they are roughly repulsed, and
feelings of resentment and revenge are kindled. This, I am persuaded, is
the cause and origin of many of the affrays with the natives, which are
apparently inexplicable to us. Nor ought we to wonder, that a slight
insult, or a trifling injury, should sometimes hurry them to an act
apparently not warranted by the provocation. Who can tell how long their
feelings had been rankling in their bosoms; how long, or how much they
had borne; a single drop will make the cup run over, when filled up to
the brim; a single spark will ignite the mine, that, by its explosion,
will scatter destruction around it; and may not one foolish indiscretion,
one thoughtless act of contumely or wrong, arouse to vengeance the
passions that have long been burning, though concealed? With the same
dispositions and tempers as ourselves, they are subject to the same
impulses and infirmities. Little accustomed to restrain their feelings,
it is natural, that when goaded beyond endurance, the effect should be
violent, and fatal to those who roused them;--the smothered fire but
bursts out the stronger from having been pent up; and the rankling
passions are but fanned into wilder fury, from having been repressed.

Seventhly, There are also other considerations to be taken into the
account, when we form our opinion of the character and conduct of the
natives, to which we do not frequently allow their due weight and
importance, but which will fully account for aggressions having been
committed by natives upon unoffending individuals, and even sometimes
upon those who have treated them kindly. First, that the native considers
it a virtue to revenge an injury. Secondly, if he cannot revenge it upon
the actual individual who injured him, he thinks that the offence is
equally expiated if he can do so upon any other of the same race; he does
not look upon it as the offence of an individual, but as an act of war on
the part of the nation, and he takes the first opportunity of making a
reprisal upon any one of the enemy who may happen to fall in his way; no
matter whether that person injured him or not, or whether he knew of the
offence having been committed, or the war declared. And is not the custom
of civilized powers very similar to this? Admitting that civilization,
and refinement, have modified the horrors of such a system, the principle
is still the same. This is the principle that invariably guides the
native in his relations