PAPERS RELATING TO THE SIX NATIONS.
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I am well pleased with Peter and David. They both seem honestly desirous to be instructed.
We expect to have Opportunity to recommend to your Excellency’s favourable Notice, two likelyyoung Gentlemen, in the capacity of Missionaries , this spring; and three young Indians of thisSchool, in the capacity of school masters. I purpose also, that all your five first Boys shall comehome this Spring, or by some Time in June, to visit their Friends, and return to me in the Fall. Itis proposed that they shall keep Schools under the conduct of the Missionaries .
William will likely make a fine Boy. He behaves very well. A specimen of his Writing I inclose.
I have this Week received a Letter from the Countess of Huntingdon , 1 wherein she expressesgreat Friendship towards this School, &c. And as your Excellency’s Influence is great at Home,and, in these affairs, greater than any other Man’s, May not I use the Freedom to ask for the Benefitof it toward the Support and Progress of this School 1 I think it will be a great Pity if Party Names,and circumstantial Differences, in Matters of Eeligion, should by any Means obstruct the Progressof this so great and important Design of Gospelizing the Heathen.
Please to let the Parents of these Boys, know, that they are all well; and also inform them oftheir proposed Visit to them.
I hope your Excellency will be able to obtain the Grand son of the Onondaga Sachem, which youmentioned to me, and send him with M r Kirtland, whom I have advised to visit us this Spring.
And that God may long preserve your valuable and important Life, and continue and increaseyour Usefulness in the World, is the earnest Prayer of,
May it please your Excellency, your much obliged,
and most obedient, humble Servant.
REV. MR. WHEELOCK’S ADDRESS
To the Sachems and Chiefs of the Mohawk, Oneida, Tuscarora, and other Nations and tribes of Indians.
My Brethren and Friends
I have had you upon my heart ever since I was a boy. I have pitied you on account of yourwordly poverty, but much more on account of the perishing case your precious souls are in, withoutthe knowledge of the only true God and Saviour of Sinners. I have prayed for you daily for morethan thirty years, that a way might be opened to send the gospel among you, and you be madewilling to receive it. And I hope God is now answering the prayers that have long been made foryou, and that the time of his Mercy to your perishing nation is near at hand.
Some years ago I educated M r Occum (who has been a little while with some of you) with hopes
1 Selina, countess of Huntingdon the “ Countess Matilda” of Wesleyism, the Second daughter of Washington earl ofFerrars, was horn 24 Aug. 1707, & married Theophilus 9th Earl of Huntingdon. After a severe illness she abandoned herformer habits of gayety and dissipation, and became all at once grave, reserved and melancholy. Her thoughts were whollyabsorbed by religion and she employed her ample resources iii disseminating her principles by the agency of Whitefield, Romaineand other Methodist Clergyman. She not only threw open her private residence to, but built chapels in various parts of Eng.land for the accommodation of their followers, and erected a college in Wale3 for the education of persons intended for theMinistry. She was the patroness of Occum whilst he remained in England, and not only hospitably entertained him in herhouse but introduced him to the notice of several of the Nobility. She was, also, a generous contributor to Dr Wheelock’sIndian School. She died full of years and piety at her house in Spafields, London , on the 17th June 1791. There is a por-trait of her prefixed to Life and Times of Selina Countess of Huntingdon,” London . 1844 2 v. 8vo in the State Lib.