1763.] THE MORAVIAN CONVERTS. 129 



After the massacre at Conestoga, the excitement 

 in the frontier counties, far from subsiding, in- 

 creased in violence daily ; and various circumstances 

 conspired to inflame it. The principal of these 

 was the course pursue'd by the provincial govern- 

 ment towards the Christian Indians attached to the 

 Moravian missions. Many years had elapsed since 

 the Moravians began the task of converting the 

 Indians of Pennsylvania, and their steadfast energy 

 and regulated zeal had been crowned with suc- 

 cess. Several thriving settlements of their con- 

 verts had sprung up in the valley of the Lehigh, 

 when the opening of the French war, in 1755, 

 involved them in unlooked-for calamities. These 

 unhappy neutrals, between the French and Indians 

 on the one side, and the English on the other, 

 excited the enmity of both ; and while from the 

 west they were threatened by the hatchets of their 

 own countrymen, they were menaced on the east 

 by the no less formidable vengeance of the white 

 settlers, who, in their distress and terror, never 

 doubted that the Moravian converts were in league 

 with the enemy. The popular rage against them 

 at length grew so furious, that their destruction 

 was resolved upon. The settlers assembled and 

 advanced against the Moravian community of 

 Gnadenhutten ; but the French and Indians gained 



for vengeance. As a Ranger, I sought the post of clanger, and now you 

 ask my life. Let me be tried where prejudice has not prejudged my case. 

 Let my brave Rangers, who have stemmed the blast nobly, and never 

 flinched ; lot them have an equitable trial ; they were my friends in the 

 hour of danger — to desert them now were cowardice ! What remains is 

 to leave our cause with our God, and our guns." 



VOL. II. 9 



