Page 350 - Third Book of Reading Lessons
P. 350

READING LESSONS.
349
2. Of their eminence in oratory we have  wer ex­ amples, because it is displayed, chie y, in their own councils. Some, however, we have of very superior lustre. I may challenge the whole orations of De­ mosthenes and Cicero, and of any more eminent
orator,-if Europe has  rnished more eminent,-to produce a single passage superior to the speech of Logan, a  ingo chief, to Lord Dunmore, ,vhen gov­ ernor of Virginia. And, as a testimony of their tal­ ents in this line, I beg leave to introduce it,  rst stating the incidents necessary  r understanding it.
3. In the spring of the year 1774, a robbery was committed by some Indians on certain.land adven­ turers on the river Ohio. The ,vhites, in that quar­ ter, according to their custom, undertook to pnnish this outrage in a summary way. Captain :Michael Crcsap, and a certain Daniel Greathouse, leading on these parties, surprised, at di erent times, traYelling and hunting parties of the Indians, having their wo­ men and children with them, and murdered many. Among these were, un rtunately, the  mily of L  gan, a chief, celebrated in peace and war, and long distinguished as the  iend of the whites.
4. This unworthy return provoked bis vengeance.
He accordingly signalized himself in the war which ensued. In the autumn of the same year a decisive battle was  ught at the mouth of the Great Kenha­ way, between the collected  rces of the Sliawancsc,  lingoes, and Delawares, and a detachment of the Virginia militia. The Indians were defeated, and sued  r peace. Logan, however, disdained to be seen among the suppliants. But, lest the sincerity of a treaty should be distrusted, from which so dis­ tinguished a chief absented himself, he sent by a
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