[Edward Manning Ruttenber (1872)] the most impressive dignity. " No stranger could visit their councils without a sensation of respecxt." Law and justice, as civilized nations understand those terms, were to them unknown, yet both they had in a degree suited to their necessities. Assaults, murders, and other acts regarded as criminal offenses by all nations, were so regarded by them, but the execution of punishment was vested-in the injured family, who were constituted judges as well as executioners, in both the claim to antiquity and their none of the existing tribes in the north ancient position, in the great Algonquin and west, who are known to us personally, family of the Lenapcs. He says : " It who do not acknowledge the ancient Le-is believed that there are no members of napes under the title of grandfather." this generic family of tribes, certainly OF HUDSON'S RWER. 49 and who could grant pardons or accept atonements. The rights of property they understood and respected; and half their wars were retaliatory for the taking of their territory without making just and proper compensation. There was not a man among them that did not know the bounds of his own land as accu rately as though defined by a surveyor's chain. Their customs were their unwritten laws, more effective than those which fill the tomes of civilized governments, because taught to the people from infancy and woven into every condition and necessity of their being.