A Beautiful Speech

The Natchez Free Trader contains a report of the speech of Col. Cobb, the celebrated half-breed chief of the Choctaws, made in reply to J. J. McRae, Esq., the agent for enrolling and emigrating the Indians to the West of the Mississippi, who had made a speech to the Indians,

about one thousand in number, assembled at Hopahka, informing them that "their council fire scould [should?] no more be kindled there;" that "their warriors can have no field for their glory, and that their spirits will decay within them;" and that if they should "take the hand of their great father, the President, which is now offered to them to lead them to their western homes, then will their hopes be higher, their destinies higher."

The Natchez Courier appropriately says of this bit of eloquence that, for comprehensivness and brevity, for beauty of diction and force, for affecting sublimity and propriety of sentiment, we have never seen any production to exceed it. We publish it as a composition worthy to be preserved.