FOOTNOTES:
[235] Is in white marble letters, inlaid in a ground of black marble.
No. LXVIII.
"Lord Howe always lay in his tent with the regiment which he commanded, while the rest of the army were quartered in the town and fort of Albany. This regiment he modeled in such a manner that they were ever after considered as an example to the whole American army. Lord Howe laid aside all pride and prejudice, and gratefully accepted council from those whom he knew to be the best qualified to direct him. Madame Schuyler was delighted with the calm steadiness with which he carried through the austere rules which he found it necessary to lay down. In the first place, he forbade all displays of gold and scarlet in the rugged march they were about to undertake, and set the example by wearing himself an ammunition coat, that is to say, one of the surplus soldiers' coats cut short. This was a necessary precaution, because, in the woods, the hostile Indians who started from behind the trees usually caught at the long and heavy skirts then worn by the soldiers; and, for the same reason, he ordered the muskets to be shortened, that they might not, as on former occasions, be snatched from behind by these agile foes. To prevent the march of his regiment from being descried at a distance by the glittering of their arms, the barrels of their guns were all blackened; and to save them from the tearing of bushes, the stings of insects, &c., he set them the example of wearing leggins, a kind of buskin made of strong woolen cloth. The greatest privation to the young and vain yet remained. Hair well dressed and in great quantity was then considered as the greatest possible ornament, which those who had it took the utmost care to display to advantage, and to wear in a bag or queue. Lord Howe's was very full and very abundant; he, however, cropped it, and ordered every one else to do the same.
"The austere regulations and constant self-denial which he imposed upon the troops he commanded were patiently borne, because he was not only gentle in his manners, but generous and humane in a very high degree, and exceedingly attentive to the health and real necessities of the soldiery. Among many instances of this, a quantity of powdered ginger was given to every man, and the sergeants were ordered to see that when, in the course of marching, the soldiers arrived hot and tired at the banks of any stream, they should not be permitted to stoop to drink, as they generally inclined to do, but be obliged to lift water in their canteens, and mix ginger with it. This became afterward a general practice, and in those aguish swamps through which the troops were forced to march, was the means of saving many lives. Aunt Schuyler, as this amiable young officer familiarly styled his maternal friend, had the greatest esteem for him, and the greatest hope that he would at some future time redress all those evils that had formerly impeded the service. The night before the march they had a long and serious conversation. In the morning Lord Howe proposed setting out very early; but, when he arose, was astonished to find Madame Schuyler waiting, and breakfast ready; he smiled, and said he would not disappoint her, as it was hard to say when he might again breakfast with a lady. Impressed with an unaccountable degree of concern about the fate of the enterprise in which he was embarked, she again repeated her counsels and her caution; and when he was about to depart, embraced him with the affection of a mother, and shed many tears, a weakness she did not often give way to. A few days after Lord Howe's departure, in the afternoon, a man was seen coming on horseback from the north, galloping violently, without his hat. Pedrom ran eagerly to inquire, well knowing he rode express. The man galloped on, crying out that Lord Howe was killed. Shrieks and sobs of anguish re-echoed through every part of the house."—Letters of an American Lady, vol. ii.; p. 73.
No. LXIX.
"Le troisième de Juillet de cette année Samuel de Champlain fonda la ville de Quebec, capitale de la Nouvelle France, sur la rivière septentrionale du fleuve St. Laurent à six-vingt lieuës de la mer, entre une petite rivière qui porte le nom de St. Charles et un gros cap, qu'on appelle le Cap aux Diamans, parce qu'on y trouvoit alors quantité de diamans assez semblables à ceux d'Alençon."—Fastes Chronologiques, 1608.
"Cape Diamond abounds with very fine specimens of quartz, or rock crystals. I have myself, in walking on the banks of the river at the foot of the rocks, found many of them. They are discovered from the brilliancy of their reflecting surfaces: they sparkle like the diamond, and hence the place had its name. On examination, I have generally found that they are pentagons, terminating in a point, and possessing naturally much of the brilliancy and polish of a cut diamond; and they are so hard, that, like a diamond, they cut glass."—Gray's Canada, p. 68.
