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been their prisoner, and been released on his parole. In January, 1776, Washington recommended that he should be watched, and in June ordered his arrest. He was taken at South Amboy, where he professed to be on his way to offer his services to Congress. Washington sent him to that body, by whom he was directed to return to New Hampshire. He soon after openly joined the side of the crown, accepted a colonelcy, and raised a company called the Queen's Rangers. In the fall of 1776 he narrowly escaped being taken prisoner by Lord Stirling at Mamaroneck. He not long after went to England, and was succeeded in his command by Colonel Simcoe. He was proscribed and banished under the act of New Hampshire in 1778, and his subsequent history is unknown.*

Rogers published, in 1765, his Journals,† a spirited account of his early adventures as a ranger, and in the same year A Concise Account of North America. He attempted a bolder flight in the following year in his tragedy of Ponteach. The publication does not bear his name. It is a curious production, the peculiarities of which can be best displayed by analysis and extract.

The play of Ponteach opens with an interview between two Indian traders, one of whom discloses to his less experienced associate, the means by which the Indians are cheated in the commerce for furs. Indians enter with packs of skins which they part with for rum. They are defrauded by a juggle in the weight, and paid in well watered spirits. We have next Osborne and Honnyman, two English hunters, in possession of the stage, who expatiate on the advantages of shooting down well laden Indians, and taking possession of their packs without even the ceremony of bargains. The scene changes to an English fort, with Colonel Cockum and Captain Frisk, a pair of blusterers, who propose immediate extermination of the redskins. Ponteach enters with complaints that his men are cheated, but receives naught but abuse in return. We have next a scene in which the governors distribute the presents sent by the English King to the Indians, reserving half of the stock for themselves and retaining a similar share of the furs brought by the Indians in return. What would, says Catchum, one of these Governors, the King of England do with Wampum?

Or beaver skins d'ye think? He's not a hatter! Thus ends the first act. In the second, the Indian dramatis persona are brought forward. Ponteach summons his sons Philip and Chekitan, and his counsellor Tenesco, to deliberate on war with the English. He feels sure of the support

* Sabine's American Loyalists. Parkman's History of Pontiac, p. 144.

+ Journals of Major Robert Rogers, containing an account of the several excursions he made, under the generals who commanded on the continent of America during the late war. From which may be collected the most material circumstances of every campaign on that continent from the commencement to the conclusion of the war. London, 1765. 8vo. pp. 236.

A concise account of North America, containing a description of the several British colonies on that continent, including the islands of Newfoundland, Cape Breton, &c.; as to their situation, extent, climate, soil, produce, rise, government, present boundaries, and the number of inhabitants supposed to be in each. Also, of the interior or westerly parts of the country, upon the rivers St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, Christino, and the great lakes. To which is subjoined an account of the several nations and tribes of Indians residing in those parts, as to their customs, manners, government, numbers, &c., containing many useful and entertaining facts, never before treated of. By Major Robert Rogers. London, 1765. 8vo. pp. 264.

of the chiefs, with the exception of the "Mohawk
Emperor." Philip undertakes to secure his con-
currence, and Ponteach departs to consult his
Indian doctor and a French priest, as to the in-
terpretation of a dream which he relates. After
his exit Philip narrates his plan. It is to secure
possession of Monelia and Torax, the children of
Hendrick the Mohawk Emperor, and detain them
in case of his opposition; a plan by which he
proposes to serve his brother, who is in love with
Monelia, as well as his father. Chekitan joyfully
acquiesces and departs, leaving Philip to deliver a
soliloquy from which it appears that he hates his
brother. After a rhapsody on love he says:-
Once have I felt its poison in my heart,
When this same Chekitan a captive led
The fair Donanta from the Illinois;

I saw, admir'd, and lov'd the charming maid,
And as a favor ask'd her from his hands,
But he refus'd and sold her for a slave.
My love is dead, but my resentment lives,
And now's my time to let the flame break forth,
For while I pay this ancient debt of vengeance,
I'll serve my country, and advance myself.
He loves Monelia-Hendrick must be won-
Monelia and her brother both must bleed-
This is my vengeance on her lover's head-
Then I'll affirm, 'twas done by Englishmen-
And to gain credit both with friends and foes,
I'll wound myself, and say that I receiv'd it
By striving to assist them in the combat.
This will rouse Hendrick's wrath, and arm his
troops

To blood and vengeance on the common foe.
And further still my profit may extend;
My brother's rage will lead him into danger,
And, he cut off, the Empire's all my own.
Thus am I fix'd; my scheme of goodness laid,
And I'll effect it, tho' thro' blood I wade,
To desperate wounds apply a desperate cure,
And to tall structures lay foundations sure;
To fame and empire hence my course I bend,
And every step I take shall thither tend.

