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• 1 media/West--The Treaty of Penn with the Indians.jpg 2017-10-27T13:22:20-07:00 Letter XII: Distresses of a Frontier-Man 58 image_header 2024-02-28T11:32:28-08:00 NB: This Letter has not yet been emended and is currently in the early stages of being annotated.
  
  LETTER XII.
  DISTRESSES OF A FRONTIER MAN.
  
  I WISH for a change of place; the hour is come at last that I must fly from my house and abandon my farm! But, what course shall I steer, inclosed as I am? The climate, best adapted to my present situation and humour, would be the polar regions, where six months day and six months night divide the dull year: nay, a simple Aurora Borealis would suffice me, and greatly refresh my eyes, fatigued now by so many disagreeable objects. The severity of those climates, that great gloom, where melancholy dwells, would be perfectly analagous to the turn of my mind. Oh! could I remove my plantation to the shores of the Oby, willingly would I dwell in the hut of a Samoyede; with cheerfulness would I go and bury myself in the cavern of a Laplander. Could I but carry my family along with me, I would winter at Pello or Tobolsky, in order to enjoy the peace and innocence of that country. But, let me arrive under the pole, or reach the antipodes, I never can leave behind me the remembrance of the dreadful scenes to which I have been witness; therefore never can I be happy! Happy! why would I mention that sweet, that enchanting, word? Once happiness was our portion; now it is gone from us, and I am afraid not to be enjoyed again by the present generation. Which ever way I look, nothing but the most frightful precipices present themselves to my view, in which hundreds of my friends and acquaintances have already perished: of all animals, that live on the surface of this planet, what is man when no longer connected with society; or when he finds himself surrounded by a convulsed and a half-dissolved one? He cannot live in solitude, he must belong to some community, bound by some ties, however imperfect. Men mutually support and add to the boldness and confidence of each other; the weakness of each is strengthened by the force of the whole. I had never, before these calamitous times, formed any such ideas; I lived on, laboured, and prospered, without having ever studied on what the security of my life and the foundation of my prosperity were established. I perceived them just as they left me. Never was a situation so singularly terrible as mine, in every possible respect; as a member of an extensive society, as a citizen of an inferior division of the same society, as a husband, as a father, as a man who exquisitely feels for the miseries of others as well as for his own! But, alas! so much is every thing now subverted among us, that the very word misery, with which we were hardly acquainted before, no longer conveys the same ideas; or rather, tired with feeling for the miseries of others, every one feels now for himself alone. When I consider myself as connected in all these characters, as bound by so many cords, all uniting in my heart, I am seised with a fever of the mind, I am transported beyond that degree of calmness which is necessary to delineate our thoughts. I feel as if my reason wanted to leave me, as if it would burst its poor weak tenement: again I try to compose myself, I grow cool, and, preconceiving the dreadful loss, I endeavour to retain the useful guest.
           You know the position of our settlement; I need not therefore describe it. To the west it is inclosed by a chain of mountains, reaching to ----; to the east, the country is as yet but thinly inhabited; we are almost insulated, and the houses are at a considerable distance from each other. From the mountains we have but too much reason to expect our dreadful enemy; the wilderness is a harbour where it is impossible to find them. It is a door through which they can enter our country whenever they please; and, as they seem determined to destroy the whole chain of frontiers, our fate cannot be far distant: from Lake Champlain, almost all has been conflagrated one after another. What renders these incursions still more terrible is, that they most commonly take place in the dead of the night. We never go to our fields but we are with an involuntary fear, which lessens our strength and weakens our labour. No other subject of conversation intervenes between the different accounts, which spread through the country, of successive acts of devastation; and these, told in chimney-corners, swell themselves, in our affrighted imaginations, into the most terrific ideas! We never sit down, either to dinner or supper, but the least noise immediately spreads a general alarm, and prevents us from enjoying the comfort of our meals. The very appetite, proceeding from labour and peace of mind, is gone: we eat just enough to keep us alive: our sleep is disturbed by the most frightful dreams: sometimes I start awake, as if the great hour of danger was come; at other times the howling of our dogs seems to announce the arrival of our enemy: we leap out of bed and run to arms: my poor wife, with panting bosom and silent tears, takes leave of me, as if we were to see each other no more; she snatches the youngest children from their beds, who, suddenly awakened, increase, by their innocent questions, the horror of the dreadful moment. She tries to hide them in the cellar, as if our cellar was inaccessible to the fire. I place all my servants at the windows and myself at the door, where I have determined to perish. Fear industriously increases every sound; we all listen; each communicates to the other his ideas and conjectures. We remain thus sometimes for whole hours, our hearts and our minds racked by the most anxious suspense: what a dreadful situation, a thousand times worse than that of a soldier engaged in the midst of the most severe conflict! Sometimes, feeling the spontaneous courage of a man, I seem to wish for the decisive minute; the next instant a message from my wife, sent by one of the children, puzzling me beside with their little questions, unmans me: away goes my courage, and I descend again into the deepest despondency. At last, finding that it was a false alarm, we return once more to our beds; but what good can the kind sleep of nature do to us when interrupted by such scenes! Securely placed as you are, you can have no idea of our agitations but by hear-say: no relation can be equal to what we suffer and to what we feel. Every morning my youngest children are sure to have frightful dreams to relate: in vain I exert my authority to keep them silent; it is not in my power; and these images of their disturbed imagination, instead of being frivolously looked upon as in the days of our happiness, are, on the contrary, considered as warnings and sure prognostics of our future fate. I am not a superstitious man, but, since our misfortunes, I am grown more timid, and less disposed to treat the doctrine of omens with contempt.
           Though these evils have been gradual, yet they do not become habitual like other incidental evils. The nearer I view the end of this catastrophe, the more I shudder. But why should I trouble you with such unconnected accounts? Men, secure and out of danger, are soon fatigued with mournful details. Can you enter with me into fellowship with all these afflictive sensations? Have you a tear ready to shed over the approaching ruin of a once opulent and substantial family? Read this, I pray, with the eyes of sympathy; with a tender sorrow pity the lot of those whom you once called your friends; who were once surrounded with plenty, ease, and perfect security; but who now expect every night to be their last, and who are as wretched as criminals under an impending sentence of the law!
           As a member of a large society, which extends to many parts of the world, my connection with it is too distant to be as strong as that which binds me to the inferior division, in the midst of which I live. I am told that the great nation, of which we are a part, is just, wise, and free, beyond any other on earth, within its own insular boundaries, but not always so to its distant conquests. I shall not repeat all I have heard, because I cannot believe half of it. As a citizen of a smaller society, I find that any kind of opposition to its now-prevailing sentiments immediately begets hatred. How easily do men pass from loving to hating and cursing one another! I am a lover of peace, what must I do? I am divided between the respect I feel for the ancient connection and the fear of innovations, with the consequence of which I am not well acquainted, as they are embraced by my own countrymen. I am conscious that I was happy before this unfortunate revolution. I feel that I am no longer so; therefore I regret the change. This is the only mode of reasoning adapted to persons in my situation. If I attach myself to the mother-country, which is 3000 miles from me, I become what is called an enemy to my own region; if I follow the rest of my countrymen I become opposed to our ancient masters: both extremes appear equally dangerous to a person of so little weight and consequence as I am, whose energy and example are of no avail. As to the argument, on which the dispute is founded, I know little about it. Much has been said and written on both sides, but who has a judgement capacious and clear enough to decide? The great moving principles which actuate both parties are much hidden from vulgar eyes like mine: nothing but the plausible and the probable are offered to our contemplation. The innocent class are always the victims of the few: they are, in all countries and at all times, the inferior agents, on which the popular phantom is erected; they clamour, and must toil, and bleed, and are always sure of meeting with oppression and rebuke. It is for the sake of the great leaders, on both sides, that so much blood must be spilt; that of the people is counted as nothing. Great events are not achieved for us, though it is by us that they are principally accomplished; by the arms, the sweat, the lives, of the people. Books tell me so much that they inform me of nothing. Sophistry, the bane of freemen, launches forth in all her deceiving attire! After all, most men reason from passions; and shall such an ignorant individual as I am decide, and say this side is right, that side is wrong? Sentiment and feeling are the only guides I know. Alas, how should I unravel an argument in which reason herself has given way to brutality and bloodshed! What then must I do? I ask the wisest lawyers, the ablest casuists, the warmest patriots, for I mean honestly. Great Source of wisdom! Inspire me with light sufficient to guide my benighted steps out of this intricate maze! Shall I discard all my ancient principles, shall I renounce that name, that nation, which I held once so respectable? I feel the powerful attraction. The sentiments they inspired grew with my earliest knowledge, and were grafted upon the first rudiments of my education. On the other hand, shall I arm myself against that country where I first drew breath, against the play-mates of my youth, my bosom-friends, my acquaintance? — the idea makes me shudder! Must I be called a patricide, a traitor, a villain; lose the esteem of all those whom I love to preserve my own; be shunned like a rattlesnake, or be pointed at like a bear? I have neither heroism nor magnanimity enough to make so great a sacrifice. Here I am tied, I am fastened, by numerous strings, nor do I repine at the pressure they cause. Ignorant as I am, I can pervade the utmost extent of the calamities which have already overtaken our poor afflicted country. I can see the great and accumulated ruin yet extending itself as far as the theatre of war has reached: I hear the groans of thousands of families now ruined and desolated by our aggressors. I cannot count the multitude of orphans this war has made, nor ascertain the immensity of blood we have
