Captain Marryat (continued 10)

In Louisiana the same spirit was shewn. General Gaines was at that time on a tour of inspection, and had received orders to take charge of the troops assembling on the Mexican frontier; but, at the request of the volunteers, he took the command of them until he could receive further orders from Washington. The assistance of the American naval forces were demanded and obtained, and General Gaines having received intelligence that Fort Brooke was invested by the Indians, sent an express to General Clinch at Fort King, to say that he would join him with his forces to relieve the post. The Seminole Indians who had agreed to the treaty, remained firm to their word, and took up arms against their brethren, and a large force was now marching from all directions to the succour of the whites. I ought here to observe, that not only at the commencement, but ever since the war has continued, the difficulty and expense of forwarding supplies have been very great, and the American troops have undergone the severest privations, as well as great mortality from sickness and disease.

On the 13th February 1836, General Gaines, having arrived at Fort Brooke, reviewed his force, which amounted to between eleven hundred and twelve hundred men, and commenced his march to relieve Fort King, at which post he arrived on the 2nd February, without falling in with any of the Indians. The general then made a detour in pursuit of the enemy. On the 27th, when the force was crossing the Ouithlacoochee River, it was assailed by the Indians, who retired after a skirmish of three-quarters of an hour, the loss of the Americans being very trifling. On the 28th, when again fording the river, the Indians made another attack, which was continued for nearly four hours, and the Americans had to lament the loss of Major Izard, who was killed, and two other officers were wounded. On the 29th, the Indians again attacked, with a force of at least a thousand men, with a view of forcing the American troops from the breastwork which they had thrown up; the Indians, after about two hours’ fighting, set fire to the high grass; but, unfortunately for them, the wind suddenly changed, and, instead of burning out the American troops, all their own concealed positions were burnt up and exposed, and they were compelled to retire. The loss on the Indian side was not known, but was supposed to be heavy; that on the part of the Americans amounted to thirty-two killed and wounded. General Gaines, finding that the Indians were so near him, now despatched expresses for a supply of ammunition, being resolved, if possible, to bring them to a general action. The sufferings of the American troops were very severe, and they were killing their horses for subsistence; but the camp was secure, in consequence of the Indians having burnt down all the means of concealment so necessary in their mode of warfare. Notwithstanding which, on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of March, the camp was vigorously assailed. On the evening of the 5th, the Indian interpreter came in from the Seminoles, stating that they wished to hold a council, and did not want any more fighting. On the 6th, a truce was held, when Asseola and other chiefs made their appearance, saying, that if the Americans would not cross the river, they would remain on their own side of it, and not commit any more ravages. This was, in fact, nothing but the original proposal of the Indians, that they should remain upon the land which had been assigned to them by the treaty of Camp Moultrie. The reply of General Gaines was, that he was not authorised to make a treaty with them; their arms must be given up, and they must remain on the other side of the river, until the American Government sent them away west of the Mississippi. While this negotiation was pending, General Clinch arrived with the succour and reinforcements, much to the joy of the American troops, who were half starved. General Gaines, who had heard that General Scott had been appointed to the command in Florida, now resigned that authority to General Clarke, and on the 11th, the troops arrived at Fort Drane. It hardly need be observed, that the treating with the Indians ended in nothing. General Scott having assumed the command, arrived at Fort Drane on the 13th March 1836. He had had previously to contend with heavy rains and almost impracticable roads, and was encumbered with a heavy baggage train; his whole force amounted to nearly 5,000 men. This he divided into a centre and two wings, with a view to scour the whole country, and force the Indians from their retreats; but in vain. The Indians being on the flanks of each division, occasional skirmishes took place; but when the troops arrived to where the Indians were supposed to be, not a man was to be seen, nor could they discover the retreat of their families. Occasionally the Indians attacked the outposts with great vigour, and were bravely repulsed; but the whole army, of 5,000 men, did not kill and capture more than twenty Indians. As far as I can judge, nothing could be better than the arrangements of General Scott, but the nature of the country to which the Indians had retreated, rendered it almost impossible for troops to act. The swamps extended over a great surface of ground; here and there was an island on which the Indians could remain; while to attack them, the troops would have to wade up to their necks for miles, and as soon as they arrived the Indians were gone.

It is not my intention to follow up all the details of the petty warfare which has continued to the present time. General Scott resigned the command, and was succeeded by General Jessopp. On the 20th October 1837, after nearly a year’s skirmishing, Asseola was persuaded to come in, to a council. The flags of truce were hoisted by the Americans, and Asseola, carrying a flag of truce in his hand, and accompanied by other chiefs and about 50 warriors, came in to talk. On their arrival, they were surrounded by bayonets, and made prisoners by the orders of the Federal Government, who, despairing of subduing the Indians, had recourse to this shameful breach of faith. The proud spirit of Asseola could not endure confinement: he died in prison. Other chiefs were kidnapped in the same traitorous manner; but, severe as the loss must have been to the Indians, it did not appear to discourage them. The war was still carried on by those who were left, and, indeed, is still continued; for the ranks of the Indians are said to be filled up by runaway slaves, and some of the Creek Indians who have not yet quitted Georgia. On the 25th of December 1837, a severe battle was fought between the Indians and the American troops, at a spot between Pease Creek and the Big Cypress Swamps; on this occasion the Americans lost Colonels Thompson and Guntry, with twenty-eight killed, and one hundred and eleven wounded. Since that I am not aware that any important combat has taken place; but it is certain that the Seminoles, notwithstanding the loss of their leaders, still hold out and defy the whole power of the United States.

It is asserted in the American papers that the loss of lives on the American side, from the enemy and from disease, amounts to between two and three thousand men, and that the expenses of the war are now estimated at 30,000,000 of dollars. How far these calculations may be correct I cannot pretend to say, but it is notorious that a handful of Indians, estimated, at the commencement of the war, at about 1,900, have contended against armies of four or five times their number, commanded by gallant and able officers; that this small band of Indians, notwithstanding their losses from the weapons of the enemy, and their still greater losses from breach of faith, have now for four years held out against the American Government, and have contrived to subsist during that period; and that the retreat of their wives and families has never been discovered, notwithstanding the Americans have a friendly portion of the Seminoles acting with them. Indeed, if we are to believe the American statements, the war is almost as far from its conclusion now as it was at its commencement. See note 1.

I have hastily narrated the causes and principal events of the war, as they are little known in England. The Americans, even if they expend twice as much money, must persevere, until they have extirpated every Indian, and settled the territory with white people; if they do not, the Florida swamps will become the resort of runaway slaves, and the precedent of what can be done, will encourage a general rising of the slaves in the adjoining States, who will only have to retire to the banks of the Ouithlacoochee and defend themselves. So fatal is the climate to the European, that America even now will probably have to sacrifice life and treasure to a much greater extent before she obtains possession of the territory. I shall conclude by quoting a portion of a letter from the Genevese Traveller which appeared in the Times newspaper.

“The war was unrighteous in its commencement, and has been continued for years under circumstances the most profligate. There has not been a single campaign in which the army has not reaped a plentiful harvest of mortification and disgrace. When brought into action both officers and men fought valiantly, but the character of the country, its deep morasses and swamps, and the ignorance of the troops of Indian warfare, have uniformly tended to produce the most disastrous defeats.

“There is not to be found on the page of history, in any country, an instance of a scattered remnant of a tribe, so few in number, defending themselves against the assaults of a disciplined and numerous army, with the same heroism and triumphant results with those of the Seminoles in resisting the American troops. In every campaign the invaders have been at least ten to one against the invaded. At no period have the Indians been able to muster more than 700 or 800 warriors, and it is doubtful whether they have ever had more than half that number, while the American army, when in the field, has uniformly amounted to from 6,000 to 10,000 men.”

Note 1. Although the Federal Government has set its face against the Indians making war with each other (or at least pretends so to do), it would appear by the following notice, that, in their necessity, they have not adhered to the following resolutions:—

Extract of a Letter, date:—

“Fort Brooke, Florida, June 14.

“The Cherokees and Choctaws are soon expected in this country, when there will be a war of extermination and no quarter shown. The affairs here are just the same as two years ago. The war is no nearer ended. But we do hope that the offer of ten dollars for each Seminole scalp will be a great inducement for the Cherokees and Choctaws to cut and slash among them.”

Volume Three—Chapter Eleven.

Reply to the Edinburgh Review.

The art of reviewing may be compared to French cookery; it has no medium—it must either be first-rate or it is worth nothing: nay, the comparison goes much further, as the attempt at either not only spoils the meat, but half poisons the guests. The fact is, good reviewing is of the highest order of literature, for a good reviewer ought to be superior to the party whose writings he reviews. Such men as Southey, Croker, and Lockhart on the one side, Brougham, Fontblanque, and Rintoul on the other, will always command respect in their vocations, however much they may be influenced by political feelings, or however little you may coincide with them in opinion. But, passing over these, and three or four more cordons bleus, what are reviewers in general? men of a degree of talent below that of the author whose works they presume to decide upon; the major portion of whom, having failed as authors, are possessed with but one feeling in their disappointment, which is to drag others down to their own debased level. To effect this, you have malevolence substituted for wit, and high-sounding words for sense; every paltry advantage is taken that can be derived from an intentional misrepresentation of your meaning, and (what is the great secret of all) from unfair quotations of one or two lines, carefully omitting the context—an act of unpardonable dishonesty towards the author, and but too often successful in misleading the reader of the Review. By acting upon this last-mentioned system, there is no book, whatever its merits may be, which cannot be misrepresented to the public: a work espousing atheism may be made to appear wholly moral; or, the Holy Scriptures themselves condemned as licentious and indecent. If such reviewing is fair, a jury may, upon a similar principle, decide upon a case by the evidence in favour of the prosecution; and beauty or deformity in architecture be pronounced upon by the examination of a few bricks taken out from different portions of a building.

