he family to the government, it was
thought not unlikely that there might be something in these
professions; for that they would probably choose to have his
administration made easy and agreeable, and to that end might think
it prudent to withdraw those harsh, disagreeable, and unjust
instructions, with which most of his predecessors had been
hampered. The Assembly therefore believed fully and rejoiced
sincerely. They showed the new governor every mark of respect and
regard that was in their power. They readily and cheerfully went
into everything he recommended to them."

Moreover, the first event of public importance after Governor Penn's
advent had, in its early stage, the effect of drawing him very closely
to Franklin. Some of the settlers on the frontier, infuriated beyond the
control of reason by the Indian marauding parties, gathered together for
the purpose of slaughter. If they had directed their vengeance against
the braves, and even all the occupants of the villages of the
wilderness, they might have been excused though their vindictive rage
led them to retaliate by the same barbarities which the red men had
practiced towards the whites. Unfortunately, instead of courageously
turning their faces towards the forests, they turned their backs in that
direction, where only there was any enemy to be feared, and in a safe
expedition they wreaked a deadly, senseless, cowardly, and brutal
vengeance on an unoffending group of twenty old men, women, and
children, living peacefully and harmlessly near Lancaster. The infamous
story is familiar in the annals of Pennsylvania as the "Paxton
massacre," because the "Paxton boys," the perpetrators, came from the
Scotch-Irish settlement bearing that name.

Franklin's indignation was great, and he expressed it forcibly in a
pamphlet. But many, even of the class which should have felt with him,
were in such a temper that they would condemn no act done against an
Indian. Encouraged by the prevalence of this feeling, this same band,
swelled to a numerous and really formidable force, had the audacity to
start for Philadelphia itself, with the avowed purpose of massacring
there a small body of civilized Christian Indians, who had fled thither
for safety under the charge of their Moravian missionary, and against
whom not a complaint could be made. Panic reigned in the City of
Brotherly Love, little competent to cope with imminent violence.