A Monitory, and Hortatory LETTER, To those ENGLISH, who debauch the Indians, By Selling Strong Drink unto them.  
Written at the Desire of some CHRISTIANS, to whom the Mischiefs arising from that Wise Trade, are matters of much Apprehension and Lamentation.  
Inter omnes Barbarorum morbos, quibus Levandis, at●e tollendis invigilare debet Christiani Rectoris Provi●ntia, nullus out communior, aut Perniciosior, autam ad Curandum Difficilior, Ebrietate.  Hornbeck, de convers. Indor. Ex Acosta. 
De industria pernicies tanta conceditur, imo vero atetitur; propter privatas nescio quas Commoditates Alij ●●dorum operas Larga Ebrietate concessa, sibi conciliant● Alij non Solum bibere sinunt, verum ipsi quoque temu●●iam propinant. Neque tam turpis, infamisque quaestus ●●●et,— gladium ultro porrigentes insano, Atque baeo ●●ri factitant, Lucrumque ex animarum interitu Captant.  Acosta. L. 3. C. 22 
Boston, N. E. Printed in the Year 1700.   

To E. B. Esq.  
SIR,  
YOUR Zeal to Suppress Vice, and particularly the growing and grievents Vice of Drunkenness, is very Laudable: God who so Accepted & Rewarded the Zealous Phinehas, will not let it go without Reward. But while as a Minister of God, You Employ the Sword of Justice, to punish Drunkenness, both in the English, and the Indians, You do, with Holy Sorrow complain of it, that You cannot Reform the English, of their Impiety in feeding the Lust of Drunkenness among the Indians. You had an Hope, it seems, that some Offenders, whom the Sword of Justice cannot reach, may be reached by the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Your Desire to one, who would approve himself a Minister of God, in another Order, that he would write therefore a Letter to those Offenders, is here answered. The Writing of Episiles is indeed an Ancient and an Usesu way to Do Good; continued even to this Day in the Churches of the Faithful. And for the Rulers, to ask the Help of the Pastors, thus to Do Good, is an Example that has many charms in it. If You judge This may Do Good, among those who in deed are a sort of Sinners, that cannot be too Coarsely, or too Warmly addressed, it is entirely Left unto Your Wisdom, to Disperse it, How, and Where you please among them.   

TO THE ENGLISH, Who Ruin the INDIANS, by Selling Strong Drink unto them.  
HOW unaccountably, O Unadvised neighbours, And how much to our Sorrow, and our Horror, is that Observation of the Sacred Scripture verified, The Love of Money is the Root of all Evil: When to get so Little Money as is to be got by it, so Much Evil is committed, as we hear & see that some of you commit upon the Miserable INDIANS!  
'Tis well known that the Indians which yet remain in the Land, now to better purpose possessed and occupied by the English, in the room of the Twenty Nations of the Indians that once covered it, were utterly destitute of all Intoxicating Liquors, before the Arrival of the English hither. The Sovereign God, who hath provided for our Support in our Frailty, Liquid Cordials and Refreshments of all sorts, besides, Wines on the Lees well refined, furnished Them with nothing but Water out of the Brook, and this to be handed unto their mouths, not in Glasses, but in Clam Shells, But, as Drunkenness is most rare, in some Countries that most abound with a variety of the Richest Wines, wherewith men are easily Drunk, so, on the other side, there are none that Rave more after Strong Drink, than the people of those Countries that have it from far brought unto them; and perhaps the Ravingest after it, of any Wretches under the cope of Heaven, are our American Savages. They will Sell and Pawn all they have in the world for Strong Drink; they never can tell when they have enough, but keep guzzling until they have Drunk themselves down; and when they Awake whatever it have cost them, they say, I will seek it yet again. That which now gives inexpressible pain to all Good Men among us, is, That there are some Ill Men among the English in all corners of the Land, who to obtain a little bit of Money, do fit this vicious, drunken, sottish Humour of the Indians, and Sell them the Drink, by which they cannot but think the Savages will make themselves Drunk; and sometimes they take Advantage of the Humour which the Savages are in, to Screw them into Bargains full of cruel Oppression and Extortion, which afterwards throw them into the extremest Inconveniencies. I dare not Relate, how many Tuns of Strong Drink, I am credibly informed, have been brought and spent among the Indians, within a few months even in One Little Island.  
