r years on the spoils
of poor Marshpee. In all but one thing, a reasonable law was
made for the Indians. That one thing was giving the Governor
power to appoint a Commissioner over the Indians for three
years. This was protested against by the friends of the
Indians, but in vain; and they were assured that this
appointment would be safe in the hands of the Governor. They
hoped so, and assented; but no sooner was the law passed, than
the enemies of the Indians induced the Governor to appoint
as the Commissioner, the person whom of all others they least
wished to have, a former Overseer, against whom there were
strong prejudices. The Indians remonstrated, and besought, but
in vain. The Commissioner was appointed, and to all appeals to
make a different appointment, a deaf ear has been turned. It
seems as if a deliberate design had been formed somewhere, to
defeat all the Legislature has done for the benefit of this
oppressed people.

The consequences have been precisely what the Indians and
their friends feared. Party divisions have grown up among
them, arising out of the want of confidence in their
Commissioner. He is found always on the side of their greatest
trouble; the minister who unjustly holds almost 500 acres of
the best land in the plantation, wrongfully given to him by an
unlawful and arbitrary act of the State, which, in violation
of the Constitution, appropriates the property of the Indians
to pay a man they dislike, for preaching a doctrine they will
not listen to, to a _white_ congregation, while the native
preachers, whom the Indians prefer, are left without a cent,
and deprived of the Meeting-house, built by English liberality
for the use of the Indians. The dissatisfaction has gone on
increasing. The accounts with the former Overseers remain
unadjusted to the satisfaction of the Selectmen. The Indians
have no adviser near them in whom they can confide; those who
hold the power, appear regardless of their wishes or their
welfare; no pains is taken by the authorities to punish the
wretches who continue to sell rum to those who will buy it;
and though the Indians are still struggling to advance in
improvement, every obstacle is thrown in their way that men
can devise, whose intent it is to get them back to a state of
vassalage, that they may get hold o