and demolished
him with their tomahawks. On rushing into the house and putting out the
fire, we saw a mournful sight indeed: a young woman lying on the bed
floated with blood, her forehead cleft with a hatchet, and on her breast
two little children, apparently twins, and about nine months old,
bathing her bosom with blood flowing from their deeply gashed heads! I
had often beheld the mangled remains of my murdered countrymen, but
never before felt what I did on this occasion. To see these poor
innocents, these little, unoffending angels, just entered upon life,
and, instead of fondest sympathy and tenderness, meeting their bloody
deaths, and from hands of brothers, too, filled my soul with the deepest
horror of sin!

"On tracing back into the corn-field the steps of the barbarians, we
found a little boy, and beyond him his father, both weltering in blood.
It appeared, from the print of his little feet in the furrows, that
the child had been following his father's plough; and, seeing him shot
down, had set off with all his might to get to the house, to his mother,
but was overtaken and destroyed.

"And, indeed, so great was the dread of the French and Indians
throughout the settlements, that it was distressing to call even on
those families who yet survived, but, from sickness or other causes, had
not been able to get away. The poor creatures would run to meet us, like
persons half distracted with joy, and then, with looks blank with
terror, would tell that such or such a neighbor's family, perhaps the
very night before, was murdered, and that they heard their cries and saw
the flames that devoured their house. And also, that they themselves,
after saying their prayers at night, never lay down to sleep without
first taking leave of one another, as if they never expected to meet
again in this world. But when we came to take our leave of these
wretched families, my God, what were our feelings! To see the deep,
silent grief of the men, and the looks of the poor women and children,
as, falling upon their knees, with piercing screams, and eyes wild with
terror, they seized our hands or hung to our clothes, entreating us for
God's and mercy's sake not to leave them to be murdered! These things so
filled my heart with grief, that I solemnly declare to God, if I know
myself, I would gladly offer my own life a sacrifice to the butchering
enemy, if I could but thereby insure the safety of these my poor,
distressed countrymen."