It seems none of the wholesome Laws, Enacted in the several Provinces & Colonies against this Wickekness, are enough to Restrain from the frequent perpetration of it, some that have the Fear neither of God, nor wan; The Wicked-Hunger after a Little Silver, makes many break thro' all Restraints. Who can think of this Impiety, without falling down in some Anguish before the Lord, and crying out, Oh! This people have Sinned a great Sin! But it is possible, that when the Sinful People, who Consider not what they do, in this Great Sin, have some Considerations livelily Laid before them, the Good Spirit of God accompanying thereof, may cause them to say, I have done Iniquity, I will do no more! and may keep others from falling into the like Iniquity. Now, Sirs, Let these Expostulations find some Entertainment with you: Oh, Harken to me, that God may Harken to you.  
It is the Endeavour of every Godly man, and it is a Quality inseparable from real Godliness, To do what may be done, for the Hindering of Sin in other men: And then to Lament and bewail the Sin that can't be Hindered. The man who does not Labour to Suppress and Prevent Sin in those that are about him, and who does not bewail the Sin that he can't prevent, is most certainly an Unconverted and an Unsanctified Man, and an Enemy of God. I pray then, what will you judge of yourselves, O ye Authors of the Indian Drunkenness? The Drunkenness whereby those forlorn Creatures do stumble into such horrible Pits of Sin, so far is it from its being your Grief, that you make it your Gain; and you are so far from doing all you can to Save them from their Sin, that you do what you can to Snare them in it. Monstrous Impiety! It is plain, That if you dare go on in this Impiety, you are yet in the Gall of Bitterness, and the Bond of Iniquity; & if you Die in this Unregenerate State, it had been Good for you, that you had never been Born.  
The man who does make himself Drunk, does make himself a Beast, yea, worse than a Beast, for a Beast ordinarily will not be Drunk. But when a man will pass on to make others Drunk, he does the part of a very Devil. The Devils, that are never Drunk themselves, never Show themselves more Devils, than when they push men on to Drunkenness. To Assist and Excite Others unto such a Sin, truly it looks very Diabolical. If you plead, That you don't compel the Indians to Drink, 'tis answer enough unto the plea, That you Permit them, you Invite them, and you know that if you Sell your Drink to them, they will be Drunk with it, and, they Buy it with that Intention. You must therefore know, That there is An having Fellowship with the Sins of other men, [Eph 5. 11.] And, [1 Tim. 5. 22] A being partaker of other men's Sins; by which you may contract an infinite Gild unto yourselves. When you supply the Indians, with the Drink, wherewith you are sensible, they will immediately Debauch themselves, You have a criminal Fellowship with the Sins of their Drunkenness, you are criminal partakers of the Sins whereinto they will be betrayed by their Drunkenness. The Gospel of God, commands you, [Tit. 2. 12.] To Live Soberly; And that commandment requires you to promote Sobriety, among your Neighbours, the Indians as well as others. The Gospel of God Instructs you, Gal 5. 23.] The Fruit of the Spirit is Temperance: And that Instruction directs you, to help your Neighbours to be Temperate, the Indians as well as others. The Gospel cautions you, [Eph. 5. 18.] Be not Drunk; and the Caution Forbids your being an Instrument of Drunkenness unto others, & even unto the Indians.  
Drunkenness is indeed a Complicated Sin. If one should Inquire, which of the Ten Precepts in the Law of God, are violated by Drunkenness, we may say, All the Ten, as well as the Third. And indeed, it not only unfits men to keep all the Laws of God, but also Inclines men to Break them all. If the Indians Transgress all the Laws of God by being Drunk, Then You, O unhappy Drink sellers, are also Transgressor's of all those Laws, in the Drunkenness of the Indians, whereto you have so directly contributed. And, for the English to do thus unto the Indians, is a Fault that has its peculiar Aggravations.  