That, latterly, the public have been more inclined to judge for themselves, than to pin their faith upon reviews, is certain; nevertheless, when what is termed a “slashing article” upon a popular work makes its appearance, the public are too apt to receive it without scrutiny. Satisfied with the general effect, as with that produced in a theatrical representation, they do not bear in mind that that which has the appearance of gold, would prove upon examination to be nothing more than tinsel.

Were all reviewers to be reviewed by authors as well as all authors by reviewers, the authors would have the best of it in the mélée. Again, were reviewers obliged to put their names to their several articles, there would be a great difference in their style; but, secure in their incognito from the disgrace of exposure, they make no scruple to assert what they well know to be false, and, coward-like, to assail those who have seldom an opportunity, whatever may be their power, to defend themselves. Never, perhaps, was there a better proof of the truth of the foregoing observations than is afforded by the article in the Edinburgh Review upon the first portion of my work on America; and as I have some pages to spare, I shall now take the unusual liberty of reviewing the Reviewer.

First, let me introduce to the public the writer of the article—Miss Harriet Martineau. My readers may inquire how I can so positively make this assertion? I reply that it is owing to my “craft.” A person who has long dealt in pictures will, without hesitation, tell you the name of the painter of any given work: a shepherd with a flock of three or four hundred sheep under his charge, will know every one of them individually, although to people in general, one sheep is but the counterpart of the others. Thus, there are little varieties of style, manner, and handling of the pen, which become evident to practised writers, although they are not always so to readers. But even if these peculiarities were not sufficient, the manner in which the article is managed (the remarks of Miss Martineau upon the merits of Miss Martineau) in my mind establishes to conviction, that the major portion of the article, if not the whole, has proceeded from her pen. This is a matter of no consequence, and I only mention it that my readers may understand why Miss Martineau, who forms so prominent a feature in the Edinburgh article, will also occasionally appear in mine. My reply, however, is not addressed to her, but to the Edinburgh Reviewer.

I have no doubt the Reviewer will most positively deny that Miss Martineau had any thing to do with the Review of my work: that of course. With his permission, I will relate a little anecdote. “When the Royal George went down at Spithead, an old gentleman, who had a son on board, was bewailing his loss. His friends came to console him. ‘I thought,’ observed one of them, ‘that you had received a letter?’—‘Yes,’ replied the old gentleman, ‘but it was from Jack himself.’—‘Well, what more would you have?’—‘Ah,’ replied the old gentleman, ‘had it been from the captain, or from one of his messmates, or, indeed, from anybody else, it would have consoled me; but Jack,—he is such an incorrigible liar, that his very assertion that he is safe, convinces me that he has gone to the bottom.’”

Now my opinion of the veracity of the Edinburgh Review may be estimated by the above anecdote; the very circumstance of its denial would, with me, be sufficient to establish the fact. But to proceed.

The Review has pronounced the first portion of my work to be light and trifling, and full of errors; it asserts that I have been hoaxed by the Americans; that I am incapable of sound reasoning; cannot estimate human nature; and, finally, requests as a favour that I will write no more. Such are the general heads of the Review.

Now here we have a strange inconsistency, for why should the Edinburgh Review, if the work be really what he asserts it to be, “light and trifling,” etcetera, waste so much powder and shot upon a tomtit? Why has he dedicated twenty-seven pages of ponderous verbosity to so light and trifling a work? How seldom is it that the pages of the Quarterly or Edinburgh condescend to notice even the very best of light literature! Do they not, in their majesty, consider it infra dig. to review such works, and have not two or three pages bestowed upon them been considered as an immense favour on their part, and a high compliment to the authors? Notwithstanding which, we have here twenty-seven pages of virulent attack upon my light and trifling work. Does not the Edinburgh reviewer at once shew that the work is not light and trifling? does he not contradict his own assertions, by the labour and space bestowed upon it? nay, more, is it not strange that he should think it necessary to take the unfair advantage of reviewing a work before it is half finished, and pounce upon the first portion, with the hopes of neutralising the effects which he evidently dreads from the second.

I will answer the question for him. He indulges in his precipitate and unmeasured attacks, because he feels that the work is written in a style that will induce every one to read it; because he feels assured that the occasional, and apparently careless hits at democracy, are only preparatory to others more severe, and that these will come out in the second part, which will be read with as much avidity as the first. He perceives the drift of the work; he feels that it has been purposely made amusing, and that it will be more injurious to the cause which the Edinburgh Review upholds than a more laboured treatise; that those who would not look at a more serious work will read this, and that the opinions it contains will be widely disseminated, and impressed without the readers being aware of it; moreover, that it will descend to a class of readers who have hitherto been uninformed upon the subject: in short, he apprehends the greater danger to his cause from the work having, as I have said, been made amusing, and from its being in appearance, although not in reality, “light and trifling.”

I candidly acknowledge that the Reviewer is right in his supposition: my great object has been to do serious injury to the cause of democracy. To effect this, it was necessary that I should write a book which should be universally read—not merely by the highly educated portion of the community, for they are able to judge for themselves; but read by every tradesman and mechanic; pored over even by milliners’ girls, and boys behind the counter, and thumbed to pieces in every petty circulating library. I wrote the work with this object, and I wrote accordingly. Light and trifling as it may appear to be, every page of it (as I have stated) has been the subject of examination and deliberation: it has given me more trouble than any work I ever wrote; and, my labour having been so far crowned with success, I trust that I shall have “done the State some service.” (See Note 1.) The review in the Edinburgh will neither defeat nor obstruct my purpose, as that publication circulates chiefly among those classes who have already formed their opinions; and I have this advantage over it, that, as for one that reads the Edinburgh Review, fifty will read my work, so will fifty read my reply who will never trouble themselves about the article in the Edinburgh Review.

And now let us enter a little into detail. The Reviewer finds great fault with my introduction, as being wholly irrevelant to the Diary which follows it. I admit, that if it were an introduction to the Diary alone, there then would be some justice in his remark. But such is not the case: an introduction is, I believe, generally understood to refer to the whole of the work, not a portion of it; and now that the work is complete, I leave it to the public to decide whether the introduction is suitable or not, as bearing upon the whole. I believe, also, it is the general custom to place an introduction at the commencement of a work; I never heard of one being introduced into the middle or at the end of it. The fault, therefore, of its imputed irrelevancy is not mine: it is the Reviewer’s, who has thought proper to review the work before it was complete. He quotes me, as saying, “Captain Marryat’s object was to examine and ascertain what were the effects of a democratic form of government upon a people which, with all its foreign admixture, may still be considered as English;” and then, without waiting till I have completed my task, he says, that the present work “has nothing, or next to nothing, to do with such an avowal.” Whether such an assertion has any thing to do with the work now that it is completed, I leave the public to decide. The Reviewer has no excuse for this illiberal conduct, for I have said, in my Introduction, “In the arrangement of this work, I have considered it advisable to present to the reader first, those portions of my Diary which may be interesting, and in which are recorded traits and incidents which will bear strongly upon the commentaries I shall subsequently make;” notwithstanding which the reviewer has the mendacity to assert that, “not until the last paragraph of the last volume, does he learn for the first time that the work is not complete.” I will be content with quoting his own words against him—“An habitual story teller prefers invention to description.”

The next instance of the Reviewer’s dishonesty is, his quoting a portion of a paragraph and rejecting the context. He quotes, “I had not been three weeks in the country before I decided upon accepting no more invitations, charily as they were made,” and upon this quotation he founds an argument that, as I did not enter into society, I could of course have no means of gaining any knowledge of American character or the American institutions. Now, if the reviewer had had the common honesty to finish the paragraph, the reason why I refused the invitations would have been apparent; “because I found that, although invited, my presence was a restraint upon the company, and every one was afraid to speak.” Perhaps the sagacity of the Reviewer will explain what information I was likely to gain from people who would not open their mouths. Had he any knowledge of the Americans, he would admit that they never will venture to give their opinions in the presence of each other; it was not that they were afraid of me, but of each other, as Monsieur de Tocqueville has very truly pointed out in his work. Moreover, I have now, for the first time, to learn that the best way of arriving at the truth is to meet people who are on their guard, and whose object is to deceive.

