gives of the Indians, by contrasting with these praises their defects and vices. He describes them as idle, suspicious, vindictive-and the more dangerous, as they well know how to conceal their intentions of revenge. Cruel to their enemies, gross in their pleasures, vicious through ignorance: but," adds he, " their simplicity and penury give them one advantage over us, that they remain unacquainted with those refinements of vice which have been introduced by luxury and abundance."

Père le Jeune, another of the celebrated Jesuit missionaries, who resided in Canada at a very early period, also remarks: "I think the savages, in point of intellect, may be placed in a high rank; education and instruction alone are wanting. Being well formed in their persons, and having their organs well adapted and disposed, the powers of their mind operate with facility and effect. Their reasoning faculties resemble a soil naturally fertile, but which has continued choked up with evil weeds since the beginning of time. These Indians I can well compare to some of our own villagers who are left without instruction; yet I have scarcely ever seen any person who has come from France to this country, who does not acknowledge that the savages have more intellect or capacity than most of our own peasantry."

* Relation de ce qui s'est passé en la Nouvelle France en l'année 1634. Par le Père le Jeune, de la Compagnée de Jésus. Chap. 5. Paris, 1635.

Mons. Boucher, who, about the middle of the seventeenth century, held the situation of governor of Three Rivers, in New France, makes a similar observation. "In general all the Indians possess a sound judgment; and it is seldom that you find among them any who have that stupid and heavy intellect which we perceive among some of our French peasantry. They stand more in awe of a simple reprimand from their parents or chiefs, than in Europe they do of wheels and gibbets."

Père Jerome Lallemant, who about the same period resided long as a missionary among the Hurons, thus writes: Many are disposed to despair of the conversion of this people, from their being prejudiced against them as barbarians; believing them to be scarcely human, and incapable of becoming Christians. But it is very wrong to judge of them in this sort; for I can truly say, that in point of intellect they are not at all inferior to the natives of Europe; and, had I remained in France, I could not have believed that, without instruction, nature could have produced such ready and vigorous eloquence, or such a sound judgment in their affairs, as that which I have so much admired among the Hurons. I admit that their

Histoire Véritable des Moeurs et Productions de la Nouvelle France, &c. par Pierre Boucher, chap. 9. Paris, 1664.

habits and customs are barbarous, in a thousand instances; but, after all, in matters which they consider as wrong, and which the public condemns, we observe among them less criminality than in France, although here the only punishment of crime is the shame of having committed it."*

Père Vivier, another of the Jesuits, thus describes the Illinois Indians, among whom he resided for a long period, about the middle of the last century. "The Indians are of a character mild and sociable. They appear to have more intelligence than most of our French peasantry; which is probably owing to the liberty in which they are brought up. Respect never renders them timid; and as they have no degrees of rank nor dignity among them, every man appears to be on an equal footing. An Illinois would speak as boldly to the king of France as to the meanest of his subjects."†

Le Clercq, who belonged to one of the early Recollet or Franciscan missions, gives the following general description of those Indians with whom he had long resided near the mouth of the river St. Lawrence.

"As I took great pains to become thoroughly acquainted with their manners, maxims, and reli

Relation de la Nouvelle France, 1645, par le Père Jerome Lallemant, p. 153.

+ Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, écrites des Missions Etrangères, vol. vii. p. 82. Ed. 1780-81.

gion, I think I am able to give to the public a true and faithful idea of them; and happy shall I be if the reading affords to them the same pleasure as the writing has given to me, of those details which I have selected as the most curious and agreeable, in the missions I had the honour of belonging to during the twelve years I resided in New France. There exists in Europe a very prevailing error which it is proper to remove from the mind of the public, who suppose that the natives of America, in consequence of their never having been educated according to the rules of civilized society, possess nothing human but the name; and that they have none of those good qualities, either corporeal or mental, which distinguish the human race from that of brutes: imagining that they are covered with hair like bears, and more savage than tigers and leopards."-" Nature has endowed them with too much kindness towards each other, towards their children, and even towards strangers, to have ever given cause for comparing them to wild beasts. This fact it will not be difficult to establish in the course of the following History; in which I shall exhibit, with fidelity, the Indian of this country in every view in which I can consider him."*

Nouvelle Relation de la Gaspésie, par le Père le Clercq, Missionaire Recollet, chap. 1. Paris, 1691.

Lescarbot, who published his History of New France in 1618, and who had visited that country from curiosity, makes the following remark respecting the Indians. "I cannot avoid confessing that the people whom I have to describe are possessed of many good qualities. They are valorous, faithful, generous, and humane; and their hospitality so great, that they extend it to every one who is not their enemy. They speak with much judgment and reason, and when they have any important enterprise to undertake, the chief is attentively listened to for two or three hours together, and he is answered, point to point, as the subject may require. If, therefore, we call them savages, it is an abusive appellation, which they do not deserve, as will be proved in the course of this History."

In the Report transmitted in 1656 from the Jesuit mission among the Iroquois, that celebrated people are thus noticed. Among many faults caused by their blindness and barbarous education, we meet with virtues enough to cause shame among the most of Christians. Hospitals for the poor would be useless among them, because there are no beggars; for those who have, are so liberal to those who are in want, that every thing is

Histoire de la Nouvelle France, par Marc Lescarbot, Avocat en Parlement, liv. i. chap. 1. Paris, 1618.