Our Christian Profession obliges us, yea, and it has been our most Explicit Profession in these our American Settlements, To Civilize and Christianize the Savages. And is this the Christianity that you Teach them, Sirs? Even the Drunkenness, which they never Learned or Saw, till you, pretended Christians, Taught it unto them? They were Savages before; some few Rational men among them, do bitterly complain of it, that by the Drunkenness got in among them, they are made yet more Savages: A Drunken Indian, what is he but a very Centaur? I pray, What are you then that make them so? If our Lord Jesus Christ could say, Woe to you, that make a man twofold more the Child of Hell, Think of it, Sirs; The Indians were the Children of Hell before; but by their Drunkenness, they are twofold more so; for we are expressly told, Drunkards shall not Inherit the Kingdom of God. Now, what a dreadful symptom of your own Exclusion from that Kingdom do you procure unto yourselves, and whose Children will you declare yourselves at last, by the Assistance that you give unto the Drunkenness of those that are thereby confirmed in their having the Devil for their Father? woe to you, that make Indians twofold more the Children of Hell! Satan had a Strong Hold of these doleful Tawnies before; but by the Drunkenness, wherein you by your Strong Drink support them, there is no small Strength added thereunto, he holds them in the faster Chains of Darkness. Truly, Sirs, I will deal Freely with you, and you are a sort of Offenders, with whom the Sharpest Rebukes, can't be said to deal Harshly: no Freedom is to be counted Harshness. One well says, To Compliment Vice is next to Worshipping of the Devil! This miscarriage of yours must not be Complemented; The best that can be said of it, is, That you do no little Service for the Devil in what you do.  
There are Numberless Mischiefs, that unavoidably follow upon the Drunkenness, wherein the Indians, by your means confound themselves; Even all the Woes of Drunkenness. There is what is as bad as Rat's bane in the Drink that you Sell unto them; There's Death in the pot! They are Spoiled for all Employment and Business; and they that would not work before, now cannot work: their Drunkenness has made them Good for nothing. Their Health is Lost; and they often perish by other Disasters in their Drunkenness, confuting the Lying Proverb, A Drunken man gets no harm. Especially, when they are Drowned in Strong Drink, their Drink very frequently proves the occasion of their Drowning in the Water. Yea, some of them have been Tragically Burnt to Death, going from the Tortures of one Fire to another. And more than all This; 'Tis an usual thing for their Drunkenness to put them upon Bloody Quarrels, and those have sometimes issued in Bloody Murders. There may be a fearful Cry of Blood against you, beyond what you are ware, for the Drink that you have Sold. The paltry bit of Money that you have taken for a bottle of Rum, or a pot of Cider, may be the price of Blood! Fearful to be spoken! All these Mischiefs Lie at your Door, Ye Miserables, who Sell unto them the Drink, that will certainly. Open the Door to these Mischiefs: You are Accessary to them All. Can you think of it, without some Astonishment?  
