With savages so treacherous and so ferocious it was a mere impossibility for the borderers to distinguish the hostile from the friendly, as they hit out blindly to revenge the blows that fell upon them from unknown hands.

Brutal though the frontiersmen often were, they never employed the systematic and deliberate bad faith which was a favorite weapon with even the best of the red tribes.
The Federal Authorities Misjudge the Settlers.
The people who were out of reach of the Indian tomahawk, and especially the Federal officers, were often unduly severe in judging the borderers for their deeds of retaliation, Brickell's narrative shows that the parties of seemingly friendly Indians who came in to trade were sometimes--and indeed in this year 1791 it was probable they were generally--composed of Indians who were engaged in active hostilities against the settlers, and who were always watching for a chance to murder and plunder.

On March 9th, a month after the Delawares had begun their attacks, the grim backwoods captain Brady, with some of his Virginian rangers, fell on a party of them who had come to a block-house to trade, and killed four.

The Indians asserted that they were friendly, and both the Federal Secretary of War and the Governor of Pennsylvania denounced the deed, and threatened the offenders; but the frontiersmen stood by them.

[Footnote: State Department MSS., Washington Papers, Ex.
C., p.