There is a malevolent feeling in the assertion, that I have treated all other previous writers on America with contempt; and here again he intentionally quotes falsely. My words are “the majority of those who have preceded me.” As nearly as I can reckon, there have been about fifty works published on America, out of which there are not ten which deserve attention; and the ample quotations I have made from Monsieur de Tocqueville, Captain Hamilton, and others, in corroboration of my own opinions, fully evince the respect I have for their writings. In fact, the whole article is a tissue of falsehood and misrepresentation, and so weak that hardly one of its positions is tenable. Can any thing be more absurd, or more shallow, than to quote the Mississippi scheme and Mr Law as a proof that the French are, as well as the English and Americans, a speculative nation: one solitary instance of a portion of the French having, about sixty or seventy years ago, been induced to embark their capital, is brought forward, while the abject supineness of the French population of Lower Canada, in juxta-position with the energy and enterprise of the Americans, has for half a century stared us in the face.

The Reviewer has the kindness repeatedly to inform me that I have been hoaxed by the Americans, and, most unfortunately for himself, he has brought forward the “Original Draft of the Declaration of Independence” as a proof of it. That he would be very glad to prove it to be a hoax, I believe; as it is a sad discovery, and one which the American democrats should have kept secret. That the Americans did hoax Miss Martineau, and that they would have hoaxed me if they could, I admit, but even the Reviewer must acknowledge that they would not hoax themselves. Now it so happens, that this document, which has not long been discovered, is in the splendid public library of Philadelphia: it has been carefully preserved in a double plate-glass frame, so as to be read on both sides without handling; it is expensively mounted, and shewn to every visitor as a great curiosity, as it certainly is, the authenticity of it being undeniable, and acknowledged by the Americans. The paragraph which was expunged is verbatim as I gave it—a paragraph which affords more proof, if further proof were necessary, that Jefferson was one of the most unprincipled men who ever existed. The Reviewer recommends my perusal of the works of this “great and good man,” as Miss Martineau calls him. I suspect that I have read more of Mr Jefferson and other American authors than ever the Reviewer has; and I consider the writings of this Father of Democracy, opposed to his private life, to be a remarkable type of democracy in theory and in practice. To borrow a term from the Reviewer, those writings are “brave words” to proceed from an infidel, who proved his ardent love of liberty by allowing his own children to be put up to auction at his death, and wear away their existence in misery and bondage. I cannot help here observing a trifling inconsistency on the part of the Reviewer. After lauding the Father of Democracy, and recommending me to read his works; after sneering at our aristocracy by observing, “that no kind of virtue that we have heard of can suffer much from the loss of a court and of an hereditary nobility;” after, in short, defending and upholding democracy in every page, all of a sudden the Reviewer turns round and says, “We are no general admirers of democracy.” Indeed! if not general, you certainly appear to be particular admirers; and if neither general nor particular, may I inquire what the Edinburgh Review has been frothing, fizzing, hissing, and bubbling about, like a tea-kettle in a passion, for these last twenty years?

Never was there a more convincing proof of the boldness and arrogance which Reviewers (trusting to the irresponsibility arising from their concealment) assume, than is afforded by the following passage in the Edinburgh article:—

“An ardent pursuit of wealth and deep religious feelings go very well together.”

It is not for me to reply to the Reviewer in this instance; I must hand him over to higher authority. I must oppose the everlasting doctrines of inspiration to the cold, heartless, and arrogant philosophy of an Edinburgh reviewer. In vain are we again and again forewarned in the Scriptures against the love of money; in vain has our Saviour denounced it; in vain have the apostles followed in his steps. Let the Reviewer, if he ever has looked into the Bible, refer to the epistles to the Colossians and to the Ephesians. St. Paul declares that covetousness is idolatry. Hear also what he sayeth to Timothy:—

“But they that wish to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.” “For the love of money is the root of all evil.”

Our Divine Master is even more explicit, for he says—“No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.” Thus says our Lord—now hear the Edinburgh Reviewer.—“An ardent pursuit of wealth and deep religious feelings go very well together.”

Here the Edinburgh Reviewer has placed himself on the horns of a dilemma. The Holy Writings assert most positively and repeatedly one thing, while he asserts another. If, therefore, he acknowledge the Scriptures, he must at the same time acknowledge his own grievous error, and, I may add, his deep sin: if, on the contrary, he still hold to his own opinion, hath he not denied his faith, and is he not worse than an infidel?

The reviewer sneers at my observation, that “Washington had no power to control the nature of man.” It may be, as he observes, a very simple remark; but, at all events, it has one advantage over his own, which is, that it is a very true one. Miss Martineau makes an observation in her book, which is quite as great a truism as mine; for she also says that “Human nature is the same everywhere.”

How far I have succeeded in my analysis of human nature it is not for me to decide; but that it is the same every where I will now venture to support by something more than assertion on the part of Miss Martineau.

When I was at Boston, in company with some of the young ladies, the conversation turned upon Miss Martineau, with whom they stated that they had been intimate. Naturally anxious to know more of so celebrated a personage, I asked many questions. I was told much to interest me, and, among other little anecdotes, they said that Miss Martineau used to sit down surrounded by the young ladies, and amuse them with all the histories of her former loves. She would detail to them “how Jack sighed and squeezed her hand; how Tom went down on his knees; how Dick swore and Sam vowed; and how—she was still Miss Martineau.” And thus would she narrate and they listen until the sun went down, and the firefly danced, while the frogs lifted up their voices in full concert.

And I said to myself, “Who would have supposed that this Solon in petticoats would ever have dwelt upon her former days of enthusiasm and hope, or have cherished the reminiscences of love? How true it is that human nature is the same everywhere.”

Once more:—

I was conversing with a lady at New York, who informed me that she had seen a letter from Miss M, written to a friend of hers, after her return to England, in which Miss M declared that her door was so besieged with the carriages of the nobility, that it was quite uncomfortable, and that she hardly knew what to do.

Thinks I to myself, I recollect an old story.

“Oh! Grandmother,” cried Tom, running in, out of breath, “there’s at least a thousand cats in our garden.”—“No, no, Tom,” quickly replied, the old lady; “not a thousand, Tom.”—“Well I’m sure there’s five hundred.”—“No, nor five hundred,” replied the old lady, not taking her eyes off her knitting.—“Well, then, grandmother, I’m sure there’s fifty.”—“I don’t think there are fifty, Tom.”—“Well, at all events, there’s our cat and another.”—“Ah! Tom,” replied the old lady, “that may be.”

I believe that the carriage of Lord Brougham is occasionally to be seen at the door of Miss Martineau.

But when I heard this I was pleased, for I said to myself, “So, then, this champion of democracy, this scorner of rank and title, is flattered by the carriages of the nobility crowding at her door;” and, again I said to myself, “human nature is the same everywhere.”

But the Reviewer, in his virulence, has not been satisfied with attacking me; he has thought it necessary to libel the whole profession to which I have the honour to belong. He has had the folly and impertinence to make the following remark: “No landsmen can have been on board of a ship a week, without coming to the conclusion that a sensible house dog is more like the people he has left at home than most of his new companions, and that it (the house dog) would be nearly as capable of solving problems on national character.”

Indeed!!

Is it possible that the Reviewer should still remain the dupe of such a vulgar error? That at one time it was the custom to send to sea the fool of the family, is certain, and had the Reviewer flourished in those days, he would probably have been the one devoted to the service—but tempora mutantur. Is the Reviewer aware that one-half, and certainly the most successful half, of English diplomacy, is now carried on by the admirals and captains, not only in the Mediterranean, but all over the world. Is he aware that when the Foreign Office wishes to do its work cheaply and well, it demands a vessel from the Admiralty, which is made over to that office, and is set down as employed on “particular service:” that during that service the captain acts from instructions given by the Foreign Office alone, and has his cabin piled with voluminous documents; and that, like the unpaid magistracy of England, we sailors do all the best of the work, and have nothing but our trouble for our pains. Nay, even the humble individual who pens this remonstrance was for months on this very service, and, when it was completed, the Foreign Office expressed to the Admiralty its satisfaction at his conduct during his short diplomatic career.

House dogs! Hear this, ye public of England! A sensible house dog is to be preferred to St. Vincent, Nelson, Collingwood, Exmouth, and all those great men who have aided their country as much with their pen as with their sword; as much by their acuteness and firmness in diplomacy, as by their courage and conduct in action.

Now, Mr Reviewer, don’t you feel a little ashamed of yourself? Would you really like to give up your name as the author of this bare-faced libel? Would you like openly to assert that such is your opinion, and that you will stand by it?

No liberal, high-minded man, whatever his politics may have been, has ever refused to do justice to a service which has been the bulwark of England. Lord Brougham has lately published a work containing the lives of celebrated persons in the reign of George the Third. I will just quote a few passages from his life of Lord St. Vincent.

“The present sketches would be imperfect if Lord St. Vincent were passed over in silence, for he was almost as distinguished among the statesmen, as the warriors of the age.

“A statesman of profound views and of penetration, hardly equalled by any other man of his time.

“But the consummate vigour and wisdom of his proceedings during the dreadful period of the mutiny, are no less a theme of wonder and of praise.

“When the Addington ministry was formed, he was placed at the head of the Admiralty; and now shone forth in all its lustre that great capacity for affairs with which he was endowed by nature, and which ample experience of men, habits of command, and an extended life of deep reflection, had matured.

“The capacity of a statesman and the valour of the hero, outshone by the magnanimous heart which beats only to the measures of generosity and justice.”

