Page:Life and Adventures of William Buckley.djvu/217

194 that will be immediately remedied,—knowing as we all must, that there is nothing in this world's affairs which in the first instance can approach to anything like perfection.

Your Excellency's obedient servant

JOHN MORGAN.

To His Excellency

The Governor of California.

There is every reason to believe this letter did not reach its destination, as the ship by which it was transmitted was wrecked on its passage to California; but that the newspapers did, in which it was inserted, there can be no doubt, because in several of the San Francisco journals published at the time, I was honored with storms of that impotent abuse which slave men call up in place of justice and argument.

Remember, reader, I had a peculiar right to address such a letter in behalf of my coloured brethren,—being an Indian by adoption of the Hurons, one of the Six Nations, and having gone through all the forms of that adoption.—I have shared the wigwam of the American Indian during peace and war; and when, after hunting excursions in the wilds of that magnificent Continent, I have seen him steal from under its cover, when the bright full moon has risen from over a mountain, or from out a mighty lake, he has thrown himself prostrate in the act of adoration to the Great Spirit, the "Machi Maneetoo," as he calls it, and I have respected him for his devotion. When he rose, I have risen too, and, after the fashion of bushmen, we have smoked our pipes of