tockbridge Indians
residing in their province. Further still, they directed a secret
letter--and a secret it has been kept for more than fifty years--to a
missionary much esteemed by the Indians in the western parts of New
York, entreating "that you will use your influence with them to join us
in the defence of our rights,"--in other words, to assail and scalp the
British soldiers.[77] It is worthy of remark, that the Massachusetts
delegates, the framers of this letter, were among those who expressed
the highest astonishment and indignation when, at a later period, a
similar policy was adopted on the British side.[78]

"Under date of the 27th of July, 1776, General Washington wrote to
Congress," says Mr. Allen, "expressing respectful anxiety that the
Stockbridge Indians shall be employed, and remarks that they were
dissatisfied at not being included in the late order for enlisting their
people, and had inquired the cause of General Putman.

"The reasons he assigns for recommending their employment are such as
have influenced, and probably determined, the Americans from that time
to the termination of the last war (1812-1815) with Great Britain--that
is, the impossibility of keeping them neutral; the fear of their joining
the enemy; while the customs of savage warfare are so repulsive to all
the feelings of humanity and pride of the soldier, that it would seem no
palliation could be received for the crime of having sanctioned them by
example. Indians are active and serviceable when properly employed. They
are the best defence against Indians. Acquainted from their birth with
wiles and stratagems, they can trace the enemy, and tell its numbers,
its footsteps, when the eye of the white man cannot discover a trace;
and the moving of grass or rushes, which would be unregarded by a
regular soldier, as the natural effect of winds, leads the Indian to be
prepared for an ambush. The certainty that Indians can be restrained
when it is wished, reconciles the opposite contradictions which are so
often seen between the complaints made by the Americans that the enemy
employed savages, at the very moment that they also employed them."[79]

It is thus clear that both parties courted the co-operation of the
Indians, and employed them to the utmost of their power; and therefore
one party has no just ground of reproach against or advantage over the
other party for the inhuman policy of enlisting the Indians in their
cause, though the Br