him to be paid for it, because the trifle I offered was much more than
his _Court of Conscience_ informed him it was worth. I could moralize
here a little; but I will only ask you, in which state think you man is
best; the untaught man, in that of nature, or the man whose mind is
enlarged by education and a knowledge of the world? The behaviour of
the inhabitants of this little hamlet had a very forcible effect upon
me; because it brought me back to my earlier days, and reminded me of
the reception I met with in America by what we now call the _Savage_
Indians; yet I have been received in the same courteous manner in a
little hamlet, unarmed, and without any other protection but by the law
of nature, by those _savages_;--indeed it was before the _Savages of
Europe_ had instructed them in the art of war, or Mr. Whitfield had
preached _methodism_ among them. Therefore, I only tell you what they
_were_ in 1735, not what they _are at present_. When I visited them,
they walked in the flowery paths of Nature; now, I fear, they tread the
polluted roads of blood. Perhaps of all the uncivilized nations under
the sun, the native Indians of America _were_ the most humane; I have
seen an hundred instances of their humanity and integrity;--when a white
man was under the lash of the executioner, at _Savannah in Georgia_,
for using an Indian woman ill, I saw _Torno Chaci_, their King, run in
between the offender and the corrector, saying, "_whip me, not
him_;"--the King was the complainant, indeed, but the man deserved a
much severer chastisement. This was a _Savage King_. Christian Kings too
often care not who is whipt, so they escape the smart.




LETTER V.