The Conduct of the Paxton Men Impartially Represented - 29
Is it any Wonder then if the unhappy Frontier People were really mad with Rage, (as they express themselves) under such cruel Treatment?-----Shall Heathens, shall Traytors, shall Rebels and Murderers be protected, cloathed and fed? Shall they be invited from House to House, and riot at Feasts and Entertainments? (r) Shall they be supported in Ease and Indolence, and provided with Physicians and Medicines whenever they complain?---And shall the free born Subjects of Britain, the brave and industrious Sons of Pennsylvania, be left naked and defenceless---abandon’d to Misery and Want---to beg their Bread from the cold hand of Charity--- and
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struggle with their Misery and Chains, in the Dungeon.----------That they Moravian Indians have been Traytors to us, is prov’d by the Deposition of one Thomas Moore, who being sworn on the Holy Evangelist, before the chief Burgess of Lancaster, has declar’d, that during his four Years Captivity with the Indians, they had frequent Intelligence and Advice of the Motions of the English, from the Bethlehem Indians, who came constantly among them, and kept up a Correspondence with them.
(r) It is said that ISRAEL, that great Patron and Friend of the Indian, hath kept his House and Stable open for these Wretches and their Horses, whilst the beggar’d Frontier-People have been drove from his Door, without Pity or Relief.
It is well known that the indians in this War, have cruelly massacred our Traders, and seized their Goods; and is it any Wonder, when they are represented by the Heads of a Faction (who inflamed the Indians at these Treaties against the Traders) as Rogues that cheated them out of their Skins.
The following Anecdote was extracted from the DIARY of Conrad Wieser, Esq; written in his own Hand.
July 3rd, 1760.
“These two Indians told me that the French Indian (so they called him) that was last Winter in Philadelphia, pretending to be a Messenger from the Ohio Indians, reported on his Return, That the Quakers in Philadelphia gave him a Rod for the Indians on the Ohio, to chastise the People settling on the Indian’s Lands on the other Side of the Apalachin Mountains; and to take Courage, the Majority of the People of Pennsylvania was on the Indian Side of the Question, and do disapprove of the Proceedings of Onas in settling the Indian Country.”
