Yes, I Will Cheerfully Embrace That Resource, It Is An Holy
Inspiration; By Night And By Day, It Presents Itself To My Mind:
I
have carefully revolved the scheme; I have considered in all its
future effects and tendencies, the new mode
Of living we must
pursue, without salt, without spices, without linen and with little
other clothing; the art of hunting, we must acquire, the new manners
we must adopt, the new language we must speak; the dangers attending
the education of my children we must endure. These changes may
appear more terrific at a distance perhaps than when grown familiar
by practice: what is it to us, whether we eat well made pastry, or
pounded alagriches; well roasted beef, or smoked venison; cabbages,
or squashes? Whether we wear neat home-spun or good beaver; whether
we sleep on feather-beds, or on bear-skins? The difference is not
worth attending to. The difficulty of the language, fear of some
great intoxication among the Indians; finally, the apprehension lest
my younger children should be caught by that singular charm, so
dangerous at their tender years; are the only considerations that
startle me. By what power does it come to pass, that children who
have been adopted when young among these people, can never be
prevailed on to readopt European manners? Many an anxious parent I
have seen last war, who at the return of the peace, went to the
Indian villages where they knew their children had been carried in
captivity; when to their inexpressible sorrow, they found them so
perfectly Indianised, that many knew them no longer, and those whose
more advanced ages permitted them to recollect their fathers and
mothers, absolutely refused to follow them, and ran to their adopted
parents for protection against the effusions of love their unhappy
real parents lavished on them!
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