But there is, what is yet more Astonishing. The Glorious Gospel of God is made woefully Unsuccessful among the Indians, especially by this Vice of Drunkenness getting in so much among them. The Gospel, which forbids Drunkenness under the dreadfullest penalties imaginable, how can it be welcome unto a Generation of Drunkards! There have been, and yet are Churches among our Indians; and, Peantamapaug, as they call themselves, or, men professing Religion; and if I mistake not, there are at this Time, above Thirty Assemblies of Indians, (tho' small ones) in one of our Provinces, that meet for the Worship of the Lord Jesus Christ. But it is the Lamentation of all Virtuous men, who behold it, and even of the Indians themselves, That the Evangelical Work is in extreme Danger of coming to nothing: The Good Order in their Churches is Languishing; The Christian Religion itself is like to be lost among them: That Great Work, which has been the Glory of New England, and which already too much comes too Little, is like e'er long utterly to Expire and Vanish; and indeed the Decays that have already prevailed upon it, are Deplorable. Yea, I tremble to write, what I have lately Read, That some Old men among the Indians, affirm, that when they were Heathens, many of them were not such great villains, as they are since they were Christians. Now, You Sellers of Drink to these Indians are the cause of all this Wretchedness. 'Tis the concurrent sense of all who have any knowledge of the Indian Affairs, That except a stop can be given unto your Ungodly Trade of Selling Drink unto the Indians, a Flood of Drunkenness, is like to Swallow up all that is good among them. And those Ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ, who are carrying unto the Indians, the Tidings of that Great Saviour, are Sighing, That they Labour in vain, and spend their strength for nought, because let them do what they can, Strong Drink does undo it all again; and there are [But whose Ministers are those, think you?] those that by Selling Drink unto these wild Creatures, do so deprave them, and stupify them, and bruitify them, 'tis impossible so much as to bestow a little Cicuration upon them, and reduce them from any part of their Barbarous Wildnesi. Now, if the Blessed Apostle, when he saw a Sorcerer withstand the passage and progress of the Word of God, could Set his Eyes on him, and say, [Act. 13. 10.] O full of all mischief, thou Child of the Devil, thou Enemy of all Righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? Certainly, the Servants of the Lord Jesus Christ, obstructed by your means in their Service to Him, and the Success of His Word, may say to such a Drink-Seller, O thou doer of unknown mischief, by bewitching the poor Indians against all Good by the Word of God; Why dost thou so much gratify the Devil, and show thy Enmity to all Righteousness, by making it impossible for the Indians to leave their old Indian Tracks, or to learn the right ways of the Lord? Even the French Missionaries cry, Shame, upon you, as Acosta long since did also upon his own Countrymen; and they who Teach Idolatry to the Indians, are Scandalised at it, that you Teach them Drunkenness: Both of them indeed are Damnable; but your part is far more inexcusable than Theirs; They Think, that they Save the Souls of the Pagans, you know that you Damn them.  
Can you now without some consternation Reflect upon the Scandal that you give? For a man to have the Blood of Souls to answer for; truly, 'tis a Tremendous Thing! Has that man himself any Interest in a CHRIST, or can he hope for it, who does what he can to keep others, Without Christ, and Without Hope? Did that man ever consent, that the Lord should Reign over himself, who does what he can, that the Lord may not Reign over others? Or will not the Lord in His just Vengeance Destroy those Enemies who thus would not have him to Reign? Is any one Sin yet pardoned unto that man, who does what he can, to keep others from seeking after the pardon of their Sin, and plunge them into more Sin? Is not that man yet under the formidable Wrath of God, who does what he can to keep others with that Wrath abiding on them, and from seeking to be delivered from the Wrath to come? Can that man preserve his own Soul, from the Hands of Satan, who does what he can to betray the Souls of others into the Hands of the fierce Destroyer? Shall he go to Heaven himself, who does what he can to keep others out of Heaven? To make Indians Drunk, is to do all of This; & to Sell them Drink, as they are known to be disposed, is to make them Drunk. The Souls of these Drunken Indians, will go down into the place of Torment; but whither will they go, think ye, and how horribly shall they be Tormented, that have brought them thither? That there is indeed a place of Torment in (Hades or) the Invisible World, for Ungodly men, is a thing visible, even to the Natural Conscience of every man. We see Ill men unjustly inflict most intolerable Torments on Good men; and if there be a just God, as we are sure there is, Reason & Conscience will say, there are as insufferable Torments to be suffered by those Ill men, in another world. The Indians do by Drunkenness prepare themselves for a worse portion of those Torments, than would otherwise have been Dispensed unto them from the infinite Vengeance of God: And you, by helping them to the Fuel of their Drunkenness, do but make yourselves a Fuel for those very Fires of the Divine Indignation in Hell, wherein They shall be ever making Satisfaction unto the Justice of Heaven. Will you then throw yourselves into those Everlasting Torments, where the Roaring Indians being made your Companions, will upbraid you, 'Tis you English men, that have brought us hither!  