  lost. Some have asked whether it was a crime to resist, to repel, some parts of this evil. Others have asserted, that a resistance so general makes pardon unattainable and repentance useless, and dividing the crime among so many renders it imperceptible. What one party calls meritorious, the other denominates flagitious. These opinions vary, contract, or expand, like the events of the war on which they are founded. What can an insignificant man do in the midst of these jarring contradictory parties, equally hostile to persons situated as I am? And, after all, who will be the real guilty?—Those most certainly who fail of success. Our fate, the fate of thousands, is then necessarily involved in the dark wheel of fortune. Why then so many useless reasonings? We are the sport of fate. Farewel, education, principles, love of our country, farewell; all are become useless to the generality of us. He, who governs himself according to what he calls his principles, may be punished, either by one party or the other, for those very principles. He who proceeds without principle, as chance timidity, or self-preservation, directs, will not perhaps fare better, but he will be less blamed. What are we in the great scale of events, we poor defenceless frontier-inhabitants? What is it to the gazing world whether we breathe or whether we die? whatever virtue, whatever merit and disinterestedness, we may exhibit in our secluded retreats, of what avail? We are like the pismires destroyed by the plough, whose destruction prevents not the future crop. Self-preservation, therefore, the rule of nature, seems to be the bed rule of conduct. What good can we do by vain resistance, by useless efforts? The cool, the distant, spectator, placed in safety, may arraign me for ingratitude, may bring forth the principles of Solon or Montesquieu; he may look on me as wilfully guilty; he may call me by the most opprobrious names. Secure from personal danger, his warm imagination, undisturbed by the least agitation of the heart, will expatiate freely on this grand question, and will consider this extended field but as exhibiting the double scene of attack and defence. To him the object becomes abstracted; the intermediate glares, the perspective distance, and a variety of opinions unimpaired by affections, present to his mind but one set of ideas. Here he proclaims the high guilt of the one, and there the right of the other: but let him come and reside with us one single month; let him pass with us through all the successive hours of necessary toil, terror, and affright; let him watch with us, his musket in his hand, through tedious, sleepless, nights, his imagination furrowed by the keen chissel of every passion; let his wife and his children become exposed to the most dreadful hazards of death; let the existence of his property depend on a single spark, blown by the breath of an enemy; let him tremble with us in our fields, shudder at the rustling of every leaf; let his heart, the seat of the most affecting passions, be powerfully wrung by hearing the melancholy end of his relations and friends; let him trace on the map the progress of these desolations; let his alarmed imagination predict to him the night, the dreadful night, when it may be his turn to perish as so many have perished before! observe then, whether the man will not get the better of the citizen, whether his political maxims will not vanish! Yes, he will cease to glow so warmly with the glory of the metropolis; all his wishes will be turned toward the preservation of his family. Oh! were he situated where I am; were his house perpetually filled, as mine is, with miserable victims just escaped from the flames and the scalping-knife, telling of barbarities and murders, that make human nature tremble! his situation would suspend every political reflection, and expel every abstract idea. My heart is full, and involuntarily takes hold of any notion whence it can receive ideal ease or relief. I am informed that the king has the most numerous, as well as the fairest, progeny of children, of any potentate now in the world: he may be a great king, but he must feel as we common mortals in the good wishes he forms for their lives and prosperity. His mind, no doubt, often springs forward on the wings of anticipation, and contemplates us as happily settled in the world. If a poor frontier-inhabitant may be allowed to suppose this great personage, the first in our system, to be exposed, but for one hour, to the exquisite pangs we so often feel, would not the preservation of so numerous a family engross all his thoughts; would not the ideas of dominion, and other felicities attendant on royalty, all vanish in the hour of danger? The regal character, however sacred, would be superseded by the stronger, because more natural, one of man and father. Oh! did he but know circumstances of this horrid war, I am sure he would put a stop to that long destruction of parents and children. I am sure that, while he turned his ears to state-policy, he would attentively listen also to the dictates of Nature, that great parent; for, as a good king, he, no doubt, wishes to create, to spare, and to protect, as she does. Must I then, in order to be called a faithful subject, coolly and philosophically say, it is necessary, for the good of Britain, that my childrens brains should be dashed against the walls of the house in which they were reared; that my wife should be stabbed and scalped before my face; that I should be either murdered or captivated; or that, for greater expedition, we should all be locked up and burnt to ashes as the family of the B----n was? Must I with meekness wait for that last pitch of desolation, and receive, with perfect resignation, so hard a fate from ruffians, acting at such a distance from the eyes of any superior; monsters, left to the wild impulses of the wildest nature? Could the lions of Africa be transported here and let loose, they would, no doubt, kill us in order to prey upon our carcasses; but their appetites would not require so many victims. Shall I wait to be punished with death, or else to be stripped of all food and raiment, reduced to despair without redress and without hope? Shall those, who may escape, see every thing they hold dear destroyed and gone? Shall those few survivors, lurking in some obscure corner, deplore in vain the fate of their families, mourn over parents, either captivated, butchered, or burnt; roam among our wilds, and wait for death at the foot of some tree, without a murmur, or without a sigh, for the good of the cause? No, it is impossible! so astonishing a sacrifice is not to be expected from human nature; it must belong to beings of an inferior or superior order, actuated by less or by more refined principles. Even those great personages who are so far elevated above the common ranks of men, those, I mean, who wield and direct so many thunders; those who have let loose against us these demons of war; could they be transported here, and metamorphosed into simple planters as we are, they would, from being the arbiters of human destiny, sink into miserable victims; they would feel and exclaim as we do, and be as much at a loss what line of conduct to prosecute. Do you well comprehend the difficulties of our situation? If we stay, we are sure to perish at one time or another; no vigilance on our part can save us: if we retire, we know not where to go; every house is filled with refugees as wretched as ourselves: and, if we remove, we become beggars. The property of farmers is not like that of merchants; and absolute poverty is worse than death. If we take up arms, to defend ourselves; we are dominated rebels; should we not be rebels against nature, could we be shamefully passive? Shall we then, like martyrs, glory in an allegiance, now become useless, and voluntarily expose ourselves to a species of desolation, which, though it ruin us entirely, yet enriches not our ancient masters? By this inflexible and sullen attachment, we shall be despised by our countrymen, and destroyed by our ancient friends; whatever we may say, whatever merit we may claim, will not shelter us from those indiscriminate blows, given by hired banditti, animated by all those passions which urge men to shed the blood of others; how bitter the thought! On the contrary, blows, received by the hands of those from whom we expected protection, extinguish ancient respect and urge us to self-defence—perhaps to revenge; this is the path which Nature herself points out as well to the civilized as to the uncivilized. The Creator of hearts has himself stamped on them those propensities at their first formation; and must we then daily receive this treatment from a power once so loved? The fox flies or deceives the hounds that pursue him; the bear, when overtaken, boldly resists and attacks them; the hen, the very timid hen, fights for the preservation of her chicken, nor does she decline to attack, and to meet on the wing, even the swift kite. Shall man then, provided both with instinct and reason, unmoved, unconcerned, and passive, see his subsistence consumed, and his progeny either ravished from him or murdered? Shall fictitious reason extinguish the unerring impulse of instinct? No; my former respect, my former attachment, vanishes with my safety; that respect and attachment were purchased by protection, and it has ceased. Could not the great nation we belong to have accomplished her designs by means of her numerous armies, by means of those fleets which cover the ocean? Must those who are masters of two-thirds of the trade of the world; who have in their hands the power which almighty gold can give; who possess a species of wealth that increases with their desires; must, they establish their conquest with our insignificant innocent blood!
