2nd, a law of the Province expressly declared such estates not liable for rates and taxes; 3rd, the Proprietaries having by their Governor consented to a law vesting in the people the choice of persons to assess and lay taxes in the several counties, without reserving any negative over such choice, it would be unreasonable to empower such persons to tax these estates at discretion; 4th, to tax them was contrary to the general practice in such governments. The reader would doubtless agree with the Assembly's declaiming against the injustice, had we space to make extracts from its well prepared messages. The law of the province then in force exempting the estates, concerned levies for paying assemblymen's wages and rewards for killing wolves, crows, and foxes and other purposes more immediately for the benefit of the inhabitants. As to what seems the strongest point made by Morris, that the Proprietaries had no voice in choosing the assessors, the latter, it was shown, were bound by oath or affirmation to value the lands impartially, and the Proprietaries had enough officers and dependents in every county to cast a proportion of the whole vote for assessors equal to their proportion of the tax. Morris on August 9 asked the Assembly to pass a militia law. On the 16th, as the treasury was exhausted, Morris told the Assembly that he would pass a bill for striking any sum in paper money that the present exigencies might require, if such paper money was to be sunk in five years.

Shirley, on August 12, ordered Dunbar to make a further attempt to capture Fort Duquesne with the troops he had, and such reinforcements as Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia should raise; and, if successful, after garrisoning it, to proceed against Fort Presque Isle; if unsuccessful in both attempts, then to cover the frontier of Pennsylvania. Morris, on hearing this, despaired of raising any colonial troops; nothing, he felt, would be appropriated by the Assembly, and Maryland and Virginia would not act if Pennsylvania held back; so he advised Dunbar to come to Philadelphia, whence he could either go on to Albany,

or, if the Duquesne expedition were practicable, go easily to Carlisle and meet the reinforcements there; he thought Niagara the most important point to possess.

Dunbar and his troops spent about a month in Philadelphia, receiving many recruits. By General Shirley's order he could. not accept any indentured servants who offered themselves. When, some time later, to hasten the filling up of certain regiments, this order was rescinded, the masters complained to the Assembly, and the latter to the Lieutenant-Governor, saying that it presumed no colony on the continent had furnished more free recruits than Pennsylvania, where great numbers had been raised for Shirley's and Pepperrell's regiments, for Halket's and Dunbar's, for the New York and Carolina Independent Companies, for Nova Scotia, and even for the West Indies. If the property in the service of indentured persons were not respected the people would be driven to buy negro slaves, of which there were few here, and the Province, instead of growing by the increase of white inhabitants, would be weakened, as every slave was a domestic enemy.

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CHAPTER XV.

THE REVOLT OF THE DELAWARES

ARKMAN has pointed out that the real interests of the sav

ages lay with the French, who wished only to trade, that is apart from their spiritual purposes; whereas the English were settlers, who would build towns, turn the land into farms, drive away the game, and crowd out those who lived by hunting. Charles Thomson, afterwards secretary of Congress, who acted as clerk to the Delaware king, declared that the purchase made at Albany, as to which they were not consulted, had thrown the Indians to the west of Pennsylvania entirely open to temptation by the French; for by it the lands where the Shawanees and Ohio Indians lived, and the hunting ground of the Delawares, Nanticokes, and Tuteloes, were included, and those nations had nothing to expect but to see themselves violently driven, by the rate at which the English settled, and reduced to seek a settlement they knew not where.

After Braddock's defeat, the protection of the frontiers of Pennsylvania being left to the inhabitants themselves, they rapidly formed companies, designated their own officers, and received commissions for them from Lieutenant-Governor Morris; and Scarrooyady and many other Indians went to Shamokin to live, or at least to hunt, during the ensuing season. An Indian from the Ohio warned Croghan that in his opinion the Indians would do no mischief in Pennsylvania until they could draw all the other Indians out of the province, and away from the Susquehanna, as

they were industriously endeavoring to do, and that when he should see those on the Susquehanna go back to the Ohio, then to look out for his scalp. It was found that Shawanees and Delawares had been ravaging the neighborhood of Fort Cumberland on both sides of the Potomac. In the middle of October two French Indians of the Conewago tribe were seen near Shamokin. A few evenings after this, a "Pennsylvania Dutch" woman, on her way from there to her home on Mahanoy, or Penn's, Creek, saw two persons lying by the door of a neighbor's house murdered and scalped. Several Dutch families, hearing this, left their habitations immediately. When it was found that about thirteen men and older women had been murdered, and twelve women and children carried into captivity, one wounded man escaping, terror drove away nearly all the people living for miles about the creek, seventeen men, however, petitioning the Governor for guns and ammunition, with which to make a stand. A party of forty set out from lower down the Susquehanna to bury the dead, not knowing that others had done so, and were informed by Shickcalamy that a great body of French and Indians had been seen on its way into the province at a place where the Northwest Branch passes through the Alleghanies. Shickcalamy urged a consultation with the Indians at Shamokin, and these were visited, and a gathering for a council was noticed. Many Delawares, strangers to those parts, had arrived, all painted black. While spending the night there, Adam Terrence overheard Delawares talking to this effect: "What have they come here for?" "To kill us, I suppose." "Can not we, then, send off some of our nimble young men to give our friends notice, that can soon be here?" Then they sang a war song, and four went off in two canoes, one down the Susquehanna, the other across. The majority of the white men, urged by the half-breed, Andrew Montour, to march home along the east side of the river, thought it wiser to choose the west bank. By the mouth of Mahanoy Creek they were fired at by Indians, some of whom uttered words in the Delaware tongue,

and several of the white men were killed, besides four or five drowned in retreating across the river. The same day, or the next, the enemy crossed the Susquehanna, and killed many people, from Thomas McKee's down to Hunter's mill. But the people of Tulpehocken and Heidelberg townships, Berks county, who marched with Conrad Weiser, could not meet any one to whom to give battle. The gathering at Shamokin was to inform the Indians there that the Delawares on the Ohio had taken the hatchet against the English, and to warn all who would not join them to move away, and go up the North East Branch to Nescopecken. In council Paxanosa of Wyoming, chief of the Shawanees, spoke boldly in favor of the English. The Delawares at last told him that if he said any more they would knock him on the head. A certain Delaware spoke against the French, but was silenced, and it was agreed to go to Nescopecken, which accordingly became the headquarters for those on the war path. Those faithful to the English feared not only the Ohio Delawares, but the frontier inhabitants of Pennsylvania, and so about thirty retired to Wyoming. Governor Morris had no arms or ammunition to give to the people of Berks or Lancaster county, who were ready enough to defend themselves. Weiser and others on October 31, conveying a report that the people at Aughwick and Juniata had been cut off, wrote: "If we are not immediately supported, we must not be sacrificed, and therefore are determined to go down with all that will follow us to Philadelphia, and quarter ourselves on its inhabitants, and wait our fate with them." Parsons reported murders just over the mountains from his place. Harris and others at Paxton, at 12 o'clock of the same night that Weiser wrote, summoned "all His Majesty's subjects in Pennsylvania and elsewhere" to repair to the frontiers, to intercept the whole body of Indians actually encamped this side of Gabriel's on the Susquehanna, ready to strike within three days, while a French fort was about to be established at Shamokin, with the consent of the Indians there. A few days afterwards, the settlements at