Finally, it must not be forgotten that there were men on the frontier who did do their best to save the peaceful Indians, and that there were also many circumstances connected with the latter that justly laid them open to suspicion.  When young backsliding Moravians appeared in the war parties, as cruel and murderous as their associates, the whites were warranted in feeling doubtful as to whether their example might not infect the remainder of their people.  War parties, whose members in dreadful derision left women and children impaled by their trail to greet the sight of the pursuing husbands and fathers, found food and lodging at the Moravian towns.  No matter how reluctant the aid thus given, the pursuers were right in feeling enraged, and in demanding that the towns should be removed to where they could no longer give comfort to the enemy.  When the missionaries refused to consent to this removal, they thereby became helpers of the hostile Indians; they wronged the frontiersmen, and they still more grievously wronged their own flocks.  They certainly had ample warning of the temper of the whites.  Col.  Brodhead was in command at Fort Pitt until the end of 1781.  At the time that General Sullivan ravaged the country of the Six Nations, he had led a force up the Alleghany and created a diversion by burning one or two Iroquois towns.  In 1781 he led a successful expedition against a town of hostile Delawares on the Muskingum, taking it by surprise and surrounding it so completely that all within were captured.  Sixteen noted warriors and marauders were singled out and put to death.  The remainder fared but little better, for, while marching back to Fort Pitt, the militia fell on them and murdered all the men, leaving only the women and children.  The militia also started to attack the Moravians, and were only prevented by the strenuous exertions of Brodhead.  Even this proof of the brutality of their neighbors was wasted on the missionaries.

    Maltreated by the British and Wild Indians.

The first blow the Moravians received was from the wild Indians.  In the fall of this same year (1781) their towns were suddenly visited by a horde of armed warriors, horsemen and footmen, from Sandusky and Detroit.  Conspicuous among them were the Wyandots, under the Half King; the Delawares, also led by a famous chief, Captain Pipe; and a body of white rangers from Detroit, including British, French, and tories, commanded by the British Captain Elliott, and flying the British flag. [Footnote:  State Department MSS., No. 41, Vol.  III., p. 77.] With them came also Shawnees, Chippewas, and Ottawas.  All were acting in pursuance of the express orders of the commandant at Detroit. [Footnote:  Haldimand MSS.  De Peyster to Haldimand, October 5th and 21st, 1781; McKee to De Peyster, October 18th.] These warriors insisted on the Christian Indians abandoning their villages and accompanying them back to Sandusky and Detroit; and they destroyed many of the houses, and