We have taken into our Consideration your Honour’s Message of the Sixteenth Instant, with the Letters therein referred to, and are pleased to find the Governor so heartily disposed to afford the Indians he mentions “that Protection and Security which, under their Circumstances, they have an undoubted Right to expect and claim from us.” We should be very glad, if it was in our Power, “to point out the Manner in which this can most effectually be done;” but as our “Opinion” must be founded on the Information we have received, we can only mention such Measures as appear to us at present to be most reasonable; submitting our Sentiments to the Judgment your Honour may form from any Intelligence you have since received, or any Circumstances that may hereafter happen.
We observe, with particular Pleasure, “the kind Part General Gage has taken in this Matter,” in protecting these Indians, and directing the Escort, on their Arrival in this City, to receive “such Orders as you shall judge proper to give them.”
As this humane and prudent Step of the General is equally calculated to secure these unhappy People, and preserve the internal Peace of this Province, while our own Troops are engaged in the Defence of our Frontiers, we shall be obliged to your Honour, if you will please to return his Excellency our Thanks for this generous and seasonable Act of Goodness.
The Indians, we apprehend, will be sufficiently protected by the Companies that compose this Escort, while they remain here. When these Companies march from hence, if there should appear to be the same Danger of any Outrage being committed against these Indians, that there seems to be at present, we are of Opinion, that it will be adviseable for your Honour to lodge them in some Place where they can be most easily and conveniently guarded by an armed Force, to be raised by your Honour for that Purpose.
It will be with the utmost Regret we shall see your Honour reduced to the Necessity of pursuing these Measures; but with an Abhorrence altogether inexpressible we should behold “these poor Creatures,” who, desirous of living in Friendship with us, as Proofs of this Disposition quitting a Settlement that made them suspected, and surrendering their Arms, have delivered themselves, their Wives and Children, into our Power, on the Faith of this Province, barbarously butchered by a Sett of Ruffians, whose audacious Cruelty is checked by no Sentiment of Humanity, and by no Regard to the Laws of their Country.
Such a Massacre we have Reason to expect from the Persons who perpetrated such shocking Barbarities in Lancaster County, and their Abettors, unless they are deterred by a vigorous Exertion of Power, which never can be more properly employed than in vindicating the Honour and Dignity of a Government, enforcing an Obedience to the Laws, and repressing the dangerous Insolence of tumultuous Insurgents, who, guided by a blind Rage, undertake by open Force to controul the Conduct of the Administration, and counteract the best concerted Measures for the general Good.
It will therefore be agreeable to us, that your Honour would be pleased to order the Sheriff and Coroner of Lancaster County, and the Magistrates of that Borough, to come down, and give you the best Information that can be obtained of the Persons concerned in these Violences; that they being discovered and apprehended, due Punishment may be inflicted on such daring Disturbers of the public Peace.