their profession, the baseness of denying or evading the charge by the
most pitiful equivocations. It is with the words peace, charity, and
universal benevolence, for ever in their mouths, that these
incendiaries, by instigations direct and indirect, inflame and excite
the savages to commit the cruellest outrages of war, and the blackest
acts of treachery. Poor Captain How! is well known to have paid with his
life, infamously taken away by them, at a parley, the influence one of
these missionaries (now a prisoner in the island of Jersey,) had over
these misguided wretches, whose native innocence and simplicity are not
proof against the corruption, and artful suggestions of those holy
seducers.

It would not, perhaps, be impossible for the English, if they were to
apply proper means, and especially lenient ones, to recover the
affections of these people, which, for many reasons, cannot be entirely
rooted in the French interest. That great state-engine of theirs,
religion, by which they have so strong a hold on the weak and credulous
savages, might not, however, be an invincible bar to our success, if it
was duly counter-worked by the offer of a much more pure and rational
one of our own, joined to such temporal advantages as would shew them
their situation capable of being much meliorated, in every respect; and
especially that of freedom, which they cannot but be sensible, is daily
decreasing under the insidious encroachments and blandishments of the
French, who never cares but to enslave, nor hug but to stifle, whose
pretences, in short, to superior humanity and politeness, are not
amongst their least arts of conquest.

As to the letter-writer, he is an abbot much respected in those parts,
who has resided the greatest part of his life amongst the Mickmakis, and
is perfectly acquainted with their language, in the composing of a