           Must I then bid farewel to Britain, to that renowned country? Must I renounce a name so ancient and so venerable? Alas! she herself, that once-indulgent parent, forces me to take up arms against her. She herself first inspired the most unhappy citizens of our remote districts with the thoughts of shedding the blood of those whom they used to call by the name of friends and brethren. That great nation, which now convulses the world; which hardly knows the extent of her Indian kingdoms; which looks toward the universal monarchy of trade, of industry, of riches, of power: why must she strew our poor frontiers with the carcasses of her friends, with the wrecks of our insignificant villages, in which there is no gold? When, oppressed by painful recollection, I revolve all these scattered ideas in my mind; when I contemplate my situation, and the thousand streams of evil with which I am surrounded; when I descend into the particular tendency even of the remedy I have proposed, I am convulsed — convulsed sometimes to that degree as to be tempted to exclaim — Why has the Master of the world permitted so much indiscriminate evil throughout every part of this poor planet, at all times, and among all kinds of people? It ought surely to be the punishment of the wicked only. I bring that cup to my lips, of which I must soon taste, and shudder at its bitterness. What then is life, I ask myself, is it a gracious gift? No, it is too bitter; a gift means something valuable conferred, but life appears to be a mere accident, and of the worst kind: we are born to be victims of diseases and passions, of mischances and death: better not to be than to be miserable. — Thus impiously I roam, I fly from one erratic thought to another, and my mind, irritated by these acrimonious reflections, is ready sometimes to lead me to dangerous extremes of violence. When I recollect that I am a father and a husband, the return of these endearing ideas strikes deep into my heart. Alas! they once made it glow with pleasure and with every ravishing exultation; but now they fill it with sorrow. At other times, my wife industriously rouses me out of these dreadful meditations, and soothes me by all the reasoning she is mistress of; but her endeavours only serve to make me more miserable, by reflecting that she must share with me all these calamities, the bare apprehensions of which, I am afraid, will subvert her reason. Nor can I, with patience, think that a beloved wife, my faithful helpmate throughout all my rural schemes, the principal hand which as assisted me in rearing the prosperous fabric of ease and independence I lately possessed, as well as my children, those tenants of my heart, should daily and nightly be exposed to such a cruel fate. Self-preservation is above all political precepts and rules, and even superior to the dearest opinions of our minds; a reasonable accommodation of ourselves, to the various exigencies of the times in which we live, is the most irresistible precept. To this great evil I must seek some sort of remedy adapted to remove or to palliate it. Situated as I am, what steps should I take that will neither injure nor insult any of the parties, and at the same time save my family from that certain destruction which awaits it if I remain here much longer? Could I insure them bread, safety, and subsistence; not the bread of idleness, but that earned by proper labour as heretofore; could this be accomplished by the sacrifice of my life, I would willingly give it up. I attest before heaven, that it is only for these I would wish to live and toil; for these whom I have brought into this miserable existence. I resemble, methinks, one of the stones of a ruined arch, still retaining that pristine form which anciently fitted the place I occupied, but the centre is tumbled down; I can be nothing until I am replaced, either in the former circle, or in some stronger one. I see one on a smaller scale, and at a considerable distance, but it is within my power to reach it; and, since I have ceased to consider myself as a member of the ancient state, now convulsed, I willingly descend into an inferior one. I will revert into a state approaching nearer to that of nature, unencumbered either with voluminous laws or contradictory codes, often galling the very necks of those whom they protect, and, at the same time, sufficiently remote from the brutality of unconnected savage nature. Do you, my friend, perceive the path I have found out? It is that which leads to the tenants of the great—village of —, where, far removed from the accursed neighbourhood of Europeans, its inhabitants live with more ease, decency, and peace, than you imagine; who, though governed by no laws, yet find, in uncontaminated simple manners, all that laws can afford. Their system is sufficiently complete to answer all the primary wants of man, and to constitute him a social being, such as he ought to be in the great forest of nature. There it is that I have resolved at any rate to transport myself and family: an eccentric thought, as you may say, thus to cut asunder all former connections, and to form new ones with a people whom nature has stamped with such different characteristics! But, as the happiness of my family is the only object of my wishes, I care very little where we are, or where we go, provided that we are safe and all united together. Our new calamities, being shared equally by all, will become lighter; our mutual affection for each other will, in this great transmutation, become the strongest link of our new society, will afford us every joy we can receive on a foreign soil, and preserve us in unity, as the gravity and coherency of matter prevent the world from dissolution. Blame me not; it would be cruel in you; it would beside be entirely useless; for, when you receive this, we shall be on the wing. When we think all hopes are gone, must we, like poor pusillanimous wretches, despair and die? No. I perceive before me a few resources, though through many dangers, which I will explain to you hereafter. It is not, believe me, a disappointed ambition which leads me to take this step; it is the bitterness of my situation, it is the impossibility of knowing what better measure to adopt. My education fitted me for nothing more than the most simple occupation of life: I am but a feller of trees, a cultivator of lands, the most honourable title an American can have. I have no exploits, no discoveries, no inventions, to boast of; I have cleared about 370 acres of land, some for the plough, some for the scythe; and this has occupied many years of my life. I have never possessed, or wish to possess, any thing more than what could be earned or produced by the united industry of my family. I wanted nothing more than to live at home independent and tranquil, and to teach my children how to provide the means of a future ample subsistence, founded on labour, like that of their father. This is the career of life I have pursued, and that which I had marked out for them, and for which they seemed to be so well calculated by their inclinations and by their constitutions. But, now these pleasing expectations are gone, we must abandon the accumulated industry of nineteen years, we must fly we hardly know whither, through the most impervious paths, and become members of a new and strange community. O virtue! Is this all the reward thou hast to confer on thy votaries? Either thou art only a chimera, or thou art a timid useless being; soon affrighted, when ambition, thy great adversary, dictates, when are re-echoes the dreadful sounds, and poor helpless individuals are mowed down by its cruel reapers like useless grass. I have at all times generously relieved what few distressed people I have met with; I have encouraged the industrious; my house has always been opened to travellers; I have not lost a month in illness since I have been a man; I have caused upwards of a hundred and twenty families to remove hither. Many of them I have led by the hand in the days of their first trial; distant as I am from any places of worship or school of education, I have been the pastor of my family, and the teacher of many of my neighbours. I have taught them, as well as I could, the gratitude they owe to God, the Father of harvests; and their duties to man: I have been an useful subject; ever obedient to the laws, ever vigilant to see them respected and observed. My wife hath faithfully followed the same line within her province; no woman was ever a better economist, or spun or wove better linen; yet we must perish, perish like wild beasts, included within a ring of fire!
           Yes, I will cheerfully embrace that resource, it is a holy inspiration: by night and by day it presents itself to my mind: I have carefully revolved the scheme; I have considered, in all its future effects and tendencies, the new mode of living we must pursue, without salt, without spices, without linen, and with little other clothing; the art of hunting we must acquire, the new manners we must adopt, the new language we must speak; the dangers attending the education of my children we must endure. These changes may appear more terrific at a distance, perhaps, than when grown familiar by practice: what is it to us, whether we eat well made pastry, or pounded àlagrichés; well-roasted beef, or smoked venison; cabbages, or squashes? Whether we wear neat homespun, or good beaver: whether we sleep on featherbeds, or on bear-skins? The difference is not worth attending to. The difficulty of the language, the fear of some great intoxication among the Indians; finally, the apprehension left my younger children should be caught by that singular charm, so dangerous at their tender years, are the only considerations that startle me. By what power does it come to pass, that children, who have been adopted when young among these people, can never be prevailed on to re-adopt European manners? Many an anxious parent have I seen last war, who, at the return of the peace, went to the Indian villages where they knew their children had been carried in captivity; when, to their inexpressible sorrow, they found them so perfectly Indianifed, that many knew them no longer; and those, whose more advanced ages permitted them to recollect their fathers and mothers, absolutely refused to follow them, and ran to their adoptive parents for protection against the effusions of love their unhappy real parents lavished on them. Incredible as this may appear, I have heard it asserted in a thousand instances, among persons of credit. In the village of—, where I purpose to go, there lived, about fifteen years ago, an Englishman and a Swede, whose history would appear moving had I time to relate it. They were grown to the age of men when they were taken; they happily escaped the great punishment of war-captives, and were obliged to marry the Squaws who had saved their lives by adoption. By the force of habit, they become at last thoroughly naturalised to this wild course of life. While I was there, their friends sent them a considerable sum of money to ransom themselves with. The Indians, their old masters, gave them their choice, and, without requiring any confederation, told them, that they had been long as free as themselves. They chose to remain; and the reasons they gave me would greatly surprise you: the most perfect freedom, the ease of living, the absence of those cares and corroding solicitudes which so often prevail with us; the peculiar goodness of the soil they cultivated, for they did not trust altogether to hunting; all these, and many more motives, which I have forgot, made them prefer that life, of which we entertain such dreadful opinions. It cannot be, therefore, so bad as we generally conceive it to be; there must be in their social bond something singularly captivating, and far superior to any thing to be boasted of among us; for thousands of Europeans are Indians, and we have no examples of even one of those Aborigines having from choice become Europeans! There must be something more congenial to our native dispositions than the fictitious society in which we live; or else why should children, and even grown persons, become in a short time so invincibly attached to it? There must be something very bewitching in their manners, something very indelible, and marked by the very hands of nature. For, take a young Indian lad, give him the bed: education you possibly can, load him with your bounty, with presents, nay with riches; yet he will secretly long for his native woods, which you would imagine he must have long since forgot; and, on the first opportunity he can possibly find, you will see him voluntarily leave behind all you have given him, and return with inexpressible joy to lie on the mats of his fathers. Mr. —, some years ago, received from a good old Indian, who died in his house, a young lad of nine years of age, his grandson. He kindly educated him with his children, and bestowed on him the same care and attention in respect to the memory of his venerable grandfather, who was a worthy man. He intended to give him a genteel trade; but in the spring season, when all the family went to the woods to make their maple sugar, he suddenly disappeared; and it was not until seventeen months after that his benefactor heard he had reached the village of Bald-Eagle, where he still dwelt. Let us say what we will of them, of their inferior organs, of their want of bread, &c. they are as stout and well-made as the Europeans. Without temples, without priests, without kings, and without laws, they are in many instances superior to us; and the proofs of what I advance are, that they live without care, deep without inquietude, take life as it comes, bearing all its asperities with unparalleled patience, and die without any kind of apprehension for what they have done or for what they expect to meet with hereafter. What system of philosophy can give us so many necessary qualifications for happiness? They most certainly are much more closely connected with nature than we are; they are her immediate children; the inhabitants of the woods are her undented