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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of
+The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton, by Antoine Simon Maillard
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton
+
+Author: Antoine Simon Maillard
+
+Release Date: April 6, 2005 [EBook #15567]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MICMAKIS AND MARICHEETS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Wallace McLean, David King, and the PG Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+AN
+
+ACCOUNT
+
+OF THE
+
+CUSTOMS and MANNERS
+
+OF THE
+
+MICMAKIS and MARICHEETS
+
+SAVAGE NATIONS,
+
+Now Dependent on the
+
+Government of CAPE-BRETON.
+
+
+FROM
+
+An Original French Manuscript-Letter,
+
+Never Published,
+
+Written by a French Abbot,
+
+Who resided many Years, in quality of Missionary, amongst them.
+
+
+To which are annexed,
+
+Several Pieces, relative to the Savages, to Nova
+
+Scotia, and to North-America in general.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LONDON:
+
+Printed for S. Hooper and A. Morley at Gay's-Head,
+near Beaufort-Buildings in the Strand. MDCCLVIII.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+For the better understanding of the letter immediately following, it may
+not be unnecessary to give the reader some previous idea of the people
+who are the subject of it, as well of the letter-writer.
+
+The best account of the _Mickmakis_ I could find, and certainly the most
+authentic, is in a memorial furnished by the French ministry in April,
+1751, from which the following paragraph is a translated extract:
+
+"The government of the savages dependent on Cape-Breton exacts a
+particular attention. All these savages go under the name of
+_Mickmakis_. Before the last war they could raise about six hundred
+fighting-men, according to an account given in to his most Christian
+majesty, and were distributed in several villages established on
+Cape-Breton island, island of St. John, on both the coasts of Acadia
+(Nova-Scotia) and on that of Canada. All, or most of the inhabitants of
+these villages have been instructed in the Christian religion, by
+missionaries which the king of France constantly maintains amongst them.
+It is customary to distribute every year to them presents, in the name
+of his majesty, which consist in arms, ammunition of war, victuals,
+cloathing, and utensils of various sorts. And these presents are
+regulated according to the circumstances of the time, and to the
+satisfaction that shall have been given to the government by the conduct
+of these savages. In the last war they behaved so as to deserve our
+approbation, and indeed have, on all occasions, given marks of their
+attachment and fidelity. Since the peace too, they have equally
+distinguished themselves in the disturbances that are on foot on the
+side of Acadia (Nova-Scotia)."
+
+The last part of this foregoing paragraph needs no comment. Every one
+knows by what sort of service these savages merit the encouragement of
+the French government, and by what acts of perfidy and cruelty exercised
+on the English, they are to earn their reward.
+
+The _Maricheets_, mentioned in the said letter form a distinct nation,
+chiefly settled at St. John's, and are often confounded with the
+_Abenaquis_, so as to pass for one nation with them, though there is
+certainly some distinction. They used, till lately, to be in a constant
+state of hostility with the Mickmakis. But, however, these nations may
+be at peace or variance with one another, in one point they agree, which
+is a thorough enmity to the English, cultivated, with great application
+by the missionaries, who add to the scandal of a conduct so contrary to
+their profession, the baseness of denying or evading the charge by the
+most pitiful equivocations. It is with the words peace, charity, and
+universal benevolence, for ever in their mouths, that these
+incendiaries, by instigations direct and indirect, inflame and excite
+the savages to commit the cruellest outrages of war, and the blackest
+acts of treachery. Poor Captain How! is well known to have paid with his
+life, infamously taken away by them, at a parley, the influence one of
+these missionaries (now a prisoner in the island of Jersey,) had over
+these misguided wretches, whose native innocence and simplicity are not
+proof against the corruption, and artful suggestions of those holy
+seducers.
+
+It would not, perhaps, be impossible for the English, if they were to
+apply proper means, and especially lenient ones, to recover the
+affections of these people, which, for many reasons, cannot be entirely
+rooted in the French interest. That great state-engine of theirs,
+religion, by which they have so strong a hold on the weak and credulous
+savages, might not, however, be an invincible bar to our success, if it
+was duly counter-worked by the offer of a much more pure and rational
+one of our own, joined to such temporal advantages as would shew them
+their situation capable of being much meliorated, in every respect; and
+especially that of freedom, which they cannot but be sensible, is daily
+decreasing under the insidious encroachments and blandishments of the
+French, who never cares but to enslave, nor hug but to stifle, whose
+pretences, in short, to superior humanity and politeness, are not
+amongst their least arts of conquest.
+
+As to the letter-writer, he is an abbot much respected in those parts,
+who has resided the greatest part of his life amongst the Mickmakis, and
+is perfectly acquainted with their language, in the composing of a
+Dictionary of which he has labored eighteen or twenty years; but I
+cannot learn that it is yet published, and probably for reasons of
+state, it never may. The letter, of which the translation is now given,
+exists only in a manuscript, having never been printed, being entirely
+written for the satisfaction of a friend's curiosity, in relation to the
+original manners and customs of the people of which it treats, and
+which, being those of savages in the primitive state of unpolished
+nature, may perhaps, to a philosophical enquirer, afford more amusement
+and instruction than those of the most refined societies. What man
+really is, appears at least plainer in the uncultivated savage, than in
+the civilized European.
+
+The account of Acadia (Nova-Scotia) will, it is to be hoped, appear not
+uncurious; allowance being made for its being only in form of a letter.
+
+
+
+
+A
+
+LETTER, &c.
+
+
+_Micmaki-Country_, March 27, 1755.
+
+
+SIR,
+
+I should long before now have satisfied you in those points of curiosity
+you expressed, concerning the savages amongst whom I have so long
+resided, if I could have found leisure for it. Literally true it is,
+that I have no spare time here, unless just in the evening, and that not
+always. This was my case too in Louisbourg; and I do not doubt but you
+will be surprised at learning, that I enjoy as little rest here as
+there.
+
+Had you done me, Sir, the honor of passing with me but three days only,
+you would soon have seen what sort of a nation it is that I have to deal
+with. I am obliged to hold frequent and long parleys with them, and, at
+every occasion, to heap upon them the most fair and flattering promises.
+I must incessantly excite them to the practice of acts of religion, and
+labor to render them tractable, sociable, and loyal to the king (of
+France). But especially, I apply myself to make them live in good
+understanding with the French.
+
+With all this, I affect a grave and serious air, that awes and imposes
+upon them. I even take care of observing measure and cadence in the
+delivery of my words, and to make choice of those expressions the
+properest to strike their attention, and to hinder what I say from
+falling to the ground. If I cannot boast that my harangues have all the
+fruit and success that I could wish, they are not however wholly without
+effect. As nothing inchants those people more than a style of metaphors
+and allegories, in which even their common conversation abounds, I adapt
+myself to their taste, and never please them better than when I give
+what I say this turn, speaking to them in their own language. I borrow
+the most lively images from those objects of nature, with which they are
+so well acquainted; and am rather more regular than even themselves, in
+the arrangement of my phrases. I affect, above all, to rhime as they do,
+especially at each member of a period. This contributes to give them so
+great an idea of me, that they imagine this gift of speaking is rather
+an inspiration, than an acquisition by study and meditation. In truth, I
+may venture to say, without presumption, that I talk the _Micmaki_
+language as fluently, and as elegantly, as the best of their women, who
+most excel in this point.
+
+Another of my occupations is to engage and spur them on to the making a
+copious chace, when the hunting-season comes in, that their debts to the
+dealers with them may be paid, their wives and children cloathed, and
+their credit supported.
+
+It is neither gaming nor debauchery that disable them from the payment
+of their debts, but their vanity, which is excessive, in the presents of
+peltry they make to other savages, who come either in quality of envoys
+from one country to another, or as friends or relations upon a visit to
+one another. Then it is, that a village is sure to exhaust itself in
+presents; it being a standing rule with them, on the arrival of such
+persons, to bring out every thing that they have acquired, during the
+winter and spring season, in order to give the best and most
+advantageous idea of themselves. Then it is chiefly they make feasts,
+which sometimes last several days; of the manner of which I should
+perhaps spare you the description, if the ceremony that attends them did
+not include the strongest attestation of the great stress they lay on
+hunting; the excelling wherein they commonly take for their text in
+their panegyrics on these occasions, and consequently enters, for a
+great deal, into the idea you are to conceive of the life and manners of
+the savages in these parts.
+
+The first thing I am to observe to you is, that one of the greatest
+dainties, and with which they crown their entertainments, is the flesh
+of dogs. For it is not till the envoys, friends, or relations, are on
+the point of departure, that, on the eve of that day, they make a
+considerable slaughter of dogs, which they slea, draw, and, with no
+other dressing, put whole into the kettle; from whence they take them
+half boiled, and carve out into as many pieces as there are guests to
+eat of them, in the cabbin of him who gives the treat. But every one,
+before entering the cabbin, takes care to bring with him his _Oorakin_,
+or bowl, made of bark of birch-tree, either polygone shaped, or quite
+round; and this is practised at all their entertainments. These pieces
+of dogs flesh are accompanied with a small _Oorakin_ full of the oil or
+fat of seal, or of elk's grease, if this feast is given at the
+melting-time of the snow. Every one has his own dish before him, in
+which he sops his flesh before he eats it. If the fat be hard, he cuts a
+small piece of it to every bit of flesh he puts into his mouth, which
+serves as bread with us. At the end of this fine regale, they drink as
+much of the oil as they can, and wipe their hands on their hair. Then
+come in the wives of the master and persons invited, who carry off their
+husbands plates, and retire together to a separate place, where they
+dispatch the remains.
+
+After grace being said by the oldest of the company, who also never
+fails of pronouncing it before the meal, the master of the treat appears
+as if buried in a profound contemplation, without speaking a word, for a
+full quarter of an hour; after which, waking as it were out of a deep
+sleep, he orders in the _Calumets_, or _Indian_ pipes, with tobacco.
+First he fills his own, lights it, and, after sucking in two or three
+whiffs, he presents it to the most considerable man in the company:
+after which, every one fills his pipe and smoaks.
+
+The calumets lighted, and the tobacco burning with a clear fire, are
+scarce half smoked out, before the man of note before mentioned (for the
+greatest honors being paid him) gets up, places himself in the midst of
+the cabbin, and pronounces a speech of thanksgiving. He praises the
+master of the feast, who has so well regaled him and all the company. He
+compares him to a tree, whose large and strong roots afford nourishment
+to a number of small shrubs; or to a salutary medicinal herb, found
+accidentally by such as frequent the lakes in their canoes. Some I have
+heard, who, in their winter-feasts, compared him to the turpentine-tree,
+that never fails of yielding its sap and gummy distillation in all
+seasons: others to those temperate and mild days, which are sometimes
+seen in the midst of the severest winter. They employ a thousand
+similies of this sort, which I omit. After this introduction, they
+proceed to make honorable mention of the lineage from which the matter
+of the feast is descended.
+
+"How great (will the oldest of them say) art thou, through thy great,
+great, great grand-father, whose memory is still recent, by tradition,
+amongst us, for the plentiful huntings he used to make! There was
+something of miraculous about him, when he assisted at the beating of
+the woods for elks, or other beasts of the fur. His dexterity at
+catching this game was not superior to our's; but there was some
+unaccountable secret he particularly possessed in his manner of seizing
+those creatures, by springing upon them, laying hold of their heads, and
+transfixing them at the same time with his hunting-spear, though thrice
+as strong and as nimble again as he was, and much more capable with
+their legs only, than we with our rackets [a sort of buskined shoes made
+purposely for the Indian travels over the snow], to make their way over
+mountains of snow: he would nevertheless follow them, dart them, without
+ever missing his aim, tire them out with his chace, bring them down, and
+mortally wound them. Then he would regale us with their blood, skin
+them, and deliver up the carcass to us to cut to pieces. But if thy
+great, great, great grand-father made such a figure in the chace, what
+has not thy great, great grand-father done with respect to the beavers,
+those animals almost men? whose industry he surpassed by his frequent
+watchings round their cabbins, by the repeated alarms he would give them
+several times in one evening, and oblige them thereby to return home, so
+that he might be sure of the number of those animals he had seen
+dispersed during the day, having a particular foresight of the spot to
+which they would come to load their tails with earth, cut down with
+their teeth such and such trees for the construction of their huts. He
+had a particular gift of knowing the favorite places of those animals
+for building them. But now let us rather speak of your great
+grand-father, who was so expert at making of snares for moose-deer,
+martins, and elks. He had particular secrets, absolutely unknown to any
+but himself, to compel these sort of creatures to run sooner into his
+snares than those of others; and he was accordingly always so well
+provided with furs, that he was never at a loss to oblige his friends.
+Now let us come to your grand-father, who has a thousand and a thousand
+times regaled the youth of his time with seals. How often in our young
+days have we greased our hair in his cabbin? How often have we been
+invited, and even compelled by his friendly violence, to go home with
+him, whenever we returned with our canoes empty, to be treated with
+seal, to drink the oil, and anoint ourselves with it? He even pushed his
+generosity so far, as to give us of the oil to take home with us. But
+now we are come to your father: there was a man for you! He used to
+signalize himself in every branch of chace; but especially in the art of
+shooting the game whether flying or sitting. He never missed his aim. He
+was particularly admirable for decoying of bustards by his artificial
+imitations. We are all of us tolerably expert at counterfeiting the cry
+of those birds; but as to him, he surpassed us in certain inflexions, of
+his voice, that made it impossible to distinguish his cry from that of
+the birds themselves. He had, besides, a particular way of motion with
+his body, that at a distance might be taken for the clapping of their
+wings, insomuch that he has often deceived ourselves, and put us to
+confusion, as he started out of his hiding-place.
+
+"As for thyself, I say nothing, I am too full of the good things thou
+hast feasted me with, to treat on that subject; but I thank thee, and
+take thee by the hand, leaving to my fellow-guests the care of
+acquitting themselves of that duty."
+
+After this, he sits down, and some other younger, and in course of less
+note, for they pay great respect to age, gets up, and makes a summary
+recapitulation of what the first speaker has said; commending his manner
+of singing the praises of the master of the feast's ancestors: to which
+he observes, there is nothing to be added; but that he has, however,
+left him one part of the task to be accomplished, which is, not to pass
+over in silence the feast to which he and the rest of his brethren are
+invited; neither to omit the merit and praises of him who has given the
+entertainment. Then quitting his place, and advancing in cadence, he
+takes the master of the treat by the hand, saying, "All the praises my
+tongue is about to utter, have thee for their object. All the steps I am
+going to take, as I dance lengthwise and breadthwise in thy cabbin, are
+to prove to thee the gaiety of my heart, and my gratitude. Courage! my
+friends, keep time with your motions and voice, to my song and dance."
