Digital Paxton: Digital Collection, Critical Edition, and Teaching Platform

Apology of the Paxton Volunteers - 7

If these things are not sufficient to prove an unjustifiable Attachment in the Quakers to Indian Savages, a fixed Resolution to befriend them & an utter Insensibility to human Distresses, let us consider a few more recent Facts. When we found the last Summer that we were likely to get no assistance from the Govt. some Voluntiers went out at our own Expence determined to drive our Enemies from our Borders; & when we came to the great Island, we understood that a Number of their Wariors had gone out against our Frontiers. Upon this we returned & came up with them & fought with them at Munsey Hill where we lost some of our men, & killed some of their Wariors and thereby saved our Frontiers from this stroke in another Expedition. But no sooner had we destroyed their Provisions on the great Island, & ruined their Trade with the good people at Bethlehem, but these very Indians who were justly suspected of having murdered our Friends in Northhampton County, were by the Influence of some Quakers taken under the Protection of the govt. to screen them from the Resentments of the Friends & Relations of the murdered, & to support them thro’ the Winter, Many hundred Pounds were readily granted for the Support of about one hundred & twenty of these Enemies; when three hundred Pounds were charitably voted for the Relief of more than four thousand Persons, that were driven from their Habitations & destitute of necessaries of Life. Is this not glaring Partiality in Favour of Indian Enemies? When were any Surgeons sent by the Quakers to cure our Wounded on the Frontiers? and did not some of them send a Doctor even to Fort Augusta to cure a Wounded Indian? Nay when we came down to Germantown to remonstrate against the Government’s supporting our Enemies at the public Expence; did not the Quakers openly pull off the Mask & take up Arms to defend them against us, when they suspected that we designed to kill them. These Persons must love the Indians very much when they would even sacrifice their Religion & Consciences for them, which they would not do for their King & Country. But this is not all: did they not apply to the Governour to send an Express to all the Enemy Indians to let them know, that altho’ we came to Philadelphia to destroy their Friends in the Baracks, the Citizens had armed in their Defence, so that they were still alive & safe? ‘Tis true that the Pretence

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