1763, July.] ATTACK OF i^ORT PITT. 25 



The chiefs departed, much displeased with their 

 reception. Though nobody in his senses could 

 blame the course pursued by Captain Ecuyer, and 

 though the building of forts in the Indian country 

 could not be charged as a crime, except by the 

 most overstrained casuistry, yet we cannot refrain 

 from sympathizing with the intolerable hardship 

 to which the progress of civilization subjected the 

 unfortunate tenants of the wilderness, and which 

 goes far to extenuate the perfidy and cruelty that 

 marked their conduct throughout the whole course 

 of the war. 



Disappointed of gaining a bloodless possession 

 of the fort, the Indians now% for the first time, 

 began a general attack. On the night succeeding 

 the conference, they approached in great numbers, 

 under cover of the darkness, and completely sur- 

 rounded it ; many of them crawling under the 

 banks of the two rivers, and, with incredible per- 

 severance, digging, with their knives, holes in 

 which they were completely sheltered from the fire 

 of the fort. On one side, the whole bank was 

 lined with these burrows, from each of which a 

 bullet or an arrow was shot out whenever a soldier 

 chanced to expose his head. At daybreak, a 

 general fire was opened from every side, and con- 

 tinued without intermission until night, and through 

 several succeeding days. No great harm was done, 

 however. The soldiers lay close behind their para- 

 pet of logs, watching the movements of their subtle 

 enemies, and paying back their shot with interest. 

 The red uniforms of the Royal Americans mingled 

 with the gray homespim of the border riflemen, or 



