1763.] SUFFERINGS OF CAPTIVES. 91 



had already left the valley in shadow. Before 

 many hours elapsed, the night was lighted up with 

 the glare of blazing dwellings, and the forest rang 

 with the shrieks of the murdered inmates.^ 



Among the records of that day's sufferings and 

 disasters, none are more striking than the narratives 

 of those whose lives were spared that they might 

 be borne captive to the Indian villages. Exposed 

 to the extremity of hardship, they were urged for- 

 ward with the assurance of being tomahawked or 

 burnt in case their strength should fail them. Some 

 made their escape from the clutches of their tor- 

 mentors ; but of these not a few found reason to 



1 Extract from a MS. Letter — Jliomas Cresap to Governor Sharpe: — 



" Old Town, July loth, 1763. 

 " May it please y Excellency : 



" I take this opportunity in the height of confusion to acquaint you 

 with our unhappy and most wretched situation at this time, being in 

 hourly expectation of "being massacred by our barbarous and inhuman 

 enemy the Indians, we having been three days successively attacked by 

 them, viz. the 13th, 14th, and this instant. ... I have enclosed a list 

 of the desolate men and women, and children who have fled to my house, 

 which is enclosed by a small stockade for safety, by which you see what 

 a number of poor souls, destitute of every necessary of life, are here 

 penned up, and likely to be butchered without immediate relief and 

 assistance, and can expect none, unless from the province to which they 

 belong. I shall submit to your wiser judgment the best and most effec- 

 tual metliod for such relief, and shall conclude with hoping we shall have 

 it in time." 



Extract from a Letter — Frederick Town, July 19, 1763 {Penn. Gaz. 

 No. 1807): — 



" Every Day, for some Time past, has offered the melancholy Scene 

 of poor distressed Families driving downwards, through this Town, with 

 their Effects, who have deserted their Plantations, for Fear of falling into 

 the cruel Hands of our Savage Enemies, now daily seen in the Woods. 

 And never was Panic more general or forcible than that of the Back 

 Inhabitants, whose Terrors, at this Time, exceed what followed on the 

 Defeat of General Braddock, when the Frontiers lay open to the Incur- 

 sions of both French and Indians." 



