[FN] Respecting the rumor which elicited this letter, there is no farther information. Indeed, the letter of Sir John itself has been inserted in the text, more for the purpose of disclosing the liberal spirit in which the Baronet hailed the beginning of the French Revolution, (as all the civilized world did at first,) as the dawn of liberty in France, than for any other purpose.
Relieved, temporarily at least, from the cares and labors of diplomacy among the nations of the more distant lakes, Brant was enabled, early in the year 1789, to direct his attention more closely to other matters of business; not forgetting the pursuits of literature, so far as under the disadvantages of his situation he was enabled to attend to its cultivation. He was ever anxious for the moral and intellectual improvement of his people; and as a primary means of such improvement, he now earnestly sought for the settlement of a resident clergyman among them. Visiting Montreal for that purpose, he wrote to Sir John Johnson, who was absent (probably at Quebec) at the time, and through him appealed to Lord Dorchester to procure the removal of the Rev. Mr. Stuart from Kingston to the neighborhood of Grand River. Many of the Indians, he said, wished to be near a church where there should be a proper minister; and nowhere, as he thought, could one be found who would suit their dispositions so well, and exert such a desirable influence over the morals of the young people, as Mr. Stuart, who had been a missionary among them in the Valley of the Mohawk. "This good thing," he said in his letter to Sir John, "I know must be done by his Lordship, and through your kind interposition; which, be assured, I would not mention, if I was not very well a convinced of the good that would arise from it." [FN] He wrote other pressing letters to the same purport; but the transfer of Mr. Stuart was not effected.
[FN] MS. letters among the Brant papers.
He is believed at about the same time to have resumed the labor of translating devotional books into the Mohawk language. In addition to the work published in England in 1786, as already mentioned, he translated the entire liturgy, and also a primer; a copy of each of which works was presented to Harvard University. The donation was acknowledged by a vote of thanks, which was enclosed in the following letter from the President of that institution:—
"President Willard to Captain Brant.
"Cambridge, July 20th, 1789.
"Sir,
"I have the pleasure of enclosing you a vote of thanks of the Corporation of the University in this place, for your present of books to the library, which were received but a little while before the date of the vote. [FN] To the vote of thanks from the whole corporate body for this acceptable present, give me leave, Sir, as head of the University, to add my thanks in particular.
"I am pleased to hear, from the Rev. Mr. Kirkland, that you are writing a history of the natives of this country. I hope, when you have finished it in your own language, you will give us a translation in English, as I doubt not we shall have many curious and important things contained in it, respecting the various Indian nations, that we are now unacquainted with.