offspring; those of the plains are her degenerated breed, far, very far, removed from her primitive laws, from her original design. It is therefore resolved on. I will either die in the attempt or succeed; better perish all together in one fatal hour than to suffer what we daily endure. I do not expect to enjoy, in the village of —, an uninterrupted happiness; it cannot be our lot let us live where we will; I am not founding my future prosperity on golden dreams. Place mankind where you will, they must always have adverse circumstances to struggle with; from nature, accidents, constitution; from seasons; from that great combination of mischances which perpetually leads us to diseases, to poverty, &c. Who knows but I may meet, in this new situation, some accident, whence may spring up new sources of unexpected prosperity? Who can be presumptuous enough to predict all the good? Who can foresee all the evils which strew the paths of our lives? But, after all, I cannot but recollect what sacrifice I am going to make, what amputation I am going to suffer, what transition I am going to experience. Pardon my repetitions, my wild, my trifling, reflections, they proceed from the agitations of my mind and the fulness of my heart; the action of thus retracing them seems to lighten the burthen, and to exhilarate my spirits; this is, besides, the lad letter you will receive from me; I would fain tell you all, though I hardly know how. Oh! in the hours, in the moments of my greatest anguish, could I intuitively represent to you that variety of thought which crouds on my mind, you would have reason to be surprized, and to doubt of their possibility. Shall we ever meet again? If we should, where will it be? On the wild shores of —. If it be my doom to end my days there, I will greatly improve them; and perhaps make room for a few more families, who will choose to retire from the fury of a storm, the agitated billows of which will yet roar for many years on our extended shores. Perhaps I may repossess my house, if it be not burnt down; but how will my improvements look? why, half-defaced, bearing the strong marks of abandonment, and of the ravages of war. However, at present I give every thing over for lost; I will bid a long farewel to what I leave behind. If ever I repossess it, I shall receive it as a gift, as a reward for my conduct and fortitude. Do not imagine, however, that I am a stoic; by no means: I must, on the contrary, confess to you, that I feel the keenest regret at abandoning a house which I have in some measure reared with my own hands. Yes, perhaps I may never revisit those fields which I have cleared, those trees which I have planted, those meadows which, in my youth, were a hideous wilderness, now converted by my industry into rich pastures and pleasant lawns. If in Europe it is praise-worthy to be attached to paternal inheritances, how much more natural, how much more powerful, must the tie be with us, who, if I may be permitted the expression, are the founders, the creators, of our own farms. When I see my table surrounded with my blooming offspring, all united in the bonds of the strongest affection, it kindles in my paternal heart a variety of tumultuous sentiments, which none but a father and a husband in my situation can feel or describe. Perhaps I may see my wife, my children, often distressed, involuntarily recalling to their minds the ease and abundance which they enjoyed under the paternal roof. Perhaps I may see them want that bread which I now leave behind; overtaken by diseases and penury, rendered more bitter by the recollection of former days of opulence and plenty. Perhaps I may be assailed on every side by unforeseen accidents, which I shall not be able to prevent or to alleviate. Can I contemplate such images without the most unutterable emotions? My fate is determined; but I have not determined it, you may assure yourself, without having undergone the most painful conflicts of a variety of passions; — interest, love of ease, disappointed views, and pleasing expectations frustrated; — I shuddered at the review! Would to God I was master of the stoical tranquillity of that magnanimous sect; oh! that I were possessed of those sublime lessons which Apollonius of Chalcis gave to the emperor Antoninus! I could then with much more propriety guide the helm of my little bark, which is soon to be freighted with all that I possess most dear on earth, through this stormy passage to a safe harbour; and, when there, become, to my fellow-passengers, a surer guide, a brighter example, a pattern more worthy of imitation, throughout all the new scenes they must pass and the new career they must traverse. I have observed, notwithstanding, the means hitherto made use of to arm the principal nations against our frontiers: Yet they have not, they will not take up the hatchet against a people who have done them no harm. The passions, necessary to urge these people to war, cannot be roused, they cannot feel the flings of vengeance, the third of which alone can impel them to shed blood: far superior in their motives of action to the Europeans, who, for sixpence per day, may be engaged to shed that of any people on earth. They know nothing of the nature of our disputes, they have no ideas of such revolutions as this; a civil division of a village, or tribe, are events which have never been recorded in their traditions: many of them know very well that they have too long been the dupes and the victims of both parties; foolishly arming for our sakes, sometimes against each other, sometimes against our white enemies. They consider us as born on the same land, and, though they have no reasons to love us, yet they seem carefully to avoid entering into this quarrel, from whatever motives. I am speaking of those nations with which I am best acquainted, a few hundreds of the worst kind, mixed with whites worse than themselves, are now hired, by Great-Britain, to perpetrate those dreadful incursions. In my youth I traded with the —, under the conduct of my uncle, and always traded justly and equitably; some of them remember it to this day. Happily their village is far removed from the dangerous neighbourhood of the whites. I sent a man, last spring, to it, who understands the woods extremely well, and who speaks their language: he is just returned, after several weeks absence, and has brought me, as I had flattered myself, a string of thirty purple wampum, as a token that their honest chief will spare us half of his wig-wham until we have time to erect one. He has sent me word that they have land in plenty, of which they are not so covetous as the whites; that we may plant for ourselves, and that, in the mean time, he will procure us some corn and meat; that fish is plenty in the waters of —, and that the village, to which he had laid open my proposals, have no objection to our becoming dwellers with them. I have not yet communicated these glad tidings to my wife, nor do I know how to do it. I tremble lest she should refuse to follow me; left the sudden idea of this removal, rushing on her mind, might be too powerful. I flatter myself I shall be able to accomplish it, and to prevail on her; I fear nothing but the effects of her strong attachment to her relations. I would willingly let you know how I purpose to remove my family to so great a distance, but it would become unintelligible to you, because you are not acquainted with the geographical situation of this part of the country. Suffice it for you to know, that, with about twenty-three miles land-carriage, I am enabled to perform the rest by water; and, when once afloat, I care not whether it be two or three hundred miles. I propose to send all our provisions, furniture, and clothes, to my wife’s father, who approves of the scheme, and to reserve nothing but a few necessary articles of covering, trusting to the furs of the chace for our future apparel. Were we imprudently to incumber ourselves too much with baggage, we should never reach to the waters of — , which is the most dangerous, as well as the most difficult, part of our journey, and yet but a trifle in point of distance. I intend to say to my negroes, — In the name of God, be free, my honest lads; I thank you for your past services; go, from henceforth, and work for yourselves; look on me as your old friend and fellow labourer; be sober, frugal, and industrious, and you need not fear earning a comfortable subsistence. —  Lest my countrymen should think that I am gone to join the incendiaries of our frontiers, I intend to write a letter to Mr — , to inform him of our retreat, and of the reasons that have urged me to it. The man, whom I sent to — village, is to accompany us also, and a very useful companion he will be on every account.
           You may therefore, by means of anticipation, behold me under the wigwham; I am so well acquainted with the principal manners of these people that I entertain not the least apprehension from them. I rely more securely on their strong hospitality than on the witnessed compacts of many Europeans. As soon as possible after my arrival, I design to build myself a wigwham, after the same manner and size with the rest, in order to avoid being thought singular or giving occasion for any railleries; though these people are seldom guilty of such European follies. I shall erect it hard by the lands which they propose to allot me, and will endeavour that my wife, my children, and myself, may be adopted soon after our arrival.
  Thus, becoming truly inhabitants of their village, we shall immediately occupy that rank, within the pale of their society, which will afford us all the amends we can possibly expect for the loss we have met with by the convulsions of our own. According to their customs we shall likewise receive names from them, by which we shall always be known. My youngest children shall learn to swim, and to shoot with the bow, that they may acquire such talents as will necessarily raise them into some degree of esteem among the Indian lads of their own age; the rest of us must hunt with the hunters. I have been for several years an expert marksman; but I dread lest the imperceptible charm of Indian education may seise my younger children, and give them such a propensity to that mode of life as may preclude their returning to the manners and customs of their parents. I have but one remedy to prevent this great evil; and that is, to employ them in the labour of the fields as much as I can; I have even resolved to make their daily subsistence depend altogether on it. As long as we keep ourselves busy in tilling the earth, there is no fear of any of us becoming wild; it is the chase and the food it procures that have this strange effect. Excuse a simile; — those hogs which range in the woods, and to whom grain is given once a week, preserve their former degree of tameness, but if, on the contrary, they are reduced to live on ground-nuts, and on what they can get, they soon become wild and fierce. For my part, I can plough, sow, and hunt, as occasion may require; but my wife, deprived of wool and flax, will have no room for industry; what is she then to do? like the other squaws, she must cook for us the nasaump, the ninchickè, and such other preparations of corn as are customary among these people. She must learn to bake squashes and pompions under the allies; to slice and smoke the meat of our own killing, in order to preserve it; she must cheerfully adopt the manners and customs of her neighbours, in their dress, deportment, conduct, and internal economy, in all respects. Surely, if we can have fortitude enough to quit all we have, to remove so far, and to associate with people so different from us, these necessary compliances are but subordinate parts of the scheme. The change of garments, when those they carry with them are worne out, will not be the least of my wife’s and daughter’s concerns: though I am in hopes that self-love will invent some sort of reparation. Perhaps you would not believe that there are in the woods looking-glasses and paint of every colour; and that the inhabitants take as much pains to adorn their faces and their bodies, to fix their bracelets of silver, and plait their hair, as our forefathers, the Picts, used to do in the time of the Romans. Not that I would wish to see either my wife or daughter adopt those savage customs; we can live in great peace and harmony with them without descending to every article; the interruption of trade hath, I hope, suspended this mode of dress. My wife understands inoculation perfectly well; she inoculated all our children one after another, and has successfully performed that operation on several scores of people, who, scattered here and there through our woods, were too far removed from all medical assistance. If we can persuade but one family to submit to it, and it succeeds, we shall then be as happy as our situation will admit of; it will raise her into some degree of consideration: for, whoever is useful, in any society, will always be respected. If we are so fortunate as to carry one family through a disorder, which is the plague among these people, I trust to the force of example, we shall then become truly necessary, valued, and beloved: we, indeed, owe every kind office to a society of men who so readily offer to admit us into their social partnership, and to extend to my family the shelter of their village, the strength of their adoption, and even the dignity of their names. God grant us a prosperous beginning, we may then hope to be of more service to them than even missionaries who have been sent to preach to them a gospel they cannot understand.
           As to religion, our mode of worship will not suffer much by this removal from a cultivated country into the bosom of the woods; for it cannot be much simpler than that which we have followed here these many years: and I will, with as much care as I can, redouble my attention, and, twice a week, retrace to them the great outlines of their duty to God and to man. I will read and expound to them some part of the decalogue; which is the method I have pursued ever since I married.
