LOUISIANA. 197 



Indians are exceflively fond of this liquor, and 

 grow furious when they have drank too much 

 of it. After their drunkennefs is over, they fay 

 that they have neither fpoken nor done any 

 thing, and attribute all their follies to the brandy 

 believing to ju/lify their conduct by acknow- 

 ledging that they had loft their wits. When a 

 drunken Indian kills another, the death is not 

 revenged. But thefe people take care feldom or 

 never to drink all at once, thofe who are fober 

 keep in bounds the reft, and the women hide 

 both ofFenfive and defenfive weapons. Brandy 

 may be reckoned among the pernicious things 

 which have contributed towards the depopula- 

 tion of North America : this liquor makes men 

 brutes, and often kills them. I have fomefimes 

 feen drunken Indians kill each other with 

 hatchets and clubs, 



I am now ready to leave the Illinois^ and ex- 



ped to be in New Orleans in January 1757. 



This letter fets out in a piragua, which M. de 



Mccarty fends with difpatches to the governor. 



I am, &c. 



At the Illinois J the loth 

 No'uember lysO, 



O 2 LET- 



