" The chief's ability as an orator, his
fluency of speech, his ceaseless war against the inroads of the
border white men and their lawlessness among his own people--all
gradually but surely brought him, inch by inch, before the notice
of those who sat in the "seats of the mighty" of both church and
state. His presence was frequently demanded at Ottawa, fighting for
the cause of his people before the House of Commons, the Senate,
and the Governor-General himself. At such times he would always
wear his native buckskin costume, and his amazing rhetoric,
augmented by the gorgeous trappings of his office and his
inimitable courtesy of manner, won him friends and followers among
the lawmakers of the land. He never fought for a cause and lost
it, never returned to Lydia and his people except in a triumph
of victory. Social honors came to him as well as political
distinctions. Once, soon after his marriage, a special review of
the British troops quartered at Toronto was called in his honor
and he rode beside the general, making a brilliant picture, clad as
he was in buckskins and scarlet blanket and astride his pet black
pony, as he received the salutes of company after company of
England's picked soldiers as they wheeled past.
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