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should certainly have carried them with me to thegrave, had I not received your obliging favour. You ask me, then, whether, in my opinion, civili-zation is favourable to human happiness? In answerto the question, it may be answered, that there aredegrees of civilization, from cannibals to the most polite of European nations. The question is not,then, whether a degree of refinement is not condu-cive to happiness, but whether you, or the natives ofthis land, have obtained this happy medium. Onthis subject we are, at present, I presume, of verydifferent opinions. You will, however, allow me, insome respects, to have had the advantage of you informing my sentiments. I was, Sir, born of Indianparents, and lived, while a child, among those whomyou are pleased to call savages. I was afterwardssent to live among the white people, and educated atone of your schools; since which period, I have beenhonoured much beyond my deserts, by an acquaint-ance with a number of principal characters, both inEurope and America. After all this experience, and after every exertion to divest myself of prejudice, I am obliged to give my opinion in favour of my ownpeople. I will now, as much as I am able, collecttogether, and set before you, some of the reasons thathave influenced my judgment on the subject nowbefore us. In the government you call civilized, thehappiness of the people is constantly sacrificed to thesplendour of empire. Hence your codes of criminaland civil laws have had their origin; from henceyour dungeons and prisons. I will not enlarge on anidea, so singular in civilized life, and, perhaps, dis-agreeable to you; I will only observe, that amongus we have no prisons. We have no pompous parade of courts; we have no written laws, and yet judges are as highly revered among us as they are among you, and their decisions as much regarded. Property, to say the least, is as well guarded, and crimes areas impartially punished. We have among us, no