other, and began to converse by
signs; the strangers made them understand that they would not stay here,
that they would return home again, but would pay them another visit next
year, when they would bring them more presents and stay with them
awhile.

"They went away, as they had said, and returned in the following season,
when both parties were much rejoiced to see each other; but the white
men laughed at the Indians, for they had the axes and hoes, which they
had given them the year before, hanging to their breasts, as ornaments,
and the stockings were made use of as tobacco pouches. The whites now
put handles to the axes for them, and cut down trees before their eyes,
hoed up the ground, and put the stockings on their legs: here, they say,
a general laughter ensued among the Indians, that they had remained
ignorant of the use of such valuable tools, and had borne the weight of
them hanging to their necks for such a length of time. They took every
white man they saw for an inferior attendant on the supreme Manitou in
the red laced clothes.

[Illustration]

"As they became daily more familiar with the Indians, the white men
proposed to stay with us, and we readily consented.

"It was we who so kindly received them in our country, we took them by
the hand and bade them welcome to sit down by our side and live with us
as brothers; but how did they requite our kindness? They first asked
only for a little land, on which to raise bread for themselves and their
families, and pasture for their cattle, which we freely gave them; they
soon wanted more, which we also gave them; they saw the game in the
woods, which the Great Spirit had given us for our subsistence, and they
wanted that too; they penetrated into the woods in quest of game; they
discovered spots of land which pleased them, that land they also wanted;
and because we were loath to part with it, as we saw they had already
more than they had need of, they took it from us by force, and drove us
to a great distance from our ancient homes; they looked everywhere for
good spots of land, and when they found one, they immediately, and
without ceremony, possessed themselves of it; but when at last they came
to our favourite spots, those which lay most convenient to our
fisheries, then bloody wars ensued. We would have been contented that
the white people and we should have lived quietly beside each other,
but these white men encroached so fast upon us, that we saw at on