But It Is Highly Necessary
To Be Brought In Practice, Which Is, To Give Encouragement
To The Ordinary People, And
Those of a lower Rank, that they might marry
with these Indians, and come into Plantations, and Houses,
where so
Many Acres of Land and some Gratuity of Money,
(out of a publick Stock) are given to the new-married Couple;
and that the Indians might have Encouragement to send their Children
Apprentices to proper Masters, that would be kind to them, and make them
Masters of a Trade, whereby they would be drawn to live amongst us,
and become Members of the same Ecclesiastical and Civil Government
we are under; then we should have great Advantages to make daily Conversions
amongst them, when they saw that we were kind and just to them
in all our Dealings. Moreover, by the Indians Marrying with the Christians,
and coming into Plantations with their English Husbands, or Wives,
they would become Christians, and their Idolatry would be quite forgotten,
and, in all probability, a better Worship come in its Stead;
for were the Jews engrafted thus, and alienated from
the Worship and Conversation of Jews, their Abominations would vanish,
and be no more.
Thus we should be let into a better Understanding of the Indian Tongue,
by our new Converts; and the whole Body of these People
would arrive to the Knowledge of our Religion and Customs,
and become as one People with us. By this Method also, we should have
a true Knowledge of all the Indians Skill in Medicine and Surgery;
they would inform us of the Situation of our Rivers, Lakes,
and Tracts of Land in the Lords Dominions, where by their Assistance,
greater Discoveries may be made than has been hitherto found out,
and by their Accompanying us in our Expeditions, we might civilize
a great many other Nations of the Savages, and daily add to our Strength
in Trade, and Interest; so that we might be sufficiently enabled to conquer,
or maintain our Ground, against all the Enemies to the Crown of England
in America, both Christian and Savage.
What Children we have of theirs, to learn Trades, &c. ought to be put
into those Hands that are Men of the best Lives and Characters,
and that are not only strict Observers of their Religion,
but also of a mild, winning and sweet Disposition, that these Indian Parents
may often go and see how well their Children are dealt with,
which would much win them to our Ways of Living, Mildness being a Vertue
the Indians are in love withal, for they do not practise
beating and correcting their Children, as we do. A general Complaint is,
that it seems impossible to convert these People to Christianity,
as, at first sight, it does; and as for those in New Spain, they have
the Prayer of that Church in Latin by Rote, and know the external Behaviour at
Mass and Sermons; yet scarce any of them are steady and abide with constancy
in good Works, and the Duties of the Christian Church.
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