< Mr. Latrobe has given a very interesting account of the labours of the Moravian Missionaries among the Delaware Indians, together with a biographical sketch of Tecumseh, the last of the 'Red Men,' in whom the spirit of Philip of Pokansket seemed to have revived. We could forgive him for maintaining silence as to the labours of other early Missionaries, and for seeming never to have heard of the names of Elliott and Brainerd; but we cannot wholly excuse the gross injustice with which he at the same time stigmatizes the conduct of the Pilgrim Fathers and their children' towards the Indians, as hardly less culpable or less exe'crable' than that of the Spaniard in Mexico and Perú. That Mr. Latrobe has no love for the Puritans, is evident; but why he should attribute to them the spirit of crusaders, taking no notice of the conduct of cavalier emigrants towards the Indians of Virginia and the south, and suppressing all mention of the benevolent exertions of the colonists of New England to introduce Christianity among the tribes with whom they lived in amity, we must leave him to explain. We have resolved not to quarrel with so agreeable a companion; but we are pained to notice such marks of deep-rooted prejudice and illiberality *. With regard to the policy pursued at present towards the Indian tribes, he expresses his conviction, that the government of 'the United States, as well as the population of its settled dis'tricts, are very sincere in their desire to see justice done to the ' remnant of these tribes, and, as far as is consistent with the 'general welfare of the community, to favour and succour them." The saving clause is a very comprehensive one. Equally anxious are the government and people of America to see justice done to the free-coloured natives whom they are pleased to call recent discovery of a nation bearing strong marks of Jewish origin among the tribes of Ultra Gangetic India, is a highly interesting fact, affording a fresh proof of the wide diffusion of straggling branches of the Hebrew stem. But we have long known of colonies of Jews in Southern India; and in these cases, the physiological character is a mark of identity. In the American tribes it is absent; and it would be as rational to assign a Jewish origin to the Chinese, as to suppose that the Ten Tribes peopled the New World. * In the North American Review, No. liv., an able American writer has, with sound discrimination, vindicated the Pilgrim Fathers from the flippant censures of his degenerate countrymen, who seem to be ignorant of almost every event which occurred in Massachu'setts during the seventeenth century, except the destruction of the aborigines, the persecution of the Quakers, and the execution of the 'witches.' We may also refer to articles on the Early History of the United States, Ecl. Rev. 3d Ser. Vol. iii. pp. 193-222, Vol. v. pp. 281-306, in which the charges against the Puritans are examined, and the treatment of the Indians more particularly inquired into. ' 9 6 Africans,-nay, and to the slaves of the plantations those petted and spoiled children of the amiable Georgians and highminded Carolinians, so far as is consistent with the general wel'fare of the community. Mr. Latrobe's conviction is at complete variance, however, with Mr. Colton's, who will, perhaps, be deemed a more competent, and surely a not less impartial witness upon the subject. He denounces the conduct of his own Government towards the Indians as a flagrant violation of good faith; and he has put forth these volumes with a view to rouse the sympathies of the British nation on behalf of the Red Man, whose unfortunate destiny has hitherto been controlled as much by British influ6 ence in former ages, as that of the African slave.' As one of the moral causes which have operated in the United States to the detriment of Indian rights, he feels obliged to specify the paramount influence of slavery. Of this, there can be no doubt; and the same feelings and motives which have dictated the abortive scheme of expatriating the darker skins, only less tinctured with dread of their physical numbers, have produced the determination to expel the red skins from territories secured to them by repeated treaties, and drive them beyond the Mississippi. Mr. Colton's protest and remonstrance do credit to his principles; but they will have as little effect as former attempts to arrest the execution of a sentence of expulsion, which sets at nought the decision of the Supreme Court of American judicature, as well as every moral consideration but the tyrant's plea of state necessity. In vain he takes his stand upon a full conviction not only ' of the Indian's susceptibility of being raised, in intellectual, moral, and civil improvements, to command an equal respect " with any other race of men, but also of his unqualified and just ' demand to be admitted to an equality of social and political rights; and more especially that the Indian should realize the 'full benefit of all the public engagements that have been made in his favour and for the attainment of these objects. All this has been eloquently urged before *; but the national conscience, if there be such a thing, is seared, and the law of might has prevailed. 6 Yes, even a Republican government may be guilty of injustice and oppression! Who could ever dream that any form of government would eradicate selfishness, and act as a spell upon human nature? Yet, the very terms of the reproach imply a compliment to Republicanism, though not to the American people; for it is at once an aggravation of their criminality, and a panegyric upon their popular constitution, that they are sinning * See Ecl. Rev. Vol. IV. (July, 1830.) p. 77. Art. The Removal of the Indians. VOL. XIV.-N.S. NN against the spirit of their institutions; and the crimes of their Government are more emphatically national crimes, invoking national punishment, than those in which the subjects of a despotic monarchy are involuntarily implicated. But Great Britain, it will be said, is not entitled to reproach America either for holding slaves, or for denying civil rights and legal protection to her coloured freemen. The retort is pointless. The English nation is not answerable for the injustice and oppression against which, in the days of oligarchical rule, the Christian philanthropists and senators of our country never ceased to protest and struggle, till first the trade, then slavery, was abolished by the Legislature; nor is the time distant when the same spirit of reform shall have cleared away every just occasion of rebuke and reproach from the national character. The prospects of America are less hopeful. The good have less power against the evil under the Federal Compact, than they have under our British Constitution, which exhibits a nearer approach to the idea of Republican government, than has ever been realized. We might say, our Monarchical Republic is a purer republicanism, and a more popular government, as at present administered, than that of the American Union-a union of petty states governed for the most part by oligarchies, and with a nation of helots in the heart of the republic, the 'clanking of chains' being heard at the very door of her capitol. We have no feelings towards our American brethren but those which prompt the most cordial wishes for their prosperity; but we tremble for the results of the gathering storm. 