he words of
salvation, that more than 100 have already professed the Christian
faith, and are entirely reformed. A school is established in which
forty are taught by a young man named William Law, lately from
England.

This extensive reformation, has been effected and continued, by
means, which, to all human appearance, are altogether inadequate to
the accomplishment of such a work. A school at the Grand River
containing thirty scholars, one at the Credit forty, another at
Belleville upwards of thirty, and one lately established at Lake
Simcoe containing forty, and the missionaries who have been
employed amongst the Indians, together with the boarding of a
number of Indian boys, have only amounted to a little more than
L150 per annum. It is of the last importance to perpetuate and
extend the impressions which have already been made on the minds of
these Indians. The schools and religious instruction must be
continued; and the Gospel must be sent to tribes still in a heathen
state. But in doing this our energies are weakened, and the
progress of Christian labour much impeded by serious difficulties
which it is in the power of the government to remove. These
obstacles are principally confined to the Lake Simcoe Indians, the
most serious of which is occasioned by the traders, who are Roman
Catholic Frenchmen, employed to accompany the Indians in their
hunting for the purpose of procuring their furs, and who are
violently opposed to the reformation of the Indians. These traders
are about eighty in number, and have long been accustomed to
defraud and abuse the Indians in the most inhuman manner; they have
even laid violent hands on some of the converted Indians, and tried
to pour whiskey down their throats; but, thank God, have failed,
the Indians successfully resisted them. To shake the faith of some,
and deter others from reforming, they have threatened to strip them
naked in the winter, when they were at a distance of 100 miles from
the white settlement, and there leave them to freeze to death.

Col. Givens, when he was up issuing their presents about a month
ago, threatened the traders severely if they disturbed the Indians
in their devotions, or did any violence to their teachers. He also
suggested the idea of your Excellency issuing a procla