habits of intoxication were not fo univerfal and incurable, they would be, of all the races of men who inhabit the globe, the most likely to prolong, not only the bounds, but the enjoyments, of animal life to their utmoft duration.

Let us now attend to other pictures which have been given of the aboriginal inhabitants of the New World. The vices and defects of the American Indians have by feveral writers been moft unaccountably aggravated, and every virtue and good quality denied them. Their cruelties have been already described and accounted for. The following anecdote of an Algonquin woman we find adduced as a remarkable proof of their innate thirst of blood. That nation being at war with the Iroquois, fhe happened to be made prifoner, and was carried to one of the villages belonging to them. Here fhe was ftripped naked, and her hands and feet bound with ropes in one of their cabins. In this condition the remained ten days, the favages fleeping round her every night. The eleventh night, while they were afleep, fhe found means to difengage one of her hands, with which the immediately freed herself from the ropes, and went to the door. Though the had now an opportunity of efcaping unperceived, her revengeful temper could not let flip fo favourable an opportunity of killing one of her enemies. The attempt was manifeftly at the hazard of her own life; yet, fnatching up a hatchet, The killed the favage that lay next her; and, fpringing out of the cabin, concealed herself in a hollow tree which she had obferved the day before. The groans of the dying perfon foon alarmed the other favages, and the young ones immediately fet out in purfuit of her.-Perceiving from her tree, that they all directed their courfe one way, and that no favage was near her, she left her fanctuary, and, flying by an oppofite direction, ran into a foreft without being perceived. The fecond day after this happened, her footsteps were discovered, and they pursued her with fuch expedition, that the third day she discovered her enemies at her heels. Upon this fhe threw herself into a pond of water; and, diving among fome weeds and bulrushes, the could juft breathe above water without being perceived. Her purfuers, after making the most diligent fearch, were forced to return,For 35 days this woman held on her course through woods and defarts, without any other sustenance than roots and wild berries. When she came to the river St. Lawrence, she made with her own hands a kind of a wicker raft, on which fhe croffed it. As fhe went by the French fort Trois Rivieres, without well knowing where fhe was, the perceived a canoe full of favages; and, fearing they might he Iroquois, ran again into the woods, where fhe remained till funfet.Continuing her courfe, foon after fhe faw Trois Rivieres; and was then discovered

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difcovered by a party whom the knew to be Hurons, a nation in alliance with the Algonquins. She then fquatted down behind a bufh, calling cut to them that fhe was not in a condition to be feen, because she was naked. They immediately threw her a blanket, and then conducted her to the fort, where fhe recounted her story.

Perfonal courage has been denied them. In proof of their pufillanimity, the following incidents are quoted from Charlevoix by Lord Kames, in his sketches of the Hiftory of Man. "The fort de Vercheres in Canada, belonging to the French, was, in the year 1690, attacked by fome Iroquois. They approached filently, preparing to scale the palifade, when fome mufket fhot made them retire. Advancing a fecond time, they were again repulfed, wondering that they could difcover none but a woman, who was feen every where. This was Madame de Vercheres, who appeared as refolute as if supported by a numerous garrison. The hopes of ftorming a place without men to defend it occafioned reiterated attacks. After two days fiege, they retired, fearing to be intercepted in their retreat. Two years after, a party of the fame nation appeared before the fort fo unexpectedly, that a girl of fourteen, daughter of the proprietor, had but time to fhut the gate. With the young woman there was not a foul but one raw foldier. She fhowed herself with her affiftant, fometimes in one place and fometimes in another; changing her drefs frequently, in order to give fome appearance of a garrifon; and always fired opportunely. The faint-hearted Iroquois decamped without fuccefs."

There is no inftance, it is faid, either of a fingle Indian facing an individual of any other nation in fair and open combat, or of their jointly venturing to try the fate of battle with an equal number of any foes. Even with the greatest fuperiority of numbers, they dare not meet an open attack. Yet, notwithstanding this want of courage, they are ftill formidable; nay, it has been known, that a small party of them has routed a much fuperior body of regular troops: but this can only happen when they have furprised them in the faftneffes of their forefts, where the covert of the wood may conceal them until they take their aim with their utmost certainty. After one fuch discharge they imme diately retreat, without leaving the smallest trace of their route. It may eafily be fuppofed, that an onfet of this kind muft produce confufion even among the steadiest troops, when they can neither know the number of their enemies, nor perceive the place where they lie in ambufh.

Perfidy combined with cruelty has been alfo made a part of their character. Don Ulloa relates, That the Indians of 'the country called Natches, in Louisiana, laid a plot of maffacring in one night every

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vidual belonging to the French colony established there. This plot they actually executed, notwithstanding the feeming good understanding that fubfifted between them and thefe European neighbours. Such was the fecrecy which they obferved, that no perfon had the least sufpicion of their defign until the blow was ftruck. One Frenchman alone escaped, by favour of the darknefs, to relate the difafter of his countrymen. The compaffion of a female Indian contributed alfo in fome measure to his exemption from the general maffacre. The tribe of Natches had invited the Indians of other countries, even to a confiderable distance, to join in the fame confpiracy. The day, or rather the night, was fixed, on which they were to make an united attack on the French colonifts. It was intimated by fending a parcel of rods, more or less numerous according to the local distance of each tribe, with an injunction to abstract one rod daily; the day on which the laft fell to be taken away being that fixed for the execution of their plan. The women were partners of the bloody fecret. The parcels of rods being thus diftributed, that belonging to the tribe of Natches happened to remain in the custody of a female. This woman, either moved by her own feelings of compaffion, or by the commiferation expreffed by her female acquaintances in the view of the proposed scene of bloodshed, abstracted one day three or four of the rods, and thus anticipated the term of her tribe's proceeding to the execution of the general confpiracy. The confequence of this was, that the Natches were the only actors in this carnage; their distant affociates having ftill feveral rods remaining at the time when the former made the attack. An opportunity was thereby given to the colonists in thofe quarters to take measures for their defence, and for preventing a more extenfive execution of the defign.

