Brothers, how to remove this evil from our country
we
do not know; if we had known it to be a proper
subject to have
mentioned to you in our council
yesterday, we should surely have
done it. This
subject, brothers, composes a part of what we
intend
to make known to the great council of our white
brethren.
On our arrival there we shall endeavour
to explain to our great
father, the President; a great
many evils that have arisen in our
country, from the
introduction of this liquor by the white
traders.
Brothers and Friends—In addition to what I have
before observed of
this great evil in the country of
your red brethren, I will say
further, that it has
made us poor. It is this liquor that causes our
young
men to go without clothes, our women and children
to go
without any thing to eat; and sorry am I to
mention now to you,
brothers, that the evil is increas-
ing every day, as the white
settlers come nearer to
us, and bring those kettles they boil that
stuff in
they call whiskey, of which our young men are
so
extremely fond. Brothers, when our young men
have been out
hunting, and are returning home load-
ed with skins and furs, on
their way, if it happens
that they come along where some of this
whiskey
is deposited, the white man who sells it, tells them
to
take a little drink; some of them will say no, I
don't want it—they
go on till they come to another
house, where they find more of this
same kind of
drink; it is there again offered; they refuse; and
again
the third time; but finally the fourth or fifth time
one
accepts of it, and takes a drink, and getting
one he wants another,
and then a third and a fourth,
till his senses have left him. After
his reason comes
back again to him, when he gets up and finds
where
he is, he asks for his peltry: the answer is, you
have
drank them. Where is my gun? It is gone. Where
is my
blanket? It is gone. Where is my shirt? You
have sold it for
whiskey!! Now, brothers, figure to
yourselves what a condition this
man must be in; he