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his wants, or for facilitating their supply. If he could indulge a moment's repose from the importunity of hunger, it would be to resign the next moment to absolute inaction, like a satiated beast in its den. The character of a savage is infinitely improvident. Nothing he abhors so much as labor, when he is not under the immediate impulse of some imperious appetite, or passion. The American savage, who possesses many advantages above the primitive man whom were are contemplating, as soon as he is released from the fatigues of the chace, generally gives himself up to listless and gloomy indolence. And, those he has derided from his ancestors, who probably emigrated from different regions in the old world, the rudiments of the arts of hunting and fishing, which mist have been expected to lay a foundation for a further progress in improving the comforts of his conditions; yet with these rude and scanty arts the indolent genius of savagism has been contented; and, during three centuries since America was first discovered by Europeans, he has not been known to advance a single step in the amelioration of his state. Even in those situations in which he has had the most favorable opportunities to observe the benefits resulting from agriculture, and the mechanic

arts, in augmenting the conveniences and comforts of living, he has never profited by the example. He regards the labors of the field, and the work-shop, as an intolerable repose. To a few of the aboriginal tribes who would permit it, the government of the United States, with a laudable concern for the interests of humanity, has endeavored to extend a benevolent patronage, with a view to raise them, if possible, above their present rude and savage condition. But it has found the greatest difficulty in its introducing among them only two or three of the simplest arts if civilized society. Any only two or three of those tribes have hitherto been induced to admit the smallest change in their habits of life. The lover of complete personal independence, and the abhorrence of every species of restraint to natural to the savage, would for every present him, when life to his own native impulses, and not encourage, by extraneous and superior power, form making even the first advance in the career of civilization. But if any philosopher pretends that, in the natural progress

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