This closes the second act. In the third we have a scene between Ponteach and his ghostly counsellors. Both interpret the dream as an admonition to go to war, and the monarch and Indian depart, leaving the priest solus to take the audience into his confidence, which he does most unblushingly, in a curious passage, valuable as showing the perverted views entertained of the Roman Catholic missionaries by the English.

Next follows an Indian pow-wow, with long speeches, winding up with

THE WAR SONG.

To the Tune of "Over the Hills and Far Away," Sung by Tenesco, the Head Warrior. They all join in the Chorus, and dance while that is singing. in a circle round him; and during the Chorus the Music plays.

Where-e'er the sun displays his light,
Or moon is seen to shine by night,
Where-e'er the noisy rivers flow,
Or trees and grass and herbage grow.
Chorus.

Be't known that we this war begin
With proud insulting Englishmen;
The hatchet we have lifted high

[holding up their hatchets] And them we'll conquer or we'll die.

Chorus.

The edge is keen, the blade is bright, Nothing saves them but their flight; And then like heroes we'll pursue, Over the hills and valleys through.

Chorus.

They'll like frighted women quake,
When they behold a hissing snake;
Or like timorous deer away,

And leave both goods and arms a prey.
Chorus.

Pain'd with hunger, cold, or heat,
In haste they'll from our land retreat;
While we'll employ our scalping knives-
[Drawing and flourishing their scalping
knives]

Take off their sculls and spare their lives.
Chorus.

Or in their country they'll complain,
Nor ever dare return again;

Or if they should they'll rue the day,
And curse the guide that shew'd the way.
Chorus.

If fortune smiles, we'll not be long
Ere we return with dance and song,
But ah! if we should chance to die,
Dear wives and children do not cry.

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In heat and cold, thro' wet and dry,
Will we pursue, and they shall fly
To seas which they a refuge think
And there in wretched crowds they'll sink.

Chorus. Exeunt omnes singing.

Philip removes Chekitan from Monelia, by placing him at the head of troops. The piece proceeds in accordance with his programme, but justice is first wreaked on Honnyman, the trader, who is despatched on the stage.

In Act V., Scene 1, Monelia and Torax are also killed, and Philip discovered wounded. His story is believed, until Torax revives sufficiently to declare the truth, after he has left the scene. On his return he is confronted by the injured Chekitan. They fight. Philip is slain, and Chekitan kills himself. Tenesco bears the news of this extirpation of his offspring to Ponteach, and is soon followed by tidings of the complete rout of the Indian forces. The monarch closes the piece with the following lines, which possess force and beauty:

Ye fertile fields and glad'ning streams adieu, Ye fountains that have quench'd my scorching thirst,

Ye shades that hid the sunbeams from my head,

Ye groves and hills that yielded me the chace,
Ye flow'ry meads, and banks, and bending trees,
And thou, proud earth, made drunk with royal
blood,

I am no more your owner and your king.
But witness for me to your new base lords,
That my unconquer'd mind defies them still;
And though I fly, 'tis on the wings of hope.
Yes, I will hence where there's no British foe,
And wait a respite from this storm of woe;
Beget more sons, fresh troops collect and arm,
And other schemes of future greatness form;
Britons may boast, the gods may have their will,
Ponteach I am, and shall be Ponteach still.

JOSEPH GALLOWAY,

A LOYALIST refugee of the Revolution, was in the early part of his career an advocate to the popular interest in Pennsylvania. He was born in Maryland about 1730, came early to Philadel phia, took part with Franklin in opposition to the proprietary interest, and was a member of the first Continental Congress of 1774. His plan, in that body, of a "a proposed union between Great Britain and the colonies," was published in his pamphlet, A Candid Examination of the Mutual Claims of Great Britain and the Colonies. Two years later he joined the British troops in New Jersey, and entered with them when they took possession of Philadelphia. He was employed under Sir William Howe, and when the city was freed from the enemy went to New York, and shortly left for England, where he was examined before the House of Commons on American affairs. He published there a number of pamphlets: Letters to a Nobleman on the Conduct of the War in the Middle Colonies; A Letter to Lord Howe on his Naval Conduct; A Reply to the Observations of General Howe, with Thoughts on the Consequences of American Independence; Reflections on the American Rebellion.* At the close of his life he occupied himself with the study of the Prophecies. Two volumes, the fruits of these studies, were published in London in 1802 and 3, entitled, Brief Commentaries on such Parts of the Revelation and other Prophecies as immediately refer to the Present Times; in which the several Allegorical Types and Expressions of these Prophecies are translated into their literal meaning and applied to their appropriate events: containing a Summary of the Revelation, the Prophetic

