His followers, superstitious as they were, would not accept such a
flimsy excuse and deserted him, flying to secure hiding-places where the
white man could not find them. After his town was burned, the prophet
took shelter among the Wyandots.
The events in the northwest aroused a war spirit among the patriotic
Americans, which could not be suppressed. Not only did British
emissaries incite the Indians to make war, but British orders in council
continued to be vigorously enforced. Insult was offered to the American
flag by British cruisers, and the press of Great Britain insolently
declared that the Americans "could not be kicked into a war."
Forbearance ceased to be a virtue; it became cowardice. President
Madison found himself the standard-bearer of his party, surrounded by
irrepressible young warriors eager for fight. Like a cautious
commander, he sounded a careful war note in his annual message to
congress at the beginning of November, 1811. The young and ardent
members of the house of representatives, who had elected Henry Clay,
then thirty-four years of age, speaker, determined that indecision
should no longer mark the councils of the nation. The committee on
foreign relations, of which Peter B. Porter was chairman, intensified
that feeling by an energetic report submitted on the 29th of November,
in which, in glowing sentences, the British government was arraigned on
charges of injustice, cruelty, and wrong.
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