Volume 8 / Part 1 — PART I. NOTES ON VIRGINIA. (continued 5)

A proclamation by Queen Anne, for settling and ascertaining the current rates of foreign coins in America. Sm. N. J. 281. 1704, June 18.

Additional instructions to Lord Cornbury. Sm. N. S. 235. 1705, May 3.

Additional instructions to Lord Cornbury. Sm. N. J. 258. 1707, May 3.

Additional instructions to Lord Cornbury. Sm. N. J. 259. 1707, Nov. 20.

An answer by the council of proprietors for the western division of N. Jersey, to questions proposed to them by Lord Cornbury. Sm. N. J. 285. 1707.

Instructions to Colonel Vetch in his negotiations with the governors of America. Sm. N. J. 364. 1708-9, Feb. 28.

Instructions to the governor of New Jersey and New York. Sm. J. 361. 1708-9, Feb. 28.

Earl of Dartmouth's letter to governor Hunter. 1710, Aug.

Premiers propositions de la France. 6. Lamberty, 669, 2 Mem. Am. 341. 1711, Apr. 22.

Réponses de la France aux demandes préliminaries de la Grande Bretagne. 6 Lamb. 681. 2 Mem. Amer. 344. 1711, Oct. 8.

Demandes préliminaries plus particulieres de la Grande-Bretagne, avec les réponses. 2 Mem. de l'Am. 346. Sept. 27. 1711, — Oct. 8.

L'acceptation de la part de la Grande-Bretagne. 2 Mem. Am. 356. Sept. 27. 1711, — Oct. 8.

The Queen's instructions to the Bishop of Bristol and Earl of Stafford, her plenipotentiaries, to treat for a general peace. 6 Lamberty, 744. 2. Mem. Am. 358. 1711, Dec. 23.

A memorial of Mr. St. John to the Marquis de Torci, with regard to North America, to commerce, and to the suspension of arms. 7. Recueil de Lamberty 161, 2 Mem. de l'Amer. 376. May 24. 1712, — June 10.

Réponse du roi de France au memoire de Londres. 7. Lamberty, p. 163. 2. Mem. Am. 380. 1712, June 10.

Traité pour une suspension d'armes entre Louis XIV. roi de France, and Anne, reign de la Grande-Bretagne, fait à Paris. 8. Corps Diplom. part 1. p. 308. 2. Mem. d'Am. 104. 1712, Aug. 19.

Offers of France to England, demands of England, and the answers of France. 7. Rec. de Lamb. 461. 2 Mem. Am. 390. 1712, Sept. 10.

Traité de paix et d'amitié entre Louis XIV. roi de France, et Anne, reine de la Grande-Bretagne, fait à Utrecht. 15 Corps Diplomatique de Dumont, 339. id. Latin. 2 Actes et memoires de la pais d'Utrecht, 457. id. Lat. Fr. 2. Mem. Am. 113. Mar. 31. 1713, — Apr. 11.

Traité de navigation et de commerce entre Louis XIV. roi de France, et Anne, reine de la Grande-Bretagne. Fait à Utrecht. 8 Corps Dipl. part 1. p. 345. 2 Mem. de l'Am. 137. Mar. 31. 1713, — April 11.

A treaty with the Indians. 1726.

The petition of the representatives of the province of New Jersey, to have a distinct governor. Sm. N. J. 421. 1728. Jan.

Deed of release by the government of Connecticut to that of New York. 1732, G. 2.

The charter granted by George II. for Georgia. 4. Mem. de l'Am. 617. 1732, June 9. 20. 5 Geo. 2.

Petition of Lord Fairfax, that a commission might issue for running and marking the dividing line between his district and the province of Virginia. 1733.

Order of the king in council for commissioners to survey and settle the said dividing line between the proprietary and royal territory. 1733, Nov. 29.

Report of the Lords of trade relating to the separating the government of the province of New Jersey from New York. Sm. N. J. 423. 1736, Aug. 5.

Survey and report of the commissioners appointed on the part of the crown to settle the line between the crown and Lord Fairfax. 1737, Aug. 10.

Survey and report of the commissioners appointed on the part of Lord Fairfax to settle the line between the crown and him. 1737, Aug. 11.

Order of reference of the surveys between the crown and Lord Fairfax to the council for plantation affairs. 1738, Dec. 21.

Treaty with the Indians of the six nations at Lancaster. 1744, June.

Report of the council for plantation affairs, fixing the head springs of Rappahanoc and Potomac, and a commission to extend the line. 1745, Apr. 6.

Order of the king in council confirming the said report of the council for plantation affairs. 1745, Apr. 11.

Articles préliminaries pour parvenir à la paix, signés à Aix-la-Chapelle entre les ministres de France, de la Grande-Bretagne, et des Provinces-Unies des Pays-Bas. 2 Mem. de l'Am. 159. 1748, Apr. 30.

Declaration des ministres de France, de la Grande-Bretagne, et des Provinces-Unies des Pays-Bas, pour rectifier les articles I. et II. des préliminaries. 2. Mem. Am. 165. 1748, May 21.

The general and definitive treaty of peace concluded at Aix-la-Chapelle. Lon. Mag. 1748. 503. French 2. Mem. Am. 169. 1748, Oct. 7-18. 22. G. 2.

A treaty with the Indians. 1754.

A conference between governor Bernard and Indian nations at Burlington. Sm. N. J. 449. 1758, Aug. 7.

A conference between governor Denny, governor Bernard, and others, and Indian nations at Easton. Sm. N. J. 455. 1758, Oct. 8.

The capitulation of Niagara. 1759, July 25. 33. G. 2.

The king's proclamation promising lands to soldiers. 175—.

The definitive treaty concluded at Paris. Lon. Mag. 1763. 149. 1763, Feb. 10. 3. G. 3.

A proclamation for regulating the cessions made by the last treaty of peace. Guth. Geogr. Gram. 623. 1763, Oct. 7. G. 3.

The king's proclamation against settling on any lands on the waters westward of the Alleghany. 1763.

Deed from the six nations of Indians to William Trent, and others, for lands betwixt the Ohio and Monongahela. View of the title to Indiana. Phil. Steiner and Cist. 1776. 1768, Nov. 3.

Deed from the six nations of Indians to the crown for certain lands and settling a boundary. M.S. 1768, Nov. 5.

APPENDIX.

The preceding sheets have been submitted to my friend Mr. Charles Thompson, Secretary of Congress; he has furnished me with the following observations, which have too much merit not to be communicated:

(A.) p. 262. Besides the three channels of communication mentioned between the western waters and the Atlantic, there are two others to which the Pennsylvanians are turning their attention; one from Presque Isle, on Lake Erie, to Le Bœuf, down the Alleghany to Kiskiminitas, then up the Kiskiminitas, and from thence, by a small portage, to Juniata, which falls into the Susquehanna; the other from Lake Ontario to the East Branch of the Delaware, and down that to Philadelphia. Both these are said to be very practicable; and, considering the enterprising temper of the Pennsylvanians, and particularly of the merchants of Philadelphia, whose object is concentred in promoting the commerce and trade of one city, it is not improbable but one or both of these communications will be opened and improved.

