On Dealings with the Salvages

[Note: my father has request'd special dispensation to author the following Post-mail. Wending his way thro' the Woods, he spent many Years residing above the Inhabitants of this Colony, trading, bartering, & allying with those call'd Indians. In Waters that drown'd many an Englishman before him, he did swim, & sip. His Usages are Antient, & require some decipherment; know that to him, Indians are still "Naturalls," "Salvages," or the various Tribes. Tho' his Nomenclatures recall a distant & perhaps-surpassed Epoch, they yet make nicer Distinctions than we, in our Ink-Potted & be-Candled luxury.]

Greetings, & warmestt salutations forthe;

I bring the most Grievous Newes. My sonne hath retriev'd the following, a moving Lithograph, & a disturbing Figment it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM-NlRPvdWA

In travells with Cols. Harrison & Byrd, a Winde once blew vs quite offe-corse. Heav'd off the Cheasapioc Bay, an Unmercifull Prouvidence lodg'd us against one of the Paeninsulae. There, in a Piccoson, or a Swampe as we calld it, the Salvages did surround us, yipping & Shrieking their Terrible Cryes thro'out the night. Alive with Snaykes & Inseckts, all astir & disarray'd by our circumstances, wee cou'd but pray God Release us!

And yet doe I find mysellf againe beseaching the Lorde God, begging that he wou'd save us from this new Menayce. See here, in the Lithograph, how the Naturall hath learn'd the art of Mechanistick Creation! This monstrous Clanking beast, that he cacklingly controls, cou'd abolish the Colony wholle-sale! What Deuillish sprite cou'd have given him such tools of Wickednesse? Cou'd there be more horrid thought, than that Opekan-canoe wou'd grab a hold of that tinye remote, and Raize the Citties of our Lovelye Colony? I ask ye this -

[He is rather long-winded, my father.]

Solicit'd by my sonne, Epaph. Bainton, I have bin ask'd to recount the long-deade years of Gov. Berkeley, Nat. Bacon, and the usages of þat tyme, so long Since gone, I prouide the following.

Such a Tyme as it was, and shall Nott be repeat'd. Then did Giantes stride, and makke the Historie for themselves, not Leaving the makking to Otheres!

I remember Once, Gov Berkeley did say to me, Gugliemus, fetch me an Salvage ladey with whom I mite makke loue, and -

[he prattles on so.]

Indians such as These did I traffick & Deal with:



Such a man as thys cou'd be trust'd with my young sonne Epaphrodit., as when he was a Babe & I wou'd leav him in the care of Waherrosqok, a Sauvage Maiden much addict'd to the care of children. And Young Ephaph. wou'd giggle & gurgle in her paint'd arms, and her husband, Opatcheran, wd take the Same to sport with the Sauvage boys in fields. In such ease did my Familly cauort, whilst the Naturalls werre at Peace with England. The Chikahominys cou'd be trust'd with near-any thinge, as cou'd the Nansemond & Nottoway. Those Nott. gave mee & mine familly svp so freqwent as to spoil our Stomachs w. their riche Fatts & Greazes. I say this, well-admitting that the Manahoacs did burn my Wife's father's house Straightt to the Grounde, & I cannot begin to Tally the crimes of the Richeharians or Doeg, both Villainous tribes of Burnished Rascalry.

Those self-same peacefull Naturalls did give freqwent Cause for Beating, nonetheless. Once a Sauvage did arrest me in my Pathe, & ask of me, why do I see ye soo freqwent Comeing & goeing from the woods w. Waherrosqok? At which juncture I cuff'd him, for insolence, as -

[Here I abbrev. Father's most excellent Reasonings, & skip to a Grave Warning:]

But Shee is dead, & thatt was in Another Countrie. The Feare that most possesses old Col. Bainton, w. his rotten Bones & scarr'd-up Teeth, my Boddie broken by the Sundry blowes of Native Treachery - That Hulking Beast.

I explain this Hellish Development one Way: the Alliance betwixt the Savauge, & the Creeping Dutchman. Meet it is to invite these younge men to work our Furnaces, our Glass-Factors, our Kilns & Bakers &C. but I wou'd have none o' their Sooty Visages, trooping thro' my house, in their Boottes, & Tracking ashen Wastes 'cross the careful-laid Domestick work of my Wife. They are uicious, troublous deceit-men, all, and have bin known to make Pact with the Naturalls, quite against our Explicit Commands.

Thus I say that the Dutchen Smelters crafted their Ingenious Creature, a Mannikin perhaps of thee Powhatan's God Okee, and haue unleash'd him upon the swete-natur'd, tender-tongued Cavallier! The fondest flower of British Mannhood, match'd to fight Duplicitous Wickednesse. Shall we ever finde again, those stronge Menn such as Bacon, who wd happly have lead vs into the Ockaneech Territory, to take many a Captive & slay many -

[Col. Bainton rides eagerly on his Thoughts & allows their Sport to Trans-port him wherever it may. He sits now in his Farm in Newe Kent Co., more comfortable in the Cittie Counties of James or Charles, his Stomping-Grounds from childhood. Having retired from the bustling Life of a Counsellor, the Work that demanded he stay in Williamsburg or the now-abandoned JAMESTOWN, he occupies himself solely with Dangers, Warnings, & Pestilences. This most recent Scare has sent him quite into a Phrenzy, and left his brains quite disorder'd, leaping at one Memory, then another. From a soot'd Window he watches the Road & the sundry Trafficks as they pass by, having Little to do with the World at large. Once or twice, I thought I had seen him poke, with his finger, at the Glass, as tho' to wave at someone - tho' I cou'd not say who.]