"The mountain on which Quebec is built, and the hills along the River St. Lawrence, consist of it for some miles together on both sides of Quebec. About a yard from the surface this stone is quite compact, and without any cracks, so that one can not perceive that it is a slate, its particles being imperceptible. It lies in strata, which vary from three or four inches to twenty thick and upward. In the mountains on which Quebec is built the strata do not lie horizontal, but dipping, so as to be nearly perpendicular, the upper ones pointing northwest and the lower ones southeast. From hence it is, the corners of these strata always strike out at the corners into the streets, and cut the shoes in pieces. I have likewise seen some strata inclining to the northward, but rather perpendicular, as the former. The strata are divided by narrow cracks, which are commonly filled by fibrous white gypsum, which can sometimes be got loose with a knife, if the larger stratum of slate above it is broken in pieces; and in that case it has the appearance of a thin white leaf. The large cracks are almost filled up with transparent quartz crystals of different sizes. One part of the mountain contains great quantities of these crystals, from which the corner of the mountain which lies to S.S.E. of the palace has got the name of Pointe de Diamante, or Diamond Point."—Kalm, in Pinkerton, vol. xiii., p. 678.
No. LXX.
"The Cherokees are planters and farmers, tradespeople and mechanics. They have corn-fields and orchards, looms and work-shops, schools and churches, and orderly institutions. In 1824, when the population of the Cherokees was 15,560 persons, it included 1277 negroes; they had 18 schools, 36 grist-mills, 13 saw-mills, 762 looms, 2486 spinning-wheels, 172 wagons, 2923 plows, 7683 horses, 22,531 black cattle, 46,732 swine, 2546 sheep, 430 goats, 62 blacksmiths' shops, &c., with several public roads, and fences, and turnpikes. The natives carry on a considerable trade with the adjoining states, and some of them export cotton to New Orleans. A printing-press has been established for several years, and a newspaper, written partly in the English and partly in the Cherokee language, has been successfully carried on. This paper, called the Cherokee Phœnix, is written entirely by a Cherokee, a young man under thirty. The missionaries among them declare that the converts generally are very attentive to preaching, and very exemplary in their conduct. Public worship, conducted by native members of the church, is held in three or four places remote from the station. The pupils are making great progress at the schools. Many of them are leaving the schools with an education sufficient for life. New Echota is the seat of government of the Cherokees. The provisions of the Constitution are placed under six heads, divided into sections. The trial by jury is in full operation. The right of suffrage is universal; every free male citizen who has attained the age of eighteen years is entitled to vote at public elections."—Stuart's Three Years in North America, vol. ii., p. 143.
"The Creeks, Cherokees, and Choctaws certainly hold out a promise of the gradual attainment of civilization.... The recent invention of written characters by a full-blood Cherokee,[236] consisting of eighty-four signs expressing all the dominant sounds of that language, and the great number of half words among them, are both favorable to this change of life. The best proof that they are advancing from their savage state to a higher grade is, that their numbers increase, while almost all other tribes spread over the American continent far and near are known to diminish in numbers so rapidly that common observation alone would enable any one to predict their utter extinction before the lapse of many years."—Latrobe, Rambler in America, vol. i., p. 163.
The Stockbridge Indians (so called from Stockbridge, Massachusetts) are, upon the whole, considered to have made greater attainments in the useful arts of civilized life, and also in the Christian religion, than any other tribe of the aborigines. They heard the preaching of Brainard and Edwards, and have enjoyed Christian privileges and education with little interruption for more than ninety years. The Stockbridge Indians, and the Oneidas, under the celebrated Oneida half-blood Mr. Williams, were the principal of those unfortunate New York Indians who were persuaded, on the faith of solemn treaties, to leave their homes in New York and form new settlements among the wild Indian tribes beyond the Mississippi. One of the visitors to these new settlements, after the Indians had been a few years established there, thus describes the improvements they had effected in this remote wilderness: "On the east bank of Fox River they had in the course of some half dozen years reared a flourishing settlement; built houses and barns in the usual style of the white settlements under similar circumstances; cleaved away portions of the forest, and reduced their farms to an interesting state of improvement; organized and brought into solitary operation a political and civil economy; established schools, and in 1830 were building a very decent Christian church; had erected mills and machinery; exhibiting, in a word, a most interesting phasis of civilization, along with the purest morals under the simplest manners."—Colton's Tour among the Northwest Indians, vol. i., p. 203. This American writer is justly indignant at the cruel and dishonest policy of the American government in driving these unfortunate wanderers away from the new home solemnly promised them into the wild and dreary regions of the Far West, as soon as the settlement at Fox River was ascertained to possess sufficient natural advantages to entitle it to form a part of the Union.