1764.] MEMORIALS OF THE PAXTON MEN. 153 



those counties where the Quaker interest prevailed 

 sent to the Assembly more than their due share of 

 representatives. The memorialists bitterly com- 

 plained of a law, then before the Assembly, by 

 which those charged with murdering Indians were 

 to be brought to trial, not in the district where the 

 act was committed, but in one of the three eastern 

 counties. They represented the Moravian converts 

 as enemies in disguise, and denounced the policy 

 which yielded them protection and support while 

 the sick and wounded of the frontiers were cruelly 

 abandoned to their misery. They begged that a 

 suitable reward might be offered for scalps, since 

 the want of such encouragement had " damped 

 the spirits of many brave men." iVngry invectives 

 against the Quakers succeeded. To the " villany, 

 infatuation, and influence of a certain faction, that 

 have got the political reins in their hands, and 

 tamely tyrannize over the other good subjects of 

 the province," were to be ascribed, urged the 

 memorialists, the intolerable evils which afflicted 

 the people. The Quakers, they insisted, had held 

 private treaties with the Indians, encouraged them 

 to hostile acts, and excused their cruelties on the 

 charitable plea that this was their method of mak- 

 ing war. 



The memorials were laid before a committee, 

 who recommended that a public conference should 

 be held with Smith and Gibson, to consider the 

 grounds of complaint. To this the governor, in 

 view of the illegal position assumed by the fron- 

 tiersmen, would not give his consent ; an assertion 



