232 BOUQUET IN THE INDIAN COUNTRY. [17G4, Nov. 



moved. The roughest soldiers felt the contagious 

 sympathy, and softened into unwonted tenderness. 

 Among the children brought in for surrender, 

 there were some, who, captured several years be- 

 fore, as early, perhaps, as the French war, had lost 

 every recollection of friends and home. Terrified 

 by the novel sights around them, the flash and 

 glitter of arms, and the strange complexion of the 

 pale-faced warriors, they screamed and struggled 

 lustily when consigned to the hands of their rela- 

 tives. There were young women, too, who had 

 become the partners of Indian husbands ; and who 

 now, with all their hybrid ofl'spring, were led reluct- 

 antly into the presence of fathers or brothers whose 

 images were almost blotted from their memory. 

 They stood agitated and bewildered ; the revival 

 of old afl'ections, and the rush of dormant memories, 

 painfully contending with more recent attachments, 

 and the shame of their real or fancied disgrace ; 

 while their Indian lords looked on, scarcely less 

 moved than they, yet hardening themselves with 

 savage stoicism, and standing in the midst of their 

 enemies, imperturbable as statues of bronze. 

 These women were compelled to return with their 

 children to the settlements ; yet they all did so 

 with reluctance, and several afterwards made their 

 escape, eagerly hastening back to their warrior 

 husbands, and the toils and vicissitudes of an Indian 

 wigwam.^ 



1 Penn. Hist. Coll. 267. Haz. Pa. Reg. IV. 390. M'CuUoch, Narra- 

 tive. M'CuUoch was one of the prisoners surrendered to Bouquet. His 

 narrative first appeared in a pamphlet form, and has since been repub- 



