This description is too highly coloured, and is in many respects incorrect. The savages of America are not in such a blissful state as Montaigne would leave the reader to infer; neither can it be said with truth that they are free from deceit, treachery, and avarice. It is true they exhibit many noble traits of character which might be copied with profit by their more civilized brethren; but these traits are generally associated with the vices peculiar to the savage state. In conducting our researches respecting them, therefore, we should carefully ascertain what amount of credibility is due to the statements of those writers who affirm their condition to be almost paradisiacal. Extremes ought to be avoided in most cases, especially with regard to the American Indians. Some authors have represented them as the vilest of men; cruel, blood-thirsty, and rapacious, and incapable of being civilized; while others have depicted them as a noble, high-minded, virtuous race, with scarcely a single vice in their character, or evil in their physical condition. If we adopt the mean of these extremes, we shall not be far from the truth. Before we close this section of our treatise, a few remarks upon the oratory of the Indians may not be deemed inappropriate or unimportant. Even the thunders of Demosthenes, and the eloquent harangues of the sweet-lipped and silver-tongued Cicero did not produce more wonderful effects on Athenian or Roman audiences, than are occasionally produced by the bold and pathetic discourses of an American warrior on the minds of his hearers. Governor De Witt Clinton, in his discourse to the New York Society, speaking of the Iroquois, or Five Nations, informs us that “their exterior relations, general interests, and national affairs were conducted and superintended by a great council, assembled annually in Onondaga, the central canton, composed of the chiefs of each Republic; and eighty Sachems were frequently convened at this national assembly. It took cognizance of the great questions of war and peace; of the affairs of the tributary nations, and of their negociations with the French and English colonies. All their proceedings were conducted with great deliberation, and were distinguished for order, decorum, and solemnity. In eloquence, in dignity, and in all the characteristics of a profound policy, they surpassed an assembly of feudal barons, and were perhaps not far inferior to the great Amphyctionic Council of Greece.”[6] In another place he speaks of the sublime display of intellectual power in the address of Garangula, an Onondaga chief, to M. Delabarre, a French general, who in 1683, marched with an army against the Iroquois. This rhetorical talent, however, is declared by the same authority to be peculiar to the Five Nations. “The most remarkable difference,” he states, “existed between the confederates and the other Indian nations, with respect to eloquence. You may search in vain in the records and