SOME Persons, of good Character, at Philadelphia, having applied to his Excellency the Governor, for his Licence for some Indians, who have been always in the English Interest, to reside in your Town, he has been pleased to grant his Licence, and the Protection of this Government, by his Order of this Day, directed to all Officers civil and military.

The late Outrage committed in Lan­caster, is such a notorious Violation of the Rights of Government, and a Crime of so black a Dye, that I have not the least Doubt but that the Perpetrators of it will, in good time, suffer the Punish­ment the Law inflicts upon Murderers; for altho' their Consciences may be har­dened, or they at present in a State of Infatuation, yet the Time must come when these Heats will subside, and Mat­ters [Page 3]stand on a right Footing, then these Transactions must be enquired into; and would any Man in his Senses have such a Cloud hanging over him and his E­state, which would, by his own Rash­ness, be subjected to large Demands and Forfeitures to the Crown?

To have fallen on a Town of the E­nemy Indians, and to have destroyed them and it, might have terrified the Indians, and lessened the Number of our Enemies; but such an inhuman Murder as that at Lancaster, can only serve to convince the World, that there are among us Persons more savage than Indians themselves. To be cruel in War, and while the Blood is in a high Ferment, is frequent; but to assemble at a Distance, to march many Miles with Intent, in cool Blood, to butcher defenceless People, who were placed where the Magistracy pleased to order them, was an amazing Depravation of every Sense of Virtue and Humanity.

Would Wars ever have an End, if every Person who had lost a Relative in it should exercise his own Judgment, and take away the Life of any Indivi­dual [Page 4]of the Nation they had been at War with, whenever (after a Peace) he should have Strength so to do?

Weak Minds are apt to be in an ex­traordinary Manner inflamed, and get into violent Ferments, on reading an Article in the Gazette of a few Per­sons being destroyed by Indians; and yet these very Persons will with little or no Emotion, run over an Article of a Battle between two Armies, where Thousands fell on a Side. They get heated by the Mode of War, though it is of little Consequence whether the Scalp or Finger of a dead Corpse is tak­en off as a token of Victory, or how many Wounds it has. As a free Peo­ple, Indians have the same Right to go to War, as any other Nation. When they become Subjects, they have the same Right of living on Lands of their own, or of other People's, by the Owner's Permission. If they remove from one Place to another, the Overseers of the Poor may demand the usual Security, and the Magistrates deal with them as with others, for Misbehaviour.

I know of no Law to oblige them to [Page 5]remove from one Place to another; while they comply with the Laws in Force, their Treatment ought to be the same with other Subjects in like Circumstan­ces; their Persons and Effects equally claim the Protection of the Laws; and to murder or assault one of them, is a Crime equal to the doing of the same to another of His Majesty's Subjects, the Colour of the Skin can make no essenti­al Difference; to have a yellow one in the present Circumstances, may be a Misfortune, but not a Crime. I con­fess the Lancaster Massacre has raised in me a very high Resentment; and what­ever the Indians may have done trea­cherosly, I really think this Act, and the destroying in cool Blood three Indi­an Guides, who undertook to pilot the Paxton Voluntiers (who were starving when they met with them) to Fort-Augus­ta, and by whose Assistance the whole Par­ty were undoubtedly saved from perish­ing by Famine; to destroy these Persons, who, at their Intreaty, had done them such eminent Service, and saved their Lives, equals any thing we have met with; nor can any Person show that In­dians [Page 6]have ever done worse; if they have, it has never come to my Know­ledge. Persons who thirst after the Blood of Indians, should go to the Seat of War to shew their Courage. If there were no Crime in it, nothing that would subject them to Punishment, no For­feiture of Estate, yet there is something so very mean in attempting the Lives of a wretched People who have voluntarily thrown themselves into your Power, that no Man of real Courage or Bravery would bear the Thought of doing it. Many of the Indians have been very use­ful to us, and still may be so. The Nations far back, and whose Intercourse have been chiefly, if not totally with the French, have been by them perswaded to enter into a War; and is this to be wondered at, that they should believe the People they had long traded with, and been long allied to? We should ra­ther admire their Constancy to their old Friends; and have we not Reason from thence to conclude, that when they know us, and a Peace is firmly establish­ed between us and them, they will be as firm and constant in their Friendship [Page 7]to us as they have been to the French. To consider them in a true Light, we should recollect, that on this Continent their Numbers are very great; that eve­ry Individual will purchase some Arti­cle of British Manufacture; that it is Trade only that enables Britain to main­tain Armies, and send forth Fleets, which terrify the World, and raises the British Name in the most distant Parts of the Universe; and the Indians will (as soon as they are undeceived, and Peace is established with them) make us Masters of the most valuable Trade for Furs and Peltry in the World, and there­by contribute to the Riches and Glory of the Nation.

There are People so sanguine that, without considering, would wish the whole Race of Indians extinct, but they shew their Ignorance of the real Inter­est of the Nation; they would have us set about destroying them Root and Branch—It needs but little Reflection to convince them, that while such im­mense Tracts of Land lie to the West­ward, such Attempt is vain, nor would all the Forces that have last War [Page 8]taken the Field in Europe effect it. I should join heartily with the most forward to make the best In­cursions we could into their Country, but to com­mit no more Slaughter there, than to bring them to a just Sense of their Misconduct, and make them, for the future, dread our Resentment, and learn to know that it was their real Interest to behave friendly to us, and cultivate our Regard for them. Things will, I think, clearly appear in this Light to any Person who will coolly and deliberately consider the Matter devoid of Passion or of Prejudice.

There must be many now in your Country, who have heard their Ancestors recount the Kindness with which the Indians treated them when it was in their Power to have destroyed the whole Number of English Settlers in a Day. They then fed them, and gave them all Kind of friendly Assistance; I hope their Descendants will now let Humanity, let Christianity prevail over them to return the Kindness, and not say to the Charge of these poor distressed People the Actions of the remote Nations of Indians, to whom they are as much Strangers as we are. When the Treachery of the Indians is represented, Circumstan­ces bad in themselves may be exaggerated (tho' I have no Doubt but too much is true) I beg you will guard your Neighbours against taking up Tales they may hear of these Indians, which, when enquired into, may be found without any Foundation; if they misbehave, the Mgistrates can punish them; therefore I cannot suppose that any will be so impru­dent, by any Conduct of their own, to involve the Government into Difficulty, and themselves in in­vietable Ruin.