense, & assiduity with wh ye French obtained their favour) were for many years jealous of our growing power, were repeatedly assured by the French (who were at ye pains of having many proper emissaries among them) that so soon as we became masters of this country, we should immediately treat them with neglect, hem them in with Posts & Forts, encroach upon their Lands, and finally destroy them. All wh after the reduction of Canada, seemed to appear too clearly to the Indians, who thereby lost the great advantages resulting from the possession wh the French formerly had of Posts & Trade in their Country, neither of which they could have ever enjoyed but for the notice they took of the Indians, & the presents they bestowed so bountifully upon them, wh however expensive, they wisely foresaw was infinitely cheaper, and much more effectual than the keeping of a large body of Regular Troops, in their several Countrys, a Plan which has endeared their memory to most of the Indian Nations, who would I fear generally go over to them in case they ever got footing again in this Country, & who were repeatedly exhorted, & encouraged by the French (from motives of Interest & dislike w they will always possess) to fall upon us, by representing that their liberties & Country were in ye utmost danger." In January, 1763, Colonel Bouquet, commanding in Pennsylvania, writes to General Amherst, stating the discontent produced among the Indians by the suppression of presents. The commander-in-chief replies, "As to appropriating a particular sum to be laid out yearly to the warriors in presents, &c., that I can by no means agree to; nor can I think it |