Histories of the Beast of the Bottomless Pit; the Beast of the Earth; the Grand Confederacy or Babylon the Great; the Man of Sin; the Little Horn and Antichrist; and The Prophetic and Anticipated History of the Church of Rome; written and published six hundred years before the Rise of that Church. In which the Prophetic Figures and Allegories are literally explained; and her Tricks, Frauds, Blasphemies, and Dreadful Persecutions of the Church of Christ are foretold and described. Prefaced by an Address, dedicatory, expostulatory, and critical. He resided in England till his death in 1803.

John Adams describes him, in his Diary, as "sensible and learned, but a cold speaker."‡ Franklin had confidence in his patriotism, and left

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in his charge in America a valuable collection of his letter-books and papers, which were lost. His defection, from his well known talents, was severely commented upon by the friends of the Revolution. Stiles, in his manuscript Diary, of the date of October 1, 1775, says:- 66 - Mr. Galloway has also fallen from a great height into contempt and infamy; but he never was entirely confided in as a thorough son of liberty." Trumbull, too, tells the story in his M'Fingal, how "Galloway began by being a flaming patriot; but being disgusted at his own want of influence, and the greater popularity of others, he turned Tory, wrote against the measures of Congress, and absconded. Just before his escape, a trunk was put on board a vessel in the Delaware, to be delivered to Joseph Galloway, Esquire. On opening it, he found it contained only, as Shakespeare says―

A halter gratis, and leave to hang himself; while M'Fingal himself, in his royalist zeal, declaims against the popular party, in his left-handed manner

Did you not, in as vile and shallow way,
Fright our poor Philadelphian, Galloway,
Your Congress, when the loyal ribald
Belied, berated, and bescribbled?
What ropes and halters did you send,
Terrific emblems of his end,

Till, least he'd hang in more than effigy,
Fled in a fog the trembling refugee?*

Francis Hopkinson addressed Galloway a withering letter in 1778, when he was "in the seat of power in the city of Philadelphia," and the renegade Cunningham was made keeper of the provost prison, which was published at the time, and is preserved in his works:-"The temporary reward of iniquity," was his language, "you now hold will soon shrink from your grasp; and the favor of him on whom you now depend will cease, when your capacity to render the necessary services shall cease. This you know, and the reflection must even now throw a gloom of horror over your enjoyments, which the glittering tinsel of your new superintendency caunot illumine. Look back, and all is guilt-look forward, and all is dread. When the history of the present times shall be recorded, the names of Galloway and Cunningham will not be omitted; and posterity will wonder at the extreme obduracy of which the human heart is capable, and at the unmeasurable distance between a traitor and a WASHINGTON."

HECTOR ST. JOHN CREVECŒUR.

THE volume entitled Letters from an American Farmer, describing certain provincial Situations, Manners and Customs, and conveying some idea of the state of the People of North America: written to a Friend in England, by J. Hector St. John, a farmer in Pennsylvania, is one of the most pleasing and agreeable of the books respecting the early impressions made by the simple life of America upon intelligent and sensitive Europeans. With the exception of the Memoirs of an

* Trumbull's McFingall, canto iii.

+We have given the title of this book from the copy printel by Mathew Carey, in 1794.

