into our notions, as to trafficking and bartering, and knowing the use of money, of which they were before totally ignorant.  We employ besides a much more effectual method of uniting them to us, and that is, by the intermarriages of our people with the savage-women, which is a circumstance that draws the ties of alliance closer.  The children produced by these are generally hardy, inured to the fatigues of the chace and war, and turn out very serviceable subjects in their way.

But what is most amazing is, that though the savage-life has all the appearance of being far from eligible, considering the fatigues, the exposure to all weathers, the dearth of those articles which custom has made a kind of necessaries of life to Europeans, and many other inconveniencies to be met with in their vagabond course; yet it has such charms for some of our native French, and even for some of them who have been delicately bred, that, when once they have betaken themselves to it young, there is hardly any reclaiming them from it, or inducing them to return to a more civilized life.  They prefer roving in the woods, trusting to the chapter of accidents for their game which is their chief support, and lying all night in a little temporary hut, patched up of a few branches; to all the commodiousness they might find in towns, or habitations, amongst their own countrymen.  By degrees they lose all relish for the European luxuries of life, and would not exchange for them the enjoyments of that liberty, and faculty of wandering about, for which, in the forests, they contract an invincible taste.  A gun with powder and ball, of which they purchase a continuation of supplies with the skins of the beasts they kill, set them up.  With these they mix amongst the savages, where they get as many women as they please:  some of them are far from unhandsome, and fall into their way of life, with as much passion and attachment, as if they had never known any other.

Mons. Delorme, whom you possibly may have seen in Rochelle, where he had a small employ in the marine-department, brought over his son here, a very hopeful youth, who had even some tincture of polite education, and was not above thirteen years old, and partly from indulgence, partly from a view of making him useful to the government, by his learning, at that age, perfectly the savage language, he suffered him to go amongst the savages.  The young Delorme would, indeed, sometimes return home just on a visit to his family; but always expressed such an impatience, or rather pining to get back again to them, that, though reluctantly, the father was obliged to yield to it.  No representations in short, after some years, could ever prevail on him to renounce his connexions, and residence amongst the Abenaquis, where he is almost adored.  He has learned to excel them all, even in their own points of competition.  He out-does them all in their feats of activity, in running, leaping,