Here, again, the Reviewer is in what the Yankees would call an “everlasting awkward fix;” for he contradicts Lord Brougham, the patron and sole supporter of his fast-waning review, without the aid of whose admirable pen, it would long ago have gone to its proper place. He must now either admit that he is himself wrong, or that it is Lord Brougham who is in error. He has but to choose.

I have but one more remark to make upon the review itself. At the close of it, the Reviewer observes, that my remarks upon the marine are interesting and useful. How does he know? Upon his own argument, if we house dogs are not competent upon shore matters, he must be equally ignorant of anything connected with our profession; and I therefore consider it a piece of unpardonable presumption on the part of a land lubber like him to offer any opinion on the subject.

The Reviewer, whoever it may be, has proved himself wholly incompetent to his task; he has attacked, but has yet to learn the art of parrying, as has been proved by his laying himself so open. His blows have been stopped, and, without giving, he has received severe punishment. I am the more surprised at this, as I really considered that there was a certain tact in the Edinburgh Review, which enabled it to know where to direct the blow, so as to make it tell; a species of professional knowledge proper to executioners, reviewers, and cab-drivers, and which may be summed up in the following axiom: “The great art of flogging is, to know where to find a bit of raw.”

So little have I felt the castigation intended, that I have had some compunction in administering this discipline to the Reviewer in return. Surely the Edinburgh Review can put a better head on, when it takes notice of this second portion of my work? I will give it an anecdote.

A lady of my acquaintance was blessed with a son, then about three years old. She was very indulgent, and he was very much spoiled. At last he became so unmanageable that she felt it was her imperative duty to correct him. She would as soon have cut off her right arm, but that would not have mended the matter, nor the child. So one day, when the young gentleman had been more than usually uproarious, she pulled up his petticoats and administered what she considered a most severe infliction. Having so done, with a palpitating heart she sat down to recover herself, miserable that she had been compelled to punish, but attempting to console herself with the reflection that she had done her duty. What then was her surprise to have her reveries interrupted by the young urchin, who, appearing only to have been tickled, came up to her, and laying down his head on her lap, pulled up his coats, and cried, “More whipping, Ma; please, more whipping.” So weak has been the wrist, whether it be feminine or not, that has applied the punishment, that I also feel inclined to exclaim with the child, “More whipping, (Miss Martineau?) please, more whipping.”

The Reviewer has pronounced that “no author is cleverer than his works.” If no author be cleverer than his works, it is equally certain that no reviewer is cleverer than his review. Does the Reviewer recollect the fable of the jackass who put on the lion’s skin? Why did he not take warning from the fabled folly of his ancestor and hold his tongue? He might still have walked about and have been supposed to be a Reviewer.

He asserts that I am not capable of serious reflection: he is mistaken. I have seldom cut the leaves of the Edinburgh, having been satisfied with looking at its outside, and thinking how very appropriate its colours of blue and yellow were to the opinions which it advocates. But at times I have been more serious. I have communed with myself as it lay before me, and I have mentally exclaimed:— Here is a work written by men whom the Almighty has endowed with talents, and who will, if there be truth in Scripture, have to answer for the talents committed to their keeping,—yet these men, like madmen, throw about fire, and cry it is only in sport; they uphold doctrines as pernicious as, unfortunately, they are popular; disseminate error under the most specious guise; wage war against the happiness of their fellow-creatures, unhinging society, breeding discontent, waving the banner of infidelity and rebellion, and inviting to anarchy and bloodshed. To such prostitution of talent to this work of the devil, they are stimulated by their pride and their desire of gain! And I have surmised that hereafter they will have their reward; but, remembering that we are forbid to judge, I have checked my thoughts as they have turned upon what might hereafter be the portion below of—an Edinburgh Reviewer.

Note 1. A very acute reviewer has observed of my first portion, that there always appeared as if there was something left behind and not told. He was right; I have entered into every subject just as deeply as I dared to venture, without wearying the class of readers for whom, although not avowedly, yet in reality, the work has chiefly been written. The second portion will therefore be found almost as light and trifling as the first.

Volume Three—Chapter Twelve.

Discourse on the Evidences of the American Indians being the Descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel.

Those who study the Scriptures, either as a matter of duty or pleasure—who seek in them divine revelations, or search for the records of history, cannot be ignorant of the fact that the Jewish nation, at an early period, was divided into twelve tribes, and occupied their ancient heritage under geographical divisions, during the most splendid periods under the kingdoms of Judah and of Israel.

Their early history—the rise, progress, and downfall of the nation—the proud distinction of being the chosen people—their laws, government, and wars—their sovereigns, judges, and temples—their sufferings, dispersions, and the various prophecies concerning this ancient and extraordinary people, cannot be unknown to you all. For their history is the foundation of religion, their vicissitudes the result of prophecy, their restoration the fulfilment of that great promise made to the Patriarch Abraham, almost I may say in the infancy of nature.

It is also known to you that the Jewish nation was finally overpowered, and nine and a half of the tribes were carried captives to Samaria; two and a half, to wit: Judah, Benjamin, and half Menassah, remained in Judea or in the transjordani cities.

The question before us for consideration is, what has become of the missing or dispersed tribes—to what quarter of the world did they direct their footsteps, and what are the evidences of their existence at this day?

An earthquake may shake and overturn the foundations of a city—the avalanche may overwhelm the hamlet—and the crater of a volcano may pour its lava over fertile plains and populous villages—but a whole nation cannot vanish from the sight of the world, without leaving some traces of its existence, some marks of habits and customs.

It is a singular fact that history is exceedingly confused, or rather, I may say, dark, respecting the ultimate dispersion of the tribes among the cities of the Medes. The last notice we have of them is from the second Book of Esdras, which runs thus:

“Whereas thou sawest another peaceable multitude: these are the ten tribes which were carried away prisoners out of their own land in the time of Osea, whom Salmanazar, king of Assyria, led away captive, and he carried them over the waters, so they came unto another land.

“They took this counsel among themselves that they would leave the multitude of the heathen, and go into a further country wherein never mankind dwelt, that they might there keep their statutes, which they never kept in their own land (Assyria), and there was a great way to go, namely, a year and a half.”

Esdras, however, has been deemed apocryphal. Much has been said concerning the doubtful character of that writer. He wrote in the first century of the Christian church, and Tertullian, St. Ereneus, Clemens Alexandrius, Pico di Mirandola, and many learned and pious men, had great confidence in his writings. Part of them have been adopted by Protestants, and all considered orthodox by Catholics. With all his old Jewish attachments to the prophecies and traditions, Esdras was nevertheless a convert to Christianity. He was not an inspired writer or a prophet, although he assumed to be one, and followed the course as well as the manner of Daniel.

The Book of Esdras, however, is of great antiquity, and as an historical record is doubtless entitled to great respect.

The precise number which left Babylon and other cities, and took to the desert, cannot be accurately known; but they were exceedingly numerous, for the edict of Ahasherus, which decreed their destruction, embraced 127 provinces, and reached from Ethiopia to the Indies. Benjamin of Tudela, who travelled in the eleventh century through Persia, mentions that in some of the provinces, at the time of that decree, the Jews occupied forty cities, two hundred boroughs, one hundred castles, which contained 300,000 people. I incline to the opinion that 300,000 of the tribes left Persia.

There is no doubt that, in the march from the Euphrates to the north-east coast of Asia, many of the tribes hesitated in pursuing the journey: some remained in Tartary, many went into China. Alverez states in his History of China, that the Jews had been living in that kingdom for more than six hundred years. He might with great probability have said 1,600 years. He speaks of their being very numerous in some of the provinces, and having synagogues in many of the great cities, especially in that of Hinan and in its metropolis Kai-tong-fu, where he represents them to have a magnificent place of worship, and a repository, the Holy Volume, adorned with richly embroidered curtains, in which they preserve an ancient Hebrew manuscript roll.

They know but little of the Mosaic law, and only repeat the names of David, Abraham, Isaiah, and Jacob. In a Hebrew letter written by the Jews of Cochin-China to their brethren at Amsterdam, they give as the date of their retiring into India, the period when the Romans conquered the Holy Land.

It is clearly evident, therefore, that the tribes, in their progress to a new and undiscovered country, left many of their numbers in China and Tartary, and finally reached the Straits of Behring, where no difficulty prevented their crossing to the north-west coast of America, a distance less than thirty miles, interspersed with the Copper Islands, probably frozen over; and reaching our continent, spread themselves in the course of two thousand years to Cape Horn, the more hardy keeping to the north, to Labrador, Hudson’s Bay, and Greenland; the more cultivated fixing their residence in the beautiful climate and rich possessions of Central America, Mexico, and Peru.

But it may here be asked, could the scattered remnants of Israel have had the courage to penetrate through unknown regions, and encounter the hardships and privations of that inhospitable country? Could they have had the fortitude, the decision, the power, to venture on a dreary pilgrimage of eighteen months, the time mentioned by Esdras as the period of their journey? Could they not? What obstacles had hitherto impeded their progress, that had broken down their energies, or impaired their constancy and fidelity?

They knew that their brethren had severed the chains of Egyptian bondage; had crossed in safety the arm of the Red Sea; had sojourned for years in the wilderness; had encamped near Mount Sinai, and had possessed themselves of the Holy Land.

