1763.] EFFECTS OF INDIAN HOSTILITIES. 117 



the heathen^ into an injunction that they should 

 exterminate the Indians. 



The prevaiHng excitement was not confined to 

 the vulgar. Even the clergy and the chief magis- 

 trates shared it ; and while they lamented the excess 

 of the popular resentment, they maintained that 

 the general complaints were founded in justice. 

 Viewing all the circumstances, it is not greatly to 

 be wondered at that some of the more violent class 

 were inflamed to the commission of atrocities which 

 bear no very favorable comparison with those of 

 the Indians themselves. 



It is not easy for those living in the tranquillity 

 of polished life fully to conceive the depth and 

 force of that unquenchable, indiscriminate hate, 

 which Indian outrages can awaken in those who 

 have sufl'ered them. The chronicles of the Amer- 

 ican borders are filled with the deeds of men, who, 

 having lost all by the merciless tomahawk, have 

 lived for vengeance alone ; and such men will never 

 cease to exist so long as a hostile tribe remains 

 within striking distance of an American settlement.^ 

 Never was this hatred more deep or more general 

 than on the Pennsylvania frontier at this period ; 

 and never, perhaps, did so many collateral causes 

 unite to inflame it to madness. It was not long 

 in finding a vent. 



Near the Susquehanna, and at no great distance 



1 " And when the Lord thy God shall deUver them before thee, thou 

 shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them ; thou shalt make no covenant 

 with them, nor show mercy unto them." — Deuteronomy, vii. 2. 



2 So promising a theme has not escaped the notice of novelists, and it 

 has been adopted by Dr. Bird in his spirited story of Nick of the Woods. 



