Will the tendency to Indian hostilities be contested by any one?
Experience gives the answer. The frontiers were scourged with war till
the negotiation with Great Britain was far advanced, and then the state
of hostility ceased. Perhaps the public agents of both nations are
innocent of fomenting the Indian war, and perhaps they are not. We ought
not, however, to expect that neighboring nations, highly irritated
against each other, will neglect the friendship of the savages; the
traders will gain an influence and will abuse it; and who is ignorant
that their passions are easily raised, and hardly restrained from
violence? Their situation will oblige them to choose between this
country and Great Britain, in case the treaty should be rejected. They
will not be our friends, and at the same time the friends of our
enemies.

But am I reduced to the necesity of proving this point? Certainly the
very men who charged the Indian war on the detention of the posts, will
call for no other proof than the recital of their own speeches. It is
remembered with what emphasis, with what acrimony, they expatiated on
the burden of taxes, and the drain of blood and treasure into the
Western country, in consequence of Britain's holding the posts. Until
the posts are restored, they exclaimed, the treasury and the frontiers
must bleed.

If any, against all these proofs, should maintain that the peace with
the Indians will be stable without the posts, to them I urge another
reply. From arguments calculated to produce conviction, I will appeal
directly to the hearts of those who hear me, and ask, whether it is not
already planted there? I resort especially to the convictions of the
Western gentlemen, whether supposing no posts and no treaty, the