ns have settled in this
country, the number of the savages considerably diminishes. As they live
chiefly upon their hunting, the woods that are destroyed to cultivate
the country, must in course contract the district of their chace, and
cause a famine amongst them, that must be fatal to them, or compel them
to retire to other countries. The English, sensible of this effect, and
who seemed to place their policy in exterminating these savage nations,
have set fire to the woods, and burnt a considerable extent of them. I
have myself crossed above thirty leagues together, in which space the
forests were so totally consumed by fire, that one could hardly at night
find a spot wooded enough to afford wherewithal to make an extempore
cabbin, which, in this country, is commonly made in the following
manner: Towards night the travellers commonly pitch upon a spot as near
a rivulet or river as they can; and as no one forgets to carry his
hatchet with him, any more than a Spanish don his toledo, some cut down
wood for firing for the night; others branches of trees, which are stuck
in the ground with the crotch uppermost, over which a thatching is laid
of fir-boughs, with a fence of the same on the weather-side only. The
rest is all open, and serves for door and window. A great fire is then
lighted, and then every body's lodged. They sup on the ground, or upon
some leaved branches, when the season admits of it; and afterwards the
table serves for a bed. The savages themselves rarely have any fixed
hut, or village, that maybe called a permanent residence. If there are
any parts they most frequently inhabit, it is only those which abound
most in game, or near some fishing-place. Such were formerly for them,
before the English had driven them away, _Artigoneesch_, _Beaubassin_,
_Chipoody_, _Chipnakady_, _Yoodayck_, _Mirtigueesh_, _La Heve Cape
Sable_, _Mirameeky_, _Fistigoisch_, _La Baye des Chaleurs Pentagony_,
_Medochtek_, _Hokepack_, and _Kihibeki_.

At present these savage nations bear an inveterate antipathy to the
English, who might have easily prevented or cured it, if instead of
rigorous measures, they had at first used conciliative ones: but this it
seems they thought beneath them. This it is, that has given our
missionaries such a fair field for keeping them fixed to the French
party, by the assistance of the difference of religion, of which they do
not fail to make the most. But lest you may imagine I am giving you only
my o