But to return to our back settlers.  I must tell you, that there is something in the proximity of the woods, which is very singular.  It is with men as it is with the plants and animals that grow and live in the forests; they are entirely different from those that live in the plains.  I will candidly tell you all my thoughts but you are not to expect that I shall advance any reasons.  By living in or near the woods, their actions are regulated by the wildness of the neighbourhood.  The deer often come to eat their grain, the wolves to destroy their sheep, the bears to kill their hogs, the foxes to catch their poultry.  This surrounding hostility immediately puts the gun into their hands; they watch these animals, they kill some; and thus by defending their property, they soon become professed hunters; this is the progress; once hunters, farewell to the plough.  The chase renders them ferocious, gloomy, and unsociable; a hunter wants no neighbour, he rather hates them, because he dreads the competition.  In a little time their success in the woods makes them neglect their tillage.  They trust to the natural fecundity of the earth, and therefore do little; carelessness in fencing often exposes what little they sow to destruction; they are not at home to watch; in order therefore to make up the deficiency, they go oftener to the woods.  That new mode of life brings along with it a new set of manners, which I cannot easily describe.  These new manners being grafted on the old stock, produce a strange sort of lawless profligacy, the impressions of which are indelible.  The manners of the Indian natives are respectable, compared with this European medley.  Their wives and children live in sloth and inactivity; and having no proper pursuits, you may judge what education the latter receive.  Their tender minds have nothing else to contemplate but the example of their parents; like them they grow up a mongrel breed, half civilised, half savage, except nature stamps on them some constitutional propensities.  That rich, that voluptuous sentiment is gone that struck them so forcibly; the possession of their freeholds no longer conveys to their minds the same pleasure and pride.  To all these reasons you must add, their lonely situation, and you cannot imagine what an effect on manners the great distances they live from each other has!  Consider one of the last settlements in its first view:  of what is it composed?  Europeans who have not that sufficient share of knowledge they ought to have, in order to prosper; people who have suddenly passed from oppression, dread of government, and fear of laws, into the unlimited freedom of the woods.  This sudden change must have a very great effect on most men, and on that class particularly.  Eating of wild meat, whatever you may think, tends to alter their temper:  though all the proof I can adduce, is, that I have seen it:  and having no place of worship to resort to, what little society this might afford is denied them.