He sinned against the light, and must be condemned accordingly.

He sank to the level of a lieutenant of Alva, Guise, or Tilly, to the level of a crusading noble of the middle ages.

It would be unfair to couple even this crime with those habitually committed by Sidney and Sir Peter Carew, Shan O'Neil and Fitzgerald, and the other dismal heroes of the hideous wars waged between the Elizabethan English and the Irish.

But it is not unfair to compare this border warfare in the Tennessee mountains with the border warfare of England and Scotland two centuries earlier.

There is no blinking the fact that in this instance Sevier and his followers stood on the same level of brutality with "keen Lord Evers," and on the same level of treachery with the "assured" Scots at the battle of Ancram Muir.
The Better-Class Frontiersmen Condemn the Deed.
Even on the frontier, and at that time, the better class of backwoodsmen expressed much horror at the murder of the friendly chiefs.