Numb. 705. SUPPLEMENT
to the boston
INDEPENDENT CHRONICLE.
BOSTON, March 12.
Extract of a Letter from Capt.
Gerrish, of the New-England Militia,
dated Albany, March 7.
The Peltry taken in the Expedition [See the
Account of the Expedition to Oswegatchie on the
River St. Laurence, in our Paper of the 1st
Instant.] will as you see amount to a good deal of
Money. The Possession of this Booty at first gave us
Pleasure; but we were struck with Horror to find among
the Packages, 8 large ones containing SCALPS of our
unhappy Country-folks, taken in the three last Years by
the Senneka Indians from the Inhabitants of the
Frontiers of New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, and
Virginia, and sent by them as a Present to Col.
Haldimand, Governor of Canada, in order to be by him
transmitted to England. They were accompanied by the
following curious Letter to that Gentleman.
May it please your Excellency,
“At the Request of the Senneka Chiefs I send herewith
to your Excellency, under the Care of James Boyd, eight
Packs of Scalps, cured, dried, hooped and painted, with
all the Indian triumphal Marks, of which the following
is Invoice and Explanation.
With these Packs, the Chiefs send to your Excellency the
following Speech, delivered by Conejogatchie in
Council, interpreted by the elder Moore, the Trader,
and taken down by me in Writing.
Father,
We send you herewith many Scalps, that you may see we are
not idle Friends. A blue Belt.
Father,
We wish you to send these Scalps over the Water to the
great King, that he may regard them and be refreshed; and
that he may see our faithfulness in destroying his
Enemies, and be convinced that his Presents have not been
made to ungrateful People.
A blue and white Belt with red Tassels.
Father,
Attend to what I am now going to say: it is a Matter of
much Weight. The great King’s Enemies are many, and
they grow fast in Number. They were formerly like young
Panthers: they could neither bite nor scratch: we could
play with them safely: we feared nothing they could do to
us. But now their Bodies are become big as the Elk, and
strong as the Buffalo: they have also got great and sharp
Claws. They have driven us out of our Country for taking
Part in your Quarrel. We expect the great King will give
us another Country, that our Children may live after us,
and be his Friends and Children, as we are. Say this for
us to the great King. To enforce it we give this Belt.
A great white Belt with blue Tassels.
Father,
We have only to say farther that your Traders exact more
than ever for their Goods: and our Hunting is lessened by
the War, so that we have fewer Skins to give for them.
This ruins us. Think of some Remedy. We are poor: and you
have Plenty of every Thing. We know you will send us
Powder and Guns, and Knives and Hatchets: but we also
want Shirts and Blankets.
A little white Belt.
I do not doubt but that your Excellency will think it
proper to give some farther Encouragement to those honest
People. The high Prices they complain of, are the
necessary Effect of the War. Whatever Presents may be
sent for them through my Hands, shall be distributed with
Prudence and Fidelity. I have the Honour of being
Your Excellency’s most obedient And most humble
Servant,
I Have lately seen a memorial, said to have been
presented by your Excellency to their High Mightinesses
the States-general, in which you are pleased to qualify
me with the title of pirate.
A pirate is defined to be hostis humani generis,
[an enemy to all mankind]. It happens, Sir, that I am
an enemy to no part of mankind, except your nation, the
English; which nation at the same time comes much more
within the definition; being actually an enemy to, and
at war with, one whole quarter of the world, America,
considerable parts of Asia and Africa, a great part of
Europe, and in a fair way of being at war with the rest.
A pirate makes war for the sake of rapine. This is
not the kind of war I am engaged in against England.
Our’s is a war in defence of liberty. . . .the
most just of all wars; and of our properties,
which your nation would have taken from us, without
our consent, in violation of our rights, and by an armed
force. Your’s, therefore, is a war of rapine; of
course, a piratical war: and those who approve of it, and
are engaged in it, more justly deserve the name of
pirates, which you bestow on me. It is, indeed, a war
that coincides with the general spirit of your nation.
Your common people in their ale-houses sing the
twenty-four songs of Robin Hood, and applaud his
deer-stealing and his robberies on the highway: those
who have just learning enough to read, are delighted with
your histories of the pirates and of the buccaniers: and
even your scholars, in the universities, study Quintus
Curtius; and are taught to admire Alexander, for what
they call “his conquests in the Indies.” Severe laws
and the hangmen keep down the effects of this spirit
somewhat among yourselves, (though in your little
island you have, nevertheless, more highway robberies
than there are in all the rest of Europe put together):
but a foreign war gives it full scope. It is then that,
with infinite pleasure, it lets itself loose to strip of
their property honest merchants, employed in the
innocent and useful occupation of supplying the mutual
wants of mankind. Hence, having lately no war with your
ancient enemies, rather than be without a war, you chose
to make one upon your friends. In this your piratical war
with America, the mariners of your fleets, and the owners
of your privateers were animated against us by the act of
your parliament, which repealed the law of God— “Thou
shalt not steal,”—by declaring it lawful for them to
rob us of all our property that they could meet with on
the Ocean. This act too had a retrospect, and, going
beyond bulls of pardon, declared that all the robberies
you had committed, previous to the act, should be
deemed just and lawful. Your soldiers too were
promised the plunder of our cities: and your officers
were flattered with the division of our lands. You had
even the baseness to corrupt our servants, the sailors
employed by us, and encourage them to rob their masters,
and bring to you the ships and goods they were
entrusted with. Is there any society of pirates on the
sea or land, who, in declaring wrong to be right, and
right wrong, have less authority than your parliament? Do
any of them more justly than your parliament deserve the
title you bestow on me?
You will tell me that we forfeited all our estates by our
refusal to pay the taxes your nation would have imposed
on us, without the consent of our colony parliaments.