+
+With this he begins, and proceeds in his _Netchkawet_, that is,
+advancing with his body strait erect, in measured steps, with his arms
+a-kimbo. Then he delivers his words, singing and trembling with his
+whole body, looking before and on each side of him with a steady
+countenance, sometimes moving with a slow grave pace, then again with a
+quick and brisk one.
+
+The syllables he articulates the most distinctly are, _Ywhannah, Owanna,
+Haywanna, yo! ha! yo! ha!_ and when he makes a pause he looks full at
+the company, as much as to demand their chorus to the word _Heh!_ which
+he pronounces with great emphasis. As he is singing and dancing they
+often repeat the word _Heh!_ fetched up from the depth of their throat;
+and when he makes his pause, they cry aloud in chorus, _Hah!_
+
+After this prelude, the person who had sung and danced recovers his
+breath and spirits a little, and begins his harangue in praise of the
+maker of the feast. He flatters him greatly, in attributing to him a
+thousand good qualities he never had, and appeals to all the company for
+the truth of what he says, who are sure not to contradict him, being in
+the same circumstance as himself of being treated, and answer him by the
+word _Heh_, which is as much as to say, _Yes_, or _Surely_. Then he
+takes them all by the hand, and begins his dance again: and sometimes
+this first dance is carried to a pitch of madness. At the end of it he
+kisses his hand, by way of salute to all the company; after which he
+goes quietly to his place again. Then another gets up to acquit himself
+of the same duty, and so do successively all the others in the cabbin,
+to the very last man inclusively.
+
+This ceremony of thanksgiving being over by the men, the girls and women
+come in, with the oldest at the head of them, who carries in her left
+hand a great piece of birch-bark of the hardest, upon which she strikes
+as it were a drum; and to that dull sound which the bark returns, they
+all dance, spinning round on their heels, quivering, with one hand
+lifted, the other down: other notes they have none, but a guttural loud
+aspiration of the word Heh! Heh! Heh! as often as the old female savage
+strikes her bark-drum. As soon as she ceases striking, they set up a
+general cry, expressed by Yah! Then, if their dance is approved, they
+begin it again; and when weariness obliges the old woman to withdraw,
+she first pronounces her thanksgiving in the name of all the girls and
+women there. The introduction of which is too curious to omit, as it so
+strongly characterises the sentiments of the savages of that sex, and
+confirms the general observation, that where their bosom once harbours
+cruelty, they carry it greater lengths than even the men, whom
+frequently they instigate to it.
+
+"You men! who look on me as of an infirm and weak sex, and consequently
+of all necessity subordinate to you, know that in what I am, the Creator
+has given to my share, talents and properties at least of as much worth
+as your's, I have had the faculty of bringing into the world warriors,
+great hunters, and admirable managers of canoes. This hand, withered as
+you see it now, whose veins represent the root of a tree, has more than
+once struck a knife into the hearts of the prisoners, who were given up
+to me for my sport. Let the river-sides, I say, for I call them to
+witness for me, as well as the woods of such a country, attest their
+having seen me more than once tear out the heart, entrails, and tongue,
+of those delivered up to me, without changing color, roast pieces of
+their flesh, yet palpitating and warm with life, and cram them down the
+throats of others, whom the like fate awaited. With how many scalps have
+not I seen my head adorned, as well as those of my daughters! With what
+pathetic exhortations have not I, upon occasion, rouzed up the spirit of
+our young men, to go in quest of the like trophies, that they might
+atchieve the reward, honor, and renown annexed to the acquisition of
+them: but it is not in these points alone that I have signalized myself.
+I have often brought about alliances, which there was no room to think
+could ever be made; and I have been so fortunate, that all the couples
+whose marriages I have procured, have been prolific, and furnished our
+nation with supports, defenders, and subjects, to eternize our race, and
+to protect us from the insults of our enemies. These old firs, these
+antient spruce-trees, full of knots from the top to the root, whose bark
+is falling off with age, and who yet preserve their gum and powers of
+life, do not amiss resemble me. I am no longer what I was; all my skin
+is wrinkled and furrowed, my bones are almost every where starting
+through it. As to my outward form, I may well be reckoned amongst the
+things, fit for nothing but to be totally neglected and thrown aside;
+but I have still within me wherewithal to attract the attention of those
+who know me."
+
+After this introduction follow the thanksgiving and encomiums, much in
+the same taste as the first haranguer's amongst the guests. This is what
+is practised in all the more solemn entertainments, both on the men and
+women's side. Nor can you imagine, how great an influence such praises
+have over them, derived as they are from the merit of hunting, and how
+greatly they contribute to inflame their passion for it. Nor is it
+surprising, considering how much almost the whole of their livelihood
+depends upon the game of all sorts that is the object of their chace.
+
+They have also a kind of feasts, which may be termed war-feasts, since
+they are never held but in time of war, declared, commenced, or
+resolved. The forms of these are far different from those of pacific and
+friendly entertainments. There is a mixture of devotion and ferocity in
+them, which at the same time that it surprises, proves that they
+consider war in a very solemn light, and as not to be begun without the
+greatest reason and justice; which motives, once established, or, which
+is the same thing, appearing to them established, there is nothing they
+do not think themselves permitted against their enemy, from whom they,
+on the other hand, expect no better quarter than they themselves give.
+
+To give you an idea of their preparatory ceremony for a declaration of
+war, I shall here select for you a recent example, in the one that broke
+out not long ago between the Micmaquis, and Maricheets. These last had
+put a cruel affront on the former, the nature of which you will see in
+the course of the following description: but I shall call the Micmaquis
+the aggressors, because the first acts of hostility in the field began
+from them. Those who mean to begin the war, detach a certain number of
+men to make incursions on the territories of their enemies, to ravage
+the country, to destroy the game on it, and ruin all the beaver-huts
+they can find on their rivers and lakes, whether entirely, or only
+half-built. From this expedition they return laden with game and peltry;
+upon which the whole nation assembles to feast on the meat, in a manner
+that has more of the carnivorous brute in it than of the human creature.
+Whilst they are eating, or rather devouring, all of them, young and old,
+great and little, engage themselves by the sun, the moon, and the name
+of their ancestors, to do as much by the enemy-nation.
+
+When they have taken care to bring off with them a live beast, from the
+quarter in which they have committed their ravage, they cut its throat,
+drink its blood, and even the boys with their teeth tear the heart and
+entrails to pieces, which they ravenously devour, giving thereby to
+understand, that those of the enemies who shall fall into their hands,
+have no better treatment to expect at them.
+
+After this they bring out _Oorakins_, (bowls of bark) full of that
+coarse vermillion which is found along the coast of Chibucto, and on the
+west-side of Acadia (Nova-Scotia) which they moisten with the blood of
+the animal if any remains, and add water to compleat the dilution. Then
+the old, as well as the young, smear their faces, belly and back with
+this curious paint; after which they trim their hair shorter, some of
+one side of the head, some of the other; some leave only a small tuft on
+the crown of their head; others cut their hair entirely off on the left
+or right side of it; some again leave nothing on it but a lock, just on
+the top of their forehead, and of the breadth of it, that falls back on
+the nape of the neck. Some of them bore their ears, and pass through the
+holes thus made in them, the finest fibril-roots of the fir, which they
+call _Toobee_, and commonly use for thread; but on this occasion serve
+to string certain small shells. This military masquerade, which they use
+at once for terror and disguise, being compleated, all the peltry of the
+beasts killed in the enemy's country, is piled in a heap; the oldest
+_Sagamo_, or chieftain of the assembly gets up, and asks, "What weather
+it is? Is the sky clear? Does the sun shine?" On being answered in the
+affirmative, he orders the young men to carry the pile of peltry to a
+rising-ground, or eminence, at some little distance from the cabbin, or
+place of assembly. As this is instantly done, he follows them, and as he
+walks along begins, and continues his address to the sun in the
+following terms:
+
+"Be witness, thou great and beautiful luminary, of what we are this day
+going to do in the face of thy orb! If thou didst disapprove us, thou
+wouldst, this moment, hide thyself, to avoid affording the light of thy
+rays to all the actions of this assembly. Thou didst exist of old, and
+still existeth. Thou remainest for ever as beautiful, as radiant, and as
+beneficent, as when our first fore fathers beheld thee. Thou wilt always
+be the same. The father of the day can never fail us, he who makes every
+thing vegetate, and without whom cold, darkness, and horror, would every
+where prevail. Thou knowest all the iniquitous procedure of our enemies
+towards us. What perfidy have they not used, what deceit have they not
+employed, whilst we had no room to distrust them? There are now more
+than five, six, seven, eight moons revolved since we left the principal
+amongst our daughters with them, in order thereby to form the most
+durable alliance with them, (for, in short, we and they are the same
+thing as to our being, constitution, and blood); and yet we have seen
+them look on these girls of the most distinguished rank,
+_Kayheepidetchque_, as mere playthings for them, an amusement, a pastime
+put by us into their hands, to afford them a quick and easy consolation,
+for the fatal blows we had given them in the preceding war. Yet, we had
+made them sensible, that this supply of our principal maidens was, in
+order that they should re-people their country more honorably, and to
+put them under a necessity of conviction, that we were now become
+sincerely their friends, by delivering to them so sacred a pledge of
+amity, as our principal blood. Can we then, unmoved, behold them so
+basely abusing that thorough confidence of ours? Beautiful, all-seeing,
+all-penetrating luminary! without whose influence the mind of man has
+neither efficacy nor vigor, thou hast seen to what a pitch that nation
+(who are however our brothers) has carried its insolence towards our
+principal maidens. Our resentment would not have been so extreme with
+respect to girls of more common birth, and the rank of whose fathers had
+not a right to make such an impression on us. But here we are wounded in
+a point there is no passing over in silence or unrevenged. Beautiful
+luminary! who art thyself so regular in thy course, and in the wise
+distribution thou makest of thy light from morning to evening, wouldst
+thou have us not imitate thee? And whom can we better imitate? The earth
+stands in need of thy governing thyself as thou dost towards it. There
+are certain places, where thy influence does not suffer itself to be
+felt, because thou dost not judge them worthy of it. But, as for us, it
+is plain that we are thy children; for we can know no origin but that
+which thy rays have given us, when first marrying efficaciously, with
+the earth we inhabit, they impregnated its womb, and caused us to grow
+out of it like the herbs of the field, and the trees of the forest, of
+which thou art equally the common father. To imitate thee then, we
+cannot do better than no longer to countenance or cherish those, who
+have proved themselves so unworthy thereof. They are no longer, as to
+us, under a favorable aspect. They shall dearly pay for the wrong they
+have done us. They have not, it is true, deprived us of the means of
+hunting for our maintenance and cloathing; they have not cut off the
+free passage of our canoes, on the lakes and rivers of this country; but
+they have done worse; they have supposed in us a tameness of sentiments,
+which does not, nor cannot, exist in us. They have defloured our
+principal maidens in wantonness, and lightly sent them back to us. This
+is the just motive which cries out for our vengeance. Sun! be thou
+favorable to us in this point, as thou art in that of our hunting, when
+we beseech thee to guide us in quest of our daily support. Be propitious
+to us, that we may not fail of discovering the ambushes that may be laid
+for us; that we may not be surprized unawares in our cabbins, or
+elsewhere; and, finally, that we may not fall into the hands of our
+enemies. Grant them no chance with us, for they deserve none. Behold the
+skins of their beasts now a burnt-offering to thee! Accept it, as if the
+fire-brand I hold in my hands, and now set to the pile, was lighted
+immediately by thy rays, instead of our domestic fire."
+
+Every one of the assistants, as well men as women, listen attentively to
+this invocation, with a kind of religious terror, and in a profound
+silence. But scarce is the pile on a blaze, but the shouts and war-cries
+begin from all parts. Curses and imprecations are poured forth without
+mercy or reserve, on the enemy-nation. Every one, that he may succeed in
+destroying any particular enemy he may have in the nation against which
+war is declared, vows so many skins or furs to be burnt in the same
+place in honor of the sun. Then they bring and throw into the fire, the
+hardest stones they can find of all sizes, which are calcined in it.
+They take out the properest pieces for their purpose, to be fastened to
+the end of a stick, made much in the form of a hatchet-handle. They slit
+it at one end, and fix in the cleft any fragment of those burnt stones,
+that will best fit it, which they further secure, by binding it tightly
+round with the strongest _Toobee_, or fibrils of fir-root
+above-mentioned; and then make use of it, as of a hatchet, not so much
+for cutting of wood, as for splitting the skull of the enemy, when they
+can surprize him. They form also other instruments of war; such as long
+poles, one of which is armed with bone of elk, made pointed like a
+small-sword, and edge of both sides, in order to reach the enemy at a
+distance, when he is obliged to take to the woods. The arrows are made
+at the same time, pointed at the end with a sharp bone. The wood of
+which these arrows are made, as well as the bows, must have been dried
+at the mysterious fire, and even the guts of which the strings are made.
+But you are here to observe, I am speaking of an incident that happened
+some years ago; for, generally speaking, they are now better provided
+with arms, and iron, by the Europeans supplying them, for their chace,
+in favor of their dealings with them for their peltry. But to return to
+my narration.
+
+Whilst the fire is still burning, the women come like so many furies,
+with more than bacchanalian madness, making the most hideous howlings,
+and dancing without any order, round the fire. Then all their apparent
+rage turns of a sudden against the men. They threaten them, that if they
+do not supply them with scalps, they will hold them very cheap, and look
+on them as greatly inferior to themselves; that they will deny
+themselves to their most lawful pleasures; that their daughters shall be
+given to none but such as have signalized themselves by some military
+feat; that, in short, they will themselves find means to be revenged of
+them, which cannot but be easy to do on cowards.
+
+The men, at this, begin to parley with one another, and order the women
+to withdraw, telling them, that they shall be satisfied; and that, in a
+little time, they may expect to have prisoners brought to them, to do
+what they will with them.
