consented. They then said, some of their people were sick, and they asked permission to land them, and put them under the shade of the tree. The ice then came, and they could not go away; they then begged a piece of land to build wigwams for the winter: we granted it. They then asked for some corn, to keep them from starving: we kindly furnished it. They promised to go away when the ice was gone; when this happened, we told them they must now go away with their big canoe; but they pointed to their big guns around their wigwams, and said they would stay there; and we could not make them go away. Afterwards more came. They brought spirituous and intoxicating liquors, of which the Indians became very fond. They persuaded us to sell them some land. Finally they drove us back from time to time into the wilderness, far from the water, the fish, and the oysters. They have destroyed our game, our people are wasted away, and we live miserable and wretched, while you are enjoying our fine and beautiful country. This makes me sorry, brother, and I cannot help it.'

It would be a long and a heart-rending tale, to recount the various acts of cruelty, rapacity, and injustice, with which they have been gen

erally treated by Europeans, since they first invaded their forests and usurped their soil.

6

Society,' says Washington Irving, has advanced upon them like a many-headed monster, breathing every variety of misery. Before it went forth pestilence, famine, and the sword; and in its train came the slow but exterminating curse of trade: what the former did not sweep away, the latter has gradually blighted.'

But we would turn from the sad review of what has passed in the history of these long injured aboriginal tribes, and indulge the hope that a just sympathy has at length been awakened towards those who remain, as claiming not only the commiseration, but the moral and religious care of Great Britain and America. The partial success which has indeed followed the occasional efforts of the American government for the civilization of the Indians, demonstrates the fact, and confirms to the utmost, that it is practicable to civilize, and evangelize this, hitherto, generally neglected, and suffering portion of our fellow-men. Let spirituous liquors be prohibited from deluging their country in the prosecution of an unequal traffic. Let their tomahawk and scalping knife never again be pressed into any contest whatever on the part of professed Christians. Let them be met with brotherly kindness, and

with active and generous exertion to benefit their condition, by aiding their own efforts, and promoting their location in every possible way; then, may we look for the solitude of the remaining wilderness to be broken, in the establishment of Indian villages, and Indian settlements. Tribe after tribe, and nation after nation, have heretofore vanished away, and no wonder,-from the system of exclusion and oppression that has been acted upon towards them by the whites; who have treated them as outcasts, and placed them in the scale of humanity, so low, and so distant, as for the most part to exclude them from their sympathy. But why should the North American Indian be thought incapable of that moral, civil, and religious elevation, which has been experienced by the South Sea Islanders, the natives of Greenland, and of the Cape? There is nothing in their nature, nor is there any deficiency in their intellect, that should consign them to perpetual degradation, and to that cold-blooded philosophy, and infidel sentiment, of 'Let them alone;-to take measures to preserve the Indians, is to take measures to preserve so much barbarity, helplessness, and want; and therefore do not resist the order of Providence which is carrying them away!'

CHAPTER II.

INDIANS.-BELLEISLE STRAITS.-MIRAMICHI DESTROYED BY FIRE-BAY OF ANNAPOLIS NOVA SCOTIA.-INDIANS. -FUR TRADE. ADELAII.--MISSIONARIES.-NEGRO VILLAGE. AMERICAN

COLONIZATION SOCIETY. RETURN

TO NEW BRUNSWICK.-FREDERICSTOWN.-POPULATION OF NEW BRUNSWICK.-CLIMATE.-THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL.-BAPTISM.-ITINERANT PREACHING.

AFTER a short residence at Sussex Vale, I set off in the discharge of my mission, on a visit to the Indians along the eastern shore of the Province; and travelled in a light waggon, drawn by one horse, though they are sometimes drawn by two horses abreast, as the usual mode of travelling in the country. I found a few Indian families in the neighbourhood of Shediac, and these of the Micmac tribe. Some of this nation are to be met with in the whole line of coast, lying between Bay Verte, and Chaleur Bay, on the gulf of Saint Lawrence. A few who have intermarried with the French, are become stationary with them in villages

at, or near Buctouche, Richibucto, Miramichi, and at other points along the shore. But the greater part of them are met wandering from one settlement to another, squalid and dispirited, under circumstances of great commiseration. Their strength is enervated, and their diseases are multiplied, through the prevailing habits of idleness and drunkenness ; which have sunk them far below the true Indian character. They are reduced to a poverty that is unknown to them in their native wilds, and which corrodes, like a canker, their very hearts. They are of the Roman Catholic persuasion, as are the Indians of the adjoining territory in Lower Canada, and are so disciplined, that many of them wear the crucifix fastened over the right shoulder, so as to hang upon the left breast, near the heart. Such is the influence of the Priests, that they regulate their marriages, appoint certain times in the year for them to collect, and attend their superstitious ceremonies, and at the same time supply them with a form, or instruct them in an idolatrous act of worship to the Virgin Mary in their camps.-It does not appear that any of the natives have crossed the Gulf, to the opposite coast of Newfoundland; or that there are any savages who dwell among the rocks,