These were some of the effects of the introduction of commerce. A still further improvement is visible in their expansion of ideas arising from association with white traders, exhibited in their amelioration of manners, desire for knowledge, doubts of their own superstitions, increase of their vocabulary and modes for expressing thought, reason supplying the place of passion, and the general usefulness of the whole, resulting in their minds having been made capable of comprehending religious or scientific instruction and their time and talents to be applied to either their moral or spiritual welfare. This is the point to which these wild tribes are supposed by us to have arrived, but no further. Their future condition depends more upon their white allies than themselves. Traders have instilled education enough to serve their purposes and let them alone. It would be inexpedient for them to do more. It is also apparent, if their present attainments be not improved upon by those in power, that they must recede, and in case of a discontinuance of trade or a worse influx of whites, their now to them useful organization must dissolve. In this event they must become more miserable than at first, because the desires and necessities induced by their partial elevation can not be satisfied from their original resources, these having been lost and abandoned during their advancement, consequently their present support withdrawn, their hunting ruined, distress, famine, and dissolution as nations must certainly follow. If they are left in their present condition until the tide of emigration has reached their as yet undisturbed hunting grounds, and the green plains, now covered with multitudes of buffalo, shall be strewn with innumerable grog shops, occupied by nests of gamblers, and hordes of outlaws, bringing with their personal vices a host of infectious diseases, where will the poor Indian be then? Bitter would and should be the reflections of our great national reformers that they had not in time stretched out a saving arm to the aborigines. It may be said, point out a way, state some feasible plan. Heretofore our policy has been lame, and our efforts retarded by our being but partially informed as to their capacity of improvement, or the practicability of bettering their condition. To all this we would answer the course to be pursued is plain and can be easily gathered from these pages, which, like other productions of the kind, most probably will be thrown aside as soon as read or disbelieved because the facts recorded do not coincide with preconceived notions of Indian character.