That the poor Indians to whom reserved lands have been granted, and who, on the faith of treaties, have made their homes and gathered themselves into villages on such lands, should, whenever it is deemed expedient, be driven out of their possessions, either by purchase, or by persuasion, or by force, or by measures which include all three, and sent to seek a livelihood in distant and strange regions--as in the case of these Delawares--is horrible, and bears cruelty and injustice on the face of it. To say that they cannot exist in amicable relation with the whites, without deprivation of their morals, is a fearful imputation on us as Christians;--but thus it is. And I do wish that those excellent and benevolent people who have taken the cause of the aborigines to heart, and are making appeals in their behalf to the justice of the government and the compassion of the public, would, instead of theorising in England, come out here and behold the actual state of things with their own eyes--and having seen all, let them say _what_ is to be done, and what chances exist, for the independence, and happiness, and morality of a small remnant of Indians residing on a block of land, six miles square, surrounded on every side by a white population. To insure the accomplishment of those benevolent and earnest aspirations, in which so many good people indulge, what is required? what is expected? Of the white men such a pitch of lofty and self-sacrificing virtue, of humane philosophy and christian benevolence, that the future welfare of the wronged people they have supplanted shall be preferred above their own immediate interest--nay, their own immediate existence: of the red man, that he shall forget the wild hunter blood flowing through his veins, and take the plough in hand, and wield the axe and the spade instead of the rifle and the fishspear! Truly they know not what they ask, who ask this; and among all those with whom I have conversed--persons familiar from thirty to forty years together with the Indians and their mode of life--I never heard but one opinion on the subject. Without casting the slightest imputation on the general honesty of intention of the missionaries and others delegated and well paid by various societies to teach and protect the Indians, still I will say that the enthusiasm of some, the self-interest of others, and an unconscious mixture of pious enthusiasm and self-interest in many more, render it necessary to take their testimony with some reservation; for often with them "the wish is father to the thought" set down; and feeling no lack of faith in their cause or in themselves, they look for miracles, such as waited on the missions of the apostles of old. But in the mean time, and by human agency, what is to be done? Nothing so easy as to point out evils and injuries, resulting from foregone events, or deep-seated in natural and necessary causes, and lament over them with resistless eloquence in