.MTA1Mg.NzA1NDE
Brainerd Jan 30 1838
Very dear Sir,
Your kind favour of the 5th Inst: came by the last mail. No apology was necessary on
your part, but I must beg leave, in the commencement of my reply to ask your forgiveness for proposing such a question as I did in my last. After you have? fully expressed your wish that I would not send abroad? into the world the information I had collected for yourself, the occasion of this was as follows viz. In conversation with a certain gentleman from the state of New York, now in the service of the U. States as a physician, I mentioned some interesting customs and traditions of the Indians. He requested me to furnish him with some information to communicate to his friends. I told him the obligation I was under to yourself, and could not make any communication to others at present. He desired to see one of my manuscripts This I could not return. He commenced writing. I repeated my obligation to you. He assured me he would take no extract, nor write any thing which would at all violate my engagement. I told him that if he would wait, I would write you, and in case you should not object, I would furnish him with whatever information he might need. To this he agreed, tho, he wrote perhaps half a sheet; making some general statements, saying for instance that the Indians had certain traditions resembling the historical scripture, concerning the flood, the tower of Babel, the journeyings of the Israelites &c and also that there was a great similarity between the ideas of the Indians and jews with regard to the sameness of the name jehovah. As far as I know, these are all the points he n nd as he had no particular statements, I presume that nothing which he wrote or can write will in any way whatever affect your work.
Mr. Featherstonhaugh, United ^states geologist, had the kindness to call on us last fall. He brought me under special
obligation to himself. On leaving the country, he sent me a very rare and excellent work, accompanied with a request that I would write to him this winter, giving him some instances of the most striking resemblance between jewish and Indian antiquities. But I have entirely deferred writing, even till the present time, lest attempting to oblige one. I should disoblige another to whom I was and under? previous obligation. Now although there may be some general rumours respecting Indian antiquities, yet I do not apprehend that any definite information has gone abroad. Nothing which^can affect in any way your work.