Note 73 — PETER KALM’s TRAVELS. (continued 4)

Mr. Kalm is, I believe, not right informed. The French ecclesiastics have allured some few wretched Indians to their religion and interest, and settled them in small villages; but by the accounts of their behaviour, in the several wars of the French and English, they were always guilty of the greatest cruelties and brutalities; and more so than their heathen countrymen; and therefore it seems that they have been rather perverted than converted. On the other hand, the English have translated the bible into the language of the Virginian Indians, and converted many of them to the true knowledge of God; and at this present time, the Indian charity schools, and missions, conducted by the Rev. Mr. Eleazar Wheelock, have brought numbers of the Indians to the knowledge of the true God. The society for propagating the gospel in foreign parts, sends every year many missionaries, at their own expence, among the Indians. And the Moravian Brethren are also very active in the conversion of Gentiles; so that if Mr. Kalm had considered all these circumstances, he would have judged otherwise of the zeal of the British nation, in propagating the gospel among the Indians. F. ↑