The Portland Gazette

BY THE MAILS.

YELLOW STONE EXPEDITION.

Letters from this expedition, dated Martin's Cantonment, 14th January, 1819, inform, that Capt. Martin, the commanding officer, had seized upon a Chief and several others of the Kansas, charged them with theft, confined them, arraigned them before him, specified to them the charges, and admitted them to plead for themselves. When the Chief delivered the following address:-

"FATHER-Your young men are prescribed within certain bounds; not one of them can pass that chain of sentinels without your permission, thus even within your power, you govern them with ease. My warriors impatient of restraint as the wild horse in the toils of the hunter, brook no controul, free as the air which they breathe, light and impetuous as the Antelope, they bound over mountain and moor, in the pursuit of pleasures which nature has ordained they should enjoy. To confine them to one valley would deprive them of their subsistence, they would pine and die in penury and want

"Father-These woods and streams are ours; the beaver which inhabit this river and the buffalo which range in these forests are ours; their skins afford us clothing and a shelter from the rude blast of winter, their meat a luxurious subsistence.

Shall we then, who are lords of the forest, quit the pleasures and advantages of the hunt, and like you confine ourselves to one solitary valley, to practice discipline and subordination, to live in idleness and indolence. No. Father--In the pursuit of the elk and antelope, we snuff the morning breeze on the mountains, and in the evening repose among the lilies of the vale, reveling on the spoils of our hunters, and in the embrace of our wives.

"Father—These pleasures we invite you to participate; we also invest you with an equal right with ourselves to take meat from our forests and fish from our fountains; as freely, as the Great Spirit gave them to us.

"Father-We love and respect you, and mourn that there are bad men among us, who have done you wrong. Their actions, Father, were not within my controul. Punish not the innocent for the guilty. Free our hands from these chains, we will seek out the culprits who have injured you; although they crouch in the thickest glen, or lie concealed in the recesses of the most inaccessible mountain.

"Father-We will deliver them to you, to punish to your satisfaction, for the outrages they have committed against you and pledge ourselves that should one of our nation at any future period evince an evil disposition towards you, we will give him to your power and with the rod of correction, you may open his eyes to reproof."

The account adds, that the sophistry of this address did not deter Capt. Martin from ordering the Chief and four of his tribe, to be publicly whipped, since which they have been very penitent and dutiful.