It was by confpiracies fimilar to this that the Indians of the province of Macas, in the kingdom of Quito, deftroyed the opulent city of Logrogno, the colony of Guambaya, and its capital Sevilla del Oro; and that fo completely, that it is no longer known in what place these fettlements exifted, or where that abundance of gold was found from which the laft-mentioned city took the addition to its name. Like ravages have been committed upon l'Imperiale in Chili, the colonies of the Miffions of Chuncas, thofe of Darien in Terra Firma, and many other places, which have afforded fcenes of this barbarous ferocity. These confpiracies are always carried on in the fame manner. The fecret is inviolably kept, the actors affemble at the precife hour appointed, and every individual is animated with the fame fanguinary purpofes. The males that fall into their hands are put to death with every shocking ircumftance that can be fuggefted by a cool and determined cruelty.

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The females are carried off, and preferved as monuments of their vic tory, to be employed as their occafions require.

Nor can this odious cruelty and treachery, it is said, be justly ascribed to their fubjection to a foreign yoke, feeing the fame character, belongs equally to all the original inhabitants of this vaft continent, even those who have preferved their independence moft completely. Certain it is, continues he, that these people, with the most limited capacities for every thing elfe, difplay an aftonishing degree of penetration and fubtlety with respect to every object that involves treachery, bloodshed, and rapine. As to thefe, they feem to have been all educated at one school; and a fecret, referring to any fuch plan, no confideration on earth can extort from them.

Their understandings alfo have been reprefented as not lefs contemptible than their manners are grofs and brutal. Many nations are neither capable of forming an arrangement for futurity; nor did their folicitude or forefight extend fo far. They fet no value upon thofe things of which they were not in fome immediate want. In the evening, when a Carib is going to reft, no confideration will tempt him to fell his hammock; but in the morning he will part with it for the slightest trifle. At the clofe of winter, a North American, mindful of what he has fuffered from the cold, fets himself with vigour to prepare materials for erecting a comfortable hut to protect him against the inclemency of the fucceeding feafon: but as foon as the weather becomes mild, he abandons his work, and never thinks of it more till the return of the cold compels him to refume it.-In fhort, to be free from labour feems to be the utmost wish of an American. They will continue whole days ftretched in their hammocks, or feated on the earth, without changing their posture, raifing their eyes, or uttering a fingle word. They cannot compute the fucceffion of days nor of weeks. The different afpects of the moon alone engage their attention as a measure of time. Of the year they have no other conception than what is fuggefted to them by the alternate heat of fummer and cold of winter; nor have they the least idea of applying to this period the obvious computation of the months which it contains. When it is afked of any old man in Peru, even the most civilized, what age he is of? the only answer he can give is the number of caciques he has feen. It often happens, too, that they only recollect the most diftant of these princes in whofe time certain circumcumftances had happened peculiarly memorable, while of thofe that lived in a more recent period they have lost all remembrance.

The fame grofs ftupidity is alledged to be obfervable in those Indians who have retained their original liberty. They are never known to fix

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the dates of any events in their minds, or to trace the fucceffion of circumstances that have arifen from fuch events. Their imagination takes in only the prefent, and in that only what intimately concerns themfelves. Nor can discipline or instruction overcome this natural defect of apprehenfion. In fact, the fubjected Indians in Peru, who have a continual intercourfe with the Spaniards, who are furnished with curates perpetually occupied in giving them leffons of religion and morality, and who mix with all ranks of the civilized fociety established among them, are almoft as ftupid and barbarous as their countrymen who have had no fuch advantages. The Peruvians, while they lived under the government of their Incas, preferved the records of certain remarkable events. They had also a kind of regular government, described by the hiftorians of the conqueft of Peru. This government originated entirely from the attention and abilities of their princes, and from the regulations enacted by them for directing the conduct of their fubjects. This ancient degree of civilization among them gives ground to prefume, that their legiflators fprung from fome race more enlightened than the other tribes of Indians; a race of which no individual feems to remain in the present times.

Vanity and conceit are said to be blended with their ignorance and treachery. Notwithstanding all they fuffer from Europeans, they ftill, it is faid, confider themselves as a race of men far fuperior to their conquerors. This proud belief, arifing from their perverted ideas of excellence, is univerfal over the whole known continent of America. They do not think it poffible that any people can be fo intelligent as themfelves. When they are detected in any of their plots, it is their common obfervation, that the Spaniards, or Variacochas, want to be as knowing as they are. Those of Louisiana, and the countries adjacent, are equally vain of their fuperior understanding, confounding that quality with the cunning which they themselves conftantly practife. The whole object of their transactions is to over-reach those with whom they deal. Yet though faithlefs themselves, they never forgive the breach of promife on the part of others. While the Europeans feek their amity by prefents, they give themselves no concern to fecure a reciprocal friendship. Hence, probably, arifes their idea, that they must be a superior race of men, in ability and intelligence, to thofe who are at fuch pains to court their alliance and avert their enmity.

Their natural eloquence has also been decried. The free tribes of favages who enter into conventions with the Europeans, it is obferved, are accustomed to make long, pompous, and, according to their own notions, fublime harangues, but without any method or connection. The

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