24 The Winning of the West 



plainly that he lied. Their message is noteworthy, 

 because, after expressing a firm belief that the Vir- 

 ginian leader could control his warriors, and stop 

 the outrages if he wished, it added that the Shawnee 

 headmen were able to do the like with their own 

 men when they required it. This last allegation 

 took away all shadow of excuse from the Shawnees 

 for not having stopped the excesses of which their 

 young braves had been guilty during the past few 

 years. 



Though Conolly showed signs of flinching, his 

 master the earl had evidently no thought of shrink- 

 ing from the contest. He at once began actively 

 to prepare to attack his foes, and the Virginians 

 backed him up heartily, though the Royal Govern- 

 ment, instead of supporting him, censured him in 

 strong terms, and accused the whites of being the 

 real aggressors and the authors of the war. 38 



In any event, it would have been out of the ques- 

 tion to avoid a contest at so late a date. Immediate- 

 ly after the murders in the end of April, the savages 

 crossed the frontier in small bands. Soon all the 

 back country was involved in the unspeakable 

 horrors of a bloody Indian war, with its usual ac- 

 companiments of burning houses, tortured prison- 



88 Do., p. 774. Letter of the Earl of Dartmouth, Sept. 10, 

 1774. A sufficient answer, by the way, to the absurd charge 

 that Dunmore brought on the war in consequence of some 

 mysterious plan of the Home Government to embroil the 

 Americans with the savages. It is not at all improbable that 

 the Crown advisers were not particularly displeased at seeing 

 the attention of the Americans distracted by a war with the 

 Indians ; but this is the utmost that can be alleged. 



