with their lives with not a mouthful to eat, or bed to lie on, or
clothes to cover their nakedness or keep them warm, but all they
had consumed to ashes. These deplorable circumstances cry aloud to
your Honour's most wise consideration how steps may speedily be
taken to deliver us out of the hand of our persecutors the cruel
and murderous savages, and to bring the struggle to an end.'"

The reader paused, and a low, deep murmur passed through the crowd,
its note of rage and menace being clearly heard. The speaker took
up another paper and recommenced.

"This comes from John Harris on the east bank of the Susquehanna:

"'The Indians are cutting us off every day, and I had a certain
account of about fifteen hundred Indians, besides French, being on
their march against us and Virginia, and now close on our borders,
their scouts scalping our families on our frontier daily.'"

Another pause, another murmur like a roar, and a voice from the
crowd was raised to ask:

"And what says the Assembly to that?"

"They say that if the Indians are rising against us, who have been
friendly so long, then we must surely have done something to wrong
them; and they are about to search for the cause of such a possible
wrong, and redress it, rather than impose upon the colony the
calamities of a cruel Indian war!"

A yell and a groan went up from the crowd. For a moment it seemed