42 THE WAR ON THE BORDERS. [1763, July. 



The scenes which daily met his eye might well 

 have moved him to pity as well as indignation. 

 When he reached Carlisle, at the end of June, he 

 found every building in the fort, every house, 

 barn, and hovel, in the little town, crowded with 

 the families of settlers, driven from their homes by 

 the terror of the tomahawk. Wives made widows, 

 children made orphans, wailed and moaned in 

 anguish and despair. On the thirteenth of July 

 he wrote to Amherst : " The list of the people 

 known to be killed increases very fast every hour. 

 The desolation of so many families, reduced to the 

 last extremity of want and misery ; the despair of 

 those who have lost their parents, relations, and 

 friends, with the cries of distracted women and 

 children, who fill the streets, — form a scene painful 

 to humanity, and impossible to describe." ^ Eage 

 alternated with grief. A Mohican and a Cayuga 

 Indian, both well known as friendly and peaceable, 

 came with their squaws and children to claim pro- 

 tection from the soldiers. " It was with the utmost 

 difficulty," pursues Bouquet, " that I could prevail 

 with the enraged multitude not to massacre them. 

 I don't think them very safe in the gaol. They 

 ought to be removed to Philadelphia." 



Bouquet, on his part, was full of anxieties. On 

 the road from Carlisle to Fort Pitt was a chain of 

 four or five small forts, of which the most advanced 

 and the most exposed were Fort Bedford and Fort 



1 This is the letter in which he accepts Amherst's proposal to infect 

 the Indians. His just indignation at the atrocities which had caused so 

 much misery is his best apology. 



