There are Chippawas who have prayed urgently for a missionary and schoolmaster to be sent amongst them. _Of the attempts which have been made to civilize the American Indians._ The Indians of America owe very few obligations to the white people that have settled among them. The latter have endeavoured to exterminate the former, and by violence or fraud, to get possession of their territories. They have slaughtered a great part of the American Aborigines in open war, endeavoured to enslave the rest, and multiplied so rapidly, and spread themselves so regularly over the face of the transatlantic world, as to render the Indian mode of procuring subsistence exceedingly precarious. “While the diminution of their supplies” observes a writer in the _Edinburgh Review_ “was thus sowing the seeds of decay, the lessons which they learnt from their new neighbours, drunkenness and other excesses, with several diseases which they imported, tended to accelerate their utter extinction. It appeared indeed quite obvious, that if the Indians did not, by imitating the whites learn new habits and occupations, their race in a few years would be completely destroyed.” “From these considerations a duty devolved upon the European settlers, which several bodies of men in the United States, seem to have felt extremely urgent. They were called upon to contribute as much as lay in their power towards the alleviation of the sufferings which their own increased prosperity was daily entailing upon the original and rightful proprietors of the country. They were called upon to prevent, if possible, the utter extinction of a race, which their own progress in wealth and in numbers, was constantly depriving of the means of subsistence. Accordingly, various plans were adopted with this view, sometimes by the government, sometimes by individuals, and public bodies. Pensions were granted to certain tribes, whose hunting had been destroyed by the clearing of the forests. Such a relief, unaccompanied by any change in their character and habits, was at best but temporary, and, in the end, rather did evil than good; for the same people who bestowed the annuity, had taught the Indians to drink, and continued to supply them with spirituous liquors: the temptations of which, those savages had not fortitude to resist. Another means adopted, with somewhat more wisdom, was the employment of missionaries among them, for the purpose of converting and instructing them. But this plan was involved in one radical mistake, and was also injudiciously pursued. The Indians had a religion of their own, to which, as the inheritance of their ancestors, they were strongly attached. The evils of their situation lay not in the errors of their faith, but of their practice. They might be converted to Christianity, without leaving off the habits of the hunting state; and it by no means followed, that their growth in grace must be attended with a proportionate improvement in the arts of common life.