erica by what we now call the _Savage_
Indians; yet I have been received in the same courteous manner in a
little hamlet, unarmed, and without any other protection but by the law
of nature, by those _savages_;--indeed it was before the _Savages of
Europe_ had instructed them in the art of war, or Mr. Whitfield had
preached _methodism_ among them. Therefore, I only tell you what they
_were_ in 1735, not what they _are at present_. When I visited them,
they walked in the flowery paths of Nature; now, I fear, they tread the
polluted roads of blood. Perhaps of all the uncivilized nations under
the sun, the native Indians of America _were_ the most humane; I have
seen an hundred instances of their humanity and integrity;--when a white
man was under the lash of the executioner, at _Savannah in Georgia_,
for using an Indian woman ill, I saw _Torno Chaci_, their King, run in
between the offender and the corrector, saying, "_whip me, not
him_;"--the King was the complainant, indeed, but the man deserved a
much severer chastisement. This was a _Savage King_. Christian Kings too
often care not who is whipt, so they escape the smart.

LETTER V.

RHEIMS.

We arrived at this city before the bustle which the coronation of
_Louis_ the 16th occasioned was quite over; I am sorry I did not see it,
because I now find it worth seeing; but I staid at _Calais_ on purpose
to avoid it; for having paid two guineas to see the coronation of George
the Third, I determined never more to be put to any extraordinary
expence on the score of _crowned heads_. However, my curiosity has been
well gratified in hearing it talked over, and over again, and in reading
_Marmontell_'s letter to a friend upon that subject; but I will not
repeat what he, or others have said upon the occasion, because you have,
no doubt, seen in the English papers a tolerably good one; only that the
Queen was so overcome with the repeated shouts and plaudits of her new
subjects, that she was obliged to retire. The fine Gothic cathedral, in
which the ceremony was performed, is indeed a church worthy of such a
solemnity; the portal is the finest I ever beheld; the windows are
painted in the very best manner; nor is there any thing within the
church but what should be there. I need not tell you that this is the
province which produces the most delicious wine in the world; but I will
assure you, that I should have drank it with more pleasure, had you been
here to have partook