with tearful eyes, will mark the ghastly ruin poured over their homes
and happy fields, where they had so often played.

"`Who did this?' they will ask their mothers.

"`The white people did it;' the mothers reply; `the christians did it!'

"Thus for cursed Mammon's sake, the followers of Christ have sown
the hellish tares of hatred in the bosoms even of pagan children."

The reader will, however, with pleasure remember that these
were the dark deeds chiefly of a kingly government.* A gloomy monarch,
three thousand miles distant, and rolling in all the pomps and pleasures
of three millions of dollars per annum, could hardly be supposed to know
what was passing in the American wilds; but Washington had known.
With bleeding heart he had often beheld the red and white men
mingling in bloody fight. The horrors of the cruel strife
dwelt upon his troubled thoughts; and soon as God gave him power,
(AS PRESIDENT OF INDEPENDENT AMERICA,) he immediately adopted
that better system which he had learnt from the gospel. His successors,
Adams, Jefferson, and Madison, have piously pursued his plan.
In place of the tomahawk, the plough-share is sent to the poor Indians --
goods are furnished them at first cost -- letters and morals
are taught among their tribes -- and the soul of humanity is rejoiced
to see the red and white men meet together like brothers.

--
* This generalization is doubtful for the time of which Weems speaks,
and is certainly false for some subsequent periods,
in which Great Britain had far better relations with native peoples