30 



October 23d, 1763. 



DEAR PETER ***** 



** ****** 



The most probable, and only method to establish a lasting peace 

 with the barbarous Indians, is to bang them stoutly, and make, 

 them sensible that we are men whom they for many years 

 despised as women ; until then, it is only throwing away men, 

 blood, and treasure, to make peace with them. They will not 

 keep to any treaty of peace. They all are, with their fathers, 

 the French, resolved to drive the English out of North America. 

 And although some tribes pretend to be neutral friends, it is only 

 with a design to supply the rest with ammunition to murder us. 

 Perhaps now, and only now, is the critical time offered to 

 Britain to secure not only her old possessions, but her so much 

 boasted new acquisitions, in sending us sufficient supplies to 

 repel effectually those barbarous savages." 



PETER COLLINSON TO JOHN BARTRAM. 



" Ridgeway House, December 6, 17 C3. 



"I am here retired, all alone, from the bustle and hurry of 

 the town, meditating on the comforts I enjoy ; and while the 

 old log is burning, the fire of friendship is blazing warms my 

 imagination with reflecting on the variety of incidents that hath 

 attended our long and agreeable correspondence. 



" My dear John, thou dost not consider the law of right, and 

 doing to others as we would be done unto. 



" We, every manner of way, trick, cheat, and abuse these 

 Indians with impunity. They were notoriously jockeyed and 

 cheated out of their land in your province, by a man walking a 

 tract of ground in one day, that was to be purchased of them. 



" Your Governor promised the Indians, if they would not join 

 the French, that when the war was over our troops would with- 

 draw from Pittsburg. They sent to claim this promise, but 

 were shuffled off. They resented it, as that fortress was situated 

 on their hunting country. 



" I could fill this letter with our arbitrary proceedings, all the 

 colonies through ; with our arbitrary, illegal taking their lands 