           Half a dozen of acres on the shores of —, the soil of which I know well, will yield us a great abundance of all we want; I will make it a point to give the overplus to such Indians as shall be most unfortunate in their huntings; I will persuade them, if I can, to till a little more land than they do, and not to trust so much to the produce of the chase. To encourage them still farther, I will give a quirn to every six families; I have built many for our poor back settlers, it being often the want of mills which prevents them from raising grain. As I am a carpenter, I can build my own plough and can be of great service to many of them; my example alone may rouse the industry of some, and serve to direct others in their labours. The difficulties of the language will soon be removed; in my evening conversations, I will endeavour to make them regulate the trade of their village in such a manner as that those pests of the continent, those Indian traders, may not come within a certain distance; and there they shall be obliged to transact their business before the old people. I am in hopes that the constant respect which is paid to the elders, and shame, may prevent the young hunters from infringing this regulation. The son of — will soon be made acquainted with our schemes, and I trust that the power of love, and the strong attachment he professes for my daughter, may bring him along with us: he will make an excellent hunter; young and vigorous, he will equal in dexterity the stoutest man in the village. Had it not been for this fortunate circumstance, there would have been the greatest danger; for, however I respect the simple, the inoffensive, society of these people in their villages, the strongest prejudices would make me abhor any alliance with them in blood: disagreeable, no doubt, to nature’s intentions, which have strongly divided us by so many indelible characters. In the days of our sickness, we shall have recourse to their medical knowledge, which is well calculated for the simple diseases to which they are subject. Thus shall we metamorphose ourselves, from neat, decent, opulent, planters, surrounded with every conveniency which our external labour and internal industry could give, into a still simpler people, divested of every thing beside hope, food, and the raiment of the woods: abandoning the large framed house, to dwell under the wigwham; and the feather-bed, to lie on the mat or bear’s skin. There shall we sleep undisturbed by frightful dreams and apprehensions; rest and peace of mind will make us the most ample amends for what we shall leave behind. These blessings cannot be purchased too dear; too long have we been deprived of them! I would cheerfully go even to the Mississippi to find that repose to which we have been so long strangers. My heart, sometimes, seems tired with beating, it wants rest like any eye-lids, which feel oppressed with so many watchings.
           These are the component parts of my scheme, the success of each of which appears feasible; whence I flatter myself with the probable success of the whole. Still the danger of Indian education returns to my mind, and alarms me much; then again I contrast it with the education of the times; both appear to be equally pregnant with evils. Reason points out the necessity of choosing the least dangerous, which I must consider as the only good within my reach; I persuade myself that industry and labour will be a sovereign preservative against the dangers of the former; but I consider, at the same time, that the share of labour and industry which is intended to procure but a simple subsistence, with hardly any superfluity, cannot have the same restrictive effects on our minds as when we tilled the earth on a more extensive scale. The surplus could be then realized into solid wealth, and, at the same time that his realization rewarded our past labours, it engrossed and fixed the attention of the labourer, and cherished in his mind the hope of future riches. In order to supply this great deficiency of industrious motives, and to hold out to them a real object to prevent the fatal consequences of this sort of apathy, I will keep an exact account of all that shall be gathered, and give each of them a regular credit for the amount of it to be paid them, in real property at the return of peace. Thus, though seemingly toiling for bare subsistence on a foreign land, they shall entertain the pleasing prospect of seeing the sum of their labours one day realised, either in legacies or gifts, equal, if not superior, to it. The yearly expence of the clothes, which they would not have received at home, and of which they will then be deprived, shall likewise be added to their credit; thus I flatter myself that they will more cheerfully wear the blanket, the matchcoat, and the mockassins. Whatever success they may meet with in hunting or fishing shall be only considered as recreation and pastime; I shall thereby prevent them from eliminating their skill in the chase as an important and necessary accomplishment. I mean to say to them “You shall hunt and fish merely to shew your new companions that you are not inferior to them in point of sagacity and dexterity.” Were I to send them to such schools as the interior parts of our settlements afford at present, what can they learn there? How could I support them there? What must become of me? Am I to proceed on my voyage and leave them? That I never could submit to! Instead of the perpetual discordant noise of disputes, so common among us, instead of those scolding scenes, frequent in every house, they will observe nothing but silence at home and abroad: a singular appearance of peace and concord are the first characteristics which strike you in the villages of these people. Nothing can be more pleasing, nothing surprises an European so much, as the silence and harmony which prevail among them, and in each family; except when disturbed by that accursed spirit given them by the wood-rangers in exchange for their furs. If my children learn nothing of geometrical rules, the use of the compass, or of the Latin tongue, they will learn and practice sobriety, for rum can no longer be sent to these people; they will learn that modesty and diffidence for which the young Indians are so remarkable; they will consider labour as the most essential qualification, hunting as the second. They will prepare themselves in the prosecution of our small rural schemes, carried on for the benefit of our little community, to extend them farther, when each shall receive his inheritance. Their tender minds will cease to be agitated by perpetual alarms; to be make cowards by continual terrors; if they acquire, in the village of_____, such an awkwardness of deportment and appearance as would render them ridiculous in our gay capitals, they will imbibe, I hope, a confirmed taste for that simplicity, which so well becomes the cultivators of the land. If I cannot teach them any of those professions which sometimes embellish and support our society, I will shew them how to hew wood, how to construct their own ploughs, and, with a few tools, how to supply themselves with every necessary implement both in the house and in the field. If they are hereafter obliged to confess that they belong to no one particular church, I shall have the consolation of teaching them that great, that primary, worship, which is the foundation of all others. If they do not fear God according to the tenets of any one seminary, they shall learn to worship him upon the broad scale of nature. The Supreme Being does not reside in peculiar churches or communities; he is equally the great Maniton of the woods and of the plains; and, even in the gloom, the obscurity, of those very woods, his justice may be as well understood and felt as in the most sumptuous temples. Each worship with us hath, you know its peculiar political tendency; there it has none, but to inspire gratitude and truth: their tender minds shall receive no other idea of the Supreme Being than that of the Father of all men, who requires nothing more of us than what tends to make each other happy. We shall say with them; Soungwanèha, èsa caurounkyawga nughwonshauza neattèwek nèsalanga. –Our father, be thy will done in earth as it is in great heaven.
           Perhaps my imagination gilds too strongly this distant prospect; yet it appears founded on so few and simple principles, that there is not the same probability of adverse incidents as in more complex schemes. These vague rambling contemplations, which I here faithfully retrace, carry me sometimes to a great distance; I am lost in the anticipation of the various circumstances attending this proposed metamorphosis! Many unforeseen accidents may doubtless arise. Alas! it is easier for me, in all the glow of paternal anxiety, reclined on my bed, to form the theory of my future conduct, than to reduce my schemes into practice. But, when once secluded from the great society, to which we now belong, we shall unite closer together, and there will be less room for jealousies or contentions. As I intend my children neither for the law nor the church, but for the cultivation of the land, I wish them no literary accomplishments; I pray heaven that they may be one day nothing more than expert scholars in husbandry: this is the science which made our continent to flourish more rapidly than any other. Were they to grow up where I am now situated, even admitting that we were in safety, two of them are verging toward that period of their lives when they must necessarily take up the musket, and learn, in that new school, all the vices which are so common in armies. Great God! close my eyes for ever rather than I should live to see this calamity! May they rather become inhabitants of the woods.
           Thus then, in the village of_____, in the bosom of that peace it has enjoyed ever since I have known it, connected with mild, hospitable, people, strangers to our political disputes, and having none among themselves; on the shores of a fine river, surrounded with woods, abounding with game; our little society, united in perfect harmony with the new-adoptive one in which we shall be incorporated, shall rest, I hope, from all fatigues, from all apprehensions, from our perfect terrors, and from our long watchings. Not a word of politics shall cloud our simple conversation; tired either with the chase or the labours of the field, we shall sleep on our mats without any distressing want, having learnt to retrench ever superfluous one: we shall have but two prayers to make to the Supreme Being; that he may shed his fertilizing dew on our little crops, and that he will be pleased to restore peace to our unhappy country. These shall be the only subject of our nightly prayers and of our daily ejaculations: and, if the labour, the industry, the frugality, the union, of men, can be an agreeable offering to him, we shall not fail to receive his paternal blessings. There I shall contemplate Nature in her most wild and ample extent; I shall carefully study a species of society of which I have, at present, but very imperfect ideas; I will endeavor to occupy, with propriety, that place which will enable me to enjoy the few and sufficient benefits it confers. The solitary and unconnected mode of life I have lived in my youth must fit me for this trial; I am not the first who has attempted it: Europeans did not, it is true, carry to the wilderness numerous families; they went there as mere speculators; I, as a man seeking a refuge from the desolation of war. They went there to study the manners of the aborigines; I, to conform to them, whatever they are; some went as visitors, as travellers; I, as a sojourner, as a fellow hunter and labourer, go determined industriously to work up among them such a system of happiness as may be adequate to my future situation, and may be a sufficient compensation for all my fatigues and for the misfortunes I have bourne; I have always found it at home, I may hope likewise to find it under the humble room of my wigwham.
