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Copy of a Letter From Charles Read - 8

taken the Field in Europe effect it. I should join heartily with the most forward to make the best Incursions we could into their Country, but to commit no more Slaughter there, than to bring them to a just Sense of their Mis­conduct, and make them, for the future, dread our Resentment, and learn to know that it was their real Interest to behave friendly to us, and cultivate our Regard for them. Things will, I think, clearly appear in this Light to any Person who will coolly and deliberately consider the Matter devoid of Passion or of Prejudice.

There must be many now in your Country, who have heard their Ancestors recount the Kindness with which the Indians treated them when it was in their Power to have destroyed the whole Number of English Settlers in a Day. They then fed them, and gave them all Kind of friendly Assistance; I hope their Descendants will now let Humanity, let Christianity prevail over them to return the Kindness, and not lay to the Charge of these poor distressed People the Actions of the remote Nations of Indians, to whom they are as much strangers as we are. When the Treachery of the Indians is represented, Circumstances bad in themselves may be exaggerated (tho’ I have no Doubt but too much is true) I beg you will guard your Neighbors against taking up Tales they may hear of these Indians, which when enquired into, may be found without any Foundation; if they misbehave, the Magistrates can punish them; therefore I cannot suppose that any will be so imprudent, by any Conduct of their own, to involve the Government into Difficulty, and themselves in invietable Ruin.

I am Gentlemen,
Your very humble Servant,
CHARLES READ.

Burlington, January
7, 1764.

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