The Loyalists of America and Their Times Volume II Part 9
To all this Colonel Stone adds the following important note. He says: "Since the present chapter was written, and while the work was under revision, the author received a letter from Mr. Samuel C. Frey, of Upper Canada, a son of the late Philip Frey, Esquire, a Loyalist of Tryon County, who was ensign in H.B.M.'s Eighth Regiment, and who, with his regiment, was engaged in the campaign and battle of Wyoming. Philip R.
Frey, the ensign spoken of, died at Palatine, Montgomery (formerly Tryon) County, in 1823. It was his uniform testimony that Brant was not at Wyoming. Mr. Frey writes to the author that there were no chiefs of any notoriety with the Indians in that expedition, and that the Indians themselves were led from Detroit by Captain Bird, of the Eighth Regiment. Bird had been engaged in a love affair at Detroit, but being very ugly, besides having a hare-lip, was unsuccessful. The affair getting wind, his fellow-officers made themselves merry at his expense; and in order to steep his grief in forgetfulness, he obtained permission to lead an expedition somewhere against the American frontier. Joining the Indians placed under him and a detachment of his regiment to Butler's Rangers, they concerted the descent upon Wyoming. Ensign Frey stated that Bird was ill-natured during the whole march, and acted with foolhardiness at the battle. He further stated, according to the letter of his son, that the American colonel challenged them to a fair field-fight, which challenge was accepted. 'The next morning, about nine o'clock, the Americans poured out of the fort, about 340 in number; the Indians fell back over a hill; the troops on both sides drew up in battle array and soon commenced. After a few rounds fired, the American colonel ordered his drum-major to beat a charge; the drum-major mistook the order, and beat a retreat; the Americans became disordered immediately, and ran helter-skelter; the moment the Indians saw them running, they poured down upon them from their hiding-places, so that no more than about forty survived out of 340.'"
"Rarely, indeed," adds Colonel Stone, "does it happen that history is more at fault in regard to facts than in the case of Wyoming. The remark may be applied to nearly every writer who has attempted to narrate the events connected with the invasion of Colonel John Butler. Ramsay and Gordon and Marshall--nay, the British historians themselves have written gross exaggerations. Marshall, however, in his revised edition, has made corrections, and explained how and by whom he was led into error. My excellent friend, Charles Miner, Esq., long a resident of Wyoming, a gentleman of letters and great accuracy, furnished the biographer of Washington with a true narrative of the transactions which he made the basis of the summary account contained in his revised edition. Other writers, of greater or less note, have gravely recorded the same fictions, adding, it is to be feared, enormities not even conveyed to them by tradition. The grossest of these exaggerations are contained in Thatcher's Military Journal and in Drake's Book of the Indians. The account of the marching out of a large body of the Americans from one of the forts to hold a parley, by agreement, and then being drawn into an ambuscade and all put to death, is false; the account of seventy continental soldiers being butchered after having surrendered, is totally untrue. No regular troops surrendered, and all escaped who survived the battle of the 3rd. Equally untrue is the story of the burning of the houses, barracks, and forts, filled with women and children."--_Ib._, p. 338, 339.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 85: "The aggressors on this occasion were a troop of wild Indians, in conjunction with some Tory exiles. They were headed by Colonel Butler, a partisan commander of note, and by Joseph Brant, a half Indian by birth, a whole Indian in cruelty. Unhappily, at Wyoming, the soil was claimed both by Connecticut and Pennsylvania. From this conflict of pretensions and consequent laxity of law, there had been the freer license for rigours against the Loyalists. Few of them in that district but had undergone imprisonment, or exile, or confiscation of property; and thus they were provoked to form a savage alliance and to perpetrate a fierce revenge." (Lord Mahon's History, etc., Vol. VII., Chap. lviii., pp. 382, 383.)]
[Footnote 86: Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. V., Chap.
ix., p. 165.]
[Footnote 87: Brant was not at Wyoming. This appears from Butler's report; and compare Broadhead doc.u.ments, Vol. VIII., p. 572 (note by Mr.
Bancroft).]
[Footnote 88: This is what Dr. Ramsay, in his account quoted above, on pages 85 and 86, erroneously states was a proposed conference as to terms of capitulation.]
[Footnote 89: _Note._--Mr. Hildreth says that "Wyoming did not number three thousand inhabitants." (History of the United States, Vol. III., Chap. x.x.xviii., p. 262.) The number of the slain could not have been greater than those mentioned above by Dr. Ramsay (p. 86), who states that, instead of those in the garrison being "indiscriminately butchered," they were allowed to cross the Susquehanna and make their way through the woods to neighbouring settlements.]
