36 
THE HISTORY OF 
entirely upon the English, not only for their trade, but even for their subsist- 
ence. Besides, they were really able to do more mischief, while they made 
use of arrows, of which they would let silently fly several in a minute with 
wonderful dexterity, whereas now they hardly ever discharge their fire-locks 
more than once, which they insidiously do from behind a tree, and then 
retire as nimbly as the Dutch horse used to do now and then formerly in 
Flanders. We put the Indians to no expense, but only of a little corn for 
our horses, for which in gratitude we cheered their hearts with what rum we 
had left, which they love better than they do their wives and children. Though 
these Indians dwell among the English, and see in what plenty a little indus- 
try enables them to live, yet they choose to continue in their stupid idleness, 
and to suffer all the inconveniences of dirt, cold and want, rather than to dis- 
turb their heads with care, or defile their hands with labour. 
The whole number of people belonging to the Nottoway town, if you in- 
clude women and children, amount to about two hundred. These are the 
only Indians of any consequence now remaining within the limits of Virgi- 
nia. The rest are either removed, or dwindled to a very inconsiderable num- 
ber, either by destroying one another, or else by the small-pox and other dis- 
eases. Though nothing has been so fatal to them as their ungovernable 
passion for rum, with which, I am sorry to say it, they have been but too 
liberally supplied by the English that live near them. And here I must la- 
ment the bad success Mr. Boyle’s charity has hitherto had towards convert- 
ing any of these poor heathens to Christianity. Many children of our neigh- 
bouring Indians have been brought up in the college of William and Mary. 
They have been taught to read and write, and have been carefully instructed in 
the principles of the Christian religion, till they came to be men. Yet after they 
returned home, instead of civilizing and converting the rest, they have imme- 
diately relapsed into infidelity and barbarism themselves. 
And some of them too have made the worst use of the knowledge they 
acquired among the English, by employing it against their benefactors. 
Besides, as they unhappily forget all the good they learn, and remember the 
ill, they are apt to be more vicious and disorderly than the rest of their coun- 
trymen. I ought not to quit this subject without doing justice to the great 
prudence of colonel Spots wood in this affair. That gentleman was lieutenant 
govejfnor of Virginia when Carolina was engaged in a bloody war with the 
Indians. At that critical time it was thought expedient to keep a watchful eye 
upon our tributary savages, who we knew had nothing to keep them to their 
duty but their fears. Then it was that he demanded of each nation a compe- 
tent number of their great men’s children to be sent to the college, where they 
served as so many hostages for the good behaviour of the rest, and at the same 
time were themselves principled in the Christian religion. He also placed a school 
master among the Saponi Indians, at the salary of fifty pounds per annum, to 
instruct their children. The person that undertook that charitable work was 
Mr. Charles Griffin, a man of a good family, who, by the innocence of his 
life, and the sweetness of his temper, was perfectly well qualified for that pious 
undertaking. Besides, he had so much the secret of mixing pleasure with 
instruction, that he had not a scholar who did not love him affectionately. 
Such talents must needs have been blest with a proportionable success, had 
he not been unluckily removed to the college, by which he left the good work 
he had begun unfinished. In short, all the pains he had taken among the infi- 
dels had no other effect but to make them something cleanlier than other 
Indians are. The care colonel Spotswood took to tincture the Indian children 
with Christianity produced the following epigram, which was not published 
during his administration, for fear it might then have looked like flattery. 
