The priest connives at the Indian’s hunting on Sunday—­the minister strictly forbids it:  the priests are single—­the ministers are generally married, and their maintenance of course involves a far heavier expense.  Considering these things, no reasonable person can surely find fault with us for preferring those who allow us to put what construction we please on the moral law, and at the same time oppose no obstacles to the advancement of our temporal interests.

And here I cannot but express my regret that our Protestant churches should have so long neglected the cultivation of a field that promised such rich harvests as the interior of America.  The superstitions of the aborigines scattered through the Hudson’s Bay Company’s territories are so gross, and so inconsistent with unsophisticated common sense; and their prejudices in favour of them have been so much shaken by their intercourse with the gentlemen of the trading posts and the other Europeans, whom they are accustomed to look up to as beings of a superior race, that there could be but little difficulty in removing what remains of these prejudices; and thus one of the greatest obstacles to the success of a Missionary in other parts of the heathen world, can scarcely be said to exist among them.

The Church of England, it is true, has done a little, but she might have done more—­much more.  Had the Missionaries at Red River exerted themselves, from the time of their first arrival in the country, in educating natives as Missionaries, and sent them forth to preach the Word, the pure doctrines of Christianity would, ere now, have been widely disseminated through the land.  But nothing of this kind has been attempted:  nor could it be attempted—­now that I think of it—­the laying on of “the hands of a Bishop” being indispensable.

As to the diseased and infirm being frequently left at our posts in winter, all I can say is, that I have never seen any such at any of the posts I wintered at, or at any of the posts I visited; nor is it likely that, when we ourselves depend on the natives for a considerable part of our subsistence, we can do much to support them.  We support neither old nor young, diseased nor infirm—­that is the truth.

In the work above quoted I find the following paragraph relating to the North-West Company.

“Although the rivalry of the North-West Company had the effect of inspiriting and extending the trade; it was carried by them in many respects beyond the legitimate limits, not scrupling at open violence and bloodshed, in which Europeans and natives were alike sufferers.”

The controversy between those rival companies has long since been forgotten; but the subject being again obtruded on the public notice, evidently in the spirit of prejudice, there can be nothing improper, I presume, in representing matters in their true and proper light.  Many of the individuals thus calumniated are still alive and settled in the civilized world, where they are esteemed for qualities diametrically opposite to those ascribed to them by their slanderer.