[Footnote 90: Colonel Stone states that the Provincials "intended to make a quick movement, and take the enemy by surprise;" but their purpose was discovered by an Indian scout. He then gives the following account of the battle and of the "ma.s.sacre" which followed:
"The Provincials pushed rapidly forward; but the British and Indians were prepared to receive them, 'their line being formed a small distance in front of their camp, in a plain thinly covered with pine, shrub, oaks and undergrowth, and extending from the river to a marsh at the foot of the mountain' (Marshall). 'On coming in view of the enemy, the Americans, who had previously marched in a single column, instantly deployed into a line of equal extent, and attacked from right to left at the same time' (Col. Z. Butler's letter). 'The right of the Americans was commanded by Colonel Zebulon Butler, opposed to Colonel John Butler, commanding the enemy's left. Colonel Dennison commanded the left of the Americans, and was opposed by the Indians forming the enemy's right'
(Chapman). The battle commenced at about forty rods distance, without much execution at the onset, as the brushwood interposed obstacles to the sight. The militia stood the fire well for a short time, and as they pressed forward there was some giving way on the enemy's right.
Unluckily, just at this moment the appalling war-whoop of the Indians rang in the rear of the Americans' left; the Indian leader, having conducted a large party of his warriors through the marsh, succeeded in turning Dennison's flank. A heavy and destructive fire was simultaneously poured into the American ranks; and amidst the confusion, Colonel Dennison directed his men to 'fall back,' to avoid being surrounded, and to gain time to bring his men into order again. This direction was mistaken for an order to 'retreat,' whereupon the whole line broke, and every effort of their officers to restore order was unavailing. At this stage of the battle, and while thus engaged, the American officers mostly fell. The flight was general. The Indians, throwing away their rifles, rushed forward with their tomahawks, making dreadful havoc; answering the cries for mercy with the hatchet, and adding to the universal consternation those terrific yells which invest savage warfare with tenfold horror. So alert was the foe in his b.l.o.o.d.y pursuit, that less than sixty of the Americans escaped either the rifle or the tomahawk. Of the militia officers, there fell one lieutenant-colonel, one major, ten captains, six lieutenants, and two ensigns. Colonel Durkee and Captains Hewett and Ransom were likewise killed. Some of the fugitives escaped by swimming the river, and others by flying to the mountains. As the news of the defeat spread down the valley, the greater part of the women and children, and those who had remained to protect them, likewise ran to the woods and mountains, while those who could not escape thus sought refuge in Fort Wyoming. The Indians, apparently wearied with pursuit and slaughter, desisted and betook themselves to secure the spoils of the vanquished.
"On the morning of the 4th, the day after the battle, Colonel John Butler, with the combined British and Indian forces, appeared before Fort Wyoming and demanded its surrender. 'The inhabitants, both within and without the fort, did not on that emergency sustain a character for courage becoming men of spirit in adversity. They were so intimidated as to give up without fighting; great numbers ran off; and those who remained all but betrayed Colonel Zebulon Butler, their commander' (Col.
Z. Butler's letter). 'The British Colonel Butler sent several flags, requiring an unconditional surrender of his opposing namesake and the few continental troops yet remaining, but offering to spare the inhabitants their property and effects. But with the American colonel the victor would not treat on any terms; and the people thereupon compelled Colonel Dennison to comply with conditions which his commander had refused.' The consequence was that Colonel Zebulon Butler contrived to escape from the fort with the remains of Captain Hewett's company of regulars (_Idem._), and Colonel Dennison entered into articles of capitulation. 'By these it was stipulated that the settlers should be disarmed, and their garrison demolished; that all prisoners and public stores should be given up; that the property of the people called Tories should be made good, and they be permitted to remain peaceably upon their farms. In behalf of the settlers it was stipulated that their lives and property should be preserved, and that they should be left in the unmolested occupancy of their farms' (Chapman's History).
