their words [the Indians'] & our Words, and not his own."[1] Again in 1743, the governor of Virginia requested the province of Pennsylvania to send their "honest interpreter," Conrad Weiser, to adjust a difficulty with the Iroquois Indians; whereupon he proceeded to Onondaga with a present of £100 on the part of Virginia, and made peace for the English colonists.[2] The following year, Weiser was chief interpreter at the important treaty of Lancaster; and throughout King George's War was occupied with negotiations with the Six Nations, detaching them from the French influence, and keeping the Pennsylvania Delawares quiet "upon their mats."
After the journey to the Ohio, described in the following diary, Weiser's Indian transactions were largely confined to the province of Pennsylvania; Montour and Croghan taking over the business with the Ohio Indians until the outbreak of the French and Indian War. Weiser now assumed duties in a military capacity. He raised a company of soldiers for the Canadian expedition (1755), and later was made lieutenant-colonel, with the care of the frontier forts under his charge. At the same time the New York authorities besought his influence with the Mohawks and Western Iroquois; and he assisted in arranging the treaty at Easton, which prepared the way for the success of Forbes's expedition (1758).
Weiser was the most influential German of his section, possibly of all Pennsylvania; but his religious affiliations and enmities interfered with his political ambitions. Originally a Lutheran, in 1735 he became concerned with the movement of the Seventh Day Baptists, which
