y show their medals and other ornaments, and this is too
often all they have to mark them as Christians. We have read the
narratives of the Catholics, which detailed the most glowing and animating
views of success. I have had accounts, however, from travellers in these
regions, that have been over the Stony mountains into the great missionary
settlements of St. Peter and St. Paul. These travellers (and some of them
were professed Catholics) unite in affirming that the converts will escape
from the missions whenever it is in their power, fly into their native
deserts, and resume at once their old mode of life."

That the vast sums expended on missions should have produced so little
effect, we may consider lamentable, but it is lamentably true; for in
addition to the mass of evidence we have to that effect, from
disinterested white men, we have also the speeches and communications of
the Indians themselves. The celebrated Seneca chief, Saguyuwhaha (keeper
awake), better known in the United States by the name of Red-jacket, in a
letter communicated to Governor De Witt Clinton, at a treaty held at
Albany, says, "Our great father, the President, has recommended to our
young men to be industrious, to plough and to sow. This we have done; and
we are thankful for the advice, and for the means he has afforded us of
carrying it into effect. We are happier in consequence of it; _but another
thing recommended to us, has created great confusion among us, and is
making us a quarrelsome and divided people; and that is, the introduction
of preachers into our nation_. These black-coats contrive to get the
consent of some of the Indians to preach among us; and whenever this is
the case, confusion and disorder are sure to follow, and the encroachment
of the whites on our lands is the inevitable consequence.

"The governor must not think hard of me for speaking thus of the
preachers: I have observed their progress, and whenever I look back to
see what has taken place of old, I perceive that whenever they came among
the Indians, they were the forerunners of their dispersion; that they
always excited enmities and quarrels amongst them; that they introduced
the white people on their lands, by whom they were robbed and plundered of
their property; and that the Indians were sure to dwindle and decrease,
and be driven back, in proportion to the number of preachers that came
among them.

"Each nation has its own customs and its own religion. The