Another proclamation has been issued, offering a great reward for apprehending the murderers.
But these proclamations have as yet produced no discovery; the murderers having given out such threatenings against those that disapprove their proceedings, that the whole country seems to be in terror, and no one dares speak what he knows; even the letters from thence are unsigned, in which any dislike is expressed of the rioters.
There are some (I am ashamed to hear it) who would extenuate the enormous wickedness of these actions, by saying, "The inhabitants of the frontiers are exasperated with the murder of their relations by the enemy Indians in the present war." It is possible; but, though this might justify their going out into the woods to seek for those enemies, and avenge upon them those murders, it can never justify their turning into the heart of the country to murder their friends.
If an Indian injures me, does it follow that I may revenge that injury on all Indians? It is well known that Indians are of different tribes, nations, and languages, as well as the white people. In Europe, if the French, who are white people, should injure the Dutch, are they to revenge it on the English, because they too are white people? The only crime of these poor wretches seems to have been, that they had a reddish-brown skin and black hair; and some people of that sort, it seems, had murdered some of our relations. If it be right to kill men for such a reason, then, should any man with a freckled face and red hair kill a wife or child of mine, it would be right for me to revenge it by killing all the freckled, red-haired men, women, and children I could afterward anywhere meet with.
But it seems these people think they have a better justification; nothing less than the Word of God. With the Scriptures in their hands and mouths, they can set at naught that express command, Thou shalt do no murder; and justify their wickedness by the command given Joshua to destroy the heathen. Horrid perversion of Scripture and of religion! To father the worst of crimes on the God of peace and love! Even the Jews, to whom that particular commission was directed, spared the Gibeonites on account of their faith once given. The faith of this government has been frequently given to those Indians, but that did not avail them with people who despise government.
We pretend to be Christians, and, from the superior light we enjoy, ought to exceed heathens, Turks, Saracens, Moors, negroes, and Indians in the knowledge and practice of what is right. I will endeavour to show, by a few examples from books and history, the sense those people have had of such actions.
Homer wrote his poem, called the Odyssey, some hundred years before the birth of Christ. He frequently speaks of what he calls not only the duties, but the sacred rites of hospitality, exercised towards strangers while in our house or territory, as including, besides all the common circumstances of entertainment, full safety and protection of person from all danger of life, from all injuries, and even insults. The rites of hospitality were called sacred, because the stranger, the poor, and the weak, when they applied for protection and relief, were, from the religion of those times, supposed to be sent by the Deity to try the goodness of men, and that he would avenge the injuries they might receive, where they ought to have been protected. These sentiments, therefore, influenced the manners of all ranks of people, even the meanest; for we find, that when Ulysses came as a poor stranger to the hut of Eumæus the swineherd, and his great dogs ran out to tear the ragged man, Eumæus drove them away with stones; and
"'Unhappy stranger!' (thus the faithful swain
Began, with accent gracious and humane),
'What sorrow had been mine, if at my gate,
Thy reverend age had met a shameless fate!
But enter this my homely roof, and see
Our woods not void of hospitality.'
He said, and seconding the kind request,
With friendly step precedes the unknown guest;
A shaggy goat's soft hide beneath him spread,
And with fresh rushes heaped an ample bed.
Joy touched the hero's tender soul, to find
So just reception from a heart so kind;
And 'Oh, ye gods, with all your blessings grace'
(He thus broke forth) 'this friend of human race!'
The swain replied: 'It never was our guise
To slight the poor, or aught humane despise.
For Jove unfolds the hospitable door,
'Tis Jove that sends the strangers and the poor.'"
These heathen people thought that, after a breach of the rites of hospitality, a curse from Heaven would attend them in everything they did, and even their honest industry in their callings would fail of success. Thus when Ulysses tells Eumæus, who doubted the truth of what he related, "If I deceive you in this, I should deserve death, and I consent that you should put me to death;" Eumæus rejects the proposal, as what would be attended with both infamy and misfortune, saying ironically,
"Doubtless, oh guest, great laud and praise were mine,
If, after social rites and gifts bestowed,
I stained my hospitable hearth with blood.
How would the gods my righteous toils succeed,
And bless the hand that made a stranger bleed?
No more."