Colonel Prince is the gentleman who took with his own hands General Sutherland and his aide-de-camp, and who ordered the Yankee pirates to be shot. Mr Hume has thought proper to make a motion in the House of Commons, reprobating this act as one of murder. I believe there is little difference whether a man breaks into your house, and steals your money; or burns your house, and robs you of your cattle and other property. One is as much a case of burglary as the other. In the first instance you are justified in taking the robber’s life, and why not in the second? Those people who attacked the inhabitants of a country with whom they were in profound peace, were disowned by their own government, consequently they were outlaws and pirates, and it is a pity that Sutherland and every other prisoner taken had not been immediately shot. Mr Hume may flare up in the House of Commons, but I should like to know what Mr Hume’s opinion would be if he was the party who had all his property stolen and his house burnt over his head, in the depth of a Canadian winter. I suspect he would say a very different say, as he has no small respect for the meum; indeed, I should be sorry to be the party to be sentenced by Mr Hume, if I had stolen a few ducks out of the honourable gentleman’s duck decoys near Yarmouth.

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Although the Federal Government has set its face against the Indians making war with each other (or at least pretends so to do), it would appear by the following notice, that, in their necessity, they have not adhered to the following resolutions:—

Extract of a Letter, date:—

“Fort Brooke, Florida, June 14.

“The Cherokees and Choctaws are soon expected in this country, when there will be a war of extermination and no quarter shown. The affairs here are just the same as two years ago. The war is no nearer ended. But we do hope that the offer of ten dollars for each Seminole scalp will be a great inducement for the Cherokees and Choctaws to cut and slash among them.”

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A very acute reviewer has observed of my first portion, that there always appeared as if there was something left behind and not told. He was right; I have entered into every subject just as deeply as I dared to venture, without wearying the class of readers for whom, although not avowedly, yet in reality, the work has chiefly been written. The second portion will therefore be found almost as light and trifling as the first.

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Diary in America, Series Two

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