of your total disappearance from the face of the earth, which is true, if you continue to hunt the deer and buffalo and go to war, you see what a brilliant aspect is offered to your future history, if you give up war and hunting. Adopt the culture of the earth and raise domestic animals; you see how from a small family you may become a great nation by adopting the course which from the small beginning you describe has made us a great nation. My children, I will give you a paper declaring your right to hold, against all persons, the lands given you by the Miamis and Powtewatamies, and that you never can sell them without their consent. But I must tell you that if ever they and you agree to sell, no paper which I can give you can prevent your doing what you please with your own. The only way to prevent this is to give to every one of your people a farm, which shall belong to him and his family, and which the nation shall have no right to take from them and sell; in this way alone can you ensure the lands to your descendants through all generations, and that it shall never be sold from under their feet. It is not the keeping your lands which will keep your people alive on them after the deer and buffalo shall have left them; it is the cultivating them alone which can do that. The hundredth part in corn and cattle will support you better than the whole in deer and buffalo. My son Hendrick, deliver these words to your people. I have spoken to them plainly, that they may see what is before them, and that it is in their own power to go on dwindling to nothing, or to become again a great people. It is for this reason I wish them to live in peace with all people, to teach their young men to love agriculture, rather than war and hunting. Let these words sink deep in their hearts, and let them often repeat them and consider them. Tell them that I hold them fast by the hand, and that I will ever be their friend to advise and to assist them in following the true path to their future happiness. XXIII. _To Kitchao Geboway_:--