1764, Feb.] TREATY WITH THE RIOTERS. 149 



though falsely represented as enemies of govern- 

 ment, were in fact its friends, entertaining no worse 

 design than that of gaining relief to their suffer- 

 ings, without injury to the city or its inhabitants. 

 The people, ill satisfied with what they heard, 

 returned in no placid temper to their homes. ^ On 

 the morrow, the good effect of the treaty was appar- 

 ent in a general reopening of schools, shops, and 

 warehouses, and a return to the usual activity of 

 business, which had been wholly suspended for 

 some days. The security was not of long duration. 

 Before noon, an uproar more tumultuous than ever, 

 a cry to arms, and a general exclamation that the 

 Paxton Boys had broken the treaty and were enter- 

 ing the town, startled the indignant citizens. The 

 streets were filled in an instant with a rabble of 

 armed merchants and shopmen, who for once were 

 fully bent on slaughter, and resolved to put an 

 end to the long-protracted evil. Quiet was again 

 restored ; when it was found that the alarm was 

 caused by about thirty of the frontiersmen, who, 

 with singular audacity, were riding into the city 

 on a visit of curiosity. As their deportment was 

 inoffensive, it was thought unwise to molest them. 

 Several of these visitors had openly boasted of the 

 part they had taken in the Conestoga murders, 

 and a large reward had been offered for their 

 apprehension ; yet such was the state of factions 

 in the city, and such the dread of the frontiersmen, 

 that no man dared lay hand on the criminals. The 



1 Barton, Memoirs of Rittenhouse, 148. Rupp, Hist. York and Lancaster 

 Counties, 362. 