Have you then forgot the incontestible principle, which
was the foundation of Hamb-den’s glorious lawsuit with
Charles the first, that “what an English king has no
right to demand, an English subject has a right to
refuse?” But you cannot so soon have forgotten the
instructions of your late honourable father, who, being
himself a sound Whig, taught you certainly the principles
of the Revolution, and that, “if subjects might in
some cases forfeit their property, kings also might
forfeit their title, and all claim to the allegiance of
their subjects.” I must then suppose you well
acquainted with those Whig principles, on which permit
me, Sir, to ask a few questions.
Is not protection as justly due from a king to his
people, as obedience from the people to their king?
If then a king declares his people to be out of his
protection:
If he violates and deprives them of their constitutional
rights:
If he wages war against them:
If he plunders their merchants, ravages their coasts,
burns their towns, and destroys their lives:
If he hires foreign mercenaries to help him in their
destruction:
If he engages savages to murder their defenceless
farmers, women, and children:
If he cruelly forces such of his subjects as fall into
his hands, to bear arms against their country, and become
executioners of their friends and brethren:
If he sells others of them into bondage, in Africa and
the East Indies:
If he excites domestic insurrections among their
servants, and encourages servants to murder their
masters:———
Does not so atrocious a conduct towards his subjects,
dissolve their allegiance?
If not,—please to say how or by what means it can
possibly be dissolved?
All this horrible wickedness and barbarity has been and
daily is practised by the king your master (as you
call him in your memorial) upon the Americans, whom he is
still pleased to claim as his subjects.
During these six years past, he has destroyed not less
than forty thousand of those subjects, by battles on land
or sea, or by starving them, or poisoning them to death,
in the unwholesome air, with the unwholesome food of his
prisons. And he has wasted the lives of at least an equal
number of his own soldiers and sailors: many of whom have
been forced into this odious service, and
dragged from their families and friends, by the
outrageous violence of his illegal press-gangs. You are
a gentleman of letters, and have read history: do you
recollect any instance of any tyrant, since the beginning
of the world, who, in the course of so few years, had
done so much mischief, by murdering so many of his own
people? Let us view one of the worst and blackest of
them, Nero. He put to death a few of his courtiers,
placemen, and pensioners, and among the rest his
tutor. Had George the third done the same, and no
more, his crime, though detestable, as an act of
lawless power, might have been as useful to his nation,
as that of Nero was hurtful to Rome; considering the
different characters and merits of the sufferers. Nero
indeed wished that the people of Rome had but one neck,
that he might behead them all by one stroke: but this was
a simple wish. George is carrying the wish as fast as he
can into execution; and, by continuing in his present
course a few years longer, will have destroyed more of
the British people than Nero could have found inhabitants
in Rome. Hence, the expression of Milton, in speaking of
Charles the first, that he was “Nerone
Neronior,” is still more applicable to George the
third. Like Nero and all other tyrants, while they lived,
he indeed has his flatterers, his addressers, his
applauders. Pensions, places, and hopes of preferment,
can bribe even bishops to approve his conduct: but, when
those fulsome, purchased addresses and panegyrics are
sunk and lost in oblivion or contempt, impartial history
will step forth, speak honest truth, and rank him among
public calamities. The only difference will be, that
plagues, pestilences, and famines are of this world, and
arise from the nature of things: but voluntary malice,
mischief, and murder are from Hell: and this king will,
therefore, stand foremost in the list of diabolical,
bloody, and execrable tyrants. His base-bought
parliaments too, who sell him their souls, and extort
from the people the money with which they aid his
destructive purposes, as they share his guilt, will share
his infamy,—parliaments, who to please him, have
repeatedly, by different votes year after year, dipped
their hands in human blood, insomuch that methinks I
see it dried and caked so thick upon them, that if they
could wash it off in the Thames which flows under their
windows, the whole river would run red to the Ocean.
One is provoked by enormous wickedness: but one is
ashamed and humiliated at the view of human baseness. It
afflicts me, therefore, to see a gentleman of Sir
Joseph York’s education and talents, for the sake of
a red riband and a paltry stipend, mean enough to stile
such a monster his master, wear his livery, and
hold himself ready at his command even to cut the throats
of fellow-subjects. This makes it impossible for me to
end my letter with the civility of a compliment, and
obliges me to subscribe myself simply,
TO BE SOLD,
A convenient Tan-Yard,
lying in Medfield, on the Post Road,
Half a Mile from the Meeting-House, with a good
Dwelling-House and Barn, and about 20 Acres of Land,
consisting of Mowing, Plowing, and Pasturing, and an
excellent Orchard. For further Particulars enquire of
Adam Peters, on the Premises.
TO BE SOLD,
A large Tract of LAND,
lying partly in Oxford, and partly
in Charlton, in the County of Worcester. It is situated
on a great Country Road, about Half a Mile from Charlton
Meeting-House, and is capable of making a Number of fine
Settlements. For further Particulars enquire of Joseph
Blaney, of Salem, or Doctor Samuel Danforth, of Boston.
[Advertisements from the first edition, not included
in the second:]
All Persons indebted to,
or that have any Demands on,
the Estate of Richard Greenleaf, late of Newbury-Port,
Esq; deceased, are requested to bring in their Accounts
to Moses Frazier and Mary Greenleaf, Executors to the
last Will and Testament of the deceased, for an immediate
Settlement.
TO BE SOLD,
A small new Brick HOUSE,
two Rooms on a Floor, at the South Part of
the Town.— Enquire of the Printer.
Strayed or stolen from
the Subscriber, living in Salem, a Bay
Horse, about seven Years old, a stocky well set Horse,
marked I. C. on his off Thigh, trots all. Whoever shall
take up said Horse and return him to the Owner, shall be
handsomely rewarded.