           Supreme Being! if, among the immense variety of planets, inhabited by thy creative power, thy paternal and omnipotent care deigns to extend to all the individuals they contain; if it be not beneath thy infinite dignity to cast thy eyes on us wretched mortals; if my future felicity is not contrary to the necessary effects of those secret causes which thou hast appointed; receive the supplications of a man, to whom, in thy kindness, thou hast given a wife and an offspring: view us all with benignity; sanctify this strong conflict of regrets, wishes, and other natural passions; guide our steps through these unknown paths, and bless our future mode of life. If it is good and well-meant, it must proceed from thee; thou knowest, O Lord, our enterprise contains neither fraud, nor malice, nor revenge. Bestow on me that energy of conduct, now become so necessary, that it may be in my power to carry the young family thou hast given me, through this great trial, with safety and in thy peace. Inspire me with such intentions and such rules of conduct as may be most acceptable to thee. Preserve, O God, preserve, companion of my bosom, the best gift thou hast given me: endue her with courage and strength sufficient to accomplish this perilous journey. Bless the children of our love, those portions of our hearts: I implore thy divine assistance; speak to their tender minds, and inspire them with the love of that virtue which alone can serve as the basis of their conduct in this world and of their happiness with thee. Restore peace and concord to our poor afflicted country; assuage the fierce storm which has so long ravaged it! Permit, I beseech thee, O Father of nature, that our ancient virtues and our industry may not be totally lost: and that, as a reward for the great toils we have made on this new land, we may be restored to our ancient tranquillity, and enabled to fill it with successive generations, that will constantly thank thee for the ample subsistence thou hast given them!
           The unreserved manner in which I have written must give you a convincing proof of that friendship and esteem, of which I am sure you never yet doubted. As members of the same society, as mutually bound by the ties of affection and old acquaintance, you certainly cannot avoid feeling for my distresses; you cannot avoid mourning with me over that load of physical and moral evil with which we are all oppressed. My own share of it I often overlook when I minutely contemplate all that hath befallen our native country!
   
   
• 1 media/Whaling.jpeg 2022-04-02T07:29:59-07:00 Letter VI: Description of the Island of Martha's Vineyard; and of the Whale-Fishery 51 image_header 2024-02-28T11:25:25-08:00 NB: This Letter has not yet been emended and is currently in the early stages of being annotated.
  
  LETTER VI.
  DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLAND OF MARTHA’S VINEYARD; AND OF THE WHALE-FISHERY.
  
  THIS island is twenty miles in length, and from seven to eight miles in breadth, as you may see by the annexed map.* It lies nine miles from the continent, and, with the Elizabeth Islands, forms one of the counties of Masssachuset’s Bay, known by the name of Duke’s County. Those latter, which are six in number, are about nine miles distant from the Vineyard, and are all famous for excellent dairies. A good ferry is established between Edgar Town and Falmouth on the main, the distance being nine miles. Martha’s Vineyard is divided into three townships, viz. Edgar, Chilmark, and Tisbury; the number of inhabitants is computed at about 4000, 300 of which are Indians. Edgar is the bed sea-port, and the shire-town, and, as its soil is light and sandy, many of its inhabitants follow the example of the people of Nantucket. The town of Chilmark has no good harbour, but the land is excellent and no way inferior to any on the continent: it contains excellent pastures, convenient brooks for mills, stone for fencing, &c. The town of Tisbury is remarkable for the excellence of its timber, and has a harbour where the water is deep enough for ships of the line. The flock of the island is 20000 sheep, 2000 neat cattle, besides horses and goats; they have also some deer, and abundance of sea-fowls. This has been from the beginning, and is to this day, the principal seminary of the Indians; they live on that part of the island which is called Chapoquidick, and were very early christianised by the respectable family of the Mahews, the first proprietors of it. The first settler of that name conveyed by will to a favourite daughter a certain part of it, on which there grew many wild vines; thence it was called Martha’s Vineyard, after her name, which, in process of time, extended to the whole island. The posterity of the ancient aborigines remain here, to this day, on lands which their forefathers reserved for themselves, and which are religiously kept from any incroachments. The New-England people are remarkable for the honesty with which they have fulfilled, all over that province, those ancient covenants which in many others have been disregarded, to the scandal of those governments. The Indians there appeared, by the decency of their manners, their industry, and neatness, to be wholly Europeans, and no way inferior to many of the inhabitants. Like them they are sober, laborious, and religious, which are the principal characteristics of the four New-England provinces. They often go, like the young men of the Vineyard, to Nantucket, and hire themselves for whalemen or fishermen; and indeed their skill and dexterity in all sea affairs is nothing inferior to that of the whites. The latter are divided into two classes; the first occupy the land, which they till with admirable care and knowledge; the second, who are possessed of none, apply themselves to the sea, the general resource of mankind in this part of the world. This island therefore, like Nantucket, is become a great nursery, which supplies with pilots and seamen the numerous coasters with which this extended part of America abounds. Go where you will, from Nova Scotia to the Mississippi, you will find almost every where some natives of these two islands employed in seafaring occupations. Their climate is so favourable to population, that marriage is the object of every man’s earliest wish; and it is a blessing so easily obtained, that great numbers are obliged to quit their native land and go to some other countries in quest of subsistence. The inhabitants are all Presbyterians, which is the established religion of Massachusets; and here let me remember, with gratitude, the hospitable treatment I received from B. Norton, Esq. the colonel of the island, as well as from Dr. Mahew, the lineal descendant of the first proprietor. Here are to be found the most expert pilots, either for the great bay, their sound, Nantucket shoals, or the different ports in their neighbourhood. In stormy weather they are always at sea, looking out for vessels, which they board with singular dexterity, and hardly ever fail to bring safe to their intended harbour. Gay-Head, the western point of this island, abounds with a variety of ochres of different colours, with which the inhabitants paint their houses.
           The vessels most proper for whale fishing are brigs of about 150 tons burthen, particularly when they are intended for distant latitudes; they always man them with thirteen hands, in order that they may row two whale-boats; the crews of which must necessary consist of six, four at the oars, one standing on the bows with the harpoon, and the other at the helm. It is also necessary that there should be two of these boats, that, if one should be destroyed in attacking the whale, the other, which is never engaged at the same time, may be ready to save the hands. Five of the thirteen are always Indians; the last of the complement remains on-board to steer the vessel during the action. They have no wages; each draws a certain established share in partnership with the proprietor of the vessel; by which economy they are all proportionably concerned in the success of the enterprise, and all equally alert and vigilant. None of these whale-men ever exceed the age of forty: they look on those who are past that period not to be possessed of all that vigour and agility which so adventurous a business requires. Indeed if you attentively consider the immense disproportion between the object assailed and the assailants; if you think on the diminutive size and weakness of their frail vehicle; if you recollect the treachery of the element on which this scene is transacted; the sudden and unforeseen accidents of winds, &c. you will readily acknowledge, that it must require the most consummate exertion of all the strength, agility, and judgement, of which the bodies and the minds of men are capable, to undertake these adventurous encounters.
           As soon as they arrive in those latitudes where they expect to meet with whales, a man is sent up to the mast-head; if he sees one, he immediately cries out AWAITE PAWANA, here is a whale; they all remain still and silent until he repeats PAWANA, a whale, when in less than six minutes the two boats are launched, filled with every implement necessary for the attack. They row toward the whale with astonishing velocity; and, as the Indians early became their fellow-labourers in this new warfare, you can easily conceive how the Nattick expressions became familiar on-board the whale-boats. Formerly it often happened that whale-vessels were manned with none but Indians and the matter; recollect also that the Nantucket people understand the Nattick, and and that there are always five of these people on-board. There are various ways of approaching the whale, according to their peculiar species; and this previous knowledge is of the utmost consequence. When these boats are arrived at a reasonable distance, one of them rests on its oars and stands off, as a witness of the approaching engagement; near the bows of the other the harpooner stands up, and on him principally depends the success of the enterprise. He wears a jacket closely buttoned, and round his head a handkerchief tightly bound: in his hands he holds the dreadful weapon, made of the bed steel, marked sometimes with the name of their town, and sometimes with that of their vessel; to the shaft of which the end of a cord of due strength, coiled up with the utmost care in the middle of the boat, is firmly tied; the other end is fastened to the bottom of the boat. Thus prepared, they row in profound silence, leaving the whole conduct of the enterprise to the harpooner and to the steersman, attentively following their directions. When the former judges himself to be near enough to the whale, that is, at the distance of about fifteen feet, he bids them stop: perhaps she has a calf, whose safety attracts all the attention of the dam, which is a favourable circumstance; perhaps she is of a dangerous species, and it is safest to retire, though their ardour will seldom permit them; perhaps she is asleep, in that case he balances high the harpoon, trying in this important moment to collect all the energy of which he is capable. He launches it forth — she is struck: from her first movement they judge of her temper as well as of their future success. Sometimes, in the immediate impulse of rage, she will attack the boat, and demolish it with one stroke of her tail: in an instant the frail vehicle disappears, and the assailants are immersed in the dreadful element. Were the whale armed with the jaws of the shark, and as voracious, they never would return home to amuse their listening wives with the interesting tale of the adventure. At other times she will dive and disappear from human fight; and every thing must then give way to her velocity, or else all is lost. Sometimes she will swim away as if untouched, and draw the cord with such swiftness that it will set the edge of the boat on fire by the friction. If she rises before she has run out the whole length, she is looked upon as a sure prey. The blood she has lost in her flight weakens her so much, that, if she sinks again, it is but for a short time; the boat follows her course with an almost equal speed. She soon re-appears; tired at last with convulsing the element, which she tinges with her blood, she dies, and floats on the surface. At other times it may happen that she is not dangerously wounded, though she carries the harpoon fast in her body; when she will alternately dive and rise, and swim on with unabated vigour. She then soon reaches beyond the length of the cord, and carries the boat along with amazing velocity: this sudden impediment sometimes will retard her speed, at other times it only serves to rouse her anger and to accelerate her progress. The harpooner, with the axe in his hands, stands ready. When he observes that the bows of the boat are greatly pulled down by the diving whale, and that it begins to sink deep and to take much water, he brings the axe almost in contact with the cord; he pauses, still flattering himself that she will relax; but the moment grows critical, unavoidable danger approaches: sometimes men, more intent on gain than on the preservation of their lives, will run great risks; and it is wonderful how far these people have carried their daring courage at this awful moment! But it is vain to hope, their lives must be saved, the cord is cut, the boat rises again. If, after thus getting loose, she re-appears, they will attack and wound her a second time. She soon dies, and, when dead, she is towed along-side of their vessel, where she is fastened.
