rage, produced a great abatement of the public jealousy and APP. III. displeasure. The blessings of tranquillity and security were 1764. now enjoyed in the Moravian settlements, till the year 1763, when all the hatred and fear that the Indian race had ever excited in Pennsylvania, were revived with augmented violence by the great Indian war which broke out at that period, and the dreadful desolation of the frontiers of this province which attended the first explosion of its fury. A general attack was now projected by a great number of the colonists on the Indian inhabitants of the province, of whom many were forced to fly; some were conveyed to Philadelphia, by order of the goverment, which tendered them its protection; and some were cruelly slain. In the county of Lancaster there had resided for certain years, a small society of Indians, who had always demeaned themselves in a peaceable and friendly manner towards the white colonists. Yet a number of these colonists, consisting chiefly of Irish emigrants, who inhabited the township of Paxton in the county of York, now resolved on the destruction of that harmless and defenceless society; and assembling on horseback for this purpose, repaired to the Indian settlement. Intelligence of the approaching attack had been conveyed to its intended victims: but they disbelieved it; and accounting the white people their friends, apprehended no danger from them. When the party who had marched from Paxton arrived at the Indian settlement, they found only the old men, the women, and the children; all the rest of the tribe being absent at their various agricultural avocations. But the minds of the assailants were steeled by prejudice and passion beyond the prevalence of prayer, and the claims of age, infancy, and sex and every individual of the Indian race who fell into their hands was murdered. This bloody deed excited grief and horror in all the sober and humane portion of the provincial community: and the remainder of the unfortunate Indians, who by absence had escaped the massacre, were promptly conducted to the town of Lancaster, and lodged in the jail as a place of security. The governor of Pennsylvania at the same issued a proclamation, expressing the strongest disapprobation of the deed, offering a reward for the discovery of its perpetrators, and prohibiting all future violence to peaceable inhabitants, whether

1764.

APP. III. white men or Indians. In contempt of this proclamation, a party of the assassins, reassembling shortly after, marched to Lancaster, where they broke open the jail and butchered all the unhappy objects of their animosity who had been placed there for shelter. Another proclamation was issued: but, like the former, it seemed rather to stimulate than to allay the popular rage: for a strong detachment of Pennsylvanian colonists now marched towards Philadelphia, with the declared purpose of slaying the Indians who had been conveyed there; and from the temper of a great part of the populace of that city, it was manifest that they were more disposed to favour than resist the bloody enterprise. From the English soldiers who were stationed in the town no aid was to be expected by the provincial government: they had refused to permit the Indians to be quartered in their barracks; and crowds of people had gathered around these unfortunate, yet mild and patient beings, and loaded them with imprecations, disclosing so much bitterness and blindness of anger and malevolence, that the slightest retort would infallibly have produced the most tragical consequences. In this emergency, a number of the more respectable citizens of the place, with arms in their hands, declared their determination to prevent Philadelphia from being profaned and disgraced by the shedding of innocent blood. The quakers were particularly active on this occasion; and many of their young men, with a generous ardour, more admirable, perhaps, than the most rigid adherence to their sectarian principles, flew to arms in defence of their oppressed and endangered fellow-men. The insurgents having advanced to German-town, within five miles of Philadelphia, the governor of the province in dismay fled for safety and counsel to the house of Dr. Franklin; and Pennsylvania seemed to be on the brink of a civil war. Franklin, however, and some other popular individuals, undertook to meet and address the insurgents; and exerted their sense, dexterity, and influence, so effectually, as to prevail with them to relinquish their ferocious design, and return to their homes. To improve this happy success, Franklin immediately after wrote and published a pamphlet in defence of the Indians, which produced a considerable effect in soothing the passions of his countrymen and restoring tranquillity. But the wrathful

jealousy and aversion with which the European colonists re- APP. III. garded the aboriginal race of people, though appeased, was 1764. by no means eradicated; and how easily its savage fury and injustice could be reproduced, was manifested in the year 1768, when some Pennsylvanian planters, having committed an unprovoked and barbarous murder of ten Indians, were rescued by popular insurrection from the visitation of public justice. From the year 1763, however, till the revolt of America from the dominion of Britain, no general or considerable obstruction impeded the exertions of the Moravian brethren to disseminate among the objects of their care the principles, habits, and benefits of piety, morality, and civilization. During this interval, they pursued their labours with patient and well-rewarded diligence; combining the zeal of the Puritans, with the mildness of the Quakers and the address of the Jesuits; and rejoicing in the promotion of the Divine glory and human good, attested by numerous conversions of Indians, who lived in the faith, and died in the conscious solace of the gospel. Nor were these efforts relaxed even by the serious obstruction which their efficacy received from the events of the revolutionary war.1

1

'Loskiel's History of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Indians in North America. Ann. Reg. for 1768. Franklin's Memoirs.