"Unhappily, however, the British commander either could not or would not enforce the terms of capitulation (see page 91, where Mr. Hildreth says that 'Colonel Butler, desirous to fulfil these terms of capitulation, presently marched away with his Tories, but he could not induce the Indians to follow. They remained behind, burned the houses, ravaged the fields, killed such as resisted, and drove the miserable women and children through the woods and mountains to seek refuge where they might.'), which were to a great extent disregarded as well by the Tories as the Indians. Instead of finding protection, the valley was again laid waste, the houses and improvements were destroyed by fire, and the country plundered. Families were broken up and dispersed, men and their wives separated, mothers torn from their children and some of them carried into captivity, while far the greater number fled to the mountains, and wandered through the wilderness to the older settlements.
Some died of their wounds, others from want and fatigue, while others were still lost in the wilderness or were heard of no more. Several perished in a great swamp in the neighbourhood, which, from the circ.u.mstance, acquired the name of 'the Shades of Death,' and retains it to this day. These were painful scenes. But it does not appear that anything like a ma.s.sacre followed the capitulation." (Life of Joseph Brant, and Border Wars of the American Revolution, Vol. I., Chap. xv., pp. 334-336.)]
CHAPTER x.x.xV.
AMERICAN RETALIATION FOR THE ALLEGED "Ma.s.sACRE OF WYOMING," AS NARRATED BY AMERICAN HISTORIANS.
We will now state from the same historical authorities the _revenge_ which the continentals took for the "Ma.s.sacre of Wyoming."
Dr. Ramsay says: "Soon after the destruction of the Wyoming settlement, an expedition was carried on against the Indians by Colonel Zebulon Butler, of the Pennsylvania troops. He and his party having gained the head of the Delaware, October 1st, marched down the river two days, and then struck across the country to the Susquehanna. They burnt or destroyed the Indian villages both in that quarter and the other settlements; but the inhabitants escaped. The destruction was extended for several miles on both sides of the Susquehanna. They completed the expedition in sixteen days."[91]
This destruction of "Indian villages" and "other settlements" to the extent of "several miles on both sides of the Susquehanna" was more than an equivalent revenge for the destruction of Wyoming. But it was only the beginning of vengeance and destruction, not only against the immediate offenders in the case of Wyoming, but the pretext for a resolution and order of Congress itself for the entire destruction of the Six Indian Nations, though their chiefs had held no council and given no order as to the attack upon the settlement of Wyoming, and had nothing to do with it, except that one of their tribes, with possibly a few stragglers from some of the other tribes. With this exception, as is shown by the narratives above quoted, the Six Nations had no connection with the destruction of Wyoming; were living quietly and industriously on their well-cultivated farms, though friendly to the royal cause. Yet Congress, by an order which, we believe, has no parallel in the annals of any civilized nation, commands the complete destruction of those people as a nation. It is cruel, indeed, and revolting to humanity, to kill and scalp ever so small a number of individuals, including women and children; but is it less cruel and revolting to render them houseless by thousands, to destroy the fruits of their labours, to exile them from their homes (after having destroyed them), and leave them to nakedness and starvation? Yet such was the case in the execution of the order of Congress for the extermination of the Six Nations.
"The determination," says Dr. Andrews, "was now taken by Congress to destroy this Indian nation. * * The intelligence of the preparations that were making against them was received by the Indians with great courage and firmness. * * They took a strong position in the most woody and mountainous part of the country, which they fortified with great judgment. * * General Sullivan attacked them in this encampment on the 29th of August. They stood a hot cannonade for more than two hours; but the breastwork of logs being almost destroyed, and the Americans having reached the top of the hill on their left, they were apprehensive of being surrounded, and retreated immediately with the utmost speed. * *
The behaviour of the Indians on this day was very courageous; they returned the fire of the Americans with great spirit and regularity; and would, it was thought, have maintained their ground had not the Americans been provided with a train of artillery, to which the defeat of the Indians was princ.i.p.ally owing. * * This engagement proved decisive. After their trenches were forced, they fled without making any further endeavour to rally. They were pursued two or three miles; but their flight was so swift that they could not be overtaken. Their loss in slain and wounded was very considerable, though few prisoners were made.
"The consternation occasioned among the Indians by this defeat was such, that they lost all hope of retrieving their fortunes, and dropped all idea of further resistance. As the Americans advanced, they retreated before them with the utmost precipitation, and suffered them to proceed, without any obstruction, in the destructive operations they were commissioned to perform.
"In pursuance of the orders he had received, General Sullivan penetrated into the heart of the country inhabited by the Five Nations, spreading everywhere the most extensive desolation. His letter to the Congress, giving an account of the progress and proceedings of the army under his command, was as complete a journal of destruction as ever was penned. No less than forty towns and settlements were destroyed, besides detached habitations. All their fields of corn and all their orchards and plantations; whatever, in short, was in a state of cultivation, underwent the same fate. The devastation was such, that on the American army's leaving that country not a house was left standing to their knowledge, nor an Indian to be seen.
