BY JAMES ADAIR, ESQUIRE.
A TRADER WITH THE INDIANS, AND RESIDENT IN THEIR COUNTRY FOR FORTY YEARS.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR EDWARD AND CHARLES DILLY, IN THE POULTRY.
MDCCLXXV.
To
Hon. Colonel George Craghan, George Galphin and Lachlan McGilwray, Esquires.[[I]]
Gentlemen,
To you, with the greatest propriety the following sheets are addressed. Your distinguished abilities—your thorough acquaintance with the North American Indian languages, rites, and customs—your long application and services in the dangerous sphere of an Indian life, and your successful management of the savage natives, all well known over all the continent of America.
You often complained how the public had been imposed upon either by fictitious and fabulous, or very superficial and conjectural accounts of the Indian natives—and as often wished me to devote my leisure hours to drawing up an Indian system. You can witness, that what I now send into the world, was composed more from a regard to your request, than any forward desire of my own. The prospect of your patronage inspired me to write, and it is no small pleasure and honor to me, that such competent judges of the several particulars now presented to public view, expressed themselves with so much approbation of the contents.