For the better understanding of the letter immediately following, it may not be unnecessary to give the reader some previous idea of the people who are the subject of it, as well of the letter-writer. The best account of the Mickmakis I could find, and certainly the most authentic, is in a memorial furnished by the French ministry in April, 1751, from which the following paragraph is a translated extract: "The government of the savages dependent on Cape-Breton exacts a particular attention. All

SIR, I should long before now have satisfied you in those points of curiosity you expressed, concerning the savages amongst whom I have so long resided, if I could have found leisure for it. Literally true it is, that I have no spare time here, unless just in the evening, and that not always. This was my case too in Louisbourg; and I do not doubt but you will be surprised at learning, that I enjoy as little rest here as there. Had you done me, Sir, the honor of passing with me but three days onl

These nations have never been able to forget all that the English settled in North-America have done since the very first of their establishment, towards destroying them root and branch. They have especially, at every moment, before their eyes the following transactions: In 1744, towards the end of October, Mr. Gorrhon, (perhaps Goreham) deceased, commanding a detachment of the English troops, sent to observe the retreat the French and savages were making from before Port-Royal (Annapolis) in Ac

Though I had, in my last, exhausted all that was needful to say on our private business, I could not see this ship preparing for France, especially with our friend Moreau on board, without giving you this further mark of how ardently I wish the continuance of our correspondence. It will also serve to supplement any former deficiencies of satisfaction to certain points of curiosity you have stated to me; this will give to my letter a length beyond the ordinary limits of one: and I have before-han

To give you, Madam, a summary sketch of the character of the savages in this country, I am to observe to you, that under a savage appearance, with manners and customs, that favor entirely of barbarism, may be found a society exempt from almost all the faults that so often vitiate the happiness of ours. They appear to be without passion, but they are in cold blood, and sometimes even from principle, all that the most violent and most unbridled passion can inspire into those, who no longer listen