26 The Winning of the West 



ton, advocated the employment of the savages. They 

 thereby became participants in the crimes com- 

 mitted; and it was idle folly for them to prate 

 about having bidden the savages be merciful. The 

 sin consisted in having let them loose on the bor- 

 ders; once they were let loose it was absolutely 

 impossible to control them. Moreover, the British 

 sinned against knowledge; for some of their high- 

 est and most trusted officers on the frontier had 

 written those in supreme command, relating the 

 cruelties practiced by the Indians upon the defence- 

 less, and urging that they should not be made allies, 

 but rather that their neutrality only should be se- 

 cured. 7 The average American backwoodsman was 

 quite as brutal and inconsiderate a victor as the 

 average British officer; in fact, he was in all like- 

 lihood the less humane of the two ; but the English- 

 man deliberately made the deeds of the savage his 

 own. Making all allowance for the strait in which 

 the British found themselves, and admitting that 

 much can be said against their accusers, the fact re- 

 mains that they urged on hordes of savages to 

 slaughter men, women, and children along the en- 

 tire frontier; and for this there must ever rest a 

 dark stain on their national history. 



Hamilton organized a troop of white rangers 

 from among the French, British, and tories at De- 

 troit. They acted as allies of the Indians, and fur- 

 nished leaders to them. Three of these leaders were 



7 E.g. in Haldimand MSS. Lieut. -Gov. Abbott to General 

 Carleton, June 8, 1778. 



