And even now, what has the Indian youth to awaken hope, and excite ambition? Not even yet, in the State of New York, is he granted the privileges of citizenship, though his claims, as native American, are prior to those of every Saxon on her soil. He is a land-owner, an agriculturist, an educated, a Christian man—but still treated as if he were an idiot or a brute. The story of young James McDonald, in whom Colonel McKenney and Philip Thomas took so great an interest, illustrates the feelings of every red man, when he thinks of becoming like his white brethren. This young man was adopted into the family of Colonel McKenney, and being the age of his own son, enjoyed every privilege which he enjoyed. In the family and in the social circle they were equals, and were afforded the same advantages of education. The Indian youth was endowed with all the personal beauty of the noblest of his race, “with a manner the most gracious and winning,” said his adopted parent, “and a morality I never saw invaded.” Of his progress in study, when he had been only a little while at school, his teacher remarked, that “he came with his lessons better digested, and more Greek and Latin and mathematics in one of them, than the class to which he was attached could get through in a week,—so he was obliged to place him in a class by himself.” When he had finished his academical studies, his benefactor chose for him the profession of the law. But he had begun to think of the difference between the treatment he was then receiving, and that which awaited him when he should go forth in the world, and he exclaimed, “Wherefore! wherefore! Of what use to me will be my present or future attainments? Oh, sir,” pressing his hand against his forehead as he continued, “it will be all lost on me. I am an Indian, and being an Indian, I am marked with a mark as deep and abiding as that which Cain bore. My race is degraded—trodden upon—despised.” He then took from his bosom a letter from his brother, who was a lieutenant in the navy, and whose bitter experience had wrung from him the following words: “There is only one of two things to do: either throw away all that belongs to the white race and turn Indian, or quit being Indian and turn white man. The first you can do—the latter it is not in your power to do. The white man hates the Indian, and will never permit him to come into close fellowship with him, or to be a participator in any of his high prerogatives or distinguished advantages.”