They remembered the kingdoms of Judah and Israel in all their glory; they had witnessed the erection and destruction of their Temple; they had fought and conquered with the Medes, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans. They had encountered sufferings upon sufferings unmoved; had bowed their necks submissively to the yoke.

Kings, conquerors, nations, Christians, Mahometans, and Heathens, all had united in the design of destroying the nation; but they never despaired—they knew they were the elect and chosen of the Lord. The oath, that He never would abandon his people, had been fulfilled 3,500 years, and, therefore, with the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, they abandoned the Heathens and the Persian territory, passed the confines of Tartary and China, and, no doubt, through great sufferings, reached the north-eastern coast of Asia, and came in sight of that continent, wherein, as they had reason to believe, “mankind never before had dwelt.”

On the discovery of America by Columbus, and the discoveries subsequent to his time, various tribes of Indians or savages were found to inhabit this our continent, whose origin was unknown.

It is, perhaps, difficult for the human mind to decide on the character and condition of an extreme savage state. We can readily believe that children abandoned in infancy in a savage country, and surviving this abandonment, to grow up in a state of nature, living on herbs and fruits, and sustaining existence as other wild animals, would be stupid, without language, without intellect, and with no greater instinct than that which governs the brute creation. We can conceive nothing reduced to a more savage condition; with cannibal propensities, an ungovernable ferocity, or a timid apprehension, there can be but a link that separates them from other classes of animal creation. So with herds of men in a savage state, like herds of buffalo or wild horses on our prairies, they are kept together by sounds common amongst themselves, and are utterly unacquainted with the landmarks of civilisation.

This, however, was not the condition of the American Indians when first discovered. They were a singular race of men, with enlarged views of life, religion, courage, constancy, humanity, policy, eloquence, love of their families; with a proud and gallant bearing, fierce in war, and, like the ancients, relentless in victory. Their hospitality might be quoted as examples among the most liberal of the present day. These were not wild men—these were a different class from those found on the Sandwich and Feegee Islands. The red men of America, bearing as they do the strongest marks of Asiatic origin, have, for more than two thousand years (and divided as they are in upwards of three hundred different nations) been remarkable for their intellectual superiority, their bravery in war, their good faith in peace, and all the simplicity and virtues of their patriarchal fathers, until civilisation, as it is called, had rendered them familiar with all the vices which distinguish the present era, without being able to enforce any of the virtues which are the boast of our present enlightened times.

It is, however, in the religious belief and ceremonies of the Indians that I propose showing some of the evidences of their being, as it is believed, the descendants of the dispersed tribes. The opinion is founded—

1st. In their belief in one God.

2nd. In the computation of time by their ceremonies of the new moon.

3rd. In their divisions of the year in four seasons, answering to the Jewish festivals of the feast of flowers, the day of atonement, the feast of the tabernacle, and other religious holidays.

4th. In the erection of a temple after the manner of our temple, and having an ark of the covenant, and also the erection of altars.

5th. By the divisions of the nation into tribes, with a chief, or grand sachem at their head.

6th. By their laws of sacrifices, ablutions, marriages; ceremonies in war and peace, the prohibitions of eating certain things, fully carrying out the Mosaic institutions;—by their traditions, history, character, appearance, affinity of their language to the Hebrew, and finally, by that everlasting covenant of heirship exhibited in a perpetual transmission of its seal in their flesh.

If I shall be able to satisfy your doubts and curiosity on these points, you will certainly rejoice with me in discovering that the dispersed of the chosen people are not the lost ones—that the promises held out to them have been thus far realised, and that all the prophecies relative to their future destination will in due time be strictly fulfilled.

It has been the general impression, as before mentioned, that great resemblance existed between some of the religious rites of the Jews, and the peculiar ceremonies of the Indians; and the belief in one Great Spirit has tended to strengthen the impression; yet this mere resemblance only extended so far as to admit of the belief, that they possibly may have descended from the dispersed tribes, or may have been of Tartar or Malay origin.

It was, however, a vague and unsatisfactory suspicion, which, having no tangible evidence, has been rejected, or thrown aside as a mere supposition. All the missionaries and travellers among the Indian tribes since the discovery of America—Adair, Heckwelder, Charliveux, Mckenzie, Bartram, Beltrami, Smith, Penn, Mrs Simon, who has written a very interesting work on this subject, etcetera, have expressed opinions in favour of their being of Jewish origin—the difficulty, however, under which they all laboured was simply this; they were familiar with the religious rites, ceremonies, traditions, and belief of the Indians, but they were not sufficiently conversant with the Jewish rites and ceremonies to show the analogy. It is precisely this link in the chain of evidence that I propose to supply.

It has been said that the Indians, believing in one great Spirit and Fountain of Life, like the Jews, does not prove their descent from the missing tribes, because in a savage state their very ignorance and superstition lead them to confide in the works of some divine superior being. But savages are apt to be idolaters, and personate the deity by some carved figure or image to whom they pay their adoration, and not, like the Indians, having a clear and definite idea of one great Ruler of the universe, one great Spirit, whose attributes are as well known to them as to us.

But if the continued unerring worship of one God like the Jews prove nothing, where did they acquire the same Hebrew name and appellation of that deity? If tradition had not handed down to them the ineffable name as also preserved by the Jews, how did they acquire it in a wilderness where the word of the Lord was never known?

Adair, in whom I repose great confidence, and who resided forty years among them, in his work published in 1775, says, “The ancient heathens worshipped a plurality of gods, but these Indians pay their devoirs to Lo-ak (Light) Ish-ta-koola-aba, distinctly Hebrew, which means the great supreme beneficent holy Spirit of Fire who resides above.”

“They are,” says Adair, “utter strangers to all the gestures practised by the Pagans in their religious rites—they kiss no idols, nor would they kiss their hands in tokens of reverence or willing obedience.”

“These tribes,” says Adair, “so far from being Atheists, use the great and dreadful name of God, which describes his divine essence, and by which he manifested himself to Moses! and are firmly persuaded that they now live under the immediate government of the Almighty Ruler. Their appellative for God is Isto-hoolo, the Hebrew of Esh-Eshys, from Ishto, Great, but they have another appellative, which with them, as with us, is the mysterious essential name of God, which they never mention in common speech, and only when performing their most sacred religious rites, and then they most solemnly divide it in syllables, with intermediate words, so as not to pronounce the ineffable name at once.”

Thus, in their sacred dances at their feast of the first-fruits, they sing Aleluyah and Mesheha, from the Hebrew of Masheach, Messiah, the anointed one.

“Yo mesheha,” “He mesheha,” “Wah meshehah,” thus making the Alleluyah, the Meshiah, the Yehovah.

Can we, for a moment, believe that these sacred well-known Hebrew words found their way by accident to the wilderness? Or can it be doubted that, like the fire of the burning bush, which never is extinguished, those words of religious adoration are the sacred relics of tradition, handed down to them from generation to generation? “In the same manner,” says Adair, “they sing on certain other religious celebrations, ailyo ailyo, which is the Hebrew el for God, by his attribute of omnipotence.” They likewise sing hewah, hewah, He chyra, the “immortal soul.” Those words sung at their religious rejoicings are never uttered at any other time, which must have occasioned the loss of their divine hymns. They on some occasions sing Shilu yo—Shilu he—Shilu wah. The three terminations make up in their order the four lettered divine name in Hebrew. Shilu is evidently Shaleach, Shiloth, the messenger, “the peace maker.”

The number of Hebrew words used in their religious services is incredible; thus, in chiding anyone for levity during a solemn worship, they say, Che hakeet Kana, “you resemble those reproved in Canaan,” and, to convey the idea of criminality, they say Hackset Canaha, “the sinners of Canaan.” They call lightning eloah, and the rumbling of thunder rowah, from the Hebrew ruach, “spirit.”

Like the Israelites, they divide the year into four seasons, with the same festivals; they calculate by moons, and celebrate, as the Jews do, the berachah halebana, the blessing for the new moon.

The Indians have their prophets and high-priests, the same as the Jews had; not hastily selected, but chosen with caution from the most wise and discreet, and they ordain their high-priests by anointing and have a most holy place in their sanctuaries, like the Holy of Holies in the temple. The archimagus, or high-priest, wears, in resemblance to the ancient breast-plate, a white conch-shell ornamented so as to resemble the precious stones on the Urim, and instead of the golden plate worn by the Levite on his forehead, bearing the inscription Kodish Ladonaye, the Indian binds his brows with a wreath of swan’s feathers, and wears a tuft of white feathers, which he calls Yatira.

