had to sustain with the invaders of their country? In how many various shapes have they not been excited, and their passions roused to the utmost fury by acts of cruelty and injustice on the part of the whites, who have made afterwards the country ring with their complaints against the lawless savages, who had not the means of being heard in their defence?" p. 332.

The last of the foregoing questions Mr. Heckewelder has answered by a statement of some facts which are a reproach to our nation, and which deserve the serious consideration of our rulers.

*

66

Having shown how a war originated in 1763, by robberies and murders committed by white savages, and by drunken militia officers and their men," and what a "hue and cry was raised against the Indians," for revenging the wrongs, Mr. Heckewelder states what the Indians say in their own defence :

"They will tell you that there is not a single instance in which the whites have not violated the engagements that they made by treaties. They say that when they had ceded lands for the white people, and boundary lines had been established firmly established beyond which no whites were to settle; scarcely was the treaty signed, when white intruders again were settling and hunting on their lands! It is true that when they preferred their complaints to the government, the government gave them many fair promises, and assured them that men would be sent to remove the intruders by force from the usurped lands. The men indeed came, but with chain and compass in their hands, taking surveys of the tracts of good land, which the intruders from their knowledge of the country had pointed out to them. "What was then to be donc, when not go off from the land, but on the numbers ? Oh!' said those people, frequently heard such language in the Western country,A new treaty will soon give us all this land; nothing is now wanting but a pretence to pick a quarrel with them!'

those intruders would contrary increased in and I have myself

Well, but in what manner is this quarrel to be brought about? A David Owen, a Walker, and many others, might, if they were alive, easily answer the question." p. 335.

Fourth-Hon. D. B. Mitchell, lately Governor of Georgia, but now Agent for Indian Affairs.

This gentleman, it appears, being a resident in the Indian country, was called on by the Committee of the Senate of the United States for his testimony relating to the Seminole

His depasition has been published in the newspapers, and it bears strong marks of candor and impartiality. In speaking of the private acts of violence and outrage whichi were made the ground of public war on the Seminoles, Mr. Mitchell says,

"Those petty acts of aggression were increased and multiplied by a set of lawless and abandoned characters, who had taken refuge on both sides of the St. Mary's river, living principally by plunder. I believe the first outrage committed on the frontiers of Georgia, after the treaty of Fort Jackson, was by these banditti, who plundered a party of Seminole Indians, on their way to Georgia for the purpose of trade, and killed one of them. This produced retaliation on the part of the Indians, and hence the killing of Mrs. Garret and her child."

There is another part of the deposition of Mr. Mitchell, which will probably be quoted in a future Number. We may here only remark that, having mentioned his own exertions to preserve peace, and some effects of these exertions, also the arrival of Gen. Gaines, and his sudden attack and destruction of Fowl Town, he adds, "truth compels me to say, that before the attack on Fowl Town, aggressions of this kind were as frequent on the part of the whites as on the part of the Indians."

We now submit these several testimonies to the serious consideration of our fellow citizens, with an expression of our hope, that the time is not very distant, when it will be nderstood by white people, that Indians are men, that they

have souls and rights, that it is possible to treat them unjustly, that to make war on them to obtain their lands is atrocious murder; we also hope, that in future the American government will not subject the United States to a needless war with the Indians, to gratify "a set of lawless, abandoned characters, living principally by plunder." It is already believed by many intelligent men in the United States, that the greater number of our wars with the Indians have been caused by white savages, robbers, murderers, unprincipled land speculators, and knaves, who were more deserving of the halter, or a residence in a State's prison, than of being heard as witnesses against their less savage, less wicked red brethren.

REVIEW OF MODERN DEFENSIVE WAR.

In the course of this work we have had frequent occasion to remark the general consent of Christians to this alarming truth-that the aggressor in public war is a' murderer. We have also observed that in every modern war, each party has pretended to act on the principles of self-defence, and endeavcred to fix on the other the reproach of aggression and murder.

