The conflict could not in any event have been delayed long; the frontiersmen were too deeply and too justly irritated.

These particular massacres, however discreditable to those taking part in them, were the occasions, not the causes, of the war; and though they cast a dark shade on the conduct of the whites, they do not relieve the red men from the charge of having committed earlier, more cruel, and quite as wanton outrages.
Conolly, an irritable but irresolute man, was appalled by the storm he had helped raise.

He meanly disclaimed all responsibility for Cresap's action,[34] and deposed him from his command of rangers; to which, however, he was soon restored by Lord Dunmore.

Both the earl and his lieutenant, however, united in censuring severely Greathouse's deed.[35] Conolly, throughout May, held a series of councils with the Delawares and Iroquois, in which he disclaimed and regretted the outrages, and sought for peace.[36] To one of these councils the Delaware chief, Killbuck, with other warriors, sent a "talk" or "speech in writing"[37] disavowing the deeds of one of their own parties of young braves, who had gone on the warpath; and another Delaware chief made a very sensible speech, saying that it was unfortunately inevitable that bad men on both sides should commit wrongs, and that the cooler heads should not be led away by acts due to the rashness and folly of a few.

But the Shawnees showed no such spirit.