The Indians have their ark, which they invariably carry with them to battle, well guarded. In speaking of the Indian places of refuge, Adair says, “I observed that if a captive taken, by the reputed power of the holy things of their ark, should be able to make his escape into one of these towns, or even into the winter house of the Archima gun, he is delivered from the fiery torture, otherwise inevitable. This, when taken in connection with the many other faint images of Mosaic customs, seems to point at the mercy-seat of the sanctuary. It is also worthy of notice, that they never place the ark on the ground. On hilly ground, where large stones are plenty, they rest it thereon, but on level prairies, upon short logs, where they also seat themselves. And when we consider,” continues Adair, “in what a surprising manner the Indians copy after the ceremonial law of the Hebrews, and their strict purity in the war camps; that opae, “the leader,” obliges all during the first campaign which they have made with the beloved ark, to stand every day, they are not engaged in warfare, from sunrise to sunset, and after a fatiguing day’s march and scanty allowance, to drink warm water embittered with rattle-snake root very plentifully, in order to purification; that they have also as strong a faith in the power of their ark as ever the Israelites had in theirs, ascribing the success of one party to their stricter adherence to the law, than the other, we have strong reason to conclude them of Hebrew origin. The Indians have an old tradition, that when they left their own native land, they brought with them a sanctified rod, by order of an oracle, which they fixed every evening in the ground, and were to remove from place to place on the continent, towards the sun rising, till it budded in one night’s time. I have seen other Indians,” says the same writer, “who related the same thing.” Instead of the miraculous direction to which they limit it, in their western banishment, it appears more likely that they refer to the ancient circumstance of the rod of Aaron, which, in order to check the murmur of those who conspired against him, was, in his favour, made to bud blossoms and yield almonds at one and the same time. It is a well attested fact, and is here corroborated by Adair, that in taking female captives, the Indians have often protected them, but never despoiled them of honour.

This statement of Adair, in relation to the ark, is corroborated by several travellers. Major Long, a more recent traveller, in his expedition to the Rocky Mountains, says, in relation to the ark, “It is placed upon a stand, and is never suffered to touch the earth. No person dare open all the coverings. Tradition informs them that curiosity induced three different persons to examine the mysterious shell, who were immediately punished for their profanation by instant blindness.” This is the Jewish punishment pronounced for looking on the holy of holies—even now for looking on the descendants of the high priest who alone have the privilege of blessing the people.

The most sacred fast day uniformly kept by the Jews is the day of atonement, usually falling in the month of September or early in October. This is deemed in every part of the world a most solemn fast, and great preparations are made for its celebration. It is in the nature of expiation of sin, of full confession, penitence, and prayer; and is preceded by ablution and preparation of morning prayer for some time.

It is a very sacred fast, which lasts from sunset on one day until the new moon is seen on the succeeding evening. It is not in the nature of a gloomy desponding penance, but rather a day of solemn rejoicing, of hope and confidence, and is respected by those most indifferent to all other festivals throughout the year.

Precisely such a fast, with similar motives, and nearly at the same period of the year, is kept by the Indian natives generally.

Adair, after stating the strict manner in which the Indians observe the revolutions of the moon, and describing the feast of the harvest, and the first offerings of the fruits, gives a long account of the preparations in putting their temple in proper order for the great day of atonement, which he fixes at the time when the corn is full-eared and ripe, generally in the latter end of September. He then proceeds:

“Now one of the waiters proclaims with a loud voice, for all the warriors and beloved men whom the purity of their law admits, to come and enter the beloved square and observe the fast. He also exhorts the women and children, with those who have not been initiated in war, to keep apart according to the law.

“Four sentinels are now placed one at each corner of the holy square, to keep out every living creature as impure, except the religious order, and the warriors who are not known to have violated the law of the first fruit-offering, and that of marriage, since the last year’s expiation. They observe the fast till the rising of the second sun; and be they ever so hungry in the sacred interval, the healthy warriors deem the duty so awful, and disobedience so inexpressibly vicious, that no temptation would induce them to violate it. They at the same time drink plentifully of a decoction of the button snake root, in order to vomit and dense their sinful bodies.”

“In the general fast, the children and men of weak constitutions, are allowed to eat, as soon as they are certain that the sun has begun to decline from his meridian altitude.

“Now every thing is hushed. Nothing but silence all around. The great beloved man, and his beloved waiter, rising up with a reverend carriage, steady countenance and composed behaviour, go into the beloved place, or holiest, to bring them out the beloved fire. The former takes a piece of dry poplar, willow, or white oak, and having cut a hole, but not so deep as to reach through it; he then sharpens another piece, and placing that in the hole, and both between his knees, he drills it briskly for several minutes, till it begins to smoke—or by rubbing two pieces together for a quarter of an hour, he collects by friction the hidden fire, which they all consider as proceeding from the holy spirit of fire.

“The great beloved man, or high priest, addresses the warriors and women; giving all the particular, positive injunctions and negative precepts they yet retain of the ancient law. He uses very sharp language to the women. He then addresses the whole multitude. He enumerates the crimes they have committed, great and small, and bids them look at the holy fire which has forgiven them. He presses on his audience, by the great motives of temporal good and the fear of temporal evil, the necessity of a careful observance of the ancient law, assuring them that the holy fire will enable their prophets, the rain makers, to procure them plentiful harvests, and give their war leaders victory over their enemies. He then orders some of the fire to be laid down outside of the holy ground, for all the houses of the various associated towns, which sometimes lay several miles apart.”

Mr Bartram, who visited the southern Indians in 1778, gives an account of the same feast, but in another nation. He says, “that the feast of first-fruits is the principal festival. This seems to end the old and begin the new ecclesiastical year. It commences when their new crops are arrived to maturity. This is their most solemn celebration.”

With respect to the sacrifices, we have had none since the destruction of the temple, but it was customary among the Jews, in the olden time, to sacrifice daily a part of a lamb. This ceremony is strictly observed by the Indians. The hunter, when leaving his wigwam for the chase, puts up a prayer that the great spirit will aid his endeavours to procure food for his wife and children, and when he returns with the red deer, whatever may be the cravings of hunger, he allows none to taste until he has cut part of the flesh, which he throws in the fire as a sacrifice, accompanied with prayer. All travellers speak of this practice among the Indians, so clearly Hebrew in its origin.

The bathings, anointings, ablutions, in the coldest weather, are never neglected by the Indians, and, like the Jews of old, they anoint themselves with bear’s oil.

The Mosaic prohibition of eating unclean animals, and their enumeration, are known to you all. It would be supposed that, amidst the uncertainty of an Indian life, all kinds of food would be equally acceptable. Not so: for, in strict conformity with the Mosaic law, they abstain from eating the blood of any animal, they abominate swine flesh, they do not eat fish without scales, the eel, the turtle or sea-cow: and they deem many animals and birds to be impure. These facts are noticed by all writers, and particularly by Edwards in his History of the West-Indies. The latter able historian, in noticing the close analogy between the religious rites of the Jews and Indians, says, “that the striking conformity of the prejudices and customs of the Caribbee Indians, to the practices of the Jews, has not escaped the notice of such historians as Gamella, Da Tertre, and others;” and Edwards also states, that the Indians on the Oroonoke, punished their women caught in adultery, by stoning them to death before the assembly of the people.

Among the Mosaical laws is the obligation of one brother to marry his brother’s widow, if he die without issue. Major Long says, “if the deceased has left a brother, he takes the widow to his lodge after a proper interval and considers her as his wife.”

This is also confirmed by Charliveux.

It would occupy a greater space of time than I can afford, to trace a similitude between all the Indian rites and religious ceremonies, and those of the Jewish nation. In their births, in their separation after the births of their children, in their daily prayers and sacrifices, in their festivals, in their burials, in the employment of mourners, and in their general belief, I see a close analogy and intimate connection, with all the ceremonies and laws which are observed by the Jewish people; making a due allowance for what has been lost, and misunderstood, in the course of upwards of 2,000 years.

A general belief exists among most travellers, that the Indians are the descendants of the missing tribes.

Menassah Ten Israel wrote his celebrated treatise to prove this fact, on the discovery of America.

William Penn, who always acted righteously to wards the Indians, and had never suspected that they had descended from the missing tribes, says, in a letter to his friends in England, “I found them with like countenances to the Hebrew race. I consider these people under a dark night, yet they believe in God and immortality, without the aid of metaphysics. They reckon by moons, they offer their first ripe fruits, they have a kind of feast of tabernacles, they are said to lay their altars with twelve stones, they mourn a year, and observe the Mosaic law with regard to separation.”

Emanuel de Moraez, in his history of Brazil, declares that America has been peopled by the Carthaginians and Israelites, and as to the Israelites he says, nothing is wanting but circumcision, to constitute a perfect resemblance between them and the Brazilians.

The Reverend Mr Beatty, a very worthy missionary, says, “I have often before hinted, that I have taken great pains to search into the usages and customs of the Indians, in order to see what ground there was far supposing them to be part of the ten tribes, and I must own, to my no small surprise, that a number of their customs appear so much to resemble those of the Jews, that it is a great question with me, whether we can expect to find among the ten tribes, wherever they are at this day, all things considered more of the footsteps of their ancestors than among the different Indian tribes.”

Monsieur de Guignes, an old French historian, in speaking of the discoveries made in America, before the time of Columbus, says, “These researches, which of themselves give us great insight into the origin of the Americans, lead to the determination of the route of the colonies sent to the continent;” and he proceeds to give reasons for his belief, that the greater part of them passed thither “by the most eastern extremities of Asia, where the two continents are only separated by a narrow strait, easy to cross.”

