In the Current of the Revolution 327 



civilized regions. It was natural that such a con- 

 test should be waged with appalling ferocity. 



Nevertheless this very ferocity was not only in- 

 evitable, but it was in a certain sense proper; or, 

 at least, even if many of its manifestations were 

 blamable, the spirit that lay behind them was right. 

 The backwoodsmen were no sentimentalists; they 

 were grim, hard, matter-of-fact men, engaged all 

 their lives long in an unending struggle with hos- 

 tile forces, both human and natural; men who in 

 this struggle had acquired many unamiable quali- 

 ties, but who had learned likewise to appreciate 

 at their full value the inestimable virtues of courage 

 and common-sense. The crisis demanded that they 

 should be both strong and good; but, above all 

 things, it demanded that they should be strong. 

 Weakness would have ruined them. It was needful 

 that justice should stand before mercy; and they 

 could no longer have held their homes, had they 

 not put down their foes, of every kind, with an iron 

 hand. They did not have many theories; but they 

 were too genuinely liberty-loving not to keenly feel 

 that their freedom was jeopardized as much by 

 domestic disorder as by foreign aggression. 



The tories were obnoxious under two heads : they 

 were the allies of a tyrant who lived beyond the sea, 

 and they were the friends of anarchy at home. They 

 were felt by the frontiersmen to be criminals rather 

 than ordinary foes. They included fn their ranks 

 the mass of men who had been guilty of the two 

 worst frontier crimes horse-stealing and murder; 



