THE FALL OF NEW FRANCE 119 
rage called forth a proclamation from the governor, 
condemning the act and offering a reward for the ap- 
prehension of the persons concerned in it, while the 
survivors of the Conestoga massacre were hurried to 
Lancaster, and lodged in the jail there to get them 
out of harm’s way. The Paxton men, greatly incensed 
at what they considered the hostile action of the 
Quaker government, and determined not to be balked 
of their prey, galloped into Lancaster, broke into the 
jail, and murdered all the Indians who were sheltered 
there. In the rural districts these deeds were gener- 
ally excused as the acts of men goaded to desperation 
by unutterable wrongs; but in the cultivated Quaker 
society of Philadelphia they were regarded with horror, 
and contentions arose which were embittered by theo- 
logical prejudice, since the Paxton men were mostly 
Presbyterians of Scotch-Irish ancestry, and boldly justi- 
fied their conduct by texts from the Old Testament. 
As the excitement increased, the Paxton men, to the 
number of a thousand, marched on Philadelphia, with 
intent to overawe the government and to wreak their 
vengeance on an innocent party of Christian Indians 
who were quartered on an island a little below the 
city. There was great alarm in the city, but when the 
rioters arrived at Germantown, they saw that to cap- 
ture Philadelphia would far exceed their powers; and 
they listened to the wise counsel of Franklin, who ad- 
vised them to go home and guard the troubled frontier, 
a task for which none were better fitted than they. 
The danger of civil strife being thus averted, the flame 
of controversy burned itself out ina harmless pamphlet 
war, in which Quakers and Presbyterians heaped argu- 
ment and ridicule upon each other to their heart’s 
