1763, JULY.]

FLIGHT OF BORDERERS.

185

rushing upon him, and, leaping through an open window, made his escape. He fled through the forest to a settlement at some distance, where he related his story. Upon this, twelve young men volunteered to cross the mountain, and warn the inhabitants of the neighboring Tuscarora valley. On entering it, they found that the enemy had been there before them. Some of the houses were on fire, while others were still standing, with no tenants but the dead. Under the shed of a farmer, the Indians had been feasting on the flesh of the cattle they had killed, and the meat had not yet grown cold. Pursuing their course, the white men found the spot where several detached parties of the enemy had united almost immediately before; and they boldly resolved to follow, in order to ascertain what direction the marauders had taken. The trail led them up a deep and woody pass of the Tuscarora. Here the yell of the war-whoop and the din of fire-arms suddenly greeted them, and five of their number were shot down. Thirty warriors rose from their ambuscade, and rushed upon them. They gave one discharge, scattered, and ran for their lives. One of them, a boy named Charles Eliot, as he fled, plunging through the thickets, heard an Indian tearing the boughs behind him, in furious pursuit. He seized his powder-horn, poured the contents at random down the muzzle of his gun, threw in a bullet after them, without using the ramrod, and, wheeling about, discharged the piece into the breast of his

pursuer. He saw the Indian shrink back and roll over into the bushes. He continued his flight; but a moment after, a voice called his name. Turning to the spot, he saw one of his comrades stretched helpless upon the ground. This man had been mortally wounded at the first fire, but had fled a few rods from the scene of blood, before his strength gave out. Eliot approached him. "Take my gun," said the dying frontiersman. "Whenever you see an Indian, kill him with it, and then I shall be satisfied." Eliot, with several others of the party, escaped, and finally reached Carlisle, where his story excited a spirit of uncontrollable wrath and vengeance among the fierce backwoodsmen. Several parties went out; and one of them, commanded by the sheriff of the place, encountered a band of Indians, routed them after a sharp fight, and brought in several scalps.2

1

1 Robison, Narrative. Robison was one of the party, and his brother was mortally wounded at the first fire.

2 Extract from a Letter Carlisle, July 13 (Penn. Gaz., No. 1804):

"Last Night Colonel Armstrong returned. He left the Party, who pursued further, and found several dead, whom they buried in the best manner they could, and are now all returned in. - From what appears, the Indians are travelling from one Place to another, along the Valley, burning the Farms, and destroying all the People they meet with. - This Day gives an Account of six more being killed in the Valley, so that since last Sunday morning to this Day, Twelve o'clock, we have a pretty authentic Account of the Number slain, being Twenty-five, and four or five wounded. — The Colonel, Mr. Wilson, and Mr. Alricks, are now on the Parade, endeavouring to raise another Party, to go out and succour the Sheriff and his Party, consisting of Fifty Men, which marched

1763, JULY.]

SCENES AT CARLISLE.

187

The surrounding country was by this time completely abandoned by the settlers, many of whom, not content with seeking refuge at Carlisle, continued their flight to the eastward, and, headed by the clergyman of that place, pushed on to Lancaster, and even to Philadelphia.1 Carlisle presented a most deplorable spectacle. A multitude of the refugees, unable to find shelter in the town, had encamped in the woods or on the adjacent fields, erecting huts of branches and bark, and living on such charity as the slender means of the townspeople could supply. Passing among them, one would have witnessed every form of human misery. In these wretched encampments were men, women, and children, bereft at one stroke of friends, of home, and the means of supporting life. Some stood aghast and bewildered at the sudden and fatal blow; others were sunk in the apathy of despair; others were weeping and moaning with irrepressible anguish. With not a

Yesterday, and hope they will be able to send off immediately Twenty good Men.-The People here, I assure you, want nothing but a good Leader, and a little Encouragement, to make a very good Defence."

1 Extract from a Letter - Carlisle, July 5 (Haz. Pa. Reg., iv. 390):

"Nothing could exceed the terror which prevailed from house to house, from town to town. The road was near covered with women and children, flying to Lancaster and Philadelphia. The Rev. -, Pastor of the Episcopal Church, went at the head of his congregation to protect and encourage them on the way. A few retired to the Breast works for safety. The alarm once given could not be appeased. We have done all that men can do to prevent disorder. All our hopes are turned upon Bouquet."

few, the craven passion of fear drowned all other emotion, and day and night they were haunted with visions of the bloody knife and the reeking scalp; while in others, every faculty was absorbed by the burning thirst for vengeance, and mortal hatred against the whole Indian race.1

1 Extract from a Letter - Carlisle, July 12 (Penn. Gaz., No. 1804):

"I embrace this first Leisure, since Yesterday Morning, to transmit you a brief Account of our present State of Affairs here, which indeed is very distressing; every Day, almost, affording some fresh Object to awaken the Compassion, alarm the Fears, or kindle into Resentment and Vengeance every sensible Breast, while flying Families, obliged to abandon House and Possession, to save their Lives by an hasty Escape; mourning Widows, bewailing their Husbands surprised and massacred by savage Rage; tender Parents, lamenting the Fruits of their own Bodies, cropt in the very Bloom of Life by a barbarous Hand; with Relations and Acquaintances, pouring out Sorrow for murdered Neighbours and Friends, present a varied Scene of mingled Distress.

"To-day a British Vengeance begins to rise in the Breasts of our Men. One of them that fell from among the 12, as he was just expiring, said to one of his Fellows, Here, take my Gun, and kill the first Indian you see, and all shall be well."

CHAPTER XX.

1763.

THE BATTLE OF BUSHY RUN.

THE miserable multitude were soon threatened with famine, and gathered in crowds around the tents of Bouquet, begging relief, which he had not the heart to refuse. After a delay of eighteen days, the chief obstacles were overcome. Wagons and draught animals had, little by little, been collected, and provisions gathered among the settlements to the eastward. At length all was ready, and Bouquet broke up his camp, and began his march. The force under his command did not exceed five hundred men, of whom the most effective were the Highlanders of the forty-second regiment. The remnant of the seventy-seventh, which was also with him, was so enfeebled by West Indian exposures that Amherst had at first pronounced it fit only for garrison duty, and nothing but necessity had induced him to employ it on this arduous service. As the heavy wagons of the convoy lumbered along the street of Carlisle, guarded by the bare-legged Highlanders, in kilts and plaids, the crowd gazed in anxious silence; for they knew that their all was at stake on the issue of this