Peter Collinson—Memorials of John Bartram and Humphrey Marshall [pp. 416-450]

Peter Collinson.
come to a house where most of the family are women and children, they break into it, kill them all, plunder the house, and
burn it with the dead in it; or if any escape out, they pursue
and kill them. If the cattle are in the stable, they fire it and
burn the stable; if they are out, they are shot, and the barn
burnt. If our captains pursue them in the level woods, they
skip from tree to tree like monkeys; if in the mountains, like
wild goats they leap from rock to rock, or hide themselves, and
attack us in flank and rear, when, but the minute before, we
pursued their track and thought they were all before us. They
are like the angel of death-give us the mortal stroke when we
think ourselves secure from danger.
"O Pennsylvania! thou that was the most flourishing and
peaceable province in North America, art now scourged by the
most barbarous creatures in the universe. All ages, sexes, and
stations, have no mercy extended to them."..
History does not contain a more graphic description of the
character of early Indian warfare. Those amongst us who are
disposed to be very severe upon the first settlers in New England for their frequent contests with the natives, and indulge
themselves in inviduous comparisons, might read this correspondence with profit. The question has two sides; and let us
ever remember, with Jeremy Taylor, that severe judgment
should begin at home.
JOHN BARTRAM TO PETER COLLINSON.
"' September 30, 1763.
DEAR PETER-I have now travelled near thirty years through
our provinces, and in some, twenty times in the same provinces,
and yet never, as I remember, once foupd one single species in
all after times, that I did not observe in my first journey through
the same province. But many times I found that plant the
first which neither I nor any person could find after, which
plants, I suppose, were destroyed by the cattle.... The first
time I crossed the Shenandoah I saw one or two plants, or
rather stalk and seed of the Meadla, on its bank. I jumped off,
got the seed, and brought it home, sent part to thee, and part
I sowed myself-both which succeeded; and if I had not gone
to that spot, perhaps it had been wholly lost to the world.
438
[JULY