American Lady, by Mrs. Grant of Laggan, and some passages in the travels of Brissot de Warville, we know of no more appreciative pictures of the idyllic life of America in the period just preceding the Revolution. It is all sentiment and susceptibility in the French school of St. Pierre and Chateaubriand, looking at homely American life in the Claude Lorraine glass of fanciful enthusiasm. The author prides himself upon his good feeling; and instead of hiding it in his breast, as an Englishman would do, brings it out into the sunlight to enjoy it, and writes it down to see how it will look upon paper. The book is written in the character of a plain country farmer, who, having entertained an accomplished scholar from the old world at his farm, is invited by this European friend, on his return home, to communicate to him his observations and reflections on life in America. The farmer, who is a man of acuteness and sensibility, is encouraged to undertake the task by the advice of the clergyman at Yale, who tells him, that letter-writing, like preaching, will soon become easy from practice; and by the good sense and kindliness of his Quaker wife, who is ever ready to cheer him, in her kind, homely way, in whatever he undertakes. There is an introduction, a chapter on "the situation, feelings, and pleasures of an American farmer;" a discussion of the question, "What is an American?" a long · account of Nantucket and its manners, and of Martha's Vineyard; a description of Charleston, and a notice of the naturalist Bartram.

The author of these letters, the contents of which we have thus indicated, was a French gentleman, born in 1731, of a noble family, at Caen in Normandy, who, at the age of sixteen, was sent by his parents to England to complete his education, and passed six years there, acquiring, among other things, a passion for emigration to the British colonies. In 1754 he embarked for America, and settled upon a farm near New York. He married the daughter of a merchant. In the war, his lands were overrun by the British troops. Affairs of importance, in 1780, requiring his presence in England, he obtained permission of the British commander to cross the lines, and embark with one of his sons from New York. A French fleet on the coast detained the vessel in the harbor, when he was arrested as a spy in the place, and kept in prison for three months. He was released on examination, and sailed for Dublin, where he arrived in December. He travelled to London, and finally reached the paternal roof, in France, April 2, 1781, after an absence of twentyseven years. He became a member of the Agricultural Society of Caen, and introduced the cultivation of the potato into his district. Letters from an American Farmer were first written in English: a language which had become more familiar to him than his native tongue, and published in 1782, in London.* He translated

His

His Letters from an American Farmer first made their appearance in London, in 1782. Written thus originally in English, they were translated by the author into French on his return to his native country, where they appeared, with some additions, in 1787, with the title, Lettres d'un Cultivateur Ameriain, adressées à Wm. Sn, Esq., depuis l'année 1770, jusqu'à 1786. Par M. St. John de Crevecœur. Troduites de l'Anglais. There was an earlier French edition in 1784.

them into French, in which language two editions | appeared in Paris, in 1784 and 1787. His glowing and extravagant pictures of American life induced many families to emigrate to the borders of the Ohio, where they suffered the extremities of famine and fever. His friend, the author LizayMarnesia, who trusted to the representations of the Scioto company, was one of the disappointed.

In 1783 Crevecoeur returned to New York as French consul. He found his house burnt, his wife dead, and his children in the hands of a stranger, Mr. Flower, a merchant of Boston, who had been led to take charge of them by the kindness Crevecœur had shown to prisoners abroad. He was honored by Washington, and retained his office till 1793, when he returned to his native country, residing first at a country-seat near Rouen, and afterwards at Sarcelles. He employed his leisure in writing a book of his travels and observations in America, which he published in three volumes, in Paris, in 1801: Voyage dans la Haute Pensylvante et dans l'Etat de New York, par un Membre Adoptif de la Nation Oneida. Traduit et publié par l'auteur des Lettres d'un Cultivateur Americain. The translation is an affectation, purporting to be from a manuscript cast ashore from a wreck on the Elbe. The work is dedicated to Washington in highly complimentary terms, recapitulating the public events of his life, of which the translator had been an observer. It contains much interesting matter relating to the Indians, the internal improvements of the country, agriculture, and a curious conversation on the first peopling and the antiquities of the country with Franklin, whom St. John accompanied in 1787 to Lancaster, when the sage laid the foundation-stone of his German college at that place.

Crevecœur died at Sarcelles, November, 1813, leaving behind him a high reputation for worth and agreeable personal qualities.

An interesting notice of this writer is published in one of the notes to Darlington's biographical sketch of John Bartram, from the recollections of Samuel Breck, of Philadelphia, who saw St. John in Paris in 1787. He describes him as in the midst of Parisian society, where the man and his book were much admired. He made the return voyage home with him, and gives this record of his impressions of his character, which is fully in unison with the manner of his book:-"St. John was by nature, by education, and by his writings a philanthropist; a man of serene temper, and pure benevolence. The milk of human kindness circulated in every vein. Of manners unassuming; prompt to serve, slow to censure; intelligent, beloved, and highly worthy of the esteem and respect he everywhere received. His society on shipboard was a treasure."*

Hazlitt was a great admirer of the freshness and enthusiasm of the American Farmer. In one of the charming letters addressed to him, Charles Lamb interpolates an exclamation, doubtless from Bridget Elia, "O tell Hazlitt not to forget to send me the American Farmer. I dare say it is not so good as he fancies; but a book's a book."t

* Memorials of Bartram and Marshall, by William Darling. ton, p. 44.

