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30 duty, and with a people among whom personal influence supersedes all other obligations. He is thus enabled to procure attention to his representation upon the subject of peace, in the request for land, in the requisition of stolen property, in the repression of individual injuries, in the demand with a view to then punishment of particular offenders, in his attempts to watch the progress of national feeling among the Indians themselves and to counteract the intrigues of foreign emmissaries, and in the immense variety of duties, which every day produces. It is important that the Agent should possess this influence, it is necessary to give him the means of acquiring it. This can be effected in no other mode than by the distribution of presents. Without this power the Agent is a perfect cypher, whose situation is useless to his Government irksome to himself and contemptible to the Indians. It is necessary next to examine what amount shall be annually distributed in presents to the Indians, how these presents shall be distributed and how they shall be accounted for. A great majority of all the Indians in the immense country west of us able to bear arms, visit this place and Masden at least annually. Many of them much oftener; it is impossible to approximate to any thing like certainty upon this subject; and I shall merely therefore