+
+The next thing they agree on is to send a couple of messengers, in the
+nature of heralds at arms, with their hatchets, quivers, bows, and
+arrows, to declare war against the nation by whom they conceive
+themselves aggrieved. These go directly to the village where the bulk of
+the nation resides, observing a sullen silence by the way, without
+speaking to any that may meet them. When they draw near the village,
+they give the earth several strokes with their hatchets, as a signal of
+commencing hostilities in form; and to confirm it the more, they shoot
+two of their best arrows at the village, and retire with the utmost
+expedition. The war is now kindled in good earnest, and it behoves each
+party to stand well on its guard. The heralds, after this, return to
+make a report of what they have done; and to prove their having been at
+the place appointed, they do not fail of bringing away with them some
+particular marks of that spot of the country. Then it is, that the
+inhabitants of each nation begin to think seriously, whether they shall
+maintain their ground by staying in their village, and fortifying it in
+their manner, or look out for a place of greater safety, or go directly
+in quest of the enemy. Upon these questions they assemble, deliberate,
+and hold endless consultations, though withal not uncurious ones: for it
+is on these occasions, that those of the greatest sagacity and eloquence
+display all their talents, and make themselves distinguished. One of
+their most common stratagems, when there were reasons for not attacking
+one another, or coming to a battle directly, was for one side to make as
+if they had renounced all thoughts of acting offensively. A party of
+those who made this feint of renunciation, would disperse itself in a
+wood, observing to keep near the borders of it; when, if any stragglers
+of the enemy's appeared, some one would counterfeit to the life the
+particular cry of that animal, in the imitation of which he most
+excelled; and this childish decoy would, however, often succeed, in
+drawing in the young men of the opposite party into their ambushes.
+
+Sometimes the scheme was to examine what particular spot lay so, that
+the enemies must, in all necessity, pass through it, to hunt, or provide
+bark for making their canoes. It was commonly in these passes, or
+defiles, that the bloodiest encounters or engagements happened, when
+whole nations have been known to destroy one another, with such an
+exterminating rage on both sides, that few have been left alive on
+either; and to say the truth, they were, generally speaking, mere
+cannibals. It was rarely the case that they did not devour some limbs,
+at least, of the prisoners they made upon one another, after torturing
+them to death in the most cruel and shocking manner: but they never
+failed of drinking their blood like water; it is now, some time, that
+our Micmakis especially are no longer in the taste of exercising such
+acts of barbarity. I have, yet, lately myself seen amongst them some
+remains of that spirit of ferocity; some tendencies and approaches to
+those inhumanities; but they are nothing in comparison to what they used
+to be, and seem every day wearing out. The religion to which we have
+brought them over, and our remonstrances have greatly contributed to
+soften that savage temper, and atrocious vindictiveness that heretofore
+reigned amongst them. But remember, Sir, that as to this point I am now
+only speaking, upon my own knowlege, of the Micmakis and Mariquects,
+who, though different in language, have the same customs and manners,
+and are of the same way of thinking and acting.
+
+But to arrive at any tolerable degree of conjecture, whence these people
+derive their origin own myself at a loss: possibly some light might be
+got into it, by discovering whether there was any affinity or not
+between their language, and that of the Orientalists, as the Chinese or
+Tartars. In the mean time, the abundance of words in this language
+surprized, and continues to surprize me every day the deeper I get into
+it. Every thing is proper in it; nothing borrowed, as amongst us. Here
+are no auxiliary verbs. The prepositions are in great number. This it is
+that gives great ease, fluency, and richness to the expression of
+whatever you require, when you are once master enough to join them to
+the verbs. In all their absolute verbs they have a dual number. What we
+call the imperfect, perfect, and preter-perfect tenses of the indicative
+mood, admits, as with us, of varied inflexions of the terminations to
+distinguish the person; but the difference of the three tenses is
+express, for the preter-perfect by the preposition _Keetch_; for the
+preter-pluperfect by _Keetch Keeweeh_: the imperfect is again
+distinguished from them by having no preposition at all.
+
+They have no feminine termination, either for the verbs or nouns. This
+greatly facilitates to me my composition of songs and hymns for them,
+especially as their prose itself naturally runs into poetry, from the
+frequency of their tropes and metaphors; and into rhime, from their
+nouns being susceptible of the same termination, as that of the words in
+the verbs which express the different persons. In speaking of persons
+absent, the words change their termination, as well in the nouns as in
+the verbs.
+
+They have two distinctions of style; the one noble, or elevated, for
+grave and important subjects, the other ignoble, or trivial, for
+familiar or vulgar ones. But this distinction is not so much with them,
+as with us, marked by a difference of words, but of terminations. Thus,
+when they are treating of solemn, or weighty matters, they terminate the
+verb and the noun by another inflexion, than what is used for trivial or
+common conversation.
+
+I do not know, whether I explain clearly enough to you this so material
+a point of their elocution; but it makes itself clearly distinguished,
+when once one comes to understand the language, in which it supplies the
+place of the most pathetic emphasis, though even that they do not want,
+nor great expression in their gestures and looks. All their conjugations
+are regular and distinct.
+
+Yet, with all these advantages of language, the nation itself is
+extreamly ignorant as to what concerns itself, or its origin, and their
+traditions are very confused and defective. They know nothing of the
+first peopling of their country, of which they imagine themselves the
+Aborigines. They often talk of their ancestors, but have nothing to say
+of them that is not vague or general. According to them, they were all
+great hunters, great wood-rangers, expert managers of canoes, intrepid
+warriors, that took to wives as many as they could maintain by hunting.
+They had too a custom amongst them, that if a woman grew pregnant whilst
+she was sucking a child, they obliged her to use means for procuring an
+abortion, in favor of the first-come, who they supposed would otherwise
+be defrauded of his due nourishment. Most of them also value themselves
+on being descended from their Jugglers, who are a sort of men that
+pretend to foretel futurity by a thousand ridiculous contorsions and
+grimaces, and by frightful and long-winded howlings.
+
+The great secret of these Jugglers consists in having a great _Oorakin_
+full of water, from any river in which it was known there were
+beaver-huts. Then he takes a certain number of circular turns round this
+Oorakin, as it stands on the ground, pronouncing all the time with a low
+voice, a kind of gibberish of broken words, unintelligible to the
+assistants, and most probably so to himself, but which those, on whom he
+means to impose, believe very efficacious. After this he draws near to
+the bowl, and bending very low, or rather lying over it, looks at
+himself in it as in a glass. If he sees the water in the least muddy, or
+unsettled, he recovers his erect posture, and begins his rounds again,
+till he finds the water as clear as he could wish it for his purpose,
+and then he pronounces over it his magic words. If after having repeated
+them twice or thrice, he does not find the question proposed to him
+resolved by this inspection of the water, nor the wonders he wants
+operated by it, he says with a loud voice and a grave tone, that the
+_Manitoo_, or _Miewndoo_, (the great spirit) or genius, which, according
+to them, has all knowledge of future events, would not declare himself
+till every one of the assistants should have told him (the Juggler) in
+the ear what were his actual thoughts, or greatest secret. [A Romish
+missionary must, with a very bad grace, blame the Jugglers, for what
+himself makes such a point of religion in his _auricular confession_.
+Even the appellation of _Juggler_ is not amiss applicable to those of
+their craft, considering all their tricks and mummery not a whit
+superior to those of these poor savages, in the eyes of common-sense.
+Who does not know, that the low-burlesque word of _Hocus-pocus_, is an
+humorous corruption of their _Hoc est corpus meum_, by virtue of which,
+they make a _God_ out of a vile wafer, and think it finely solved, by
+calling it a _mystery_, which, by the way is but another name for
+_nonsense_. Is there any thing amongst the savages half so absurd or so
+impious?] To this purpose he gets up, laments, and bitterly inveighs
+against the bad dispositions of those of the assistants, whose fault it
+was, that the effects of his art were obstructed. Then going round the
+company, he obliges them to whisper him in the ear, whatever held the
+first place in their minds; and the simplicity of the greater number is
+such, as to make them reveal to him what it would be more prudent to
+conceal. By these means it is, that these artful Jugglers renders
+themselves formidable to the common people, and by getting into the
+secrets of most of the families of the nation, acquire a hank over them.
+Some, indeed, of the most sensible see through this pitiful artifice,
+and look on the Jugglers in their proper light of cheats, quacks, and
+tyrants; but out of fear of their established influence over the bulk of
+the nation, they dare not oppose its swallowing their impostures, or its
+regarding all their miserable answers as so many oracles. When the
+Juggler in exercise, has collected all that he can draw from the inmost
+recesses of the minds of the assistants, he replaces himself, as before,
+over the mysterious bowl of water, and now knows what he has to say.
+Then, after twice or thrice laying his face close to the surface of the
+water, and having as often made his evocations in uncouth,
+unintelligible words, he turns his face to his audience, sometimes he
+will say, "I can only give a half-answer upon such an article; there is
+an obstacle yet unremoved in the way, before I can obtain an entire
+solution, and that is, there are some present here who are in such and
+such a case. That I may succeed in what is asked of me, and that
+interests the whole nation, I appoint that person, without my knowing,
+as yet, who it is, to meet me at such an hour of the night. I name no
+place of assignation but will let him know by a signal of lighted fire,
+where he may come to me, and suffer himself to be conducted wherever I
+shall carry him. The _Manitoo_ orders me to spare his reputation, and
+not expose him; for if there is any harm in it to him, there is also
+harm to me."
+
+Thus it is the Juggler has the art of imposing on these simple credulous
+creatures, and even often succeeds by it in his divinations. Sometimes
+he does not need all this ceremonial. He pretends to foretell off-hand,
+and actually does so, when he is already prepared by his knowledge,
+cunning, or natural penetration. His divinations chiefly turn on the
+expedience of peace with one nation, or of war with another; upon
+matches between families, upon the long life of some, or the short life
+of others; how such and such persons came by their deaths, violently or
+naturally; whether the wife of some great _Sagamo_ has been true to his
+bed or not; who it could be that killed any particular persons found
+dead of their wounds in the woods, or on the coast. Sometimes they
+pretend it's the deed of the _Manitoo_, for reasons to them unknown:
+this last incident strikes the people with a religious awe. But what the
+Jugglers are chiefly consulted upon, and what gives them the greatest
+credit, is to know whether the chace of such a particular species of
+beasts should be undertaken; at what season, or on which side of the
+country; how best may be discovered the designs of any nation with which
+they are at war; or at what time such or such persons shall return from
+their journey. The Juggler pretends to see all this, and more, in his
+bowl of water: divination by coffee-grounds is a trifle to it. He is
+also applied to, to know whether a sick person shall recover or die of
+his illness. But what I have here told you of the procedure of these
+Jugglers, you are to understand only of the times that preceded the
+introduction of Christianity amongst these people, or of those parts
+where it is not yet received: for these practices are no longer suffered
+where we have any influence.
+
+Amongst the old savages lately baptized, I could never, from the
+accounts they gave me of the belief of their ancestors, find any true
+_knowledge_ of the supreme Being; no idea, I mean, approaching to that
+we have, or rather nothing but a vague imagination. They have, it is
+true, a confused notion of a Being, acting they know not how [Who
+does?], in the universe, but they do not make of him a great soul
+diffused through all its parts. They have no conception or knowledge of
+all the attributes we bestow on the Deity. Whenever they happen to
+philosophize upon this _Manitoo_, or great spirit, they utter nothing
+but _reveries_ and absurdities. [Are not there innumerable volumes on
+this subject, to which the same objection might as justly be made?
+Possibly the savages, and the deepest divines, with respect to the
+manner of the Deity's existence, may have, in point of ignorance,
+nothing to reproach one another. It matters very little, whether one
+sees the sun from the lowest valley, or the highest mountain, when the
+immensity of its distance contracts the highest advantage of the
+eminence to little less than nothing. Surely the infinite superiority of
+the Deity, must still more effectually mock the distinction of the
+mental eye, at the same time that his existence itself is as plain as
+that of the sun, and like that too, dazzling those most, who contemplate
+it most fixedly; reduces them to close the eye, not to exclude the
+light, but as overpowered by it.]
+
+Amongst other superstitious notions, not the least prevalent is that of
+the _Manitoo_'s exercise of his power over the dead, whom he orders to
+appear to them, and acquaint them with what passes at a distance, in
+respect to their most important concerns; to advise them what they had
+best do, or not do; to forewarn them of dangers, or to inspire them with
+revenge against any nation that may have insulted them, and so forth.
+
+They have no idea of his spirituality, or even of the spirituality of
+that principle, which constitutes their own vital principle. They have
+even no word in their language that answers to that of soul in ours. The
+term approaching nearest thereto that we can find, is _M'cheejacmih_,
+which signifies _Shade_, and may be construed something in the nature of
+the _Manes_ of the Romans.
+
+The general belief amongst them is, that, after death, they go to a
+place of joy and plenty, in which sensuality is no more omitted than in
+Mahomet's paradise. There they are to find women in abundance, a country
+thick of all manner of game to humor their passion for hunting, and bows
+and arrows of the best sort, ready made. But these regions are supposed
+at a great distance from their's, to which they will have to travel; and
+therefore it's requisite to be well-provided, before they quit their own
+country, with arrows, long poles fit for hunting, or for covering
+cabbins, with bear-skins, or elk-hides, with women, and with some of
+their children, to make their journey to that place more commodious,
+more pleasant, and appear more expeditious. It was especially in
+character for a warrior, not to leave this world without taking with him
+some marks of his bravery, as particularly scalps. Therefore it was,
+that when any of them died, he was always followed by, at least, one of
+his children, some women, and above all, by her whom in his life he had
+most loved, who threw themselves into the grave, and were interred with
+him. They also put into it great strips, or rolls of the bark of birch,
+arrows, and scalps. Nor do they unfrequently, at this day, light upon
+some of these old burying-places in the woods, with all these funeral
+accompanyments; but of late, the interment of live persons has been
+almost entirely disused.
+
+I never could learn whether they had any set formulary of prayer, or
+invocation to the _great Manitoo_; or whether they made any sacrifices
+of beasts or peltry, to any other _Manitoo_, in contradiction to him, or
+to any being whom they dreaded as an evil genius. I could discover no
+more than what I have above related of the ceremonies in honor of the
+sun. I know, indeed, they have a great veneration for the moon, which
+they invoke, whenever, under favor of its light, they undertake any
+journeys, either by land or water, or tend the snares they have set for
+their game. This is the prayer they occasionally address to it:
+
+"How great, O moon! is thy goodness, in actually, for our benefit,
+supplying the place of the father of the day, as, next to him, thou hast
+concurred to make us spring out of that earth we have inhabited from the
+first ages of the world, and takest particular care of us, that the
+malignant air of the night, should not kill the principle and bud of
+life within us. Thou regardest us, in truth, as thy children. Thou hast
+not, from the first time, discontinued to treat us like a true mother.
+Thou guidest us in our nocturnal journies. By the favor of thy light it
+is, that we have often struck great strokes in war; and more than once
+have our enemies had cause to repent their being off their guard in thy
+clear winter-nights. Thy pale rays have often sufficiently lighted us,
+for our marching in a body without mistaking our way; and have enabled
+us not only to discover the ambushes of the enemy, but often to surprize
+him asleep. However we might be wanting to ourselves, thy regular course
+was never wanting to us. Beautiful spouse of the sun! give us to
+discover the tracks of elks, moose-deer, martins, lynxes, and bears,
+when urged by our wants, we pursue by night the hunt after these beasts.
