io5 



ticipations are terrible ; he fees his approaching ruin, he fees it appalled j 

 it haunts him in his folitude, it fills him with bitternefs when he beholds 

 his devoted children. The tales of his anccftors recall its firlt diflant ap- 

 proaches. The found of the axe in the neighbouring forefl tells him it is 

 at hand ! Under circumftances fo aweful, I was anxious to fnatch up a 

 few flight memorials of this people, before their fate fhould be finally fealed. 

 It is a part of the defliny of an unlettered people, to write their memo- 

 rials with the pen of a llranger. They have no alternative, imperfeft 

 reprefentation, or blank oblivion. — But of whom are we fpeaking .? who 

 are thefe evanefcent tribes ? and in what clafs of created beings is pof- 

 terity to place them ? a/lc the Abenaki, (whom the humanity of our go- 

 vernment Hill fuffers to remain on the coaft,) he will tell you, defcribing 

 himfelf by the name of his nation, that he is the Man of the land; alk 

 the Ilinois, he will tell you boldly, he is Inini (fometimes pronounced 

 Ilini) the man ; alk the Iroquois, he claims to be ongbi onwi, the real 

 7nan ; afk the numerous nations, who fpeak the Algonquin tongue, their 

 pretenfions advance, for they aflert they are Nijhinapek (their common 

 name) doubly men; afk their Spanifli neighbours, they call them Barba- 

 rian infidels ; afk the American frontier fettler, (whom they llile Kichi- 

 mucoman, literally Long knife) by him they are denominated Savages, the 

 Canadian too affirms ce font des Sauvages ; alk the Paus, the Raynals, 

 and thofe other wife men of Europe, who without ever having feen 

 the fmokes of an Indian village take the trouble, at three thoufand miles 

 diftance, to dogmatize and write volumes upon their nature, powers, 

 and capacities, pliyfical, moral, and intelleiftual ; thefe great men will 

 tell you they are an inferior race of men. To what opinion fliall we 

 hold ? what conllitutes a man ? what energies entitle him to rank high 

 in his fpecies? If a well organized brain, a bofom flored with natural 



feelings 



the too tafy fupplies of intoxicating poifons, clear lines of demarcation, (including a 

 fpace of ileutral territorry between the fettlers frontier and the boundary of the native) would 

 be a ufeful meafure of precaution. With refpefl to thofe tribes, which are not yet prefled 

 upon by the advancing tide of population, teach them inoculation to meet epidemic in- 

 feflion, and leave them to nature. 



