The Algonquins, (we include the Lenapees in their proper groupe,) attempting to cross the Mississippi, into the territories of a foreign nation, with a large body of men, are defeated and driven back. They show themselves pacifically, in a moderate number, and the foreigners say, come! but turning out a multitude, are assailed. Whether this was an original stratagem, or an after thought, we are left to infer, but in either case, it would be quite conformable to Indian policy. For the sake of clearness, we will locate this event in the section of this great river, between the Chickasaw bluffs and Natchez, its probable site. On this defeat they form an alliance with their uncles, the Iroquois, who were already east of the Mississippi, and were located north of the Alleghans. A long war begins, in the course of which the latter erect the fortifications which have excited so much curiosity in the Mississippi and Ohio valleys, and after proving themselves valiant men, are finally overpowered and driven off. The Lenapees are in 1819 the historians of their enemies, and berate them as faithless. The Maryland Historical Society, twenty-six years later, endorse the whole story, and pronounce the Alleghans pusillanimous, not so much it would seem for their heroic struggle and defence, as for the cause of it, namely, not letting the Algonquin hordes march into or through their country, as the superior forecast and judgment of the latter might, on further progress, dictate. Does any sound historian? does any one acquainted with Indian life, character or history, as it exists, and has always existed in North America, believe that the pacific and Christian request, put forth by Mr. Heckewelder, as the chronicler of his Delaware converts at Gnadenhutton, namely, that they might be allowed to explore a country east of them, to select it out and dwell therein, or that they had previously had the prudence, energy and forecast to send spies, like Moses, to spy it out—as if they were seeking a country for an agricultural settlement, with flocks and implements of husbandry—I repeat it, does any one, who reads this detailed part of the tradition as told to and believed by the good old missionary, credit a syllable of it? If he does, his good-natured credulity must be greater than that of the committee of the New-York Historical Society, whose suggestive report on the discussion of a distinctive national name has been the theme of so much misconception—may I not add, of so truly Pickwickian a degree of patriotism.