(B.) p. 265. The reflections I was led into on viewing this passage of the Potomac through the Blue Ridge were, that this country must have suffered some violent convulsion, and that the face of it must have been changed from what it probably was some centuries ago; that the broken and ragged faces of the mountain on each side the river; the tremendous rocks, which are left with one end fixed in the precipice, and the other jutting out, and seemingly ready to fall for want of support, the bed of the river for several miles below obstructed, and filled with the loose stones carried from this mound; in short, everything on which you cast your eye evidently demonstrates a disrupture and breach in the mountain, and that, before this happened, what is now a fruitful vale, was formerly a great lake or collection of water, which possibly might have here formed a mighty cascade, or had its vent to the ocean by the Susquehanna, where the Blue Ridge seems to terminate. Besides this, there are other parts of this country which bear evident traces of a like convulsion. From the best accounts I have been able to obtain, the place where the Delaware now flows through the Kittatinney mountain, which is a continuation of what is called the North Ridge, or mountain, was not its original course, but that it passed through what is now called "the Wind-gap," a place several miles to the westward, and about a hundred feet higher than the present bed of the river. This Wind-gap is about a mile broad, and the stones in it such as seem to have been washed for ages by water running over them. Should this have been the case, there must have been a large lake behind that mountain, and by some uncommon swell in the waters, or by some convulsion of nature, the river must have opened its way through a different part of the mountain, and meeting there with less obstruction, carried away with it the opposing mounds of earth, and deluged the country below with the immense collection of waters to which this new passage gave vent. There are still remaining, and daily discovered, innumerable instances of such a deluge on both sides of the river, after it passed the hills above the falls of Trenton, and reached the Champaign. On the New Jersey side, which is flatter than the Pennsylvania side, all the country below Croswick hills seems to have been overflowed to the distance of from ten to fifteen miles back from the river, and to have acquired a new soil by the earth and clay brought down and mixed with the native sand. The spot on which Philadelphia stands evidently appears to be made ground. The different strata through which they pass in digging to water, the acorns, leaves, and sometimes branches, which are found above twenty feet below the surface, all seem to demonstrate this. I am informed that at Yorktown in Virginia, in the bank of York river, there are different strata of shells and earth, one above another, which seem to point out that the country there has undergone several changes; that the sea has, for a succession of ages, occupied the place where dry land now appears; and that the ground has been suddenly raised at various periods. What a change would it make in the country below, should the mountains at Niagara, by any accident, be cleft asunder, and a passage suddenly opened to drain off the waters of Erie and the upper lakes! While ruminating on these subjects, I have often been hurried away by fancy, and led to imagine, that what is now the bay of Mexico, was once a champaign country; and that from the point or cape of Florida, there was a continued range of mountains through Cuba, Hispaniola, Porto Rico, Martinique, Guadaloupe, Barbadoes, and Trinidad, till it reached the coast of America, and formed the shores which bounded the ocean, and guarded the country behind; that by some convulsion or shock of nature, the sea had broken through these mounds, and deluged that vast plain, till it reached the foot of the Andes; that being there heaped up by the trade winds, always blowing from one quarter, it had found its way back, as it continues to do, through the Gulf between Florida and Cuba, carrying with it the loom and sand it may have scooped from the country it had occupied, part of which it may have deposited on the shores of North America, and with part formed the banks of Newfoundland. But these are only the visions of fancy.

(3.) p. 283. There is a plant, or weed, called the Jamestown weed,[67] of a very singular quality. The late Dr. Bond informed me, that he had under his care a patient, a young girl, who had put the seeds of this plant into her eye, which dilated the pupil to such a degree, that she could see in the dark, but in the light was almost blind. The effect that the leaves had when eaten by a ship's crew that arrived at Jamestown, are well known.[68]

(4.) p. 312. Monsieur Buffon has indeed given an afflicting picture of human nature in his description of the man of America. But sure I am there never was a picture more unlike the original. He grants indeed that his stature is the same as that of the man of Europe. He might have admitted, that the Iroquois were larger, and the Lenopi, or Delawares, taller than people in Europe generally are. But he says their organs of generation are smaller and weaker than those of Europeans. Is this a fact? I believe not; at least it is an observation I never heard before.—"They have no beard." Had he known the pains and trouble it costs the men to pluck out by the roots the hair that grows on their faces, he would have seen that nature had not been deficient in that respect. Every nation has its customs. I have seen an Indian beau, with a looking-glass in his hand, examining his face for hours together, and plucking out by the roots every hair he could discover, with a kind of tweezer made of a piece of fine brass wire, that had been twisted round a stick, and which he used with great dexterity.—"They have no ardor for their females." It is true they do not indulge those excesses, nor discover that fondness which is customary in Europe; but this is not owing to a defect in nature but to manners. Their soul is wholly bent upon war. This is what procures them glory among the men, and makes them the admiration of the women. To this they are educated from their earliest youth. When they pursue game with ardor, when they bear the fatigues of the chase, when they sustain and suffer patiently hunger and cold; it is not so much for the sake of the game they pursue, as to convince their parents and the council of the nation that they are fit to be enrolled in the number of the warriors. The songs of the women, the dance of the warriors, the sage counsel of the chiefs, the tales of the old, the triumphal entry of the warriors returning with success from battle, and the respect paid to those who distinguish themselves in war, and in subduing their enemies; in short, everything they see or hear tends to inspire them with an ardent desire for military fame. If a young man were to discover a fondness for women before he has been to war, he would become the contempt of the men, and the scorn and ridicule of the women. Or were he to indulge himself with a captive taken in war, and much more were he to offer violence in order to gratify his lust, he would incur indelible disgrace. The seeming frigidity of the men, therefore, is the effect of manners, and not a defect of nature. Besides, a celebrated warrior is oftener courted by the females, than he has occasion to court; and this is a point of honor which the men aim at. Instances similar to that of Ruth and Boaz[69] are not uncommon among them. For though the women are modest and diffident, and so bashful that they seldom lift up their eyes, and scarce ever look a man full in the face, yet, being brought up in great subjection, custom and manners reconcile them to modes of acting, which, judged of by Europeans, would be deemed inconsistent with the rules of female decorum and propriety. I once saw a young widow, whose husband, a warrior, had died about eight days before, hastening to finish her grief, and who, by tearing her hair, beating her breast, and drinking spirits, made the tears flow in great abundance, in order that she might grieve much in a short space of time, and be married that evening to another young warrior. The manner in which this was viewed by the men and women of the tribe, who stood round, silent and solemn spectators of the scene, and the indifference with which they answered my question respecting it, convinced me that it was no unusual custom. I have known men advanced in years, whose wives were old and past child-bearing, take young wives, and have children, though the practice of polygamy is not common. Does this savor of frigidity, or want of ardor for the female? Neither do they seem to be deficient in natural affection. I have seen both fathers and mothers in the deepest affliction, when their children have been dangerously ill; though I believe the affection is stronger in the descending than the ascending scale, and though custom forbids a father to grieve immoderately for a son slain in battle. "That they are timorous and cowardly," is a character with which there is little reason to charge them, when we recollect the manner in which the Iroquois met Monsieur ——, who marched into their country; in which the old men, who scorned to fly, or to survive the capture of their town, braved death, like the old Romans in the time of the Gauls, and in which they soon after revenged themselves by sacking and destroying Montreal. But above all, the unshaken fortitude with which they bear the most excruciating tortures and death when taken prisoners, ought to exempt them from that character. Much less are they to be characterized as a people of no vivacity, and who are excited to action or motion only by the calls of hunger and thirst. Their dances in which they so much delight, and which to an European would be the most severe exercise, fully contradict this, not to mention their fatiguing marches, and the toil they voluntarily and cheerfully undergo in their military expeditions. It is true, that when at home, they do not employ themselves in labor or the culture of the soil; but this again is the effect of customs and manners, which have assigned that to the province of the women. But it is said, they are averse to society and a social life. Can anything be more inapplicable than this to a people who always live in towns or clans? Or can they be said to have no "republic," who conduct all their affairs in national councils, who pride themselves in their national character, who consider an insult or injury done to an individual by a stranger as done to the whole, and resent it accordingly? In short, this picture is not applicable to any nation of Indians I have ever known or heard of in North America.

