to listen from a hereditary rule or standard of politeness.

Eloquence in council, and courage in war, are their ruling passions; and the irresistible motive for war is revenge. When young, they are hunters and warriors; when old, they become counsellors. They are not averse to social life; but the principle of their society forbids all compulsion: they can only be influenced, not commanded. The hunting Indian will scarcely work for any reward: it sinks him from what he considers the high condition of a huntsman, warrior, and statesman, to that of a slave, peasant, or mechanic. The love of independence, the great instinct of nature, is paramount to every consideration with the Indian.

To guide a canoe, to fish, hunt, and fight, are his necessary acquirements. His talents are, oratory, address in negotiation, patience, and travelling long without food. Their chiefs acquire an ascendency by a warlike aspect, and a strong and terrible voice; but eloquence and daring exploits are still greater recommendations.

In negotiations they use collars or belts of wampum, which are about three feet in length, and six inches in breadth, and ornamented with small shells. No transaction can be entered into without the intervention of these belts; which serve, in the absence of writing, the place of contracts or obligations. They preserve them for many years; and their distinctive marks are well known to their sachems or elders. To raise the hatchet is to proclaim war; to bury it is to enter on terms of, or to conclude, peace. Such were the leading characteristics of the aboriginal inhabitants of North America; and such are

they still in the countries west of the Mississippi and the great lakes, except where the fur traders have corrupted them by increasing their wants, and teaching them the tricks of bargain-making; and, by persuasion and example, have made them more sensual, immodest, and unchaste.

It is doubtful whether the remnant of the Indian tribes scattered among the European settlements will ever be brought generally to improve their morals or their condition.

The following extracts from the Message of General Jackson, President of the United States, to Congress, will illustrate the policy generally entertained by the statesmen of that country, in respect to the aborigines:

"It gives me pleasure," says the President, "to announce to Congress that the benevolent policy of the government, steadily pursued for nearly thirty years, in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements, is approaching to a happy consummation. Two important tribes have accepted the provision made for their removal at the last session of Congress; and it is believed that their example will induce the remaining tribes also to seek the same obvious advantages.

"The consequences of a speedy removal will be important to the United States, to individual states, and to the Indians themselves. The pecuniary advantages which it promises to the government are the least of its recommendations. It puts an end to all possible danger of collision between the authorities of the general and state governments on account of the Indians. It will place a dense and civilised population in large tracts of country now occupied by a few savage hunters. By opening the whole. territory between Tennessee, on the north, and Louisiana, on the south, to the settlement of the whites, it will incalculably strengthen the south-western frontier, and render the adjacent states strong enough to repel future invasion without remote aid. It will relieve the whole State of Mississippi, and the western part of Alabama, of Indian occupancy, and enable those states to advance rapidly in population, wealth, and power. It will separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites; free them from the power of the states; enable them to pursue happiness in their own way, and under their own rude institutions; will retard the progress of decay, which is lessening their numbers; and, perhaps, cause them gradually, under the protection of the government, and through the influence of good counsels, to cast off their savage habits, and become an interesting, civilised, and Christian community. These consequences, some of them so certain, and the rest so probable, make the complete execution of the plan sanctioned by Congress at their last session an object of much solicitude.

"Toward the aborigines of the country no one can indulge a more friendly feeling than myself, or would go farther in attempting to reclaim them from their wandering habits, and make them a happy and prosperous people. I have endeavoured to impress upon them my own solemn convictions of the duties and powers of the General Government in relation to the state authorities. For the justice of the laws passed by the states within the scope of their reserved powers, they are not responsible to this government. As individuals, we may entertain and express our

opinions of their acts; but, as a government, we have as little right to control them as we have to prescribe laws to foreign nations.

"With a full understanding of the subject, the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes have, with great unanimity, determined to avail themselves of the liberal offers presented by the Act of Congress, and have agreed to remove beyond the Mississippi river. Treaties have been made with them, which, in due season, will be submitted for consideration. In negotiating these treaties, they were made to understand their true condition; and they have preferred maintaining their independence in the western forests to submitting to the laws of the states in which they now reside. These treaties, being probably the last which will ever be made with them, are characterised by great liberality on the part of the government. They give the Indians a liberal sum in consideration of their removal, and comfortable subsistence on their arrival at their new homes. If it be their real interest to maintain a separate existence, they will there be at liberty to do so, without the inconveniences and vexations to which they would unavoidably have been subject in Alabama and Mississippi.

"Humanity has often wept over the fate of the aborigines of this country; and philanthropy has been long busily employed in devising means to avert it. But its progress has never for a moment been arrested; and, one by one, have many powerful tribes disappeared from the earth. To follow to the tomb the last of his race, and to tread on the graves of extinct nations, excite melancholy reflections. But true philanthropy reconciles the mind to these vicissitudes, as it does to the extinction of one generation to make room for another. In the monuments and fortresses of an unknown people, spread over the extensive regions of the west, we behold the memorials of a once powerful race, which was exterminated, or has disappeared, to make room for the existing savage tribes. Nor is there any thing in this, which, upon a comprehensive view of the general interests of the human race, is to be regretted. Philanthropy could not wish to see this continent restored to the condition in which it was found by our forefathers. What good man would prefer a country covered with forests, and ranged by a few thousand savages, to our extensive republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms, embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute; occupied by more than twelve millions of happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilisation, and religion !

"The present policy of the government is but a continuation of the same progressive change, by a milder process. The tribes which occupied the countries now constituting the eastern states were annihilated, or have melted away to make room for the whites. The waves of population and civilisation are rolling to the westward; and we now propose to acquire the countries occupied by the red men of the south and west, by a fair exchange, and, at the expense of the United States, to send them to a land where their existence may be prolonged, and perhaps made perpetual. Doubtless it will be painful to leave the graves of their fathers; but what do they more than our ancestors did, or than our children are now doing? To better their condition in an unknown land, our forefathers left all that was dear in early objects.