of the laws, being clearly against the whites; but one consideration remains on which the Legislature can hesitate:  the danger, that they will squander their property.  Of the improbability of such a result, Mr. Fiske informs you in his report, [page 26.] He found nearly all the families comfortably and decently clad, nearly all occupying framed houses, and a few dwelling in huts or wigwams.  More than thirty of them were in possession of a cow or swine, and many of them tilled a few acres of land, around their dwellings.  Several pairs of oxen, and some horses are owned on the plantation, and the Commons are covered with an excellent growth of wood, of ready access to market.  Confine the cutting of this wood to the natives, as they desire, and they never can waste this valuable inheritance.

Mr. Fiske also says in his report, [page 30,] “that it is hardly possible to find a place more favorable for gaining a subsistence without labor, than Marshpee.”  The advantages of its location, the resources from the woods and streams, on one side, and the bays and the sea on the other, are accurately described, as being abundant, with the exception of the lobsters, which Mr. Fiske says are found there.  The Commissioner is incorrect in that particular, unless he adopts the learned theory of Sir Joseph Banks, that fleas are a species of lobster!

Is there, then, any danger in giving the Indians an opportunity to try a liberal experiment for self-government?  They ask you for a grant of the liberties of the constitution; to be incorporated and to have a government useful to them as a people.

They ask for the appointment of magistrates among them, and they ask too for an Attorney to advise with; but my advice to them is, to have as little as possible to do with Attornies.  A revision of their laws affecting property by the Governor and Council, would be a much better security for them than an Attorney, and this they all agree to.  Is there any thing unreasonable in their requests?  Can you censure other States for severity to the Indians within their limits, if you do not exercise an enlightened liberality toward the Indians of Massachusetts?  Give them then substantially, the advantages which they ask in the basis of an act which I now submit to the Committee with their approval of its provisions.  Can you, gentlemen, can the Legislature, resist the simple appeal of their memorial?  “Give us a chance for our lives, in acting for ourselves.  O! white man! white man! the blood of our fathers, spilt in the revolutionary war, cries from the ground of our native soil, to break the chains of oppression and let our children go free.”

The correctness of Mr. Hallett’s opinions are demonstrated in the following article.