[1256] There is a curious difficulty as to the name of this little vessel. In printed histories she is sometimes called the "Penet" and sometimes the "Perch." There is no question that the State owned a vessel called the "Penet", which was named from one of the mercantile agents in Nantes. But, after a careful examination of the manuscript of the journals of Mr. Austin, who carried the news, we are satisfied that the vessel was the "Perch", and that she is called the "Penet" in some of the manuscripts only from an error of the early copyists.
[1257] A third edition was printed at Cooperstown in 1848. Editions with revisions and additions were issued at New York in 1853 and 1856, use being made in part of matter collected by Cooper himself. An abridged edition was published in New York in 1856. There were other editions in London, Paris, and Brussels. Cooper's Lives of distinguished Naval Officers (Philad., 1846) includes only Paul Jones of the Revolutionary period.
[1258] Second ed., London, 1866. The first ed. was in 1863.
[1259] There are a few accessory books: J. Rolfe's Naval Biography during the Reign of George III. (London, 1828, in two volumes,—Sabin, xvi. 67,601). The Detail of some particular services performed in America during the years 1776-1779 (printed for Ithiel Town, N. Y., 1835,—Sabin, v. 19,775) had previously appeared in The Naval Chronicle, and consists, in the main, of a journal supposed to be kept on board his Majesty's ship "Rainbow", while under the command of Sir George Collier, on the American coast. Town says that the book was privately printed from a manuscript obtained by him in London in 1830, and it is said that all but seventy copies were destroyed by fire. There is a copy in Harvard College library, and others are noted in the Brinley (no. 4,002) and Cooke (no. 708) sales.
John Adams sent to Congress in 1780 an account of the naval losses of Great Britain from the beginning of the war (Diplom. Corresp., iv. 483, v. 234). A similar statement (1776-1781) on the British side is in the Political Magazine, ii. 452.
[1260] In January, 1763, peremptory orders were sent from England to the governor and company of Connecticut to put a stop to the Susquehanna settlement. In September of the same year, Governor Fitch wrote to the board of trade that he had strictly obeyed the orders; that a delegation from the Six Nations had been received, and in the presence of the assembly he had announced the commands of his majesty; that this had apparently satisfied the natives. (Trumbull MSS., Mass. Hist. Soc.)
[1261] In Proud's History of Pennsylvania, ii. p. 326, there is a note containing an extract from an "authentic publication", entitled A narrative of the late massacres in Lancaster County, of a member of Indians, friends of this Province (Philadelphia, 1764). In this narrative (which was written by Franklin,—cf. Sparks's Franklin, i. 273; iv. 56), religious enthusiasm, "chiefly Presbyterian", is the alleged motive for the outbreak. See, also, a reprint of a curious pamphlet on the massacre of the Conestogoe Indians by the Paxton Boys, in the Hist. Mag., July, 1865, p. 203. For other tracts see Carter-Brown Catal., iii. 1,407-1,415; Field's Indian Bibliog., nos. 854, 1,187, 1,193, 1,331; Brinley Catal., nos. 3,062-3,070; Hildeburn's Penna. Press, ii. nos. 2,029-2,034; cf. Penna. Hist. Soc. Coll., i. 73; Zeisberger, by Schweinitz, 274; Graydon's Memoirs, 49; and letter of Richard Peters in Aspinwall Papers, ii. 508.—Ed.
[1262] In Reed's Reed, i. p. 35, there is a letter from Dr. John Ewing, coolly discussing this transaction, as if it were a laudable attempt on the part of the frontier inhabitants to relieve themselves in a perfectly justifiable way from a source of danger. He says, "there was not a single act of violence, unless you call the Lancaster affair such, although it was no more than going to war with that tribe."
[1263] The Conestogoes belonged to the Five Nations, but had no connection with the Tuscaroras. The Five Nations put in a claim for the land of the Conestogoes, as "their relations and next heirs." (Sir William Johnson to Governor Penn, Feb. 9, 1764, Penna. Archives, iv. p. 162.)
[1264] His correspondence with Gage is in the Doc. Hist. N. Y., ii. 833 et seq.