The uncommon appearance of the Cherokees began to draw after them great crowds of people of all ranks; at which they were so much displeased, that home became irksome to them, and they were forever teizing me to take them to some public diversion. Their favourite was Sadler’s-Wells; the activity of the performers, and the machinery of the pantomime, agreeing best with their notions of diversion. They were likewise very fond of Ranelagh, which, from its form, they compared to their town-house; but they were better pleased with Vauxhall, tho’ it was always against my inclination I accompanied them there, on account of the ungovernable curiosity of the people, who often intruded on them, and induced them to drink more than sufficient. Once, in particular, one of the young Indians got extremely intoxicated, and committed several irregularities, that ought rather to be attributed to those that enticed them, than to the simple Indians, who drank only to please them. I cannot indeed cite sobriety as their characteristic; but this I can say, these excesses never happened at home. A bottle of wine, a bowl of punch, and a little cyder, being the ordinary consumption of the three Indians, Sumpter, and myself; and as we were seldom at home, it could not put the nation to a great expence. If the bills given in for these articles were to the greatest degree excessive, let them that charged them answer who consumed them; I only know that no more was ever drank by us. This was not the only thing laid to my charge; I was accused of receiving money for admission to see the Indians. The sheep was accused by the wolf of rapine, who carried his point. He was a thorough-paced under-courtier; the sheep, a raw Virginian, who, ignorant of little arts, innocently believed others as honest as himself, and could never believe such impudence existed, as to accuse another of crimes his conscience assured him he was sole actor of. I was so prepossessed with these opinions, that I can scarce as yet, however severely I have felt it, believe that some men have no ideas of conscience, and esteem it the prejudices of education, and a narrow mind; and that blasting an innocent person’s character, whenever it answered their ends, or that robbing the nation was no crime, when they could escape punishment.