+Give to our women the strength to support the pains of child-birth
+[_Lucina fer opem_, was also the cry amongst the ancient heathens],
+render their wombs prolific, and their breasts inexhaustible fountains."
+
+I have often tried to find out, whether there was any tradition or
+knowledge amongst them of the deluge, but always met with such
+unsatisfactory answers, as entirely discouraged my curiosity on that
+head.
+
+This nation counts its years by the winters. When they ask a man how old
+he is, they say, "How many winters have gone over thy head?"
+
+Their months are lunar, and they calculate their time by them. When we
+would say, "I shall be six weeks on my journey;" they express it by, "I
+shall be a moon and a half on it."
+
+Before _we_ knew them, it was common to see amongst them, persons of
+both sexes of a hundred and forty, or a hundred and fifty years of age.
+But these examples of longevity are grown much more rare.
+
+By all accounts too, their populousness is greatly decreased. Some
+imagine this is owing to that inveterate animosity, with which these so
+many petty nations were continually laboring one another's destruction
+and extirpation. Others impute it to the introduction by the Europeans,
+of the vice of drunkenness, and to the known effect of spirituous
+liquors in the excesses of their use, to which they are but too prone,
+in striking at the powers of generation, as well as at the principles of
+health and life. Not improbably too, numbers impatient of the
+encroachments of the Europeans on their country, and dreading the
+consequences of them to their liberty, for which they have a passionate
+attachment, and incapable of reconciling or assimilating their customs
+and manners to ours, have chosen to withdraw further into the western
+recesses of the continent, at a distance impenetrable to our approach.
+
+But which ever of these conjectures is the truest, or whether or not all
+of these causes have respectively concurred, in a lesser or greater
+degree, the fact is certain, that all these northern countries are
+considerably thinned of their natives, since the first discovery of them
+by the Europeans. Nor have I reason to think, but that this is true of
+America in general, wherever they have carried their power, or extended
+their influence.
+
+It is also true, that the women of this country are naturally not so
+prolific as those of some other parts of the world in the same latitude.
+One reason for this may be, their not having their menstrual flux so
+copiously, or for so long a time as those of Europe. Yet one would
+think, the plurality of wives permitted amongst them, might in some
+measure compensate for this defect, which, however, it evidently does
+not.
+
+Their women have always observed, not to present themselves at any
+public ceremony, or solemnity, whilst under their monthly terms, nor to
+admit the embraces of their husbands.
+
+At stated times they repair to particular places in the woods, where
+they recite certain formularies of invocation to the _Manitoo_ dictated
+to them by some of their oldest _Sagamees_, or principal women, and more
+frequently by some celebrated Juggler of the village, that they may
+obtain the blessing of fruitfulness. For it is with them, as amongst the
+Jews, that barrenness is accounted opprobrious. A woman is not looked
+upon as a woman, till she has proved it, by her fulfilling what they
+consider as one of the great ends of her creation. Failing in that, she
+is divorced from her husband, and may then prostitute herself without
+any scandal. If she has no inclination or relish for this way of life,
+they compel her to it, in regard to their young men, who do not care to
+marry, till they are arrived at full-ripe years, and for whom, on their
+return from their warlike or hunting expeditions, they think it
+necessary to provide such objects of amusement. They pretend withal,
+that they are subject to insupportable pains in their loins, if such a
+remedy is not at hand to relieve them. But once more you are to
+remember, that I am only speaking of those people not yet converted to
+Christianity, by which this licentiousness is not allowed. And yet,
+notwithstanding the maxims we inculcate to them, the natives continue no
+other than what they were before, that is to say, as much addicted to
+venery as ever, and rarely miss an occasion of gratifying their appetite
+to it. The only way we can think of to prevent their offending religion,
+is to have them married as soon as they begin to feel themselves men.
+The restraint however in this point is, what they can least endure.
+
+In their unconverted state, their manner of courtship and marriage is as
+follows: When a youth has an inclination to enter into the connubial
+state, his father, or next relation, looks out for a girl, to whose
+father the proposal is made: this being always transacted between the
+parents of the parties to be married. The young man, who is commonly
+about thirty years of age, or twenty at the least, rarely consults his
+own fancy in this point. The girl, who is always extreamly young, is
+never supposed to trouble her head about the measures that are taking to
+marry her. When the parents on each side have settled the matter, the
+youth is applied to, that he may prepare his calumet as soon as he
+pleases.
+
+The calumet used on these occasions, is a sort of spungeous reed, which
+may furnish, according to its length, a number of calumets, each of
+which is about a foot long, to be lighted at one end, the other serving
+to suck in the smoak at the mouth, and is suffered to burn within an
+inch of the lips.
+
+The speech made to the youth on this occasion is as follows: "Thou
+may'st go when thou wilt, by day or by night, to light thy calumet in
+such a cabbin. Thou must observe to direct the smoak of it towards the
+person who is designed for thee, and carry it so, that she may take such
+a taste to this vapor, as to desire of thee that she may smoak of thy
+calumet. Show thyself worthy of thy nation, and do honor to thy sex and
+youth. Suffer none in the cabbin to which thou art admitted, to want any
+thing thy industry, thy art, or thy arrows can procure them, as well for
+food, as for peltry, or oil, for the good of their bodies, inside and
+outside. Thou hast four winters given thee, for a trial of thy patience
+and constancy."
+
+At this the youth never fails of going to the place appointed. If the
+girl, (who knows the meaning of this) has no particular aversion to him,
+she is soon disposed to ask his calumet of him. In some parts, but not
+in this where I am, she signifies her acceptance by blowing it out. Here
+she takes it from him, and sucking it, blows the smoak towards his
+nostrils, even sometimes so violently, as to make him qualm-sick, at
+which she is highly delighted. Nothing, however, passes farther against
+the laws of modesty, though she will tress his hair, paint his face, and
+imprint on various parts of his body curious devices and flourishes, all
+relative to their love; which she pricks in, and rubs over with a
+composition that renders the impression uncancellable.
+
+If the parents of the girl are pleased with the procedure of the suitor,
+they commonly, at the end of the second year, dispense, in his favor,
+with the rest of the probation-time; and, indeed, they could not well
+before, the girl almost always wanting, from the time she is first
+courted, at least two years to bring on the age of consummation. They
+tell him, "Thou may'st now take a small part of the covering of thy
+beloved whilst she sleeps." No sooner is this compliment made him, than,
+without saying any thing, he goes out of the cabbin, armed with his bow
+and arrows, and hurrying home acquaints his friends, that he is going to
+the woods, whence he shall not return till it pleases his beloved to
+recall him.
+
+Accordingly he repairs forthwith to the woods, and stays there for two
+or three days, diverting himself with hunting; at the end of which it
+has been agreed on, to send all the youths of the village to fetch him:
+and they come back loaded with game of all sorts, though the bridegroom
+is not suffered to carry any thing. There is also great provision made
+of seal and sea-cows for the wedding-feast.
+
+The head Juggler of the village, meets the bridegroom who is at the head
+of the procession, takes him by the hand, and conducts him to the cabbin
+of the bride, where he is to take part of her bed; upon which he lies
+down by her side, and both continue unmoveable and silent like two
+statues, whilst they are obliged to hear the long tedious harangues of
+the Juggler, of the parents of both, and of their oldest relations.
+After that, they both get up, and are led, the one by the young men, the
+other by the girls, to the place of entertainment, all singing,
+shooting, and dancing.
+
+The bridegroom is seated amongst the young men on one side, and the
+bride amongst the girls on another. One of his friends takes an
+_Oorakin_, loads it with roast-meat, and sets it down by him, whilst one
+of her's does the same thing, with an _Oorakin_ of the same size, and
+nearly alike, which is placed by the bride's side. After this ceremony
+of placing the _Oorakin_, the Juggler pronounces certain magical words
+over the meat: he foretels, especially to the bride, the dreadful
+consequences she must expect from the victuals she is about to eat, if
+she has in her heart any perfidiousness towards her husband: that she
+may be assured of finding in the _Oorakin_ that contains them, a certain
+prognostic of her future happiness, or unhappiness: of happiness, if she
+is disposed never in her life to betray her nation, nor especially her
+husband, upon any occasion, or whatever may befal her: of unhappiness,
+if through the caresses of strangers, or by any means whatever she
+should be induced to break her faith to him, or to reveal to the enemy
+the secrets of the country.
+
+At the end of every period, all the assistants signify their assent to
+the Juggler's words, by a loud exclamation of _Hah!_ Whilst he is
+talking, the particular friend of the bridegroom, and that of the bride,
+keep their eyes fixed on the two _Oorakins_; and as soon as he has done,
+the bride's friend making as if she did not think of what she was about,
+takes the _Oorakin_ allotted for the bridegroom, and carries it to the
+bride, whilst the bridegroom's friend, (the thing being pre-concerted)
+acts the like mummery of inadvertence, and sets before the bridegroom
+the _Oorakin_ belonging to the bride; after which the dishes are served
+in to the rest of the company. When they are all served, the two friends
+of the parties musing a little, pretend to have just then discovered
+their exchange of the bride and bridegroom's _Oorakins_. They declare it
+openly to each other, at which the Juggler takes up his cue, and with a
+solemn face says, "The _Manitoo_ has had his designs in this mistake: he
+has vouchsafed to give an indubitable sign of his approbation of the
+strait alliance this day contracted. What is the one's, is the same as
+the other's. They are henceforward united, and are as one and the same
+person. It is done. May they multiply without end!" At this the
+assistants all start up, and with cries of joy, and congratulation, rush
+to embrace the bride and bridegroom, and overwhelm them with caresses.
+After which they sit very gravely down again to the entertainment before
+them, and dispatch it in great silence. This is followed by dances of
+all kinds, with which the feast for the day concludes, as must this
+letter, in which I have certainly had less attention to the observing
+the limits of one, than to the gratifying your curiosity, with respect
+to these people, amongst whom my lot has so long been cast.
+
+I am, Sir,
+Your most obedient
+Humble servant,
+
+
+
+
+_To understand the following piece, it is necessary to know, that after
+the insidious peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, the savage nations, especially
+the Mickmakis and Maricheets continued hostilities against the English,
+at the underhand instigation of the French, who meant thereby to
+prevent, or at least distress, as much as obstruct, our new settlements
+in Nova-Scotia. For this purpose, the French missionaries had their cue
+from their government to act the incendiaries, and, to inflame matters
+to the highest pitch. These being, however, sensible, that the part
+assigned them was a very odious one, and inconsistent with the spirit of
+that religion for which they profess such zeal, one of them, by way of
+palliation, and in order to throw the blame on the English themselves,
+drew up the following state of the case, between our nation and the
+savages, viz._
+
+
+
+
+MEMORIAL
+
+OF THE
+
+Motives of the Savages, called _Mickmakis_
+and _Maricheets_, for continuing
+the War with _England_ since the last
+Peace.
+
+Dated _Isle-Royal_, 175-.
+
+These nations have never been able to forget all that the English
+settled in North-America have done since the very first of their
+establishment, towards destroying them root and branch. They have
+especially, at every moment, before their eyes the following
+transactions:
+
+In 1744, towards the end of October, Mr. Gorrhon, (perhaps Goreham)
+deceased, commanding a detachment of the English troops, sent to observe
+the retreat the French and savages were making from before Port-Royal
+(Annapolis) in Acadia, (Nova-Scotia): this detachment having found two
+huts of the Mickmaki-savages, in a remote corner, in which there were
+five women and three children, (two of the women were big with child)
+ransacked, pillaged, and burnt the two huts, and massacred the five
+women and three children. It is to be observed, that the two pregnant
+women were found with their bellies ripped open. An action which these
+savages cannot forget, especially as at that time they made fair war
+with the English. They have always looked on this deed as a singular
+mark of the most unheard-of cruelty. [Who would not look on it in the
+same light? But as no nation on earth is known to have more than ours
+constitutionally, a horror for such barbarities, especially in cold
+blood; it may be very easily presumed, that this fact was, if true,
+committed by some of the savages themselves, without the knowledge of
+the commander, or of any of the English troops.]
+
+Five months before this action, one named _Danas_, or _David_, an
+English privateer, having treacherously hoisted French colors in the
+Streights of Fronsac, by means of a French deserter he had with him,
+decoyed on board his vessel the chief of the savages of Cape-Breton,
+called James Padanuque, with his whole family, whom he carried to
+Boston, where he was clapped into a dungeon the instant he was landed;
+from which he was only taken out to stifle him on board of a vessel, in
+which they pretended to return him safe to Cape-Breton. His son, at that
+time a boy of eight years of age, they will absolutely not release;
+though, since their detention of that young savage, they have frequently
+had prisoners sent back to them, without ransom, on condition of
+restoring the young man to his country: but though they accepted the
+condition, they never complied with it.
+
+In the month of July, 1745, the same Danas, with the same success,
+employed the same decoy on a savage-family, which could not get out of
+their hands, but by escaping one night from their prisons.
+
+About the same time one named Bartholomew Petitpas, an appointed
+savage-linguist, was carried away prisoner to Boston. The savages have
+several times demanded him in exchange for English prisoners they then
+had in their hands, of whom two were officers, to whom they gave their
+liberty, on condition of the Bostoners returning of Petitpas; whom,
+however, they not only kept prisoner, but afterwards put to death.
+
+In the same year, 1745, a missionary of the savages of Cape Breton,
+Natkikouesch, Picktook, and of the island of St. John, having been
+invited by several letters, on the part of the commodore of the
+_English_ squadron, and of the general of the land-forces, to a parley,
+those gentlemen desired with him, concerning the savages, repaired to
+Louisbourg, at that time in possession of the English, on the assurances
+they had given him in writing, and on the formal promises they had bound
+with an oath, of full liberty to return from whence he came, after
+having satisfied them in all they wanted of him. They detained him at
+Louisbourg, where they gave him a great deal of ill usage, and obliged
+him to embark, all sick as he was, and destitute of necessaries, on
+board of one of the ships of the squadron, in which he was conveyed to
+England, from whence he at length got to France. [Most probably he had
+not given the satisfaction required by those gentlemen, which had been
+confessedly by himself made the condition of his return.]
+
+The same year, 1745, several bodies of the savages, deceased, and buried
+at _Port Tholouze_, were dug up again by the Bostoners, and thrown into
+the fire. The burying-place of the savages was demolished, and all the
+crosses, planted on the graves, broke into a thousand pieces.
