41 
No. 125.] 
denouncing the most terrible war against all the hardened enemies of 
their king, and threatening to let loose the hordes of savages in his 
train, to search out in their coverts, and punish (hose who neglected 
putting themselves under his protection, the peril and alarm that per¬ 
vaded this district, can hotter be imagined than described. The in¬ 
habitants, however, remained in their dwellings until the tomahawk 
and scalping-knife had actually commenced executing their awful 
■work. The murder of Jane McCrea has resounded through the world. 
Strange as it may appear, other murders, simultaneously committed, 
which many will regard as still more horrid and atrocious, remain to 
this day untold in our country’s annals. One such is specified by 
Gen. Gates, in his letter to Burgoyne, complaining of the barbarities 
of his Indians, where, in connection with Miss McCrea’s murder, he 
says, “ Two parents with their six children were all treated with the 
same inhumanity, while quietly resting in their once happy and 
peaceful dwelling.” Burgoyne in his reply roundly asserts, “ The 
above instance, (of Miss McCrea) excepted, your intelligence respect¬ 
ing the cruelty of the Indians is false.” Seventy years have elapsed 
since this correspondence; and the whole world seems to have sup¬ 
posed that Burgoyne’s statement was correct. The particulars of the 
event alluded to by the American general, have all but passed into 
irretrievable oblivion. The plow, when it next courses over the 
ground, will obliterate forever the slight mark that yet indicates the 
spot, where in one grave, uncoffined and unshrouded, was hastily laid 
the gashed and gory corpses of a whole household! That Jane Mc¬ 
Crea, voluntarily leaving her brother’s house and placing herself up¬ 
on the very confines of the hostile encampment, should meet the aw¬ 
ful doom which she did, was a casualty imputable measurably to her 
own imprudence. But that a whole family, a loyalist family, the 
children and grandchildren of one of the leading loyalists of the town¬ 
ship, while at rest in their own tranquil home, secluded amid 
the hills and far away from the camp, should without any provoca¬ 
tion be suddenly massacred in cold blood, aye, and by the allies of 
that very king whom they loved so well—who so credulous as to 
give ear to such a tale; and who, believing it, could longer adhere 
to a cause blackened by such enormities'? Who could thereafter re¬ 
ly on Britain’s arm for safety, when the most confiding fell victims 
to Britain’s hirelings'? Whilst the murder of Jane McCrea, there¬ 
fore, was ringing through the country, it was of the utmost moment, 
that no tidings of this more heinous and revolting murder, should get 
out to the world. And occurring as it did, in the midst of a loyalist 
settlement, Burgoyne, we suppose, succeeded in smothering it so ef- 
