1763, July.] PAST TROUBLES. 203 



expedition. His example is one of many in which 

 the worst acts of Indian ferocity have been thrown 

 into shade by the enormities of white barbarians.^ 



Bouquet was now urging on his preparations for 

 his march into the valley of the Ohio. We have 

 seen how, in the preceding summer, he had been 

 embarrassed by what he calls '• the unnatural obsti- 

 nacy of the government of Pennsylvania/' '' It 

 disables us," he had written to the equally indig- 

 nant Amherst, " from crushing the savages on this 

 side of the lakes, and may draw us into a lingering 

 war, which might have been terminated by another 

 blow. ... I see that the whole burden of this war 

 will rest upon us ; and while the few regular troops 

 you have left can keep the enemy at a distance, 

 the Provinces will let them fight it out without 

 interfering." ^ 



Amherst, after vainly hoping that the Assembly of 

 Pennsylvania would " exert themselves like men," ^ 



1 Gordon, Hist. Penn. 625. Robison, Narrative. 



Extract from a MS. Letter — Sir W. Johnson to Governor Penn: — 



" Burnetsfield, June 18th, 1764, 



"David Owens was a Corporal in Capt. McClean's Compy., and lay 

 once in Garrison at my House. He deserted several times, as I am 

 informed, & went to live among the Delaware & Shawanese, with whose 

 language he was acquainted. His Father having been long a trader 

 amongst them. 



" The circumstances relating to his leaving the Indians have been 

 told me by several Indians. That he went out a hunting with his Indian 

 Wife and several of her relations, most of whom, with his Wife, he killed 

 and scalped as they slept. As he was always much attached to Indians, 

 I fancy he began to fear he was unsafe amongst them, & killed them 

 rather to make his peace with the English, than from any dislike either 

 to them or their principles." 



'i MS. Letter — Bouquet to Amherst, 15 Sept. 1763. 



3 "If the present situation of the poor famihes who have abandoned 

 their settlements, and the danger that the whole province is threatened 