Beltrami, in his discovery of the sources of the Mississippi, after a full and interesting account of the Indians, says, “Different authors have brought them hither from all parts of the world. I was at first induced to join with those who derived them from the Hebrews. It seemed impossible for me to doubt that, by so doing, I should be building on an impregnable foundation.” He then proceeds to prove their Asiatic origin by many interesting facts.

The late Earl of Crawford and Lindsay, published his travels in America, in 1801. “It is curious and pleasing,” says he, “in reading the travels of those who have been among these people, to find how their customs comport with the laws of Moses;” and after describing at length their religious rites and ceremonies, his lordship emphatically observes, “It is a sound truth, that the Indians are descended from the ten tribes; and time and investigation will more and more enforce its acknowledgment.”

It is, however, in Mexico and Peru, that we must look for the most enlightened and the most wealthy of the Indian race. On the representations of Montesini, who travelled in South America, the learned Rabbi Menassah Ten Israel, as I have said before, wrote his famous work La Esperanza de Israel, which he published in Amsterdam, in 1650, endeavouring with great zeal to prove, that the Indians in North and South America were the descendants of the missing tribes; and Cromwell, to whom the work was dedicated, was greatly interested in the evidences produced on that occasion. Montesini, travelling through the province of Quif found that his Indian guide was a Jew, and pursuing his inquiries, discovered that immense numbers lived behind the Cordilleras. Francis, the name of his guide, admitted to Montesini, that his God was called Adonal, and that he acknowledged Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as his ancestors, and they claimed to have descended from the tribe of Reuben.

Acosta contends that they have a tradition relative to the deluge; that they preserve the rite of circumcision; they offer the first-fruits, and in Peru they eat the Paschal Lamb; they believe in the resurrection, and clothe the dead with the richest equipage. Lopez de Gomara says, that some of them, and not all, are circumcised. Acosta continues, “the Mexicans point out the various stations as their ancestors advanced into their country, and it is precisely the route which they must have held, had they been emigrants from Asia.”

Menassah Ten Israel declares, that the Indians of Mexico had a tradition, that their magnificent place of worship had been built by a people who wore their beards, and were more ancient than their Incas. In the Universal History of 1748, it is affirmed, that the Mexicans and other American Indians rend their garments, in order the more effectually to express grief—the Hebrew custom at this day.

Lopez de Gomara states, that the Mexicans offer sacrifices of the first-fruits, and, when Cortez approached Mexico, Montezuma shut himself up for the space of eight days in fasting and prayer. Emanuel de Moreas and Acosta say, that the Brazilians marry in their own tribes and families; and Escorbatus affirms, that he frequently heard the southern tribes repeat the sacred notes Ha-le-lu-yah. Malvenda states, that several tomb-stones were found in St. Michael’s, with ancient Hebrew characters.

When the Spaniards invaded Mexico, the Cholula was considered a holy city by the natives, with magnificent temples, in which the High Priest Quetza-colt preached to man, and would permit no other offerings to the Master of Life than the first-fruits of the harvest. “We know by our traditions,” said the venerable Prince Montezuma to the Spanish General Cortez, “that we who inhabit this country are not the natives but strangers who come from a great distance.”

Don Alonzo Erecella, in his history of Chili, says, the Araucanians acknowledge one Supreme Being, and believe in the immortality of the soul; and the Abbé Clavigero declares, that they have a tradition of the great deluge. The laws and ceremonies of the Peruvians and Mexicans have, no doubt, been corrupted in the course of many ages, both in their sacrifices and worship.

Their great and magnificent temple, evidently in imitation of that erected by Solomon, was founded by Mango Capac, or rather by the Inca Vupanque, who endowed it with great wealth. Clavagero and De Vega, in their very interesting account of this temple say, “what we called the altar was on the east side of the temple. There were many doors to the temple, all of which were plated with gold, and the four walls the whole way round were crowned with a rich golden garland, more than an ell in width. Round the temple were five square pavilions, whose tops were in the form of pyramids. The fifth was lined entirely with gold, and was for the use of the Royal High-Priest of sacrifices, and in which all the deliberations concerning the temple were held. Some of the doors led to the schools where the Incas listen to the debates of the philosophers, sometimes themselves explaining the laws and ordinances.”

Mexico and Central America abound in curiosities, exemplifying the fact of the Asiatic origin of the inhabitants; and it is not many years ago, that the ruins of a whole city, with a wall nearly seven miles in circumference, with castles, palaces, and temples, evidently of Hebrew or Phoenician architecture, was found on the river Palenque. The thirty-fifth number of the Foreign Quarterly Review contains an interesting account of those antiquities.

The ruins of this city of Guatemala, in Central America, as described by Del Rio in 1782, when taken in conjunction with the extraordinary, I may say, wonderful antiquities spread over the entire surface of that country, awaken recollections in the specimens of architecture which carry us back to the early pages of history, and prove beyond the shadow of doubt, that we who imagined ourselves to be the natives of a new world, but recently discovered, inhabit a continent which rivalled the splendour of Egypt and Syria, and was peopled by a powerful and highly cultivated nation from the old world. When we speak of what is called Mexican antiquities, we must not confound the rude labours of modern times, with the splendid perfections which distinguished the efforts of those who reared the Egyptian pyramids, and built the temples of Thebes and Memphis. It is not Mexican antiquities, but the antiquities of Tultecan; and in addition to the ruins of Palenque, on this our continent, there are pyramids larger than those of Sachara in Egypt, at Cholula, Otamba, Paxaca, Mitlan, Tlascola, and on the mountains of Tescoca, together with hieroglyphics, planispheres and zodiacs, a symbolic and Photenic alphabet; papyrus, metopes, triglyphs, and temples and buildings of immense grandeur; military roads, aqueducts, viaducts, posting stations and distances; bridges of great grandeur and massive character, all presenting the most positive evidences of the existence of a powerful enterprising nation, which must have flourished two thousand years before the Spanish conquest. Take, for example, the description of the temple at Palenque, which Lord Kingsborough, in his travels, not only declares was built by the Jews, and is a copy of Solomon’s temple, but which, no doubt, is precisely the model of the temple described by Ezekiel. Travellers speak of it in the following terms:

“It may be appropriately called an ecclesiastical city, rather than a temple. Within its vast precincts there appear to be contained (as indeed was, in some measure, the case with the area that embraced the various buildings of Solomon’s temple) a pyramidal tower, various sanctuaries, sepulchres; a small and a large quadrangular court, one surrounded, as we have said, by cloisters; subterranean initiatory galleries beneath; oracles, courts of justice, high places, and cells or dwellings for the various orders of priests. The whole combination of the buildings is encircled by a quadrilateral pilastered portico, embracing a quadrangular area, and resting on a terraced platform. This platform exhibits the same architectural model, which we have described as characterising the single temples. It is composed of three graduated stuccoed terraces, sloping inwards, at an angle of about seventy degrees, in the form of a truncated pyramid. Four central staircases (one facing each of the cardinal points) ascend these terraces in the middle of each lateral façade of the quadrangle; and four gates fronting the same cardinal points, conduct from the top of each staircase into the body of the building, or into the great court. The great entrance, through a pilastered gateway, fronts the east, and descends by a second flight of steps into the cloistered court. On the various pilasters of the upper terrace are the metopes, with singular sculptures. On descending the second staircase into the cloistered court, on one side, appears the triple pyramidal tower, which may be inferred, from the curious distribution of little cells which surround the central room of each story, to have been employed as a place of royal or private sepulture. It would be pronounced a striking and tasteful structure, according to any architectural rule. On another side of the same cloistered court is the detached temple of the chief god, to whom the whole religious building appears to have been devoted, who appears to have been the great and only god of the nations who worshipped in this temple. Beneath the cloisters, entered by staircases from above, are what we believe to be the initiatory galleries. These opened into rooms, one of which has a stone couch in it, and others are distinguished by unintelligible apparatus carved in stone. The only symbol described as found within these sacred haunts is, however, perfectly Asiatic, and perfectly intelligible; we mean two contending serpents. The remnant of an sitar, or high place, occupies the centre of the cloistered quadrangle. The rest of the edifice is taken up with courts, palaces, detached temples, open divans, baths, and streets of priestly cells, or houses, in a greater or less degree of dilapidation.”

...

“It is perfectly clear, from the few records of their religious rites which have come down to us, and which are principally derived from the extraordinary rolls of American papyrus, (formed of prepared fibres of the Maguery) on which their beautiful hieroglyphical system is preserved (there is one of considerable extent in the Dresden Museum), that they were as simple, perhaps we may add with propriety, as innocent. Not only does it appear that they had no human sacrifices, but no animal sacrifices. Flowers and fruits were the only offerings made to the presiding divinity of their temples.”

But who were the Tultequans and Azeteques, the founders of this empire in America; who built the pyramids of Cholula and city of Palenque? Not the Jews.

Here we have a most singular diversion from the path on which we originally set out—another extraordinary discovery, marked, too, by events no less extraordinary than amazing.

They were the Canaanites, the scriptural Titans, who, according to the sacred historian, built with walls and towers reaching to the heavens. The builders of the Tower of Babel, the family of the shepherd kings who conquered Egypt, and built the pyramids, and were driven from Syria by Joshua. The men who finally founded Tyre and Carthage, navigated round the continent of Africa, and sailed in their small craft across the Atlantic, and landed in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Phoenicians were the founders of Palenque, Mitlan, Papantla. Quemada, Cholula, Chila, and Antiquerra.