"Such was the issue of this celebrated expedition, undertaken by way of retaliation for the outrages which the Indians (Senecas) had committed on the frontiers, and particularly in destroying the unfortunate settlement of Wyoming during the preceding summer.
"What rendered this total ruin of the country possessed by the Five Nations the more remarkable was the degree of knowledge and expertness in agriculture and in various domestic arts to which it was now for the first time discovered that the Indians had attained. It appeared by General Sullivan's account that the lands about the towns were excellently cultivated, and their houses large and elegantly constructed. The extent of their industry may be conjectured by his a.s.serting that the quant.i.ty of corn destroyed could not, by a moderate computation, amount to less than 160,000 bushels; that their orchards were so well stocked that no less than 1,500 trees were cut down in one orchard only, numbers of which had evidently been planted many years; and that their garden grounds contained immense quant.i.ties of vegetables of every kind."[92]
Mr. Bancroft represents what he in one place terms "the great expedition" as a mere raid for the chastis.e.m.e.nt of the Seneca Indians.
He says: "Moved by the ma.s.sacres of Wyoming and Cherry Valley, Congress, on the 25th of February, had directed Washington to protect the inland frontiers and chastise the Seneca Indians. * * The best part of the season was gone when Sullivan, on the last of July, moved from Wyoming.
His arrival at Tioga sent terror to the Indians. * * Several of the chiefs said to Colonel Bolton, in council, 'Why does not the great king, our father, a.s.sist us? Our villages will be cut off, and we can no longer fight his battles.'
"On the 22nd of August, the day after he was joined by New York troops under General James Clinton, Sullivan began his march up the Tioga into the heart of the Indian country. On the same day, Little David, a Mohawk chief, delivered a message from himself and the Six Nations to General Haldimand, then Governor of Canada: 'Brother! for these three years past the Six Nations have been running a race against fresh enemies, and are almost out of breath. Now we shall see whether you are our loving strong brother, or whether you deceive us. Brother! we are still strong for the King of England, if you will show us that he is a man of his word, and that he will not abandon his brothers the Six Nations.' * * The march into the country of the Senecas, on the left, extended to Genesee; on the right, detachments reached Cayuga lake. After destroying eighteen villages and their fields of corn, Sullivan, whose army had suffered for want of supplies, returned to New Jersey."[93]
Mr. Hildreth's account of this expedition, though brief, is more comprehensive and satisfactory than that of Mr. Bancroft. Mr. Hildreth says:
"The command of the enterprise against the Indians, declined by Gates, was given to Sullivan. Three brigades from the main army, under Poor, Hand, and Maxwell--New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey troops--were a.s.sembled at Wyoming. A New York brigade ('upwards of 1,000 men,' says Dr. Ramsay), under General James Clinton, hitherto employed in guarding the frontier of that State, crossed from the Mohawk to Lake Otsego (one of the sources of the Susquehanna), dammed the lake, and so raised its level, and then by breaking away the dam produced an artificial flood, by the aid of which the boats were rapidly carried down the north-east branch of the Susquehanna, to form a junction with Sullivan. * *
"Sullivan's army, amounting to 5,000 men, pa.s.sed up the Chemung branch of the Susquehanna. At Newton, now Elmira, they encountered a strong body of the enemy,[94] partly Indians and partly Tories, under Brant, the Butlers and Johnson, entrenched on a rising ground and disposed in ambuscade. Sullivan detached Poor to gain the rear, while he attacked them in front with artillery. Having put them to rout, he crossed to the hitherto unexplored valley of the Genesee. That want of food might compel the Indians and their Tory allies to emigrate, everything was ravaged. The ancient Indian orchards were cut down; many bushels of corn were destroyed, and eighteen villages, composed largely of frame houses, were burned. Provisions failed. Such at least was the reason that Sullivan gave, and the attack upon Niagara, the great object of the enterprise, was abandoned.
"A simultaneous expedition from Pittsburg ascended the Alleghany, and visited with similar devastation all the villages along the river.
