Stone from MS collections of Joseph W.
Moulton.]
CHAPTER XX.
Personal characteristics--Interview with General Lafayette--Visit of a
French Nobleman--Col. Pickering reproved--Address on launching a schooner
bearing his name--Anecdote of Red Jacket and Capt. Jones--His humor--
Strong memory--Its cultivation--Contempt for pretension without merit--
Love for the sublime--Portraits--Acute perception--Refined sense of
propriety--First bridge at Niagara Falls--Loss of his children--Care for
his people.
A prominent characteristic of Red Jacket's mind, was self esteem, which
led him to be quite tenacious of his own opinion. He probably did not
underrate his own ability. He felt conscious of possessing talents, which
would enable him to act with dignity and propriety, in any emergency
calling for their exercise. He never appeared to be intimidated or
embarrassed at the thought of meeting with great men, but seemed always to
be at home in their society, and to feel and act as though he regarded
himself on an equality with them. This was evident in his interview with
General Lafayette, in 1825.
On being presented to the general, the orator inquired if he recollected
being present, at the treaty of peace with the Six Nations at Fort
Stanwix, in 1784. Lafayette replied that he remembered that great council
very well. "And what," said he, "has become of the young chief, who
resisted so strenuously and eloquently on that occasion, the idea of the
Indians' burying the hatchet?"
"_He is before you_," was the instant reply.
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