+ Charles Lamb to Hazlitt, November 18, 1805.

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Hazlitt kept the Farmer in memory, for in 1829, in an article on American Literature in the Edinburgh Review, he bestows all his warmth upon him. "The American Farmer's Letters," says he, "give us a tolerable idea how American scenery and manners may be treated with a lively poetic interest. The pictures are sometimes highly colored, but they are vivid and strikingly characteristic. He gives not only the objects but the feelings of a new country. He describes himself as placing his little boy in a chair, screwed to the plough which he guides (to inhale the scent of the fresh furrows), while his wife sits knitting under a tree at one end of the field. He recounts a battle between two snakes with a Homeric gravity and exuberance of style. He paints the dazzling, almost invisible flutter of the humming-bird's wing: Mr. Moore's airiest verse is not more light and evanescent. His account of the manners of the Nantucket people, their frank simplicity, and festive rejoicings after the perils and hardships of the whale-fishing, is a true and heartfelt picture.

... The most interesting part of the author's work is that where he describes the first indications of the breaking-out of the American warthe distant murmur of the tempest-the threatened inroad of the Indians, like an inundation, on the peaceful back-settlements: his complaints and his auguries are fearful."* Hazlitt did not know the author to be a Frenchman, or he would have accounted, in his brilliant way, for the constitutional vivacity of the book, and its peculiar treatment of an American subject.

AMERICAN FARMER'S PLEASURES.

The instant I enter on my own land, the bright idea of property, of exclusive right, of independence, exalts my mind. Precious soil, I say to myself, by what singular custom of law is it, that thou wast made to constitute the riches of the freeholder? What should we American farmers be, without the distinct possession of that soil? It feeds, it clothes us; from it we draw even a great exuberancy, our best meat, our richest drink, the very honey of our bees comes from this privileged spot. No wonder we should thus cherish its possession, no wonder that so many Europeans who have never been able to say, that such portion of land was theirs, cross the Atlantic to realize that happiness. This formerly rude soil has been converted by my father into a pleasant farm, and in return it has established all our rights; on it is founded our rank, our freedom, our power as citizens, our importance as inhabitants of such a district. These images, I must confess, I always behold with pleasure, and extend them as far as my imagination can reach: for this is what may be called the true and the only philosophy of an American farmer. Pray do not laugh in thus seeing an artless countryman tracing himself through the simple modifications of his life; remember that you have required it; therefore with candour, though with diffidence, I endeavour to follow the thread of my feelings; but I cannot tell you all Often when I plough my low ground, I place my little boy on a chair, which screws to the beam of the plough-its motion, and that of the horses please him; he is perfectly happy, and begins to chat. As I lean over the handle, various are the thoughts which crowd into my mind. I am now doing for him, I say, what my father formerly did

Edinburgh Review, October, 1829, p. 130.

for me; may God enable him to live, that he may perform the same operations, for the same purposes, when I am worn out and old! I relieve his mother of some trouble, while I have him with me; the odoriferous furrow exhilarates his spirits, and seems to do the child a great deal of good, for he looks more blooming since I have adopted that practice; can more pleasure, more dignity be added to that primary occupation? The father thus ploughing with his child, and to feed his family, is inferior only to the emperor of China, ploughing as an example to his kingdom.

SONG AND INSTINCT.

The pleasure I receive from the warblings of the birds in the spring, is superior to my poor description, as the continual succession of their tuneful notes, is for ever new to me. I generally rise from bed about that indistinct interval, which, properly speaking, is neither night nor day; for this is the moment of the most universal vocal choir. Who can listen unmoved, to the sweet love tales of our robins, told from tree to tree? or to the shrill cat birds? The sublime accents of the thrush from on high, always retard my steps, that I may listen to the delicious music. The variegated appearances of the dew drops, as they hang to the different objects, must present, even to a clownish imagination, the most voluptuous ideas. The astonishing art which all birds display in the construction of their nests, ill provided as we may suppose them with proper tools, their neatness, their convenience, always make me ashamed of the slovenliness of our houses; their love to their dame, their incessant careful attention, and the peculiar songs they address to her, while she tediously incubates their eggs, remind me of my duty, could I ever forget it. Their affection to their helpless little ones, is a lively precept; and in short, the whole economy of what we proudly call the brute creation, is admirable in every circumstance; and vain man, though adorned with the additional gift of reason, might learn from the perfection of instinct, how to regulate the follies, and how to temper the errors which this second gift often makes him commit. This is a subject, on which I have often bestowed the most serious thoughts; I have often blushed within myself, and been greatly astonished, when I have compared the unerring path they all follow, all just, all proper, all wise, up to the necessary degree of perfection, with the coarse, the imperfect systems of men, not merely as governors and kings, but as masters, as husbands, as fathers, as citizens. But this is a sanctuary in which an ignorant farmer must not presume to enter.