(5.) p. 340. As far as I have been able to learn, the country from the sea coast to the Alleghany, and from the most southern waters of James river up to Patuxen river, now in the State of Maryland, was occupied by three different nations of Indians, each of which spoke a different language, and were under separate and distinct governments. What the original or real names of those nations were, I have not been able to learn with certainty; but by us they are distinguished by the names of Powhatans, Mannahoacs, and Monacans, now commonly called Tuscaroras. The Powhatans, who occupied the country from the sea shore up to the falls of the rivers, were a powerful nation, and seem to have consisted of seven tribes, five on the western and two on the eastern shore. Each of these tribes was subdivided into towns, families, or clans, who lived together. All the nations of Indians in North America lived in the hunter state, and depended for subsistence on hunting, fishing, and the spontaneous fruits of the earth, and a kind of grain which was planted and gathered by the women, and is now known by the name of Indian corn. Long potatoes, pumpkins of various kinds, and squashes, were also found in use among them. They had no flocks, herds, or tamed animals of any kind. Their government is a kind of patriarchal confederacy. Every town or family has a chief, who is distinguished by a particular title, and whom we commonly call "Sachem." The several towns or families that compose a tribe, have a chief who presides over it, and the several tribes composing a nation have a chief who presides over the whole nation. These chiefs are generally men advanced in years, and distinguished by their prudence and abilities in council. The matters which merely regard a town or family are settled by the chief and principal men of the town; those which regard a tribe, such as the appointment of head warriors or captains, and settling differences between different towns and families, are regulated at a meeting or council of the chiefs from the several towns; and those which regard the whole nation, such as the making war, concluding peace, or forming alliances with the neighboring nations, are deliberated on and determined in a national council composed of the chiefs of the tribe, attended by the head warriors and a number of the chiefs from the towns, who are his counsellors. In every town there is a council house, where the chief and old men of the town assemble, when occasion requires, and consult what is proper to be done. Every tribe has a fixed place for the chiefs of the towns to meet and consult on the business of the tribe; and in every nation there is what they call the central council house, or central council fire, where the chiefs of the several tribes, with the principal warriors, convene to consult and determine on their national affairs. When any matter is proposed in the national council, it is common for the chiefs of the several tribes to consult thereon apart with their counsellors, and when they have agreed, to deliver the opinion of the tribe at the national council; and, as their government seems to rest wholly on persuasion, they endeavor, by mutual concessions, to obtain unanimity. Such is the government that still subsists among the Indian nations bordering upon the United States. Some historians seem to think, that the dignity of office of Sachem was hereditary. But that opinion does not appear to be well founded. The sachem or chief of the tribe seems to be by election. And sometimes persons who are strangers, and adopted into the tribe, are promoted to this dignity, on account of their abilities. Thus on the arrival of Captain Smith, the first founder of the colony of Virginia, Opechancanough, who was Sachem or chief of the Chickahominies, one of the tribes of the Powhatans, is said to have been of another tribe, and even of another nation, so that no certain account could be obtained of his origin or descent. The chiefs of the nation seem to have been by a rotation among the tribes. Thus when Captain Smith, in the year 1609, questioned Powhatan (who was the chief of the nation, and whose proper name is said to have been Wahunsonacock) respecting the succession, the old chief informed him, "that he was very old, and had seen the death of all his people thrice;[70] that not one of these generations were then living except himself; that he must soon die, and the succession descend in order to his brother Opichapan, Opechancanough, and Catataugh, and then to his two sisters, and their two daughters." But these were appellations designating the tribes in the confederacy. For the persons named are not his real brothers, but the chiefs of different tribes. Accordingly in 1618, when Powhatan died, he was succeeded by Opichapan, and after his decease, Opechancanough became chief of the nation. I need only mention another instance to show that the chiefs of the tribes claimed this kindred with the head of the nation. In 1622, when Raleigh Crashaw was with Japazaw, the Sachem or chief of the Potomacs, Opechancanough, who had great power and influence, being the second man in the nation, and next in succession to Opichapan, and who was a bitter but secret enemy to the English, and wanted to engage his nation in a war with them, sent two baskets of beads to the Potomac chief, and desired him to kill the Englishman that was with him. Japazaw replied, that the English were his friends, and Opichapan his brother, and that therefore there should be no blood shed between them by his means. It is also to be observed, that when the English first came over, in all their conferences with any of the chiefs, they constantly heard him make mention of his brother, with whom he must consult, or to whom he referred them, meaning thereby either the chief of the nation, or the tribes in confederacy. The Manahoacks are said to have been a confederacy of four tribes, and in alliance with the Monacans, in the war which they were carrying on against the Powhatans.

To the northward of these there was another powerful nation which occupied the country from the head of the Chesapeake bay up to the Kittatinney mountain, and as far eastward as Connecticut river, comprehending that part of New York which lies between the Highlands and the ocean, all the State of New Jersey, that part of Pennsylvania which is watered, below the range of the Kittatinney mountains, by the rivers or streams falling into the Delaware, and the county of Newcastle in the State of Delaware, as far as Duck creek. It is to be observed, that the nations of Indians distinguished their countries one from another by natural boundaries, such as ranges of mountains or streams of water. But as the heads of rivers frequently interlock, or approach near to each other, as those who live upon a stream claim the country watered by it, they often encroached on each other, and this is a constant source of war between the different nations. The nation occupying the tract of country last described, called themselves Lenopi. The French writers call them Loups; and among the English they are now commonly called Delawares. This nation or confederacy consisted of five tribes, who all spoke one language. 1. The Chihohocki, who dwelt on the west side of the river now called Delaware, a name which it took from Lord De la War, who put into it on his passage from Virginia in the year ——, but which by the Indians was called Chihohocki. 2. The Wanami, who inhabit the country called New Jersey, from the Rariton to the sea. 3. The Munsey, who dwelt on the upper streams of the Delaware, from the Kittatinney mountains down to the Lehigh or western branch of the Delaware. 4. The Wabinga, who are sometimes called River Indians, sometimes Mohickanders, and who had their dwelling between the west branch of Delaware and Hudson's river, from the Kittatinney Ridge down to the Rariton; and 5. The Mahiccon, or Manhattan, who occupied Staten Island, York Island (which from its being the principal seat of their residence was formerly called Manhattan), Long Island, and that part of New York and Connecticut which lies between Hudson and Connecticut rivers, from the highland, which is a continuation of the Kittatinney Ridge down to the Sound. This nation had a close alliance with the Shawanese, who lived on the Susquehanna and to the westward of that river, as far as the Alleghany mountains, and carried on a long war with another powerful nation or confederacy of Indians, which lived to the north of them between the Kittatinney mountains or highlands, and the Lake Ontario, and who call themselves Mingoes, and are called by the French writers Iroquois, by the English the Five Nations, and by the Indians to the southward, with whom they were at war, Massawomacs. This war was carrying on in its greatest fury, when Captain Smith first arrived in Virginia. The Mingo warriors had penetrated down the Susquehannah to the mouth of it. In one of his excursions up the bay, at the mouth of Susquehannah, in 1608, Captain Smith met with six or seven of their canoes full of warriors, who were coming to attack their enemies in the rear. In an excursion which he had made a few weeks before, up the Rappahannock, and in which he had a skirmish with a party of the Manahoacs, and taken a brother of one of their chiefs prisoner, he first heard of this nation. For when he asked the prisoner why his nation attacked the English? the prisoner said, because his nation had heard that the English came from under the world to take their world from them. Being asked, how many worlds he knew? he said, he knew but one, which was under the sky that covered him, and which consisted of Powhatans, the Manakins, and the Massawomacs. Being questioned concerning the latter, he said, they dwelt on a great water to the North, that they had many boats, and so many men, that they waged war with all the rest of the world. The Mingo confederacy then consisted of five tribes; three who are the elder, to wit, the Senecas, who live to the West, the Mohawks to the East, and the Onondagas between them; and two who are called the younger tribes, namely, the Cayugas and Oneidas. All these tribes speak one language, and were then united in a close confederacy, and occupied the tract of country from the east end of Lake Erie to Lake Champlain, and from the Kittatinney and Highlands to the Lake Ontario and the river Cadaraqui, or St. Lawrence. They had some time before that, carried on a war with a nation, who lived beyond the lakes, and were called Adirondacks. In this war they were worsted; but having made a peace with them, through the intercession of the French who were then settling Canada, they turned their arms against the Lenopi; and as this war was long and doubtful, they, in the course of it, not only exerted their whole force, but put in practice every measure which prudence or policy could devise to bring it to a successful issue. For this purpose they bent their course down the Susquehannah, and warring with the Indians in their way, and having penetrated as far as the mouth of it, they, by the terror of their arms, engaged a nation, now known by the name of Nanticocks, Conoys, and Tuteloes, and who lived between Chesapeake and Delaware bays, and bordering on the tribe of Chihohocki, to enter into an alliance with them. They also formed an alliance with the Monicans, and stimulated them to a war with the Lenopi and their confederates. At the same time the Mohawks carried on a furious war down the Hudson against the Mohiccons and River Indians, and compelled them to purchase a temporary and precarious peace, by acknowledging them to be their superiors, and paying an annual tribute. The Lenopi being surrounded with enemies, and hard pressed, and having lost many of their warriors, were at last compelled to sue for peace, which was granted to them on the condition that they should put themselves under the protection of the Mingoes, confine themselves to raising corn, hunting for the subsistence of their families, and no longer have the power of making war. This is what the Indians call making them women. And in this condition the Lenopi were when William Penn first arrived and began the settlement of Pennsylvania in 1682.

(6.) p. 342. From the figurative language of the Indians, as well as from the practice of those we are still acquainted with, it is evident that it was and still continues to be, a constant custom among the Indians to gather up the bones of the dead, and deposit them in a particular place. Thus, when they make peace with any nation with whom they have been at war, after burying the hatchet, they take up the belt of wampum, and say, "We now gather up all the bones of those who have been slain, and bury them," &c. See all the treaties of peace. Besides, it is customary when any of them die at a distance from home, to bury them, and afterwards to come and take up the bones and carry them home. At a treaty which was held at Lancaster with the Six Nations, one of them died, and was buried in the woods a little distance from the town. Some time after a party came and took up the body, separated the flesh from the bones by boiling and scraping them clean, and carried them to be deposited in the sepulchres of their ancestors. The operation was so offensive and disagreeable, that nobody could come near them while they were performing it.

