Having obtained my furlough, I immediately set out for Pennsylvania, and arriving at Philadelphia found the consternation and terror of the inhabitants was greatly increased to what it was when I left them. They had made several treaties of friendship with the Indians, who, when well supplied with arms, ammunition, clothes, and other necessaries, through the pacific measures and defenceless state of the Philadelphians, soon revolted to the French, and committed great ravages on the back parts of the province, destroying and massacring men, women, and children, and every thing that unhappily lay in their way.
A few instances of which, together with the behaviour of the Philadelphians on these occasions, I shall here present the reader with, who, of whatever sect or profession, I am well assured, must condemn the pacific disposition, and private factions that then reigned, not only in the assembly, but among the magistrates them selves; who were a long time before they could agree on proper petitions, to rouse the assembly from the lethargic and inactive condition they absolutely remained in.
[Of course, it was mostly Irish and Scotch slaves that were being massacred, so why would there be a sense of urgency?]
For, about the middle of October, a large body of Indians, chiefly Shawonoese, Delawares, etc. fell upon this province from several quarters, almost at the same instant murdering, burning, and laying waste all wherever they came; so that in the five counties of Cumberland, York, Lancaster, Berks., and Northampton, which compose more than half the province, nothing but scenes of destruction and desolation were to be seen.
The damages which these counties had sustained by the desertion of plantations is not to be reckoned up, nor are the miseries of the poor inhabitants to be described; many of whom, though escaping with life, were, without a moment's warning, driven from these habitations, where they enjoyed every necessary of life, and were then exposed to all the severity of a hard winter, and obliged to solicit their very bread at the cold hand of charity, or perish with hunger, under the inclement air.
To these barbarities I have already mentioned, I cannot pass over the following, as introductory causes of the Philadelphians at last withstanding the outrages of the barbarians.
At Guadenhutten, a small Moravian settlement in Northampton county, the poor unhappy sufferers were sitting round their peaceful supper, when the Inhuman murderers, muffled in the shades of night, dark and horrid as the infernal purposes of their diabolical souls, stole upon them, butchered, scalped them, and consumed their bodies, together with their horses, stock, and upwards of sixty head of fat cattle (intended for the subsistence of the brethren at Bethlehem), all in one general flame; so that next morning furnished only a melancholy spectacle of their mingled ashes.
At the Great Cove in Cumberland, at Tulpehockon in Berks, and in several other places, their barbarities were still greater, if possible. Men, women, children, and brute beasts, shared one common destruction; and where they were not burnt to ashes, their mangled limbs were found promiscuously thrown upon the ground; those appertaining to the human form scarce to be distinguished from the brute!
But, of all the instances of the barbarities I heard of in these parts, I could not help being most affected with the following: One family, consisting of the husband, his wife, and a child only a few hours old were all found murdered and scalped in this manner: The mother stretched on the bed, with her new-born child horribly mangled and put under her head for a pillow, while the husband lay on the ground hard by, with his belly ript up, and his bowels laid open.
In another place, a woman, with her sucking child, finding that she had fallen into the hands of the enemy, fell flat on her face, prompted by the strong call of nature to cover and shelter her innocent child with her own body. The accursed savage rushed from his lurking place, struck her on the head with his tomahawk, tore off her scalp, and scoured back into the woods, without observing the child, being apprehensive that he was discovered.
The child was found some time afterwards under the body of its mother, and was then alive.
Many of their young women were carried by the savages into captivity, reserved perhaps for a worse fate than those who suffered death in all its horrid shapes; and no wonder, since they were reserved by savages, whose tender mercies might be counted more cruel than their very cruelty itself.
Yet even during all this time, this province (had things been properly ordered) need but, in comparison to her strength, have lifted her foot and crushed all the French force on their borders; [For the Indians were the hired police force and military used to keep the servants in line in peace time.] but unused to such undertakings, and bound by non- resisting principles from exerting her strength, and involved in disputes with the proprietors, they stood still, vainly hoping the French would be so moderate as to be content with their victory over Braddock, or at least confine their attacks to Virginia; but they then saw and felt all this was delusion, and the barbarities of the Indian parties headed by French officers: Notwithstanding all which, they continued in domestic debates, without a soldier in pay, or a penny in the treasury. In short, if the enemy had then had but 1500 men at the Ohio, and would have attempted it, no rashness could have been perceived in their marching down to the city of Philadelphia.
[The fact that Peter and other Pennsylvania volunteers had been marched off to New England, with the ashes of Indian raids not yet cold, is telling in regard to the English confidence in their ability to buy off the Indians. However, at this time, French officers, conversant in Indian languages and customs, were pointing out to the Indians that while they, the French, only sought to trade furs and live in small posts, that the English were intent on transforming the land by hewing down the entire forest and cultivating it in such a way as to make the land useless to the natives and easily defensible by the colonists. Do note that the normal English policy of buying off Indians and using them as police and proxy military forces was relied upon to an irrational extent by the largely Quaker assembly of Philadelphia.]
