Can we blame them, then, that when they found an educated Indian, with Indian sympathies and feelings, they employed him, to present their complaints, and to enable them to seek redress?  Look at this circumstance, fairly, and I think you will find in it the origin of all the prejudice against William Apes, which may be traced to those of the whites who are opposed to any change in the present government of Marshpee.  If aught can be shown against him, I hope it will be produced here in proof, that the Indians may not be deceived.  If no other proof is produced, except his zeal in securing freedom for the Indians, are you not to conclude that it cannot be done.  But his individual character has nothing to do with the merits of the question, though I here pronounce it unimpeached.

I will allude to but one other suggestion in the memorial of the Rev. Mr. Fish, [page 10.] To show the necessity of continuing the present laws, he says, “already do we witness the force of example in the visible increase of crime.  But a few weeks since, a peaceable family was fired in upon, during their midnight repose; while I have been writing, another has been committed to prison for a high misdemeanor.”

Now what are the facts, upon which this grave allegation against the whole tribe is founded.  True, a ball was fired into a house on the plantation, but without any possible connection with the assertion of their rights by the Indians, and to this day it is not known whether it was a white man or an Indian who did it.  The “high misdemeanor,” was a quarrel between Jerry Squib, an Indian, and John Jones, a white man.  Squib accused Jones of cheating him in a bargain, when intoxicated, and beat him for it.  The law took up the Indian for the assault, and let the white man go for the fraud.

Respecting then, as we all do, the personal character of the missionary, can you answer his prayer, to continue the present government, in order to protect him in the reception of his present income from the lands of the Indians?  Are the interests of a whole people to be sacrificed to one man?

What says the Bill of rights?  “Government is instituted for the common good, for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people, and not for the profit, honor or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men.”

I have now only to consider the report of the Commissioner, Mr. Fiske, who visited Marshpee in July last.  The impartiality, candor and good sense of that report, are highly honorable to that gentleman.  Deriving his first impressions from the Overseers and the whites, and instructed as he was with strong prepossessions against the Indians, as rebels to the State, the manner in which he discharged that duty, deserves a high encomium.  He has my thanks for it, as a friend of the Indians.  As far as the knowledge of