APPENDIX.

Mr. Hodgson, in the Appendix to his "Letters from North America," published in 1824, p. 413, vol. 2nd, gives a Translation of the first four verses of the 19th Psalm, done at the Cornwall School, State of Connecticut, under the superintendence of the Rev. John Serjeant, into the Muh-he-con-nuk Language, being the Language of the Stockbridge Tribe of Indians.

Dr. Douglass, in his "Historical Summary," published at Boston, (New England,) in 1749, vol. 1, p. 189, writes, "Besides these (Indian "Tribes,) there is in the S. W. corner of the "Province of Massachusetts Bay, about twenty"five miles east from Hudson River, a small "Tribe of Indians called Housatonicks, upon "a River of that name; they are lately inter"mixed with the English in the Townships of "Sheffield and Stockbridge."-I have no doubt

that the Housatonicks are the Stockbridge Tribe mentioned by Mr. Hodgson, as the River from whence they take their name rises in Stockbridge or its neighbourhood, and falls into Long Island Sound, at Stratford, in Connecticut. Why Mr. Serjeant called the dialect of these Indians the Muh-he-con-nuk, instead of the Housatonick Language, is not so easily explained.

The Author of this Work has in his possession the Second Edition of an Indian Bible in the Natick Language, by John Eliot; published at Cambridge, (Massachusetts,) by Samuel Green, in 1685, and dedicated to the Hon. R. Boyle, Esq. Governour, and to the Company for the Propagation of the Gospel to the Indians in New England and Parts adjacent in America. The Dedication signed at Boston, October the 23d, 1685, by

WILLIAM STOUGHTON,
JOSEPH DUDLEY,

PETER BULKLEY,

THOMAS HINCKLEY.

By Act of the Massachusetts Bay As"sembly, Anno 1746, the Indian Reserves being distinguished into eight Parcels, Guardians or Managers for these silly Indians were appointed."-Speaking of the Seventh Parcel, Dr. Douglass adds, "The Indian Plantation of "Natick, with a Minister and Salary from an English Society for propagating the Gospel 66 among the Indians in New England; he offi"ciates in English, and his congregation are

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mostly English; it lies about eighteen miles "W. of Boston, not exceeding twenty families "of Indians.

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"Mr. Eliot, formerly a Minister of Roxbury, adjoining to Boston, (N. E.) with immense "labour translated and printed our Bible into “Indian; it was done with a good pious de

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sign in the Natick Language; of the Naticks "at present there are not twenty families subsisting, and scarce any of these can read."Douglass's Summary, 1749.

Of the Indians which composed the eight Tribes existing in Massachusetts in 1746, exclusive of the Housatonicks, whose Reserves of Land were under the management of appointed Guardians, not one is now living. Dr. Douglass himself foretells their speedy extinction, "these silly Indians" being persuaded (of course by their Guardians,) to enlist as Soldiers, were

sent to Cuba, Carthagena, Cape Breton, and Nova Scotia. "Scarce any of them survived.”

The Natick Language has therefore to all intents and purposes become a dead Language. That a person should be found to translate the whole of the Old and New Testaments, with all the Singing Psalms, into a Language which was never a written Language with those who spoke it ;-that he should print two Editions of this Indian Bible, which probably no other individual except himself could read and understand, is one proof among many of ill-directed zeal. This Bible was the fruit of a Bible Society. Other Bibles equally incomprehensible have been since published through the same desire of propagating the Scriptures; and though the labour of such Translations is great, and the expenditure enormous, yet it is not attended with such difficulty as that of finding individuals who could read and understand the Book when printed. In fact these Translators make a Language of their own, and their Works are "stillborn" from the press.