Heriot says (page 320), "They have evinced a decided attachment to their ancient habits, and have gained less from the means that might have smoothed the asperities of their condition, than they have lost by copying the vices of those, who exhibited to their view the arts of civilization."
This letter was dictated by Red-jacket, and interpreted by Henry Obeal, in the presence of ten chiefs, whose names are affixed, at Canandaigua, January 18, 1821.
"The attachment which savages entertain for their mode of life supersedes every allurement, however powerful, to change it. Many Frenchmen have lived with them, and have imbibed such an invincible partiality for that independent and erratic condition, that no means could prevail on them to abandon it. On the contrary, no single instance has yet occurred of a savage being able to reconcile himself to a state of civilization. Infants have been taken from among the natives, and educated with much care in France, where they could not possibly have intercourse with their countrymen and relations. Although they had remained several years in that country, and could not form the smallest idea of the wilds of America, the force of blood predominated over that of education: no sooner did they find themselves at liberty than they tore their clothes in pieces, and went to traverse the forests in search of their countrymen, whose mode of life appeared to them far more agreeable than that which they had led among the French."—-Heriot, p. 354.
This passage of Heriot's is taken nearly verbatim from Charlevoix, v. 2, p. 109.