+
+In 1746, some stuffs that the savages had bought of the English, who
+then traded in the bay of Megagouetch at _Beau-bassin_, there being at
+that time a great scarcity of goods over all the country, were found to
+be _poisoned_, [Is it possible a missionary of the truths of the Gospel
+could gravely commit to paper such an infernal lie? If even the savages
+had been stupid enough of themselves to imbibe such a notion, was it not
+the duty of a Christian to have shewn them the folly of it, or even but
+in justice to the Europeans? But what must be their guilt, if they
+suggested it? Surely, scarce less than that of the action itself.] so
+that more than two hundred savages of both sexes perished thereby.
+
+In 1749, towards the end of the month of May, at a time that the
+suspension of arms between the two crowns was not yet known in New
+France, the savages, having made prisoners two Englishmen of
+Newfoundland, had from these same prisoners the first news of the
+cessation of hostilities. They believed them on their bare words,
+expressed their satisfaction to them, treated them like brothers,
+unbound them, and carried them to their huts. The said prisoners rose in
+the night, and massacred twenty-five of these savages, men, women, and
+children. There were but two of the savages escaped this carnage, by
+being accidentally not present. [_How improbable is the whole of this
+story?_]
+
+Towards the end of the same year, the English being come to Chibuckto,
+made the report be every where spread [The missionaries in those parts
+might indeed raise such reports; the which giving the savages an
+aversion to the English, forced them to take hostile measures against
+them in their own defence: but who would suspect the English themselves
+of raising them, in direct opposition to their own interest?], that they
+were going to destroy all the savages. They seemed to act in consequence
+thereto, since they sent detachments of their troops, on all sides, in
+pursuit of the savages.
+
+These people were so alarmed with this procedure of the English, that
+from that time they determined, as weak as they were, to declare open
+war against them. Knowing that France had concluded a peace with
+England, they nevertheless resolved not to cease from falling on the
+English, wherever they could find them; saying, they were indispensably
+obliged to it, since, against all justice, they wanted to expel them out
+of their country. They then sent a declaration of war in form to the
+English, in the name of their nation, and of the savages in alliance
+with it.
+
+As to what concerns the missionaries to the savages, they cannot be
+suspected of using any connivence in all this, if justice is done to the
+conduct they have always observed amongst them, and especially in the
+time of the last war. How many acts of inhumanity would have been
+committed by this nation, naturally vindictive, if the missionaries had
+not taken pains, in good earnest, to put such ideas out of their heads?
+It is notorious, that the savages believe that there are no extremities
+of barbarity, but what are within the rules of war against those whom
+they consider as their enemies. Inexpressible are the efforts which
+these same missionaries have employed to restrain, on such occasions,
+this criminal ferocity, especially as the savages deemed themselves
+authorized by right of reprisals. How many unfortunate persons of the
+English nation would have been detained for ever captives, or undergone
+the most cruel deaths, if, by the intervention of the missionaries, the
+savages had not been prevailed on to release them?
+
+They are even ready to prove, by their written instructions, the lessons
+they inculcate to the savages, of the humanity and gentleness they ought
+to practise, even in time of war. It is especially ever since about
+seventeen years ago, that they do not cease declaiming against those
+barbarous and sanguinary methods of proceeding that seem innate to them.
+On this principle it is, that in the written maxims of conduct for them,
+care has been taken to insert a chapter, which, from the beginning to
+the end, places before their eyes the extreme horror they ought to have
+of such enormities. Their children particularly are sedulously taught
+this whole chapter, whence it comes, that one may daily perceive them
+growing more humane, and more disposed to listen, on this head, to the
+remonstrances of the missionaries.
+
+[_To this plea of innocence in the French missionaries, as to any
+instigation of the savages to hostilities against the English, we shall
+oppose the testimony of their own court, in the following words of the
+French ministry, in the very same year_, 1751.
+
+"His Majesty (the French king) has already observed, that the savages
+have hitherto been in the most _favorable dispositions_; and it even
+appears, that the conduct of the general C--n--ll--s, with respect to
+them, has only served to exasperate them more and more. It is of the
+_greatest importance_, both for the present and future, to keep them up
+to that spirit. The _missionaries_ amongst them, are more than any one
+at hand to _contribute thereto_, and his majesty has _reason_ to be
+_satisfied_ with the _pains_ they take in it. Our governor must excite
+these _missionaries_ not to _slacken their endeavours_ on this head. But
+he should advise them to _contain_ their _zeal_ within due bounds, so as
+not to render themselves _obnoxious_ to the English, unless for very
+good purpose, and so as to avoid giving handle for just complaints."
+
+_In this his most Christian Majesty has been faithfully served by these
+missionaries, in all points, except that political injunction of not
+giving a handle for just complaints, which they overshot in the ardor of
+their zeal; since it is undoubted matter of fact, that the missionaries
+openly employed all their arts, and all the influence of religion, to
+invenom the savages against us. Thence, besides a number of horrid
+cruelties, the most treacherous and base murder of captain How, at a
+conference, by some savages they set on, who perpetrated it within sight
+of the French forces. The publishing, however, of the foregoing memorial
+may have this good effect, that it will apprise the English of the
+matter of accusation against them, and enable them to counter-work those
+holy engines of state, and emissaries of ambition. It is also certain,
+that this very memorial was drawn up by a French priest, purely to
+furnish the French ministry a specious document to oppose to the most
+just representations of the British government. Besides the fictions
+with which it abounds, he has taken care to suppress the acts of cruelty
+committed, and the atrocious provocations given by the savages, at the
+instigation of his fellow-laborers sedition and calumny._]
+
+
+
+
+LETTER
+
+FROM
+
+Mons. DE LA VARENNE,
+
+TO HIS
+
+FRIEND at ROCHELLE.
+
+
+_Louisbourg_, the 8th of _May_, 1756.
+
+Though I had, in my last, exhausted all that was needful to say on our
+private business, I could not see this ship preparing for France,
+especially with our friend _Moreau_ on board, without giving you this
+further mark of how ardently I wish the continuance of our
+correspondence. It will also serve to supplement any former deficiencies
+of satisfaction to certain points of curiosity you have stated to me;
+this will give to my letter a length beyond the ordinary limits of one:
+and I have before-hand to excuse to you, the loose desultory way in
+which you will find I write, as things present themselves to my mind,
+without such method or arrangement, as a formal design of treating the
+subject would exact. But who looks for that in a letter?
+
+I need not tell you how severely our government has felt the
+dismemberment of that important tract of country already in the
+possession of the English, under the name of Acadia; to say nothing of
+their further pretentions, which would form such terrible encroachments
+on Canada. And no wonder it should feel it, considering the extent of so
+fruitful, and valuable a country as constitutes that peninsula. It might
+of itself form a very considerable and compact body of dominion, being,
+as you know, almost everywhere surrounded by the sea, and abounding with
+admirable and well-situated ports. It is near one hundred leagues in
+length, and about sixty in breadth. Judge what advantages such an area
+of country, well-peopled, and well-cultivated, and abounding in mines,
+might produce. It is full of hills, though I could not observe any of an
+extraordinary heighth, except that of Cape Doree, at the mouth of the
+river _des Mines_, the most fertile part of it in corn and grain, and
+once the best peopled. There are a number of rivers very rapid, but not
+large, except that of St. John's, which is the finest river of all
+Acadia, where good water is rather scarce.
+
+The soil in the vallies is rich, and even in the uplands, commonly
+speaking, good. The grains it yields are wheat, pease, barley, oats,
+rye, and Indian corn, and especially that of the vallies, for the higher
+ground is not yet cultivated. The pastures are excellent and very
+common, and more than sufficient to supply Cape-Breton, with the cattle
+that may be raised. There is fine hunting, and a plentiful fishing for
+cod, salmon, and other fish, particularly on the east-side, which is
+full of fine harbours at the distance of one, two, three, four, or of
+six or seven leagues at farthest from one another, within the extent of
+ninety leagues of coast. It is thought, in short, this fishery is better
+than any on the coasts belonging to France.
+
+The air is extreamly wholesome, which is proved by the longevity of its
+inhabitants. I myself know some of above an hundred years of age,
+descendants from the French established in Acadia. Distempers are very
+rare. I fancy the climate is pretty near the same as in the north of
+China, or Chinese-Tartary. This country too, being rather to the
+southward of Canada, is not so cold as that; the snow not falling till
+towards St. Andrew's day: nor does it lie on the ground above two or
+three days at most, after which it begins to soften; and though the thaw
+does not take place, the weather turns mild enough to allow of working,
+and undertaking journeys. In short, what may be absolutely called cold
+weather, may be reduced to about twenty-five or thirty days in a winter,
+and ceases entirely towards the end of March, or at latest, the middle
+of April. Then comes the seed-time. Then are made the sugar and syrups
+of maple, procured from the juice or sap of that tree, by means of
+incisions in the bark; which sap is carefully received in proper
+vessels.
+
+I could never find any ginseng-root; yet I have reason to believe there
+may be some in or near the hills, as the climate and situation have so
+much affinity to the northern provinces of China, or Northwest Tartary,
+as described to us by our missionaries.
+
+We have very little knowledge of the medicinal herbs in this country,
+though some of them have certainly great virtue. There are the
+maiden-hair, the saxi-frage, and the sarsaparilla. There is also a
+particular root in this country of an herb called _Jean Hebert_, about
+the ordinary size of the _Salsifix_, or _Goatsbread_, with knots at
+about an inch, or an inch and an half distance from one another, of a
+yellowish colour, white in the inside, with a sugarish juice, which is
+excellent for the stomach.
+
+There has been lately discovered in these parts a poisonous root, much
+resembling, in color and substance, a common carrot. When broke it has a
+pleasing smell; but between the flakes may be observed a yellowish
+juice, which is supposed to be the poison. Of four soldiers that had
+eaten of it in their soup lately, two were difficultly preserved by dint
+of antidotes; the other two died in the utmost agonies of pain, and
+convulsions of frenzy. One of them was found in the woods sticking by
+the head in a softish ground, into which he had driven it, probably in
+the excess of his torture. Such a vegetable must afford matter of
+curious examination to a naturalist; for as it does so much harm, it may
+also be capable of great good, if sought into by proper experiments.
+
+The spirit of turpentine is much used by the inhabitants. The gum itself
+is esteemed a great vulnerary; and purges moderately those who are full
+of bilious, or gross humors.
+
+For the rest there is, I believe, hardly any sort of grain, tree, or
+vegetable, especially in the north of France that might not be
+successfully raised in Acadia. The rains are frequent in every season of
+the year. There are indeed often violent squalls of wind, especially
+from the South, and seem the West, but nothing like the hurricanes in
+the West-Indies. It is a great rarity if thunder does any mischief. Some
+years ago there was a man killed in his hut by it; but the oldest men of
+the country never remembered to have known or heard of any thing like it
+before. There have been earthquakes felt but rarely, and not very
+violent. This country produces no venomous beasts, at least, that I
+could hear of. In the warmer season there are sometimes found snakes,
+not, however, thicker than one's finger, but their bite is not known to
+be attended with any fatal consequences, There are no tygers, nor lions,
+nor other beasts of prey to be afraid of unless bears, and that only in
+their rutting-time, and even then it is very rare that they attack. As
+there are then no carnivorous animals except the lynxes, who have a
+beautiful skin, and these rarely fall upon any living creatures; the
+sheep, oxen, and cows, are turned out into the woods or commons, without
+any fear for them. Partridges are very common, and are large-sized, with
+flesh very white. The hares are scarce, and have a white fur. There are
+a great many beavers, elks, cariboux, (moose-deer) and other beasts of
+the cold northern countries.
+
+The original inhabitants of this country are the savages, who may be
+divided into three nations, the _Mickmakis_, the _Maricheets_, or
+_Abenaquis_, (being scarcely different nations) and the _Canibats_.
+
+The _Mickmakis_ are the most numerous, but not accounted so good
+warriors as the others: but they are all much addicted to hunting, and
+to venery; in which last, however, they observe great privacy. They are
+fond of strong liquors, and especially of brandy: that is their greatest
+vice. They are also very uncurious of paying the debts they contract,
+not from natural dishonesty, but from their having no notion of
+property, or of meum or tuum. They will sooner part with all they have,
+in the shape of a gift, than with any thing in that of payment. Honors
+and goods being all in common amongst them, all the numerous vices,
+which are founded upon those two motives, are not to be found in them.
+Yet it is true, that they have chiefs to whom they give the title of
+_Sagamo_; but all of them almost, at some time or other, assume to
+themselves this quality, which is never granted by universal consent,
+but to the personal consideration of distinguished merit in councils, or
+in arms. Their troops have this particularity, that they are, for the
+most part, composed of nothing but officers; insomuch that it is rare to
+find a savage in the service that will own himself a private man. This
+want of subordination does not, however, hinder them from concurring
+together in action, when their native ferocity and emulation stand them,
+in some sort, instead of discipline.
+
+They are extreamly vindictive, of which I shall give you one example.
+Mons. _Daunay_, a French captain, with a servant, being overset in a
+canoe, within sight of some savages, they threw themselves into the
+water to save them, and the servant was actually saved. But the savage,
+who had pitched upon Mons. _Daunay_, seeing who it was, and remembering
+some blows with a cane he had a few days before received from him, took
+care to souse him so often in the water, that he drowned him before he
+got ashore.
+
+It is remarked, that in proportion as the Europeans have settled in this
+country, the number of the savages considerably diminishes. As they live
+chiefly upon their hunting, the woods that are destroyed to cultivate
+the country, must in course contract the district of their chace, and
+cause a famine amongst them, that must be fatal to them, or compel them
+to retire to other countries. The English, sensible of this effect, and
+who seemed to place their policy in exterminating these savage nations,
+have set fire to the woods, and burnt a considerable extent of them. I
+have myself crossed above thirty leagues together, in which space the
+forests were so totally consumed by fire, that one could hardly at night
+find a spot wooded enough to afford wherewithal to make an extempore
+cabbin, which, in this country, is commonly made in the following
+manner: Towards night the travellers commonly pitch upon a spot as near
+a rivulet or river as they can; and as no one forgets to carry his
+hatchet with him, any more than a Spanish don his toledo, some cut down
+wood for firing for the night; others branches of trees, which are stuck
+in the ground with the crotch uppermost, over which a thatching is laid
+of fir-boughs, with a fence of the same on the weather-side only. The
+rest is all open, and serves for door and window. A great fire is then
+lighted, and then every body's lodged. They sup on the ground, or upon
+some leaved branches, when the season admits of it; and afterwards the
+table serves for a bed. The savages themselves rarely have any fixed
+hut, or village, that maybe called a permanent residence. If there are
+any parts they most frequently inhabit, it is only those which abound
+most in game, or near some fishing-place. Such were formerly for them,
+before the English had driven them away, _Artigoneesch_, _Beaubassin_,
+_Chipoody_, _Chipnakady_, _Yoodayck_, _Mirtigueesh_, _La Heve Cape
+Sable_, _Mirameeky_, _Fistigoisch_, _La Baye des Chaleurs Pentagony_,
+_Medochtek_, _Hokepack_, and _Kihibeki_.
