I America.

wild animals, for the purpofe of reftraining their numbers within certain bounds, thofe of labour and of voluntary abortion are added with the Indian. No wonder then if they multiply lefs than we do. Where food is regularly fupplied, a fingle farm wall fhew more of cattle, than a [ ^20 ] whole country of forefls can of buffaloes. The fame Indian women, when m^riied to white traders, who feed them and their children plentifully and regularly, who exempt them from excellive drudgery, who keep them ftationary and unexpofed to accident, produce and raife as many children as the w^iite women. Inftances are known under thefe circumftances, of their rearing a dozen children. An inhuman practice once prevailed in this coun- try, of making flaves of the Indians. It is a fad well known with us, that the Indi- an women fo enflaved produced and raifed as numerous families as either the whites or blacks among whom they lived. It has been faid, that Indians have lefs hair than the whites, except on the head. But this is a fafl: of which fair proof can fcarcely be had. With them it is difgraceful to be hairy on the body. They fay it likens them to hogs. They therefore pluck the hair as faft as it appears. But the traders who marry their women, and prevail on them to difcontinue this practice, fay, that nature is the fame with them as with the whites. Nor, if the fad be true, is the confequence neceffary which has been drawn from it. Negroes have notorioufly lefs hau^ than the whites; yet they are more ardent. But if cold and moifture be the agents of nature for diminifhing the races of animals, how comes fhe all at once to fufpend their operation as to the phyfi- cal man of the new world, whom the Count acknowledges to be ^ a peu pres de meme ftature que I'homme de notre monde,' and to let loofe their influence on his moral faculties? How has this * combination of the elements and other phyfical caufes, fo contrary to the enlargement of animal nature in this new world, thefe ob« ftacles to the developement and formation of great germs^,' been arrefted and fuf- pended, fo as to permit the human body to acquire its juft dimenfions, and by what inconceivable procefs has their aftion been direfted on his mind alone? To judge of the truth of