d as their missionaries refused to learn wisdom, it was evident
that the days of the Moravians were numbered. The failure of the
government to protect them was perhaps inevitable, but was certainly
discreditable.

The very day after Gibson sent the Christian Indians back to their
homes, several murders were committed near Pittsburg, and many of the
frontiersmen insisted that they were done with the good will or
connivance of the Moravians. The settlements had suffered greatly all
summer long, and the people clamored savagely against all the Indians,
blaming both Gibson and Williamson for not having killed or kept captive
their prisoners. The ruffianly and vicious of course clamored louder
than any; the mass of people who are always led by others, chimed in, in
a somewhat lower key; and many good men were silent for the reasons
given already. In a frontier democracy, military and civil officers are
directly dependent upon popular approval, not only for their offices,
but for what they are able to accomplish while filling them. They are
therefore generally extremely sensitive to either praise or blame.
Ambitious men flatter and bow to popular prejudice or opinion, and only
those of genuine power and self-reliance dare to withstand it.
Williamson was physically a fairly brave officer and not naturally
cruel; but he was weak and ambitious, ready to yield to any popular
demand, and, if it would advance his own interests, to connive at any
act of barbarity. [Footnote: This is the most favorable estimate of his
character, based on what Doddridge says (p. 260). He was a very
despicable person, but not the natural brute the missionaries painted
him.] Gibson, however, who was a very different man, paid no heed to the
cry raised against him.

They Refuse to be Warned and Return to their Homes.

With incredible folly the Moravians refused to heed even such rough
warnings as they had received. During the long winter they suffered
greatly from cold and hunger, at Sandusky, and before the spring of 1782
opened, a hundred and fifty of them returned to their deserted villages.

That year the Indian outrages on the frontiers began very early. In
February there was some fine weather; and while it lasted, several
families of settlers were butchered, some under circumstances of
peculiar atrocity. In particular, four Sandusky Indians having taken
some prisoners, impaled two of them, a woman and a child, while on their
way to the Moravian