THE HUMMING BIRD.

One anecdote I must relate, the circumstances of which are as true as they are singular. One of my constant walks, when I am at leisure, is in my lowlands, where I have the pleasure of seeing my cattle, horses, and colts. Exuberant grass replenishes all my fields, the best representative of our wealth; in the middle of that track, I have cut a ditch eight feet wide, the banks of which nature adorns every spring with the wild salendine, and other flowering weeds, which, on these luxuriant grounds, shoot up to a great height. Over this ditch I have erected a bridge, capable of bearing a loaded waggon; on each side I carefully sow every year some grains of hemp, which rise to the height of fifteen feet, so strong and so full of limbs, as to resemble young trees: I once ascended one of them four feet above the ground. These produce natural arbours, rendered often still more compact by the assistance of

an annual creeping plant, which we call a vine, that never fails to entwine itself among their branches, and always produces a very desirable shade. From this simple grove I have amused myself an hundred times in observing the great number of humming birds with which our country abounds: the wild blossoms every where attract the attention of these birds, which, like bees, subsist by suction. From this retreat I distinctly watch them in all their various attitudes; but their flight is so rapid that you cannot distinguish the motion of their wings. On this little bird, nature has profusely lavished her most splendid colours; the most perfect azure, the most beautiful gold, the most dazzling red, are for ever in contrast, and help to embellish the plumes of his majestic head. The richest pallet of the most luxuriant painter, could never invent any thing to be compared to the variegated tints with which this insect bird is arrayed. Its bill is as long and as sharp as a coarse sewing needle; like the bee, nature has taught it to find out, in the calix of flowers and blossoms, those mellifluous particles that serve it for sufficient food; and yet it seems to leave them un. touched, undeprived of anything that our eyes can possibly distinguish. When it feeds, it appears as if immoveable, though continually on the wing; and sometimes, from what motives I know not, it will tear and lacerate flowers into a hundred pieces: for, strange to tell, they are the most irascible of the feathered tribe. Where do passions find room in so diminutive a body? They often fight with the fury of lions, until one of the combatants falls a sacrifice and dies. When fatigued, it has often perched within a few feet of me, and on such favourable op. portunities I have surveyed it with the most minute attention. Its little eyes appear like diamonds, reflecting light on every side: most elegantly finished in all parts, it is a miniature work of our great parent; who seems to have formed it the smallest, and at the same time the most beautiful of the winged species.

A JOURNEY WITH FRANKLIN.

In the year 1787 I accompanied the venerable Franklin, at that time Governor of Pennsylvania, on a journey to Lancaster, where he had been invited to lay the corner-stone of a college, which he had founded there for the Germans. In the evening of the day of the ceremony, we were talking of the dif ferent nations which inhabit the continent, of their aversion to agriculture, &c., when one of the principal inhabitants of the city said to him:

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Governor, where do you think these nations came from? Do you consider them aborigines? Have you heard of the ancient fortifications and tombs which have been recently discovered in the west?"

"Those who inhabit the two Floridas," he replied, "and lower Louisiana, say, that they came from the mountains of Mexico. I should be inclined to believe it. If we may judge of the Esquimaux of the coasts of Labrador (the most savage men known) by the fairness of their complexion, the color of their eyes, and their enormous beards, they are originally from the north of Europe, whence they came at a very remote period. As to the other nations of this continent, it seems difficult to imagine from what stock they can be descended. To assign them an Asiatic and Tartar origin, to assert that they crossed Behring Straits, and spread themselves over this continent, shocks all our notions of probability. How, indeed, can we conceive that men almost

* Translated from St. John's Voyage dans la Haute Pennsylvanie, ch. ii.

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