The brave Col. Monro had hastened away, soon after the confusion began, to the French camp, to endeavor to procure the guard agreed by the stipulation; but his application proving ineffectual, he remained there till General Webb sent a party of troops to demand and protect him back to fort Edward. But these unhappy occurrences, which would probably have been prevented had he been left to pursue his own plans, together with the loss of so many brave fellows, murdered in cold blood, to whose valor he had been so lately a witness, made such an impression on his mind that he did not long survive. He died in about three months, of a broken heart, and with truth might it be said, that he was an honor to his country.
I mean not to point out the following circumstance as the immediate judgment of Heaven, and intended as an atonement for this slaughter, but I cannot omit that very few of those different tribes of Indians that shared in it ever lived to return home. The small-pox, by means of their communication with the Europeans, found its way among them, and made an equal havoc to what they themselves had done. The methods they pursued on the first attack of that malignant disorder, to abate the fever attending it, rendered it fatal. While their blood was in a state of fermentation, and nature was striving to throw out the peccant matter, they checked her operations by plunging into the water; the consequence was that they died by hundreds. The few that survived, were transformed by it into hideous objects, and bore with them to the grave deep indented marks of this much dreaded disease.
Monsieur Montcalm fell soon after on the plains of Quebec.
That the unprovoked cruelty of this commander was not approved of by the generality of his countrymen, I have since been convinced of by many proofs. Only one, however, which I received from a person who was witness to it, shall I at present give. A Canadian merchant, of some consideration, having heard of the surrender of the English fort, celebrated the fortunate event with great rejoicings and hospitality, according to the custom of that country; but no sooner did the news of the massacre which ensued reach his ears, than he put an immediate stop to the festivities, and exclaimed in the severest terms against the inhuman permission; declaring at the same time that those who had connived at it had thereby drawn down on that part of their king’s dominions the vengeance of Heaven. To this he added, that he much feared the total loss of them, would deservedly be the consequence. How truly this prediction has been verified, we well know.
NARRATIVE OF THE CAPTIVITY
OF
MRS. SCOTT.
Mrs. Scott, a resident of Washington county, Virginia, was taken captive by Indians on the night of the twenty-ninth of June, 1785. Her husband and all her children were slain; and before morning she was forced to commence her march through the wilderness.
On the eleventh day of her captivity, while in charge of four Indians, provision becoming scarce, a halt was made, and three of the number went on a hunting excursion. Being left in the care of an old man, she made him believe she was reconciled to her condition, and thus threw him off his guard. Anxious to escape, and having matured her plans, she asked him, in the most disinterested manner possible, to let her go to a small stream, near by, and wash her apron, which was besmeared with the blood of one of her children. He gave her leave, and while he was busy in “graining a deer-skin,” she started off. Arriving at the stream, without a moment’s hesitation, she pushed on in the direction of a mountain. Traveling till late at night, she came into a valley where she hoped to find the track along which she had been taken by her captors, and thereby be able to retrace her steps. Hurrying across the valley to the margin of a river, which she supposed must be the eastern branch of the Kentucky, she discovered in the sand the tracks of two men who had followed the stream upward and returned. Thinking them to be the prints of pursuers, and that they had returned from the search, she took courage, thanked God, and was prepared to continue her flight.
On the third day she came very near falling into the hands of savages, a company whom she supposed had been sent to Clinch river on a pilfering excursion. Hearing their approach before they came in sight, she concealed herself, and they passed without noticing her. She now became greatly alarmed, and was so bewildered as to lose her way and to wander at random for several days.