It was evening, the tents were pitched: he observed the security
with which the troops rested in the night, and the order with which the
march was renewed in the morning. He continued to pursue them with his
eye till they could be seen no longer, and then stood for some time
silent and pensive.

Then turning to his followers, "My children," said he, "I have often
heard from men hoary with long life, that there was a time when our
ancestors were absolute lords of the woods, the meadows and the lakes,
wherever the eye can reach or the foot can pass. They fished and hunted,
feasted and danced, and when they were weary lay down under the first
thicket, without danger and without fear. They changed their
habitations, as the seasons required, convenience prompted, or curiosity
allured them; and sometimes gathered the fruits of the mountain, and
sometimes sported in canoes along the coast.

"Many years and ages are supposed to have been thus passed in plenty and
security; when, at last, a new race of men entered our country from the
great ocean. They inclosed themselves in habitations of stone, which our
ancestors could neither enter by violence, nor destroy by fire. They
issued from those fastnesses, sometimes covered, like the armadillo,
with shells, from which the lance rebounded on the striker, and
sometimes carried by mighty beasts which had never been seen in our
vales or forests, of such strength and swiftness, that flight and
opposition were vain alike. Those invaders ranged over the continent
slaughtering, in their rage, those that resisted, and those that
submitted, in their mirth. Of those that remained, some were buried in
caverns, and condemned to dig metals for their masters; some were
employed in tilling the ground, of which foreign tyrants devour the
produce; and, when the sword and the mines have destroyed the natives,
they supply their place by human beings of another colour, brought from
some distant country to perish here under toil and torture.

"Some there are who boast their humanity, and content themselves to
seize our chases and fisheries, who drive us from every tract of ground
where fertility and pleasantness invite them to settle, and make no war
upon us except when we intrude upon our own lands.

"Others pretend to have purchased a right of residence and tyranny; but
surely the insolence of such bargains is more offensive than the avowed
and open dominion of force. What reward can induce the pos