In the Current of the Revolution 333 



thus boasted of continually sending against the set- 

 tlements directed their efforts mainly, indeed almost 

 exclusively, not against bodies of armed men, but 

 against the husbandmen as they unsuspectingly tilled 

 the fields, and against the women and children who 

 cowered helplessly in the log-cabins. All men knew 

 that the prisoners who fell into Indian hands, of 

 whatever age or sex, often suffered a fate hideous 

 and revolting beyond belief and beyond description. 

 Such a letter as that quoted above makes the ad- 

 visers of King George the Third directly responsible 

 for the manifold and frightful crimes of their red 

 allies.^ 



It is small wonder that such a contest should 

 have roused in the breasts of the frontiersmen not 

 only ruthless and undying abhorrence of the Indians, 

 but also a bitterly vindictive feeling of hostility to- 

 ward Great Britain; a feeling that was all-powerful 

 for a generation afterward, and traces of which 

 linger even to the present day. Moreover, the In- 

 dian forays, in some ways, damaged the loyalist 

 cause. The savages had received strict instructions 

 not to molest any of the king's friends; 18 but they 

 were far too intent on plunder and rapine to dis- 

 criminate between whig and tory. . Accordingly 

 their ravages drove the best tories, who had at first 

 hailed the Indian advance with joy, into the .patriot 

 ranks, 19 making the frontier almost solidly whig; 

 save for the refugees, who were willing to cast in 

 their lot with the savages. 



18 Do. 19 "Am. Archives," 5th Series, I, 6icx 



