76 MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 



abundance is not to be found in our own country, but that it is, from cir- 

 cumstances easily understood, more obtruded 'for the present into pro- 

 minent positions in America. Does it not appear that there is something 

 essentially vulgar in that mind, which, in spite of its alleged disgust, can 

 continually occupy itself with coarseness in others, and load itself with 

 the memory of the details ?" 



Mr. Latrobe journeyed into the " far west," arid gives a very graphic 

 account of many interesting circumstances connected with the country 

 and its inhabitants, the frontier settlers, the growth of farms and vil- 

 lages, and the Indian Tribes. With the following remarks we fully agree : 

 The gifts which the * pale-faces ' brought to the children of the 

 Forest have been indeed fatal ones, and by them the seeds of misery and 

 death have been sown to a wide extent. ****** 



*' Where the European found the Indians poor, he left them poorer; 

 where one scene of violence and vengeance had been seen, there many 

 have been enacted ; where he found one evil passion, he planted many; 

 where one fell disease had thinned their ranks, he brought those of his 

 blood and land to reap a more abundant harvest. His very gifts were 

 poison : selfish and inconsiderate in his kindness, he was ever bitter in 

 his revenge and anger : he excited the passion of the savage for his own 

 purposes, and, when it rased against him, he commenced the work of 

 extermination. * * * * 



** We read the history of the conquest of the provinces in the Southern 

 division of the Western Hemisphere, and the islands, and we execrate 

 the blood-thirstiness of the Spaniards, who exterminated whole tribes 

 by the sword, under the banner of the blessed Cross ; and yet the con- 

 duct of the Pilgrim Fathers and their children towards the Aborigines 

 of the North is hardly less culpable, or less execrable. Like the Spaniard, 

 the Puritan warred under the banner of his faith, and considered the 

 war as holy. No one who reads the history of these countries since their 

 first settlement, can draw any other conclusion, than that the white man 

 secretly, with his grasping hand, selfish policy, and want of faith, has 

 been in almost every case, directly or indirectly, the cause of the horrors 

 which he afterwards rose up openly to retaliate. How often did he 

 return evil for good? That the wrath of the Indian, when excited, was 

 terrible, his anger cruel, and his blows indiscriminate, falling almost 

 always on the comparatively innocent, and that defence, and perhaps 

 retaliation then became necessary, to save the country from repetitions of 

 those fearful scenes of murder and torture, which n;ake the early settle- 

 ments a marvel and a romance, is also to be allowed : but the settlement 

 of the various portions of America, with but few exceptions, is equally in 

 the North and South a foul blot upon Christendom. * # * * 



" The Indian tribes have melted like snow from before the steady march 

 of the white, and diminished in number and power: beaten back, they first 

 gave way, and retired beyond the mountains, and then beyond the Great 

 River, and to the Westward of the Great Lakes. If you ask, where is 

 the noble race whom Smith found in Virginia, the race of Powhatan, 

 which then overspread that fair country between the Alleghany and the 

 Sea ? where the powerful Tribes of the East, the posterity of Uncas or 

 Philip; the white man's friend, or the white man's foe; or the tribes 

 that clustered round the base of the White Mountains? the same answer 

 suits all ; they are gone ! and the remnants scattered here and there 

 hardly preserve the name." 



Mr. Latrobe's wanderings led him from one extremity of North Ame- 

 rica to the other ; and many " moving accidents," by land and flood, he 

 details. The accounts given of the Indians, their manners and customs, 

 are particularly rich. There is also mingled with much amiable feeling, 

 and a fine perception of natural beauties, no slight amount of 



