It is delightful to close this chapter of American settlements with so glorious a spectacle of Christian virtue;—would to God that it were but more imitated![42]
THE ENGLISH IN AMERICA TILL THE REVOLT OF THE COLONIES.
In Carolina’s palmy bowers, Amid Kentucky’s wastes of flowers, Where even the way-side hedge displays Its jasmines and magnolias; O’er the monarda’s vast expanse Of scarlet, where the bee-birds glance Their flickering wings, and breasts that gleam Like living fires;—that dart and scream— A million little knights that run Warring for wild-flowers in the sun;— His eye might rove through earth and sky, His soul was in the days gone by.
We may pass rapidly over this space. The colonial principles of action were established regarding the Indians, and they went on destroying and demoralizing them till the reduction of Canada by the English. That removed one great source of Indian destruction; for while there was such an enemy to repulse, the Indians were perpetually called upon and urged forward in the business of slaughter and scalping. It was the same, indeed, on every frontier where there was an enemy, French or Spanish. We have the history of Adair, who was a resident in the south-western states for above forty years. This gentleman, who has given us a very minute account of the manners, customs, and opinions of the Choctaws, Cherokees, and Chickasaws, amongst whom he chiefly resided in the Carolinas, and who is firmly convinced that they are descended from the Ten Tribes of Israel, and, moreover, gives us many proofs of the excellence of their nature—yet, most inconsistently, is loud in praise of the French policy of setting the different Indian nations by the ears; and condemnation of anything like conciliation and forbearance. Speaking of some such attempts in 1736, he says—“Our rivals, the French, never neglect so favourable an opportunity of securing and promoting their interests. We have known more than one instance wherein _their wisdom_ has not only found out proper means to disconcert the most dangerous plans of disaffected savages, _but likewise to foment, and artfully to encourage, great animosities between the heads of ambitious rival families, till they fixed them in an implacable hatred against each other, and all of their respective tribes_.”[43]