+
+At present these savage nations bear an inveterate antipathy to the
+English, who might have easily prevented or cured it, if instead of
+rigorous measures, they had at first used conciliative ones: but this it
+seems they thought beneath them. This it is, that has given our
+missionaries such a fair field for keeping them fixed to the French
+party, by the assistance of the difference of religion, of which they do
+not fail to make the most. But lest you may imagine I am giving you only
+my own conjectures, take the following extract from, a letter of father
+Noel de Joinville, of a pretty antient date.
+
+"I have remarked in this country so great an aversion in the
+convert-savages to the English, caused by difference of religion, that
+these scarce dare inhabit any part of Acadia but what is under their own
+guns. These savages are so zealous for the Roman Catholick church, that
+they always look with horror upon, and consider as enemies those who are
+not within the pale of it. This may serve to prove, that if there had
+been _priests_ provided in time, to work at the conversion of the
+savages of New-England, before the English had penetrated into the
+interior of the county as far as they have done, it would not have been
+possible for them to appropriate to themselves such an extent of country
+as, at this day, makes of New-England alone the most magnificent colony
+on the face of the earth." [This pompous epithet might have yet been
+more just, if the improvement of that colony had been enough the care of
+the state, to have been pushed all the lengths of which it was so
+susceptible. Few Englishmen will, probably, on reflexion deny, that if
+but a third of those sums ingulphed by the ungrateful or slippery powers
+on the continent, upon interests certainly more foreign to England than
+those of her own colonies, or lavished in a yet more destructive way,
+that of corrupting its subjects in elections: if the third, I say, of
+those immense sums, had been applied to the benefit of the plantations,
+to the fortifying, encouraging, and extending them, there would, by this
+time, have hardly been a Frenchman's name to be heard of in
+North-America especially.]
+
+But with this good father's leave, he attributes more influence to
+religion, though as the priests manage it, it certainly has a very
+considerable one, than in fact belongs to it. Were it not for other
+concurring circumstances that indispose the savages against the English,
+religion alone would not operate, at least so violently, that effect.
+Every one knows, that the savages are at best but slightly tinctured
+with it, and have little or no attachment to it, but as they find their
+advantage in the benefits of presents and protection, it procures to
+them from the French government. In short, it is chiefly to the conduct
+of this English themselves, we are beholden for this favorable aid of
+the savages. If the English at first, instead of seeking to exterminate
+or oppress them by dint of power, the sense of which drove them for
+refuge into our party, had behaved with more tenderness to them, and
+conciliated their affection by humoring them properly, and distributing
+a few presents, they might easily have made useful and valuable subjects
+of them. Whereas, disgusted with their haughtiness, and scared at the
+menaces and arbitrary encroachments of the English, they are now their
+most virulent and scarce reconcileable enemies. This is even true of
+more parts in America, where, though the English have liberally given
+presents to ten times the value of what our government does, they have
+not however had the same effect. The reason of which is clear: they make
+them with so ill a grace, and generally time their presents so
+unjudiciously, as scarce ever to distribute them, but just when they
+want to carry some temporary point with the savages, such, especially,
+as the taking up the hatchet against the French. This does not escape
+the natural sagacity of the savages, who are sensible of the design
+lurking at bottom of this liberality, and give them the less thanks for
+it. They do not easily forget the length of time they had been
+neglected, slighted, or unapplied to, unless by their itinerant traders,
+who cheat them in their dealings, or poison them with execrable spirits,
+under the names of brandy and rum. Whereas, on the contrary, the French
+are assiduously caressing and courting them. Their missionaries are
+dispersed up and down their several cantonments, where they exercise
+every talent of insinuation, study their manners, nature, and
+weaknesses, to which they flexibly accommodate themselves, and carry
+their points by these arts. But what has, at least, an equal share in
+attaching the savages to our party, is the connivence, or rather
+encouragement the French government has given to the natives of France,
+to fall into the savage-way of life, to spread themselves through the
+savage nations, where they adopt their manners, range the woods with
+them, and become as keen hunters as themselves. This conformity endears
+our nation to them, being much better pleased with seeing us imitate
+them, than ready to imitate us, though some of them begin to fall into
+our notions, as to trafficking and bartering, and knowing the use of
+money, of which they were before totally ignorant. We employ besides a
+much more effectual method of uniting them to us, and that is, by the
+intermarriages of our people with the savage-women, which is a
+circumstance that draws the ties of alliance closer. The children
+produced by these are generally hardy, inured to the fatigues of the
+chace and war, and turn out very serviceable subjects in their way.
+
+But what is most amazing is, that though the savage-life has all the
+appearance of being far from eligible, considering the fatigues, the
+exposure to all weathers, the dearth of those articles which custom has
+made a kind of necessaries of life to Europeans, and many other
+inconveniencies to be met with in their vagabond course; yet it has such
+charms for some of our native French, and even for some of them who have
+been delicately bred, that, when once they have betaken themselves to it
+young, there is hardly any reclaiming them from it, or inducing them to
+return to a more civilized life. They prefer roving in the woods,
+trusting to the chapter of accidents for their game which is their chief
+support, and lying all night in a little temporary hut, patched up of a
+few branches; to all the commodiousness they might find in towns, or
+habitations, amongst their own countrymen. By degrees they lose all
+relish for the European luxuries of life, and would not exchange for
+them the enjoyments of that liberty, and faculty of wandering about, for
+which, in the forests, they contract an invincible taste. A gun with
+powder and ball, of which they purchase a continuation of supplies with
+the skins of the beasts they kill, set them up. With these they mix
+amongst the savages, where they get as many women as they please: some
+of them are far from unhandsome, and fall into their way of life, with
+as much passion and attachment, as if they had never known any other.
+
+Mons. _Delorme_, whom you possibly may have seen in Rochelle, where he
+had a small employ in the marine-department, brought over his son here,
+a very hopeful youth, who had even some tincture of polite education,
+and was not above thirteen years old, and partly from indulgence, partly
+from a view of making him useful to the government, by his learning, at
+that age, perfectly the savage language, he suffered him to go amongst
+the savages. The young _Delorme_ would, indeed, sometimes return home
+just on a visit to his family; but always expressed such an impatience,
+or rather pining to get back again to them, that, though reluctantly,
+the father was obliged to yield to it. No representations in short,
+after some years, could ever prevail on him to renounce his connexions,
+and residence amongst the _Abenaquis_, where he is almost adored. He has
+learned to excel them all, even in their own points of competition. He
+out-does them all in their feats of activity, in running, leaping,
+climbing mountains, swimming, shooting with the bow and arrow, managing
+of canoes, snaring and killing birds and beasts, in patience of fatigue,
+and even of hunger; in short, in all they most value themselves upon, or
+to which they affix the idea of personal merit, the only merit that
+commands consideration amongst them. They are not yet polished enough to
+admire any other. By this means, however, he perfectly reigns amongst
+them, with a power the greater, for the submission to it not only being
+voluntary, but the effect of his acknowledged superiority, in those
+points that with them alone constitute it. His personal advantages
+likewise may not a little contribute thereto, being perfectly well-made,
+finely featured, with a great deal of natural wit, as well as courage.
+He dresses, whilst with the savages, exactly in their manner, ties his
+hair up like them, wears a tomby-awk, or hatchet, travels with
+_rackets_, (or Indian shoes) and, in short, represents to the life the
+character of a compleat savage-warrior. When he comes to _Quebec_, or
+_Louisbourg_, he resumes his European dress, without the least mark
+appearing in his behaviour, of that wildness or rudeness one would
+naturally suppose him to have contracted by so long a habit of them with
+the savages. Nobody speaks purer French, or acquits himself better in
+conversation. He takes up or lays down the savage character with equal
+grace and ease. His friends have, at length, given over teazing him to
+come and reside for good amongst them; they find it is to so little
+purpose. The priests indeed complain bitterly, that he is not overloaded
+with religion, from his entering so thoroughly into the spirit of the
+savage-life; and his setting an example, by no means edifying, of a
+licentious commerce with their women; besides, his giving no signs of
+his over-respecting either their doctrine or spiritual authority. This
+they pretend hurts them with their actual converts, as well as with
+those they labor to make; though, in this conduct, he is not singular,
+for the French wood-rangers, in general, follow the like course in a
+greater or lesser degree. These representations of the priests would,
+however, have greater influence with our government, if the temporal
+advantage they derive from these rovers, undisciplined as they are, did
+not oblige them to wink at their relaxation in spirituals.
+
+But it is not only men that have taken this passion for a savage life;
+there have been, though much rarer, examples of our women going into it.
+It is not many years since a very pretty French girl ran away into the
+woods with a handsome young savage, who married her after his country
+fashion. Her friends found out the village, or rather ambulatory tribe
+into which she had got; but no persuasions, or instances, could prevail
+on her to return and leave her savage, nor on him to content to it; so
+that the government not caring to employ force, for fear of disobliging
+the nation of them, even acquiesced in her continuance amongst them,
+where she remains to this day, but worshipped like a little divinity,
+or, at least, as a being superior to the rest of their women. Possibly
+too she is not, in fact, so unhappy, as her choice would make one think
+she must be; and if opinion constitutes happiness, she certainly is not
+so.
+
+There are not wanting here, who defend this strange attachment of some
+of their countrymen to this savage life, on principles independent of
+the reason of state, for encouraging its subjects to spread and gain
+footing amongst the savage nations, by resorting to their country, of
+which they, at the same time, gain a knowledge useful to future
+enterprizes, by a winning conformity to their actions, and by
+intermarriages with them. They pretend, that even this savage life
+itself is not without its peculiar sweets and pleasures; that it is the
+most adapted, and the most natural to man. Liberty, they say, is no
+where more perfectly enjoyed, than where no subordination is known, but
+what is recommended by natural reason, the veneration of old age, or the
+respect of personal merit.
+
+The chace is at once their chief employment and diversion; it furnishes
+them with means to procure those articles, which enter into the small
+number of natural wants. The demands of luxury, they think too dearly
+bought with the loss of that liberty and independence they find in the
+woods. They despise the magnificence of courts and palaces, in
+comparison with the free range and scope of the hills and vales, with
+the starry sky for their canopy: they say, we enjoy the Universe only in
+miniature, whilst the savage-rovers enjoy it in the great. Thus reason
+some of our admirers here of the savage-system of life, and yet I do not
+find that these refining advocates for it, are themselves tempted to
+embrace it. They are content to commend what themselves do not care to
+practise. Those who actually do embrace it, reason very little about it,
+though no doubt, the motives above assigned for their preference, are
+generally, one may say instinctively, at the bottom of it. Their
+greatest want is of wine, especially at first to those who are used to
+it; but they are soon weaned from it by the example of others, and
+content themselves with the substitution of rum, or brandy, of which
+they obtain supplies by their barter of skins and furs. In short, their
+hunting procures them all that they want or desire, and their liberty or
+independence supplies to them the place of those luxuries of life, that
+are not well to be had without the sacrifice in some sort of it.
+
+It is more difficult to find an excuse for the shocking cruelties and
+barbarities, exercised by the savages on their unhappy captives in war.
+The instances, however, of their inhumanity, are certainly not
+exagerated, nor possible to be exagerated, but they are multiplied
+beyond the limits of truth. That they put then their prisoners to death
+by exquisite tortures, is strictly true; but it is as true too, that
+they do not serve so many in that manner as has been said. Numbers they
+save, and even incorporate with their own nation, who become as free as,
+and on a footing with, the conquerors themselves. And even in that
+cruelty of theirs, there is at the bottom a mixture of piety with their
+vindictiveness. They imagine themselves bound to revenge the deaths of
+their ancestors, their parents, or relations, fallen in war, upon their
+enemies, especially of that nation by whom they have fallen. It is in
+that apprehension too, they extend their barbarity to young children,
+and to women: to the first, because they fear they may grow up to an
+age, when they will be sure to pursue that revenge of which the spirit
+is early instilled into them; to the second, lest they should produce
+children, to whom they would, from the same spirit, be sure to inculcate
+it. Thus, in a round natural enough, their fear begets their cruelty,
+and their cruelty their fear, and so on, _ad infinitum_. They consider
+too these tortures as matter of glory to them in the constancy with
+which they are taught to suffer them; they familiarize to themselves the
+idea of them, in a manner that redoubles their natural courage and
+ferocity, and especially inspires them to fight desperately in battle,
+so as to prefer death to a captivity, of which the consequences are, and
+may be, so much more cruel to them. Another reason is also assignable
+for their carrying things to these extremities: War is considered by
+these people as something very sacred, and not lightly to be undertaken;
+but when once so, to be pushed with the utmost rigor by way of terror,
+joining its aid towards the putting the speediest end to it. The savage
+nations imagine such examples necessary for deterring one another from
+coming to ruptures, or invading one another upon slight motives,
+especially as their habitations or villages used to be so slightly
+fortified, that they might easily be surprised. They have lately indeed
+learned to make stronger inclosures, or pallisadoes, but still not
+sufficient entirely to invalidate this argument for their guarding
+against sudden hostilities, by the idea of the most cruel revenge they
+annex to the commission of them. It is not then, till after the maturest
+deliberation, and the deepest debates, that they commonly come to a
+resolution of _taking up the hatchet_, as they call declaring of war;
+after which, there are no excesses to which their rage and ferocity do
+not incite them. Even their feasting upon the dead bodies of their
+enemies, after putting them to death with the most excruciating tortures
+they can devise, is rather a point of revenge, than of relish for such a
+banquet.
+
+That midst all their savageness they have, however, some glimmering
+perception of the _laws of nations_, is evident from the use to which
+they put the _calumet_, the rights of which are kept inviolate, thro'
+especially the whole northern continent of America. It answers nearest
+the idea of the olive-branch amongst the ancients.
+
+As to your question, Sir, about the English being in the right or wrong,
+in their treatment of the _Acadians_, or descendants of the Europeans
+first settled in Acadia, and in their scheme of dispersing them, the
+point is so nice, that I own I dare not pronounce either way: but I will
+candidly state to you certain facts and circumstances, which may enable
+yourself to form a tolerably clear idea thereon.
+
+But previously I shall give you a succinct description of these people:
+They were a mixed breed, that is to say, most of them proceeded from
+marriages, or concubinage of the savage women with the first settlers,
+who were of various nations, but chiefly French, the others were
+English, Scotch, Swiss, Dutch, &c. the Protestants amongst whom, and
+especially their children were, in process of time, brought over to a
+conformity of faith with ours. They found they could not easily keep
+their footing in the country, or live sociably with the great majority
+of the French, but by this means of coming over to our religion.
