Troops arrived from St. Mary's this day, to garrison the Fort, to keep order during the annuity payments. The chiefs from St. Mary's send over a boat for their share of the treaty, tobacco, salt, rice, &c.
18th. Mr. Conner, the sub-agent, writes that the Saginaws are afflicted by want and threatened by starvation; and, to render their condition extreme, the small-pox has broken out amongst them. Ordered relief to be given in the cases specified.
20th. Mrs. Jameson writes to Mrs. Schoolcraft, from Toronto: "If I were to begin by expressing all the pain it gave me to part from you, I should not know when or where to end. I do sometimes thank God, that in many different countries I possess friends worthy that name; kind hearts that feel with and for me; hearts upon which my own could be satisfied to rest; but then that parting, that forced, and often hopeless separation which too often follows such a meeting, makes me repine. I will not say, pettishly, that I could wish never to have known or seen a treasure I cannot possess: no! how can I think of you and feel regret that I have known you? As long as I live, the impression of your kindness, and of your character altogether, remains with me; your image will often come back to me, and I dare to hope that you will not forget me quite. I am not so unreasonable as to ask you to write to me; I know too well how entirely your time is occupied to presume to claim even a few moments of it, and it is a pity, for 'we do not live by bread alone,' and every faculty and affection implanted in us by the good God of nature, craves the food which he has prepared for it, even in this world; so that I do wish you had a little leisure from eating and drinking, cares and household matters, to bestow on less important things, on me for instance! poor little me, at the other side of the world.
"Mrs. McMurray has told you the incidents of our voyage to the Manitouline Island, from thence to Toronto; it was all delightful; the most extraordinary scenery I ever beheld, the wildest! I recall it as a dream. I arrived at my own house at three o'clock on the morning of the 13th, tired and much eaten by those abominable mosquitoes, but otherwise better in health than I have been for many months. Still I have but imperfectly achieved the object of my journey; and I feel that, though I seized on my return every opportunity of seeing and visiting the Indian lodges, I know but too little of them, of the women particularly. If only I had been able to talk a little more to my dear Neengay! how often I think of her with regret, and of you all! But it is in vain to repine. I must be thankful for what I have gained, what I have seen and done! I have written to Mrs. McMurray, and troubled her with several questions relative to the women. I remark generally, that the propinquity of the white man is destruction to the red man; and the farther the Indians are removed from us, the better for them. In their own woods, they are a noble race; brought near to us, a degraded and stupid race. We are destroying them off the face of the earth. May God forgive us our tyranny, our avarice, our ignorance, for it is very terrible to think of!"
21st. Judge McDonnel, of Detroit, reached the island with Captain Clark of St. Clair, these gentlemen having been engaged since spring, in a careful and elaborate appraisement of the Indian improvements, under the 8th article of the treaty of 28th March, 1836. They commenced their labor in the Grand River Valley, and continued it along the entire eastern coast of Lake Michigan, to Michilimackinack, not omitting anything which could, by the most liberal construction, be considered "as giving value to the lands ceded." Not an apple tree, not a house, or log wigwam, and not an acre, once in cultivation, though now waste, was omitted.
They report the whole number of villages in this district at twenty-two, the whole number of improvements at 485, and the gross population at 3,257 souls. This population live in log and bark dwellings of every grade, cultivate 2477 acres of land, on which there are 3,212 apple trees; besides old fields, the aggregate value of which is put at $74,998. They add that these appraisements have been deemed everywhere fully satisfactory to the Indians.
23d. A poor decrepit Indian woman, who was abandoned on the beach by her relatives some ten days ago, applied for relief. It is found that she has been indebted for food in the interim to the benevolence of Mrs. Lafromboise.
23d. "I take the liberty," says A. W. Buel, Esq., of Detroit, "of addressing you concerning the little book in my possession, touching the early history of New France and the Iroquois. You may recollect, perhaps, that on one occasion last winter or spring, when you were in this city, I had some conversation with you concerning it. It is written in French, of old orthography, and was published at Paris, A. D. 1658. It purports to have been written by a Jesuit, Paul Le Jeune; I am however, inclined to think that it was not all written by him, inasmuch as the orthography of the same Indian words varies in different parts of the book. It is rather a small duodecimo volume and contains about 210 pages, of rather coarse print. To give you a better idea of the contents, I will mention the titles of the several chapters." These are omitted.
"A few others are appended. The early history of the Iroquois, and of our own country, even after its settlement by Europeans, you are well aware, is buried in great obscurity. Even Charlevoix's Histoire de Nouvelle France, I believe, has never been translated into English. I have never seen it, if it has been. That work I suppose to be at present the starting point in the history of the Iroquois and New France, as regards minuteness of detail.
"This little book (Le Jeune) was published a considerable time previous. It appears by it that the Jesuits had, for several years previously, sent some letters; but I am confident that this is the first book ever published touching directly and minutely the history of the Iroquois. Caleb Atwater, in his book on western antiquities, speaks of a little work published in Latin at Paris, I think, in 1664, as the first touching the history of New France and the Iroquois. I could not at first decide whether it be of much value, I thought it to be such a book as would immediately find its way to the missionaries, and so small as to be easily overlooked. I became at once so far interested in it, as to translate it into English, not certain that I should ever make any further use of it. I have, however, been solicited by some, either to publish a translation of it, or a compendium of the principal matter contained in it, and beg to trouble you so much as to ask your views of the probability of the utility of doing so. Will the task be equal to the reward?"