150 EIOTERS MARCH ON PHILADELPHIA. [1764, Feb. 



party proceeded to the barracks, where they re- 

 quested to see the Indians, declarmg that they could 

 point out several who had been in the battle against 

 Colonel Bouquet, or engaged in other acts of open 

 hostility. The request was granted, but no discov- 

 ery made. Upon this, it was rumored abroad that 

 the Quakers had removed the guilty individuals to 

 screen them from just punishment ; an accusation 

 which, for a time, excited much ill blood between 

 the rival factions. 



The thirty frontiersmen withdrew from the city, 

 and soon followed the example of their compan- 

 ions, who had begun to move homeward, leaving 

 their leaders, Smith and Gibson, to adjust their 

 differences with the government. Their departure 

 gave great relief to the people of the neighborhood, 

 to whom they had, at times, conducted themselves 

 after a fashion somewhat uncivil and barbarous ; 

 uttering hideous outcries, in imitation of the war- 

 whoop ; knocking down peaceable citizens, and 

 pretending to scalp them ; thrusting their guns in 

 at windows, and committing unheard-of ravages 

 among hen-roosts and hog-pens.^ 



Though the city was now safe from all external 

 danger, contentions sprang up within its precincts, 

 w^hich, though by no means as perilous, were not 

 less clamorous and angry than those menaced from 

 an irruption of the rioters.^ The rival factions 



1 David Rittenhouse, in one of his letters, speaks with great horror of 

 the enormities committed by the Paxton Boys, and enumerates various 

 particulars of their conduct. See Barton, Mem. of Rittenhouse, 148. 



2 " Whether the Paxton men were ' more sinned against than sinning,* 

 was a question which was agitated with so much ardor and acrimony. 



