The Mickmakis are the most numerous, but not accounted so good warriors as the others:  but they are all much addicted to hunting, and to venery; in which last, however, they observe great privacy.  They are fond of strong liquors, and especially of brandy:  that is their greatest vice.  They are also very uncurious of paying the debts they contract, not from natural dishonesty, but from their having no notion of property, or of meum or tuum.  They will sooner part with all they have, in the shape of a gift, than with any thing in that of payment.  Honors and goods being all in common amongst them, all the numerous vices, which are founded upon those two motives, are not to be found in them.  Yet it is true, that they have chiefs to whom they give the title of Sagamo; but all of them almost, at some time or other, assume to themselves this quality, which is never granted by universal consent, but to the personal consideration of distinguished merit in councils, or in arms.  Their troops have this particularity, that they are, for the most part, composed of nothing but officers; insomuch that it is rare to find a savage in the service that will own himself a private man.  This want of subordination does not, however, hinder them from concurring together in action, when their native ferocity and emulation stand them, in some sort, instead of discipline.

They are extreamly vindictive, of which I shall give you one example.  Mons. Daunay, a French captain, with a servant, being overset in a canoe, within sight of some savages, they threw themselves into the water to save them, and the servant was actually saved.  But the savage, who had pitched upon Mons. Daunay, seeing who it was, and remembering some blows with a cane he had a few days before received from him, took care to souse him so often in the water, that he drowned him before he got ashore.

It is remarked, that in proportion as the Europeans have settled in this country, the number of the savages considerably diminishes.  As they live chiefly upon their hunting, the woods that are destroyed to cultivate the country, must in course contract the district of their chace, and cause a famine amongst them, that must be fatal to them, or compel them to retire to other countries.  The English, sensible of this effect, and who seemed to place their policy in exterminating these savage nations, have set fire to the woods, and burnt a considerable extent of them.  I have myself crossed above thirty leagues together, in which space the forests were so totally consumed by fire, that one could hardly at night find a spot wooded enough to afford wherewithal to make an extempore cabbin, which, in this country, is commonly made in the following manner:  Towards night the travellers commonly pitch upon a spot as near a rivulet or river as they can; and as no one forgets to carry his hatchet with him, any more than a Spanish don his toledo, some