questions were always direct, concise, and calculated to avoid giving offence. The principal peculiarity of their conduct was an eagerness to examine the interior of the house. In this they were even indulged without attendance. Their business at the seat of government, is to effect an arrangement for obtaining the means of improvement in the arts of civilized life; and to represent a grievance occasioned by the government of the United States, having purchased the lands of a neighbouring tribe, which now encroach on the hunting grounds of the Osage nation. The chiefs say, that they have 1800 warriors, and are able to destroy the tribes which have come into their country; but that they are unwilling to go to war.
Despotic governments, wherever they are, might stand reproved by the humanity of the aboriginal chiefs of America; and every people who are oppressed by the rapacity of privileged orders, may derive valuable instruction from the independent men of the forests, whose high spirit does not submit to be enslaved or taxed. Wars against people of this character present few allurements to the ambitious, and still fewer to avaricious men. The pacific policy of the Indians may, perhaps, be discredited, on account of the sanguinary wars that have thinned the ranks of numerous tribes, and annihilated many others. But it must be admitted, that this depopulation {223} has been accelerated, if not entirely produced, by Europeans, who took possession of the country by force, driving tribes into the territories of other nations. A migration cannot be tolerated to any great extent, where the people depend on hunting and fishing for their subsistence. Hence, the object of Indian warfare has been extirpation. The practice of leaguing with one tribe in fighting against another, has been a powerful cause of mutual destruction. The
