If their fortunes were really
the care of the Great Spirit, and justice was to be done to them by
his love and wisdom, then would the projects of Peter, and those who
acted and felt with him, be unnecessary, and might lead to evil
instead of to good. That sagacious savage did not fail to discover
this truth; and he now believed it might be well for him to say a
word, in order to lessen the influence Parson Amen might otherwise
obtain among those whom it was his design to mould in a way entirely
to meet his own wishes. So intense was the desire of this mysterious
leader to execute vengeance on the pale-faces, that the redemption
of the tribes from misery and poverty, unaccompanied by this part of
his own project, would have given him pain in lieu of pleasure. His
very soul had got to be absorbed in this one notion of retribution,
and of annihilation for the oppressors of his race; and he regarded
all things through a medium of revenge, thus created by his
feelings, much as the missionary endeavored to bend every fact and
circumstance, connected with the Indians, to the support of his
theory touching their Jewish origin.
When Peter arose, therefore, fierce and malignant passions were at
work in his bosom; such as a merciful and a benignant deity never
wishes to see in the breast of man, whether civilized or savage.
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