(7.) p. 350. The Osweàtchies, Connosedàgoes and Cohunnegagoes, or, as they are commonly called, Caghnewàgos, are of the Mingo or Six Nation Indians, who, by the influence of the French missionaries, have been separated from their nation, and induced to settle there.

I do not know of what nation the Augquàgahs are, but suspect they are a family of the Senecas.

The Nanticocks and Conòies were formerly of a nation that lived at the head of Chesapeake bay, and who, of late years, have been adopted into the Mingo or Iroquois confederacy, and make a seventh nation. The Monacans or Tuscaroras, who were taken into the confederacy in 1712, making the sixth.

The Saponies are families of the Wanamies, who removed from New Jersey, and with the Mohiccons, Munsies, and Delawares, belonging to the Lenopi nation. The Mingos are a war colony from the Six Nations; so are the Cohunnewagos.

Of the rest of the Northern tribes I never have been able to learn anything certain. But all accounts seem to agree in this, that there is a very powerful nation, distinguished by a variety of names taken from the several towns or families, but commonly called Tàwas or Ottawas, who speak one language, and live round and on the waters that fall into the western lakes, and extend from the waters of the Ohio quite to the waters falling into Hudson's bay.

No. II.

In the summer of the year 1783, it was expected that the assembly of Virginia would call a Convention for the establishment of a Constitution. The following draught of a fundamental Constitution for the Commonwealth of Virginia was then prepared, with a design of being proposed in such Convention had it taken place.

To the citizens of the commonwealth of Virginia, and all others whom it may concern, the delegates for the said commonwealth in Convention assembled, send greeting:

It is known to you and to the world, that the government of Great Britain, with which the American States were not long since connected, assumed over them an authority unwarrantable and oppressive; that they endeavored to enforce this authority by arms, and that the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, considering resistance, with all its train of horrors, as a lesser evil than abject submission, closed in the appeal to arms. It hath pleased the Sovereign Disposer of all human events to give to this appeal an issue favorable to the rights of the States; to enable them to reject forever all dependence on a government which had shown itself so capable of abusing the trusts reposed in it; and to obtain from that government a solemn and explicit acknowledgment that they are free, sovereign, and independent States. During the progress of that war, through which we had to labor for the establishment of our rights, the legislature of the commonwealth of Virginia found it necessary to make a temporary organization of government for preventing anarchy, and pointing our efforts to the two important objects of war against our invaders, and peace and happiness among ourselves. But this, like all other acts of legislation, being subject to change by subsequent legislatures, possessing equal powers with themselves; it has been thought expedient, that it should receive those amendments which time and trial have suggested, and be rendered permanent by a power superior to that of the ordinary legislature. The general assembly therefore of this State recommend it to the good people thereof, to choose delegates to meet in general convention, with powers to form a constitution of government for them, and to declare those fundamentals to which all our laws present and future shall be subordinate; and, in compliance with this recommendation, they have thought proper to make choice of us, and to vest us with powers for this purpose.

We, therefore, the delegates, chosen by the said good people of this State for the purpose aforesaid, and now assembled in general convention, do in execution of the authority with which we are invested, establish the following constitution and fundamentals of government for the said State of Virginia:

The said State shall forever hereafter be governed as a commonwealth.

The powers of government shall be divided into three distinct departments, each of them to be confided to a separate body of magistracy; to wit, those which are legislative to one, those which are judiciary to another, and those which are executive to another. No person, or collection of persons, being of one of these departments, shall exercise any power properly belonging to either of the others, except in the instances hereinafter expressly permitted.

The legislature shall consist of two branches, the one to be called the House of Delegates, the other the Senate, and both together the General Assembly. The concurrence of both of these, expressed on three several readings, shall be necessary to the passage of a law.

Delegates for the general assembly shall be chosen on the last Monday of November in every year. But if an election cannot be concluded on that day, it may be adjourned from day to day till it can be concluded.

The number of delegates which each county may send shall be in proportion to the number of its qualified electors; and the whole number of delegates for the State shall be so proportioned to the whole number of qualified electors in it, that they shall never exceed three hundred, nor be fewer than one hundred. Whenever such excess or deficiency shall take place, the House of Delegates so deficient or excessive shall, notwithstanding this, continue in being during its legal term; but they shall, during that term, re-adjust the proportion, so as to bring their number within the limits before mentioned at the ensuing election. If any county be reduced in its qualified electors below the number authorized to send one delegate, let it be annexed to some adjoining county.

For the election of senators, let the several counties be allotted by the senate, from time to time, into such and so many districts as they shall find best; and let each county at the time of electing its delegates, choose senatorial electors, qualified as themselves are, and four in number for each delegate their county is entitled to send, who shall convene, and conduct themselves, in such manner as the legislature shall direct, with the senatorial electors from the other counties of their district, and then choose, by ballot, one senator for every six delegates which their district is entitled to choose. Let the senatorial districts be divided into two classes, and let the members elected for one of them be dissolved at the first ensuing general election of delegates, the other at the next, and so on alternately forever.

All free male citizens, of full age, and sane mind, who for one year before shall have been resident in the county, or shall through the whole of that time have possessed therein real property of the value of ——; or shall for the same time have been enrolled in the militia, and no others, shall have a right to vote for delegates for the said county, and for senatorial electors for the district. They shall give their votes personally, and vivâ voce.

The general assembly shall meet at the place to which the last adjournment was, on the forty-second day after the day of election of delegates, and thenceforward at any other time or place on their own adjournment, till their office expires, which shall be on the day preceding that appointed for the meeting of the next general assembly. But if they shall at any time adjourn for more than one year, it shall be as if they had adjourned for one year precisely. Neither house, without the concurrence of the other, shall adjourn for more than one week, nor to any other place than the one at which they are sitting. The governor shall also have power, with the advice of the council of State, to call them at any other time to the same place, or to a different one, if that shall have become, since the last adjournment, dangerous from an enemy, or from infection.

A majority of either house shall be a quorum, and shall be requisite for doing business; but any smaller proportion which from time to time shall be thought expedient by the respective houses, shall be sufficient to call for, and to punish, their non-attending members, and to adjourn themselves for any time not exceeding one week.

The members, during their attendance on the general assembly, and for so long a time before and after as shall be necessary for travelling to and from the same, shall be privileged from all personal restraint and assault, and shall have no other privilege whatsoever. They shall receive during the same time, daily wages in gold or silver, equal to the value of two bushels of wheat. This value shall be deemed one dollar by the bushel till the year 1790, in which, and in every tenth year thereafter, the general court, at their first sessions in the year, shall cause a special jury, of the most respectable merchants and farmers, to be summoned, to declare what shall have been the averaged value of wheat during the last ten years; which averaged value shall be the measure of wages for the ten subsequent years.

Of this general assembly, the treasurer, attorney general, register, ministers of the gospel, officers of the regular armies of this State, or of the United States, persons receiving salaries or emoluments from any power foreign to our confederacy, those who are not resident in the county for which they are chosen delegates, or districts for which they are chosen senators, those who are not qualified as electors, persons who shall have committed treason, felony, or such other crime as would subject them to infamous punishment, or who shall have been convicted by due course of law of bribery or corruption, in endeavoring to procure an election to the said assembly, shall be incapable of being members. All others, not herein elsewhere excluded, who may elect, shall be capable of being elected thereto.

Any member of the said assembly accepting any office of profit under this State, or the United States, or any of them, shall thereby vacate his seat, but shall be capable of being re-elected.

Vacancies occasioned by such disqualifications, by death, or otherwise, shall be supplied by the electors, on a writ from the speaker of the respective house.

The general assembly shall not have power to infringe this constitution; to abridge the civil rights of any person on account of his religious belief; to restrain him from professing and supporting that belief, or to compel him to contributions, other than those he shall have personally stipulated for the support of that or any other; to ordain death for any crime but treason or murder, or military offences; to pardon, or give a power of pardoning persons duly convicted of treason or felony, but instead thereof they may substitute one or two new trials, and no more; to pass laws for punishing actions done before the existence of such laws; to pass any bill of attainder of treason or felony; to prescribe torture in any case whatever; nor to permit the introduction of any more slaves to reside in this State, or the continuance of slavery beyond the generation which shall be living on the thirty-first day of December, one thousand eight hundred; all persons born after that day being hereby declared free.

The general assembly shall have power to sever from this State all or any parts of its territory westward of the Ohio, or of the meridian of the mouth of the Great Kanhaway, and to cede to Congress one hundred square miles of territory in any other part of this State, exempted from the jurisdiction and government of this State so long as Congress shall hold their sessions therein, or in any territory adjacent thereto, which may be tendered to them by any other State.

