whipped; and for the third-whether men or women-their tongues were to be bored through with a red-hot iron. Quakers returning from banishment, were to be punished with death. Several persons, both male and female, were hanged in consequence of these enactments; and persons harbouring, entertaining, or in any way assisting the Quakers, were fined, imprisoned, and publicly whipped! In truth, the white Christian neighbours— whether French or English-of the five Iroquois nations, do not appear to have had much reason to boast of their own humanity or civilization, when compared to that of their red heathen brethren among the savages of North America. E CHAPTER III. 4 INJUDICIOUS SYSTEM ADOPTED BY THE FRENCH IN THE system generally adopted by the French in their numerous wars with the North American Indians, appears to have been guided by extreme infatuation. To check the ferocity of the savage, they began by taking the extraordinary step of following his example, and retaliated, in practice, many of those barbarities which in principle they so loudly condemned. And yet, in the early periods of the history of Canada, the conduct of the French has been held up by various writers as having been the most gentle, and best adapted to conciliate and civilize the Indian nations with whom they came in contact-an assertion which will scarcely stand the test of inquiry. About the beginning of the seventeenth century, the French commenced their settlements in Canada by imprudently taking an active part in Indian quarrels. From the year 1608, when Champlain laid the foundation of Quebec, we find him rashly embroiling himself with some of the neighbouring tribes. He entered headlong into offensive and defensive measures of alliance with the Algonquins and Hurons, against their ancient enemy the Iroquois, or Five Confederated Nations. "Monsieur de Champlain," says La Potherie, " wishing to evince to his Indian allies the esteem he felt for them, and to give them proofs of the bravery of the French, placed himself at their head, and entering the river of the Iroquois, advanced as far as the lake which now bears his name." In this unjust aggression, he made a first experiment of the effect of fire-arms upon a people totally ignorant of the use of them. The first shot that was fired, from a French arquebuss loaded with four balls, and pointed by Champlain himself, killed three of the Iroquois chiefs, who had advanced in front of their fellow-warriors, and whose plumes of feathers had enabled him to distinguish and mark them out for destruction.* Their followers, struck with consternation at the effect of those unknown engines, were speedily routed but the death of their leader was amply revenged by the Iroquois. This, and similar expeditions carried on by Champlain, cost France a hundred and fifty years of Indian warfare. Champlain had not long to wait until he witnessed the Indian treatment of prisoners taken in wara treatment to which numbers of his own Voyages dans la Nouvelle France par le Sieur de Champlain, liv. ii. ch. 10. Paris, 1613. countrymen were afterwards subjected in New France. Upon this his first victory, his Indian confederates selected an Iroquois captive, on whom, in their accustomed manner, they inflicted the most savage cruelties. The French were struck with horror at the sight, and prevailed upon the Indians, though with considerable difficulty, to allow their tortured prisoner to be put to death at an earlier stage of his torments than would otherwise have been permitted. They at first refused this request, but seeing that Champlain was extremely displeased with them, they told him, he might shoot their prisoner if he chose. Champlain accordingly levelled his arquebuss at the captive, and put an end to his misery. To such spectacles, however, the French soon became accustomed; and, in the course of the numerous and bloody campaigns which succeeded each other, year after year, the Iroquois on the one hand, and the French with their Indian allies on the other, perpetrated in every quarter the most barbarous excesses. The barbarities committed upon the Indians in Canada were particularly conspicuous during the long administration of the Count de Frontenac. The experience and zeal of that officer had induced the French government, after having recalled him to Europe, again to require his services in North America; but however zealous the count appears to have been in promoting the views of his royal master-whether these views were directed towards the increase of the temporal power of the crown, the extension of the Roman Catholic religion, or the promotion of the Canadian fur-trade-there can be little doubt that the means he resorted to for accomplishing his object, were not very consistent with the so much boasted humanity of the French towards the North American savages. Dr. Colden, in his History of the Five Nations, has given various instances in proof of this assertion. Among these it appears that, upon one occasion, when the governor sent an officer with a hundred men to convoy some of their Ottowa allies back to their own country, he presented them, on their departure, with two Iroquois captives, for the purpose of convincing their nation of the success of the French against the Iroquois. These prisoners, as might have been expected, were afterwards burnt alive by the Ottowas. The Iroquois, however, continued to relatiate with great fury, and the injuries inflicted upon them by the French and their Indian confederates were never allowed long to pass with impunity. The war parties of the Five Nations, under their celebrated chief Black Kettle, made constant inroads upon the Canadian settlements, to the very suburbs of Montreal, leaving their traces every where marked with devastation and bloodshed. "The Count de Frontenac," says Colden, "was |