           The next operation is to cut, with axes and spades, every part of her body which yields oil; the kettles are set a boiling, they fill their barrels as fast as it is made; but, as this operation is much slower than that of cutting-up, they fill the hold of their ship with those fragments, lest a storm should arise and oblige them to abandon their prize. It is astonishing what a quantity of oil some of these fish will yield, and what profit it affords to those who are fortunate enough to overtake them! The river St. Laurence whale, which is the only one I am well acquainted with, is seventy-five feet long, sixteen deep, twelve in the length of its bone, which commonly weighs 3000 lb. twenty in the breadth of their tails, and produces 180 barrels of oil: I once saw 16 boiled out of the tongue only. After having once vanquished this leviathan, there are two enemies to be dreaded beside the wind; the first of which is the shark: that fierce voracious fish, to which nature has given such dreadful offensive weapons, often comes along-side, and, in spite of the people’s endeavours, will share with them in their prey; at night particularly. They are very mischievious, but the second enemy is much more terrible and irresistible; it is the killer, sometimes called the thrasher, a species of whales about thirty feet long. They are possessed of such a degree of agility and fierceness as often to attack the largest spermaceti whales, and not seldom to rob the fishermen of their prey; nor are there any means of defense against so potent an adversary. When all their barrels are full, (for every thing is done at sea,) or when their limited time is expired and their stores almost expended, they return home, freighted with their valuable cargo; unless they have put it on-board a vessel for the European market. Such are, as briefly as I can relate them, the different branches of the economy practised by these bold navigators, and the method with which they go such distances from their island to catch this huge game.
           The following are the names and principal characteristics of the various species of whales known to these people;
           The river St. Laurence whale just described.
           The disko, or Greenland ditto.
           The right whale, or seven feet bone, common the coasts of this country, about sixty feet long.
           The spermaceti-whale, found all over the world, and of all sizes; the longed are sixty feet, and yield about 100 barrels of oil.
           The hump-backs, on the coast of Newfoundland, from forty to seventy feet in length.
           The fin-back, an American whale, never killed, as being too swift.
           The sulphur-bottom, river St. Laurence, ninety feet long; they are but seldom killed, as being extremely swift.
           The grampus, thirty feet long, never killed on the same account.
           The killer or thrasher, about thirty feet, they often kill the other whales with which they are at perpetual war.
           The black-fish whale, twenty feet, yields from 8 to 10 barrels.
           The porpoise, weighing about 160 lb.
           In 1769 they fitted out 125 whalemen; the first 50 that returned brought with them 11000 barrels of oil. In 1770 they fitted out 135 vessels for the fisheries, at thirteen hands each; 4 West-Indiamen, twelve hands; 25 wood vessels, four hands; 18 coasters, five hands; 5 London traders, eleven hands. All these amount to 2158 hands, employed in 197 vessels. Trace their progressive steps between the possession of a few whale-boats and that of such a fleet!
           The moral conduct, prejudices, and customs, of a people, who live two-thirds of their time at sea, must naturally be very different from those of their neighbours, who live by cultivating the earth. That long abstemiousness to which the former are exposed, the breathing of saline air, the frequent repetitions of danger, the boldness acquired in surmounting them, the very impulse of the winds, to which they are exposed; all these, one would imagine, must lead them, when on shore, to no small desire of inebriation, and a more eager pursuit of those pleasures, of which they have been so long deprived, and which they must soon forego. There are many appetites that may be gratified on shore, even by the poorest man, but which must remain unsatisfied at sea. Yet, notwithstanding the powerful effects of all these causes, I observe here, at the return of their fleets, no material irregularities; no tumultuous drinking assemblies: whereas, in our continental towns, the thoughtless seaman indulges himself in the coarsest pleasures; and, vainly thinking that a week of debauchery can compensate for months of abstinence, foolishly lavishes, in a few days of intoxication, the fruits of half a year’s labour. On the contrary, all was peace here, and a general decency prevailed throughout; the reason, I believe, is, that almost every body here is married, for they get wives very young; and the pleasure of returning to their families absorbs every other desire. The motives, that lead them to the sea, are very different from those of most other sea-faring men; it is neither idleness nor profligacy that sends them to that element; it is a settled plan of life, a well-founded hope of earning a livelihood; it is because their soil is bad that they are early initiated to this profession, and, were they to stay at home, what could they do? The sea therefore becomes to them a kind of patrimony; they go to whaling with as much pleasure and tranquil indifference, with as strong an expectation of success, as a landman undertakes to clear a piece of swamp. The first is obliged to advance his time and labour to procure oil on the furnace of the sea; the second advances the same to procure himself grass from grounds that produced nothing before but hassocks and bogs. Among those who do not use the sea, I observed the same calm appearance as among the inhabitants on the continent; here I found, without gloom, a decorum and reserve, so natural to them, that I thought myself in Philadelphia. At my landing I was cordially received by those to whom I was recommended, treated with unaffected hospitality by such others with whom I became acquainted; and I can tell you, that it is impossible for any traveller to dwell here one month without knowing the heads of the principal families. Wherever I went I found simplicity of diction and manners, rather more primitive and rigid than I expected; and I soon perceived that it proceeded from their secluded situation, which has prevented them from mixing with others. It is therefore easy to conceive how they have retained every degree of peculiarity for which this sect was formerly distinguished. Never was a bee-hive more faithfully employed in gathering wax, bee-bread, and honey, from all the neighbouring fields, than are the members of this society; every one in the town follows some particular occupation with great diligence, but without that servility of labour which I am informed prevails in Europe. The mechanic seemed to be descended from as good parentage, was as well dressed and fed, and held in as much estimation, as those who employed him; they were once nearly related; their different degrees of prosperity is what has caused the various shades of their community. But this accidental difference has introduced, as yet, neither arrogance nor pride on the one part, nor meanness and servility on the other. All their houses are neat, convenient, and comfortable; some of them are filled with two families; for, when the husbands are at sea, the wives require less house-room. They all abound with the most substantial furniture, more valuable from its usefulness than from any ornamental appearance. Wherever I went, I found good cheer, a welcome reception; and after the second visit I felt myself as much at my ease as if I had been an old acquaintance of the family. They had as great plenty of every thing as if their island had been part of the golden quarter of Virginia, (a valuable track of land on Cape Charles): I could hardly persuade myself that I had quitted the adjacent continent, where every thing abounds, and that I was on a barren sand-bank, fertilized with whale-oil only. As their rural improvements are but trifling, and only of the useful kind, and as the best of them are at a considerable distance from the town, I amused myself for several days in conversing with the most intelligent of the inhabitants of both sexes, and making myself acquainted with the various branches of their industry, the different objects of their trade, the nature of that sagacity, which, deprived as they are of every necessary material, produce, &c. yet enables them to flourish, to live well, and sometimes to make considerable fortunes. The whole is an enigma to be solved only by coming to the spot and observing the national genius which the original founders brought with them, as well as their unwearied patience and perseverance. They have all, from the highest to the lowest, a singular keenness of judgement, unassisted by any academical light; they all possess a large share of good sense, improved upon the experience of their fathers; and this is the surest and best guide to lead us through the path of life, because it approaches nearest to the infallibility of instinct. Shining talents and University knowledge would be entirely useless here, nay, would be dangerous; it would pervert their plain judgement, it would lead them out of that useful path which is so well adapted to their situation: it would make them more adventurous, more presumptuous, much less cautious, and therefore less successful. It is pleasing to hear some of them tracing a father’s progress and their own through the different vicissitudes of good and adverse fortune. I have often, by their fire-sides, travelled with them the whole length of their career, from their earliest steps, from their first commercial adventure, from the possession of a single whale-boat, up to that of a dozen large vessels! This does not imply, however, that every one, who began with a whale-boat, has ascended to a like pitch of fortune; by no means; the same casualty, the same combination of good and evil which attends human affairs in every other part of the globe, prevails here: great prosperity is not the lot of every man, but there are many and various gradations; if they all do not attain riches, they all attain an easy subsistence. After all, is it not better to be possessed of a single whale-boat, or a few sheep-pastures; to live free and independent under the mildest government, in a healthy climate, in a land of charity and benevolence; than to be wretched, as so many are in Europe, possessing nothing but their industry; tossed from one rough wave to another; engaged either in the most servile labours for the smallest pittance, or fettered with the links of the most irksome dependence, even without the hopes of rising?
           The majority of those inferior hands which are employed in this fishery, many of the mechanics, such as coopers, smiths, caulkers, carpenters, &c. who do not belong to the society of Friends, are Presbyterians, and originally came from the main. Those who are possessed of the greatest fortunes at present be- long to the former; but they all began as simple whalemen: it is even looked upon as honourable and necessary for the son of the wealthiest man to serve an apprenticeship to the same bold, adventurous, business which has enriched his father; they go several voyages, and these early excursions never fail to harden their constitutions, and introduce them to the knowledge of their future means of subsistence.
   
   

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  *References to the Map of Martha’s Vineyard.
