The Cask of Amontillado Poe may have borrowed Montresor's family motto "Nemo me impune lacessit" from James Fenimore Cooper, who used the line in "The Last of the Mohicans" (1826). Poe wrote his tale, however, as a response to his personal rival Thomas Dunn English. Poe and English had several confrontations, usually revolving around literary caricatures of one another. Poe thought that one of English's writings went a bit too far, and successfully sued the other man's editors at "The New York Mirror" for libel in 1846. That year English published a revenge-based novel called "1844, or, The Power of the S.F." Its plot
The Last of the Mohicans escapes, and in the (correct) belief that Magua will return with Huron reinforcements, Hawk-eye and the Mohicans lead their new companions to a hidden cave on an island in a river. They are attacked there by the Hurons, and when ammunition is exhausted, Hawk-eye and the Mohicans escape, with a promise to return for their companions. Magua and the Hurons capture Heyward, Gamut, and the Munro sisters, and Magua admits that he is seeking revenge against Cora's father Colonel Munro for turning him into an alcoholic with whiskey (causing him to be initially cast out of the Hurons) and then