admired the watches, compasses, guns, burning glasses, and other instruments of the English, and thought they were the work of the Gods, or at least, that the Gods had taught the English how to construct them. Hence they listened with great attention, to conversation on religious subjects. Wingina himself joined the colonists in their prayers; and when he was sick, attributing his situation to some offence given to the God of the white people, he would beg them to pray for him, and intercede that he might dwell with him after death. Once, when a long drought had withered their corn, they considered their misfortune, as the punishment of their ill conduct towards the English; and they promised them a portion of their corn, if they would pray to their God to cause it to ripen.

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The estimation in which they held the English, was considerably heightened, by a curious accident. epidemical disease visited the country; the English were free from it; and it fell with greater violence on some Indian tribes, against whom they had causes of complaint. The Indians thought it was the work of the God of the whites, or that the English shot invisible bullets at their enemies; while others, noticing that they had no women of their own, and appeared not to care for any of theirs, imagined they were not immediately born of women, but were individuals of a past generation, risen to immortality; that there were more of them still, in the air, as yet invisible; and who, at the entreaty of the others, made Indians die by shooting invisible bullets at them.

The English, in their intercourse with the Indians, acquired a relish for their favorite employment of smoking tobacco. The plant grew spontaneous in the

country; the natives called it Uppewock: they cured and dried the leaf, and ground it into powder, which they put into earthen tubes and drew the smoke through the mouth; it was in so high an estimation among them, that they had a tradition, that the Gods themselves delighted in the use of it. They sometimes lighted fires, into which they threw powdered tobacco as a sacrifice; and when they were caught in a tempest in crossing Occam, the wide sound of Pamplico, they imagined the angry deities could be appeased by throwing it into the air and on the water. They implored the blessing of good luck upon their new nets, by casting some of it upon them; and when they had escaped some eminent danger, they threw some of this dust in the air, with antick gestures, stamping the ground in time, and cadence, clasping their hands, and throwing them up with discordant cries.

Divided into small, independent tribes, each under its particular chief, they were much addicted to plunder, and for that reason, frequently engaged in contention and strife. A regard to mutual defence, had produced alliances among them.

Deriving their principal subsistence from the chase and the water, they bestowed very little attention on agriculture; they seemed to have no idea of any other than national property in land. They were accustomed frequently to change their abode, finding it convenient to wander from one place to the other, according as they were invited by the abundance of the game or fish: unrestained in their migrations by the cares of husbandry, or the possession of any property in cattle or fand.

They were much addicted to theft and rapine: and their notions of meum and tuum, were so limited, that a disregard of them could not be considered as a crime.

Inhabiting, for the most part, marshy, or low sandy land, they were frequently in great dearth of provisions; and instigated by want and hunger, the strong and the weak could seldom withstand the temptations of violence and fraud. When, in their frequent migrations, a number of them settled in any part of the country, which wide water and extended dismal swamps separated from the habitations and range of the rest of the tribe, inclination and regard to mutual defence induced them to live together, and avoid as much as possible, any intercourse with the bulk of the tribe, who felt disposed to treat straggling individuals as enemies; and when, in course of time, their multiplication rendered the colony too numerous, for the scanty supplies which the spot afforded, parties went to establish themselves at a distance, without dissolving the connexion, which had subsisted between them, and those they had last left behind.

The tribes were longer on the ground they occupied, as it afforded, by the vicinity of the water, or the abundance of the game, an easier subsistence to their members.

Accounts of the climate, represented it as unfavourable to health. During the sun.mer months, the weather was extremely sultry, so as to render an exposure to the heat of the sun dangerous. Even the nights, were said to be seldom so cold as to afford refreshment. In the middle of the day, sudden

storms overclouded the sky, before clear and serene, and caused such quick alteration in the air as to chill the limbs, still moist with sweat, stopping perspiration, and often occasioning fatal discases. In the fall, notwith. standing the coolness of the air, while the sun was under the horizon, it became oppressively hot when he was at a short distance from his meridian height; and heavy dews and thick fogs, rendered this season fatal. During the winter, an excessive degree of cold was, at times, though rarely, severely felt; but alternate and sudden changes between freezing and hot weather, distressed the colonists. Every shift of wind, brought on a sensible alteration in the temperature of the atmosphere. The spring began early, but was considerably retarded in its progress, by the return of sharp and piercing winds, bringing back frost and snow, and the charms of that season were hardly noticed, when the extreme heat of the next was already felt.

The colonists had been surrounded by a number of Indian tribes, some of whom were hostile, and all of them warlike; and neither of whom saw, with much complacency, a part of their country, occupied by individuals widely differing from them in appearance, manners and language. But spirituous liquor, an article. which few Indians can taste, without craving more, and more, until it subdues reason, and for which, most will part with any thing they have in the world, rendered them the slaves of their guests; and if there were any of them who withstood that temptation, knives, hatchets, hoes, and spades, were objects of inappreciable value in their eyes. Those who ministered, as well to the real, as the imaginary wants of the aborigines,

could not fail being considered as welcome guests, or desirable inhabitants. The nearer tribes were supplied with the means of rendering themselves terrible in arms, by the use of fire arms; and the friendship of the whites was courted, with a view to obtain this advantage, or prevent its being afforded to the enemy. By this means, allies were acquired among the neighbouring tribes, and securities against the attempts of distant ones.

On the return of governor Lane, with his colonists, to England, the British were without any establishment in America. There was not a single individual of that nation living under British laws, in the new hemisphere; the possessions of the Spaniards and Portuguese, in South America, were considerable. In North America, the crown of Spain had one or two forts on the coast of Florida. The French had a growing establishment in Canada. We have noticed their progress in those parts as far as the year 1535; in that year, Jacques Cartier, having carried off in his ship one the Indian chiefs; the circumstance so exasperated the natives, that, for a very great number of years, they absolutely refused to allow the French any trade in Canada. But towards the year 1581, a bark of thirty tons sailed up the river St. Lawrence, from France, and was permitted to trade. Soon after her return, a ship of eighty tons, was fitted out of the island of Jersey; and in the year of 1583, three large French ships were employed in the trade to Canada; one of one hundred and eighty tons, one of one hundred, and one of eighty.

The British, the French, the Spaniards, and the Portuguese, had many ships employed in the codfishery of New Foundland. As early as the year 1577, the