6 'That we must be rid of slavery at some day,' says a writer in the last Number of the North American Review, 'seems to be 'the decided conviction of almost every honest mind. But when or how this is to be, God only knows. If in a struggle for this end the Union should be dissolved, it needs not the gift of pro' phecy to foresee that our country will be plunged into that gulf which, in the language of another, "is full at once of the fire and the blood of civil war, and of the thick darkness of general political disgrace, ignominy, and ruin.” ، The sub. 6 ، ject of Slavery is one, in regard to which, more than almost any other, there are clouds and darkness upon the future destinies of these states.'* Surely, then, we shall not be charged with entertaining unkind or sinister forebodings. North American Review, No. LXXXVIII., (July 1835,) p. 193. Art. II. 1. Abstract of Evidence before the Select Committee appointed by Parliament to enquire into the Extent, Causes, and Consequences of the Prevailing Vice of Intoxication, to ascertain whether any legislative Measures can be devised to prevent the further Spread of so great a National Evil. 1835. 2. Temperance Tracts. British and American. 66 " TOUCH not, taste not," was a cry which, as applied to things destined" to perish in the using," the great Apostle of the Gentiles found it necessary, at a very early period, to rebuke and to resist. It was not meet, he said, that men who were "dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world," should, as though living in the world, be subject to ordinances." Why, then, should it excite surprise, if some Christians of the nineteenth century think it right to pause, before they yield to the power of a similar appeal, though made on very different grounds, and echoed by many voices. The most jealous scrutiny is surely not unsuitable, when a demand is made upon us, which, at first sight, appears somewhat to compromise that glorious "law of liberty" under which it is the Christian's privilege to live. With these views, we proceed at once to inquire, with all possible brevity, whether the modern exhortation to abstinence be more worthy of respect than the ancient one. We shall not occupy our time with any remarks, either on the extent to which drunkenness now prevails in the community around us, or on the magnitude of the evils which invariably attend this degrading vice. An observing man cannot walk our streets, or attend at a police-office, or even take up a newspaper, without being impressed with the conviction that its progress and results are alike terrific. It may, however, be as well just to notice certain changes which of late years have taken place in the form and pressure of the evil. Formerly, the guilt of intemperance attached very extensively to both the higher and middle classes of society: it is now a vulgar vice, and, as such, has been in great measure abandoned to the rude and the uneducated. Driven from the marble floor and the wall of tapestry, the Evil Spirit has found a restingplace in the factory and the workshop, and has converted many a happy cottage into an abode of wretchedness and despair. Cast out of "high places," this devil is come down to the humbler inhabitants of earth, "having great wrath ;"--would that we might add, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time! Again; in times past, it was ale and beer that stupified men's faculties, and degraded "God's image" to the likeness of the beast now, ardent spirit "sets on fire the whole course of nature," and transforms humanity into a fiend. Once more, and 66 worst of all; in the days of our fathers, it was a rare and signal calamity for a woman, the mother of a family, to become the victim of intemperance: now, this terrible sight excites no surprise, for it is a matter of every day occurrence. This new feature in the popular depravity deserves especial notice. It is at once a most remarkable and melancholy fact, that female drunkenness dates its rise, as an extensive national evil, from the introduction of ardent spirit as a beverage among the working classes. The instances are still rare, in which women intoxicate themselves with beer or ale; it is ardent spirit alone which, to any extent, thus overcomes some of the strongest instincts of nature,— prostrates at a stroke all the fences of female virtue, and pollutes the stream of a nation's morality at the fountain-head. There are other peculiarities which belong almost exclusively to spiritdrinking, and which render it, as a habit, incalculably more demoralizing than any other form of intemperance; but this alone, its influence on women, should stamp the practice with universal reprobation. We are not disposed, just now, to institute any inquiry as to the precise amount of mischief occasioned by the ancient alehouse, in comparison with the modern gin-shop: if we were, we could easily shew that, as the latter casts for its victims a wider net, forges stronger chains, and dispenses a more virulent poison, it must in all respects be considered as an immeasurably greater evil. The Report before us is valuable chiefly from the mass of facts which it imbodies, bearing not only on the points to which we have alluded, but on many others to which it is not in our power at present to refer. The subject, in all its aspects, is well worthy. of the most serious consideration. The evidence is truly appalling. Alarm may well be felt for the stability of our national prosperity, when the astounding truth comes out, that in Ireland alone, from 1820 to 1830, there was an increase in the consumption of ardent spirits, of SIX MILLIONS of gallons; in Scotland, during the same period, of more than FOUR MILLIONS; and that throughout the United Kingdom there is, for every twenty families, a place for the sale of a beverage which the late Robert Hall, by a strong, but scarcely extravagant figure of speech, once called, liquid death and distilled damnation." * 6 *The astonishing quantity of twenty-seven millions, seven hundred and nineteen thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine imperial gallons of distilled spirits, at proof strength, paid duty for home consumption only, in the United Kingdom in 1830. The amount is taken from a return ordered by the House of Commons, and printed June 29, 1831. Signed by I. EWBANK, General-Accountant, Excise office, London, |