To the Chiefs and Warriors of the Six Nations: Brothers, In all my intercourse [strikethrough: acquaintance] with you, I have endeavoured to give you proof that I am your friend. Of this truth I trust you are well convinced. If then you believe me to be your friend, you will listen to my Talk; and if you think I have understanding to discern what is for your best good, you will attend to my advice. Brothers, I have often shown you what good things the white people enjoy, and explained how you also might enjoy them. You have answered, that what I told you was very good, and that you were willing to adopt the useful ways of the white people, by degrees; but that you could not lay aside your own customs all at once. This was a wise answer. It will be necessary for you to continue your hunting while the game is so plenty as to be worth pursuing. But you already know that the game is becoming scarce, and have reason to expect that in a few years more it will be gone. What then will you do to feed and clothe yourselves, your wives &c. Brothers, this is an important question. Think well upon it. The oldest hunters may perhaps find some game as long as they live but before the young men grow old, all the game will be destroyed. The young men, then, and the boys, should learn to get food and clothing without hunting. How are they to do this? By cultivating the ground, as the white people do. For with what grows out of the ground, they can purchase all other necessaries. If you make fences to inclose many fields, you can then farm, by raising corn, wheat and hay in abundance, to feed your families, and as many cattle & hogs as you may; and the cattle & hogs will give you more meat than you could ever obtain by hunting, even when game was plentiful. Now, Brothers, I have the great pleasure to inform you, that your good friend the Quakers have formed a wise plan to show your young men & boys the most useful practice of the white people. They will choose some prudent, good men to instruct them. Those good men will do this only for the love they bear to you their fellow men, as children of the Great Spirit, whom they desire to please, & who will be pleased with the good they do to you. The Quakers and the good men they employ, will ask nothing from you, neither land, nor money, nor skins, nor furs, for all the good they will render to you. They will require only your consent, and the attention of the young men & boys, to learn what will be so useful. Brothers, If this first attempt succeed, the way will be opened in which your young people may learn other useful practices of the white people, so as to enable them to supply all their own wants. And such as choose it, may learn to read and write. Having thus explained to you the plan of your friend the Quakers, I conclude with heartily recommending it to your adoption, as better calculated to procure lasting and essential benefits to your nations than any plan ever before attempted. Wishing it great success, I remain your friend & brother Timothy Pickering. Philadelphia February 15. 1796.