28 Some Account of the 



tame dogs, which accompanied them in their hunting 1 

 excursions, and served them with all the ardour and 

 fidelity* peculiar to the species. But, instead of that 

 fond attachment which the hunter naturally feels to- 

 wards those useful companions of his toils, they re- 

 quite their services with neglect, seldom feed, and 

 never caress themt-" 



It would, I believe, be a much easier task to prove, 

 that Dr. Robertson was unqualified to write the his- 

 tory of America; to prove that the Indian- Americans 

 are not the inferiors of the people of the old world, 

 in the measure of their intellectual endowments ; and 

 to show, that more than one half of the charges which 

 have been brought against these people, are charges 

 resulting from ignorance, or from systematic zeal, 

 than to prove, that the Indians are peculiarly entitled 

 to the character of kind and tender dog-masters. 

 After some attention to this subject, I must candidly 

 confess, that I possess not materials for a satisfying 

 defence of the Indian. The charges which have been 

 brought against him, by the writers whom I have 

 mentioned, will be convictive. But why, in this in- 

 quiry, if the historian will condescend to mention the 

 fact, and to interweave it with his eloquence, should 

 he forget the hardships of the savage life ? Where 

 the master labours under a scarcity of food, his ser- 

 vants, the animals which depend upon him for their 



* Their fidelity has been called in question. Sec page 14. 

 t The History of America. Vol. ii. p. 216, 217. London 





