Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/284

264 might pour forth over the humbled pride of the nation which had devastated his lands and people: —

The stupendous and still unfinished drama of which this continent, as involving the fate of its original peoples, has afforded the vastly extended stage, with all its grandeur, richness, gloom, and sombreness of scenery and incident, conforms to the severest principles laid down for tragic art. There is unity in the plot; and its development through changing characters, with their entrances and their exits, shifting in garb and dialogue as they act their parts, leads on to what we still wait for as the event of destiny. The drama has five acts. The first, which we have rehearsed, is that of Spain and the natives of this continent. The second act brings the French on the stage, with a milder and more genial spirit and purpose, though still as the agents of much misery to the red men alike as their allies or their enemies. The third act is filled with the conflicts between the French and English, — the natives and their lands being the stake at hazard. The fourth act presents Great Britain in the war for independence or subjection with her colonies, each of the contesting parties arraying on its side hostile bands of the savages. The fifth act, still drawing out its movement, quickened in earnestness and activity rather than growing wearisome and lagging after centuries of progress, exhibits our National Government, with the legacy of struggle in its hands, charged to