slur upon the peaceful Society of Friends, of which Nathan is described
as having been an unworthy member. This notion is undeserving of serious
challenge. The whole object was here to portray the peculiar
characteristics of a class of men, very limited, of course, in number,
but found, in the old Indian days, scattered, at intervals, along the
extreme frontier of every State, from New York to Georgia; men in whom
the terrible barbarities of the savages, suffered through their families,
or their friends and neighbours, had wrought a change of temper as
strange as fearful. That passion is the mightiest which overcomes the
most powerful restraints and prostrates the strongest barriers; and there
was a dramatic propriety, at least, in associating with such a character
as Nathan's, obstacles of faith and habit, which gave the greater force
to his deeds and a deeper mystery to his story. No one conversant with
the history of border affairs can fail to recollect some one or more
instances of solitary men, bereaved fathers or orphaned sons, the
sole survivors, sometimes, of exterminated households, who remained only
to devote themselves to lives of vengeance; and "Indian-hating" (which
implied the fullest indulgence of a rancorous animosity no blood could
appease) was so far from being an uncommon passion in some particular
districts, that it was thought to have infected, occasionally, persons,
otherwise of good repute, who ranged the woods, intent on private
adventures, which they were careful to conceal from the public eye. The
author remembers, in the published journal of an old traveller--an
Englishman, and, as he thinks, a Friend; but he cannot be certain of this
fact, the name having escaped him, and the loose memorandum he made at
the time, having been mislaid--who visited the region of the upper Ohio
towards the close of the last century, an observation on this subject,
which made too deep an impression to be easily forgotten. It was stated,
as the consequence of the Indian atrocities, that such were the extent
and depth of the vindictive feeling throughout the community, that it was