"Again: '_The hunters in the Hudson's Bay Company are as perishable a
race as the animals hunted.'_ Any trader knows this is false, except
in the sense that we are all perishable. Applied to the United States
Indians, it is true, from the cause assigned--rum--and worse causes--
the vices of civilization. The cost of transportation to any portion of
the Hudson's Bay territory heretofore has been so great that the rum
used there must, _to be profitable,_ be the purest that can be
found, as there is water enough in Prince Rupert's Land with which to
dilute it: so that what the Indian gets will not hurt him. The rivers
in the United States (the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Yellowstone,
the Arkansas, the Platte, and others) easily and cheaply carry '_rot-
gut_' and death to the United States Indian. It seems to be the aim,
and will be the gain, of the United States to exterminate the Indian;
it ought to be the aim, and would be the gain, of the 'International
Financial Society' to preserve him.
"Again: '_The climate forbids effectual fertility, and the distance
from more habitable regions forbids effectual transit. The regions to
be colonized are mostly very cold and very barren_.' If such is the
case, of what value, applied to the new Company, are his assertions:
'Civilization destroys wild animals,' &c.
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