Pending these operations, and to prevent any aid from Canada, divers artifices were employed by Washington to create the belief of an intended invasion of that province."[95]
The account of this expedition given by Dr. Ramsay corresponds, with some additional particulars, with that given by Dr. Andrews, as above quoted, and almost in the same words. He says:
"The Indians who form the confederacy of the Six Nations, commonly called Mohawks, were the objects of this expedition. They inhabit that immense and fertile tract of country which lies between New England, the Middle States, and the Province of Canada. * * The Indians, on hearing of the expedition projected against them, acted with firmness. They collected their strength, took possession of proper ground, and fortified it with judgment. General Sullivan, on the 29th of August, attacked them in their works. They stood a cannonade for more than two hours, but then gave way. This engagement proved decisive. After the trenches were forced, the Indians fled without making any attempt to rally. The consternation occasioned among them by this defeat was so great, that they gave up all ideas of further resistance. As the Americans advanced into their settlements, the Indians retreated before them, without throwing any obstruction in their way. General Sullivan penetrated into the heart of the country inhabited by the Mohawks, and spread desolation everywhere. Many settlements in the form of towns were destroyed. All their fields of corn, and whatever was in a state of cultivation, underwent the same fate. Scarcely anything in the form of a house was left standing, nor was an Indian to be seen.
"To the surprise of the Americans, they found the lands about the Indian towns well cultivated, and their houses both large and commodious. The quant.i.ty of corn destroyed was immense. Orchards, in which were several hundred fruit trees, were cut down; and of them many appeared to have been planted for a long series of years. Their gardens, replenished with a variety of useful vegetables, were laid waste."[96]
From this review of the invasions and contests between the Americans and Indians, it is clear that the Indians were the greater sufferers in life and property. The mutual hatreds of former years, when the colonies were warring with the French (instead of being, as now, in alliance with them), and the Indians were in the interest and service of the French, seems to have been perpetuated on both sides, and to have become more intense on the part of the Americans after the failure of their efforts to secure the Indians to their side. The old contests between the Southern colonists and the Indians were renewed and repeated with intense bitterness; and in the Northern colonies the policy of Congress and its agents was to crush and exterminate the Indians altogether. In acts of individual cruelty, their historical and characteristic mode of war, the Indians exceeded the Americans; but in acts of wholesale destruction of life and property, the Americans far outdid the Indians, adopting the Indian instead of a civilized mode of warfare, and including in their sweep of destruction women and children as well as men.
The employment of Indians at all on the part of Great Britain against the colonists, is, in our opinion, the blackest crime recorded in the annals of the British Government, prompted apparently by the cowardly and execrable General Gage, but condemned by Generals Carleton and Burgoyne, as well as by General Howe. The use, however, which the Americans sought to make of the Indians, and their cruel and exterminating mode of warfare against them, leave them no ground of boasting on the score of humanity against either the British Government or the Indians.
To this may be added the unfortunate condition and treatment of the Loyalists or "Tories" among the Indians. For adhering, or suspected of adhering to the faith of their fathers, and even of the present persecution down to within less than six years, they were, however peaceably they might be living, driven from their homes and their property seized and alienated, and they left no place for the soles of their feet except among the Indians, and then termed monsters and treated as traitors, for joining their protectors in the defence of their places of refuge, and, as far as possible, for the recovery of their homes. What else, as men, as human beings, could they do? They were denied and banished from the homes which they had, unless they would reverse their political faith and oath of allegiance, and forswear allegiance, to enrol themselves in arms against the country of their forefathers and of their affection. They could not but be chafed with the loss of their freedom of speech and of conviction of their citizenship and their property, and of being driven into exile; and they must have been more or less than men had they not acted loyally and to the best of their ability with their protectors, however abhorrent to their views and feelings were many acts of the Indians--acts imitated and even excelled, in so many respects, by the Americans themselves, in their depredations into the Indian territories.
COLONEL STONE'S ACCOUNT, IN DETAIL, OF GENERAL SULLIVAN'S EXPEDITION OF EXTERMINATION OF THE SIX NATIONS OF INDIANS.
In his _Life of Brant, including the Border Wars of the American Revolution_, Colonel Stone gives a much more elaborate account of this expedition of destruction against the Six Nations, or rather the Five Nations, for the Oneidas and some of the Tuscaroras joined the Americans. Colonel Stone narrates the progress and work of General Sullivan from place to place. We will add a few extracts from his narrative, after some preliminary explanations.