+
+Certain Normans, of which number was Champlein, were the _first_ French
+that discovered Port-Royal, now Annapolis, where they found some Scotch
+settled, who had built a fort of turf, and planted in the area before it
+some plumb-trees, and walnut-trees, which was all the works of
+agriculture, and fortification the British nation had made in this
+country before the year 1710. This is the chief reason [And a very good
+one surely.] too, why they so much insist on calling Acadia,
+Nova-Scotia, and pretend to be the first inhabitants and true
+proprietors. These Scotch were driven from Port-Royal by the Normans. It
+is true, they had discovered the river of Port-Royal _before_ the
+Normans, and had built a turf-fort; but it is by no means true, that
+they were therefore the true settlers on this river, and less yet in the
+whole of Acadia. [Nothing can be more false and pitiful, than what
+follows of this Frenchman's reasoning. If a fort is not a settlement,
+what can be called one? Is it not one of the most valid, and generally
+received marks of taking possession? It supposes always a design to
+cultivate and improve; and no doubt but these first settlers would have
+done both, if they had not been untimely driven away.] The true
+inhabitants are those who cultivate a country, and thereby acquire a
+real permanent situation. The property of ground is to them who clear,
+plant, and improve it. The English had done nothing in this way to it
+till the year 1710. They never came there, but on schemes of incursion
+or trade; and in all the wars they had with the French, on being
+superior to them, they contented themselves with putting them to ransom;
+and though they sometimes took their fortified places, they did not
+settle in them. As all their pretension in Acadia was trade, they
+sometimes indeed detained such French as they could take prisoners; but
+that was only for the greater security of their traffic in the mean
+while with the savages. Traders, continually obliged to follow the
+savages in their vagabond journeys, could not be supposed to have time
+or inclination for agriculture. This title then the French settlers had;
+and in short, the whole body of the inhabitants of Acadia, from time
+immemorial, may be averred to have been French, since a few families of
+English, and other Europeans, cannot be said to form an exception, and
+those, as I have before observed, soon became frenchified. Except a few
+families from Boston or New-England I could never learn there were above
+three of purely British subjects, who also, ultimately conforming both
+in the religious and civil institutions to the French, became
+incorporated with them. These families were the _Peterses_, the
+_Grangers_, the _Cartys_. These last indeed descended from one Roger
+John-Baptist Carty, an Irish Roman-Catholic. He had been an indented
+servant in New-England, and had obtained at length his discharge from
+his master, with permission to remain with the French Acadians for the
+freer exercise of his religion. Peters was an iron-smith in England, and
+together with Granger, married in Acadia, and was there naturalized a
+Frenchman. Granger made his abjuration before M. Petit, secular-priest
+of the seminary of Paris, then missionary at Port-Royal (Annapolis).
+These and other European families then soon became united with the
+French Acadians, and were no longer distinguished from them. Most of
+these last were originally from _Rochelle_, _Xaintonge_, and _Poitou_;
+but all went under the common name of Acadians; and were once very
+numerous. The Parish of _Annapolis-Royal_ alone in 1754, according to
+the account of father _Daudin_, contained three hundred habitations, or
+about two thousand communicants. The _Mines_, which are about
+five-and-thirty leagues from Port-Royal, and the best corn country in
+Acadia, were also very populous; nor were there wanting inhabitants in
+many commodious parts of this peninsula.
+
+The character of the French Acadians was good at the bottom: their
+morals far from vitious; their constitution hardy, and yet strongly
+turned to indolence and inaction, not caring for work, unless a point of
+present necessity pressed them; much attached to the customs of the
+country, which have not a little of the savage in them, and to the
+opinions of their fore-fathers, which they cherished as a kind of
+patrimony; it was hard to inculcate any novelty to them. They had many
+parts of character in common with the Canada French. A little matter
+surprises, and sets them a staring, without stirring their curiosity to
+examine, or exciting their inclination to adopt or embrace it. They are
+remarkably fond of rosaries, crucifixes, agnus deis, and all the little
+trinkets consecrated by religion, with which they love to adorn their
+persons, and of which the priests make no little advantage in disposing
+of amongst them: and in truth, it is almost incredible what a power and
+influence these have over them, and with which they despotically govern
+them. One instance I am sure cannot but make you laugh. In September,
+1754, the priest at _Pigigeesh_, had appointed his parishioners to
+perform the religious ceremony of a _Recess_, and to make them expiate
+some disgust they had given him, obliged them, men, women, and children,
+to attend the adoration of the holy-sacrament with a rope about their
+necks; and what is more, he not only made them all buy the rope of him,
+in which you may be sure he took care to find his account, but exacted
+their coming to fetch it bare-footed, from his parsonage house; and this
+they quietly submitted to. In short, considering the sweets of power on
+whomsoever exercised, our good fathers the missionaries are not so much
+to be pitied, as they would have us believe, for their great apostolical
+labors, and exposure to fatigue; since it is certain, they live like
+little kings in their respective parishes, and enjoy in all senses the
+best the land affords; and even our government itself, for its own ends,
+is obliged to pay a sort of court to them, and to keep them in good
+humour.
+
+The Acadian men were commonly drest in a sort of coarse black stuff made
+in the country; and many of the poorer sort go bare-footed in all
+weathers. The women are covered with a cloak, and all their head-dress
+is generally a handkerchief, which would serve for a veil too, in the
+manner they tied it, if it descended low enough.
+
+Their dwellings were almost all built in an uniform manner; the
+inhabitants themselves it was who built them, each for himself, there
+being but few or no mechanics in the country. The hatchet was their
+capital and universal instrument. They had saw-mills for their timber,
+and with a plane and a knife, an Acadian would build his house and his
+barn, and even make all his wooden domestic furniture. Happy nation!
+that could thus be sufficient to itself, which would always be the case,
+were the luxury and the vanity of other nations to remain unenvied.
+
+Such in short were the French Acadians, who fell under the dominion of
+the king of Great Britain, when the English experienced, from both the
+Acadians and savages, a most thorough reluctance to the recognition of
+their new sovereign, which has continued to this day.
+
+As to the savages it is certain, that the governors for the English
+acted entirely against the interest of their nation, in their procedure
+with them. They had been long under the French government, so far as
+their nature allows them to be under any government at all; and besides
+almost all the Micmakis, and great numbers of the Maricheets, or
+Abenaquis, were converted to our faith, and were consequently under the
+influence of the priests. It could not then be expected, naturally
+speaking, that these people could all of a sudden shake off their
+attachment to, and connexions with our nation; so that, even after the
+cession of Acadia, they continued, with a savage sulleness, to give
+marks of their preference of our government. This could not fail of
+giving the English umbrage; and their impatience not brooking either
+delays, or soothing them into a temper and opinion more favorable to
+them: they let it very early be seen, and penetrated by the savages,
+that they intended to clear the country of them. Nor would this
+exterminating plan, however not over-humane, have been perhaps wholly an
+impolitical one, if they had not had the French for neighbors, who, ever
+watchful and alert in concerning themselves with what past in those
+parts, took care underhand, by their priests and emissaries, to inflame
+them, and to offer them not only the kindest refuge, but to provide them
+with all necessaries of life, sure of being doubly repaid by the service
+they would do them, if but in the mischief they would do the English, to
+whom it was a great point with our government to make Acadia as
+uncomfortable, and as untenable as possible. It was no wonder then, that
+the savages, ill-used by the English, and still dreading worse from
+them, being constantly plied by our caresses, presents, and promises,
+should prefer our nation to that. I have before said, that religion has
+no great hold of these savages, but it could not be but of some weight
+in the scale, where their minds were already so exulcerated against
+those of a different one, whom they now considered as their capital
+enemies. You may be sure like-wise, our priests did not neglect making
+the most of this advantage, which the English themselves furnished them
+by their indiscreet management: for certain it is, that a few presents
+well placed, proper methods of conciliation, and a very little time,
+would have entirely detached the savages from our interest, and have
+turned the system of annoyance of the English against the French
+themselves. Some English governors indeed grew sensible of this, and
+applied themselves to retrieve matters by a gentler treatment, but the
+mischief was already done and irretrieveable; and our missionaries took
+care to widen the breach, and to keep up their spirit of hatred and
+revenge, by instilling into them the notions of jealousy, that such
+overtures of friendship, on the part of the English, were no better than
+so many snares laid to make them perish, by a false security, since they
+could not hope to do it by open violence. One instance may serve to show
+you the temper of these people: Some years ago the English officers
+being assembled at the _Mines_, in order to take a solemn recognition
+from them of the king of Great Britain, when a savage, a new convert,
+called _Simon_, in spite of all dissuasion, went himself alone to the
+English commander, and told him, that all his endeavours to get the king
+of England acknowledged, would be to no purpose; that, for his part, he
+should never pay any allegiance but to the king of France, and drawing a
+knife, said, "This indeed is all the arms I have, and with this weapon
+alone, I will stand by the king of France till death."
+
+Yet, with all this obstinacy of sentiments, once more I dare aver, the
+savages would have been easily won over and attached to the English
+party, had these gone the right way about it: and I well know that the
+French, who knew best the nature of the savages, much dreaded it; and
+were not a little pleased to see the English take measures so contrary
+to their own interest, and play the game so effectually into our hands.
+In short, we took, as was natural, all the advantage of their
+indiscretion and over-sight.
+
+I come now to the Acadians, or what may more properly be called the
+French Acadians. These would undoubtedly have proved very valuable
+subjects to the English, and extreamly useful to them in improving a
+dominion so susceptible of all manner of improvement as _Acadia_,
+(Nova-Scotia) if they could have been, prevailed on to break their
+former ties of allegiance to the king of France, and to have remained
+quietly under the new government to which they were now transferred. But
+from this they were constantly dissuaded, and withheld by the influence
+of our French priests, cantoned, amongst them [The letter-writer might
+have here added the infamous arts and falsities by which these
+emissaries of the French imposed on those bigotted deluded people, and
+to that end made religion a vile tool of state. They represented to
+these Acadians, that it was an inexpiable crime against their faith, to
+hold any commerce with heretics, and much more so to enter into their
+interests;--that there would be no pardon for them, either in the other
+world, or even in this, when the French should regain, as they certainly
+would, possession of a country ceded so much against the grain. In
+short, they succeeded but too well in keeping up the spirit of rebellion
+amongst those infatuated devotees of theirs, who remained sullen and
+refractory to all the advances the English made to gain them.], who kept
+them steady to our party. You may be sure our government did not fail of
+constantly inculcating the expediency of this conduct to our priests;
+who not only very punctually and successfully conformed to their
+instructions on this head, but very often in the heat of their zeal so
+much exceeded them, as to draw on themselves the animadversion of the
+English government. This answered a double end, of hindering that nation
+from finding those advantages in this country, by the prospect of which
+it had been tempted to settle in it, and of engaging it to consider
+Acadia itself, as something not material enough to think worth its
+keeping, at the expence which it must occasion, and consequently induce
+the English to be the readier to part with it again, on any future
+treaty of peace. This too is certain, that the French themselves knew
+neither the extent, nor the value of this country, till they were
+sensible of the improvements the English were projecting; and the use
+now so easy to discover might be made of so fine an establishment. But
+to return to the Acadians: It must be confest the English had, with
+respect to them, a difficult game to play. To force such a number of
+families, of which too such great use might have been made, to evacuate
+the country, seems at first both impolitic and inhuman. But then it must
+be considered, that these people were absolutely untractable as to the
+English, and thoroughly under the direction of priests in an interest
+quite opposite to theirs. To have taken those priests entirely from
+them, would have exasperated them yet more, and was, in fact, a measure
+repugnant to that spirit of toleration in religious matters, of which
+they boast, and to which it must be owned they constantly adhered, as to
+these people, both in speculation and practice.
+
+[Might not this dilemma have been removed, by procuring for them
+priests, since priests they must have, from neutral nations, such as the
+Flemings, the Roman Swiss Cantons, &c. whom a very small matter of
+reward and encouragement would, it is probable, have fixed in the
+English interest? At least, they could not have the same motives for
+fomenting rebellious principles, as the French priests, who were set on
+by that government.]
+
+None of the Acadians were ever molested purely for their religion; and
+even the priests of our nation were always civilly treated by them,
+whenever they had not reason to think they meddled in temporal matters,
+or stirred up their parishioners to rebellion. I have seen many of their
+own letters that acknowledge as much; so that upon the whole, I do not
+see that the English could do otherwise than they did, in expelling
+their bounds a people, who were constitutionally, and invincibly, a
+perpetual thorn in their side, whom they could at best look on as secret
+domestic enemies, who wanted nothing but an occasion to do them all the
+mischief in their power, and of whom, consequently, there could not, for
+their interest and safety, remain too few in the land.
+
+In the mean time the French took special care to appear at least to
+receive with open arms those _refugees_, whom their fear or hatred of
+the English drove out of that country; they gave them temporary places
+of habitation, both for them and their cattle, besides provisions, arms,
+tools, &c. till they should fix a settlement in some part of the French
+dominions here, which they recommended especially in the island of, or
+on the banks of the river of St. John; but they were at first very loth
+to come to a determination. And surely, these unfortunate victims of
+their attachment to the French government deserved all the reparation in
+its power to give them, for what they had quitted for the sake of
+preserving allegiance to it, even after their country had been
+transferred to another sovereign. I cannot, however, consistently with
+truth say, they were received as kindly as they deserved, which probably
+bred that undetermination of their's to fix a new settlement, as they
+were pressed to do by the French government. They retained still a
+hankering after their old habitations: the temporary new ones were far
+from being equally agreeable or convenient; and even the ancient
+settlers in those places where these refugees were provisionally
+cantoned, began to make complaints of their encroaching upon them, and
+to represent their apprehensions of their becoming burthensome to them.
