of an American savage from his earliest years. From his infancy he is taught that his own glory as a warrior, and a chief, and that of the tribe to which he belongs are involved in the heroism with which he combats, or, if he is vanquished in battle, in the magnanimity with which he suffers. His whole soul is occupied with these ideas, and these passions. Without doubt their patience under tortures must be greatly assisted by their habits of life, and the constant hardships of their state. That the power of enduring pain with firmness may be acquired by the influence of education, and habit, we have a practical demonstration in the manners of the Lacedemonians. And the stoic school has afforded a high example of the force of their philosophy in subduing the fear, and even the sense of suffering. Although the mind of the American indian is not cultivated by any philosophic system, he derives the same firmness and strength of character from his state. Inured from infancy to fatigues, to wants, to dangers, and conversant only with ideas of active, or of suffering heroism, he has learned more in the hard school of necessity than, probably, he could ever have acquired under the voluntary discipline of Zeno or Lycurgus.

The Spartan boy, who had taken a fox from a neighbouring inclosure, was enabled, by the force of his discipline, to endure, without discovering his pain, the animal gnawing into his vitals rather than expose himself to the infamy of detection, and expired without a groan. And a savage warrior will suffer his enemies to rend his sinews, to burn his flesh, to rip off his nails, and to plunge the fiery stake into his bowels, without giving them the satisfaction of being able to extort from him a complaint. He glories in conquering their perseverance by his patience. But shall we, with the philosophers whom I combat, look for the cause of this astonishing constancy in the humidity of the climate, or in some specific organization of the corporeal system, and not rather in the almost omnipotent force of sentiment?

It was a maxim with that philosophic and austere sect, who have just been mentioned, that pain is no evil: and certain it is, that it derives its chief power over man from the weakness of the mind. An energetic will, created by sublime sentiments, by strong passions, or even induced by the habit of conflicting with dangers and sufferings, imparts to the soul a strength which suspends, in a

great measure, the sensation of pain, and wholly deprives it of those additional terrors with which a timid imagination invests it.

Our savages understaning the hardships of their own lot, and foreseeing the trials to which their for. titude may probably be exposed by the chances of war, make it a principal object of their early discipline to inure their youth to fatigue, and sufferings, and deprivations of every kind. kind. Even their amusements partake of the same intention. Among all nations, their customary diversions are relative to their manners. In the warlike ages of Greece and Rome the amusements of those martial people consisted in leaping, running, wrestling, and throwing the discus, or the spear, to fit them for the combat. After the model of nature, likewise, the American indians have drawn their amusements from their state, and make diversions themselves prepare them for suffering. throwing the tomahawk to qualify them for the active operations of hunting, and of war, their children frame diverting subjects of contest with one another, in trying who shall endure the deepest punctures, or the hardest blows without complaining; or who shall hold a burning brand in their hands with

Besides shooting the arrow, and

the most persevering steadiness, and for the longest time. Sometimes they, single out objects of their rude wit upon whom to try the force of their ridi. cule, who are forever disgraced if they discover any temper or impatience under all the jests and teazings of their companions. Thus do they prepare themselves, by continual exertions of patience, even in their sports, for that last and great trial of it, when' they shall be called to endure the most cruel tortures of enraged enemies, and to suffer from them every species of insult and contempt, often more difficul to be borne than tortures.

Their religious ideas contribute also, in some de gree, to sustain that amazing fortitude, and patience in enduring torture which is one of the principal dis tinctions of their race. It is not my intention to enter into any extensive delineation of their system of superstition: but only to suggest a single reflection as it is relative to their extraordinary fortitude in death. Virtue, in their esteem, consists entirely in those elevated and enterprizing qualities which are associated with the idea of heroism. An expiring warrior, therefore, is never affected with those fears of futurity which, to the disciples of a purer religion, 3 c 19 26

when they are not assured of their own interest in its hopes, often render the consequences of death more terrible to them than the pains of dying. His heaven is accommodated to the rudeness of his ideas. It lies in a mild, serene, and bounteous sky far to the South, where he shall forever enjoy the pleasures of a successful chace. Such sensible images are fitted to take the strongest hold upon uncultivated minds. And Mahomet understood human nature well when he proposed such rewards to soldiers who were neither philosophers, nor saints, but whom he intended to make the conquerors of the world. I am aware that spiritual ideas are more powerful than all others, when once they have taken full possession of the soul. But the frailty of human nature, or perhaps, its degeneracy, which is only calling frailty by its cause, makes a sensible religion, and a sensible heaven, the religion and heaven of gross minds. And, when we see a whole nation suffer with such surprizing constancy we must seek for the reasons of it in such principles as will apply to the mass of mankind.— From the combination of so many causes, the savage tribes of America afford the most distinguished examples of a heroic patience in torture that the his. tory of nations has ever recorded.