establishment of this British settlement, which otherwise might have
shared the same unhappy fate with the first adventurers to Virginia. Many
tribes besides that might no doubt have extirpated the colony, but it is
probable the governor studied by every means to avoid giving them any
provocation, and to conciliate their affection and esteem.

[Sidenote] Of Indians in general.

While we now and then turn our eyes to those wild hunters who ranged
through the American woods, we must guard against such false and horrid
descriptions of them, as some who have suffered from their warlike temper
have exhibited to the world. Many authors have discovered unreasonable
prejudices against them, and shewn that they either wanted judgment to
distinguish, or candour to make due allowances for, the failings peculiar
to all nations in the same rude and uncultivated state. When Julius Cesar
carried the Roman arms into Britain, and Germanicus over-run the forests
of Germany, did they not find the silvestres of those countries little,
if at all, more civilized than the brown natives of America? If the
Indians were offended at the encroachments made by strangers on lands
which they had possessed unmolested for time immemorial, that is nothing
wonderful or uncommon. Lands may be called the first property of all
nations on the face of the earth. While unacquainted with the advantages
of pasturage and agriculture, a greater extent of hunting lands are
requisite for their subsistence. Through this territory, now possessed by
Europeans, they had been accustomed to range, independent, fearless and
free. If they were ready to defend their property at the risque of life,
this practice is nothing more than what all nations in the same barbarous
state have followed. Until laws were made to prevent and redress wrongs,
and men delivered up their arms to the civil magistrate, have they not,
in every age, had recourse to forcible means for the defence of their