The Author informs his Friends, that the Publication of this little Volume has been delayed by peculiar circumstances, which couldn either be foreseen or prevented.

THE

CITIZEN OF NATURE.

LETTER I.

At Sea.

COMPANION of my boyish days, peace to thy Soul: may the Great Spirit shield thee from every evil; may sorrow and strife fly thy dwelling, as the smoke wreathes from the bowl of the calumet.

Thou wilt perceive by my date, I have put in execution my design so long meditated, and so often intimated to thee, of visiting the country of the Whites. Thou wilt doubtless remember my frequent stay at the English settlement on the banks of our river: impelled by curiosity, I succeeded in gaining at intervals a knowledge of their language, and some acquaintance with their customs, so different from ours. My repeated conferences with the persons sent by them to supersede our ancient religious belief, and to propagate their own in its stead, had also great weight

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in hastening my decision; for although my heart, in its simplicity, failed to catch conviction from their doctrines, it yet whispered the probability of my own notions being founded on hereditary error.

I had viewed also, with surprise, the vast accession lately made to the hordes who first came among us, by the numerous bands of their countrymen who were incessantly pouring into our wilds, usurping our patrimony, and driving us from our native seats; who, by the labour we despise, were fast altering the face of things, and destroying the woods I had been taught to look on with veneration. Strange, thought I, that the arts and the laws they boast of, are not pleasing enough to restrain these men from leaving the country they profess to admire so much! Are they come to learn happiness from the Cherokees?

As I one day drew near and listened to their talk, I heard the voice of murmuring and grief. They said to each other, “Our country is become desolate, it is better to perish in this wilderness, by the hands of savages who know not mercy, than to lose our substance under the grasp of the oppressor, who knows it only by name."-"What," said I mentally, "do not these strangers profess to possess a balm for every wound of

body and spirit? Can they be liars, who declare truth dwells among them only? If so, they have deceived us, and are no happier or wiser than we."

Every moon, my thoughts became more painful: "I will fly," said I, "the land of my birth; I will visit the country of those who vaunt their superiority over the Red Children; I will solve the mystery of the manifest contradiction between their actions and their professions. Why cannot the Cherokees acquire the knowledge of the stranger, and build cities like his? Am not I made as one of them? Surely the European and the Horse, the Indian and the Elk, sprung from one common Cause? They tell me of things which my soul refuses to comprehend."

men.

My father had often said, "My son, beware of the Whites, they are crafty above all They deceived our Fathers while they extended to them the right hand of brotherhood; their children are like those of the old time, and will deceive thee: our Fathers were too sparing of the tomahawk: had they not been so, we, their descendants, should not be at this day loaded with the presence of that accursed Race." Reflections like these made me resolve to delay my purpose no longer.

And besides, at this juncture, an oppor