under
circumstances of peculiar enormity. A hole being dug in the ground of
a depth sufficient to enable him to stand upright, with his head only
exposed, his arms were pinioned to his body, he placed in it, and the
loose earth thrown in and rammed closely around him. He was then
scalped and permitted to remain in that situation for several hours. A
fire was next kindled near his head. In vain did the poor suffering
victim of hellish barbarity exclaim, that his brains were boiling in
his head; and entreat the mercy of instant death. Deaf to his cries,
and inexorable to his entreaties, they continued the fire 'till his
eye balls burst and gushed from their sockets, and death put a period
to his sufferings.

Of all these horrid spectacles, Williamson was an unwilling spectator;
and supposing that he was reserved for some still more cruel and
barbarous fate, determined on escaping. This he was soon enabled to
do; and returned to the settlements.[4]

The frequent infliction of such enormities as these upon the
helpless and unoffending women and children, as well as upon those
who were more able to resist and better qualified to endure them;
together with the desolation of herds, the devastation of crops, and
the conflagration of houses which invariably characterized those
incursions, engendered a general feeling of resentment, that sought
in some instances, to wreak itself on those who were guiltless of any
participation in those bloody deeds. That vindictive spirit led to
the perpetration of offences against humanity, not less atrocious
than those which they were intended to requite; and which obliterated
every discriminative feature between the perpetrators of them, and
their savage enemies.

The Canestoga Indians, to the number of forty, lived in a village, in
the vicinity of Lancaster; they were in amity with the whites, and had
been in peace and quiet for a considerable length of time. An
association of men, denominated the "Paxton boys," broke into their
little town and murdered all who were found at home--fourteen men,
women and children fell a prey to the savage brutality of those sons
of civilization [79]. The safety of the others was sought to be
effected, by confining them in the jail at Lancaster. It was in vain.
The walls of a prison could afford no protection, from the relentless
fury of these exasperated men. The jail doors were broken open, and
its wretched inmates cruelly murdered.--And, as if their dea