Lecture On The Aborigines Of Newfoundland | Page 7

of one of the Indians, he was searched and a hatchet taken from him. The two Indians then took hold of the man who had seized the Indian woman, and endeavoured to force her away from him, but not succeeding in this, he tried to get possession of three different guns, and at last succeeded in geting hold of one, which he tried to wrest from the man who held it; not being able to accomplish this, the Indian seized the Englishman by the throat, and the danger being imminent, three shots were fired, all so simultaneously that it appeared as if only one gun had been discharged. The Indian dropped, and his companions immediately fled. In extenuation of this, to say the least of it, most deplorable event, it is said, "could we have intimidated him, or persuaded him to leave us, or even have seen the others go off, we should have been most happy to have been spared using violence--but when it is remembered that our small party were in the heart of the Indian country, a hundred miles from any European settlement, and that there were in our sight at times, as many Indians as our party amounted to, and we could not ascertain how many were in the woods that we did not see, it could not be avoided with safety to ourselves. Had destruction been our object, we might have carried it much farther."
The death of this Indian was subsequently brought before the Grand Jury, and that body having enquired into the circumstances connected with it, in its report to the Court makes the following statement:--"It appears that the deceased came to his death in consequence of an attack on the party in search of them, and his subsequent obstinacy, and not desisting when repeatedly menaced by some of the party for that purpose, and the peculiar situation of the searching party and their men, was such as to warrant their acting on the defensive."
Now, taking the foregoing report as given by the leader of the expedition, and in which there can be no question but that the conduct of the English party is as favourably represented as it possibly could be, yet does the statement detailed afford no excuse for the Indian, and is the word "obstinacy" as applied by the Grand Jury, applicable to him?
It may not be forgotten that the Indian was surprised in the "heart of his own country"--treading his own soil--within sight of his home--that home was invaded by armed men of the same race with those who had inflicted on his tribe irreparable injuries--his wife was seized by them--his attempts to release her, which ought to have been respected, were violently resisted,--and then, maddened by the bonds and captivity of his wife, he continues, with a courage and devotion to her which merited a far different fate, singly his conflict with ten armed men--he is shot, and his death is coldly ascribed to his "obstinacy." Had the Indian tamely permitted his wife to have been carried away from him--had he without feeling or emotion witnessed the separation of the mother from her infant child, then indeed little sympathy would have been felt for him--and yet it is precisely because he did show that he possessed feelings common to us all, and without the possession of which man becomes more degraded than the brute, that he was shot. Thus perished the ill-fated husband of poor Mary March, and she herself, from the moment when her hand was touched by the white man, became the child of sorrow, a character which never left her, until she became shrouded in an early tomb. Among her tribe she was known as "De mas do weet,"--her husband's name was "No nos baw sut."
In an official report Mary March is described as a young woman of about twenty-three years of age--of a gentle and interesting disposition, acquiring and retaining without any difficulty any words she was taught. She had one child, who, as was subsequently ascertained, died a couple of days after its mother's capture. Mary March was first taken to Twillingate, where, she was placed under the care of the Revd. Mr. Leigh, Episcopal Missionary, who, upon the opening of the season, came with her to St. John's. She never recovered from the effects of her grief at the death of her husband--her health rapidly declined, and the Government, with the view of restoring her to her tribe, sent a small sloop-of-war with her to the northward, with orders to her Commander to proceed to the summer haunts of the Indians; from this attempt, however, he returned unsuccessful. Captain Buchan, in the _Grashopper_, was subsequently sent to accomplish the same object. He left St. John's in September, 1819, for the Exploits, but poor