They shall have power to appoint the speakers of their respective houses, treasurer, auditors, attorney general, register, all general officers of the military, their own clerks and serjeants, and no other officers, except where, in other parts of this constitution, such appointment is expressly given them.

The executive powers shall be exercised by a Governor, who shall be chosen by joint ballot of both houses of assembly, and when chosen shall remain in office five years, and be ineligible a second time. During his term he shall hold no other office or emolument under this State, or any other State or power whatsoever. By executive powers, we mean no reference to those powers exercised under our former government by the crown as of its prerogative, nor that these shall be the standard of what may or may not be deemed the rightful powers of the governor. We give him those powers only, which are necessary to execute the laws (and administer the government), and which are not in their nature either legislative or judiciary. The application of this idea must be left to reason. We do however expressly deny him the prerogative powers of erecting courts, offices, boroughs, corporations, fairs, markets, ports, beacons, light-houses, and sea-marks; of laying embargoes, of establishing precedence, of retaining within the State, or recalling to it any citizen thereof, and of making denizens, except so far as he may be authorized from time to time by the legislature to exercise any of those powers. The power of declaring war and concluding peace, of contracting alliances, of issuing letters of marque and reprisal, of raising and introducing armed forces, of building armed vessels, forts, or strongholds, of coining money or regulating its value, of regulating weights and measures, we leave to be exercised under the authority of the confederation; but in all cases respecting them which are out of the said confederation, they shall be exercised by the governor, under the regulation of such laws as the legislature may think it expedient to pass.

The whole military of the State, whether regular, or of militia, shall be subject to his directions; but he shall leave the execution of those directions to the general officers appointed by the legislature.

His salary shall be fixed by the legislature at the session of the assembly in which he shall be appointed, and before such appointment be made; or if it be not then fixed, it shall be the same which his next predecessor in office was entitled to. In either case he may demand it quarterly out of any money which shall be in the public treasury; and it shall not be in the power of the legislature to give him less or more, either during his continuance in office, or after he shall have gone out of it. The lands, houses, and other things appropriated to the use of the governor, shall remain to his use during his continuance in office.

A Council of State shall be chosen by joint ballot of both houses of assembly, who shall hold their offices seven years, and be ineligible a second time, and who, while they shall be of the said council, shall hold no other office or emolument under this State, or any other State or power whatsoever. Their duty shall be to attend and advise the governor when called on by him, and their advice in any case shall be a sanction to him. They shall also have power, and it shall be their duty, to meet at their own will, and to give their advice, though not required by the governor, in cases where they shall think the public good calls for it. Their advice and proceedings shall be entered in books to be kept for that purpose, and shall be signed as approved or disapproved by the members present. These books shall be laid before either house of assembly when called for by them. The said council shall consist of eight members for the present; but their numbers may be increased or reduced by the legislature, whenever they shall think it necessary; provided such reduction be made only as the appointments become vacant by death, resignation, disqualification, or regular deprivation. A majority of their actual number, and not fewer, shall be a quorum. They shall be allowed for the present —— each by the year, payable quarterly out of any money which shall be in the public treasury. Their salary, however, may be increased or abated from time to time, at the discretion of the legislature; provided such increase or abatement shall not, by any ways or means, be made to affect either then, or at any future time, any one of those then actually in office. At the end of each quarter their salary shall be divided into equal portions by the number of days on which, during that quarter, a council has been held, or required by the governor, or by their own adjournment, and one of those portions shall be withheld from each member for every of the said days which, without cause allowed good by the board, he failed to attend, or departed before adjournment without their leave. If no board should have been held during that quarter, there shall be no deduction.

They shall annually choose a President, who shall preside in council in the absence of the governor, and who, in case of his office becoming vacant by death or otherwise, shall have authority to exercise all his functions, till a new appointment be made, as he shall also in any interval during which the governor shall declare himself unable to attend to the duties of his office.

The Judiciary powers shall be exercised by county courts and such other inferior courts as the legislature shall think proper to continue or to erect, by three superior courts, to wit, a Court of Admiralty, a general Court of Common Law, and a High Court of Chancery; and by one Supreme Court, to be called the Court of Appeals.

The judges of the high court of chancery, general court, and court of admiralty, shall be four in number each, to be appointed by joint ballot of both houses of assembly, and to hold their offices during good behavior. While they continue judges, they shall hold no other office or emolument, under this State, or any other State or power whatsoever, except that they may be delegated to Congress, receiving no additional allowance.

These judges, assembled together, shall constitute the Court of Appeals, whose business shall be to receive and determine appeals from the three superior courts, but to receive no original causes, except in the cases expressly permitted herein.

A majority of the members of either of these courts, and not fewer, shall be a quorum. But in the Court of Appeals nine members shall be necessary to do business. Any smaller numbers however may be authorized by the legislature to adjourn their respective courts.

They shall be allowed for the present —— each by the year, payable quarterly out of any money which shall be in the public treasury. Their salaries, however, may be increased or abated, from time to time, at the discretion of the legislature, provided such increase or abatement shall not by any ways or means, be made to affect, either then, or at any future time, any one of those then actually in office. At the end of each quarter their salary shall be divided into equal portions by the number of days on which, during that quarter, their respective courts sat, or should have sat, and one of these portions shall be withheld from each member for every of the said days which, without cause allowed good by his court, he failed to attend, or departed before adjournment without their leave. If no court should have been held during the quarter, there shall be no deduction.

There shall, moreover, be a Court of Impeachments, to consist of three members of the Council of State, one of each of the superior courts of Chancery, Common Law, and Admiralty, two members of the house of delegates and one of the Senate, to be chosen by the body respectively of which they are. Before this court any member of the three branches of government, that is to say, the governor, any member of the council, of the two houses of legislature, or of the superior courts, may be impeached by the governor, the council, or either of the said houses or courts, and by no other, for such misbehavior in office as would be sufficient to remove him therefrom; and the only sentence they shall have authority to pass shall be that of deprivation and future incapacity of office. Seven members shall be requisite to make a court, and two-thirds of those present must concur in the sentence. The offences cognizable by this court shall be cognizable by no other, and they shall be triers of the fact as well as judges of the law.

The justices or judges of the inferior courts already erected, or hereafter to be erected, shall be appointed by the governor, on advice of the council of State, and shall hold their offices during good behavior, or the existence of their courts. For breach of the good behavior, they shall be tried according to the laws of the land, before the Court of Appeals, who shall be judges of the fact as well as of the law. The only sentence they shall have authority to pass shall be that of deprivation and future incapacity of office, and two-thirds of the members present must concur in this sentence.

All courts shall appoint their own clerks, who shall hold their offices during good behavior, or the existence of their court; they shall also appoint all other attending officers to continue during their pleasure. Clerks appointed by the supreme or superior courts shall be removable by their respective courts. Those to be appointed by other courts shall have been previously examined, and certified to be duly qualified, by some two members of the general court, and shall be removable for breach of the good behavior by the Court of Appeals only, who shall be judges of the fact as well as of the law. Two-thirds of the members present must concur in the sentence.

The justices or judges of the inferior courts may be members of the legislature.

The judgment of no inferior court shall be final, in any civil case, of greater value than fifty bushels of wheat, as last rated in the general court for setting the allowance to the members of the general assembly, nor in any case of treason, felony, or other crime which should subject the party to infamous punishment.

In all causes depending before any court, other than those of impeachments, of appeals, and military courts, facts put in issue shall be tried by jury, and in all courts whatever witnesses shall give testimony vivâ voce in open court, wherever their attendance can be procured; and all parties shall be allowed counsel and compulsory process for their witnesses.

Fines, amercements, and terms of imprisonment left indefinite by the law, other than for contempts, shall be fixed by the jury, triers of the offence.

The governor, two councillors of State, and a judge from each of the superior Courts of Chancery, Common Law, and Admiralty, shall be a council to revise all bills which shall have passed both houses of assembly, in which council the governor, when present, shall preside. Every bill, before it becomes a law, shall be represented to this council, who shall have a right to advise its rejection, returning the bill, with their advice and reasons in writing, to the house in which it originated, who shall proceed to reconsider the said bill. But if after such reconsideration, two-thirds of the house shall be of opinion that the bill should pass finally, they shall pass and send it, with the advice and written reasons of the said Council of Revision, to the other house, wherein if two-thirds also shall be of opinion it should pass finally, it shall thereupon become law; otherwise it shall not.

If any bill, presented to the said council, be not, within one week (exclusive of the day of presenting it) returned by them, with their advice of rejection and reasons, to the house wherein it originated, or to the clerk of the said house, in case of its adjournment over the expiration of the week, it shall be law from the expiration of the week, and shall then be demandable by the clerk of the House of Delegates, to be filed of record in his office.