When I studied the history of these people, on the ruins of Carthage, it was said by antiquarians present, that the Carthaginians had a colony at a considerable distance, which they secretly maintained; and when I was at Tangiers, the Mauritania Tangitania of the ancients, I was shown the spot where the pillar was erected, and was standing at the time of Ibnu, the Moorish historian, on which was inscribed, in the Phoenician language, “We are the Canaanites who fled from Joshua, the son of Nun, that notorious robber.” From that spot, then ... the pillars of Hercules, now known as the Straits of Gibraltar, they crossed to our continent, and founded a great empire of the Ophite worship, with Syrian and Egyptian symbols. Now, mark the issue. Fifteen hundred years after the expulsion of the Canaanites by Joshua, the ten tribes pass over the Straits of Behring to the continent of America, and poured down upon these people like the Goths and Vandals. The descendants of Joshua a second time fell on the Canaanites on another continent, knowing them well as such, and burn their temples, and destroy their gigantic towers and cities.

When Columbus discovered America, he found an innocent people in a demi-savage state, with Jewish traditions, and the only reference to early times was a vague impression that the ruins they saw were built by giants, and a people called wandering masons.

I have the most settled conviction of this theory. The magnificent ruins which are to be seen at this day in Mexico and Central America, were the works of the Phoenicians, and the irruption of the wandering tribes from the north-west coast of America swept that nation away, and have ever since maintained possession of this country, until white men have thinned their ranks, and gradually encroached upon, and usurped a great part of their territory.

The only opposition made to the general declaration of travellers, that the Indians are of Jewish descent, is, that they are red men, and are beardless. Now, take the olive complexion of the Jews in Syria, pass the nation over the Euphrates into a warmer climate, let them mingle with Tartars and Chinese, and after several generations reach this continent, their complexion would undergo some shades of hue and colour; and as to beards, they cannot grow while they are continually plucked, as is the Indian custom. The colour proves nothing against their origin. Take our fellow-citizens on our eastern borders, and compare their florid colour with the sickly hue and sallow complexions of those living on the southern shores, in the palmettoes and everglades, and we shall see a marked distinction, and yet they are members of the same family.

Du Pratz, speaking of the traditions of the Natches tribe, relates that in answer to the question, “Whence come you?” their reply was, “All that we know is that our fathers, to come hither, followed the sun, and came from the place where he rises. They were long in their journey; they were nearly perishing; and were brought to this wilderness of the sun setting without seeking it.” Souard says of the Indians of Surinam, on the authority of Nasci, a learned Jew residing there, that the dialect of those Indians common in Guinana is soft, agreeable, and regular, and their substantives are Hebrew. “Their language, in the roots, idioms, and particular construction, has the genius of the Hebrew language, as their orations have the bold, laconic, and figurative style of the Hebrew prophets.”

The Reverend Mr Chapman says of the Osages, “it is their universal practice to salute the dawn of every morning with their devotion.” A custom always prevailing among pious Jews.

Malvenda and Acosta both affirm, that the natives had a tradition of a jubilee, according to the jubilee of Israel.

Dr Beatty, in speaking of the festival of the first-fruits by the Indians west of the Ohio, says, “at this ceremony twelve of their old men divide a deer into twelve parts, and these men hold up the venison and fruits with their faces to the east, acknowledging the bounty of God to them. A singular and close imitation of the ceremonies and sacrifices of the temple.” The doctor further says, “they have another feast which looks like the Passover.”

Sir Alexander Mackenzie, in his tour to the north-west coast, says, that “the Chepewyan Indians have a tradition among them, that they originally came from another country, inhabited by very wicked people, and had traversed a great lake which was in one place narrow and shallow, and full of islands, where they had suffered great misery; and a further tradition has it that nine parts of their nation out of ten passed over the river. The Mexicans affirm, that seven tribes or houses passed from the east to the wilderness.”

Beltrami says, that the skeletons of the mammoths found in Kentucky and Missouri, and other parts of America, have been ascertained to resemble precisely those which have been found in Siberia and the eastern part of Asia, showing the facility of communication between the two coasts. And here it may be well to state a fact, which is strongly corroborative of the view we have taken, not only of the possibility of passing from one continent to the other, but of the actual and probably constant communication between them. Charlevoix, says, he knew a Catholic priest, called Father Grilion, in Canada, who was recalled to Paris after his mission had been ended, and who was subsequently appointed to a similar mission in China. One day in Tartary, he suddenly encountered a Huron woman with whom he had been well acquainted in Canada, and who informed him that she had been captured, and passed from nation to nation, until she reached the north-west coast, when she crossed into Tartary.

Since delivering the present lecture, I have received a letter from Mr Catlin, the celebrated painter, who for the last five years has been residing among the Indians. Mr Catlin says:

“The first thing that strikes the traveller in an Indian country as evidence of their being of Jewish origin, (and it is certainly a very forcible one,) is the striking resemblance which they generally bear in contour, and expression of head, to those people. In their modes and customs, there are many striking resemblances, and perhaps as proof, they go much further than mere personal resemblance. Amongst those customs, I shall mention several that have attracted my attention, though probably they have never before been used for the same purpose; and others I may name, which are familiar to you, and which it may not be amiss to mention, as I have seen them practised while in their country.

“The universal custom among them of burying their dead with feet to the east, I could conceive to have no other meaning or object than a journey to the east after death—like the Jews who expected to travel under ground after death to the land of Canaan. On inquiry, I found that though they were all going towards the ‘setting sun,’ during their life-times, they expected to travel to the east after death.

“Amongst the tribes, the women are not allowed to enter the medicine lodge; as they were not allowed in Judea to enter the court of Israel. Like the Jewish custom also, they are not allowed to mingle in worship with the men; and at meals, are always separated.

“In their modes, fastings, feastings, or sacrifices, they have also a most striking resemblance. Amongst all the western tribes, who have not been persuaded from those forms by white men, they are still found scrupulously and religiously adhering to, and practising them to the letter. The very many times and modes of sacrificing, remind us forcibly of the customs of the Israelites; and the one in particular, which has been seen amongst several of the tribes, though I did not witness it myself, wherein, like the manner of the ‘peace-offering,’ the firstling and that of the male is offered, and ‘no bone is to be broken.’ Such circumstances afford the strongest kind of proofs. All the tribes have a great feast at the dawn of spring, and at those feasts their various sacrifices are made. At the approach of the season of green corn, a feast of the first ears are sacrificed with great solemnity, followed by feasting and dancing: so at the ripening of different kinds of fruit. The first and best piece that is cut from a buffalo is always Deo Dante.

“Over the medicine lodge, and also over the lodges of the most distinguished chiefs, are hung on high poles large quantities of fine cloth, white buffalo robes, or other most costly articles which can be procured, there to decay, an offering to the Great Spirit.

“The bunch of willow boughs with which each dancer is supplied, in the Mandan religious ceremonies, the sacrificing and other forms therein observed, certainly render it somewhat analogous to the Israelitish feast of tabernacles.

“The universal practice of ‘solus cam solo’ of the women, ablution and anointing with bear’s grease, is strikingly similar to the Jewish custom. Every family has a small lodge expressly for this purpose, and when any one of the family are ready for it, it is erected within a few rods, and meat is carried to her, where she dwells, and cooks and eats by herself, an object of superstitious dread to every person in the village.

“The absence of every species of idolatry amongst the North American Indians, affords also a striking proof of the ceremonial law, and stamps them at once, in one respect, at all events, differing from all other savage tribes of which we have any knowledge.”

What are, I may ask, the characters of these people? On the discovery of America by Columbus, nearly 2,000 years after the dispersion of the Hebrew tribes, the whole continent is found peopled, not with a race of wild men, of cannibals, of savages, but with a race of intellectual, moral, innocent persons, divided into many hundred nations, and spread over 8,000 miles of territory. “I swear to your majesties,” said Columbus, writing to Ferdinand and Isabella, “that there is not a better people in the world than these; more affectionate or mild. They love their neighbours as themselves; their language is the sweetest, the softest and the most cheerful, for they always speak smilingly.” Major Long says, “they are the genuine sons of nature; they have all the virtues nature can give, without the vices of civilisation. They are artless, fearless, and live in constant exercise of moral and Christian virtues, though they know it not.”

Charlevoix gives his testimony in their behalf. “They manifest,” says he, “much stability in their engagements, patience in affliction, and submissive acquiescence in what they apprehend the will of Providence. In all this they display a nobleness of soul and constancy of mind, at which we rarely arrive, with all our philosophy and religion.”

Du Pratz contends that they have a greater degree of prudence, faithfulness, and generosity than those who would be offended with a comparison with them. “No people,” says he, “are more hospitable and free.”

Bartram, who lived many years in the Creek nation, says, “Joy, contentment, love and friendship without guile or affectation, seem inherent in them, or predominant in their vital principle, for it leaves them but with their breath. They are,” says he, “just, honest, liberal and hospitable to strangers considerate and affectionate to their wives, children, and relations; frugal and persevering, charitable and forbearing.”