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

Copy of a Letter From Charles Read - 3

ters stand on a right Footing, then these transactions must be enquired into; and would any Man in his Senses have such a Cloud hanging over him and his Estate, which would, by his own Rashness, be subjected to large Demands and Forfeitures to the Crown?

To have fallen on a Town of the Enemy Indians, and to have destroyed them and it, might have terrified the Indians, and lessened the Number of our Enemies; but such an inhuman Murder as that at Lancaster, can only serve to convince the World, that there are among us Persons more savage than Indians themselves. To be cruel in War, and while the Blood is in a high Ferment, is frequent; but to assemble at a Distance, to march many Miles with Intent, in cool Blood, to butcher defenceless People, who were placed where the Magistracy pleased to order them, was an amazing Depravation of every Sense of Virtue and Humanity.

Would Wars ever have an End, if every Person who had lost a Relative in it should exercise his own Judgment, and take away the Life of any In-

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