were the persons who were, in some part, the representatives of the
English among the Indians, and by whom they were to judge of our
manners and religion, they conceived such invincible prejudices against
both, particularly our holy religion, that when Mr. Sargeant, a
gentleman in New England, took a journey in 1741, to the Shawanoes and
some other tribes living on the Susquehanna, and offered to instruct
them in the christian religion, they rejected his offer with disdain.
They reproached Christianity. They told him the traders would lie and
cheat." In 1744, governor Thomas, in a message to the assembly of
Pennsylvania, says, "I cannot but be apprehensive that the Indian
trade, as it is now carried on, will involve us in some fatal quarrel
with the Indians. Our traders, in defiance of the laws, carry
spirituous liquors among them, and take advantage of their inordinate
appetite for it, to cheat them of their skins, and their wampum, which
is their money." In 1753 governor Hamilton appointed Richard Peters,
Isaac Norris and Benjamin Franklin, to hold a treaty with the Indians
at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. In the report of these commissioners they
say: "But in justice to these Indians, and the promises we made them,
we cannot close our report, without taking notice, that the quantity of
strong liquors sold to these Indians, in the places of their residence,
and during their hunting season, have increased to an inconceivable
degree, so as to keep these poor creatures continually under the force
of liquors, that they are thereby become dissolute, enfeebled and
indolent when sober; and untractable and mischievous in their liquor,
always quarreling, and often murdering one another." Some of the chiefs
at this treaty said, "these wicked whisky-sellers, when they have once
got the Indians in liquor, make them sell their very clothes from their
backs. In short, if this practice is continued, we must be inevitably
ruined; we most earnestly, therefore, beseech you to remedy it."[A]