The bills which they approve shall become law from the time of such approbation, and shall then be returned to, or demandable by, the clerk of the House of Delegates, to be filed of record in his office.

A bill rejected on advice of the Council of Revision may again be proposed, during the same session of assembly, with such alterations as will render it conformable to their advice.

The members of the said Council of Revision shall be appointed from time to time by the board or court of which they respectively are. Two of the executive and two of the judiciary members shall be requisite to do business; and to prevent the evils of non-attendance, the board and courts may at any time name all, or so many as they will, of their members, in the particular order in which they would choose the duty of attendance to devolve from preceding to subsequent members, the preceding failing to attend. They shall have additionally for their services in this council the same allowance as members of assembly have.

The confederation is made a part of this constitution, subject to such future alterations as shall be agreed to by the legislature of this State, and by all the other confederating States.

The delegates to Congress shall be five in number; any three of whom, and no fewer, may be a representation. They shall be appointed by joint ballot of both houses of assembly for any term not exceeding one year, subject to be recalled, within the term, by joint vote of both the said houses. They may at the same time be members of the legislative or judiciary departments, but not of the executive.

The benefits of the writ of Habeas Corpus shall be extended, by the legislature, to every person within this State, and without fee, and shall be so facilitated that no person may be detained in prison more than ten days after he shall have demanded and been refused such writ by the judge appointed by law, or if none be appointed, then by any judge of a superior court, nor more than ten days after such writ shall have been served on the person detaining him, and no order given, on due examination, for his remandment or discharge.

The military shall be subordinate to the civil power.

Printing presses shall be subject to no other restraint than liableness to legal prosecution for false facts printed and published.

Any two of the three branches of government concurring in opinion, each by the voice of two-thirds of their whole existing number, that a convention is necessary for altering this constitution, or correcting breaches of it, they shall be authorized to issue writs to every county for the election of so many delegates as they are authorized to send to the general assembly, which elections shall be held, and writs returned, as the laws shall have provided in the case of elections of delegates of assembly, mutatis mutandis, and the said delegates shall meet at the usual place of holding assemblies, three months after date of such writs, and shall be acknowledged to have equal powers with this present convention. The said writs shall be signed by all the members approving the same.

To introduce this government, the following special and temporary provision is made.

This convention being authorized only to amend those laws which constituted the form of government, no general dissolution of the whole system of laws can be supposed to have taken place; but all laws in force at the meeting of this convention, and not inconsistent with this constitution, remain in full force, subject to alterations by the ordinary legislature.

The present general assembly shall continue till the forty-second day after the last Monday of November in this present year. On the said last Monday of November in this present year, the several counties shall by their electors qualified as provided by this constitution, elect delegates, which for the present shall be, in number, one for every —— militia of the said county, according to the latest returns in possession of the governor, and shall also choose senatorial electors in proportion thereto, which senatorial electors shall meet on the fourteenth day after the day of their election, at the court house of that county of their present district which would stand first in an alphabetical arrangement of their counties, and shall choose senators in the proportion fixed by this constitution. The elections and returns shall be conducted, in all circumstances not hereby particularly prescribed, by the same persons and under the same forms as prescribed by the present laws in elections of senators and delegates of assembly. The said senators and delegates shall constitute the first general assembly of the new government, and shall specially apply themselves to the procuring an exact return from every county of the number of its qualified electors, and to the settlement of the number of delegates to be elected for the ensuing general assembly.

The present governor shall continue in office to the end of the term for which he was elected.

All other officers of every kind shall continue in office as they would have done had their appointment been under this constitution, and new ones, where new are hereby called for, shall be appointed by the authority to which such appointment is referred. One of the present judges of the general court, he consenting thereto, shall by joint ballot of both houses of assembly, at their first meeting, be transferred to the High Court of Chancery.

No. III.

An Act for establishing Religious Freedom, passed in the Assembly of Virginia in the beginning of the year 1786.

Well aware that Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time; that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the ministry those temporal rewards, which proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labors for the instruction of mankind; that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that, therefore, the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to the offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which in common with his fellow citizens he has a natural right; that it tends also to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing, with a monopoly of worldly honors and emoluments, those who will externally profess and conform to it; that though indeed these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles, on the supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency, will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.

Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

And though we well know this Assembly, elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding assemblies, constituted with the powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable, would be of no effect in law, yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.

AN APPENDIX RELATIVE TO THE MURDER OF LOGAN'S FAMILY.[71]

The "Notes on Virginia" were written, in Virginia, in the years 1781 and 1782, in answer to certain queries proposed to me by Monsieur de Marbois, then secretary of the French legation in the United States; and a manuscript copy was delivered to him. A few copies, with some additions, were afterwards, in 1784, printed in Paris, and given to particular friends. In speaking of the animals of America, the theory of M. de Buffon, the Abbe Raynal, and others presented itself to consideration. They have supposed there is something in the soil, climate, and other circumstances of America, which occasions animal nature to degenerate, not excepting even the man, native or adoptive, physical or moral. This theory, so unfounded and degrading to one-third of the globe, was called to the bar of fact and reason. Among other proofs adduced in contradiction of this hypothesis, the speech of Logan, an Indian chief, delivered to Lord Dunmore in 1774, was produced, as a specimen of the talents of the aboriginals of this country, and particularly of their eloquence; and it was believed that Europe had never produced anything superior to this morsel of eloquence. In order to make it intelligible to the reader, the transaction, on which it was founded, was stated, as it had been generally related in America at the time, and as I had heard it myself, in the circle of Lord Dunmore, and the officers who accompanied him; and the speech itself was given as it had, ten years before the printing of that book, circulated in the newspapers through all the then colonies, through the magazines of Great Britain, and periodical publications of Europe. For three and twenty years it passed uncontradicted; nor was it ever suspected that it even admitted contradiction. In 1797, however, for the first time, not only the whole transaction respecting Logan was affirmed in the public papers to be false, but the speech itself suggested to be a forgery, and even a forgery of mine, to aid me in proving that the man of America was equal in body and in mind, to the man of Europe. But wherefore the forgery; whether Logan's or mine, it would still have been American. I should indeed consult my own fame if the suggestion, that this speech is mine, were suffered to be believed. He would have just right to be proud who could with truth claim that composition. But it is none of mine; and I yield it to whom it is due.

On seeing then that this transaction was brought into question, I thought it my duty to make particular inquiry into its foundation. It was the more my duty, as it was alleged that, by ascribing to an individual therein named, a participation in the murder of Logan's family, I had done an injury to his character, which it had not deserved. I had no knowledge personally of that individual. I had no reason to aim an injury at him. I only repeated what I had heard from others, and what thousands had heard and believed as well as myself; and which no one indeed, till then, had been known to question. Twenty-three years had now elapsed, since the transaction took place. Many of those acquainted with it were dead, and the living dispersed to very distant parts of the earth. Few of them were even known to me. To those however of whom I knew, I made application by letter; and some others, moved by a regard for truth and justice, were kind enough to come forward, of themselves, with their testimony. These fragments of evidence, the small remains of a mighty mass which time has consumed, are here presented to the public, in the form of letters, certificates, or affidavits, as they came to me. I have rejected none of these forms, nor required other solemnities from those whose motives and characters were pledges of their truth. Historical transactions are deemed to be well vouched by the simple declarations of those who have borne a part in them; and especially of persons having no interest to falsify or disfigure them. The world will now see whether they, or I, have injured Cresap, by believing Logan's charge against him; and they will decide between Logan and Cresap, whether Cresap was innocent, and Logan a calumniator?

In order that the reader may have a clear conception of the transactions, to which the different parts of the following declarations refer, he must take notice that they establish four different murders. 1. Of two Indians, a little above Wheeling. 2. Of others at Grave Creek, among whom were some of Logan's relations. 3. The massacre at Baker's bottom, on the Ohio, opposite the mouth of Yellow Creek, where were other relations of Logan. 4. Of those killed at the same place, coming in canoes to the relief of their friends. I place the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, against certain paragraphs of the evidence, to indicate the particular murder to which the paragraph relates, and present also a small sketch or map of the principal scenes of these butcheries, for their more ready comprehension.

Extract of a letter from the Honorable Judge Innes, of Frankfort in Kentucky, to Thomas Jefferson, dated Kentucky, near Frankfort, March 2d, 1799.

I recollect to have seen Logan's speech in 1775, in one of the public prints. That Logan conceived Cresap to be the author of the murder at Yellow Creek, it is in my power to give, perhaps, a more particular information, than any other person you can apply to.

