41 
renovation, an example equal in moral greatness to 
that of any civilized country on earth. 
Having thus considered their character, as in¬ 
fluenced by their connection with Europeans, we shall 
now proceed to speak of it as illustrated in their 
domestic habits. Here every allowance must be 
made by the reader, for the circumstances in which he 
finds them ; and if, in some of the relations of domestic 
life, they fall far short of that pure standard of morals 
which he knows to be most conducive to the well¬ 
being of society, either individually or collectively, he 
must recollect, that he is reading of a people, who are 
but just emerging from an obscurity in which they 
have been involved, probably upwards of three thou¬ 
sand years; during which period they have been 
wholly shut out from the advantages of civilized life, 
and, above all, of that revealed religion, which has 
conferred so many temporal as well as spiritual 
blessings on mankind : that during this long seclusion, 
a mass of prejudices and false opinions have been 
accumulating, to which time has imparted a strength 
and solidity that would for ever bid defiance to such 
ill-directed efforts, as have hitherto been made to 
overthrow them; and that the specimens they have 
heretofore had, of the moral and civil habits of those 
foreigners who have visited them, have not been of a 
stamp to impart so favourable an idea of their supe¬ 
riority, as to induce them to relinquish their established 
usages, and adopt those of their invaders. Making 
these allowances, we think the reader will acknowledge, 