But what Gains do you propose unto yourselves, by this Desperate Action? A few Pennies, or Shillings! The Souls, the Immortal Souls of the Indians, and your own Souls, into the Bargain, may then Cry out upon you, A Goodly price are we valued at, of them! I beseech you, Sirs, Don't set such a contemptible Price, upon a Precious and Immortal SOUL! Which if a man do lose, he is a sad Loser, though he have gained the whole World. And yet, I must also tell you, That even those little Gains, which you make by this vile Trade, will have a secret, but a speedy, Blast upon them:. You'd suddenly find, That you have gained nothing at all, but put all into a Bag with Holes. If it be (and that man is more an Atheist, than the very Devil that Articled against Job of old, who will not grant, that it is) The Blessing of God on the work of men's Hands, by which their substance is increased: you must Expect little Increase from the Trade of Selling Drink to the Indians; for you cannot expect the Blessing of God on the work of your Hands; It would be a Blasphemy for you to Ask or Look for His Blessing. It may be, you take Advantage froi the Insatiable Thirst of the Indians after Strong Drink, to Squeeze Rich Penn'oths out of them. This does but add unto your Iniquity; For that man is an Oppressor in his Deal, who does not conform to these two Golden Rules of Charity in them. First, To Deal by others as I would have them Deal by me; And, Next, To aim at the Good of those with whom I Deal, as well as at my own Wherefore, you do but Cheat the Indians, when you find the Madness of their Lust, lays them open unto your Tricks upon them, and then play upon them with such Tricks, as cause them, when they come unto themselves, even to Tear their own Hair for Madness. Go writ then, at the Foot of your unlawful Gains, those two Texts for the Sum Total of them: [1 Thes. 6.] Let no man go beyond, and defraud his Brother in ●●y matter, for God is the Avenger of all such. And, [Jer. 7. 11.] He that gets Riches, and not by Right, shall ●ave them in the midst of his Days, and at his End shall ●e a Fool. Inexcusable is your Blindness, if you done't ●ee, or, your Hardness if Seeing it, you are not Moved with That a wonderful Blast, and Curse from God, has been upon the Estates, that have been advanced by Indian Drunkeness. While the Preachers of Truth unto the Indians, have been Remarkably Blessed in their Estates, the Sellers of Drink unto them, have been as Remarkably Blasted. A strange Punishment has been upon those Workers of Iniquity; and the Treasures which they have gotten by their Iniquity, have been mere Treasures of Snow, very strangely Melted under the Burning Anger of God.  
And if the Holy God should be provoked, [which who fears not?] again to let the Indians be Intoxicated ●nto the Fury of making another War upon us, as the ●niquity of your Covetousness will doubtless be one of the principal Provocations, that procure so dire a Calamity, so you will be sure of no little Share in that Calamity. Be sure your Sin will find you out. as that of your Brethren in the East, has done Them, and their Trading Houses; the Objects on whom you have Sinned, may be the Agents by whom you shall be Plagued; and God may give you Blood to Drink, in Revenge of the Drink with which you have poisoned and ruined the Souls of them, that He will now Commission to be the Executioners of His Wrath upon you, even, a Wrath unto the uttermost.  
These are some of the Faithful Admonitions, which in the Name and Fear of God, were to be set before you. And for the Conclusion of them, I Admonish you to meditate on that awful Word of God, in  [Hab. 2. 15.] 
Woe to him, that gives his Neighbour Drink that puttest thy Bottle to him, and make● him. Drunken.  
Being then at length terrified, by the terrib●● Woe, which you have incurred, by Selling the Indians Drink, and putting your Bottle unto them, to make them Drunk, that you may get their Money or their Pelny, or perhaps their Corn from them I hope, you will even mingle your Tears with you Drink, for what you have done. I hope you will Fly to the Mercy of God, in the Blood o● the Lord Jesus Christ, that your Bloody Sin ma● be forgiven. I hope, you will Resolve to For bear the Detestable Trade for the Time to come and believe that there will be nothing Lost by Despising & Detesting the Gains of such a Trade  
The little that a Righteous man enjoys, with the peace of his own Conscience, will be far better than all the Riches of all the wicked man, that have gone to Enrich themselves, by Debauching the Thirsty Savages, who are never better pleased than in adding Drunkenness unto their Thirst.  
May the God of all Grace, now give a Gracious Effect unto this Advice, from, one who is, A Mourner for your Sin, and a wisher of your Salvation.