r. If this be
the fact, such men should be ferreted out, and in justice to
the Indians, to the community about them, and to the laws of
the land, they should be made to suffer, by being exhibited to
public derision, and by the penalty of the act prohibiting
the retail of spirits. If they have not the power, and no one
feels willing to go forward in shutting up these poisonous
springs, give them the power, and if they do not exercise it,
let them suffer.

Mr. Apes is among them, and attended the "Four Days Meeting,"
held during the present month, which we are told was managed
with good order and regularity.

The writer here says that the Indians are vile and degraded; and
admits that they can be improved. He gives no explanation of the
causes of their degradation. If the reader will take the trouble to
examine the laws regarding the Marshpees, he will see those causes of
the inevitable and melancholy effect, and, I am sure, will come to
the conclusion that any people living under them must necessarily be
degraded. The Journal, however, does us the small justice to admit,
that we are not so degraded but that we can hold a meeting of four
days duration, with propriety and moderation. What, then, might we not
do, were proper pains taken to educate us.

The next two extracts are from the Boston Advocate of September 10 and
11, 1833.

THE MARSHPEE INDIANS.

We are mortified for the honor of the State, to learn from
Barnstable County, that the Court of Common Pleas and Sessions
there, (Judge Cummins,) have tried and convicted William Apes
and six Indiana of the Marshpee tribe, upon charges connected
with the efforts of the Indiana to obtain justice from their
white masters. Apes is very popular with the Indians, and
this persecution of him, which at least was unnecessary, will
inflame them the more.

The papers say the conviction was for _riot_. This cannot
be, for there was no riot, and no riot act read. Apes and
his associates prevented a man from carrying wood off the
plantation. They were, perhaps, wrong in doing so, but the
law which takes this wood from the Indian proprietors, is as
unjust and unconstitutional as the Georgia laws, that take the
gold mines from the Cherokees. Could the question of property
have been tried, the act of stopping their own wood, by the
Indians, could not have been ma