372 CONSEQUENCES ANTICIPATED. 



Mr. Peers on ascending the Mackenzie in the Fall saw 

 the bodies still lying on the shore, but they were 

 shortly after buried or carried away by the Esquimaux. 



Alas the day that so foul and bloody an act of 

 treachery could be perpetrated ! and alas, shame and 

 degradation that a white man could be found worse 

 fiend than the untutored savage ! — to whose religion 

 revenge is a duty, as it is sweet to his nature. We 

 might perchance seek to palliate the commission of 

 this deed in the Red Indian who has some real or 

 fancied injury to retaliate, but even the shadow of an 

 excuse, or of any other motive than innate wantonness 

 and reckless bloodthirstiness, was wanting to the 

 fiendish miscreant who shared their hellish plot. 



The ill consequences of this very melancholy affair, 

 will, it is to be feared, be extensive and irremediable, 

 and it must be a source of deep regret to consider 

 how much good might have been accomplished had a 

 different line of conduct been pursued. 



The opportunity long and eagerly sought for to con- 

 ciliate the Esquimaux, and to place them on a friendly 

 footing with the Whites and the Loucheux, with 

 which latter they had been so long at feud, was most 

 recklessly thrown away. With a display of confidence 

 never before met with in them, these Esquimaux 

 had voluntarily yielded up their arms, and trustingly 



