The presents delivered to the Indians, together with the salaries of the officers in the Indian department, are computed to cost the crown, as I before mentioned, about £.100,000 sterling, on an average, per annum. When we first gained possession of Canada, the expence of the presents was much greater, as the Indians were then more numerous, and as it was also found necessary to bestow upon them, individually, much larger presents than are now given, in order to overcome the violent prejudices against us which had been instilled into their minds by the French. These prejudices having happily been removed, and the utmost harmony having been established between them and the people on our frontiers, presents of a less value even than what are now distributed amongst them would perhaps be found sufficient to keep up that good understanding which now subsists between us; it could not, however, be deemed a very advisable measure to curtail them, as long as a possibility remained that the loss of their friendship might be incurred thereby: and, indeed, when we consider what a happy and numerous people the Indians were before Europeans intruded themselves into the territories allotted to them by nature; when we consider how many thousands have perished in battle, embroiled in our contests for power and dominion, and how many thousands more have perished by the use of the poisonous beverages which we have introduced amongst them; when we consider how many artificial wants have been raised in the minds of the few nations of them that yet remain, and how sadly the morals of these nations have been corrupted by their intercourse with the whites; when we consider, finally, that in the course of fifty years more no vestige even of these once virtuous and amiable people will probably be found in the whole of that extensive territory which lies between the Mississippi and the Atlantic, and was formerly inhabited solely by them; instead of wishing to lessen the value or the number of the few trifles that we find are acceptable to them in their present state, we ought rather to be desirous of contributing still more largely to their comfort and happiness. [Sidenote: REMARKS.]