Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 2).djvu/74

68 rejected it with disdain; they even reproached Christianity, told him the traders would lie, cheat, and debauch their young women, and even their wives, when the husbands were from home. They further added, that the Senekas had given them their country, but charged them never to receive Christianity from the English.

I shall subjoin one more proof to this. Governor Hunter, by order of Queen Anne, presented the Indians with cloaths, and other things of which they were extremely fond; and addressing them at a council, which was held at Albany, told them that their good mother the Queen had not only generously provided them with fine cloaths for their bodies, but likewise intended to adorn their souls by the preaching of the Gospel, and that some ministers should be sent to instruct them. When the governor had finished his speech, the oldest chief rose up and said, that, in the name of all the Indians, he thanked their good mother the Queen for the fine cloaths she had sent them; but that in regard to the ministers, they had already some of them, who, instead of preaching the Gospel to them, taught them to drink to excess, to cheat and quarrel among themselves, and entreated the governor {33} to take from them the preachers, and a number of Europeans who came among them; for before their arrival, the Indians were honest, sober and innocent people; but now most of them were rogues; that they formerly had the fear of God: but that now they hardly believed his existence.

To extenuate as much as possible this charge against the English, let it be observed, that the vice and immorality complained of, is to be attributed in a great measure to the traders, who used to purchase convicts, and hire men of infamous character to carry up their goods among the