loved flock, the priests
were in despair; and the very first of their children to leave them, was
Christian. He had been, for some time, tired of the sober and
self-denying life which he was obliged to lead; and having gained all
the advantages the priests could give him, and knowing that his
profession of Protestantism would be hailed with the greatest joy by the
new missionaries, he went to them, and so succeeded in persuading them
of his sincerity, that he became as great a favourite as he had before
been with his old teachers. The Jesuits, soon after, finding themselves
almost entirely abandoned, gave up their mission and left the field to
their opponents. How Christian spent the next few years it is not easy
to tell. From the missionaries he learned to speak English perfectly
well, and was for a time master of a school, which they established for
the Indian children; but he lost their favour by the very same means by
which he gained it. He was insincere in everything, and as he frequently
visited both banks of the river, and was trusted to execute commissions
for them, he had many opportunities for deceiving them. At last, he left
the island altogether and joined a party of smugglers. With them he must
have remained some time; but he had left them also and returned to the
island, when Bailey came to the neighbourhood. They soon became
acquainted; and Bailey, finding how exactly Christian suited his
purpose, spared no pains to persuade him to join in collecting a
sufficient number of his people for the expedition. In this he
succeeded; but Christian was not to be imposed upon, and refused to stir
in the matter, without an engagement from Bailey to pay him a
considerable sum, on their return to Canada. Bailey was obliged to
yield, and the agreement was signed, with a fixed determination to avoid
keeping it, if possible. The other Indians were found without much
trouble among those on the island, who, in spite of their change of
teachers, were still in the same half-savage or more than half-savage
state. A bad hunting season had reduced them to great misery, and a
dozen of them were willing enough to undertake the voyage under the
guidance of Christian, whose education had given him a kind of
ascendancy to which he had no other claim, for the chieftainship, with
which Bailey chose to invest him, was purely imaginary. Christian was a
natural actor. Bailey understood perfectly what would suit the popular
idea of an India