In the late war with the Seminoles, all the operations on our part were professedly defensive. Such were the professions of the government, and of the commanding Generals." Nor shall we pretend that these professions were not as sincere, and as well founded, as such professions generally are on the part of those who are first in appealing to arms for the decision of controversies. We may therefore in allusion to recent facts, state some things which may be done on the modern principles of defensive war.

First. A great and powerful nation may make war on a small and feeble tribe for the alleged offences or wanton acts of a few unauthorized individuals, and that too, while, to impartial men, it is difficult to say on which side the unauthorized aggressions originated, or which party had sustained the greater injuries. See the late Report of the Committee of the Senate of the United States.

Secondly. The war having been commenced, it may be carried on by the great nation with sword and fire, carnage and devastation. The small nation may be driven from their villages, their habitations may be consumed, and their property destroyed. These unfortunate beings may be pursued into a neutral territory-neutral rights may be violated -neutral towns and provinces overrun and conquered, their government may be subverted, and the governor transported.

Thirdly. In addition to all these acts of horror and violence, even after the danger is supposed to be over, the General of the great nation may cause disarmed and defenceless captives to be executed on the principle of self-preservation!

May we not here justly pause, and solemnly ask-What more or what worse than all these might have been expected of an unjust government, making an aggressive war for plunder, for fame, for the acquisition of territory, or for improving its troops in the art of man-butchery?

But our government and our generals are not singular in their professions and principles of making war in self-defence. At the opening of the session of the British Parliament, Jan. 1819, in allusion to the late war in India, the ministers say, "His Royal Highness commands us to inform you that the operations undertaken by the Governor General in Council against the Pindaries were dictated by the strictest principles of self-defence; and that in the extended hostilities which followed upon those operations, the Mahrattah Princes were in every instance the aggressors."

Such are, and probably such have ever been, the declarations of the British government respecting their wars in India. But this seems to be a species of fashionable court language, adopted in every country, to cover the crimes, and apologize for the calamities of war. With men of enlightened minds, it passes for nothing but evidence of the shocking delusions which always accompany military operations.

In "Bell's London Weekly Messenger," Sept. 7, 1818, we have the following extract from a report of one of the British Generals in this defensive war:-" Upon reaching the second

gate, and finding it not opened to us, I commanded the grenadiers to enter by a postern-the first three were killed, but we shortly succeeded in forcing our admission. I then gave orders that the whole garrison, amounting to near 300 men, should be put to the sword-a severe example, but, as I deem, a salutary one. As to the commander of the fort, Rajanant Row, I commanded him to be instantly hung from the battlements. I deemed this to be due to his rebellion

from the East India Company."

Such were some of the operations which are said to have been" dictated by the strictest principles of self-defence." In remarking on these barbarous proceedings, the writer in Bell's Messenger says, "it was a little too rigorous for the British character; it was not altogether consistent with our national humanity and moderation. Rajanant Row was a native prince; the fort was his palace ;-and his refusal to admit British troops appears to have been little more than the contumacious repugnance of an English Inn-keeper to admit the soldiers lawfully billeted upon him. What we would say," he adds, " is, that there appears to have been little of treason in this affair. At any rate the punishment was too summary, and the exercise of power and mere right, too absolute and unqualified. Our General would have done better to have considered the mode by which we had acquired sovereignty to the Rajah's fort. He would have done better to have made some allowance for feelings not very unnatural to a native prince."

How forcibly do these remarks apply to the conduct of an American General, in hanging the Seminole Chief and the Prophet Francis! Yet this same writer justifies the conduct of his countrymen in making war on the Ceyloncse." The origin of this war, he says, was not only just but honorable, in the highest degree, to the British character. It was a war to rescue a great portion of that island, and about a million of human beings, from the atrocious tyranny of their native prince."-Another example of defensive war!—of operations "dictated by the strictest principles of self-defence!"