I04 



" The dark cloud from the eaft, (the Orong painting of the Miami 

 chief), dafliing againfl our coaft, burfting on our (bores, and at length 

 drifting its racic in broJcen, but ftiil fpreading and advancing maiTes, 

 over our land, has not only deftroyed whole nations of Indians, but has 

 cankered and withered and blafted whatever is left that bears the In- 

 dian name." If it be true that a tafle for pleafures not merely fenfual 

 refines thofe fenfibilities that conduft to the extremes of happinefs or 

 mifery, perhaps the flight view I have given in the following pages, of 

 the innocent amufements of the Indian people, may furnifli an additional 

 motive to treat them with humanity.* The only excufe for the harfli 



dominion 



Indian populalion in North America, from the Mifflfppi to the mojl rljflant North, fome 

 tribes, as I am credibly informed, were left without a man, the enfuing years, many of 

 the women and children, who had efcaped the difeafe, perilhed by famine. In a few 

 years the boys of thofe tribes, who had fuifered mod, arrived at an age which enabled 

 them to hunt ; this firft put an effeflual ftop to the deftruflion by famine. The In- 

 dian chief who is faid by Mr. Hearne to have put himfelf to death, on hearing that 

 the French had taken pofleflion of the Englifli forts, did end his life by fuicide. But 

 the caufe of his defpair was the lofs of his wife and children, all of whom perilhed 

 by the fmall-pox. This is one of the very few miftakes which occur in Mr. Hearne's 

 mofl excellent narrative, faithful in defcribing manners. It is, however, pofitively af- 

 fcrted by many of thofe Indians who accompanied him to the northward, that he 

 never faw the Coppermine river, but flopping with the women, when his male compa- 

 nions declared their determination to exterminate the Efldmaux, remained till the re- 

 turn of the war-party, and took his account both of the fituation of the river, and the 

 particulars of the maifacre, from their narrative. 



* I do not mean to exaggerate any thing, nor to play the rhetorician on the pliilantro- 

 phift ; the perfecutions of Spain, I know have ceafed, the benefits of the other powers 

 iordering upon thefe Tetiring tribes, flow towards them, however unadequately, with be- 

 nevolent and found intentions. Their vexations now arife from individual injuries, the 

 confequence of ill executed laws, their internal evils from the inadequacy of their con- 

 ftitutions to their prefent exigencies, from their confined territory, from deep rooted 

 mifchiefs long (ince introduced and ftill in operation. The tribes of the coaft, fuch I 

 jnean as have not entirely perifhed off the face of the earth, are dilperfed like wanderers. 



If 



