FROM PHILADELPHIA 149 



More stringent measures, apparently, were adopted by 

 the Canadian Indians, allies of the English. During 

 the first days of August 1781 a message, with a wam- 

 pum-string, was sent the Moravian Indians by the 

 so-called half-king or chief of the Wyandots : " that 

 ' a great number of warriors were coming, but they 

 ' should have no fear for he was their friend and was 

 ' coming himself." After a few days 200 warriors 

 appeared. The chiefs and all the heads of families 

 from the three villages were summoned and it was an- 

 nounced to them, ' They had come to take them away, 

 ' because the Brethren and their Indians were in their 

 " way, and a great hindrance to them in their expedi- 

 ' tions of war." To this unexpected outgiving the 

 Moravian Indians made answer : : That they held it 

 " impossible at that season of the year to undertake 

 ' such a journey, because they should have to leave 

 " behind their grain and so could look for nothing for 

 * their children but death from hunger in the wilder- 

 ' ness." The leader of the Wyandots and his council 

 appeared disposed to grant the reasonableness of these 

 views. The warriors were already making prepara- 

 tions for the return journey but certain Englishmen 

 who were of the company egged them on to carry out 

 their first intention, and now towards the end of Au- 

 gust or the first of September the Moravian Indians 

 were compelled to leave their three settlements, the 

 Wyandots having burned their fences, killed their 

 cattle, and done much other mischief so as to hasten 

 their going. After a tiresome journey of four weeks 

 through the wilderness all the inhabitants of the three 

 villages came to an arm of the Sandusky river which 

 flows into Lake Erie. Here they were to remain and 



