But with this good father’s leave, he attributes more influence to religion, though as the priests manage it, it certainly has a very considerable one, than in fact belongs to it.  Were it not for other concurring circumstances that indispose the savages against the English, religion alone would not operate, at least so violently, that effect.  Every one knows, that the savages are at best but slightly tinctured with it, and have little or no attachment to it, but as they find their advantage in the benefits of presents and protection, it procures to them from the French government.  In short, it is chiefly to the conduct of this English themselves, we are beholden for this favorable aid of the savages.  If the English at first, instead of seeking to exterminate or oppress them by dint of power, the sense of which drove them for refuge into our party, had behaved with more tenderness to them, and conciliated their affection by humoring them properly, and distributing a few presents, they might easily have made useful and valuable subjects of them.  Whereas, disgusted with their haughtiness, and scared at the menaces and arbitrary encroachments of the English, they are now their most virulent and scarce reconcileable enemies.  This is even true of more parts in America, where, though the English have liberally given presents to ten times the value of what our government does, they have not however had the same effect.  The reason of which is clear:  they make them with so ill a grace, and generally time their presents so unjudiciously, as scarce ever to distribute them, but just when they want to carry some temporary point with the savages, such, especially, as the taking up the hatchet against the French.  This does not escape the natural sagacity of the savages, who are sensible of the design lurking at bottom of this liberality, and give them the less thanks for it.  They do not easily forget the length of time they had been neglected, slighted, or unapplied to, unless by their itinerant traders, who cheat them in their dealings, or poison them with execrable spirits, under the names of brandy and rum.  Whereas, on the contrary, the French are assiduously caressing and courting them.  Their missionaries are dispersed up and down their several cantonments, where they exercise every talent of insinuation, study their manners, nature, and weaknesses, to which they flexibly accommodate themselves, and carry their points by these arts.  But what has, at least, an equal share in attaching the savages to our party, is the connivence, or rather encouragement the French government has given to the natives of France, to fall into the savage-way of life, to spread themselves through the savage nations, where they adopt their manners, range the woods with them, and become as keen hunters as themselves.  This conformity endears our nation to them, being much better pleased with seeing us imitate them, than ready to imitate us, though some of them begin to fall