+Some of our people in power, more sollicitous for their own private
+interest, than for the public good, were but too remiss in relieving and
+comforting these poor people. This, at length, indisposed them so, that
+after very pathetic remonstrances on the hardship of their case, and the
+motives upon which they thus suffered, great numbers of them began to
+listen seriously to the proposals made them by the English, to return
+upon very inviting terms to the settlements they had quitted. In short,
+it required the utmost art of the missionaries, and even a kind of
+coercion from the military power, to keep them from accepting the
+English offers. For when they presented a petition to Mons. _de Vergor_,
+for leave to return to the English district, this commander, after
+having remonstrated to them that he could not grant their request, nor
+decide any thing of himself in a matter of that importance, was forced,
+at length, to declare to them, that he would _shoot_ any man who should
+attempt to go over to the English. [It should here be remarked, that
+these very people had taken the oath of allegiance to the crown of
+England, agreeable to the tenor of the treaty of Utrecht. But the
+French, not content with harbouring these causeless malecontents, that
+were actually deserters over to them, kept continually, by means of the
+priests, plying such as staid behind with exhortations, promises,
+menaces, in short, with every art of seduction, to engage them to
+withdraw their sworn allegiance to their now lawful sovereign. In short,
+if all the transactions of the French in those parts were thrown into a
+history, it would lay open to the world such a scene of complicated
+villainy, rebellion, perjury, subornation of perjury, perfidiousness,
+and cruelty, as would for ever take from that nation the power of
+pluming itself, as it now so impudently does, on its sincerity,
+fairness, and moderation. The English, on the other hand, too conscious
+of the justice of their cause at bottom, have been too remiss in their
+confutation of the French falsities: content with being in the right,
+they cared too little for having the appearance of being so, as if the
+world was not governed by appearances.] Thus these poor people remained
+under this deplorable dilemma. Some of them too, had not even
+habitations to go back if they would: they had been forced into the
+measure of deserting their country, and passing over to the French side,
+by the violence of the Abbot de Loutre, who had not only preached them
+into this spirit, but ordered the savages, whom he had at his disposal,
+to set fire to their habitations, barns, &c. particularly at
+_Mirtigueesh_. [The reader is desired to observe, that in the memorials
+delivered into the English court by the French ministers, this burning
+of villages was specifically made an article of complaint, at the same
+time that it was their own incendiary agent, at their own instigation,
+who had actually caused fire to be set to them by his savages. Could
+then impudence be pushed farther than it was on this occasion?]
+
+In the mean time the French did not spare, at least, the consolation of
+words and promises to these distrest Refugee-acadians. They were
+assured, that they would infallibly be relieved on the regulation of the
+limits taking place, which was then on the point of being settled, by
+commissaries, between the two crowns. [The truth is, that in these
+assurances the French government, which never intended a conclusion, but
+only an amusement, did not scruple equally deceiving the English, and
+these infatuated Acadian subjects of ours, who, to the French interest
+had sacrificed their own, their possessions in their country, their
+sworn faith, in short, their ALL. Whoever has the patience to go through
+the French memorials, in their procedure with our commissaries, may see
+such instances of their pitiful prevarications, petty-fogging chicanery,
+quirks, and evasions, as would nauseate one. The whole stress of their
+argument, in short, turns merely upon names, where the things themselves
+were absolutely out of the question, from the manifest notoriety of
+them.] This hope, in some sort, pacified them; and they lived as well as
+they could in the expectation of a final decision, which was not so soon
+to come.
+
+Yet even this example of the sufferings of these people, purely on
+account of their attachment to the French government, could not out
+balance with the French Acadians, who remained in the English district,
+the assiduous applications of our priests to keep them firm in the
+French interest. They never ceased giving every mark in their power of
+their preference of our government to that, under which the treaty of
+Utrecht had put them. The English, however, at length finding that,
+neither by fair nor foul means, could they reclaim or win them over to
+their purpose, so as that they might in future depend upon them, came at
+once to a violent resolution. They surprized and seized every French
+Acadian-man they could lay their hands on, (the women they knew would
+follow of course) and, to clear the country effectually of them,
+dispersed them into the remotest parts of their other settlements in
+North-America, where they thought they could do the least mischief to
+them. Some were shipped off for England: the priests shared the same
+fate, and were conveyed to Europe. With this evacuation, the very
+existence of the French Acadians may be said to have ended; for in
+Acadia there are scarce any traces of them left, few or none having
+escaped this general seizure and transportation, for the necessity of
+which, the English were perhaps more to be pitied than blamed.
+
+In the mean time our government had so far succeeded, as to force the
+English, thus to deprive themselves of such a number of subjects, who,
+but for the reasons above deduced, might have been very valuable ones,
+and a great strengthening of their new colony. Hitherto then our
+neighborhood has made it almost as irksome, and uncomfortable to them,
+as we could wish; and this fine spot of dominion does not nigh produce
+to them the advantages that might otherwise naturally be expected from
+it. Numbers of themselves begin to exclaim against it, as if its value
+and importance had been overrated; not considering, that it is on the
+circumstances of their possession, and not on the nature of the
+possession itself, that their complaints and murmurings should fall. It
+is very likely, that whenever we get it back again, we shall know very
+well what to do with it. They have begun to teach us the value of what
+we thus inadvertently parted with to them; and it will be hard, indeed,
+on recovering it, if we do not improve upon their lessons.
+
+In the mean time you in Europe are cruelly mistaken, if you do not annex
+an idea of the highest consequence and value, to the matters of dominion
+now in dispute, between the crowns of France and Great Britain, between
+whom the war is in a manner begun, by the capture of the Alcides and
+Lys, and which, even without that circumstance, was inevitable. I know
+that our (French) government, is indeed fully sensible of the capital
+importance to it of its interest in these parts, and has proceeded in
+consequence. But it is not so, I find by your letters, and the reports
+of others, with numbers in Europe, who do not conceive, that the present
+object of the war is so considerable as it really is.
+
+To say nothing of the vast extent of country that falls under the claim
+of the English to Acadia (Nova-Scotia) which alone would form an immence
+mass of dominion, greatly improveable in a number of points, its
+situation is yet of greater weight. By the English possessing it, Canada
+itself would be so streightened, so liable to harrassment, and
+especially to the comptrol of its navigation, that it would scarce be
+tenable, and surely not worth the expence of keeping. The country
+pretended to have been ceded is far preferable to it; and the masters of
+it would be equally masters of the sea all over North-America. Hallifax,
+for example, according to which of the nation's hand it should be in,
+may be equally an effectual check on Quebec, or Boston.
+
+You will then allow, that was there even nothing more in dispute than
+the limits of the cession of Acadia, or Nova-Scotia, together with its
+necessary dependence, that alone would form such a considerable object,
+as not easily to be given up on either side. The commissaries appointed
+by both crowns, then failing of coming to any agreement or regulation,
+it is no wonder to see the appeal lodged with the sword; especially when
+there is another point yet remains, of perhaps equal, if not superior,
+importance, depending on the issue of the war: and that is, the western
+inland frontiers of the English colonies. Should we ever command the
+navigation of the lakes and rivers, behind their settlements, you can
+easily figure to yourself, not only the vast advantages of preserving
+that communication of Canada, with New Orleans and the Mississippi, so
+absolutely essential to both these our colonies, but the facility it
+will give us on all occasions of distressing the English, where neither
+their marine-force can succor them, nor can they be able to resist the
+attack, since we may make it wherever ever we please, and effectually
+dodge any land-force they might assemble in any one or two parts to
+oppose us. We may then carry the war into the quarter most convenient;
+and most safe for us, if we should ever have the whole navigation of the
+lakes so far at our disposal, as to prevent their constructing any
+material number vessels to dispute it with us. Thus we can penetrate
+into the heart of any of their colonies, that may best suit us,
+especially with the concurrent aid of the savages, whom we have found
+means to attach so strongly to us, and on whom we can greatly depend for
+the effectual harrassment of, especially, the back-plantations of the
+English.
+
+You see then, Sir, by this summary sketch of the points in contest, that
+the war being once engaged, it will not be so easy a matter as many in
+Europe imagine, to adjust the pretensions, so various and so important,
+of the respective nations, so as to be able to procure a peace. Some, of
+the points appear to me absolutely _untreatable_. You may observe too,
+that I do not so much as touch upon the dispute about Tabago,
+Santa-Lucia, or any of the Leeward islands, which are not, however, of
+small consequence. In short, the war must, in all human probability, be
+a much longer one, than is commonly believed. Neither nation can
+materially relax of its claims, without such a thorough sacrifice of its
+interest in America, as nothing but the last extremities of weakness can
+compel.
+
+Long as this letter is, I cannot yet close it without mentioning to you
+a singular phenomenon of nature, in the island of St. John. You know it
+is a flat, level island, chiefly formed out of the congestion of sand
+and soil from the sea. Tradition, experience, and authentic public acts
+(_Proces verbaux_) concur to attest that every seven years, it is
+visited by swarms either of locusts, or of field-mice, alternately,
+never together; without its being possible to discover hitherto either
+the reason, or the origin of these two species, which thus in their
+turns, at the end of every seventh year, pour out all of a sudden in
+amazing numbers, and having committed their ravages on all the fruits of
+the earth, precipitate themselves into the sea. Neither has any
+preventive remedy for this evil been yet discovered. It is well known
+how they perish, but, once more, how they are produced no one, that I
+could learn, has as yet been able to trace. The field-mice are
+undoubtedly something in the nature of those swarms of the sable-mice,
+that sometimes over-run Lapland and Norway, though I do not know that
+these return so regularly, and at such stated periods, as those of this
+island.
+
+I am, Sir,
+
+Your most obedient,
+
+Humble servant.
+
+
+
+
+CHARACTER
+
+OF THE
+
+SAVAGES of NORTH-AMERICA,
+
+EXTRACTED FROM
+
+A LETTER of the Father CHARLEVOIX,
+
+TO
+
+A LADY of Distinction,
+
+
+To give you, Madam, a summary sketch of the character of the savages in
+this country, I am to observe to you, that under a savage appearance,
+with manners and customs, that favor entirely of barbarism, may be found
+a society exempt from almost all the faults that so often vitiate the
+happiness of ours.
+
+They appear to be without passion, but they are in cold blood, and
+sometimes even from principle, all that the most violent and most
+unbridled passion can inspire into those, who no longer listen to
+reason.
+
+They seem to lead the most miserable of lives, and they are, perhaps,
+the only happy of the earth. At least those of them are still so,
+amongst whom the knowledge of those objects that disturb and seduce us,
+has not yet penetrated, or awakened in them, those pernicious desires
+which their ignorance kept happily dormant: it has not, however,
+hitherto made great ravages amongst them.
+
+There may be perceived a mixture in them of the most ferocious and the
+most gentle manners; of the faults reproachable to the carnivorous
+beasts, with those virtues and qualities of the head and heart, that do
+the most honor to human-kind.
+
+One would, at first, imagine, that they had no sort of form of
+government, that they knew no laws nor subordination, and that living in
+an entire independence, they suffered themselves to be entirely guided
+by chance, or by the most wild, untamed caprice: yet they enjoy almost
+all the advantages, which a well-regulated authority can procure to the
+most civilized nations. Born free and independent, they hold in horror
+the very shadow of despotic power; but they rarely swerve from certain
+principles and customs, founded upon good-sense, which stand them in the
+stead of laws, and supplement in some sort to their want of legal
+authority. All constraint mocks them; but reason alone hold them in a
+kind of subordination, which, for its being voluntary, does not the less
+answer the proposed end.
+
+A man, whom they should greatly esteem, would find them tractable and
+ductile enough, and might very nearly make them do any thing he had a
+mind they should; but it is not easy to gain their esteem to such a
+point. They grant it only to merit, and that merit a very superior one,
+of which they are as good judges as those, who, amongst us, value
+themselves the most upon being so. They are, especially, apt to be taken
+with physiognomy; and there are not in the world, perhaps, men who are
+greater _connoisseurs_ in it: and that is, because they have for no man
+whatever, any of those respects that prejudice or impose on us, and that
+studying only nature, they understand it well. As they are not slaves to
+ambition or interest, those two passions that have chiefly cancelled in
+us that sentiment of humanity, which the author of nature had engraved
+in our hearts; the inequality of conditions is not necessary to them,
+for the support of society.
+
+There are not therefore, Madam, to be seen amongst them, or at least,
+are rarely to be met with, those arrogant haughty characters, who, full
+of themselves of their greatness, or their merit, look on themselves
+almost as a species a-part, and disdain the rest of mankind, of whom
+consequently they can never have the confidence or love. Their equals
+these rarely know any thing of, because the jealousy that reigns amongst
+the great, hinders them from being intimate enough with one another.
+Neither do they know themselves, from their never studying themselves,
+and from their constant self-flattery. They never reflect, that to gain
+admission into the hearts of men, they must make themselves their
+equals; so that with this pretended superiority of enlightened
+understanding, which they look on as an essential property of the rank
+they hold, the most part of them live groveling in a proud and incurable
+ignorance of all that it would be the most important for them to know,
+and never enjoy the true sweets of life.
+
+In all this how wretchedly different from the savages! In this country,
+all the men esteem themselves equally men; and in man, what they most
+esteem is, the man. No distinction of birth; no prerogative attributed
+to rank, to the prejudice of the other free members of society; no
+pre-eminence annexed to merit that can inspire pride, or make others
+feel too much their inferiority. There is, perhaps, less delicacy in
+their sentiments than amongst us, but surely more uprightness; less
+ceremony; less of all that can form a dubious character; less of the
+temptations or illusions or self-love.
+
+Religion only can perfect these people in what is good in them, and
+correct what bad. This indeed is not peculiar to them, but what is so,
+is, that they bring with them fewer obstacles to religious devotion when
+once they have begun to believe, which can only be the effect of a
+special grace. It is also true, that to establish firmly the empire of
+religion over them, it would be necessary that they should see it
+practised in all its purity by those who profess it. They are extremely
+susceptible of the scandal given by bad Christians, as are all those who
+are, for the first time, instructed in the principles of the
+Gospel-morality.
+
+You will perhaps ask me, Madam, if they have a religion? To this I
+answer, that it cannot be said they have not one, though it is difficult
+to give a definition of what it is. I shall sometime or other, take
+occasion to enter into more particulars on this head. This letter, like
+most of the others that have preceded it, prove sufficiently that I do
+not pretend to write to you methodically.
+
+I shall then now only content myself with adding, by way of finishing,
+to this picture of the savages, that even in their most indifferent
+actions, may be perceived the traces of the primitive natural religion,
+but which escape those who do not study them enough, because they are
+yet more defaced by the want of instruction, [This want of instruction
+is wretchedly supplemented amongst the savage-converts to the Popish
+religion, by that superstitious worship, and those fabulous traditions,
+its missionaries have introduced amongst them, and which must be only
+the more execrable, for their being a superstructure on so fair a
+foundation as that of the truths of the Gospel. At least, the savages,
+in their genuine unsophisticated state, have no such base, absurd,
+derogatory ideas of the Deity, as are implied by the doctrines of
+transubstantiation, purgatory, absolution, and the like fictions in the
+Romish church, which have been the more than mines of Mexico and Peru,
+of its clergy.] than adulterated by the mixture of a superstitious
+worship, and by fabulous traditions.
+
+_FINIS._
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An Account Of The Customs And Manners
+Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton, by Antoine Simon Maillard
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