24th.  Mr. Bishop Rese, of the Catholic Church, called to make some inquiry respecting a provision in the late treaty, designed to benefit his church.  I had traveled on the lake with the Bishop.  He is a short, club nosed, smiling man, of a quizzical physiognomy.  He asked me what I supposed was the cause of the press for the treaty appropriations for educations, by Protestant missions.  I told him that I supposed the conversion of the souls of the Indians constituted the object of these applications.  “Poh! poh!” said he, “it is the money itself.”

Dec 19th.  Mr. Gallatin’s Synopsis of the Indian Tribes is forwarded to me for a review.  “The publication,” says Mr. Palfrey, “of the second volume of Transactions of the American Antiquarian Society was delayed considerably beyond the time appointed.  It was only a week ago that a copy reached me.  I transmit it by mail.  Should it not reach you within a week after the receipt of this, will you have the goodness to inform me, and I will forthwith let another copy try its fortune.”

23d.  The temperance movement has excited the community of Detroit this season, as a subject essential to the cause of sound morals.  Its importance is undeniable on all hands, but there is always a tendency in new measures of reform, to make the method insisted on a sort of moral panacea, capable of doing all things, to the no little danger of setting up a standard higher than that of the Decalogue itself.  In the midst of this tendency to ultraism, the least particle of conservative opinion would be seized upon by its leaders as the want of a thorough acquiescence and heartiness in the cause.  Rev. Mr. Cleaveland transmits me a resolution of the “Total Abstinence City Temperance Society,” for an address to be delivered in one week.  “Do not, do not, do not,” he remarks, “say us nay.”

I determined to devote two or three winter evenings to gratify this desire.

CHAPTER LIX.

Difficulties resulting from a false impression of the Indian character—­Treaty with the Saginaws—­Ottawas of Grand River establish themselves in a colony in Barry County—­Payments to the Ottawas of Maumee, Ohio—­Temperance—­Assassination of young Aitkin by an Indian at Leech Lake—­Mackinack mission abandoned—­Wyandots complain of a trespass from a mill-dam—­Mohegans of Green Bay apply for aid on their way to visit Stockbridge, Mass.—­Mohegan traditions—­Historical Society—­Programme of a tour in the East—­Parental disobedience—­Indian treaties—­Dr. Warren’s Collection of Crania—­Hebrew language—­Geology—­“Goods offer”—­Mrs. Jameson—­Mastodon’s tooth in Michigan—­Captain Marryatt—­The Icelandic language—­Munsees—­Speech of Little Bear Skin chief, or Mu-konsewyan.

OFFICE INDIAN AFFAIRS, DETROIT.