In 1774 I lived in Fincastle county, now divided into Washington, Montgomery and part of Wythe. Being intimate in Col. Preston's family, I happened in July to be at his house, when an express was sent to him as County Lieut. requesting a guard of the militia to be ordered out for the protection of the inhabitants residing low down on the north fork of Holston river. The express brought with him a War Club, and a note which was left tied to it at the house of one Robertson, whose family were cut off by the Indians, and gave rise for the application to Col. Preston, of which the following is a copy, then taken by me in my memorandum book.

"Captain Cresap,—What did you kill my people on Yellow Creek for? The white people killed my kin at Conestoga, a great while ago; and I thought nothing of that. But you killed my kin again, on Yellow Creek, and took my Cousin Prisoner. Then I thought I must kill too; and I have been three times to war since; but the Indians are not angry; only myself.

"July 21st, 1774.

Captain JOHN LOGAN."

With great respect, I am, Dear Sir, your most obedient servant,

HARRY INNES.

Alleghany County, ss. } State of Pennsylvania.}

Before me, the subscriber, a justice of the peace in and for said county, personally appeared John Gibson, Esquire, an associate Judge of same county, who being duly sworn, deposeth and saith that he traded with the Shawanese and other tribes of Indians then settled on the Siota in the year 1773, and in the beginning of the year 1774, and that in the month of April of the same year, he left the same Indian towns, and came to this place, in order to procure some goods and provisions, that he remained here only a few days, and then set out in company with a certain Alexander Blaine and M. Elliot by water to return to the towns on the Siota, and that one evening as they were drifting in their canoes near the Long Reach on the Ohio, they were hailed by a number of white men on the South West shore, who requested them to put ashore, as they had disagreeable news to inform them of; that we then landed on shore; and found amongst the party, a Major Angus M'Donald from West Chester, a Doctor Woods from same place, and a party as they said of one hundred and fifty men. We then asked the news. They informed us that some of the party who had been taken up, and improving lands near the Big Kanhawa river, had seen another party of white men, who informed them that they and some others had fell in with a party of Shawanese, who had been hunting on the South West side of the Ohio, that they had killed the whole of the Indian party, and that the others had gone across the country to Cheat river with the horses and plunder, the consequence of which they apprehended would be an Indian war, and that they were flying away. On making inquiry of them when this murder should have happened, we found that it must have been some considerable time before we left the Indian towns, and that there was not the smallest foundation for the report, as there was not a single man of the Shawanese, but what returned from hunting long before this should have happened.

We then informed them that if they would agree to remain at the place we then were, one of us would go to Hock Hocking river with some of their party, where we should find some of our people making canoes, and that if we did not find them there, we might conclude that everything was not right. Doctor Wood and another person then proposed going with me; the rest of the party seemed to agree, but said they would send and consult Captain Cresap, who was about two miles from that place. They sent off for him, and during the greatest part of the night they behaved in the most disorderly manner, threatening to kill us, and saying the damned traders were worse than the Indians and ought to be killed. In the morning Captain Michael Cresap came to the camp. I then gave him the information as above related. They then met in council, and after an hour or more Captain Cresap returned to me, and informed that he could not prevail on them to adopt the proposal I had made to them, that as he had a great regard for Captain R. Callender, a brother-in-law of mine with whom I was connected in trade, he advised me by no means to think of proceeding any further, as he was convinced the present party would fall on and kill every Indian they met on the river, that for his part he should not continue with them, but go right across the country to Red-Stone to avoid the consequences. That we then proceeded to Hocking and went up the same to the canoe place where we found our people at work, and after some days we proceeded to the towns on Siota by land. On our arrival there, we heard of the different murders committed by the party on their way up the Ohio.

This Deponent further saith that in the year 1774, he accompanied Lord Dunmore on the expedition against the Shawanese and other Indians on the Siota, that on their arrival within fifteen miles of the towns, they were met by a flag, and a white man of the name of Elliot, who informed Lord Dunmore that the Chiefs of the Shawanese had sent to request his Lordship to halt his army and send in some person, who understood their language; that this Deponent, at the request of Lord Dunmore and the whole of the officers with him, went in; that on his arrival at the towns, Logan, the Indian, came to where the deponent was sitting with the Corn-Stalk, and the other chiefs of the Shawanese, and asked him to walk out with him; that they went into a copse of wood, where they sat down, when Logan, after shedding abundance of tears, delivered to him the speech, nearly as related by Mr. Jefferson in his notes on the State of Virginia; that he the deponent told him that it was not Col. Cresap who had murdered his relations, and that although his son Captain Michael Cresap was with the party who killed a Shawanese chief and other Indians, yet he was not present when his relations were killed at Baker's, near the mouth of Yellow Creek on the Ohio; that this Deponent on his return to camp delivered the speech to Lord Dunmore; and that the murders perpetrated as above were considered as ultimately the cause of the war of 1774, commonly called Cresap's war.

JOHN GIBSON.

Sworn and subscribed the 4th April, 1800, at Pittsburg, before me, JER. BARKER.

Extract of a letter from Col. Ebenezer Zane, to the honorable John Brown, one of the senators in Congress from Kentucky; dated Wheeling, Feb. 4th, 1800.

| 1| I was myself, with many others, in the practice of making improvements on lands upon the Ohio, for the purpose of acquiring rights to the same. Being on the Ohio at the mouth of Sandy Creek, in company with many others, news circulated that the Indians had robbed some of the Land jobbers. This news induced the people generally to ascend the Ohio. I was among the number. On our arrival at the Wheeling, being informed that there were two Indians with some traders near and above Wheeling, a proposition was made by the then Captain Michael Cresap to waylay and kill the Indians upon the river. This measure I opposed with much violence, alleging that the killing of those Indians might involve the country in a war. But the opposite party prevailed, and proceeded up the Ohio with Captain Cresap at their head.

In a short time the party returned, and also the traders, in a canoe; but there were no Indians in the company. I inquired what had become of the Indians, and was informed by the traders and Cresap's party that they had fallen overboard. I examined the canoe, and saw much fresh blood and some bullet holes in the canoe. This fully convinced me that the party had killed the two Indians, and thrown them into the river.

2

On the afternoon of the day this action happened, a report prevailed that there was a camp, or party of Indians on the Ohio below and near the Wheeling. In consequence of this information, Captain Cresap with his party, joined by a number of recruits, proceeded immediately down the Ohio for the purpose, as was then generally understood, of destroying the Indians above mentioned. On the succeeding day, Captain Cresap and his party returned to Wheeling, and it was generally reported by the party that they had killed a number of Indians. Of the truth of this report I had no doubt, as one of Cresap's party was badly wounded, and the party had a fresh scalp, and a quantity of property, which they called Indian plunder. At the time of the last-mentioned transaction, it was generally reported that the party of Indians down the Ohio were Logan and his family; but I have reason to believe that this report was unfounded.

3

Within a few days after the transaction above mentioned, a party of Indians were killed at Yellow Creek. But I must do the memory of Captain Cresap the justice to say that I do not believe that he was present at the killing of the Indians at Yellow Creek. But there is not the least doubt in my mind, that the massacre at Yellow Creek was brought on by the two transactions first stated.

All the transactions, which I have related happened in the latter end of April 1774; and there can scarcely be a doubt that they were the cause of the war which immediately followed, commonly called Dunmore's War.

I am with much esteem, yours, &c, EBENEZER ZANE.

The certificate of William Huston of Washington county, in the State of Pennsylvania, communicated by David Riddick, Esquire, Prothonotary of Washington county, Pennsylvania; who in the letter enclosing it says "Mr. William Huston is a man of established reputation in point of integrity."

I William Huston of Washington county, in the State of Pennsylvania, do hereby certify to whom it may concern, that in the year 1774, I resided at Catfishes camp, on the main path from Wheeling to Redstone; that Michael Cresap, who resided on or near the Potomac river, on his way up from the river Ohio, at the head of a party of armed men, lay some time at my cabin.

2

I had previously heard the report of Mr. Cresap having killed some Indians, said to be the relations of "Logan" an Indian Chief. In a variety of conversations with several of Cresap's party, they boasted of the deed; and that in the presence of their chief. They acknowledged they had fired first on the Indians. They had with them one man on a litter, who was in the skirmish.

3

I do further certify that, from what I learned from the party themselves, I then formed the opinion, and have not had any reason to change the opinion since, that the killing, on the part of the whites, was what I deem the grossest murder. I further certify that some of the party, who afterwards killed some women and other Indians at Baker's bottom, also lay at my cabin, on their march to the interior part of the country; they had with them a little girl, whose life had been spared by the interference of some more humane than the rest. If necessary I will make affidavit to the above to be true. Certified at Washington, this 18th day of April, Anno Domini, 1798.

