ch this was a reply was the first official
step in the causes which led to the treaty of March 28th, 1836. A
leading step in the policy of the Department respecting the tribes of
the Upper Lakes.

_15th_. The great lakes can no longer be regarded as solitary seas,
where the Indian war-whoop has alone for so many uncounted centuries
startled its echoes. The Eastern World seems to be alive, and roused up
to the value of the West. Every vessel, every steamboat, brings up
persons of all classes, whose countenances the desire of acquisition, or
some other motive, has rendered sharp, or imparted a fresh glow of hope
to their eyes. More persons, of some note or distinction, natives or
foreigners, have visited me, and brought me letters of introduction this
season, than during years before. Sitting on my piazza, in front of
which the great stream of ships and commerce passes, it is a spectacle
at once novel, and calculated to inspire high anticipations of the
future glory of the Mississippi Valley.

_Oct. 5th_. Washington Irving responds, in the kindest terms, to my
letter transmitting some manuscript materials relative to the
Indian history.

_12th_. Mr. Green, of Boston, wrote me on the 8th instant unfavorably to
the stability of the Christian character of my friend Otwin, whom I had
recommended to the Board for employment in the missionary field in Lake
Superior, in connection with the missionary family at La Pointe. Mr. S.
Hall, the head of that Mission, writes (Oct. 12th): "I am glad that the
providence of God directed (him) this way, and trust his coming into
this region will be for the interest of Zion's Kingdom here. He appears
to be a man of faith and prayer. I trust he will be the means of
stirring up to more diligence in the service of our Master." What
greater aid could be given to a lone far off Indian mission, than "a man
of faith and prayer." When an observer in the vast panorama of the West
and North has seen a poor missionary and his family, living five-hundred
miles from the nearest verge of civilization, solitary and desolate,
surrounded with heathen red men, and worse than heathen white men, with
none out of his little circle to honor God or appreciate his word, it is
presumable to him that any reinforcement of help must be hailed as cold
water to a parched tongue. Not that there is any supposed difference of
opinion on the main question, between the Head and the forest hands, so
to say, of the Board, but