Blankets from Yahoo

[the Robot Vegetable]

This reference is from _American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A
Population History Since 1492_ by Russell Thornton, 1987 (Norman: U.  of
Oklahoma Pr.) pp.78-79:

"It is also during the eighteenth century that we find written reports of
American Indians being intentionally esposed to smallpox by Europeans. 
In 1763 in Pennsylvania, Sir Jeffrey Amherst, commander of the British
forces....wrote in the postscript of a letter to Bouquet the suggestion
that smallpox be sent among the disaffected tribes. Bouquet replied, also
in a postscript, "I will try to innoculate the[m]...with some blankets
that may fall into their hands, and take care not get the disease myself."
....To Bouquet's postscript, Amherst replied, "You will do well as to try
to innoculate the Indians by means of blankets as well as to try every
other method that can serve to extirpate this exorable race." On June 24,
Captain Ecuyer, of the Royal Americans, noted in his journal: "Out of our
regard for them (i.e. two Indian chiefs) we gave them two blankets and a
handkerchief out of the smallpox hospital. I hope it will have the desired
effect." (quoted from Stearn, E. and Stearn, A.  "Smallpox Immuninzation
of the Amerindian." _Bulletin of the History of Medicine_13:601-13.)