energy, skill, and labour of a devoted multitude. We, in vain, look for similar subordination among the existing natives; by their own tradition they destroyed this race, as foreigners, and gained possession of their country and their fortresses, abandoning them as the barbarians of the north did the cities of Europe, and thus prostrating every advance which had been made beyond the actual limits of savage life.
These devoted people, the Mexicans of the north, were not, however, relieved by their acquaintance with the civilized world. They had peaceably suffered the French to settle around them, and assisted them when in the utmost want and necessity. They thus saved the lives of those, who were about to prove their mortal enemies and oppressors.
The first quarrel which took place betwixt the French and Natchez, in the year 1722, was occasioned by the insolence and injustice of a common soldier of the fort, who, demanding in an unreasonable manner a debt from an aged warrior of the White Apple village, proceeded by unjust pretences to instigate the guard to shoot him, which proved mortal, and for which rashness he received from the commander nothing more than a reprimand.
The village, determined on revenge, fell upon two Frenchmen in their neighbourhood, and at last upon the settlement of St. Catharine. The great chief, however, called the Stung Serpent, at the entreaty of the commandant of Fort Rosalie, succeeded in producing a cessation of hostilities, and soon afterwards a peace.
Notwithstanding this favourable posture of affairs, M. {279} De Biainville, the governor, violating every principle of honour and of justice, a few months afterwards, in the midst of peace, surprised the unfortunate Natchez of the
