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Copy of a Letter From Charles Read - 6

dians have ever done worse; if they have, it has never come to my Knowledge. Persons who thirst after the Blood of Indians, should go to the Seat of War to shew their Courage. If there were no Crime in it, nothing that would subject them to Punishment, no Forfeiture of Estate, yet there is something so very mean in attempting the Lives of a wretched People who have voluntarily thrown themselves into your Power, that no Man of real Courage or Bravery would bear the Thought of doing it. Many of the Indians have been very useful to us, and still may be so. The Nations far back, and whose Intercourse have been chiefly, if not totally with the French, have been by them persuaded to enter into a War; and is this to be wondered at, that they should believe the People they had long traded with, and been long allied to? We should rather admire their Constancy to their old Friends; and have we not Reason from thence to conclude, that when they know us, and a Peace is firmly established between us and them, they will be as firm and constant in their Friendship

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