WILLIAM HUSTON.

The certificate of Jacob Newland, of Shelby County, Kentucky, communicated by the Honorable Judge Innes, of Kentucky.

2 3

In the year 1774, I lived on the waters of Short Creek, a branch of the Ohio, twelve miles above Wheeling. Some time in June or in July of that year, Capt. Michael Cresap raised a party of men, and came out under Col. M'Daniel, of Hampshire County, Virginia, who commanded a detachment against the Wappotommaka towns on the Muskinghum. I met with Capt. Cresap, at Redstone fort, and entered his company. Being very well acquainted with him, we conversed freely; and he, among other conversations, informed me several times of falling in with some Indians on the Ohio some distance below the mouth of Yellow Creek, and killed two or three of them; and that this murder was before that of the Indians by Great-house and others, at Yellow Creek. I do not recollect the reason which Capt. Cresap assigned for committing the act, but never understood that the Indians gave any offence. Certified under my hand this 15th day of November, 1799, being an inhabitant of Shelby county, and State of Kentucky.

JACOB NEWLAND.

The Certificate of John Anderson, a merchant in Fredericksburg, Virginia; communicated by Mann Page, Esquire, of Mansfield, near Fredericksburg, who in the letter accompanying it, says, "Mr. John Anderson has for many years past been settled in Fredericksburg, in the mercantile line. I have known him in prosperous and adverse situations. He has always shown the greatest degree of Equanimity, his honesty and veracity are unimpeachable. These things can be attested by all the respectable part of the town and neighborhood of Fredericksburg."

1 3

Mr. John Anderson, a merchant in Fredericksburg, says, that in the year 1774, being a trader in the Indian country, he was at Pittsburg, to which place he had a cargo brought up the river in a boat navigated by a Delaware Indian and a white man. That on their return down the river, with a cargo, belonging to Messrs. Butler, Michael Cresap fired on the boat, and killed the Indian, after which two men of the name of Gatewood, and others of the name of Tumblestone,[72] who lived on the opposite side of the river from the Indians, with whom they were on the most friendly terms, invited a party of them to come over and drink with them; and that, when the Indians were drunk, they murdered them to the number of six, among whom was Logan's mother.

4

That five other Indians uneasy at the absence of their friends, came over the river to inquire after them; when they were fired upon, and two were killed, and the others wounded. This was the origin of the war.

I certify the above to be true to the best of my recollection.

Attest David Blair, 30th June, 1798.

JOHN ANDERSON.

The Deposition of James Chambers, communicated by David Riddick, Esquire, Prothonotary of Washington county, Pennsylvania, who, in the letter enclosing it, shows that he entertains the most perfect confidence in the truth of Mr. Chambers.

Washington County, ss.

Personally came before me Samuel Shannon, Esquire, one of the Commonwealth Justices for the County of Washington in the State of Pennsylvania, James Chambers, who, being sworn according to law, deposeth and saith that in the spring of the year 1774, he resided on the frontier near Baker's bottom on the Ohio; that he had an intimate companion, with whom he sometimes lived, named Edward |2|King; that a report reached them that Michael Cresap had killed some Indians near Grave Creek, friends to an Indian, known by the name of "Logan;" that other of his friends, following down the river, having received intelligence, and |3|fearing to proceed, lest Cresap might fall in with them, encamped near the mouth of Yellow Creek, opposite Baker's bottom; that Daniel Great-house had determined to kill them; had made the secret known to the deponent's companion, King; that the deponent was earnestly solicited to be of the party, and, as an inducement, was told that they would get a great deal of plunder; and further, that the Indians would be made drunk by Baker, and that little danger would follow the expedition. The deponent refused having any hand in killing unoffending people. His companion, King, went with Great-house, with divers others, some of whom had been collected at a considerable distance under an idea that Joshua Baker's family was in danger from the Indians, as war had been commenced between Cresap and them already; that Edward King, as well as others of the party, did not conceal from the deponent the most minute circumstances of this affair; they informed him that Great-house, concealing his people, went over to the Indian encampments and counted their number, and found that they were too large a party to attack with his strength; that he then requested Joshua Baker, when any of them came to his house, (which they had been in the habit of,) to give them what rum they could drink, and to let him know when they were in a proper train, and that he would then fall on them; that accordingly they found several men and women at Baker's house; that one of these women had cautioned Great-house, when over in the Indian camp, that he had better return home, as the Indian men were drinking, and that having heard of Cresap's attack on their relations down the river, they were angry, and, in a friendly manner, told him to go home. Great-house, with his party, fell on them, and killed all except a little girl, | 4|which the deponent saw with the party after the slaughter; that the Indians in the camp hearing the firing, manned two canoes, supposing their friends at Baker's to be attacked, as was supposed; the party under Great-house prevented their landing by a well-directed fire, which did execution in the canoes; that Edward King showed the deponent one of the scalps. The deponent further saith, that the settlements near the river broke up, and he the deponent immediately repaired to Catfish's camp, and lived some time with Mr. William Huston; that not long after his arrival, Cresap, with his party, returning from the Ohio, came to Mr. Huston's and tarried some time; that in various conversations | 2| with the party, and in particular with a Mr. Smith, who had one arm only, he was told that the Indians were acknowledged and known to be Logan's friends which they had killed, and that he heard the party say, that Logan would probably avenge their deaths.

They acknowledged that the Indians passed Cresap's encampment on the bank of the river in a peaceable manner, and encamped below him; that they went down and fired on the Indians and killed several; that the survivors flew to their arms and fired on Cresap, and wounded one man, whom the deponent saw | 2|carried on a litter by the party; that the Indians killed by Cresap were not only Logan's relations, but of the women killed at Baker's one was said | 3|and generally believed to be Logan's sister. The deponent further saith, that on the relation of the attack by Cresap on the unoffending Indians, he exclaimed in their hearing, that it was an atrocious murder; on which Mr. Smith threatened the deponent with the tomahawk; so that he was obliged to be cautious, fearing an injury, as the party appeared to have lost, in a great degree, sentiments of humanity as well as the effects of civilization. Sworn and subscribed at Washington, the 20th day of April, Anno Domini 1798.

Before Samuel Shannon.

JAMES CHAMBERS.

Washington County, ss.

Seal.

I, David Reddick, prothonotary of the court of common pleas, for the county of Washington in the State of Pennsylvania, do certify that Samuel Shannon, Esq., before whom the within affidavit was made, was, at the time thereof, and still is, a justice of the peace in and for the county of Washington aforesaid; and that full credit is due to all his judicial acts as such as well in courts of justice as thereout.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and affixed the seal of my office at Washington, the 26th day of April, Anno Dom. 1798.

DAVID REDDICK.

The certificate of Charles Polke, of Shelby County, in Kentucky, communicated by the Hon. Judge Innes, of Kentucky, who in the letter enclosing it, together with Newland's certificate, and his own declaration of the information given him by Baker, says, "I am well acquainted with John Newland, he is a man of integrity. Charles Polke and Joshua Baker both support respectable characters."

About the latter end of April or beginning of May 1774, I lived on the waters | 3|of Cross creek, about sixteen miles from Joshua Baker, who lived on the Ohio, opposite the mouth of Yellow Creek. A number of persons collected at my house, and proceeded to the said Baker's and murdered several Indians, among whom was a woman said to be the sister of the Indian chief, Logan. The principal leader of the party was Daniel Great-house. To the best of my recollection the cause which gave rise to the murder was a general idea that the Indians | 2|were meditating an attack on the frontiers. Capt. Michael Cresap was not of the party; but I recollect that some time before the perpetration of the above fact it was currently reported that Capt. Cresap had murdered some Indians on the Ohio, one or two, some distance below Wheeling.

Certified by me, an inhabitant of Shelby county and State of Kentucky, this 25th day of November, 1799.

CHARLES POLKE.

The Declaration of the Hon. Judge Innes, of Frankfort, in Kentucky.

On the 14th of November, 1799, I accidentally met upon the road Joshua | 3|Baker, the person referred to in the certificate signed by Polke, who informed me that the murder of the Indians in 1774, opposite the mouth of Yellow Creek, was perpetrated at his house by thirty-two men, led on by Daniel Great-house; that twelve were killed and six or eight wounded; among the slain was a sister and other relations of the Indian chief, Logan. Baker says, Captain Michael Cresap was not of the party; that some days preceding | 1|the murder at his house two Indians left him and were on their way home; that they fell in with Capt. Cresap and a party of land improvers on the Ohio, and were murdered, if not by Cresap himself, with his approbation; he being the leader of the party, and that he had this information from Cresap.