145 



speed to the Hottentot tribe to which he belonged, and ne- 

 ver returned to the Cape. 



But besides that Kolbe, the author from whom, I think, 

 this tale is taken, is entitled to little or no credit, 1 Sparm. 

 77. 2 Barrow, 1.5. 2 Vaillant, 43, 72. Our enthusiastic au- 

 thor forgets to tell us, that the Hottentots who live with the 

 Dutch are in reality enslaved ; which accounts for the pre- 

 cipitate flight of this youth (if true) and his preferring to 

 live with his own family and regain his liberty. 1 Sparm. 218. 



17th. Lastly, our orator alledges that many abandon ci- 

 vilized life and embrace that of savas^es. 



To which I "answer, that this, if it were generally true, 

 would not support his hypothesis ; for it is not the destitute 

 state of his primeval savages, but that of modern savages, 

 (who possess many advantages to which his fictitious savages, 

 as he himself supposes, must have been strangers,) that any 

 person had ever embraced, now Mr. Volney informs us, that 

 on diligent inquiry in several parts of America, the unanimous 

 result was, that the adoption of savage life among the Ame- 

 rican descendants of English or Germans, scarcely happens 

 but to youths under the age of 18, who have been carried off 

 prisoners, which because of the excessive libert}!^ it allows 

 children, is much more pleasing to them than the confine- 

 ment of schools, and the punishments inflicted on them for 

 their idleness. That as to adults taken and adopted by the 



VOL. XI. u savages, 



