plant; even the culture of the manioc, of which the cassada bread is made, is an art too intricate for their ingenuity or too fatiguing to their indolence. What the earth produces spontaneously, supplies them with food during part of the year; and at other times they subsist by fishing, or by hunting. But the life of a hunter gradually leads man to a state more advanced. The chase affords but an uncertain maintenance. If a savage trust to his bow alone for food, he and his family will be often reduced to extreme distress. Their experience of this surmounts the abhorrence of labour natural to savage nations, and compels them to have recourse to culture as subsidiary to hunting. There is scarcely through the whole of America, a single nation of hunters which does not practise some species of cultivation.

The agriculture of the Americans is, however, neither extensive nor laborious: all they aim at is to supply the defects of fish and game. On the southern continent the natives confined their industry to rearing a few plants, which in a rich soil and warm climate were easily trained to maturity. The maize, the manioc, the plantain, the potatoe, and the pimento tree, are almost the only species of plants upon which the American tribes of hunters bestowed any care. Two circumstances common to all the savage nations of America, concurred with those already mentioned in rendering their agriculture imperfect, and in circumscribing their power in all their operations. They had no tame animals, and were unacquainted with the useful metals.

In other parts of the globe, man, in his rudest state, appears as lord of the creation, giving law to various tribes of animals which he has tamed and reduced to subjection. The Tartar follows his

prey on the horse which he has reared; or tends his numerous herds, which furnish him both with food and clothing: the Arab has rendered his camel docile, and avails himself of its persevering strength the Laplander has formed the rein-deer to be subservient to his will; and even the people of Kamtschatka have trained their dogs to labour. This command over the inferior creatures is one of the noblest prerogatives of man, and among the greatest efforts of his wisdom and power. Without this, his dominion is incomplete : he is a monarch who has no subjects, a master without servants, and must perform every operation by the strength of his own arm. Such was the condition of all the rude nations of America. Their reason was so little improved, or their union so incomplete, that they seem not to have been conscious of the superiority of their nature, and suffered all the animal creation to retain its liberty, without establishing their own authority over any one species. Most of the animals, indeed, which have been rendered domestic in our continent, do not exist in the New World; but those peculiar to it are neither so fierce nor so formidable as to have exempted them from servitude. There are some animals of the same species in both continents. But the rein

deer which has been tamed to the yoke in one hemisphere, runs wild in the other. The bison of America is manifestly of the same species with the horned cattle of the other hemisphere, and might have been rendered useful to the wants of the inhabitants. But a savage, in that uncultivated state in which the Americans were discovered, is the enemy of the other animals, not their superior. He wastes and destroys, but knows not how to multiply or to govern them. This, perhaps, is the

most notable distinction between the inhabitants of the Ancient and New World, and a high preeminence of civilized men above such as continue rude. Suppose them, even when most improved, to be deprived of their useful ministry, their empire over nature must, in some measure, cease, and be incapable of such arduous undertakings as their assistance enables him to execute with ease.

It is a doubtful point, whether the dominion of man over the animal creation, or his acquiring the use of metals, has contributed most to extend his power. The era of this important discovery is unknown, and in our hemisphere very remote. Nature completes the formation of some metals : gold, silver, and copper, are found in their perfect state in the clefts of rocks, in the sides of mountains, or in the channels of rivers. These were accordingly the metals first known, and first ap. plied to use. But iron, the most serviceable of all, and to which man is most indebted, is never discovered in its perfect form; it must feel twice the force of fire, and go through two laborious processes before it become fit for use. All the savage tribes scattered over America were totally unacquainted with the metals which their soil produces in abundance, if we except some trifling quantity of gold. Their devices to supply this want of the serviceable metals were extremely awkward. The most simple operation was to them an undertaking of immense labour and difficulty. To fell a tree with no other instruments than hatchets of stone was employment for a month. To form a canoe into shape and to hollow it, consumed more time than is now expended in building a hundred sail of the line. Their operations in agriculture were equally slow and

defective; and they were more indebted for the increase to the fertility of the soil than to their own industry. It is not wonderful then, that people without the assistance of tame animals should have made so little progress in cultivation, that they must be considered as depending for subsistence on fishing and hunting, rather than on the fruits of their own labour.

From this description of the mode of subsisting among the rude American tribes, the form and genius of their political institutions may be deduced; and we are enabled to trace various circumstances of distinction between them and more civilized nations.

1. They were divided into small independent communities. While hunting is the chief source of subsistence, a vast extent of territory is requisite for supporting a small number of people. In proportion as men multiply and unite, the wild animals, on which they depend for food, diminish, or fly to a greater distance from the haunts of their enemy. The increase of a society in this state is limited by its own nature, and the members of it must either disperse or fall upon some better me. thod of procuring food than by hunting. They cannot form into large communities, because it would be impossible to find subsistence. This was the state of the American tribes; the numbers in each were inconsiderable, though scattered over countries of large extent. In America the word nation is not of the same import as in other parts of the globe. It is applied to small societies not exceeding, perhaps, two or three hundred persons, but occupying provinces greater than some kingdoms of Europe. The country of Guiana, though of larger extent than France, and divided among a

greater number of nations, did not contain more than 25,000 inhabitants. In the provinces which border on the Oronoko one may travel several hundred miles, in different directions, without finding a single hut, or observing the footsteps of a human creature. In North America, where the climate is more rigorous, and the soil less fertile, the desolation is still greater, and journies of several hun. dred leagues have been made through uninhabited plains and forests. As long as hunting continues to be the chief employment of man, and to which he trusts for subsistence, he can hardly be said to have occupied the earth.

2. Nations which depend upon hunting are, in a great measure, strangers to the idea of property. As the animals on which the hunter feeds are not bred under his inspection, nor nourished by his care, he can claim no right to them while they are wild in the forest. They belong alike to all; and thither, as to a general store, all repair for sustenance. The same principles by which they regulate their chief occupations extend to that which is subordinate. Even agriculture has not introduced a complete idea of property. As the men hunt, the women labour together, and after they have shared the toils of seed-time, they enjoy the harvest in common. Thus the distinctions arising from inequality of property are unknown. The terms of rich and poor enter not into their language, and being strangers to property, they are unacquainted with what is the great object of law and policy, and with the arrangements of regular government.

3. People in this state retain a high sense of equality and independence. All are freemen, all feel themselves to be such, and assert with firm