  
  1 Starbuck Point.
  2 Beniah Norton’s house, the colonel of the island.
  3 The house of James Athearn, Esq.
  4 Dr. Mahew’s house.
  5 Iron-mine; the ore of which is carried to the forges at Taunton.
  6 Lagoon, famous for catching bass under the ice.
  7 The belt mowing grounds in the island, yielding four tons of black grass per acre.
  8 Excellent planting ground.
  9 A mine of good pipe-clay.
   
• 1 media/Catesby Snake 2.jpeg media/Catesby Snake 2.jpeg 2022-09-06T09:24:10-07:00 Letter X: On Snakes; And on the Humming-Bird 11 Letter X: On Snakes; And on the Humming-Bird image_header 2024-02-15T11:23:17-08:00 NB: This Letter has not yet been emended and is currently in the early stages of being annotated.
  
  LETTER X.
  ON SNAKES; AND ON THE HUMMING-BIRD.
  
  WHY would you prescribe this task? you know that what we take up ourselves seems always lighter than what is imposed on us by others. You insist on my saying something about our snakes; and, in relating what I know concerning them, were it not for two singularities, the one of which I saw, and the other I received from an eye-witness, I should have but very little to observe. The southern provinces are the countries where nature has formed the greatest variety of alligators, snakes, serpents; and scorpions, from the smallest size, up to the pine barren, the largest species known here. We have but two, whose stings are mortal, which deserve to be mentioned; as for the black one, it is remarkable for nothing but its industry, agility, beauty, and the art of inticing birds by the power of its eyes. I admire it much, and never kill it, though its formidable length and appearance often get the better of the philosophy of some people, particularly Europeans. The most dangerous one is the pilot or copperhead; for the poison of which no remedy has yet been discovered. It bears the first name because it always precedes the rattle-snake; that is, quits its state of torpidity in the spring a week before the other. It bears the second name on account of its head being adorned with many copper-coloured spots. It lurks in rocks near the water, and is extremely active and dangerous. Let man beware of it. I have heard only of one person who was stung by a copperhead in this country. The poor wretch instantly swelled in a most dreadful manner; a multitude of spots of different hues alternately appeared and vanished on different parts of his body; his eyes were filled with madness and rage; he cast them on all present with the most vindictive looks; he thrust out his tongue as the snakes do; he hissed through his teeth with inconceivable strength, and became an object of terror to all by-standers. To the lividness of a corpse he united the desperate force of a maniac. They hardly were able to fasten him, so as to guard themselves from his attacks; when, in the space of two hours, death relieved the poor wretch from his struggles, and the spectators from their apprehensions. The poison of the rattle-snake is not mortal in so short a space, and hence there is more time to procure relief: we are acquainted with several antidotes with which almost every family is provided. They are extremely inactive, and, if not touched, are perfectly inoffensive. I once saw, as I was travelling, a great cliff which was full of them: I handled several, and they appeared to be dead: they were all entwined together, and thus they remain until the return of the sun. I found them out by following the track of some wild hogs which had fed on them, and even the Indians often regale on them. When they find them asleep, they put a small forked stick over their necks, which they keep immovably fixed on the ground, giving the snake a piece of leather to bite; and this they pull back several times with great force, until they observe their two poisonous fangs torn out. Then they cut off the head, skin the body, and cook it as we do eels, and their flesh is extremely sweet and white. I once saw a tamed one, as gentle as you can possibly conceive a reptile to be: it took to the water and swam whenever it pleased; and, when the boys to whom it belonged called it back, their summons was readily obeyed. It had been deprived of its fangs by the preceding method; they often stroked it with a soft brush, and this friction seemed to cause the most pleasing sensations, for it would turn on its back to enjoy it, as a cat does before the fire. One of this species was a cause, some years ago, of a most deplorable accident, which I shall relate to you, as I had it from the widow and mother of the victims. A Dutch farmer of the Minisink went to mowing, with his negroes, in this boots, a precaution used to prevent being stung. Inadvertently he trod on a snake, which immediately flew at his legs, and, as it drew back in order to renew its blow, one of his negroes cut it in two with his scythe. They prosecuted their work and returned home: at night the farmer pulled off his boots and went to bed, and was soon after attacked with a strange sickness at his stomach; he swelled, and, before a physician could be sent for, died. The sudden death of this man did not cause much inquiry. The neighbourhood wondered, as is usual in such cases, and without any farther examination the corpse was buried. A few days after, the son put on his father’s boots, and went to the meadow: at night he pulled them off, went to bed, and was attacked with the same symptoms, about the same time, and died in the morning. A little before he expired the doctor came, but was not able to assign what could be the cause of so singular a disorder; however, rather than appear wholly at a loss before the country people, he pronounced both father and son to have been bewitched. Some weeks after, the widow sold all the movables for the benefit of the younger children, and the farm was leased. One of the neighbours, who bought the boots, presently put them on, and was attacked in the same manner as the other two had been; but this man’s wife, being alarmed by what had happened in the former family, dispatched one of her negroes for an eminent physician, who, fortunately having heard something of the dreadful affair, guessed at the cause, applied oil, &c. and recovered the man. The boots, which had been so fatal, were then carefully examined; and he found that the two fangs of the snake had been left in the leather, after being wrenched out of their sockets by the strength with which the snake had drawn back its head. The bladders, which contained the poison, and several of the small nerves, were still fresh, and adhered to the boot. The unfortunate father and son had been poisoned by pulling off these boots, in which action they imperceptibly scratched their legs with the points of the fangs, through the hollow of which some of this astonishing poison was conveyed. You have, no doubt, heard of their rattles, if you have not seen them. The only observation I wish to make is, that the rattling is loud and distinct when they are angry; and, on the contrary, when pleased, it sounds like a distant trepidation, in which nothing distinct is heard. In the thick settlements they are now become very scarce; for, wherever they are met with, open war is declared against them, so that, in a few years, there will be none left but on our mountains. The black snake, on the contrary, always diverts me, because it excites no idea of danger. Their swiftness is astonishing; they will sometimes equal that of a horse; at other times they will climb up trees in quest of our tree toads, or glide on the ground at full length. On some occasions, they present themselves half in the reptile state, half erect. Their eyes and their heads, in the erect posture, appear to great advantage: the former display a fire which I have often admired, and it is by these they are enabled to fascinate birds and squirrels. When they have fixed their eyes on an animal, they become immovable, only turning their head sometimes to the right and sometimes to the left, but still with their fight invariably directed to the object. The distracted victim, instead of flying its enemy, seems to be arrested by some invincible power; it screems; now approaches, and then recedes; and, after skipping about the unaccountable agitation, finally rushes into the jaws of the snake, and is swallowed, as soon as it is covered with a slime or glue to make it slide easily down the throat of the devourer.
           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 a hundred times in observing the great number of hummingbirds 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 the calix of flowers and blossoms, those mellifluous particles that serve it for sufficient food; and yet it seems to leave them untouched, undeprived of any thing that our eyes can possibly distinguish. When it feeds, it appears as if immovable, 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 opportunities, 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.
           As I was one day sitting solitary and pensive in my primitive arbour, my attention was engaged by a strange sort of rustling noise at some paces distance. I looked all around without distinguishing any thing, until I climbed one of my great hemp-stalks; when, to my astonishment, I beheld two snakes of considerable length, the one pursuing the other, with great celerity, through a hemp-stubble field. The aggressor was of a black kind, six feet long; the fugitive was a water-snake, nearly of equal dimensions. They soon met, and, in the fury of their first encounter, they appeared in an instant firmly twisted together; and, whilst their united tails beat the ground, they mutually tried with open jaws to lacerate each other. What a fell aspect did they present! Their hands were compressed to a very small size, heads were compressed to a very small size, their eyes flashed fire; and, after this conflict had lasted about five minutes, the second found means to disengage itself from the first, and hurried toward the ditch. Its antagonist instantly assumed a new posture; and half creeping and half erect, with a majestic mein, overtook and attacked the other again, which placed itself in the same attitude and prepared to resist. The scene was uncommon and beautiful; for, thus opposed, they fought with their jaws, biting each other with the utmost rage; but, notwithstanding this appearance of mutual courage and fury, the water-snake still seemed delirious of retreating toward the ditch, its natural element. This was no sooner perceived by the keen-eyed black one, than, twisting its tail twice round a stalk of hemp, or seizing its adversary by the throat, not by means of its jaws, but by twisting its own neck twice round that of the water-snake, pulled it back from the ditch. To prevent a defeat, the latter took hold likewise of a stalk on the bank, and, by the acquisition of that point of resistance, became a match for its fierce antagonist. Strange was this to behold; two great snakes strongly adhering to the ground, mutually fastened, by means of the writhings, which lashed them to each other, and, stretched at their full length, they pulled, but pulled in vain; and, in the moments of greatest exertion, that part of their bodies which was entwined seemed extremely small, while the rest appeared inflated and, now and then, convulsed with strong undulations rapidly following each other. Their eyes seemed on fire and ready to start out of their heads; at one time the conflict seemed decided; the water-snake bent itself into two great folds, and, by that operation, rendered the other more than commonly outstretched; the next minute, the new struggles of the black one gained an unexpected superiority; it acquired two great folds likewise, which necessarily extended the body of its adversary in proportion as it had contracted its own. These efforts were alternate; victory seemed doubtful; inclining sometimes to the one side and sometimes to the other; until, at last, the stalk, to which the black snake fastened, suddenly gave way, and, in consequence of this accident, they both plunged into the ditch. The water did not extinguished their vindictive rage; for, by their agitations, I could trace, though not distinguish, their mutual attacks. They soon re-appeared on the surface twisted together as in their first onset; but the black snake seemed to retain its wonted superiority, for its head was exactly fixed above that of the other, which it incessantly pressed down under the water until it was stifled and sunk. The victor no sooner perceived its enemy incapable of farther resistance, than, abandoning it to the current, it returned on sure and disappeared.