The Conduct of the Paxton Men Impartially Represented - 17
A mighty Noise and Hubbub has been made about killing a few Indians in Lancaster-County; and even Philosophers and Legislators have been employed to raise the Holloo upon those that killed them; and to ransack Tomes and Systems, Writers ancient and modern, for Proofs of their Guilt and Condemnation! And what have they proved at last? Why, that they WHITE SAVAGES of Paxton and Donnegall have violated the Laws of Hospitality! I can sincerely assure the ingenious and worthy Author of the NARRATIVE, that a Shock of Electricity would have been a much more sensible Effect upon these People than all the Arguments and Quotations he has produced.
For my own Part, I utterly abhor and disclaim every Act and Species of Cruelty, and I do solemnly declare, that I disapprove of the Manner of killing the Indians at Lancaster, as it was a Kind of Insult to the Civil Magistrates, and an Encroachment upon the Peace and Quiet of that Town; and i wish that the Women and Little ones at least, could have been spared.------But no doubt the Actors in that Affair, thought with the Friend Bishop, whom I quoted before, that the best Way was, while their Hands were in, to kill all, “left out of the SERPENT’s EGG, there should come a COCKATRICE, and his Fruit should be a fiery flying SERPENT.”
However, Matters of this Kind will always be told with shocking Aggravations---- I am persuaded had not Things been misrepresented, some Circumstances in the Narrative would never have been sent into the WORLD.
The Public have indeed received there a very amiable Character of these Indians, and have been told that “The Universal Concern of the neighbouring white People on hearing of their being killed, cannot well be expressed.” Now I have been frequently inform’d, for many Years, by sundry of their nearest Neighbours in the Canestogoe Mannor, that they were a drunken, debauch’d, insolent, quarrelsome Crew: and that ever since the Commencement of the War, they have been a Trouble and Terror to all around them--as for Will Soc and his Brot-
