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and Charlestown in Ohio, were severally established. This concludes the author's account of the establishment of the various towns west of the Blue ridge, within the present western limits of Virginia, from the earliest settlement of the country to the year 1792, inclusive.

This history of the establishment of the towns in Western Virginia, from the earliest settlement of the country, to the year 1792 inclusive, is gathered from Hening's Statutes at Large, which brings the acts of the legislature no further than that period. To continue the list to the present time, would require an examination of the various session acts since 1792, which it would be difficult to obtain, perhaps, except in Richmond, to which place it would not suit the author's present convenience to make a journey. As he confidently anticipates a demand for a second edition. of this work, he will in the mean time make perfect this portion of the history of our country for future insertion.

NOTES

ON THE SETTLEMENT AND INDIAN WARS

OF THE

WESTERN PARTS OF VIRGINIA AND PENNSYLVANIA,

From the year 1763 until the year 1783 inclusive.

TOGETHER WITH

A VIEW OF THE STATE OF SOCIETY AND MANNERS OF THE FIRST SETTLERS OF THAT COUNTRY.

BY THE REV. DR. JOSEPH DODDRIDGE.

NOTES, &c.

:0:

CHAPTER I.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHARACTER OF THE INDIAN MODE OF WARFARE, AND ITS ADOPTION BY THE WHITE PEOPLE.

THIS is a subject which presents human nature in its most revolting features, as subject to a vindictive spirit of revenge, and a thirst of human blood, leading to an indiscriminate slaughter of all ranks, ages and sexes, by the weapons of war, or by torture.

The history of man is, for the most part, one continued detail of bloodshed, battles and devastations. War has been, from the earliest periods of history, the almost constant employment of individuals, clans, tribes and nations. Fame, one of the most potent objects of human ambition, has at all times been the delusive, but costly reward of military achievement. The triumph of conquest, the epithet of greatness, the throne and the sceptre, have uniformly been purchased by the conflict of battle and garments rolled in blood.

If the modern European laws of warfare have softened in some degree the horrid features of national conflicts, by respecting the rights of private property, and extending humanity to the sick, wounded and prisoners; we ought to reflect that this amelioration is the effect of civilization only. The natural state of war knows no such mixture of mercy with cruelty. In his primitive state, man knows no object in his wars, but that of the extermination of his enemies, either by death or captivity.

The wars of the Jews were exterminatory in their object. The destruction of a whole nation was often the result of a single campaign. Even the beasts themselves were sometimes included in the general

massacre.

The present war between the Greeks and Turks is a war upon the

ancient model-a war of utter extermination.

It is, to be sure, much to be regrette I, that our people so often followed the cruel examples of the Indians, in the slaughter of prisoners,

and sometimes women and children: yet let them receive a candid hearing at the bar of reason and justice, before they are condemned as barbarians, equally with the Indians themselves.

History scarcely presents an example of a civilized nation carrying on a war with barbarians without adopting the mode of warfare of the barbarous nation. The ferocious Suwarrow, when at war with the Turks, was as much of a savage as the Turks themselves. His slaughters were as indiscriminate as theirs; but during his wars against the French, in Italy, he faithfully observed the laws of civilized warfare.

Were the Greeks now at war with a civilized nation, we should hear nothing of the barbarities which they have committed on the Turks; but being at war with barbarians, the principle of self defence compels them to retaliate on the Turks the barbarities which they commit on them.

In the last rebellion in Ireland, that of the United Irishmen, the government party were not much behind the rebels in acts of lawless cruelty. It was not by the hands of the executioner alone they perished. Summary justice, as it was called, was sometimes inflicted. How many perished under the torturing scourge of the drummer for the purpose of extorting confessions! These extra-judicial executions were attempted to be justified on the ground of the necessity of the case.

Our revolutionary war has a double aspect: on the one hand we carried on a war with the English, in which we observed the maxims of civilized warfare with the utmost strictness; but the brave, the potent, the magnanimous nation of our forefathers had associated with themselves, as auxiliaries, the murderous tomahawk and scalping knife of the Indian nations around our defenseless frontiers, leaving those barbarous sons of the forest to their own savage mode of warfare, to the full indulgence of all their native thirst for human blood.

On them, then, be the blame of all the horrid features of this war between civilized and savage men, in which the former was compelled, by every principle of self defense, to adopt the Indian mode of warfare, in all its revolting and destructive features.

Were those who were engaged in the war against the Indians, less humane than those who carried on the war against their English allies? No, they were not. Both parties carried on the war on the same principle of reciprocity of advantages and disadvantages. For example, the English and Americans take each one thousand prisoners: they are exchanged: neither army is weakened by this arrangement. A sacrifice is indeed made to humanity, in the expense of taking care of the sick,. wounded and prisoners; but this expense is mutual. No disadvantages result from all the clemency of modern warfare, excepting an augmentation of the expenses of war. In this mode of warfare, those of the nation, not in arms, are safe from death by the hands of soldiers. No civilized warrior dishonors his sword with the blood of helpless infancy, old age, or that of the fair sex. He aims his blows only at those whom he finds in arms against him. The Indian kills indiscriminately. His object is the total extermination of his enemies. Children are victims of his vengeance, because, if miles, they may hereafter become warriors, or if females, they may become mothers. Even the fetal state is criminal in

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