Colonel Stone corrects a very common error, which views the whole race of North American Indians as essentially alike--"all as the same roving, restless, houseless race of hunters and fishermen, without a local habitation and with scarce a name." He gives examples of the varieties of Indian character, not less marked than between the English and the French--some following the buffalo in his migrations, others finding a precarious subsistence in the forest chase, others again fishing and trapping; tribes who pa.s.s most of their time in canoes, while others, woodland tribes, cultivate the soil, and gradually become organized, and acquire a higher state of civilization, and present a marked difference of character and taste from the hunter and fishermen tribes. "This higher state of social organization among the Six Nations," says Colonel Stone "greatly increased the difference. They had many towns and villages giving evidence of perseverance. They were organized into communities whose social and political inst.i.tutions, simple as they were, were still as distinct and well-defined as those of the American Confederacy. They had now acquired some arts, and were enjoying many of the comforts of civilized life. Not content with small patches of cleared lands for the raising of a few vegetables, they possessed cultivated fields and orchards of great productiveness at the West.
Especially was this the fact with regard to the Cayugas and Senecas. The Mohawks having been driven from their own rich lands (in the valley of the Mohawk and Susquehanna rivers), the extensive domains of the westernmost tribes of the confederacy (in the Genesee country) formed the granary of the whole. And in consequence of the superior social and political organization just referred to, and the Spartan-like character incident to the forest life, the Six Nations, though not the most numerous, were beyond doubt the most formidable of the tribes then in alliance with the Crown. It was justly considered, therefore, that the only way _to strike them effectively would be to destroy their homes_ and the growing produce of their farms, and thus, _by cutting off their means of supply, drive them from their own country deeper into the interior, and perhaps throw them altogether upon their British allies for subsistence_."
These facts will go far to account for the desire of the Mohawks to recover the homes from which they had been driven, and for the relations between the Six Nations to the Crown of Great Britain and the revolting portion of the colonists.
It has been intimated that the Oneida Indians and part of the Onondagos adhered to the revolting colonists. Colonel Stone observes: "It was the intention of General Sullivan that General Clinton should employ in his division as large a number of the Oneida warriors as could be induced to engage in the service. The latter officer was opposed to this arrangement; but through the importunities of Sullivan, the Rev. Mr.
Kirkland, their missionary, who was now a chaplain in the army, had been summoned to Albany for consultation. From thence Mr. Kirkland was despatched to Pennsylvania, directly to join Sullivan's division; while to Mr. Deane, the interpreter connected with the Indian Commissioner at Fort Schuyler (formerly Fort Stanwix), was confided the charge of negotiating with the Oneida chiefs on the subject. The Oneidas volunteered for the expedition almost to a man; while those of the Onondagos who adhered to the cause of the Americans were equally desirous of proving their fidelity by their deeds. Under these circ.u.mstances, Clinton wrote to Sullivan on the 26th, that on the following Sat.u.r.day Mr. Deane, with the Indian warriors, would join him at the head of the lake. A sudden revolution, however, was wrought in their determination by an address to the Oneidas from General Haldimand (Governor of Canada), received at Fort Schuyler the 22nd. This doc.u.ment was transmitted to them in their own language; and its tenor was so alarming as to induce them suddenly to change their purpose, judging very correctly, from the threats of Haldimand, that their presence was necessary at home for the defence of their own castles. Still Mr. Deane wrote that an arrangement was on foot by which he hoped to obtain the co-operation of a considerable number of the Oneida warriors."
"General Haldimand's address was written in the Iroquois (Mohawk) language, of which a translation was made by Mr. Deane and enclosed to General Clinton."
In this address General Haldimand charged the Oneida Indians with having "taken a different course from the rest of the Five Nations, your confederates, and have likewise deserted the King's cause through the deceitful machinations and snares of the rebels, who intimidated you with their numerous armies, by which means you became bewildered and forgot all your engagements with and former care and favour from the Great King of England, your Father. You also soon forgot the frequent bad usage and continual encroachments of the Americans upon the Indian lands throughout the continent. I say, therefore, that at the breaking out of these troubles, you firmly declared to _observe a strict neutrality in the dispute_, and made your declaration known to Sir Guy Carleton, my predecessor, _who much approved of it, provided you were in earnest_.[97] I have hitherto strictly observed and examined your conduct, and find that you did not adhere to your a.s.sertion, although I could trace no reason, on the side of Government as well as the Indians, why you should act so treacherous and double a part; by which means we, not mistrusting your fidelity, have had many losses among the King's subjects, and the Five Nations, your friends and connections."