1763, July.] SCENES AT CARLISLE. 53 



a most deplorable spectacle. A multitude of the 

 refugees, unable to find shelter in the town, had 

 encamped in the woods or on the adjacent fields, 

 erecting huts of branches and bark, and living on 

 such charity as the slender means of the towns- 

 people could supply. Passing among them, one 

 would have witnessed every form of human misery. 

 In these wretched encampments w^ere men, women, 

 and children, bereft at one stroke of friends, of 

 home, and the means of supporting life. Some 

 stood aghast and bewildered at the sudden and 

 fatal blow ; others were sunk in the apathy of 

 despair ; others were weeping and moaning with 

 irrepressible anguish. With not a few, the craven 

 passion of fear drowned all other emotion, and day 

 and night they were haunted with visions of the 

 bloody knife and the reeking scalp ; while in others, 

 every faculty was absorbed by the burning thirst 

 for vengeance, and mortal hatred against the whole 

 Indian race.^ 



house, ffom town to town. The road was near covered with women and 



children, flying to Lancaster and Philadelphia. The Rev. , 



Pastor of the Episcopal Church, went at the head of his congregation, to 

 protect and encourage them on the way. A few retired to the Breast 

 works for safety. The alarm once given could not be appeased. We 

 have done all that men can do to prevent disorder. All our hopes are 

 turned upon Bouquet." 



1 Extract from a Letter— Carlisle, July 12 {Penn. Gaz. No. 1804) : — 

 " I embrace this first Leisure, since Yesterday Morning, to transmit 

 you a brief Account of our present State of Affairs here, which indeed is 

 very distressing ; every Day, almost, affording some fresh Object to 

 awaken the Compassion, alarm the Fears, or kindle into Resentment and 

 Vengeance every sensible Breast, while flying Families, obliged to aban- 

 don House and Possession, to save their Lives by an hasty Escape; 

 mourning Widows, bewailing their Husbands sm-prised and massacred by 

 savage Rage ; tender Parents, lamenting the Fruits of their own Bodies, 

 cropt in the very Bloom of Life by a barbarous Hand ; with Relations 



