be no sincere friendship between the oppressors and the oppressed: even in peace, the latter think themselves entitled to the rights of war against the former. We will, if you think good, enter into a treaty with you, according to our manner, which is not by signing, sealing, and taking the gods to witness, as is the Grecian custom; but by doing actual services. The Scythians are not used to promise, but perform without promising. And they think an appeal to the gods superfluous; for that those who have no regard for the esteem of men, will not hesitate to offend the gods by perjury. You may therefore consider with yourself, whether you would choose to have for allies, or for enemies, a people of such a character, and so situated as to have it in their power either to serve you, or to annoy you, according as you treat them.

SECTION. III.

Q. CURTIUS.

Speech of the Earl of Chatham, on the subject of employing Indians to fight against the Americans.

I CANNOT, my lords, I will not, join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. This, my lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment: it is not a time for adulation; the smoothness of flattery cannot save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the throne in the language of truth. We must, if possible, dispel the delusion and darkness which envelop it; and display, in its full danger and genuine colours, the ruin which is brought to our doors. Can ministers still presume to expect support in their infatuation? Can parliament be so dead to its dignity and duty, as to give their support to measures thus obtruded and forced upon them? measures, my lords, which have reduced this late flourishing empire to scorn and contempt? But yesterday, and England might have stood against the world; now, none so poor as to do her reverence! The people, whom we at first des

pised as rebels, but whom we now acknowledge as enemies, are abetted against us, supplied with every military store, their interest consulted, and their ambassadors entertained by our inveterate enemy;—and ministers do not, and dare not, interpose with dignity or effect. The desperate state of our army abroad is in part known. No man more highly esteems and honours the English troops than I do: I know their virtues and their valour; I know they can achieve any thing but impossibilities; and I know that the conquest of English America is an impossibility. You cannot, my lords, you cannot conquer America. What is your

present situation there? We do not know the worst: but we know that in three campaigns we have done nothing, and suffered much. You may swell every expense, accumulate every assistance, and extend your traffic to the shambles of every German despot; your attempts will be for ever vain and impotent;-doubly so, indeed, from this mercenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds of your adversaries, to overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty.

But, my lords, who is the man, that, in addition to the disgraces and mischiefs of the war, has dared to authorise and associate to our arms, the tomahawk and scalping knife of the savage?-to call into civilized alliance, the wild and inhuman inhabitants of the woods?—to delegate to the merciless Indian, the defence of disputed rights, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our brethren? My lords, these enormities cry aloud for redress and punishment. But, my lords, this barbarous measure has been defended, not only on the principles of policy and necessity, but also on those of morality; "for it is perfectly allowable," says Lord Suffolk, "to use all the means which God and nature have put into our hands." I am astonished, I am shocked, to hear such principles confessed;

M

to hear them avowed in this house, or in this country. My lords, I did not intend to encroach so much on your attention; but I cannot repress my indignation-I feel myself impelled to speak. My lords, we are called upon as members of this house, as men, as Christians, to protest against such horrible barbarity!" That God and nature have put into our hands!" What ideas of God and nature, that noble lord may entertain, I know not; but I know that such detestable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity. What! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and nature to the massacres of the Indian scalping knife! to the savage, torturing and murdering his unhappy victims! Such notions shock every precept of morality, every feeling of humanity, every sentiment of honour. These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon that right reverend, and this most learned Bench, to vindicate the religion of their God, to support the justice of their country. I call upon the bishops to interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn,-upon the judges to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us from this pollution. I call upon the honour of your lordships, to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country, to vindicate the national character. I invoke the genius of the constitution. From the tapestry that adorns these walls, the immortal an cestor of this noble lord frowns with indignation at the disgrace of his country. In vain did he defend the liberty, and establish the religion of Britain, against the tyranny of Rome, if these worse than Popish cruelties and inquisitorial practices, are endured among

us.

To send forth the merciless Indian, thirsting for blood! against whom?-your protestant brethren !to lay waste their country, to desolate their dwellings, and extirpate their race and name, by the aid and in

strumentality of these ungovernable savages!-Spain can no longer boast pre-eminence in barbarity. She armed herself with bloodhounds to extirpate the wretched natives of Mexico; we, more ruthless, loose those brutal warriors against our countrymen in America, endeared to us by every tie that can sanctify humanity. I solemnly call upon your lordships, and upon every order of men in the state, to stamp upon this infamous procedure the indelible stigma of the public abhorrence. More particularly, I call upon the venerable prelates of our religion, to do away this iniquity: let them perform a lustration to purify the country from this deep and deadly sin.

My lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say more; but my feelings and indignation were too strong to have allowed me to say less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, nor even reposed my head upon my pillow, without giving vent to my steadfast abhorrence of such enormous and preposterous principles.

Every benevolent mind must be gratified with the cheering prospect which is now opening in favour of the American Indians. This benighted and unhappy part of our species, notwithstanding their savage enormities, are entitled to compassion; especially from those who are enlightened by the rays of that Gospel, which dispenses hope to the miserable, and breathes" peace on earth, and good will to men." They are, indeed, not only entitled to compassion, but to our active and liberal co-operation in the present happy measures, for diffusing amongst them the blessings of civil life, and the benign influence of Christianity.

CHAPTER VIII.

PROMISCUOUS PIECES.

SECTION I.

The voyage of Life; an allegory.

"LIFE," says Seneca, "is a voyage, in the progress

of which we are perpetually changing our scenes. We first leave childhood behind us, then youth, then the years of ripened manhood, then the better or more pleasing part of old age." The perusal of this passage having excited in me a train of reflections on the state of man, the incessant fiuctuation of his wishes, the gradual change of his disposition to all external objects, and the thoughtlessness with which he floats along the stream of time, I sunk into a slumber amidst my meditations, and, on a sudden, found my ears filled with the tumult of labour, the shouts of alacrity, the shrieks of alarm, the whistle of winds, and the dash of waters. My astonishment for a time repressed my curiosity; but soon recovering myself so far as to inquire whither we were going, and what was the cause of such clamour and confusion, I was told that we were launching out into the ocean of life; that we had already passed the straits of Infancy, in which multitudes had perished, some by the weakness and fragility of their vessels, and more by the folly, perverseness, or negligence, of those who undertook to steer them; and that we were now on the main sea, abandoned to the winds and billows, without any other means of security than the care of the pilot, whom it was always in our power to choose, among great numbers that offered their direction and assistance.