past originated in our yearly Meeting to introduce among
some of the Indian Tribes bordering on your state
the most necessary acts of civil life, your Memorialists
were appointed by that Body to carry into effect this
desirable object, and according proceeded to perform
the service assigned them, but in the course of their efforts
it was found that the quantities of spiritous
Liquors with which those people were supplied by
Traders & others greatly counteracted every measure
devised to improve their situation, this being
abundantly confirmed in a speech delivered
to us by the Little Turtle

the principal chief of
the Miamis (an extract from which is herewith
forwarded) your Memorialists in the year 1802 made
a representation of the case to congress, whereupon
that Body, duly appreciating the magnitude of
the evil, enacted a law authorising the Resident to prohibit the Traders
from carrying distilled Spirits into their country
this being immediately done they were for a time precluded in a great measure
from it, and the good effects soon became obvious
in the general improvement amongst them.
Sanguine hopes were now cherished that those un
happy people who had heretofore been a prey to
want and distress would be induced to abandon
their precarious mode of life, and turn their
attention to agriculture and the arts of civil
life for subsistence, which disposition seemed for
a time increasingly to pervade them, but as the
settlements of white People approached their villages
and hunting camps, Spiritious Liquors were again
brought within their reach, and they are now in the habit of procuring large