NORTHERN OCEAN 301 



remain at the Company's Factories, or elsewhere within their 

 territories. Experience has convinced me, that by keeping a 

 Northern Indian at a distance, he may be made serviceable 

 both to himself and the Company ; but by giving him the 

 least indulgence at the Factory, he will grow indolent, in- 

 active, and troublesome, and only contrive methods to tax the 

 generosity of an European. 



The greatest part of these people never fail to defraud 

 Europeans whenever it is in their power, and take every 

 method to over-reach them in the way of trade. They will 

 disguise their persons and change their names, in order to 

 defraud them of their lawful debts, which they are sometimes 

 permitted to contract at the Company's Factory ; and all 

 debts that are outstanding at the succession of a new Gover- 

 nor are entirely lost, as they always declare, and bring plenty 

 of witnesses to prove, that they were paid long before, but 

 that their names had been forgotten to be struck out of the 

 book. 



[310] Notwithstanding all those bad qualities, they are the 

 mildest tribe of Indians that trade at any of the Company's 

 settlements; and as the greatest part of them are never heated 

 with liquor, are always in their senses, and never proceed to 

 riot, or any violence beyond bad language. 



The men are in general very jealous of their wives, and I 

 make no doubt but the same spirit reigns among the women ; 

 but they are kept so much in awe of their husbands, that the 

 liberty of thinking is the greatest privilege they enjoy. The 

 presence of a Northern Indian man strikes a peculiar awe into 

 his wives, as he always assumes the same authority over them 

 that the master of a family in Europe usually does over his 

 domestic servants. 



Their marriages are not attended with any ceremony ; all 

 matches are made by the parents, or next of kin. On those 

 occasions the women seem to have no choice, but implicitly 

 obey the will of their parents, who always endeavour to marry 



