might have carted a few more good suppers and dinners out of our
woods, and have eaten them on their town meeting days, for two or
three days together, twice in the year, and have thrown the bones and
crusts to the poor, old and ignorant, among the natives, as they had
done, year after year. The missionary, as usual, might have helped
them to devour the spoil, and have seen his flock degraded and abused,
before his eyes. Much was also said about the pains that had been
taken to educate the Marshpees, and it was averred, that, instead of
going to the schools opened for them, they preferred going about the
country picking berries, and basket making. Mr. Crocker said he had
been at great pains to induce the Indians to go to school. Let him who
has been prejudiced against the Marshpees, by such argument, look
at the legislative act of 1789, section 5, for the regulation of the
plantation, prohibiting the instruction of the Marshpees, in reading
and writing, under pain of death. Who, then, dared to teach them?

Mr. Hawley, the former missionary, spent fifty or sixty years in
Marshpee. He is mentioned in the history of Berkshire County, as a
schoolmaster, for the Mohawks, Onedias and Tuscaroras, in 1748, and
nothing more is known of him, up to his arrival in Marshpee. Thither
he came to teach, in A.D. 1757, and there he staid till his death.
What his care to educate the tribe was, may be judged from the facts
that he _did not teach one_ Indian to read during his residence among
them, as I am informed by those who knew him. He had probably imbibed
the opinion that the natives were incapable of being taught, and
therefore spared himself trouble that he thought would be of no use.
Nevertheless, he was willing to preach to them, and had a good portion
of their land set off for his support. Truth obliges me to say that
not one Indian was converted during the fifty years of his ministry.
The neighbouring whites were the sole recipients of the good resulting